• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

I made myself very quiet.

"Now, Kansas," said Horace. "That’s wonderful country."

"You’ve been out there, then?"

"They say the land around the Marais des Cygnes is a blooming paradise."

"I’m eager to get there. My companions have been there almost a month now, and I haven’t heard from them. We bought land below the Kaw, or some call it the Kansas River, between Lawrence and Topeka. But they think I’m on my way, so they haven’t known where to—"

"If I were a younger man, or my wife were a younger woman—"

"They’re so occupied with building and getting things in order for the winter. As mild as it is there, you have to—"

"Quincy is no place for someone with real enterprise. A few men have everything firmly in their grip. It’s all very well for some to sit and wait, but—"

"The main thing is to ignore rumors and just wait and see what’s what when you get there. It certainly can’t be as bad as some say—"

"I wasn’t really cut out for a storekeeper. I was meant for a more active life than that, but—"

They paused, then glanced at each other and said in unison, "Well, Kansas is a fine country!"

"Yes, indeed," said Horace, and Thomas Newton beamed.

They parted, to all appearances much satisfied with their conversation. I said to Annie, "Wouldn’t you like to go to Kansas? I would."

"Why?"

"I suppose because it’s dry and warm and open."

"People are always getting killed in the west."

"That’s not true—"

"Don’t you think Mrs. Duff is the most elegant lady you ever saw? And Mr. Duff makes me shiver."

"People are not always getting killed in Kansas more than anywhere else."

"I said, in the west. Mrs. Duff is from England."

"Annie, Horace said Mrs. Duff was born in Philadelphia."

"Then she’s been in England for a very long time. I’m certain of it. You should stop thinking about Kansas. You would be better off taking your money and going to England. Then when you came back, you would be so elegant that people would never stop looking at you."

"What money?"

"I know perfectly well that you have money from the sale of Grandpa’s house, and since you have it, I don’t know what you are waiting for. If I had it, I would board the next steamboat, and I would tell everyone on it that I was a famous actress, Mrs. Helen DuMont, fresh from an engagement in Saint Louis!"

"I’m tempted to give you some just to see you do it." I laughed.

"Please do, because I am ready to take it." She turned with a flounce that belied the neat smoothness of her hair and the soft youthfulness of her round face.

A few moments later, Horace returned to his seat, and we suspended our conversation.

Now events began to move very quickly. One thing I’ve noticed is that when a particular notion enters your head, then its very particularity makes everything tend toward it, and the tending goes faster and faster. One day you will have barely thought of something, and that little thought inspires such excitement and fear that you don’t want to think of it again, but some few days later, maybe three or four, the thing you could hardly think of is now done, and you are embarked upon a new life.

I happened to see Thomas Newton again the very next day, this time on Maine Street. I was taking a pair of Alice’s shoes to be repaired. Maine Street was crowded, as usual, but just after I saw Mr. Newton coming toward me, the sidewalk grew strangely deserted. I saw him glance around just as he smiled at me. He said, "Well, Miss Harkness, you are out early this morning after a long evening."

"It’s a fine morning. I wanted to get my errands done before the heat of the day—"

He touched my elbow and turned me to walk along with him, then said, "Mrs. Duff gave an excellent performance last night, but I thought Mr. Adams rather stormed and ranted a bit." George Adams and Mrs. Duff had given us a scene from Macbeth, the climax of the evening and entirely lit by two burning torches, one of which Mr. Adams held above his head. Much of the audience had been distracted from