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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Main Street + +Author: Sinclair Lewis + +Release Date: April 12, 2006 [EBook #543] +Last Updated: April 18, 2023 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MAIN STREET *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Keller and David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h1> + MAIN STREET + </h1> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h2> + By Sinclair Lewis + </h2> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h4> + To James Branch Cabell and Joseph Hergesheimer + </h4> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <blockquote> + <p class="toc"> + <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XIV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER XV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER XVI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER XVII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER XVIII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER XIX </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0020"> CHAPTER XX </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0021"> CHAPTER XXI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0022"> CHAPTER XXII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0023"> CHAPTER XXIII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0024"> CHAPTER XXIV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0025"> CHAPTER XXV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0026"> CHAPTER XXVI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0027"> CHAPTER XXVII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0028"> CHAPTER XXVIII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0029"> CHAPTER XXIX </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0030"> CHAPTER XXX </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0031"> CHAPTER XXXI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0032"> CHAPTER XXXII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0033"> CHAPTER XXXIII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0034"> CHAPTER XXXIV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0035"> CHAPTER XXXV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0036"> CHAPTER XXXVI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0037"> CHAPTER XXXVII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0038"> CHAPTER XXXVIII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0039"> CHAPTER XXXIX </a> + </p> + </blockquote> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <p> + This is America—a town of a few thousand, in a region of wheat and + corn and dairies and little groves. + </p> + <p> + The town is, in our tale, called “Gopher Prairie, Minnesota.” But its Main + Street is the continuation of Main Streets everywhere. The story would be + the same in Ohio or Montana, in Kansas or Kentucky or Illinois, and not + very differently would it be told Up York State or in the Carolina hills. + </p> + <p> + Main Street is the climax of civilization. That this Ford car might stand + in front of the Bon Ton Store, Hannibal invaded Rome and Erasmus wrote in + Oxford cloisters. What Ole Jenson the grocer says to Ezra Stowbody the + banker is the new law for London, Prague, and the unprofitable isles of + the sea; whatsoever Ezra does not know and sanction, that thing is heresy, + worthless for knowing and wicked to consider. + </p> + <p> + Our railway station is the final aspiration of architecture. Sam Clark's + annual hardware turnover is the envy of the four counties which constitute + God's Country. In the sensitive art of the Rosebud Movie Palace there is a + Message, and humor strictly moral. + </p> + <p> + Such is our comfortable tradition and sure faith. Would he not betray + himself an alien cynic who should otherwise portray Main Street, or + distress the citizens by speculating whether there may not be other + faiths? + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER I + </h2> + <h3> + I + </h3> + <p> + ON a hill by the Mississippi where Chippewas camped two generations ago, a + girl stood in relief against the cornflower blue of Northern sky. She saw + no Indians now; she saw flour-mills and the blinking windows of + skyscrapers in Minneapolis and St. Paul. Nor was she thinking of squaws + and portages, and the Yankee fur-traders whose shadows were all about her. + She was meditating upon walnut fudge, the plays of Brieux, the reasons why + heels run over, and the fact that the chemistry instructor had stared at + the new coiffure which concealed her ears. + </p> + <p> + A breeze which had crossed a thousand miles of wheat-lands bellied her + taffeta skirt in a line so graceful, so full of animation and moving + beauty, that the heart of a chance watcher on the lower road tightened to + wistfulness over her quality of suspended freedom. She lifted her arms, + she leaned back against the wind, her skirt dipped and flared, a lock blew + wild. A girl on a hilltop; credulous, plastic, young; drinking the air as + she longed to drink life. The eternal aching comedy of expectant youth. + </p> + <p> + It is Carol Milford, fleeing for an hour from Blodgett College. + </p> + <p> + The days of pioneering, of lassies in sunbonnets, and bears killed with + axes in piney clearings, are deader now than Camelot; and a rebellious + girl is the spirit of that bewildered empire called the American + Middlewest. + </p> + <p> + II + </p> + <p> + Blodgett College is on the edge of Minneapolis. It is a bulwark of sound + religion. It is still combating the recent heresies of Voltaire, Darwin, + and Robert Ingersoll. Pious families in Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, the + Dakotas send their children thither, and Blodgett protects them from the + wickedness of the universities. But it secretes friendly girls, young men + who sing, and one lady instructress who really likes Milton and Carlyle. + So the four years which Carol spent at Blodgett were not altogether + wasted. The smallness of the school, the fewness of rivals, permitted her + to experiment with her perilous versatility. She played tennis, gave + chafing-dish parties, took a graduate seminar in the drama, went + “twosing,” and joined half a dozen societies for the practise of the arts + or the tense stalking of a thing called General Culture. + </p> + <p> + In her class there were two or three prettier girls, but none more eager. + She was noticeable equally in the classroom grind and at dances, though + out of the three hundred students of Blodgett, scores recited more + accurately and dozens Bostoned more smoothly. Every cell of her body was + alive—thin wrists, quince-blossom skin, ingenue eyes, black hair. + </p> + <p> + The other girls in her dormitory marveled at the slightness of her body + when they saw her in sheer negligee, or darting out wet from a + shower-bath. She seemed then but half as large as they had supposed; a + fragile child who must be cloaked with understanding kindness. “Psychic,” + the girls whispered, and “spiritual.” Yet so radioactive were her nerves, + so adventurous her trust in rather vaguely conceived sweetness and light, + that she was more energetic than any of the hulking young women who, with + calves bulging in heavy-ribbed woolen stockings beneath decorous blue + serge bloomers, thuddingly galloped across the floor of the “gym” in + practise for the Blodgett Ladies' Basket-Ball Team. + </p> + <p> + Even when she was tired her dark eyes were observant. She did not yet know + the immense ability of the world to be casually cruel and proudly dull, + but if she should ever learn those dismaying powers, her eyes would never + become sullen or heavy or rheumily amorous. + </p> + <p> + For all her enthusiasms, for all the fondness and the “crushes” which she + inspired, Carol's acquaintances were shy of her. When she was most + ardently singing hymns or planning deviltry she yet seemed gently aloof + and critical. She was credulous, perhaps; a born hero-worshipper; yet she + did question and examine unceasingly. Whatever she might become she would + never be static. + </p> + <p> + Her versatility ensnared her. By turns she hoped to discover that she had + an unusual voice, a talent for the piano, the ability to act, to write, to + manage organizations. Always she was disappointed, but always she + effervesced anew—over the Student Volunteers, who intended to become + missionaries, over painting scenery for the dramatic club, over soliciting + advertisements for the college magazine. + </p> + <p> + She was on the peak that Sunday afternoon when she played in chapel. Out + of the dusk her violin took up the organ theme, and the candle-light + revealed her in a straight golden frock, her arm arched to the bow, her + lips serious. Every man fell in love then with religion and Carol. + </p> + <p> + Throughout Senior year she anxiously related all her experiments and + partial successes to a career. Daily, on the library steps or in the hall + of the Main Building, the co-eds talked of “What shall we do when we + finish college?” Even the girls who knew that they were going to be + married pretended to be considering important business positions; even + they who knew that they would have to work hinted about fabulous suitors. + As for Carol, she was an orphan; her only near relative was a + vanilla-flavored sister married to an optician in St. Paul. She had used + most of the money from her father's estate. She was not in love—that + is, not often, nor ever long at a time. She would earn her living. + </p> + <p> + But how she was to earn it, how she was to conquer the world—almost + entirely for the world's own good—she did not see. Most of the girls + who were not betrothed meant to be teachers. Of these there were two + sorts: careless young women who admitted that they intended to leave the + “beastly classroom and grubby children” the minute they had a chance to + marry; and studious, sometimes bulbous-browed and pop-eyed maidens who at + class prayer-meetings requested God to “guide their feet along the paths + of greatest usefulness.” Neither sort tempted Carol. The former seemed + insincere (a favorite word of hers at this era). The earnest virgins were, + she fancied, as likely to do harm as to do good by their faith in the + value of parsing Caesar. + </p> + <p> + At various times during Senior year Carol finally decided upon studying + law, writing motion-picture scenarios, professional nursing, and marrying + an unidentified hero. + </p> + <p> + Then she found a hobby in sociology. + </p> + <p> + The sociology instructor was new. He was married, and therefore taboo, but + he had come from Boston, he had lived among poets and socialists and Jews + and millionaire uplifters at the University Settlement in New York, and he + had a beautiful white strong neck. He led a giggling class through the + prisons, the charity bureaus, the employment agencies of Minneapolis and + St. Paul. Trailing at the end of the line Carol was indignant at the + prodding curiosity of the others, their manner of staring at the poor as + at a Zoo. She felt herself a great liberator. She put her hand to her + mouth, her forefinger and thumb quite painfully pinching her lower lip, + and frowned, and enjoyed being aloof. + </p> + <p> + A classmate named Stewart Snyder, a competent bulky young man in a gray + flannel shirt, a rusty black bow tie, and the green-and-purple class cap, + grumbled to her as they walked behind the others in the muck of the South + St. Paul stockyards, “These college chumps make me tired. They're so + top-lofty. They ought to of worked on the farm, the way I have. These + workmen put it all over them.” + </p> + <p> + “I just love common workmen,” glowed Carol. + </p> + <p> + “Only you don't want to forget that common workmen don't think they're + common!” + </p> + <p> + “You're right! I apologize!” Carol's brows lifted in the astonishment of + emotion, in a glory of abasement. Her eyes mothered the world. Stewart + Snyder peered at her. He rammed his large red fists into his pockets, he + jerked them out, he resolutely got rid of them by clenching his hands + behind him, and he stammered: + </p> + <p> + “I know. You <i>get</i> people. Most of these darn co-eds——Say, + Carol, you could do a lot for people.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh—oh well—you know—sympathy and everything—if + you were—say you were a lawyer's wife. You'd understand his clients. + I'm going to be a lawyer. I admit I fall down in sympathy sometimes. I get + so dog-gone impatient with people that can't stand the gaff. You'd be good + for a fellow that was too serious. Make him more—more—YOU know—sympathetic!” + </p> + <p> + His slightly pouting lips, his mastiff eyes, were begging her to beg him + to go on. She fled from the steam-roller of his sentiment. She cried, “Oh, + see those poor sheep—millions and millions of them.” She darted on. + </p> + <p> + Stewart was not interesting. He hadn't a shapely white neck, and he had + never lived among celebrated reformers. She wanted, just now, to have a + cell in a settlement-house, like a nun without the bother of a black robe, + and be kind, and read Bernard Shaw, and enormously improve a horde of + grateful poor. + </p> + <p> + The supplementary reading in sociology led her to a book on + village-improvement—tree-planting, town pageants, girls' clubs. It + had pictures of greens and garden-walls in France, New England, + Pennsylvania. She had picked it up carelessly, with a slight yawn which + she patted down with her finger-tips as delicately as a cat. + </p> + <p> + She dipped into the book, lounging on her window-seat, with her slim, + lisle-stockinged legs crossed, and her knees up under her chin. She + stroked a satin pillow while she read. About her was the clothy exuberance + of a Blodgett College room: cretonne-covered window-seat, photographs of + girls, a carbon print of the Coliseum, a chafing-dish, and a dozen pillows + embroidered or beaded or pyrographed. Shockingly out of place was a + miniature of the Dancing Bacchante. It was the only trace of Carol in the + room. She had inherited the rest from generations of girl students. + </p> + <p> + It was as a part of all this commonplaceness that she regarded the + treatise on village-improvement. But she suddenly stopped fidgeting. She + strode into the book. She had fled half-way through it before the three + o'clock bell called her to the class in English history. + </p> + <p> + She sighed, “That's what I'll do after college! I'll get my hands on one + of these prairie towns and make it beautiful. Be an inspiration. I suppose + I'd better become a teacher then, but—I won't be that kind of a + teacher. I won't drone. Why should they have all the garden suburbs on + Long Island? Nobody has done anything with the ugly towns here in the + Northwest except hold revivals and build libraries to contain the Elsie + books. I'll make 'em put in a village green, and darling cottages, and a + quaint Main Street!” + </p> + <p> + Thus she triumphed through the class, which was a typical Blodgett contest + between a dreary teacher and unwilling children of twenty, won by the + teacher because his opponents had to answer his questions, while their + treacherous queries he could counter by demanding, “Have you looked that + up in the library? Well then, suppose you do!” + </p> + <p> + The history instructor was a retired minister. He was sarcastic today. He + begged of sporting young Mr. Charley Holmberg, “Now Charles, would it + interrupt your undoubtedly fascinating pursuit of that malevolent fly if I + were to ask you to tell us that you do not know anything about King John?” + He spent three delightful minutes in assuring himself of the fact that no + one exactly remembered the date of Magna Charta. + </p> + <p> + Carol did not hear him. She was completing the roof of a half-timbered + town hall. She had found one man in the prairie village who did not + appreciate her picture of winding streets and arcades, but she had + assembled the town council and dramatically defeated him. + </p> + <p> + III + </p> + <p> + Though she was Minnesota-born Carol was not an intimate of the prairie + villages. Her father, the smiling and shabby, the learned and teasingly + kind, had come from Massachusetts, and through all her childhood he had + been a judge in Mankato, which is not a prairie town, but in its + garden-sheltered streets and aisles of elms is white and green New England + reborn. Mankato lies between cliffs and the Minnesota River, hard by + Traverse des Sioux, where the first settlers made treaties with the + Indians, and the cattle-rustlers once came galloping before + hell-for-leather posses. + </p> + <p> + As she climbed along the banks of the dark river Carol listened to its + fables about the wide land of yellow waters and bleached buffalo bones to + the West; the Southern levees