Stories of a Western Town [17]
his tent and took tintypes in his wagon. He had his wife and his two children with him. The poor woman fell ill and died; so we took the two children. My wife was willing; she was a wonderfully good woman, member of the Methodist church till she died. I--I am not a church member myself, ma'am; I passed through that stage of spiritual development a long while ago." He gave a wistful glance at his companion's dimly outlined profile. "But I never tried to disturb her faith; it made HER happy." "Oh, I don't think it is any good fooling with other people's religions," said the woman, easily. "It is just like trying to talk folks out of drinking; nobody knows what is right for anybody else's soul any more than they do what is good for anybody else's stomach!" "Yes, ma'am. You put things very clearly." "I guess it is because you understand so quickly. But you were saying ------" "That's all the story. We took the children, and their father was killed by the cars the next year, poor man; and so we have done the best we could ever since by them." "I should say you had done very well by them." "No, ma'am; I haven't done very well somehow by anyone, myself included, though God knows I've tried hard enough!" Then followed the silence natural after such a confession when the listener does not know the speaker well enough to parry abasement by denial. "I am impressed," said Nelson, simply, "to talk with you frankly. It isn't polite to bother strangers with your troubles, but I am impressed that you won't mind." "Oh, no, I won't mind." It was not extravagant sympathy; but Nelson thought how kind her voice sounded, and what a musical voice it was. Most people would have called it rather sharp. He told her--with surprisingly little egotism, as the keen listener noted--the story of his life; the struggle of his boyhood; his random self-education; his years in the army (he had criticised his superior officers, thereby losing the promotion that was coming for bravery in the field); his marriage (apparently he had married his wife because another man had jilted her); his wrestle with nature (whose pranks included a cyclone) on a frontier farm that he eventually lost, having put all his savings into a "Greenback" newspaper, and being thus swamped with debt; his final slow success in paying for his Iowa farm; and his purchase of the new farm, with its resulting disaster. "I've farmed in Kansas," he said, "in Nebraska, in Dakota, in Iowa. I was willing to go wherever the land promised. It always seemed like I was going to succeed, but somehow I never did. The world ain't fixed right for the workers, I take it. A man who has spent thirty years in hard, honest toil oughtn't to be staring ruin in the face like I am to-day. They won't let it be so when we have the single tax and when we farmers send our own men instead of city lawyers, to the Legislature and halls of Congress. Sometimes I think it's the world that's wrong and sometimes I think it's me!" The reply came in crisp and assured accents, which were the strongest contrast to Nelson's soft, undecided pipe: "Seems to me in this last case the one most to blame is neither you nor the world at large, but this man Richards, who is asking YOU to pay for HIS farm. And I notice you don't seem to consider your creditor in this business. How do you know she don't need the money? Look at me, for instance; I'm in some financial difficulty myself. I have a mortgage for two thousand dollars, and that mortgage--for which good value was given, mind you--falls due this month. I want the money. I want it bad. I have a chance to put my money into stock at the factory. I know all about the investment; I haven't worked there all these years and not know how the business stands. It is a chance to make a fortune. I ain't likely to ever have another like it; and it won't wait for me to make up my mind forever, either. Isn't it hard on me, too?" "Lord knows it is, ma'am," said Nelson, despondently; "it is hard on us all! Sometimes I don't see the end of it all. A vast social revolution ----" "Social fiddlesticks!