“Between Swedish Haven and Richterville?”
“Levi Hoffner is a stockholder in the Fort Penn, Richterville & Lantenengo. Now listen to me, son. There’s only one reason in God’s world why the F. P. R. & L. don’t come all the way through to Swedish Haven. You know why?”
“Money.”
“It’s always money, son. But why didn’t they? Because there’s nothing but farms and a few farmers from here to Richterville. That’s why there’s no money in it. A few head of cabbage, once in a while a farmer. Christ Jesus, I thought this out ten years ago, and I ain’t a railroad man. No coal, no heavy freight to speak of. Such a line would never make money.”
“No. Therefore Levi Hoffner wouldn’t think much of me as a business man.”
“Not right off, he wouldn’t. But you’d have to make him wonder why you want to start a railroad. He’d start wondering, and you’d have to start play-acting.”
“How?”
“Let on to him that you have some secret information. You don’t have to tell him an out-and-out lie, but you can hint. Hint around that you got secret information that the Philadelphia, Reading & Gibbsville is thinking of building a line from Swedish Haven to Richterville.”
“He’d see through that right away, Father. He’s a stockholder in the F. P. R. & L., and they’re owned by the P. R. & G.”
“Hell, I know that, son. I just told you. But I know Levi Hoffner. He’s going to say to himself what do you know? Young Lockwood knows more than he does, and he’s a stockholder.”
“All right. Go on.”
“But you don’t tell him anything, only enough to let him smell the money. That’s when he’ll start thinking of you as a big man. He’ll try to get your information out of you. He’ll invite you to his house. And you go after his daughter. That part is up to you.”
“It sounds fantastic.”
“Well, I don’t know what that word means, but I know Levi Hoffner. And I guess I know you, son. If you want a woman, you know how to go after her. Anybody that can stay single as long as you have, they know how to handle women.”
“This imaginary line that the P. R. & G. is supposed to be building.”
“Make Levi believe that you build yours first and then sell it to the P. R. & G.” ,
“That’s what I thought. Now I see the whole scheme. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea.”
“Well, a good lie has to have some truth in it.”
“Yes. If I marry this girl—”
“Then you can tell Levi that you got secret information that the P. R. & G. changed their minds.”
“Won’t he try to get information through the Fort Penn people?”
“An honest man would. But Levi’s as crooked as anybody. Thinks everybody else is crooked. And he’s going to think that the Fort Penn people are giving him a dirty deal. The last thing he’ll ever think of is that we cooked this whole thing up so you could marry his daughter.”
The scheme worked. Adelaide Hoffner and Abraham Lockwood were married in November, and although it was a blustery day, the wedding was the largest ever in Richterville, attended by large delegations from the recent family connections in Gibbsville, selected substantial citizens of Swedish Haven, and all the solvent and some insolvents of Richterville. The small number of family connections of the groom was overlooked in the delighted surprise of the knowing at the prestigious names of his ushers, all of whom wore golden question marks in their cravats. Daphne Lockwood was not there; she had been put away. Rhoda Lockwood was not there; she was dangerously ill at the family home in Swedish Haven.
Someone sent Adelaide Hoffner Lockwood a book to take with her to Niagara Falls, a book called Their Wedding Journey, by a man named William Dean Howells. She unwrapped the book on the train from Fort Penn to Buffalo, glanced at the title, and threw it out the coach window. “Why did you do that?” said Abraham Lockwood.
“I know what kind of a book that would be,” said Adelaide Lockwood.
“How do you know if you don’t read it?” said her bridegroom.
“I chust know, that’s how. Their Wedding Journey. I forgot to look who sent it to me.”
“You think it’s spicy?”
“Wouldn’t you think so?”
“Well, it might be. But now that you’re married you can read what you please.”
“You wouldn’t mind if I read a book like that?”
“What’s a book? Something to pass the time. No, I wouldn’t mind. Did it have any pictures in it?”
“I didn’t take the time to find out.”
“I don’t see how you could throw away a book without looking inside it. I hope I haven’t married a prude, have I, Adelaide?”
“A prude? No, I’m not a prude, but I won’t say I want to read a book with that title. Their Wedding Journey. Huh.”
“Maybe you’ll want to write your own book, eh?”
“Please don’t make such talk, Abraham.”
“Are you afraid of me, Adelaide?”
She shook her head. “No. You’re experienced.”
“Shouldn’t you be jealous because I am?”
“You didn’t marry them. You married me.”
“Yes, and I love you.”
“And I love you. I love you more than you love me, but you loved me enough to marry me. And I loved you enough to marry you. We’ll make a home and have family, and we’ll love one another the same. You as much as me.”
“You’re not afraid of me, are you?”
“No.”
“You’re not altogether sure. What are you thinking?”
“It hurts the first time, doesn’t it?”
“I hope it won’t.”
“That’s why it’s better that you’re experienced.”
“And if you’re in love. If the girl is in love she doesn’t notice the hurt so much.”
“I wish we were there and it was tomorrow.”
In their hotel room during their first love-making she lay with her eyes open, staring at him, wincing with the first pain but determined to go through with the necessary ordeal. But when his excitement took control of him she forgot the pain in her wonder at his passion. She was converted to passion immediately, and wanted to repeat it before he was able. “This time I’ll do it right,” she said.
“In a little while,” he said.
For her the real novelty of the experience was in his passion. She knew the mechanics of erection and orgasm, but she had not been prepared for his eager grabbing of her and his outcries, demonstrations that her past knowledge of this cold thin man had not led her to anticipate. Then, just before they were leaving Niagara Falls, she herself experienced orgasm, and life and the world changed for her and Abraham Lockwood became a hero. There could be no other man, this man was Man.
At first they lived in a house of their own, across the side street from the walled square containing the red brick box. There had been no way to avoid telling the Hoffner family that Daphne Lockwood was in the crazy-house, the Insane, as it was also called; but Rhoda’s advanced condition had been a secret. Every family had someone who behaved strangely; one of the Hoffner girls had taken a long while to recover from the birth of her first child. But Levi Hoffner had been kept in ignorance of the true illness of Rhoda Lockwood, and it remained for Abraham Lockwood to tell his new wife that Rhoda did not “go out.” A person who suffered from a chronic ailment such as consumption was “poorly”; one who had something wrong with the brain “didn’t go out.”
“Is she like your sister Daphne?” said Adelaide.