and singing darkies and palm trees toward + which it was forever mysteriously gliding; and she heard again the + startled bells and thick puffing of high-stacked river steamers wrecked on + sand-reefs sixty years ago. Along the decks she saw missionaries, gamblers + in tall pot hats, and Dakota chiefs with scarlet blankets. . . . Far off + whistles at night, round the river bend, plunking paddles reechoed by the + pines, and a glow on black sliding waters. + </p> + <p> + Carol's family were self-sufficient in their inventive life, with + Christmas a rite full of surprises and tenderness, and “dressing-up + parties” spontaneous and joyously absurd. The beasts in the Milford + hearth-mythology were not the obscene Night Animals who jump out of + closets and eat little girls, but beneficent and bright-eyed creatures—the + tam htab, who is woolly and blue and lives in the bathroom, and runs + rapidly to warm small feet; the ferruginous oil stove, who purrs and knows + stories; and the skitamarigg, who will play with children before breakfast + if they spring out of bed and close the window at the very first line of + the song about puellas which father sings while shaving. + </p> + <p> + Judge Milford's pedagogical scheme was to let the children read whatever + they pleased, and in his brown library Carol absorbed Balzac and Rabelais + and Thoreau and Max Muller. He gravely taught them the letters on the + backs of the encyclopedias, and when polite visitors asked about the + mental progress of the “little ones,” they were horrified to hear the + children earnestly repeating A-And, And-Aus, Aus-Bis, Bis-Cal, Cal-Cha. + </p> + <p> + Carol's mother died when she was nine. Her father retired from the + judiciary when she was eleven, and took the family to Minneapolis. There + he died, two years after. Her sister, a busy proper advisory soul, older + than herself, had become a stranger to her even when they lived in the + same house. + </p> + <p> + From those early brown and silver days and from her independence of + relatives Carol retained a willingness to be different from brisk + efficient book-ignoring people; an instinct to observe and wonder at their + bustle even when she was taking part in it. But, she felt approvingly, as + she discovered her career of town-planning, she was now roused to being + brisk and efficient herself. + </p> + <p> + IV + </p> + <p> + In a month Carol's ambition had clouded. Her hesitancy about becoming a + teacher had returned. She was not, she worried, strong enough to endure + the routine, and she could not picture herself standing before grinning + children and pretending to be wise and decisive. But the desire for the + creation of a beautiful town remained. When she encountered an item about + small-town women's clubs or a photograph of a straggling Main Street, she + was homesick for it, she felt robbed of her work. + </p> + <p> + It was the advice of the professor of English which led her to study + professional library-work in a Chicago school. Her imagination carved and + colored the new plan. She saw herself persuading children to read charming + fairy tales, helping young men to find books on mechanics, being ever so + courteous to old men who were hunting for newspapers—the light of + the library, an authority on books, invited to dinners with poets and + explorers, reading a paper to an association of distinguished scholars. + </p> + <p> + V + </p> + <p> + The last faculty reception before commencement. In five days they would be + in the cyclone of final examinations. + </p> + <p> + The house of the president had been massed with palms suggestive of polite + undertaking parlors, and in the library, a ten-foot room with a globe and + the portraits of Whittier and Martha Washington, the student orchestra was + playing “Carmen” and “Madame Butterfly.” Carol was dizzy with music and + the emotions of parting. She saw the palms as a jungle, the pink-shaded + electric globes as an opaline haze, and the eye-glassed faculty as + Olympians. She was melancholy at sight of the mousey girls with whom she + had “always intended to get acquainted,” and the half dozen young men who + were ready to fall in love with her. + </p> + <p> + But it was Stewart Snyder whom she encouraged. He was so much manlier than + the others; he was an even warm brown, like his new ready-made suit with + its padded shoulders. She sat with him, and with two cups of coffee and a + chicken patty, upon a pile of presidential overshoes in the coat-closet + under the stairs, and as the thin music seeped in, Stewart whispered: + </p> + <p> + “I can't stand it, this breaking up after four years! The happiest years + of life.” + </p> + <p> + She believed it. “Oh, I know! To think that in just a few days we'll be + parting, and we'll never see some of the bunch again!” + </p> + <p> + “Carol, you got to listen to me! You always duck when I try to talk + seriously to you, but you got to listen to me. I'm going to be a big + lawyer, maybe a judge, and I need you, and I'd protect you——” + </p> + <p> + His arm slid behind her shoulders. The insinuating music drained her + independence. She said mournfully, “Would you take care of me?” She + touched his hand. It was warm, solid. + </p> + <p> + “You bet I would! We'd have, Lord, we'd have bully times in Yankton, where + I'm going to settle——” + </p> + <p> + “But I want to do something with life.” + </p> + <p> + “What's better than making a comfy home and bringing up some cute kids and + knowing nice homey people?” + </p> + <p> + It was the immemorial male reply to the restless woman. Thus to the young + Sappho spake the melon-venders; thus the captains to Zenobia; and in the + damp cave over gnawed bones the hairy suitor thus protested to the woman + advocate of matriarchy. In the dialect of Blodgett College but with the + voice of Sappho was Carol's answer: + </p> + <p> + “Of course. I know. I suppose that's so. Honestly, I do love children. But + there's lots of women that can do housework, but I—well, if you HAVE + got a college education, you ought to use it for the world.” + </p> + <p> + “I know, but you can use it just as well in the home. And gee, Carol, just + think of a bunch of us going out on an auto picnic, some nice spring + evening.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “And sleigh-riding in winter, and going fishing——” + </p> + <p> + Blarrrrrrr! The orchestra had crashed into the “Soldiers' Chorus”; and she + was protesting, “No! No! You're a dear, but I want to do things. I don't + understand myself but I want—everything in the world! Maybe I can't + sing or write, but I know I can be an influence in library work. Just + suppose I encouraged some boy and he became a great artist! I will! I will + do it! Stewart dear, I can't settle down to nothing but dish-washing!” + </p> + <p> + Two minutes later—two hectic minutes—they were disturbed by an + embarrassed couple also seeking the idyllic seclusion of the + overshoe-closet. + </p> + <p> + After graduation she never saw Stewart Snyder again. She wrote to him once + a week—for one month. + </p> + <p> + VI + </p> + <p> + A year Carol spent in Chicago. Her study of library-cataloguing, + recording, books of reference, was easy and not too somniferous. She + reveled in the Art Institute, in symphonies and violin recitals and + chamber music, in the theater and classic dancing. She almost gave up + library work to become one of the young women who dance in cheese-cloth in + the moonlight. She was taken to a certified Studio Party, with beer, + cigarettes, bobbed hair, and a Russian Jewess who sang the Internationale. + It cannot be reported that Carol had anything significant to say to the + Bohemians. She was awkward with them, and felt ignorant, and she was + shocked by the free manners which she had for years desired. But she heard + and remembered discussions of Freud, Romain Rolland, syndicalism, the + Confederation Generale du Travail, feminism vs. haremism, Chinese lyrics, + nationalization of mines, Christian Science, and fishing in Ontario. + </p> + <p> + She went home, and that was the beginning and end of her Bohemian life. + </p> + <p> + The second cousin of Carol's sister's husband lived in Winnetka, and once + invited her out to Sunday dinner. She walked back through Wilmette and + Evanston, discovered new forms of suburban architecture, and remembered + her desire to recreate villages. She decided that she would give up + library work and, by a miracle whose nature was not very clearly revealed + to her, turn a prairie town into Georgian houses and Japanese bungalows. + </p> + <p> + The next day in library class she had to read a theme on the use of the + Cumulative Index, and she was taken so seriously in the discussion that + she put off her career of town-planning—and in the autumn she was in + the public library of St. Paul. + </p> + <p> + VII + </p> + <p> + Carol was not unhappy and she was not exhilarated, in the St. Paul + Library. She slowly confessed that she was not visibly affecting lives. + She did, at first, put into her contact with the patrons a willingness + which should have moved worlds. But so few of these stolid worlds wanted + to be moved. When she was in charge of the magazine room the readers did + not ask for suggestions about elevated essays. They grunted, “Wanta find + the Leather Goods Gazette for last February.” When she was giving out + books the principal query was, “Can you tell me of a good, light, exciting + love story to read? My husband's going away for a week.” + </p> + <p> + She was fond of the other librarians; proud of their aspirations. And by + the chance of propinquity she read scores of books unnatural to her gay + white littleness: volumes of anthropology with ditches of foot-notes + filled with heaps of small dusty type, Parisian imagistes, Hindu recipes + for curry, voyages to the Solomon Isles, theosophy with modern American + improvements, treatises upon success in the real-estate business. She took + walks, and was sensible about shoes and diet. And never did she feel that + she was living. + </p> + <p> + She went to dances and suppers at the houses of college acquaintances. + Sometimes she one-stepped demurely; sometimes, in dread of life's slipping + past, she turned into a bacchanal, her tender eyes excited, her throat + tense, as she slid down the room. + </p> + <p> + During her three years of library work several men showed diligent + interest in her—the treasurer of a fur-manufacturing firm, a + teacher, a newspaper reporter, and a petty railroad official. None of them + made her more than pause in thought. For months no male emerged from the + mass. Then, at the Marburys', she met Dr. Will Kennicott. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER II + </h2> + <p> + IT was a frail and blue and lonely Carol who trotted to the flat of the + Johnson Marburys for Sunday evening supper. Mrs. Marbury was a neighbor + and friend of Carol's sister; Mr. Marbury a traveling representative of an + insurance company. They made a specialty of sandwich-salad-coffee lap + suppers, and they regarded Carol as their literary and artistic + representative. She was the one who could be depended upon to appreciate + the Caruso phonograph record, and the Chinese lantern which Mr. Marbury + had brought back as his present from San Francisco. Carol found the + Marburys admiring and therefore admirable. + </p> + <p> + This September Sunday evening she wore a net frock with a pale pink + lining. A nap had soothed away the faint lines of tiredness beside her + eyes. She was young, naive, stimulated by the coolness. She flung her coat + at the chair in the hall of the flat, and exploded into the green-plush + living-room. The familiar group were trying to be conversational. She saw + Mr. Marbury, a woman teacher of gymnastics in a high school, a chief clerk + from the Great Northern Railway offices, a young lawyer. But there was + also a stranger, a thick tall man of thirty-six or -seven, with stolid + brown hair, lips used to giving orders, eyes which followed everything + good-naturedly, and clothes which you could never quite remember. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Marbury boomed, “Carol, come over here and meet Doc Kennicott—Dr. + Will Kennicott of Gopher Prairie. He does all our insurance-examining up + in that neck of the woods, and they do say he's some doctor!” + </p> + <p> + As she edged toward the stranger and murmured nothing in particular, Carol + remembered that Gopher Prairie was a Minnesota wheat-prairie town of + something over three thousand people. + </p> + <p> + “Pleased to meet you,” stated Dr. Kennicott. His hand was strong; the palm + soft, but the back weathered, showing golden hairs against firm red skin. + </p> + <p> + He looked at her as though she was an agreeable discovery. She tugged her + hand free and fluttered, “I must go out to the kitchen and help Mrs. + Marbury.” She did not speak to him again till, after she had heated the + rolls and passed the paper napkins, Mr. Marbury captured her with a loud, + “Oh, quit fussing now. Come over here and sit down and tell us how's + tricks.” He herded her to a sofa with Dr. Kennicott, who was rather vague + about the eyes, rather drooping of bulky shoulder, as though he was + wondering what he was expected to do next. As their host left them, + Kennicott awoke: + </p> + <p> + “Marbury tells me you're a high mogul in the public library. I was + surprised. Didn't hardly think you were old enough. I thought you were a + girl, still in college maybe.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I'm dreadfully old. I expect to take to a lip-stick, and to find a + gray hair any morning now.” + </p> + <p> + “Huh! You must be frightfully old—prob'ly too old to be my + granddaughter, I guess!” + </p> + <p> + Thus in the Vale of Arcady nymph and satyr beguiled the hours; precisely + thus, and not in honeyed pentameters, discoursed Elaine and the worn Sir + Launcelot in the pleached alley. + </p> + <p> + “How do you like your work?” asked the doctor. + </p> + <p> + “It's pleasant, but sometimes I feel shut off from things—the steel + stacks, and the everlasting cards smeared all over with red rubber + stamps.” + </p> + <p> + “Don't you get sick of the city?” + </p> + <p> + “St. Paul? Why, don't you like it? I don't know of any lovelier view than + when you stand on Summit Avenue and look across Lower Town to the + Mississippi cliffs and the upland farms beyond.” + </p> + <p> + “I know but——Of course I've spent nine years around the Twin + Cities—took my B.A. and M.D. over at the U., and had my internship + in a hospital in Minneapolis, but still, oh well, you don't get to know + folks here, way you do up home. I feel I've got something to say about + running Gopher Prairie, but you take it in a big city of two-three hundred + thousand, and I'm just one flea on the dog's back. And then I like country + driving, and the hunting in the fall. Do you know Gopher Prairie at all?” + </p> + <p> + “No, but I hear it's a very nice town.” + </p> + <p> + “Nice? Say honestly——Of course I may be prejudiced, but I've + seen an awful lot of towns—one time I went to Atlantic City for the + American Medical Association meeting, and I spent practically a week in + New York! But I never saw a town that had such up-and-coming people as + Gopher Prairie. Bresnahan—you know—the famous auto + manufacturer—he comes from Gopher Prairie. Born and brought up + there! And it's a darn pretty town. Lots of fine maples and box-elders, + and there's two of the dandiest lakes you ever saw, right near town! And + we've got seven miles of cement walks already, and building more every + day! Course a lot of these towns still put up with plank walks, but not + for us, you bet!” + </p> + <p> + “Really?” + </p> + <p> + (Why was she thinking of Stewart Snyder?) + </p> + <p> + “Gopher Prairie is going to have a great future. Some of the best dairy + and wheat land in the state right near there—some of it selling + right now at one-fifty an acre, and I bet it will go up to two and a + quarter in ten years!” + </p> + <p> + “Is——Do you like your profession?” + </p> + <p> + “Nothing like it. Keeps you out, and yet you have a chance to loaf in the + office for a change.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't mean that way. I mean—it's such an opportunity for + sympathy.” + </p> + <p> + Dr. Kennicott launched into a heavy, “Oh, these Dutch farmers don't want + sympathy. All they need is a bath and a good dose of salts.” + </p> + <p> + Carol must have flinched, for instantly he was urging, “What I mean is—I + don't want you to think I'm one of these old salts-and-quinine peddlers, + but I mean: so many of my patients are husky farmers that I suppose I get + kind of case-hardened.” + </p> + <p> + “It seems to me that a doctor could transform a whole community, if he + wanted to—if he saw it. He's usually the only man in the + neighborhood who has any scientific training, isn't he?