So Big by Edna Ferber (read books for money .txt) 📕

his wrists.⁠ ⁠… The owner of the southwest ¼ sells a strip 20 rods wide along the south side of his farm. How much does he receive at $150 per acre?”

He triumphed in this transaction, began the struggle with the square root of 576. Square roots agonized him. She washed the slate clean with her little sponge. He was leaning close in his effort to comprehend the fiendish little figures that marched so tractably under Selina’s masterly pencil.

She took it up, glibly. “The remainder must contain twice the product of the tens by the units plus the square of the units.” He blinked. Utterly bewildered. “And,” went on Selina, blithely, “twice the tens, times the units, plus the square of the units, is the same as the sum of twice the tens, and the units, times the units. Therefore”⁠—with a flourish⁠—“add 4 units to the 40 and multiply the result by 4. Therefore”⁠—in final triumph⁠—“the square root of 576 is 24.”

She was breathing rather fast. The fire in the kitchen stove snapped and cracked. “Now, then, suppose you do that for me. We’ll wipe it out. There! What must the remainder contain?”

He took it up, slowly, haltingly. The house was terribly still except for the man’s voice. “The remainder⁠ ⁠… twice⁠ ⁠… product⁠ ⁠… tens⁠ ⁠… units⁠ ⁠…” A something in his voice⁠—a note⁠—a timbre. She felt herself swaying queerly, as though the whole house were gently rocking. Little delicious agonizing shivers chased each other, hot and cold, up her arms, down her legs, over her spine.⁠ ⁠… “plus the square of the units is the same as the sum twice the tens⁠ ⁠… twice⁠ ⁠… the tens⁠ ⁠… the tens⁠ ⁠…” His voice stopped.

Selina’s eyes leaped from the book to his hands, uncontrollably. Something about them startled her. They were clenched into fists. Her eyes now leaped from those clenched fists to the face of the man beside her. Her head came up, and back. Her wide startled eyes met his. His were a blaze of blinding blue in his tanned face. Some corner of her mind that was still working clearly noted this. Then his hands unclenched. The blue blaze scorched her, enveloped her. Her cheek knew the harsh cool feel of a man’s cheek. She sensed the potent, terrifying, pungent odour of close contact⁠—a mixture of tobacco smoke, his hair, freshly laundered linen, an indefinable body smell. It was a mingling that disgusted and attracted her. She was at once repelled and drawn. Then she felt his lips on hers and her own, incredibly, responding eagerly, wholly to that pressure.

VII

They were married the following May, just two months later. The High Prairie school year practically ended with the appearance of the first tender shoots of green that meant onions, radishes, and spinach above the rich sandy loam. Selina’s classes broke, dwindled, shrank to almost nothing. The school became a kindergarten of five-year-old babies who wriggled and shifted and scratched in the warm spring air that came from the teeming prairie through the open windows. The schoolhouse stove stood rusty-red and cold. The drum in Selina’s bedroom was a black genie deprived of his power now to taunt her.

Selina was at once bewildered and calm; rebellious and content. Overlaying these emotions was something like grim amusement. Beneath them, something like fright. High Prairie, in May, was green and gold and rose and blue. The spring flowers painted the fields and the roadside with splashes of yellow, of pink, of mauve, and purple. Violets, buttercups, mandrakes, marsh-marigolds, hepatica. The air was soft and cool from the lake. Selina had never known spring in the country before. It made her ache with an actual physical ache. She moved with a strange air of fatality. It was as if she were being drawn inexorably, against her will, her judgment, her plans, into something sweet and terrible. When with Pervus she was elated, gay, voluble. He talked little; looked at her dumbly, worshippingly. When he brought her a withered bunch of trilliums, the tears came to her eyes. He had walked to Updike’s woods to get them because he had heard her say she loved them, and there were none nearer. They were limp and listless from the heat, and from being held in his hand. He looked up at her from where he stood on the kitchen steps, she in the doorway. She took them, laid her hand on his head. It was as when some great gentle dog brings in a limp and bedraggled prize dug from the yard and, laying it at one’s feet, looks up at one with soft asking eyes.

There were days when the feeling of unreality possessed her. She, a truck farmer’s wife, living in High Prairie the rest of her days! Why, no! No! Was this the great adventure that her father had always spoken of? She, who was going to be a happy wayfarer down the path of life⁠—any one of a dozen things. This High Prairie winter was to have been only an episode. Not her life! She looked at Maartje. Oh, but she’d never be like that. That was stupid, unnecessary. Pink and blue dresses in the house, for her. Frills on the window curtains. Flowers in bowls.

Some of the pangs and terrors with which most prospective brides are assailed she confided to Mrs. Pool while that active lady was slamming about the kitchen.

“Did you ever feel scared and⁠—and sort of⁠—scared when you thought about marry, Mrs. Pool?”

Maartje Pool’s hands were in a great batch of bread dough which she pummelled and slapped and kneaded vigorously. She shook out a handful of flour on the baking board while she held the dough mass in the other hand, then plumped it down and again began to knead, both hands doubled into fists.

She laughed a short little laugh. “I ran away.”

“You did! You mean you really ran⁠—but why? Didn’t you lo⁠—like Klaas?”

Maartje Pool kneaded briskly, the colour high in her cheeks, what with the vigorous pummelling and rolling, and something else