Main-Traveled Roads by Hamlin Garland (1878)
Hamlin Garland. Main-Travelled Roads. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1965.
STORIES
“A Branch Road”
characters:
Will Hannan – young man, 22 yrs, attends seminary school
Agnes Dingman – Will’s sweetheart, attended seminary
Ed Kinney – young man, pale face, Will’s former rival for Agnes, later her husband
Dingman – farmer
David McTurg – thrasher
Milton Jennings – attends seminary school
Shep Watson
Bill Young – Agnes dislikes, doesn’t go to seminary
Jim Whelock – thresher driver
Dade – Jim’s sweetheart
Steve –
Mrs. Dingman – Agnes’s mom
John (‘Jack’) Hannan – Will’s brother
Nettie Hannan – John’s wife
Johnny Hannan – John’s younger son
Ned Hannan – John’s older son
old man – tells Will Agnes is gone
setting:
Rock River, The Corners 1880-1887
plot:
I. Will Hannan goes to Dingman farm to help with thrashing, elated b/c Agnes Dingman has just become his sweetheart the night before. He’s bothered by the way the other men talk about Agnes, irritated when she lets them see her feelings for them, and then angry when she, noticing his irritation, pays attention to the other boys. Mr. Dingman asks Will in for dinner after the thrashing but he refuses. II. On Thursday Will, who has not seen Agnes in two days, has forgiven her and prepares his brother’s rig to bring her to the fair. On his way to her house, he loses an axel-burr and does not arrive until 10 PM, two hours late. An old man tells him that she has gone with Ed Kinney. He writes an angry note and decides to leave town immediately. III. Seven years later (1887) returning Will notices changes in Rock River. Small farms have been bought up by larger interests, Agnes’s old house is used for grain storage, and a stream has dried up. He meets Thomas Dickenson Kinney (Tom’s son) who tells him Agnes has married Ed, who abuses her. He sees the older Mr. Kinney and, pretending to be a stranger, hears the old man say that Will has made his money gambling. Still pretending to be a stranger, Will criticizes the old man for “forclosing a mortgage on a widow and two boys, getting a farm f’r one quarter what it was really worth? You damned old hypocrite! I know all about you and your whole tribe – you old blood-sucker!” (29). IV. Will visits the house where Agnes is with old man Kinney and his wife (Ed’s parents). She looks tired and worn, and they pick at her. Coming home, Ed greets Will and blames Agnes for his parents’ bickering. When Ed and his parents leave for church, Will and Agnes express their regrets about the past. Will convinces her to leave her husband and go with him first to Europe and then to a new home somewhere in Texas. Agnes seems about to go and then wavers, picking up her baby and promising that she would not leave it. She tries to tell Will to go but instead he says, “The baby! Sure enough. Why, certainly! to the mother belongs the child. Blue eyes, thank heaven!” As they leave the house they remark the beauty of the field. Will is fearful because Agnes looks so frail, but excited that the world lays before them.
“Up the Cooley”
characters:
Mr. Howard McLane
Freeme Cole
William McTurg (Bill)
Grant – Howard’s younger brother, 30 trs
old man McElvaine
Dunlap
Mrs. McLane – Howard’s mother
Lewis – old man
Laura - Grant’s wife – young, pretty, scowling
Grant’s daughter
14 yr. old boy
setting:
train from Milwaukee to the Mississippi > LaCrosse
plot:
I. Howard McLane, a dramatist, takes a train to his childhood home in LaCrosse. William McTurg gives him a ride to his family’s farm – one farther up the Cooley than the one he knew – where he has dinner with his mother and his brother’s family. When he asks why they sold the old farm, his brother says the mortgage ate it up within four years and that they had sent to him for money (he never saw the letter and reasons that he must have been in Europe at the time). He goes to bed angry then thinks of and imagines his own pleasant room and a picture he has their of farm life. When he looks for the picture again it is gone and the odor of the farm and the feeling of the straw bed beneath him bring him back to where he is, and he decides he has forgiven his brother.
“Among the Corn Rows”
characters:
Rob Rodemaker – settler
Seagraves – Jr. editor of Bloomtown Spike, friend of Rob
Judge – lies
Major Mulleus
Jack Adams
O’Neil Wilson
Jim Rivers
Hank Whiting
Mrs. Whiting – Western house matron
Frank Graham
Barney – young lawyer
Julia Peterson – Norwegian
Otto Petgerson – Julia’s brother
‘Tias Anderson – Norwegian, courting Julia
Ole Hoover – Norwegian, courting Julia
Mrs. Peterson
setting:
Bloomtown, Wanpac
plot:
1. Rob makes a dinner for Seagraves, expresses desire to marry. He goes to town dressed up and leaves among general hilarity to find a wife in Wanpac. 2. Rob goes to the farm of Mr. Peterson, a Norwegian who makes his daughter (who Rob knows as a youth) work the plow. She has been bitterly disappointed with her lot, and accepts his proposal. They meet at 11PM that night and drive off together.