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, that's so, but I guess most of us get rusty. We land in a rut of + obstetrics and typhoid and busted legs. What we need is women like you to + jump on us. It'd be you that would transform the town.” + </p> + <p> + “No, I couldn't. Too flighty. I did used to think about doing just that, + curiously enough, but I seem to have drifted away from the idea. Oh, I'm a + fine one to be lecturing you!” + </p> + <p> + “No! You're just the one. You have ideas without having lost feminine + charm. Say! Don't you think there's a lot of these women that go out for + all these movements and so on that sacrifice——” + </p> + <p> + After his remarks upon suffrage he abruptly questioned her about herself. + His kindliness and the firmness of his personality enveloped her and she + accepted him as one who had a right to know what she thought and wore and + ate and read. He was positive. He had grown from a sketched-in stranger to + a friend, whose gossip was important news. She noticed the healthy + solidity of his chest. His nose, which had seemed irregular and large, was + suddenly virile. + </p> + <p> + She was jarred out of this serious sweetness when Marbury bounced over to + them and with horrible publicity yammered, “Say, what do you two think + you're doing? Telling fortunes or making love? Let me warn you that the + doc is a frisky bacheldore, Carol. Come on now, folks, shake a leg. Let's + have some stunts or a dance or something.” + </p> + <p> + She did not have another word with Dr. Kennicott until their parting: + </p> + <p> + “Been a great pleasure to meet you, Miss Milford. May I see you some time + when I come down again? I'm here quite often—taking patients to + hospitals for majors, and so on.” + </p> + <p> + “Why——” + </p> + <p> + “What's your address?” + </p> + <p> + “You can ask Mr. Marbury next time you come down—if you really want + to know!” + </p> + <p> + “Want to know? Say, you wait!” + </p> + <p> + II + </p> + <p> + Of the love-making of Carol and Will Kennicott there is nothing to be told + which may not be heard on every summer evening, on every shadowy block. + </p> + <p> + They were biology and mystery; their speech was slang phrases and flares + of poetry; their silences were contentment, or shaky crises when his arm + took her shoulder. All the beauty of youth, first discovered when it is + passing—and all the commonplaceness of a well-to-do unmarried man + encountering a pretty girl at the time when she is slightly weary of her + employment and sees no glory ahead nor any man she is glad to serve. + </p> + <p> + They liked each other honestly—they were both honest. She was + disappointed by his devotion to making money, but she was sure that he did + not lie to patients, and that he did keep up with the medical magazines. + What aroused her to something more than liking was his boyishness when + they went tramping. + </p> + <p> + They walked from St. Paul down the river to Mendota, Kennicott more + elastic-seeming in a cap and a soft crepe shirt, Carol youthful in a + tam-o'-shanter of mole velvet, a blue serge suit with an absurdly and + agreeably broad turn-down linen collar, and frivolous ankles above + athletic shoes. The High Bridge crosses the Mississippi, mounting from low + banks to a palisade of cliffs. Far down beneath it on the St. Paul side, + upon mud flats, is a wild settlement of chicken-infested gardens and + shanties patched together from discarded sign-boards, sheets of corrugated + iron, and planks fished out of the river. Carol leaned over the rail of + the bridge to look down at this Yang-tse village; in delicious imaginary + fear she shrieked that she was dizzy with the height; and it was an + extremely human satisfaction to have a strong male snatch her back to + safety, instead of having a logical woman teacher or librarian sniff, + “Well, if you're scared, why don't you get away from the rail, then?” + </p> + <p> + From the cliffs across the river Carol and Kennicott looked back at St. + Paul on its hills; an imperial sweep from the dome of the cathedral to the + dome of the state capitol. + </p> + <p> + The river road led past rocky field slopes, deep glens, woods flamboyant + now with September, to Mendota, white walls and a spire among trees + beneath a hill, old-world in its placid ease. And for this fresh land, the + place is ancient. Here is the bold stone house which General Sibley, the + king of fur-traders, built in 1835, with plaster of river mud, and ropes + of twisted grass for laths. It has an air of centuries. In its solid rooms + Carol and Kennicott found prints from other days which the house had seen—tail-coats + of robin's-egg blue, clumsy Red River carts laden with luxurious furs, + whiskered Union soldiers in slant forage caps and rattling sabers. + </p> + <p> + It suggested to them a common American past, and it was memorable because + they had discovered it together. They talked more trustingly, more + personally, as they trudged on. They crossed the Minnesota River in a + rowboat ferry. They climbed the hill to the round stone tower of Fort + Snelling. They saw the junction of the Mississippi and the Minnesota, and + recalled the men who had come here eighty years ago—Maine lumbermen, + York traders, soldiers from the Maryland hills. + </p> + <p> + “It's a good country, and I'm proud of it. Let's make it all that those + old boys dreamed about,” the unsentimental Kennicott was moved to vow. + </p> + <p> + “Let's!” + </p> + <p> + “Come on. Come to Gopher Prairie. Show us. Make the town—well—make + it artistic. It's mighty pretty, but I'll admit we aren't any too darn + artistic. Probably the lumber-yard isn't as scrumptious as all these Greek + temples. But go to it! Make us change!” + </p> + <p> + “I would like to. Some day!” + </p> + <p> + “Now! You'd love Gopher Prairie. We've been doing a lot with lawns and + gardening the past few years, and it's so homey—the big trees and——And + the best people on earth. And keen. I bet Luke Dawson——” + </p> + <p> + Carol but half listened to the names. She could not fancy their ever + becoming important to her. + </p> + <p> + “I bet Luke Dawson has got more money than most of the swells on Summit + Avenue; and Miss Sherwin in the high school is a regular wonder—reads + Latin like I do English; and Sam Clark, the hardware man, he's a corker—not + a better man in the state to go hunting with; and if you want culture, + besides Vida Sherwin there's Reverend Warren, the Congregational preacher, + and Professor Mott, the superintendent of schools, and Guy Pollock, the + lawyer—they say he writes regular poetry and—and Raymie + Wutherspoon, he's not such an awful boob when you get to KNOW him, and he + sings swell. And——And there's plenty of others. Lym Cass. Only + of course none of them have your finesse, you might call it. But they + don't make 'em any more appreciative and so on. Come on! We're ready for + you to boss us!” + </p> + <p> + They sat on the bank below the parapet of the old fort, hidden from + observation. He circled her shoulder with his arm. Relaxed after the walk, + a chill nipping her throat, conscious of his warmth and power, she leaned + gratefully against him. + </p> + <p> + “You know I'm in love with you, Carol!” + </p> + <p> + She did not answer, but she touched the back of his hand with an exploring + finger. + </p> + <p> + “You say I'm so darn materialistic. How can I help it, unless I have you + to stir me up?” + </p> + <p> + She did not answer. She could not think. + </p> + <p> + “You say a doctor could cure a town the way he does a person. Well, you + cure the town of whatever ails it, if anything does, and I'll be your + surgical kit.” + </p> + <p> + She did not follow his words, only the burring resoluteness of them. + </p> + <p> + She was shocked, thrilled, as he kissed her cheek and cried, “There's no + use saying things and saying things and saying things. Don't my arms talk + to you—now?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, please, please!” She wondered if she ought to be angry, but it was a + drifting thought, and she discovered that she was crying. + </p> + <p> + Then they were sitting six inches apart, pretending that they had never + been nearer, while she tried to be impersonal: + </p> + <p> + “I would like to—would like to see Gopher Prairie.” + </p> + <p> + “Trust me! Here she is! Brought some snapshots down to show you.” + </p> + <p> + Her cheek near his sleeve, she studied a dozen village pictures. They were + streaky; she saw only trees, shrubbery, a porch indistinct in leafy + shadows. But she exclaimed over the lakes: dark water reflecting wooded + bluffs, a flight of ducks, a fisherman in shirt sleeves and a wide straw + hat, holding up a string of croppies. One winter picture of the edge of + Plover Lake had the air of an etching: lustrous slide of ice, snow in the + crevices of a boggy bank, the mound of a muskrat house, reeds in thin + black lines, arches of frosty grasses. It was an impression of cool clear + vigor. + </p> + <p> + “How'd it be to skate there for a couple of hours, or go zinging along on + a fast ice-boat, and skip back home for coffee and some hot wienies?” he + demanded. + </p> + <p> + “It might be—fun.” + </p> + <p> + “But here's the picture. Here's where you come in.” + </p> + <p> + A photograph of a forest clearing: pathetic new furrows straggling among + stumps, a clumsy log cabin chinked with mud and roofed with hay. In front + of it a sagging woman with tight-drawn hair, and a baby bedraggled, + smeary, glorious-eyed. + </p> + <p> + “Those are the kind of folks I practise among, good share of the time. + Nels Erdstrom, fine clean young Svenska. He'll have a corking farm in ten + years, but now——I operated his wife on a kitchen table, with + my driver giving the anesthetic. Look at that scared baby! Needs some + woman with hands like yours. Waiting for you! Just look at that baby's + eyes, look how he's begging——” + </p> + <p> + “Don't! They hurt me. Oh, it would be sweet to help him—so sweet.” + </p> + <p> + As his arms moved toward her she answered all her doubts with “Sweet, so + sweet.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER III + </h2> + <p> + UNDER the rolling clouds of the prairie a moving mass of steel. An + irritable clank and rattle beneath a prolonged roar. The sharp scent of + oranges cutting the soggy smell of unbathed people and ancient baggage. + </p> + <p> + Towns as planless as a scattering of pasteboard boxes on an attic floor. + The stretch of faded gold stubble broken only by clumps of willows + encircling white houses and red barns. + </p> + <p> + No. 7, the way train, grumbling through Minnesota, imperceptibly climbing + the giant tableland that slopes in a thousand-mile rise from hot + Mississippi bottoms to the Rockies. + </p> + <p> + It is September, hot, very dusty. + </p> + <p> + There is no smug Pullman attached to the train, and the day coaches of the + East are replaced by free chair cars, with each seat cut into two + adjustable plush chairs, the head-rests covered with doubtful linen + towels. Halfway down the car is a semi-partition of carved oak columns, + but the aisle is of bare, splintery, grease-blackened wood. There is no + porter, no pillows, no provision for beds, but all today and all tonight + they will ride in this long steel box-farmers with perpetually tired wives + and children who seem all to be of the same age; workmen going to new + jobs; traveling salesmen with derbies and freshly shined shoes. + </p> + <p> + They are parched and cramped, the lines of their hands filled with grime; + they go to sleep curled in distorted attitudes, heads against the + window-panes or propped on rolled coats on seat-arms, and legs thrust into + the aisle. They do not read; apparently they do not think. They wait. An + early-wrinkled, young-old mother, moving as though her joints were dry, + opens a suit-case in which are seen creased blouses, a pair of slippers + worn through at the toes, a bottle of patent medicine, a tin cup, a + paper-covered book about dreams which the news-butcher has coaxed her into + buying. She brings out a graham cracker which she feeds to a baby lying + flat on a seat and wailing hopelessly. Most of the crumbs drop on the red + plush of the seat, and the woman sighs and tries to brush them away, but + they leap up impishly and fall back on the plush. + </p> + <p> + A soiled man and woman munch sandwiches and throw the crusts on the floor. + A large brick-colored Norwegian takes off his shoes, grunts in relief, and + props his feet in their thick gray socks against the seat in front of him. + </p> + <p> + An old woman whose toothless mouth shuts like a mud-turtle's, and whose + hair is not so much white as yellow like moldy linen, with bands of pink + skull apparent between the tresses, anxiously lifts her bag, opens it, + peers in, closes it, puts it under the seat, and hastily picks it up and + opens it and hides it all over again. The bag is full of treasures and of + memories: a leather buckle, an ancient band-concert program, scraps of + ribbon, lace, satin. In the aisle beside her is an extremely indignant + parrakeet in a cage. + </p> + <p> + Two facing seats, overflowing with a Slovene iron-miner's family, are + littered with shoes, dolls, whisky bottles, bundles wrapped in newspapers, + a sewing bag. The oldest boy takes a mouth-organ out of his coat pocket, + wipes the tobacco crumbs off, and plays “Marching through Georgia” till + every head in the car begins to ache. + </p> + <p> + The news-butcher comes through selling chocolate bars and lemon drops. A + girl-child ceaselessly trots down to the water-cooler and back to her + seat. The stiff paper envelope which she uses for cup drips in the aisle + as she goes, and on each trip she stumbles over the feet of a carpenter, + who grunts, “Ouch! Look out!” + </p> + <p> + The dust-caked doors are open, and from the smoking-car drifts back a + visible blue line of stinging tobacco smoke, and with it a crackle of + laughter over the story which the young man in the bright blue suit and + lavender tie and light yellow shoes has just told to the squat man in + garage overalls. + </p> + <p> + The smell grows constantly thicker, more stale. + </p> + <p> + II + </p> + <p> + To each of the passengers his seat was his temporary home, and most of the + passengers were slatternly housekeepers. But one seat looked clean and + deceptively cool. In it were an obviously prosperous man and a + black-haired, fine-skinned girl whose pumps rested on an immaculate + horsehide bag. + </p> + <p> + They were Dr. Will Kennicott and his bride, Carol. + </p> + <p> + They had been married at the end of a year of conversational courtship, + and they were on their way to Gopher Prairie after a wedding journey in + the Colorado mountains. + </p> + <p> + The hordes of the way-train were not altogether new to Carol. She had seen + them on trips from St. Paul to Chicago. But now that they had become her + own people, to bathe and encourage and adorn, she had an acute and + uncomfortable interest in them. They distressed her. They were so stolid. + She had always maintained that there is no American peasantry, and she + sought now to defend her faith by seeing imagination and enterprise in the + young Swedish farmers, and in a traveling man working over his + order-blanks. But the older people, Yankees as well as Norwegians, + Germans, Finns, Canucks, had settled into submission to poverty. They were + peasants, she groaned. + </p> + <p> + “Isn't there any way of waking them up? What would happen if they + understood scientific agriculture?” she begged of Kennicott, her hand + groping for his. + </p> + <p> + It had been a transforming honeymoon. She had been frightened to discover + how tumultuous a feeling could be roused in her. Will had been lordly—stalwart, + jolly, impressively competent in making camp, tender and understanding + through the hours when they had lain side by side in a tent pitched among + pines high up on a lonely mountain spur. + </p> + <p> + His hand swallowed hers as he started from thoughts of the practise to + which he was returning. “These people? Wake 'em up? What for? They're + happy.” + </p> + <p> + “But they're so provincial. No, that isn't what I mean. They're—oh, + so sunk in the mud.” + </p> + <p> + “Look here, Carrie. You want to get over your city idea that because a + man's pants aren't pressed, he's a fool. These farmers are mighty keen and + up-and-coming.” + </p> + <p> + “I know! That's what hurts. Life seems so hard for them—these lonely + farms and this gritty train.