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Book Club: Discuss/find out about a Classic Tale Set in Wyoming: The Virginian

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Front-Ranger:
Chapter Ten

This chapter is entitled “Where Fancy Was Bred.” I think it is referring to the first stirrings of attraction between The Virginian and Molly Wood, the new schoolmistress at Bear Creek. Although we know that TV was first attracted to Molly from a letter she wrote expressing interest in the job. And in their first encounter, he saved her from a stranded stage coach in a roaring stream. Some of these details remind me of the romance between Heath and Michelle. Ang Lee was quoted as saying that Heath contacted him several times before shooting began, inquiring when Michelle would be arriving on set.

Front-Ranger:
In the first part of the chapter, the single men are gathering at the Swinton’s barbeque to discuss—who else—the new schoolteacher! TV makes the sixth man. The trashy Trampas is there and alludes to her attraction for a cowpuncher named Lin McLean. TV challenges him, and Trampas once again is forced to apologize and back down.

Then, the barbeque begins and Molly arrives. TV hightails it to the bunkhouse to wash up and put on new trousers and scarf. Molly notices him coming out the door and gives him the “Wyoming welcome”: she carefully ignores him and gets totally preoccupied with the children of the guests, who are being laid down to sleep in a storeroom. (Remind you of anything?)

TV bides his time until a waltz begins. Being a Southerner, he is one of the few people around who knows how to waltz. So he approaches Molly and asks her to dance. She says that he must be presented to her first. This dance/flirtation continues on, and Molly goes for dance after dance with married men, fathers of her students.

Disgusted, TV retreats to the storeroom where he can view the turn of events through a window and finds Lin McLean there. Both of them scorned by Molly and partners in misery, they are all of a sudden best buddies again, and three times over they “pledge to each other in tin cups” which means they have a drink of whiskey together. This inevitably leads to mischief, and TV and Lin hatch a practical joke which I’ll not describe here, but it has to do with the items in the storeroom.

Front-Ranger:
Chapter 11: You're Going to Love Me Before We Get Through

Those two jokesters, The Virginian and Lin McLean, are sleeping off their overindulgence on whiskey the nite before at the Swinton's barbeque. Lin wakes up first and realizes they'd better redline it out of there before people realize the practical joke they played the nite before. Shaking TV, the southerner just says, "'I reckon some of the fellows will act haid-strong,' the Virginian murmured luxuriously, among the warmth of his blankets." Tho Lin rubs his head, TV will not wake up, so Lin takes off by himself. That was a bad move, because when the joke is discovered, the missing man is blamed. But not for long, because TV 'fessed up. Taking the rebukes of the partygoers good-naturely,  he nonetheless charms all the fuming ladies. "'I would mind it less,' said Mrs. Wetfall, 'if you looked a bit sorry or ashamed.' The Virginian shook his head at her penitently. 'I'm tryin' to,' he said."

Front-Ranger:
End of Chapter 11

After the barbeque, TV pays a visit to Molly on a Sunday, and they have more of the verbal sparring that marks their courtship. He brings up the fact that she shunned him and played games with him during the barbeque, and she replies that she doesn’t think she likes him, prompting the quote that forms the title of this chapter. This exchange may have influenced later works such as “Gone With the Wind” and Rhett Butler’s rapscallion approach to winning over Scarlett O’Hara.

Front-Ranger:
Chapter 12: Quality and Equality

This chapter’s title is puzzling, and I didn’t even begin to understand it until the next chapter. I still don’t fully understand it, and I invite your thoughts. But I do think the fact that Wyoming is “The Equality State” is relevant here. The reason for the moniker is that Wyoming was the first state where women had the right to vote, and the first state to have a female governor.

We begin the chapter back in Bennington, Vermont, Molly’s home town, where her relatives and friends are puzzling over one of her letters. “’You have no idea,’ it said, ‘how delightful it is to ride, especially on a spirited horse, which I can do now, quite well.’” The letter did not say with whom she rode, and so Molly’s mother wrote back for Molly to seek and accept the advice of the woman who invited her out to Wyoming, not knowing that the woman lived so far away that Molly only saw her once every few months.

A trunkful of books was sent out to Molly by Christmas time, so her riding companion, who was (you guessed it) the Virginian, began to receive books regularly from Molly.

The first one that he likes is a Russian novel. It does not say which one it is but, about the book TV says, “’That young come-outer, and his fam’ly that can’t understand him—for he is broad gauge yu’ see, and they are narro’ gauge.’” Blushing, he confesses to Molly that he “pretty near cried” when the “come-outer” died. So, I’m guessing this is Dostoevsky. But which book?

Molly and TV are paused in one of their frequent rides, listening to the meadowlark “when its song fell upon the silence like beaded drops of music.” And then he speaks of love. She begs him not to, but also asks him to continue taking her for rides. “’Yu’ might as well ask fruit to stay green.’” He replies. Finally she says that if he must continue speaking of his love, she will listen, nothing more or less, and he accepts it. But soon he will be going away on an adventure to oversee the shipment and sale of Judge Henry’s cows.

Looking at her Virginian, Molly can’t decide the color of his eyes. “Sometimes when she had been looking from a rock straight down into clear sea water, this same color had lurked in its depths. ‘Is it green, or is it gray?’ she asked herself.” It’s the same way with my Virginian too. His eyes are what are called hazel, and they seem to change with the color of sweater he is wearing or his mood.

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