Frances often went there to fetch books for him when he was busy in his office. He lived in the town, in a solid old brick house which he had remodelled and greatly improved, with a respectable Swede and his wife to attend to his wants. Everything very orderly, very simple, very comfortable, a hundred times more civilised than the Defoe home. He had his garden, which gave him a great deal of pleasure, and an excellent little library of Scandinavian and English books, law books, novels, plays, a number of books on Socialism and economics. He read a great deal, in a laborious sort of way, slowly going through page after page and taking the ideas into his own head, to be examined there. His chief interest was Socialism; he could be—and often was—quite eloquent on that topic.
He was rather lonely in Brownsville Landing. He had found no one who was interested in his kind of Socialism, which was something more than discontent and jealousy; he found no one who had read what he had read on the subject; he was not able to interest himself in pool or poker, the popular recreations. Without being unduly vain, he believed himself to be considerably superior to the average inhabitant of the village. Even to the Defoes, as far as intellect and experience were concerned. He actually thought that he might be a good match for Minnie.
Frances thought so too. She read his books with more and more respect and liked to hear him talk. She insisted upon quoting him to Minnie. She liked his plain and fine manner of living, she honoured his virtues.
“Minnie, you’re an idiot,” she said, bluntly. “You couldn’t do better. If you’d come out of the middle ages and really look at him——”
“I don’t pretend to be a modern woman,” said Minnie, virtuously.
CHAPTER SIX
I
A year and a half went by, and nothing changed. Minnie was the same serious little drudge, Frankie went on with her work in Mr. Petersen’s office; he too was quite the same. The old lady was uncomplainingly busy. And the “affair,” also, between Minnie and Mr. Petersen had progressed not at all. Minnie had so willed it; she knew quite well how to check her very prudent suitor.
Everything was going just as she wished. She was used now to Frankie’s being away all day; she rather liked it, it gave her a freer hand. She thought of nothing but the daily routine and never tired of it. She would sit with her grandmother and discuss for hours the advisability and the possibility of a new preserving kettle, or whether they should send the rags to be woven into a rug, or whether Thomas Washington had been unfair about the tomatoes. She liked to tell Frankie that she worried about the future, but she really never did. She was remarkably contented. No great effort was required of her; she wasn’t expected to read, or to keep up-to-date; even to trouble about clothes. She could work along in a sort of pleasant daze, just as she wished, praised by everyone for whatever she did, her numerous omissions and failures unknown. The animals were an unfailing happiness to her; she had her grandmother to talk to, and Frankie in the evening, and there was always the gratifying sense of Mr. Petersen’s admiration in the background. Everything going so smoothly, so beautifully, until once more Frankie spoiled it all.
She came home one evening in a fever of excitement. The librarian in the Carnegie Branch—a nice, jolly girl who extolled Mr. Petersen and liked Frankie—had told her of a position in New York.