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, they don't mind it. Besides, things are changing. The auto, the + telephone, rural free delivery; they're bringing the farmers in closer + touch with the town. Takes time, you know, to change a wilderness like + this was fifty years ago. But already, why, they can hop into the Ford or + the Overland and get in to the movies on Saturday evening quicker than you + could get down to 'em by trolley in St. Paul.” + </p> + <p> + “But if it's these towns we've been passing that the farmers run to for + relief from their bleakness——Can't you understand? Just LOOK + at them!” + </p> + <p> + Kennicott was amazed. Ever since childhood he had seen these towns from + trains on this same line. He grumbled, “Why, what's the matter with 'em? + Good hustling burgs. It would astonish you to know how much wheat and rye + and corn and potatoes they ship in a year.” + </p> + <p> + “But they're so ugly.” + </p> + <p> + “I'll admit they aren't comfy like Gopher Prairie. But give 'em time.” + </p> + <p> + “What's the use of giving them time unless some one has desire and + training enough to plan them? Hundreds of factories trying to make + attractive motor cars, but these towns—left to chance. No! That + can't be true. It must have taken genius to make them so scrawny!” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, they're not so bad,” was all he answered. He pretended that his hand + was the cat and hers the mouse. For the first time she tolerated him + rather than encouraged him. She was staring out at Schoenstrom, a hamlet + of perhaps a hundred and fifty inhabitants, at which the train was + stopping. + </p> + <p> + A bearded German and his pucker-mouthed wife tugged their enormous + imitation-leather satchel from under a seat and waddled out. The station + agent hoisted a dead calf aboard the baggage-car. There were no other + visible activities in Schoenstrom. In the quiet of the halt, Carol could + hear a horse kicking his stall, a carpenter shingling a roof. + </p> + <p> + The business-center of Schoenstrom took up one side of one block, facing + the railroad. It was a row of one-story shops covered with galvanized + iron, or with clapboards painted red and bilious yellow. The buildings + were as ill-assorted, as temporary-looking, as a mining-camp street in the + motion-pictures. The railroad station was a one-room frame box, a mirey + cattle-pen on one side and a crimson wheat-elevator on the other. The + elevator, with its cupola on the ridge of a shingled roof, resembled a + broad-shouldered man with a small, vicious, pointed head. The only + habitable structures to be seen were the florid red-brick Catholic church + and rectory at the end of Main Street. + </p> + <p> + Carol picked at Kennicott's sleeve. “You wouldn't call this a not-so-bad + town, would you?” + </p> + <p> + “These Dutch burgs ARE kind of slow. Still, at that——See that + fellow coming out of the general store there, getting into the big car? I + met him once. He owns about half the town, besides the store. Rauskukle, + his name is. He owns a lot of mortgages, and he gambles in farm-lands. + Good nut on him, that fellow. Why, they say he's worth three or four + hundred thousand dollars! Got a dandy great big yellow brick house with + tiled walks and a garden and everything, other end of town—can't see + it from here—I've gone past it when I've driven through here. Yes + sir!” + </p> + <p> + “Then, if he has all that, there's no excuse whatever for this place! If + his three hundred thousand went back into the town, where it belongs, they + could burn up these shacks, and build a dream-village, a jewel! Why do the + farmers and the town-people let the Baron keep it?” + </p> + <p> + “I must say I don't quite get you sometimes, Carrie. Let him? They can't + help themselves! He's a dumm old Dutchman, and probably the priest can + twist him around his finger, but when it comes to picking good farming + land, he's a regular wiz!” + </p> + <p> + “I see. He's their symbol of beauty. The town erects him, instead of + erecting buildings.” + </p> + <p> + “Honestly, don't know what you're driving at. You're kind of played out, + after this long trip. You'll feel better when you get home and have a good + bath, and put on the blue negligee. That's some vampire costume, you + witch!” + </p> + <p> + He squeezed her arm, looked at her knowingly. + </p> + <p> + They moved on from the desert stillness of the Schoenstrom station. The + train creaked, banged, swayed. The air was nauseatingly thick. Kennicott + turned her face from the window, rested her head on his shoulder. She was + coaxed from her unhappy mood. But she came out of it unwillingly, and when + Kennicott was satisfied that he had corrected all her worries and had + opened a magazine of saffron detective stories, she sat upright. + </p> + <p> + Here—she meditated—is the newest empire of the world; the + Northern Middlewest; a land of dairy herds and exquisite lakes, of new + automobiles and tar-paper shanties and silos like red towers, of clumsy + speech and a hope that is boundless. An empire which feeds a quarter of + the world—yet its work is merely begun. They are pioneers, these + sweaty wayfarers, for all their telephones and bank-accounts and automatic + pianos and co-operative leagues. And for all its fat richness, theirs is a + pioneer land. What is its future? she wondered. A future of cities and + factory smut where now are loping empty fields? Homes universal and + secure? Or placid chateaux ringed with sullen huts? Youth free to find + knowledge and laughter? Willingness to sift the sanctified lies? Or + creamy-skinned fat women, smeared with grease and chalk, gorgeous in the + skins of beasts and the bloody feathers of slain birds, playing bridge + with puffy pink-nailed jeweled fingers, women who after much expenditure + of labor and bad temper still grotesquely resemble their own flatulent + lap-dogs? The ancient stale inequalities, or something different in + history, unlike the tedious maturity of other empires? What future and + what hope? + </p> + <p> + Carol's head ached with the riddle. + </p> + <p> + She saw the prairie, flat in giant patches or rolling in long hummocks. + The width and bigness of it, which had expanded her spirit an hour ago, + began to frighten her. It spread out so; it went on so uncontrollably; she + could never know it. Kennicott was closeted in his detective story. With + the loneliness which comes most depressingly in the midst of many people + she tried to forget problems, to look at the prairie objectively. + </p> + <p> + The grass beside the railroad had been burnt over; it was a smudge prickly + with charred stalks of weeds. Beyond the undeviating barbed-wire fences + were clumps of golden rod. Only this thin hedge shut them off from the + plains-shorn wheat-lands of autumn, a hundred acres to a field, prickly + and gray near-by but in the blurred distance like tawny velvet stretched + over dipping hillocks. The long rows of wheat-shocks marched like soldiers + in worn yellow tabards. The newly plowed fields were black banners fallen + on the distant slope. It was a martial immensity, vigorous, a little + harsh, unsoftened by kindly gardens. + </p> + <p> + The expanse was relieved by clumps of oaks with patches of short wild + grass; and every mile or two was a chain of cobalt slews, with the flicker + of blackbirds' wings across them. + </p> + <p> + All this working land was turned into exuberance by the light. The + sunshine was dizzy on open stubble; shadows from immense cumulus clouds + were forever sliding across low mounds; and the sky was wider and loftier + and more resolutely blue than the sky of cities . . . she declared. + </p> + <p> + “It's a glorious country; a land to be big in,” she crooned. + </p> + <p> + Then Kennicott startled her by chuckling, “D' you realize the town after + the next is Gopher Prairie? Home!” + </p> + <p> + III + </p> + <p> + That one word—home—it terrified her. Had she really bound + herself to live, inescapably, in this town called Gopher Prairie? And this + thick man beside her, who dared to define her future, he was a stranger! + She turned in her seat, stared at him. Who was he? Why was he sitting with + her? He wasn't of her kind! His neck was heavy; his speech was heavy; he + was twelve or thirteen years older than she; and about him was none of the + magic of shared adventures and eagerness. She could not believe that she + had ever slept in his arms. That was one of the dreams which you had but + did not officially admit. + </p> + <p> + She told herself how good he was, how dependable and understanding. She + touched his ear, smoothed the plane of his solid jaw, and, turning away + again, concentrated upon liking his town. It wouldn't be like these barren + settlements. It couldn't be! Why, it had three thousand population. That + was a great many people. There would be six hundred houses or more. And——The + lakes near it would be so lovely. She'd seen them in the photographs. They + had looked charming . . . hadn't they? + </p> + <p> + As the train left Wahkeenyan she began nervously to watch for the lakes—the + entrance to all her future life. But when she discovered them, to the left + of the track, her only impression of them was that they resembled the + photographs. + </p> + <p> + A mile from Gopher Prairie the track mounts a curving low ridge, and she + could see the town as a whole. With a passionate jerk she pushed up the + window, looked out, the arched fingers of her left hand trembling on the + sill, her right hand at her breast. + </p> + <p> + And she saw that Gopher Prairie was merely an enlargement of all the + hamlets which they had been passing. Only to the eyes of a Kennicott was + it exceptional. The huddled low wooden houses broke the plains scarcely + more than would a hazel thicket. The fields swept up to it, past it. It + was unprotected and unprotecting; there was no dignity in it nor any hope + of greatness. Only the tall red grain-elevator and a few tinny + church-steeples rose from the mass. It was a frontier camp. It was not a + place to live in, not possibly, not conceivably. + </p> + <p> + The people—they'd be as drab as their houses, as flat as their + fields. She couldn't stay here. She would have to wrench loose from this + man, and flee. + </p> + <p> + She peeped at him. She was at once helpless before his mature fixity, and + touched by his excitement as he sent his magazine skittering along the + aisle, stooped for their bags, came up with flushed face, and gloated, + “Here we are!” + </p> + <p> + She smiled loyally, and looked away. The train was entering town. The + houses on the outskirts were dusky old red mansions with wooden frills, or + gaunt frame shelters like grocery boxes, or new bungalows with concrete + foundations imitating stone. + </p> + <p> + Now the train was passing the elevator, the grim storage-tanks for oil, a + creamery, a lumber-yard, a stock-yard muddy and trampled and stinking. Now + they were stopping at a squat red frame station, the platform crowded with + unshaven farmers and with loafers—unadventurous people with dead + eyes. She was here. She could not go on. It was the end—the end of + the world. She sat with closed eyes, longing to push past Kennicott, hide + somewhere in the train, flee on toward the Pacific. + </p> + <p> + Something large arose in her soul and commanded, “Stop it! Stop being a + whining baby!” She stood up quickly; she said, “Isn't it wonderful to be + here at last!” + </p> + <p> + He trusted her so. She would make herself like the place. And she was + going to do tremendous things—— + </p> + <p> + She followed Kennicott and the bobbing ends of the two bags which he + carried. They were held back by the slow line of disembarking passengers. + She reminded herself that she was actually at the dramatic moment of the + bride's home-coming. She ought to feel exalted. She felt nothing at all + except irritation at their slow progress toward the door. + </p> + <p> + Kennicott stooped to peer through the windows. He shyly exulted: + </p> + <p> + “Look! Look! There's a bunch come down to welcome us! Sam Clark and the + missus and Dave Dyer and Jack Elder, and, yes sir, Harry Haydock and + Juanita, and a whole crowd! I guess they see us now. Yuh, yuh sure, they + see us! See 'em waving!” + </p> + <p> + She obediently bent her head to look out at them. She had hold of herself. + She was ready to love them. But she was embarrassed by the heartiness of + the cheering group. From the vestibule she waved to them, but she clung a + second to the sleeve of the brakeman who helped her down before she had + the courage to dive into the cataract of hand-shaking people, people whom + she could not tell apart. She had the impression that all the men had + coarse voices, large damp hands, tooth-brush mustaches, bald spots, and + Masonic watch-charms. + </p> + <p> + She knew that they were welcoming her. Their hands, their smiles, their + shouts, their affectionate eyes overcame her. She stammered, “Thank you, + oh, thank you!” + </p> + <p> + One of the men was clamoring at Kennicott, “I brought my machine down to + take you home, doc.” + </p> + <p> + “Fine business, Sam!” cried Kennicott; and, to Carol, “Let's jump in. That + big Paige over there. Some boat, too, believe me! Sam can show speed to + any of these Marmons from Minneapolis!” + </p> + <p> + Only when she was in the motor car did she distinguish the three people + who were to accompany them. The owner, now at the wheel, was the essence + of decent self-satisfaction; a baldish, largish, level-eyed man, rugged of + neck but sleek and round of face—face like the back of a spoon bowl. + He was chuckling at her, “Have you got us all straight yet?” + </p> + <p> + “Course she has! Trust Carrie to get things straight and get 'em darn + quick! I bet she could tell you every date in history!” boasted her + husband. + </p> + <p> + But the man looked at her reassuringly and with a certainty that he was a + person whom she could trust she confessed, “As a matter of fact I haven't + got anybody straight.” + </p> + <p> + “Course you haven't, child. Well, I'm Sam Clark, dealer in hardware, + sporting goods, cream separators, and almost any kind of heavy junk you + can think of. You can call me Sam—anyway, I'm going to call you + Carrie, seein' 's you've been and gone and married this poor fish of a bum + medic that we keep round here.” Carol smiled lavishly, and wished that she + called people by their given names more easily. “The fat cranky lady back + there beside you, who is pretending that she can't hear me giving her + away, is Mrs. Sam'l Clark; and this hungry-looking squirt up here beside + me is Dave Dyer, who keeps his drug store running by not filling your + hubby's prescriptions right—fact you might say he's the guy that put + the 'shun' in 'prescription.' So! Well, leave us take the bonny bride + home. Say, doc, I'll sell you the Candersen place for three thousand + plunks. Better be thinking about building a new home for Carrie. Prettiest + Frau in G. P., if you asks me!” + </p> + <p> + Contentedly Sam Clark drove off, in the heavy traffic of three Fords and + the Minniemashie House Free 'Bus. + </p> + <p> + “I shall like Mr. Clark . . . I CAN'T call him 'Sam'! They're all so + friendly.” She glanced at the houses; tried not to see what she saw; gave + way in: “Why do these stories lie so? They always make the bride's + home-coming a bower of roses. Complete trust in noble spouse. Lies about + marriage. I'm NOT changed. And this town—O my God! I can't go + through with it. This junk-heap!” + </p> + <p> + Her husband bent over her. “You look like you were in a brown study. + Scared? I don't expect you to think Gopher Prairie is a paradise, after + St. Paul. I don't expect you to be crazy about it, at first. But you'll + come to like it so much—life's so free here and best people on + earth.” + </p> + <p> + She whispered to him (while Mrs. Clark considerately turned away), “I love + you for understanding. I'm just—I'm beastly over-sensitive. Too many + books. It's my lack of shoulder-muscles and sense. Give me time, dear.” + </p> + <p> + “You bet! All the time you want!” + </p> + <p> + She laid the back of his hand against her cheek, snuggled near him. She + was ready for her new home. + </p> + <p> + Kennicott had told her that, with his widowed mother as housekeeper, he + had occupied an old house, “but nice and roomy, and well-heated, best + furnace I could find on the market.” His mother had left Carol her love, + and gone back to Lac-qui-Meurt. + </p> + <p> + It would be wonderful, she exulted, not to have to live in Other People's + Houses, but to make her own shrine. She held his hand tightly and stared + ahead as the car swung round a corner and stopped in the street before a + prosaic frame house in a small parched lawn. + </p> + <p> + IV + </p> + <p> + A concrete sidewalk with a “parking” of grass and mud. A square smug brown + house, rather damp. A narrow concrete walk up to it. Sickly yellow leaves + in a windrow with dried wings of box-elder seeds and snags of wool from + the cotton-woods. A screened porch with pillars of thin painted pine + surmounted by scrolls and brackets and bumps of jigsawed wood. No + shrubbery to shut off the public gaze. A lugubrious bay-window to the + right of the porch. Window curtains of starched cheap lace revealing a + pink marble table with a conch shell and a Family Bible. + </p> + <p> + “You'll find it old-fashioned—what do you call it?