"
Most of the men who came to the flat, whether they were army officers or
radicals who hated the army, had the easy gentleness, the acceptance
of women without embarrassed banter, for which she had longed in Gopher
Prairie. Yet they seemed to be as efficient as the Sam Clarks. She
concluded that it was because they were of secure reputation, not hemmed
in by the fire of provincial jealousies. Kennicott had asserted that the
villager's lack of courtesy is due to his poverty. "We're no millionaire
dudes," he boasted. Yet these army and navy men, these bureau experts,
and organizers of multitudinous leagues, were cheerful on three or four
thousand a year, while Kennicott had, outside of his land speculations,
six thousand or more, and Sam had eight.
Nor could she upon inquiry learn that many of this reckless race died in
the poorhouse. That institution is reserved for men like Kennicott who,
after devoting fifty years to "putting aside a stake," incontinently
invest the stake in spurious oil-stocks.
IV
She was encouraged to believe that she had not been abnormal in viewing
Gopher Prairie as unduly tedious and slatternly.
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