The citizen-Republican. (Scotland, Bon Homme County, S.D.) 1???-19??, 1913-12-18
CHAPTER WI.
PIGS N PoIIT1ca.

A.olof WltnCuI W. q re-
ceived and ampltfied to the full a her
atage of the best without effort and
Wltnout price; when youth and matur-
sly nave been chastened and nodded
0y Una line rugged American tradition
Wnicn began with the founding of Hair
vard and the jamestown planters and
1oliowed easily the fighting line Of pio-
neers as the frontiers Of the republic
were lengthened-When one has, indeed.
nad. rtghteously and wholesomely, all
tnere Is to be had. there is apt to come
an arrest OF development. There comes
q GOODNESS OF blood. a reserve Of faiths,
z caution Of more than age and the
nner usage. One will discover at least
one family of this sort in every small
town q the mid west. which is of and
yet apart from the local ariStocracy Of
the soil enriched. the banker, the gro
Ger. the lawyer and landholder; q fam
lly with an eastern tradition Of the
pest-NeW England or Virginia. pre-
tension to the elegance Of culture; a
group. which. while easily the leaders,
Sits In a state of correct isolation lest
their honorable individualism be tram
blood.
me Van Harris. migrating leisurely
peh1nd the star Of empire, had beheld
afar n dust and shouting; they had
been formed by social forces that had
run their fire Of youth. that New Eng
land state Of mind OF ante-slavery days
which had once been the national con
ecienc but was new vestigial and sta
&c. The importing Of hungrier races
to n mid west. who had scratched
the bleak prairies. finding the fat and
virgin lands now gone; the surge Of
the political revolts Of the trans-Miss-
issippf settlers. time and again from
the days OF popultsm to the present;
the pathos and the idealism of all this
eager building. had not touched them.
Their county, one Of the Iowa reserve,
had felt family the thunder OF the
awakening; the dingy offices OF the
Rome court house had been filled by a
group of the best people" SO long that
they seemed the h-ereditament of q
class and a leadership.
mp to feel vaguely the lapse between
what was best in the days of their ia
theirs and the needs Of today. Harlan
Van Hart. himself. had ~discerned curl
ously the rift between the fine spiritual
environ Of his fathers example and
the new. troublous. social conscience.
In his debates of high school, his
loungings about Wiley Curran's news
stand. his friendship with Arne Vance,
son Of old Jake, the political farmer
the county's first insurgent, he had
wondered at 1t. The new movement
was no hunger rebellion Of the cities,
the mid west was enriched-why. then
the outcry?
Harlan was packing for his depart
ure. He thought rather gsimly Of the
journey east. Elsie would be on the
train on her way to school. also, and
he would have to talk to her. Elsie
n all the town were curious with
Bome story regarding him and Aurelie
Ldndstrom-nothing definite. but all
the more perplexing for that Harlan
had slowly famed since last night with
p resentment new in the genial COM
placence of his life. When the pack
ing was done he sat by the window
where he could see the red and gold
ffligree Of the sugar naples thinly COW
ering the rock face Of Eagle Point back
of the town. Today a blue haze en-
veloped the highest pinnacle. Some
where. out of this lazy freedom. a COW
bell tinkled. 1t vas Saturday. and he
knew the boys were gathering wild
crab apples up along Stnsinawa in the
hills and routing rabbits out Of the
fence corners. He felt immeasurably
old some way. n out OF all this kind
~ prosiness. He had an inclination to
climb to the hills and then checked it
with a bitter refusal-the hills and all
this autumn glory were a part Of her
and the tnextricab1e confusion OF
wrong and right, duty and honor. into
which he was plunged. He was angered
at his mother; he was enraged at Au-
relic. He had asked her to give UP this
silly business of her prize winning. and
she had sturdily refused at the last.
His mother. his class. his tradition, ca
Harvard n the laval had to
do with his intolerable sense of re-
bellion and defeat. Something was
inevitably wrong. perhaps with him
self. Perhaps, he did not even love
Aurelie SO much-it was summer mad
as his mother had said: but he
felt a shame that he would allow this.
A man. he told himself. would smash
his way through to win. If he greatly
desired; but he was a Van Hart and
they were not given to that sort OF
thing. The would cody consider a
great many things before they struck a
blow.
He had intended to go down to the
usually met to smoke and chaff and
grind out airs on Playter's monograph,
groups of girls came in from
school or shopping to buy sodas. He
would meet them all in the frank COM
radeship of the towns way. walk home
with one, or 1oiter al the high school
practice. There were any num-
Der of ways to spend ones last after
noon in the old town where one was
30 pleasantly a favored son. His ia
Their was at court and his mother at
her club. But he had a curious disin-
clination to idle around the square He
took q notion. to dress for dinner. al
though there were to be no guests. His
did SO occasionally in their home
life: it was understood by the Van
Harris as an assertion of old and real
There were but nine fami-
lies in Rome who even dined at night,
and these nine definitely fixed the So
cial life. People who dine at 8 do not
dine in shirt sleeves.
Harlan was going to dress for the
last home dinner. 1t would divert him
from his inexplicable dissatisfaction.
perhaps. He looked about his room
at the trophies Of his undergraduate
.ays-banners, dance programs. ia
vors, his tennis racquets. fraternity
parchments-hung as he had cherished
them. Now he felt an intolerance of
sophomore display. He promised
that when he came back next fall all
this truck should go to the garrett. 1t
should be a mans room. for today he
felt no more the boy. He would be the
man; something had come to him IN
bitterness. his first bewilderment.
that told him he must be a man now
and not the lovesick youth. or The
trtf1er with all this easy popu-
larity he had among all sorts of people.