—Mid-Victorian. + I left it as is, so you could make any changes you felt were necessary.” + Kennicott sounded doubtful for the first time since he had come back to + his own. + </p> + <p> + “It's a real home!” She was moved by his humility. She gaily motioned + good-by to the Clarks. He unlocked the door—he was leaving the + choice of a maid to her, and there was no one in the house. She jiggled + while he turned the key, and scampered in. . . . It was next day before + either of them remembered that in their honeymoon camp they had planned + that he should carry her over the sill. + </p> + <p> + In hallway and front parlor she was conscious of dinginess and + lugubriousness and airlessness, but she insisted, “I'll make it all + jolly.” As she followed Kennicott and the bags up to their bedroom she + quavered to herself the song of the fat little-gods of the hearth: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + I have my own home, + To do what I please with, + To do what I please with, + My den for me and my mate and my cubs, + My own! +</pre> + <p> + She was close in her husband's arms; she clung to him; whatever of + strangeness and slowness and insularity she might find in him, none of + that mattered so long as she could slip her hands beneath his coat, run + her fingers over the warm smoothness of the satin back of his waistcoat, + seem almost to creep into his body, find in him strength, find in the + courage and kindness of her man a shelter from the perplexing world. + </p> + <p> + “Sweet, so sweet,” she whispered. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER IV + </h2> + <h3> + I + </h3> + <p> + “THE Clarks have invited some folks to their house to meet us, tonight,” + said Kennicott, as he unpacked his suit-case. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, that is nice of them!” + </p> + <p> + “You bet. I told you you'd like 'em. Squarest people on earth. Uh, Carrie——Would + you mind if I sneaked down to the office for an hour, just to see how + things are?” + </p> + <p> + “Why, no. Of course not. I know you're keen to get back to work.” + </p> + <p> + “Sure you don't mind?” + </p> + <p> + “Not a bit. Out of my way. Let me unpack.” + </p> + <p> + But the advocate of freedom in marriage was as much disappointed as a + drooping bride at the alacrity with which he took that freedom and escaped + to the world of men's affairs. She gazed about their bedroom, and its full + dismalness crawled over her: the awkward knuckly L-shape of it; the black + walnut bed with apples and spotty pears carved on the headboard; the + imitation maple bureau, with pink-daubed scent-bottles and a petticoated + pin-cushion on a marble slab uncomfortably like a gravestone; the plain + pine washstand and the garlanded water-pitcher and bowl. The scent was of + horsehair and plush and Florida Water. + </p> + <p> + “How could people ever live with things like this?” she shuddered. She saw + the furniture as a circle of elderly judges, condemning her to death by + smothering. The tottering brocade chair squeaked, “Choke her—choke + her—smother her.” The old linen smelled of the tomb. She was alone + in this house, this strange still house, among the shadows of dead + thoughts and haunting repressions. “I hate it! I hate it!” she panted. + “Why did I ever——” + </p> + <p> + She remembered that Kennicott's mother had brought these family relics + from the old home in Lac-qui-Meurt. “Stop it! They're perfectly + comfortable things. They're—comfortable. Besides——Oh, + they're horrible! We'll change them, right away.” + </p> + <p> + Then, “But of course he HAS to see how things are at the office——” + </p> + <p> + She made a pretense of busying herself with unpacking. The chintz-lined, + silver-fitted bag which had seemed so desirable a luxury in St. Paul was + an extravagant vanity here. The daring black chemise of frail chiffon and + lace was a hussy at which the deep-bosomed bed stiffened in disgust, and + she hurled it into a bureau drawer, hid it beneath a sensible linen + blouse. + </p> + <p> + She gave up unpacking. She went to the window, with a purely literary + thought of village charm—hollyhocks and lanes and apple-cheeked + cottagers. What she saw was the side of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church—a + plain clapboard wall of a sour liver color; the ash-pile back of the + church; an unpainted stable; and an alley in which a Ford delivery-wagon + had been stranded. This was the terraced garden below her boudoir; this + was to be her scenery for—— + </p> + <p> + “I mustn't! I mustn't! I'm nervous this afternoon. Am I sick? . . . Good + Lord, I hope it isn't that! Not now! How people lie! How these stories + lie! They say the bride is always so blushing and proud and happy when she + finds that out, but—I'd hate it! I'd be scared to death! Some day + but——Please, dear nebulous Lord, not now! Bearded sniffy old + men sitting and demanding that we bear children. If THEY had to bear them——! + I wish they did have to! Not now! Not till I've got hold of this job of + liking the ash-pile out there! . . . I must shut up. I'm mildly insane. + I'm going out for a walk. I'll see the town by myself. My first view of + the empire I'm going to conquer!” + </p> + <p> + She fled from the house. + </p> + <p> + She stared with seriousness at every concrete crossing, every + hitching-post, every rake for leaves; and to each house she devoted all + her speculation. What would they come to mean? How would they look six + months from now? In which of them would she be dining? Which of these + people whom she passed, now mere arrangements of hair and clothes, would + turn into intimates, loved or dreaded, different from all the other people + in the world? + </p> + <p> + As she came into the small business-section she inspected a broad-beamed + grocer in an alpaca coat who was bending over the apples and celery on a + slanted platform in front of his store. Would she ever talk to him? What + would he say if she stopped and stated, “I am Mrs. Dr. Kennicott. Some day + I hope to confide that a heap of extremely dubious pumpkins as a + window-display doesn't exhilarate me much.” + </p> + <p> + (The grocer was Mr. Frederick F. Ludelmeyer, whose market is at the corner + of Main Street and Lincoln Avenue. In supposing that only she was + observant Carol was ignorant, misled by the indifference of cities. She + fancied that she was slipping through the streets invisible; but when she + had passed, Mr. Ludelmeyer puffed into the store and coughed at his clerk, + “I seen a young woman, she come along the side street. I bet she is Doc + Kennicott's new bride, good-looker, nice legs, but she wore a hell of a + plain suit, no style, I wonder will she pay cash, I bet she goes to + Howland & Gould's more as she does here, what you done with the poster + for Fluffed Oats?”) + </p> + <p> + II + </p> + <p> + When Carol had walked for thirty-two minutes she had completely covered + the town, east and west, north and south; and she stood at the corner of + Main Street and Washington Avenue and despaired. + </p> + <p> + Main Street with its two-story brick shops, its story-and-a-half wooden + residences, its muddy expanse from concrete walk to walk, its huddle of + Fords and lumber-wagons, was too small to absorb her. The broad, straight, + unenticing gashes of the streets let in the grasping prairie on every + side. She realized the vastness and the emptiness of the land. The + skeleton iron windmill on the farm a few blocks away, at the north end of + Main Street, was like the ribs of a dead cow. She thought of the coming of + the Northern winter, when the unprotected houses would crouch together in + terror of storms galloping out of that wild waste. They were so small and + weak, the little brown houses. They were shelters for sparrows, not homes + for warm laughing people. + </p> + <p> + She told herself that down the street the leaves were a splendor. The + maples were orange; the oaks a solid tint of raspberry. And the lawns had + been nursed with love. But the thought would not hold. At best the trees + resembled a thinned woodlot. There was no park to rest the eyes. And since + not Gopher Prairie but Wakamin was the county-seat, there was no + court-house with its grounds. + </p> + <p> + She glanced through the fly-specked windows of the most pretentious + building in sight, the one place which welcomed strangers and determined + their opinion of the charm and luxury of Gopher Prairie—the + Minniemashie House. It was a tall lean shabby structure, three stories of + yellow-streaked wood, the corners covered with sanded pine slabs + purporting to symbolize stone. In the hotel office she could see a stretch + of bare unclean floor, a line of rickety chairs with brass cuspidors + between, a writing-desk with advertisements in mother-of-pearl letters + upon the glass-covered back. The dining-room beyond was a jungle of + stained table-cloths and catsup bottles. + </p> + <p> + She looked no more at the Minniemashie House. + </p> + <p> + A man in cuffless shirt-sleeves with pink arm-garters, wearing a linen + collar but no tie, yawned his way from Dyer's Drug Store across to the + hotel. He leaned against the wall, scratched a while, sighed, and in a + bored way gossiped with a man tilted back in a chair. A lumber-wagon, its + long green box filled with large spools of barbed-wire fencing, creaked + down the block. A Ford, in reverse, sounded as though it were shaking to + pieces, then recovered and rattled away. In the Greek candy-store was the + whine of a peanut-roaster, and the oily smell of nuts. + </p> + <p> + There was no other sound nor sign of life. + </p> + <p> + She wanted to run, fleeing from the encroaching prairie, demanding the + security of a great city. Her dreams of creating a beautiful town were + ludicrous. Oozing out from every drab wall, she felt a forbidding spirit + which she could never conquer. + </p> + <p> + She trailed down the street on one side, back on the other, glancing into + the cross streets. It was a private Seeing Main Street tour. She was + within ten minutes beholding not only the heart of a place called Gopher + Prairie, but ten thousand towns from Albany to San Diego: + </p> + <p> + Dyer's Drug Store, a corner building of regular and unreal blocks of + artificial stone. Inside the store, a greasy marble soda-fountain with an + electric lamp of red and green and curdled-yellow mosaic shade. Pawed-over + heaps of tooth-brushes and combs and packages of shaving-soap. Shelves of + soap-cartons, teething-rings, garden-seeds, and patent medicines in yellow + “packages-nostrums” for consumption, for “women's diseases”—notorious + mixtures of opium and alcohol, in the very shop to which her husband sent + patients for the filling of prescriptions. + </p> + <p> + From a second-story window the sign “W. P. Kennicott, Phys. & + Surgeon,” gilt on black sand. + </p> + <p> + A small wooden motion-picture theater called “The Rosebud Movie Palace.” + Lithographs announcing a film called “Fatty in Love.” + </p> + <p> + Howland & Gould's Grocery. In the display window, black, overripe + bananas and lettuce on which a cat was sleeping. Shelves lined with red + crepe paper which was now faded and torn and concentrically spotted. Flat + against the wall of the second story the signs of lodges—the Knights + of Pythias, the Maccabees, the Woodmen, the Masons. + </p> + <p> + Dahl & Oleson's Meat Market—a reek of blood. + </p> + <p> + A jewelry shop with tinny-looking wrist-watches for women. In front of it, + at the curb, a huge wooden clock which did not go. + </p> + <p> + A fly-buzzing saloon with a brilliant gold and enamel whisky sign across + the front. Other saloons down the block. From them a stink of stale beer, + and thick voices bellowing pidgin German or trolling out dirty songs—vice + gone feeble and unenterprising and dull—the delicacy of a + mining-camp minus its vigor. In front of the saloons, farmwives sitting on + the seats of wagons, waiting for their husbands to become drunk and ready + to start home. + </p> + <p> + A tobacco shop called “The Smoke House,” filled with young men shaking + dice for cigarettes. Racks of magazines, and pictures of coy fat + prostitutes in striped bathing-suits. + </p> + <p> + A clothing store with a display of “ox-blood-shade Oxfords with bull-dog + toes.” Suits which looked worn and glossless while they were still new, + flabbily draped on dummies like corpses with painted cheeks. + </p> + <p> + The Bon Ton Store—Haydock & Simons'—the largest shop in + town. The first-story front of clear glass, the plates cleverly bound at + the edges with brass. The second story of pleasant tapestry brick. One + window of excellent clothes for men, interspersed with collars of floral + pique which showed mauve daisies on a saffron ground. Newness and an + obvious notion of neatness and service. Haydock & Simons. Haydock. She + had met a Haydock at the station; Harry Haydock; an active person of + thirty-five. He seemed great to her, now, and very like a saint. His shop + was clean! + </p> + <p> + Axel Egge's General Store, frequented by Scandinavian farmers. In the + shallow dark window-space heaps of sleazy sateens, badly woven galateas, + canvas shoes designed for women with bulging ankles, steel and red glass + buttons upon cards with broken edges, a cottony blanket, a granite-ware + frying-pan reposing on a sun-faded crepe blouse. + </p> + <p> + Sam Clark's Hardware Store. An air of frankly metallic enterprise. Guns + and churns and barrels of nails and beautiful shiny butcher knives. + </p> + <p> + Chester Dashaway's House Furnishing Emporium. A vista of heavy oak rockers + with leather seats, asleep in a dismal row. + </p> + <p> + Billy's Lunch. Thick handleless cups on the wet oilcloth-covered counter. + An odor of onions and the smoke of hot lard. In the doorway a young man + audibly sucking a toothpick. + </p> + <p> + The warehouse of the buyer of cream and potatoes. The sour smell of a + dairy. + </p> + <p> + The Ford Garage and the Buick Garage, competent one-story brick and cement + buildings opposite each other. Old and new cars on grease-blackened + concrete floors. Tire advertisements. The roaring of a tested motor; a + racket which beat at the nerves. Surly young men in khaki union-overalls. + The most energetic and vital places in town. + </p> + <p> + A large warehouse for agricultural implements. An impressive barricade of + green and gold wheels, of shafts and sulky seats, belonging to machinery + of which Carol knew nothing—potato-planters, manure-spreaders, + silage-cutters, disk-harrows, breaking-plows. + </p> + <p> + A feed store, its windows opaque with the dust of bran, a patent medicine + advertisement painted on its roof. + </p> + <p> + Ye Art Shoppe, Prop. Mrs. Mary Ellen Wilks, Christian Science Library open + daily free. A touching fumble at beauty. A one-room shanty of boards + recently covered with rough stucco. A show-window delicately rich in + error: vases starting out to imitate tree-trunks but running off into + blobs of gilt—an aluminum ash-tray labeled “Greetings from Gopher + Prairie”—a Christian Science magazine—a stamped sofa-cushion + portraying a large ribbon tied to a small poppy, the correct skeins of + embroidery-silk lying on the pillow. Inside the shop, a glimpse of bad + carbon prints of bad and famous pictures, shelves of phonograph records + and camera films, wooden toys, and in the midst an anxious small woman + sitting in a padded rocking chair. + </p> + <p> + A barber shop and pool room. A man in shirt sleeves, presumably Del + Snafflin the proprietor, shaving a man who had a large Adam's apple. + </p> + <p> + Nat Hicks's Tailor Shop, on a side street off Main. A one-story building. + A fashion-plate showing human pitchforks in garments which looked as hard + as steel plate. + </p> + <p> + On another side street a raw red-brick Catholic Church with a varnished + yellow door. + </p> + <p> + The post-office—merely a partition of glass and brass shutting off + the rear of a mildewed room which must once have been a shop. A tilted + writing-shelf against a wall rubbed black and scattered with official + notices and army recruiting-posters. + </p> + <p> + The damp, yellow-brick schoolbuilding in its cindery grounds. + </p> + <p> + The State Bank, stucco masking wood. + </p> + <p> + The Farmers' National Bank. An Ionic temple of marble. Pure, exquisite, + solitary. A brass plate with “Ezra Stowbody, Pres't.” + </p> + <p> + A score of similar shops and establishments. + </p> + <p> + Behind them and mixed with them, the houses, meek cottages or large, + comfortable, soundly uninteresting symbols of prosperity. + </p> + <p> + In all the town not one building save the Ionic bank which gave pleasure + to Carol's eyes; not a dozen buildings which suggested that, in the fifty + years of Gopher Prairie's existence, the citizens had realized that it was + either desirable or possible to make this, their common home, amusing or + attractive. + </p> + <p> + It was not only the unsparing unapologetic ugliness and the rigid + straightness which overwhelmed her. It was the planlessness, the flimsy + temporariness of the buildings, their faded unpleasant colors. The street + was cluttered with electric-light poles, telephone poles, gasoline pumps + for motor cars, boxes of goods. Each man had built with the most valiant + disregard of all the others. Between a large new “block” of two-story + brick shops on one side, and the fire-brick Overland garage on the other + side, was a one-story cottage turned into a millinery shop. The white + temple of the Farmers' Bank was elbowed back by a grocery of glaring + yellow brick. One store-building had a patchy galvanized iron cornice; the + building beside it was crowned with battlements and pyramids of brick + capped with blocks of red sandstone. + </p> + <p> + She escaped from Main Street, fled home. + </p> + <p> + She wouldn't have cared, she insisted, if the people had been comely. She + had noted a young man loafing before a shop, one unwashed hand holding the + cord of an awning; a middle-aged man who had a way of staring at women as + though he had been married too long and too prosaically; an old farmer, + solid, wholesome, but not clean—his face like a potato fresh from + the earth. None of them had shaved for three days. + </p> + <p> + “If they can't build shrines, out here on the prairie, surely there's + nothing to prevent their buying safety-razors!” she raged. + </p> + <p> + She fought herself: “I must be wrong. People do live here. It CAN'T be as + ugly as—as I know it is! I must be wrong. But I can't do it. I can't + go through with it.” + </p> + <p> + She came home too seriously worried for hysteria; and when she found + Kennicott waiting for her, and exulting, “Have a walk? Well, like the + town? Great lawns and trees, eh?” she was able to say, with a + self-protective maturity new to her, “It's very interesting.” + </p> + <p> + III + </p> + <p> + The train which brought Carol to Gopher Prairie also brought Miss Bea + Sorenson. