was thinking up protective insults when Kennicott's mother came
down to stay with Brother Whittier for two months. Carol was fond of
Mrs. Kennicott. She could not carry out her insults.

She felt trapped.

She had been kidnaped by the town. She was Aunt Bessie's niece, and she
was to be a mother. She was expected, she almost expected herself, to
sit forever talking of babies, cooks, embroidery stitches, the price of
potatoes, and the tastes of husbands in the matter of spinach.

She found a refuge in the Jolly Seventeen. She suddenly understood that
they could be depended upon to laugh with her at Mrs. Bogart, and she
now saw Juanita Haydock's gossip not as vulgarity but as gaiety and
remarkable analysis.

Her life had changed, even before Hugh appeared. She looked forward to
the next bridge of the Jolly Seventeen, and the security of whispering
with her dear friends Maud Dyer and Juanita and Mrs. McGanum.

She was part of the town. Its philosophy and its feuds dominated her.

III

She was no longer irritated by the cooing of the matrons, nor by their
opinion that diet didn't matter so long as the Little Ones had plenty of
lace and moist kisses, but she concluded that in the care of babies as
in politics, intelligence was superior to quotations about pansies. She
liked best to talk about Hugh to Kennicott, Vida, and the Bjornstams.
She was happily domestic when Kennicott sat by her on the floor, to
watch baby make faces. She was delighted when Miles, speaking as one man
to another, admonished Hugh, "I wouldn't stand them skirts if I was you.
Come on. Join the union and strike. Make 'em give you pants."

As a parent, Kennicott was moved to establish the first child-welfare
week held in Gopher Prairie. Carol helped him weigh babies and
examine their throats, and she wrote out the diets for mute German and
Scandinavian mothers.

The aristocracy of Gopher Prairie, even the wives of the rival doctors,
took part, and for several days there was community spirit and much
uplift. But this reign of love was overthrown when the prize for Best
Baby was awarded not to decent parents but to Bea and Miles Bjornstam!
The good matrons glared at Olaf Bjornstam, with his blue eyes, his
honey-colored hair, and magnificent back, and they remarked, "Well, Mrs.
Kennicott, maybe that Swede brat is as healthy as your husband says he
is, but let me tell you I hate to think of the future that awaits any
boy with a hired girl for a m