Part 99

As she blew out the lights, stepped out on the walk, and turned the key in the lock, he said, "Well, Nellie, you won't have to do that any more."

"No; I won't have to, but I guess I'll keep on just the same, Jim."

"Keep on? What for?"

"Well, I rather like it."

"But you don't need to--"

"I like being my own boss," she said. "I've done a lot o' figuring, Jim, these last three years, and it's kind o' broadened me, I hope. I can't go back where I was. I'm a better woman than I was before, and I hope and believe that I'm better able to be a real mother to my children."

Jim looked up at the moon filling the warm, moist air with a transfiguring light that fell in a luminous mist on the distant hills. "I know one thing, Nellie; I'm a better man than I was before, and it's all owin' to you."

His voice trembled a little, and the sympathetic tears came into her eyes. She didn't speak at once--she couldn't. At last she stopped him by a touch on the arm.

"Jim, I want a partner in my store. Let us begin again, right here. I can't say that I'll ever feel just as I did once--I don't know as it's right to. I looked up to you too much. I expected too much of you, too. Let's begin again, as equal partners." She held out her hand, as one man to another. He took it wonderingly.

"All right, Nell; I'll do it."

Then, as he put his arm around her, she held up her lips to be kissed. "And we'll be happy again--happy as we deserve, I s'pose," she said, with a smile and a sigh.

"It's almost like getting married again, Nell--for me."

As they walked off up the sidewalk in the soft moonlight, their arms were interlocked.

They loitered like a couple of lovers.

The End.

Transcriber's Notes

The 1930 edition of Main-Travelled Roads is not in the public domain. The last version of the book in the public domain is the 1922 Border Edition, a reprint of the 1920 edition with a foreward written by the author. We used the 1922 Border Edition of the book for this transcription. A scanned version of this book is available on Hathitrust courtesy of The University of Michigan.

The Introduction by William Dean Howells first appeared in the 1893 release of the book.

We used a web site on Hamlin Garland, created and maintained by professor Keith Newlin, to help compile the list of Garland's publications and the publication history of Main-Travelled Roads.

Our e-book has links at the top of each chapter, and the top of each part, designed to improve navigation. The links at the top of each chapter return the reader to the Table of Contents. The links at the top of each part send the reader to the next part. For example, if you want to reach part III of A Good-Fellow's Wife from the Table of Contents, you would click on the page number to send you to the top of the chapter. Click on part I to go to part II, then click on part II to go to part III. The link for the last part in each chapter will take you back to the beginning of the chapter.

Detailed Notes

This section contains a list of emendations to the text and decisions made in transcribing the text, as well as accompanying explanations.

For many of the short stories with several parts, the physical book used a convention of not printing I. for the first part of the story. We put those in, to give better structure to the document.

The quotes at the beginning of each chapter were not closed with a period in the physical book. We put them in the e-book, to give better results with the tools that we use to check e-books that we produce.

Foreward

On Page xiv, farm-house was hyphenated and split between two lines for spacing. There were three other occurrences of farmhouse or farmhouses without the hyphen, and no occurrences with the hyphen. We transcribed the word without the hyphen.

A Branch Road

On Page 50, grape-vine is hyphenated and split between two lines for spacing. There are three other occurrences of grapevine without the hyphen, and none with. We transcribed the word without the hyphen.