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “Vell, so you come to town,” said Tina. + </p> + <p> + “Ya. Ay get a yob,” said Bea. + </p> + <p> + “Vell. . . . You got a fella now?” + </p> + <p> + “Ya. Yim Yacobson.” + </p> + <p> + “Vell. I'm glat to see you. How much you vant a veek?” + </p> + <p> + “Sex dollar.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “Ya,” said Bea. + </p> + <p> + So it chanced that Carol Kennicott and Bea Sorenson were viewing Main + Street at the same time. + </p> + <p> + Bea had never before been in a town larger than Scandia Crossing, which + has sixty-seven inhabitants. + </p> + <p> + 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! + </p> + <p> + Not just three of them, like there were at Scandia Crossing, but more than + four whole blocks! + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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! + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + A Lutheran Church. Here in the city there'd be lovely sermons, and church + twice on Sunday, EVERY Sunday! + </p> + <p> + And a movie show! + </p> + <p> + A regular theater, just for movies. With the sign “Change of bill every + evening.” Pictures every evening! + </p> + <p> + 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! + </p> + <p> + 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! + </p> + <p> + 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 wrist-watches and EVERYTHING on real velvet. + </p> + <p> + 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! + </p> + <p> + Bea trudged back. + </p> + <p> + “Vell? You lak it?” said Tina. + </p> + <p> + “Ya. Ay lak it. Ay t'ink maybe Ay stay here,” said Bea. + </p> + <p> + IV + </p> + <p> + The recently built house of Sam Clark, in which was given the party to + welcome Carol, was one of the largest in Gopher Prairie. It had a clean + sweep of clapboards, a solid squareness, a small tower, and a large + screened porch. Inside, it was as shiny, as hard, and as cheerful as a new + oak upright piano. + </p> + <p> + Carol looked imploringly at Sam Clark as he rolled to the door and + shouted, “Welcome, little lady! The keys of the city are yourn!” + </p> + <p> + Beyond him, in the hallway and the living-room, sitting in a vast prim + circle as though they were attending a funeral, she saw the guests. They + were WAITING so! They were waiting for her! The determination to be all + one pretty flowerlet of appreciation leaked away. She begged of Sam, “I + don't dare face them! They expect so much. They'll swallow me in one + mouthful—glump!—like that!” + </p> + <p> + “Why, sister, they're going to love you—same as I would if I didn't + think the doc here would beat me up!” + </p> + <p> + “B-but——I don't dare! Faces to the right of me, faces in front + of me, volley and wonder!” + </p> + <p> + She sounded hysterical to herself; she fancied that to Sam Clark she + sounded insane. But he chuckled, “Now you just cuddle under Sam's wing, + and if anybody rubbers at you too long, I'll shoo 'em off. Here we go! + Watch my smoke—Sam'l, the ladies' delight and the bridegrooms' + terror!” + </p> + <p> + His arm about her, he led her in and bawled, “Ladies and worser halves, + the bride! We won't introduce her round yet, because she'll never get your + bum names straight anyway. Now bust up this star-chamber!” + </p> + <p> + They tittered politely, but they did not move from the social security of + their circle, and they did not cease staring. + </p> + <p> + Carol had given creative energy to dressing for the event. Her hair was + demure, low on her forehead with a parting and a coiled braid. Now she + wished that she had piled it high. Her frock was an ingenue slip of lawn, + with a wide gold sash and a low square neck, which gave a suggestion of + throat and molded shoulders. But as they looked her over she was certain + that it was all wrong. She wished alternately that she had worn a + spinsterish high-necked dress, and that she had dared to shock them with a + violent brick-red scarf which she had bought in Chicago. + </p> + <p> + She was led about the circle. Her voice mechanically produced safe + remarks: + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I'm sure I'm going to like it here ever so much,” and “Yes, we did + have the best time in Colorado—mountains,” and “Yes, I lived in St. + Paul several years. Euclid P. Tinker? No, I don't REMEMBER meeting him, + but I'm pretty sure I've heard of him.” + </p> + <p> + Kennicott took her aside and whispered, “Now I'll introduce you to them, + one at a time.” + </p> + <p> + “Tell me about them first.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, the nice-looking couple over there are Harry Haydock and his wife, + Juanita. Harry's dad owns most of the Bon Ton, but it's Harry who runs it + and gives it the pep. He's a hustler. Next to him is Dave Dyer the + druggist—you met him this afternoon—mighty good duck-shot. The + tall husk beyond him is Jack Elder—Jackson Elder—owns the + planing-mill, and the Minniemashie House, and quite a share in the + Farmers' National Bank. Him and his wife are good sports—him and Sam + and I go hunting together a lot. The old cheese there is Luke Dawson, the + richest man in town. Next to him is Nat Hicks, the tailor.” + </p> + <p> + “Really? A tailor?” + </p> + <p> + “Sure. Why not? Maybe we're slow, but we are democratic. I go hunting with + Nat same as I do with Jack Elder.” + </p> + <p> + “I'm glad. I've never met a tailor socially. It must be charming to meet + one and not have to think about what you owe him. And do you——Would + you go hunting with your barber, too?” + </p> + <p> + “No but——No use running this democracy thing into the ground. + Besides, I've known Nat for years, and besides, he's a mighty good shot + and——That's the way it is, see? Next to Nat is Chet Dashaway. + Great fellow for chinning. He'll talk your arm off, about religion or + politics or books or anything.” + </p> + <p> + Carol gazed with a polite approximation to interest at Mr. Dashaway, a tan + person with a wide mouth. “Oh, I know! He's the furniture-store man!” She + was much pleased with herself. + </p> + <p> + “Yump, and he's the undertaker. You'll like him. Come shake hands with + him.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh no, no! He doesn't—he doesn't do the embalming and all that—himself? + I couldn't shake hands with an undertaker!” + </p> + <p> + “Why not? You'd be proud to shake hands with a great surgeon, just after + he'd been carving up people's bellies.” + </p> + <p> + She sought to regain her afternoon's calm of maturity. “Yes. You're right. + I want—oh, my dear, do you know how much I want to like the people + you like? I want to see people as they are.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, don't forget to see people as other folks see them as they are! + They have the stuff. Did you know that Percy Bresnahan came from here? + Born and brought up here!” + </p> + <p> + “Bresnahan?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes—you know—president of the Velvet Motor Company of Boston, + Mass.—make the Velvet Twelve—biggest automobile factory in New + England.” + </p> + <p> + “I think I've heard of him.” + </p> + <p> + “Sure you have. Why, he's a millionaire several times over! Well, Perce + comes back here for the black-bass fishing almost every summer, and he + says if he could get away from business, he'd rather live here than in + Boston or New York or any of those places. HE doesn't mind Chet's + undertaking.” + </p> + <p> + “Please! I'll—I'll like everybody! I'll be the community sunbeam!” + </p> + <p> + He led her to the Dawsons. + </p> + <p> + Luke Dawson, lender of money on mortgages, owner of Northern cut-over + land, was a hesitant man in unpressed soft gray clothes, with bulging eyes + in a milky face. His wife had bleached cheeks, bleached hair, bleached + voice, and a bleached manner. She wore her expensive green frock, with its + passementeried bosom, bead tassels, and gaps between the buttons down the + back, as though she had bought it second-hand and was afraid of meeting + the former owner. They were shy. It was “Professor” George Edwin Mott, + superintendent of schools, a Chinese mandarin turned brown, who held + Carol's hand and made her welcome. + </p> + <p> + When the Dawsons and Mr. Mott had stated that they were “pleased to meet + her,” there seemed to be nothing else to say, but the conversation went on + automatically. + </p> + <p> + “Do you like Gopher Prairie?” whimpered Mrs. Dawson. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I'm sure I'm going to be ever so happy.” + </p> + <p> + “There's so many nice people.” Mrs. Dawson looked to Mr. Mott for social + and intellectual aid. He lectured: + </p> + <p> + “There's a fine class of people. I don't like some of these retired + farmers who come here to spend their last days—especially the + Germans. They hate to pay school-taxes. They hate to spend a cent. But the + rest are a fine class of people. Did you know that Percy Bresnahan came + from here? Used to go to school right at the old building!” + </p> + <p> + “I heard he did.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. He's a prince. He and I went fishing together, last time he was + here.” + </p> + <p> + The Dawsons and Mr. Mott teetered upon weary feet, and smiled at Carol + with crystallized expressions. She went on: + </p> + <p> + “Tell me, Mr. Mott: Have you ever tried any experiments with any of the + new educational systems? The modern kindergarten methods or the Gary + system?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh. Those. Most of these would-be reformers are simply notoriety-seekers. + I believe in manual training, but Latin and mathematics always will be the + backbone of sound Americanism, no matter what these faddists advocate—heaven + knows what they do want—knitting, I suppose, and classes in wiggling + the ears!” + </p> + <p> + The Dawsons smiled their appreciation of listening to a savant. Carol + waited till Kennicott should rescue her. The rest of the party waited for + the miracle of being amused. + </p> + <p> + Harry and Juanita Haydock, Rita Simons and Dr. Terry Gould—the young + smart set of Gopher Prairie. She was led to them. Juanita Haydock flung at + her in a high, cackling, friendly voice: + </p> + <p> + “Well, this is SO nice to have you here. We'll have some good parties—dances + and everything. You'll have to join the Jolly Seventeen. We play bridge + and we have a supper once a month. You play, of course?” + </p> + <p> + “N-no, I don't.” + </p> + <p> + “Really? In St. Paul?” + </p> + <p> + “I've always been such a book-worm.” + </p> + <p> + “We'll have to teach you. Bridge is half the fun of life.” Juanita had + become patronizing, and she glanced disrespectfully at Carol's golden + sash, which she had previously admired. + </p> + <p> + Harry Haydock said politely, “How do you think you're going to like the + old burg?” + </p> + <p> + “I'm sure I shall like it tremendously.” + </p> + <p> + “Best people on earth here. Great hustlers, too. Course I've had lots of + chances to go live in Minneapolis, but we like it here. Real he-town. Did + you know that Percy Bresnahan came from here?” + </p> + <p> + Carol perceived that she had been weakened in the biological struggle by + disclosing her lack of bridge. Roused to nervous desire to regain her + position she turned on Dr. Terry Gould, the young and pool-playing + competitor of her husband. Her eyes coquetted with him while she gushed: + </p> + <p> + “I'll learn bridge. But what I really love most is the outdoors. Can't we + all get up a boating party, and fish, or whatever you do, and have a + picnic supper afterwards?” + </p> + <p> + “Now you're talking!” Dr. Gould affirmed. He looked rather too obviously + at the cream-smooth slope of her shoulder. “Like fishing? Fishing is my + middle name. I'll teach you bridge. Like cards at all?” + </p> + <p> + “I used to be rather good at bezique.” + </p> + <p> + She knew that bezique was a game of cards—or a game of something + else. Roulette, possibly. But her lie was a triumph. Juanita's handsome, + high-colored, horsey face showed doubt. Harry stroked his nose and said + humbly, “Bezique? Used to be great gambling game, wasn't it?” + </p> + <p> + While others drifted to her group, Carol snatched up the conversation. She + laughed and was frivolous and rather brittle. She could not distinguish + their eyes. They were a blurry theater-audience before which she + self-consciously enacted the comedy of being the Clever Little Bride of + Doc Kennicott: + </p> + <p> + “These-here celebrated Open Spaces, that's what I'm going out for. I'll + never read anything but the sporting-page again. Will converted me on our + Colorado trip. There were so many mousey tourists who were afraid to get + out of the motor 'bus that I decided to be Annie Oakley, the Wild Western + Wampire, and I bought oh! a vociferous skirt which revealed my perfectly + nice ankles to the Presbyterian glare of all the Ioway schoolma'ams, and I + leaped from peak to peak like the nimble chamoys, and——You may + think that Herr Doctor Kennicott is a Nimrod, but you ought to have seen + me daring him to strip to his B. V. D.'s and go swimming in an icy + mountain brook.” + </p> + <p> + She knew that they were thinking of becoming shocked, but Juanita Haydock + was admiring, at least. She swaggered on: + </p> + <p> + “I'm sure I'm going to ruin Will as a respectable practitioner——Is + he a good doctor, Dr. Gould?” + </p> + <p> + Kennicott's rival gasped at this insult to professional ethics, and he + took an appreciable second before he recovered his social manner. “I'll + tell you, Mrs. Kennicott.” He smiled at Kennicott, to imply that whatever + he might say in the stress of being witty was not to count against him in + the commercio-medical warfare. “There's some people in town that say the + doc is a fair to middlin' diagnostician and prescription-writer, but let + me whisper this to you—but for heaven's sake don't tell him I said + so—don't you ever go to him for anything more serious than a + pendectomy of the left ear or a strabismus of the cardiograph.” + </p> + <p> + No one save Kennicott knew exactly what this meant, but they laughed, and + Sam Clark's party assumed a glittering lemon-yellow color of brocade + panels and champagne and tulle and crystal chandeliers and sporting + duchesses. Carol saw that George Edwin Mott and the blanched Mr. and Mrs. + Dawson were not yet hypnotized. They looked as though they wondered + whether they ought to look as though they disapproved. She concentrated on + them: + </p> + <p> + “But I know whom I wouldn't have dared to go to Colorado with! Mr. Dawson + there! I'm sure he's a regular heart-breaker. When we were introduced he + held my hand and squeezed it frightfully.” + </p> + <p> + “Haw! Haw! Haw!” The entire company applauded. Mr. Dawson was beatified. + He had been called many things—loan-shark, skinflint, tightwad, + pussyfoot—but he had never before been called a flirt. + </p> + <p> + “He is wicked, isn't he, Mrs. Dawson? Don't you have to lock him up?