The train which brought Carol to Gopher Prairie also brought Miss Bea Sorenson.

Miss Bea was a stalwart, corn-colored, laughing young woman, and she was bored by farm-work. She desired the excitements of city-life, and the way to enjoy city-life was, she had decided, to “go get a yob as hired girl in Gopher Prairie.” She contentedly lugged her pasteboard telescope from the station to her cousin, Tina Malmquist, maid of all work in the residence of Mrs. Luke Dawson.

“Vell, so you come to town,” said Tina.

“Ya. Ay get a yob,” said Bea.

“Vell.⁠ ⁠… You got a fella now?”

“Ya. Yim Yacobson.”

“Vell. I’m glat to see you. How much you vant a veek?”

“Sex dollar.”

“There ain’t nobody pay dat. Vait! Dr. Kennicott, I t’ink he marry a girl from de Cities. Maybe she pay dat. Vell. You go take a valk.”

“Ya,” said Bea.

So it chanced that Carol Kennicott and Bea Sorenson were viewing Main Street at the same time.

Bea had never before been in a town larger than Scandia Crossing, which has sixty-seven inhabitants.

As she marched up the street she was meditating that it didn’t hardly seem like it was possible there could be so many folks all in one place at the same time. My! It would take years to get acquainted with them all. And swell people, too! A fine big gentleman in a new pink shirt with a diamond, and not no washed-out blue denim working-shirt. A lovely lady in a longery dress (but it must be an awful hard dress to wash). And the stores!

Not just three of them, like there were at Scandia Crossing, but more than four whole blocks!

The Bon Ton Store⁠—big as four barns⁠—my! it would simply scare a person to go in there, with seven or eight clerks all looking at you. And the men’s suits, on figures just like human. And Axel Egge’s, like home, lots of Swedes and Norskes in there, and a card of dandy buttons, like rubies.

A drug store with a soda fountain that was just huge, awful long, and all lovely marble; and on it there was a great big lamp with the biggest shade you ever saw⁠—all different kinds colored glass stuck together; and the soda spouts, they were silver, and they came right out of the bottom of the lamp-stand! Behind the fountain there were glass shelves, and bottles of new kinds of soft drinks, that nobody ever heard of. Suppose a fella took you there!

A hotel, awful high, higher than Oscar Tollefson’s new red barn; three stories, one right on top of another; you had to stick your head back to look clear up to the top. There was a swell traveling man in there⁠—probably been to Chicago, lots of times.

Oh, the dandiest people to know here! There was a lady going by, you wouldn’t hardly say she was any older than Bea herself; she wore a dandy new gray suit and black pumps. She almost looked like she was looking over the town, too. But you couldn’t tell what she thought. Bea would like to be that way⁠—kind of quiet, so nobody would get fresh. Kind of⁠—oh, elegant.

A Lutheran Church. Here in the city there’d be lovely sermons, and church twice on Sunday, every Sunday!

And a movie show!

A regular theater, just for movies. With the sign “Change of bill every evening.” Pictures every evening!

There were movies in Scandia Crossing, but only once every two weeks, and it took the Sorensons an hour to drive in⁠—papa was such a tightwad he wouldn’t get a Ford. But here she could put on her hat any evening, and in three minutes’ walk be to the movies, and see lovely fellows in dress-suits and Bill Hart and everything!

How could they have so many stores? Why! There was one just for tobacco alone, and one (a lovely one⁠—the Art Shoppy it was) for pictures and vases and stuff, with oh, the dandiest vase made so it looked just like a tree trunk!

Bea stood on the corner of Main Street and Washington Avenue. The roar of the city began to frighten her. There were five automobiles on the street all at the same time⁠—and one of ’em was a great big car that must of cost two thousand dollars⁠—and the bus was starting for a train with five elegant-dressed fellows, and a man was pasting up red bills with lovely pictures of washing-machines on them, and the jeweler was laying out bracelets and wristwatches and everything on real velvet.

What did she care if she got six dollars a week? Or two! It was worth while working for nothing, to be allowed to stay here. And think how it would be in the evening, all lighted up⁠—and not with no lamps, but with electrics! And maybe a gentleman friend taking you to the movies and buying you a strawberry ice cream soda!

Bea trudged back.

“Vell? You lak it?” said Tina.

“Ya. Ay lak it. Ay t’ink maybe Ay stay here,” said Bea.