“The Return of a Private”characters:
Private Edward Smith – married, suffering fever/ague
young soldier – goes to a hotel instead of sleeping at station w/comrades
Jim Cranby – soldier
Saunders – soldier, lost wife during first year in army
Billy Tripp – died in war
Mary Smith – Edward’s daughter, 9 yrs. old
Tommy Smith – Edward’s son, 6 yrs. old
Ted Smith – Edward’s son, 4 yrs. old
Mrs. Smith – Edward’s wife
old Mother Gray / Old Widder Gray
Liz – another wife
Al – Liz’s husband
Bill Gray – Widdow Gray’s oldest son
Sim
Sadie
Ed Varney
Nettie
setting:
train from New Orleans to LaCrosse, LaCrosse
plot:
1. Smith and two other vets sleep in station, have breakfast of hardtack and march toward home in the morning. They part ways and narration follows Smith. 2. Mrs. Smith is at Mother Gray’s when tea leaves predict husband’s return. They see him cresting the hill, and rush home where he is near fencepost, looking at empty house. They eat, lots of catching up to do on farm because dishonest renter, mortgage, etc.
“Under the Lion’s Paw”characters:
Stephen Council
Mrs. Council (Sara)
Mr. Haskins (Tim) – from Kansas, driven by grasshoppers
Mrs. Haskins (Nettie) – small
Haskins children – eldest boy plows, younger boy, baby 2 mo.
Ike
Jim Butler – “land poor” grocer > land speculator, renter to those whose mortgages fell in, cultivates image as poor
Doc Grimes – Butler’s fishing buddy
Ben Ashley – “
Cal Cheatham – “
Higley – left for Dakota after losing farm to Butler
Jane – Council’s daughter, married
setting:
end of autumn
plot:
1. Haskins family comes asking shelter, driven from Kansas by grasshoppers. 2. Council takes them in, gets them a deal on Butler farm and keeps them until Spring as guests. Says, “Don’t want any pay. My religion ain’t run on such business principles. 3. Haskins works hard, and three neighbors sell him tools for time on Council’s good example. “No slave in the Roman galleys could have toiled so frightfully and lived, for this man thought himself a free man, and that he was working for his wife and babes.” 4. Seeing improvements after a year, Butler increases his price to buy/rent farm. Haskins nearly kills him, but Haskins’ 2 year-old daughter comes out and he tells Butler to make out the mortgage and never come on his land again or he’ll kill him.
“The Creamery Man”
characters:
‘the tin-peddler’ – a type here, no longer familiar in Cooly County
‘the creamery man’ – another type – wagon not as gay, but man young and sometimes attractive
Claude Williams – Molasses Gap creamery man. wears green suspenders and blue shirt with red lacing. a good source of news/gossip.
Mrs. Kennedy
Luucindy Kennedy
“the Dutchmen” – have fine brick houses but women homely, barefoot – “someway their big houses have a look like a stable when you get close to ‘em”
Old Man Haldeman (Ernest) - Dutch
Nina Haldeman – likes Claude, but he thinks her too tall, boyish. only daughter of Ernest, who’s not strong. only brother killed in a Pine County sawmill
Mrs. Haldeman – hard-working, Dutch
setting:
Molasses Gap – small cooly that leads into Dutcher’s Cooly
plot:
Claude likes Lucindy, they flirt, he also talks with Dutch girl Nina, who likes him. Mrs. Smith gossips that he likes Nina, which angers Lucindy – she becomes cold, leaves for weeks. He gives Nina advice about being womanly and dealing with her parents. This makes Nina thinks he likes her, tells her mother who gets mad, attacks him, faints, repents under the direction of a Dutch minister. Claude goes to Lucindy’s, where she is curt and, lying, says she is engaged. He goes to Nina’s and reflecting on how she has blossomed, takes her for a ride.
“A Day’s Pleasure”characters:
Sam Markham
Mrs. Markham (Delia) – lame
Kitty
Honorable Mr. Hall
Otis – friend of Mr. Hall, lectured in Congregational Church
Mrs. Hall
Carrie – Swedish girl at Mrs. Hall’s, washes baby
setting:
Belleplain
plot:
1. Mrs. Markham goes to town with husband for first time in six months. Sits in grocery stores, buys some flannel, wishes she had more money, not sure what to do, wanders around tired and not sure what to do. 2. Otis notices Delia’s dejection and comments on it wondering why town women don’t entertain the farm wives when they come. Mrs. Hall goes out to ask Delia in, brishes her, has Carrie wash the baby, plays for her, talks to her, and escorts her to her husband’s wagon at sundown.