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh no, but maybe I better,” attempted Mrs. Dawson, a tint on her pallid + face. + </p> + <p> + For fifteen minutes Carol kept it up. She asserted that she was going to + stage a musical comedy, that she preferred cafe parfait to beefsteak, that + she hoped Dr. Kennicott would never lose his ability to make love to + charming women, and that she had a pair of gold stockings. They gaped for + more. But she could not keep it up. She retired to a chair behind Sam + Clark's bulk. The smile-wrinkles solemnly flattened out in the faces of + all the other collaborators in having a party, and again they stood about + hoping but not expecting to be amused. + </p> + <p> + Carol listened. She discovered that conversation did not exist in Gopher + Prairie. Even at this affair, which brought out the young smart set, the + hunting squire set, the respectable intellectual set, and the solid + financial set, they sat up with gaiety as with a corpse. + </p> + <p> + Juanita Haydock talked a good deal in her rattling voice but it was + invariably of personalities: the rumor that Raymie Wutherspoon was going + to send for a pair of patent leather shoes with gray buttoned tops; the + rheumatism of Champ Perry; the state of Guy Pollock's grippe; and the + dementia of Jim Howland in painting his fence salmon-pink. + </p> + <p> + Sam Clark had been talking to Carol about motor cars, but he felt his + duties as host. While he droned, his brows popped up and down. He + interrupted himself, “Must stir 'em up.” He worried at his wife, “Don't + you think I better stir 'em up?” He shouldered into the center of the + room, and cried: + </p> + <p> + “Let's have some stunts, folks.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, let's!” shrieked Juanita Haydock. + </p> + <p> + “Say, Dave, give us that stunt about the Norwegian catching a hen.” + </p> + <p> + “You bet; that's a slick stunt; do that, Dave!” cheered Chet Dashaway. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Dave Dyer obliged. + </p> + <p> + All the guests moved their lips in anticipation of being called on for + their own stunts. + </p> + <p> + “Ella, come on and recite 'Old Sweetheart of Mine,' for us,” demanded Sam. + </p> + <p> + Miss Ella Stowbody, the spinster daughter of the Ionic bank, scratched her + dry palms and blushed. “Oh, you don't want to hear that old thing again.” + </p> + <p> + “Sure we do! You bet!” asserted Sam. + </p> + <p> + “My voice is in terrible shape tonight.” + </p> + <p> + “Tut! Come on!” + </p> + <p> + Sam loudly explained to Carol, “Ella is our shark at elocuting. She's had + professional training. She studied singing and oratory and dramatic art + and shorthand for a year, in Milwaukee.” + </p> + <p> + Miss Stowbody was reciting. As encore to “An Old Sweetheart of Mine,” she + gave a peculiarly optimistic poem regarding the value of smiles. + </p> + <p> + There were four other stunts: one Jewish, one Irish, one juvenile, and Nat + Hicks's parody of Mark Antony's funeral oration. + </p> + <p> + During the winter Carol was to hear Dave Dyer's hen-catching impersonation + seven times, “An Old Sweetheart of Mine” nine times, the Jewish story and + the funeral oration twice; but now she was ardent and, because she did so + want to be happy and simple-hearted, she was as disappointed as the others + when the stunts were finished, and the party instantly sank back into + coma. + </p> + <p> + They gave up trying to be festive; they began to talk naturally, as they + did at their shops and homes. + </p> + <p> + The men and women divided, as they had been tending to do all evening. + Carol was deserted by the men, left to a group of matrons who steadily + pattered of children, sickness, and cooks—their own shop-talk. She + was piqued. She remembered visions of herself as a smart married woman in + a drawing-room, fencing with clever men. Her dejection was relieved by + speculation as to what the men were discussing, in the corner between the + piano and the phonograph. Did they rise from these housewifely + personalities to a larger world of abstractions and affairs? + </p> + <p> + She made her best curtsy to Mrs. Dawson; she twittered, “I won't have my + husband leaving me so soon! I'm going over and pull the wretch's ears.” + She rose with a jeune fille bow. She was self-absorbed and self-approving + because she had attained that quality of sentimentality. She proudly + dipped across the room and, to the interest and commendation of all + beholders, sat on the arm of Kennicott's chair. + </p> + <p> + He was gossiping with Sam Clark, Luke Dawson, Jackson Elder of the + planing-mill, Chet Dashaway, Dave Dyer, Harry Haydock, and Ezra Stowbody, + president of the Ionic bank. + </p> + <p> + Ezra Stowbody was a troglodyte. He had come to Gopher Prairie in 1865. He + was a distinguished bird of prey—swooping thin nose, turtle mouth, + thick brows, port-wine cheeks, floss of white hair, contemptuous eyes. He + was not happy in the social changes of thirty years. Three decades ago, + Dr. Westlake, Julius Flickerbaugh the lawyer, Merriman Peedy the + Congregational pastor and himself had been the arbiters. That was as it + should be; the fine arts—medicine, law, religion, and finance—recognized + as aristocratic; four Yankees democratically chatting with but ruling the + Ohioans and Illini and Swedes and Germans who had ventured to follow them. + But Westlake was old, almost retired; Julius Flickerbaugh had lost much of + his practice to livelier attorneys; Reverend (not The Reverend) Peedy was + dead; and nobody was impressed in this rotten age of automobiles by the + “spanking grays” which Ezra still drove. The town was as heterogeneous as + Chicago. Norwegians and Germans owned stores. The social leaders were + common merchants. Selling nails was considered as sacred as banking. These + upstarts—the Clarks, the Haydocks—had no dignity. They were + sound and conservative in politics, but they talked about motor cars and + pump-guns and heaven only knew what new-fangled fads. Mr. Stowbody felt + out of place with them. But his brick house with the mansard roof was + still the largest residence in town, and he held his position as squire by + occasionally appearing among the younger men and reminding them by a + wintry eye that without the banker none of them could carry on their + vulgar businesses. + </p> + <p> + As Carol defied decency by sitting down with the men, Mr. Stowbody was + piping to Mr. Dawson, “Say, Luke, when was't Biggins first settled in + Winnebago Township? Wa'n't it in 1879?” + </p> + <p> + “Why no 'twa'n't!” Mr. Dawson was indignant. “He come out from Vermont in + 1867—no, wait, in 1868, it must have been—and took a claim on + the Rum River, quite a ways above Anoka.” + </p> + <p> + “He did not!” roared Mr. Stowbody. “He settled first in Blue Earth County, + him and his father!” + </p> + <p> + (“What's the point at issue?”) Carol whispered to Kennicott. + </p> + <p> + (“Whether this old duck Biggins had an English setter or a Llewellyn. + They've been arguing it all evening!”) + </p> + <p> + Dave Dyer interrupted to give tidings, “D' tell you that Clara Biggins was + in town couple days ago? She bought a hot-water bottle—expensive + one, too—two dollars and thirty cents!” + </p> + <p> + “Yaaaaaah!” snarled Mr. Stowbody. “Course. She's just like her grandad + was. Never save a cent. Two dollars and twenty—thirty, was it?—two + dollars and thirty cents for a hot-water bottle! Brick wrapped up in a + flannel petticoat just as good, anyway!” + </p> + <p> + “How's Ella's tonsils, Mr. Stowbody?” yawned Chet Dashaway. + </p> + <p> + While Mr. Stowbody gave a somatic and psychic study of them, Carol + reflected, “Are they really so terribly interested in Ella's tonsils, or + even in Ella's esophagus? I wonder if I could get them away from + personalities? Let's risk damnation and try.” + </p> + <p> + “There hasn't been much labor trouble around here, has there, Mr. + Stowbody?” she asked innocently. + </p> + <p> + “No, ma'am, thank God, we've been free from that, except maybe with hired + girls and farm-hands. Trouble enough with these foreign farmers; if you + don't watch these Swedes they turn socialist or populist or some fool + thing on you in a minute. Of course, if they have loans you can make 'em + listen to reason. I just have 'em come into the bank for a talk, and tell + 'em a few things. I don't mind their being democrats, so much, but I won't + stand having socialists around. But thank God, we ain't got the labor + trouble they have in these cities. Even Jack Elder here gets along pretty + well, in the planing-mill, don't you, Jack?” + </p> + <p> + “Yep. Sure. Don't need so many skilled workmen in my place, and it's a lot + of these cranky, wage-hogging, half-baked skilled mechanics that start + trouble—reading a lot of this anarchist literature and union papers + and all.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you approve of union labor?” Carol inquired of Mr. Elder. + </p> + <p> + “Me? I should say not! It's like this: I don't mind dealing with my men if + they think they've got any grievances—though Lord knows what's come + over workmen, nowadays—don't appreciate a good job. But still, if + they come to me honestly, as man to man, I'll talk things over with them. + But I'm not going to have any outsider, any of these walking delegates, or + whatever fancy names they call themselves now—bunch of rich + grafters, living on the ignorant workmen! Not going to have any of those + fellows butting in and telling ME how to run MY business!” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Elder was growing more excited, more belligerent and patriotic. “I + stand for freedom and constitutional rights. If any man don't like my + shop, he can get up and git. Same way, if I don't like him, he gits. And + that's all there is to it. I simply can't understand all these + complications and hoop-te-doodles and government reports and wage-scales + and God knows what all that these fellows are balling up the labor + situation with, when it's all perfectly simple. They like what I pay 'em, + or they get out. That's all there is to it!” + </p> + <p> + “What do you think of profit-sharing?” Carol ventured. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Elder thundered his answer, while the others nodded, solemnly and in + tune, like a shop-window of flexible toys, comic mandarins and judges and + ducks and clowns, set quivering by a breeze from the open door: + </p> + <p> + “All this profit-sharing and welfare work and insurance and old-age + pension is simply poppycock. Enfeebles a workman's independence—and + wastes a lot of honest profit. The half-baked thinker that isn't dry + behind the ears yet, and these suffragettes and God knows what all + buttinskis there are that are trying to tell a business man how to run his + business, and some of these college professors are just about as bad, the + whole kit and bilin' of 'em are nothing in God's world but socialism in + disguise! And it's my bounden duty as a producer to resist every attack on + the integrity of American industry to the last ditch. Yes—SIR!” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Elder wiped his brow. + </p> + <p> + Dave Dyer added, “Sure! You bet! What they ought to do is simply to hang + every one of these agitators, and that would settle the whole thing right + off. Don't you think so, doc?” + </p> + <p> + “You bet,” agreed Kennicott. + </p> + <p> + The conversation was at last relieved of the plague of Carol's intrusions + and they settled down to the question of whether the justice of the peace + had sent that hobo drunk to jail for ten days or twelve. It was a matter + not readily determined. Then Dave Dyer communicated his carefree + adventures on the gipsy trail: + </p> + <p> + “Yep. I get good time out of the flivver. 'Bout a week ago I motored down + to New Wurttemberg. That's forty-three——No, let's see: It's + seventeen miles to Belldale, and 'bout six and three-quarters, call it + seven, to Torgenquist, and it's a good nineteen miles from there to New + Wurttemberg—seventeen and seven and nineteen, that makes, uh, let me + see: seventeen and seven 's twenty-four, plus nineteen, well say plus + twenty, that makes forty-four, well anyway, say about forty-three or -four + miles from here to New Wurttemberg. We got started about seven-fifteen, + prob'ly seven-twenty, because I had to stop and fill the radiator, and we + ran along, just keeping up a good steady gait——” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Dyer did finally, for reasons and purposes admitted and justified, + attain to New Wurttemberg. + </p> + <p> + Once—only once—the presence of the alien Carol was recognized. + Chet Dashaway leaned over and said asthmatically, “Say, uh, have you been + reading this serial 'Two Out' in Tingling Tales? Corking yarn! Gosh, the + fellow that wrote it certainly can sling baseball slang!” + </p> + <p> + The others tried to look literary. Harry Haydock offered, “Juanita is a + great hand for reading high-class stuff, like 'Mid the Magnolias' by this + Sara Hetwiggin Butts, and 'Riders of Ranch Reckless.' Books. But me,” he + glanced about importantly, as one convinced that no other hero had ever + been in so strange a plight, “I'm so darn busy I don't have much time to + read.” + </p> + <p> + “I never read anything I can't check against,” said Sam Clark. + </p> + <p> + Thus ended the literary portion of the conversation, and for seven minutes + Jackson Elder outlined reasons for believing that the pike-fishing was + better on the west shore of Lake Minniemashie than on the east—though + it was indeed quite true that on the east shore Nat Hicks had caught a + pike altogether admirable. + </p> + <p> + The talk went on. It did go on! Their voices were monotonous, thick, + emphatic. They were harshly pompous, like men in the smoking-compartments + of Pullman cars. They did not bore Carol. They frightened her. She panted, + “They will be cordial to me, because my man belongs to their tribe. God + help me if I were an outsider!” + </p> + <p> + Smiling as changelessly as an ivory figurine she sat quiescent, avoiding + thought, glancing about the living-room and hall, noting their betrayal of + unimaginative commercial prosperity. Kennicott said, “Dandy interior, eh? + My idea of how a place ought to be furnished. Modern.” She looked polite, + and observed the oiled floors, hard-wood staircase, unused fireplace with + tiles which resembled brown linoleum, cut-glass vases standing upon + doilies, and the barred, shut, forbidding unit bookcases that were half + filled with swashbuckler novels and unread-looking sets of Dickens, + Kipling, O. Henry, and Elbert Hubbard. + </p> + <p> + She perceived that even personalities were failing to hold the party. The + room filled with hesitancy as with a fog. People cleared their throats, + tried to choke down yawns. The men shot their cuffs and the women stuck + their combs more firmly into their back hair. + </p> + <p> + Then a rattle, a daring hope in every eye, the swinging of a door, the + smell of strong coffee, Dave Dyer's mewing voice in a triumphant, “The + eats!” They began to chatter. They had something to do. They could escape + from themselves. They fell upon the food—chicken sandwiches, maple + cake, drug-store ice cream. Even when the food was gone they remained + cheerful. They could go home, any time now, and go to bed! + </p> + <p> + They went, with a flutter of coats, chiffon scarfs, and good-bys. + </p> + <p> + Carol and Kennicott walked home. + </p> + <p> + “Did you like them?