rooms for people who did appreciate them. Her guests liked to see
about them these reassuring emblems of prosperity.

The family party was complete except for Emil, and Oscar's wife
who, in the country phrase, "was not going anywhere just now."
Oscar sat at the foot of the table and his four tow-headed little
boys, aged from twelve to five, were ranged at one side. Neither
Oscar nor Lou has changed much; they have simply, as Alexandra said
of them long ago, grown to be more and more like themselves. Lou
now looks the older of the two; his face is thin and shrewd and
wrinkled about the eyes, while Oscar's is thick and dull. For all
his dullness, however, Oscar makes more money than his brother,
which adds to Lou's sharpness and uneasiness and tempts him to
make a show. The trouble with Lou is that he is tricky, and his
neighbors have found out that, as Ivar says, he has not a fox's face
for nothing. Politics being the natural field for such talents,
he neglects his farm to attend conventions and to run for county
offices.

Lou's wife, formerly Annie Lee, has grown to look curiously like
her husband. Her face has become longer, sharper, more aggressive.
She wears her yellow hair in a high pompadour, and is bedecked with
rings and chains and "beauty pins." Her tight, high-heeled shoes
give her an awkward walk, and she is always more or less preoccupied
with her clothes. As she sat at the table, she kept telling her
youngest daughter to "be careful now, and not drop anything on
mother."

The conversation at the table was all in English. Oscar's wife,
from the malaria district of Missouri, was ashamed of marrying a