“Mrs. Ripley’s Trip”
characters:
Uncle Ripley / Uncle Ethan
Mrs. Ripley (Jane)
Sally
Silas
Tewksbury – Ripley grandson
Mrs. Doudney - neighbor
setting:
Iowa prairie, November
plot:
Mrs. Ripley has not been home to New York in 23 yrs. and one night declares she is going on Thursday. Husband sells two shoats to get her the ticket, but she has already saved the money. She is touched by the sacrifice, goes to NY and comes back affectionate and with bundles. “Her trip was a fact now, no chance could rob her of it. She had looked forward twenty-three years toward it, and now she could look back at it accomplished. She took up her burden again, never more thinking to lay it down.
“Uncle Ethan Ripley”
characters
Uncle Ethan
Mrs. Ripley
Tewksbury
Johnson – neighbor
Jennings – neighbor
Doudney – neighbor who also got the bitter
Gus Peterson – buys a bottle for 50 cents “on tick” (credit)
plot:
Salesman gives Ripley 25 bottles of family bitters for permission to paint an advertisement on his barn. Ripley plans to sell them, but no one wants them. The sign irritates him and Mrs. Ripley, who complains although Ripley points out she once bought a $10 illustrated bible she didn’t really want. He buys red paint to paint over it in the night and she goes out then watches until she agrees that she hadn’t really wanted that bible. They go inside.
“God’s Ravens”
characters:
Robert Bloom – writes for Star
Mrs. Bloom (Mate)
Jack – workman, Bloom sees as workman rather than neighbor
Mason – “
Mrs. Folsom – visit the Blooms in their first week
Mr. Folsom – “
William McTurg – asks “how de do”, takes care of sick Bloom
McLane – asks how they like New Pine
Bell
Evan
setting:
Chicago > Bluff Siding
plot:
1. Robert is in poor health working in Chicago – they rent the Merrill House and go to Bluff Siding. 2. The boys fit in, but Robert and Matie Bloom are disappointed in their new community – see people as rough, unintellectual, like caricatures. Robert gets sick and people help nurse him to health with kind generosity – he says “Oh, I understand you now. I know you all now.”
“A ‘Good Fellow’’s Wife”
characters:
Bill McIlvaine – farmer, wheat buyer, Scotch
Andrew McPlail – ex-sheriff
Jim Sanford – newcomer / James G. Sanford
Vance
Sam – comes with telegraph
Nell – Sanford’s wife, good-looking
Steve Gilbert
Lincoln Bingham – Phil’s nephew, bookkeeper
Old Freeme / Cole
Mrs. Bingham
Tyre
Burt McPhail – sets up a feed-mill
Barney Mace
Rose McPhail – defends Nell
Jane Gilbert – gossips about Nell (neighbor)
setting:plot:
1. Sanford opens a bank in Bluff Siding, and the town experiences a minor boom. 2. McPhail comes to withdraw $1k to pay for a house, and Mrs. Bingham reading of bank failures in Nova Scotia and Massachusetts wants her money. Sanford makes it through the day but looks over his books worriedly. 3. Sanford gets a telegram and is busted – some investments have gone badly. He wants to leave on the train but wife says if he leaves now he leaves forever – train is already in station so it is too late. She sees his weak character. 4. Sanford goes to bank, tells Link of failure and goes home sick. Barney leads mob to house but McPhail shoos them off. Mrs. Sanford promises repayment. 5. Mrs. Sanford opens a store, Mr. Sanford gets some traveling work for a cash delivery system. They start to pay debt. 5. Mr. Sanford makes $20k on the previously failed land speculation, and pays his debts at once. He says Nell can give up the store, but she doesn’t want to. They re-enter their marriage on more equal footing.
FORM
CONTEXT
PUBLICATION
B.O. Flower, editor of Arena, suggested and carried out the publication of Main-Travelled Roads after publishing “The Return of a Private” in his magazine. The original volume included only six stories: “Under the Lion’s Paw”, “Among the Corn-Rows”, “The Return of a Private”, “Mrs. Ripley’s Trip”, “A Branch Road” and “Up the Cooley.” Subsequent editions brought the number up to twelve, and those added in later editions are less harsh in their portrayal of rural life.
CRITICISM
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Hamlin Garland. Main-Travelled Roads. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1965.