He had the phrase out of a
book he had read and had written the letter to Edith that he might use
it. After the letter had gone he thought of her frail figure and
repented of the impulse that had tricked him into writing. Half in
alarm he began courting and soon married another girl.
Sometimes on her rare visits home Edith had seen her former lover
driving along the road. The sister who had married the blacksmith said
that he was stingy, that his wife had nothing to wear but a cheap
calico dress and that on Saturday he drove off to town alone, leaving
her to milk the cows and feed the pigs and horses. Once he encountered
Edith on the road and tried to get her into the wagon to ride with
him. Although she had walked along the road ignoring him she took the
letter about the wind that blew over them both out of a drawer on
spring evenings or after a walk in the park and read it over. After
she had read it she sat in the darkness at the front of the store
looking through the screen door at people in the street and wondered
what life would mean to her if she had a man on whom she could bestow
her love. In her heart she believed that, unlike the wife of the fat
youth, she would have borne children.
In Chicago Edith Carson had made money. She had a genius for economy
in the management of her business.
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