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + “They were terribly sweet to me.” + </p> + <p> + “Uh, Carrie——You ought to be more careful about shocking + folks. Talking about gold stockings, and about showing your ankles to + schoolteachers and all!” More mildly: “You gave 'em a good time, but I'd + watch out for that, 'f I were you. Juanita Haydock is such a damn cat. I + wouldn't give her a chance to criticize me.” + </p> + <p> + “My poor effort to lift up the party! Was I wrong to try to amuse them?” + </p> + <p> + “No! No! Honey, I didn't mean——You were the only up-and-coming + person in the bunch. I just mean——Don't get onto legs and all + that immoral stuff. Pretty conservative crowd.” + </p> + <p> + She was silent, raw with the shameful thought that the attentive circle + might have been criticizing her, laughing at her. + </p> + <p> + “Don't, please don't worry!” he pleaded. + </p> + <p> + “Silence.” + </p> + <p> + “Gosh; I'm sorry I spoke about it. I just meant——But they were + crazy about you. Sam said to me, 'That little lady of yours is the + slickest thing that ever came to this town,' he said; and Ma Dawson—I + didn't hardly know whether she'd like you or not, she's such a dried-up + old bird, but she said, 'Your bride is so quick and bright, I declare, she + just wakes me up.'” + </p> + <p> + Carol liked praise, the flavor and fatness of it, but she was so + energetically being sorry for herself that she could not taste this + commendation. + </p> + <p> + “Please! Come on! Cheer up!” His lips said it, his anxious shoulder said + it, his arm about her said it, as they halted on the obscure porch of + their house. + </p> + <p> + “Do you care if they think I'm flighty, Will?” + </p> + <p> + “Me? Why, I wouldn't care if the whole world thought you were this or that + or anything else. You're my—well, you're my soul!” + </p> + <p> + He was an undefined mass, as solid-seeming as rock. She found his sleeve, + pinched it, cried, “I'm glad! It's sweet to be wanted! You must tolerate + my frivolousness. You're all I have!” + </p> + <p> + He lifted her, carried her into the house, and with her arms about his + neck she forgot Main Street. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER V + </h2> + <h3> + I + </h3> + <p> + “WE'LL steal the whole day, and go hunting. I want you to see the country + round here,” Kennicott announced at breakfast. “I'd take the car—want + you to see how swell she runs since I put in a new piston. But we'll take + a team, so we can get right out into the fields. Not many prairie chickens + left now, but we might just happen to run onto a small covey.” + </p> + <p> + He fussed over his hunting-kit. He pulled his hip boots out to full length + and examined them for holes. He feverishly counted his shotgun shells, + lecturing her on the qualities of smokeless powder. He drew the new + hammerless shotgun out of its heavy tan leather case and made her peep + through the barrels to see how dazzlingly free they were from rust. + </p> + <p> + The world of hunting and camping-outfits and fishing-tackle was unfamiliar + to her, and in Kennicott's interest she found something creative and + joyous. She examined the smooth stock, the carved hard rubber butt of the + gun. The shells, with their brass caps and sleek green bodies and + hieroglyphics on the wads, were cool and comfortably heavy in her hands. + </p> + <p> + Kennicott wore a brown canvas hunting-coat with vast pockets lining the + inside, corduroy trousers which bulged at the wrinkles, peeled and scarred + shoes, a scarecrow felt hat. In this uniform he felt virile. They clumped + out to the livery buggy, they packed the kit and the box of lunch into the + back, crying to each other that it was a magnificent day. + </p> + <p> + Kennicott had borrowed Jackson Elder's red and white English setter, a + complacent dog with a waving tail of silver hair which flickered in the + sunshine. As they started, the dog yelped, and leaped at the horses' + heads, till Kennicott took him into the buggy, where he nuzzled Carol's + knees and leaned out to sneer at farm mongrels. + </p> + <p> + The grays clattered out on the hard dirt road with a pleasant song of + hoofs: “Ta ta ta rat! Ta ta ta rat!” It was early and fresh, the air + whistling, frost bright on the golden rod. As the sun warmed the world of + stubble into a welter of yellow they turned from the highroad, through the + bars of a farmer's gate, into a field, slowly bumping over the uneven + earth. In a hollow of the rolling prairie they lost sight even of the + country road. It was warm and placid. Locusts trilled among the dry + wheat-stalks, and brilliant little flies hurtled across the buggy. A buzz + of content filled the air. Crows loitered and gossiped in the sky. + </p> + <p> + The dog had been let out and after a dance of excitement he settled down + to a steady quartering of the field, forth and back, forth and back, his + nose down. + </p> + <p> + “Pete Rustad owns this farm, and he told me he saw a small covey of + chickens in the west forty, last week. Maybe we'll get some sport after + all,” Kennicott chuckled blissfully. + </p> + <p> + She watched the dog in suspense, breathing quickly every time he seemed to + halt. She had no desire to slaughter birds, but she did desire to belong + to Kennicott's world. + </p> + <p> + The dog stopped, on the point, a forepaw held up. + </p> + <p> + “By golly! He's hit a scent! Come on!” squealed Kennicott. He leaped from + the buggy, twisted the reins about the whip-socket, swung her out, caught + up his gun, slipped in two shells, stalked toward the rigid dog, Carol + pattering after him. The setter crawled ahead, his tail quivering, his + belly close to the stubble. Carol was nervous. She expected clouds of + large birds to fly up instantly. Her eyes were strained with staring. But + they followed the dog for a quarter of a mile, turning, doubling, crossing + two low hills, kicking through a swale of weeds, crawling between the + strands of a barbed-wire fence. The walking was hard on her + pavement-trained feet. The earth was lumpy, the stubble prickly and lined + with grass, thistles, abortive stumps of clover. She dragged and + floundered. + </p> + <p> + She heard Kennicott gasp, “Look!” Three gray birds were starting up from + the stubble. They were round, dumpy, like enormous bumble bees. Kennicott + was sighting, moving the barrel. She was agitated. Why didn't he fire? The + birds would be gone! Then a crash, another, and two birds turned + somersaults in the air, plumped down. + </p> + <p> + When he showed her the birds she had no sensation of blood. These heaps of + feathers were so soft and unbruised—there was about them no hint of + death. She watched her conquering man tuck them into his inside pocket, + and trudged with him back to the buggy. + </p> + <p> + They found no more prairie chickens that morning. + </p> + <p> + At noon they drove into her first farmyard, a private village, a white + house with no porches save a low and quite dirty stoop at the back, a + crimson barn with white trimmings, a glazed brick silo, an + ex-carriage-shed, now the garage of a Ford, an unpainted cow-stable, a + chicken-house, a pig-pen, a corn-crib, a granary, the galvanized-iron + skeleton tower of a wind-mill. The dooryard was of packed yellow clay, + treeless, barren of grass, littered with rusty plowshares and wheels of + discarded cultivators. Hardened trampled mud, like lava, filled the + pig-pen. The doors of the house were grime-rubbed, the corners and eaves + were rusted with rain, and the child who stared at them from the kitchen + window was smeary-faced. But beyond the barn was a clump of scarlet + geraniums; the prairie breeze was sunshine in motion; the flashing metal + blades of the windmill revolved with a lively hum; a horse neighed, a + rooster crowed, martins flew in and out of the cow-stable. + </p> + <p> + A small spare woman with flaxen hair trotted from the house. She was + twanging a Swedish patois—not in monotone, like English, but singing + it, with a lyrical whine: + </p> + <p> + “Pete he say you kom pretty soon hunting, doctor. My, dot's fine you kom. + Is dis de bride? Ohhhh! Ve yoost say las' night, ve hope maybe ve see her + som day. My, soch a pretty lady!” Mrs. Rustad was shining with welcome. + “Vell, vell! Ay hope you lak dis country! Von't you stay for dinner, + doctor?” + </p> + <p> + “No, but I wonder if you wouldn't like to give us a glass of milk?” + condescended Kennicott. + </p> + <p> + “Vell Ay should say Ay vill! You vait har a second and Ay run on de + milk-house!” She nervously hastened to a tiny red building beside the + windmill; she came back with a pitcher of milk from which Carol filled the + thermos bottle. + </p> + <p> + As they drove off Carol admired, “She's the dearest thing I ever saw. And + she adores you. You are the Lord of the Manor.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh no,” much pleased, “but still they do ask my advice about things. + Bully people, these Scandinavian farmers. And prosperous, too. Helga + Rustad, she's still scared of America, but her kids will be doctors and + lawyers and governors of the state and any darn thing they want to.” + </p> + <p> + “I wonder——” Carol was plunged back into last night's + Weltschmerz. “I wonder if these farmers aren't bigger than we are? So + simple and hard-working. The town lives on them. We townies are parasites, + and yet we feel superior to them. Last night I heard Mr. Haydock talking + about 'hicks.' Apparently he despises the farmers because they haven't + reached the social heights of selling thread and buttons.” + </p> + <p> + “Parasites? Us? Where'd the farmers be without the town? Who lends them + money? Who—why, we supply them with everything!” + </p> + <p> + “Don't you find that some of the farmers think they pay too much for the + services of the towns?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, of course there's a lot of cranks among the farmers same as there are + among any class. Listen to some of these kickers, a fellow'd think that + the farmers ought to run the state and the whole shooting-match—probably + if they had their way they'd fill up the legislature with a lot of farmers + in manure-covered boots—yes, and they'd come tell me I was hired on + a salary now, and couldn't fix my fees! That'd be fine for you, wouldn't + it!” + </p> + <p> + “But why shouldn't they?” + </p> + <p> + “Why? That bunch of——Telling ME——Oh, for heaven's + sake, let's quit arguing. All this discussing may be all right at a party + but——Let's forget it while we're hunting.” + </p> + <p> + “I know. The Wonderlust—probably it's a worse affliction than the + Wanderlust. I just wonder——” + </p> + <p> + She told herself that she had everything in the world. And after each + self-rebuke she stumbled again on “I just wonder——” + </p> + <p> + They ate their sandwiches by a prairie slew: long grass reaching up out of + clear water, mossy bogs, red-winged black-birds, the scum a splash of + gold-green. Kennicott smoked a pipe while she leaned back in the buggy and + let her tired spirit be absorbed in the Nirvana of the incomparable sky. + </p> + <p> + They lurched to the highroad and awoke from their sun-soaked drowse at the + sound of the clopping hoofs. They paused to look for partridges in a rim + of woods, little woods, very clean and shiny and gay, silver birches and + poplars with immaculate green trunks, encircling a lake of sandy bottom, a + splashing seclusion demure in the welter of hot prairie. + </p> + <p> + Kennicott brought down a fat red squirrel and at dusk he had a dramatic + shot at a flight of ducks whirling down from the upper air, skimming the + lake, instantly vanishing. + </p> + <p> + They drove home under the sunset. Mounds of straw, and wheat-stacks like + bee-hives, stood out in startling rose and gold, and the green-tufted + stubble glistened. As the vast girdle of crimson darkened, the fulfilled + land became autumnal in deep reds and browns. The black road before the + buggy turned to a faint lavender, then was blotted to uncertain grayness. + Cattle came in a long line up to the barred gates of the farmyards, and + over the resting land was a dark glow. + </p> + <p> + Carol had found the dignity and greatness which had failed her in Main + Street. + </p> + <p> + II + </p> + <p> + Till they had a maid they took noon dinner and six o'clock supper at Mrs. + Gurrey's boarding-house. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Elisha Gurrey, relict of Deacon Gurrey the dealer in hay and grain, + was a pointed-nosed, simpering woman with iron-gray hair drawn so tight + that it resembled a soiled handkerchief covering her head. But she was + unexpectedly cheerful, and her dining-room, with its thin tablecloth on a + long pine table, had the decency of clean bareness. + </p> + <p> + In the line of unsmiling, methodically chewing guests, like horses at a + manger, Carol came to distinguish one countenance: the pale, long, + spectacled face and sandy pompadour hair of Mr. Raymond P. Wutherspoon, + known as “Raymie,” professional bachelor, manager and one half the + sales-force in the shoe-department of the Bon Ton Store. + </p> + <p> + “You will enjoy Gopher Prairie very much, Mrs. Kennicott,” petitioned + Raymie. His eyes were like those of a dog waiting to be let in out of the + cold. He passed the stewed apricots effusively. “There are a great many + bright cultured people here. Mrs. Wilks, the Christian Science reader, is + a very bright woman—though I am not a Scientist myself, in fact I + sing in the Episcopal choir. And Miss Sherwin of the high school—she + is such a pleasing, bright girl—I was fitting her to a pair of tan + gaiters yesterday, I declare, it really was a pleasure.” + </p> + <p> + “Gimme the butter, Carrie,” was Kennicott's comment. She defied him by + encouraging Raymie: + </p> + <p> + “Do you have amateur dramatics and so on here?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh yes! The town's just full of talent. The Knights of Pythias put on a + dandy minstrel show last year.” + </p> + <p> + “It's nice you're so enthusiastic.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, do you really think so? Lots of folks jolly me for trying to get up + shows and so on. I tell them they have more artistic gifts than they know. + Just yesterday I was saying to Harry Haydock: if he would read poetry, + like Longfellow, or if he would join the band—I get so much pleasure + out of playing the cornet, and our band-leader, Del Snafflin, is such a + good musician, I often say he ought to give up his barbering and become a + professional musician, he could play the clarinet in Minneapolis or New + York or anywhere, but—but I couldn't get Harry to see it at all and—I + hear you and the doctor went out hunting yesterday. Lovely country, isn't + it. And did you make some calls? The mercantile life isn't inspiring like + medicine. It must be wonderful to see how patients trust you, doctor.” + </p> + <p> + “Huh. It's me that's got to do all the trusting. Be damn sight more + wonderful 'f they'd pay their bills,” grumbled Kennicott and, to Carol, he + whispered something which sounded like “gentleman hen.” + </p> + <p> + But Raymie's pale eyes were watering at her. She helped him with, “So you + like to read poetry?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh yes, so much—though to tell the truth, I don't get much time for + reading, we're always so busy at the store and——But we had the + dandiest professional reciter at the Pythian Sisters sociable last + winter.” + </p> + <p> + Carol thought she heard a grunt from the traveling salesman at the end of + the table, and Kennicott's jerking elbow was a grunt embodied. She + persisted: + </p> + <p> + “Do you get to see many plays, Mr. Wutherspoon?” + </p> + <p> + He shone at her like a dim blue March moon, and sighed, “No, but I do love + the movies. I'm a real fan. One trouble with books is that they're not so + thoroughly safeguarded by intelligent censors as the movies are, and when + you drop into the library and take out a book you never know what you're + wasting your time on. What I like in books is a wholesome, really + improving story, and sometimes——Why, once I started a novel by + this fellow Balzac that you read about, and it told how a lady wasn't + living with her husband, I mean she wasn't his wife. It went into details, + disgustingly! And the English was real poor. I spoke to the library about + it, and they took it off the shelves. I'm not narrow, but I must say I + don't see any use in this deliberately dragging in immorality! Life itself + is so full of temptations that in literature one wants only that which is + pure and uplifting.” + </p> + <p> + “What's the name of that Balzac yarn? Where can I get hold of it?” giggled + the traveling salesman. + </p> + <p> + Raymie ignored him. “But the movies, they are mostly clean, and their + humor——Don't you think that the most essential quality for a + person to have is a sense of humor?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know. I really haven't much,” said Carol. + </p> + <p> + He shook his finger at her. “Now, now, you're too modest. I'm sure we can + all see that you have a perfectly corking sense of humor. Besides, Dr. + Kennicott wouldn't marry a lady that didn't have. We all know how he loves + his fun!” + </p> + <p> + “You bet. I'm a jokey old bird. Come on, Carrie; let's beat it,” remarked + Kennicott. + </p> + <p> + Raymie implored, “And what is your chief artistic interest, Mrs. + Kennicott?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh——” Aware that the traveling salesman had murmured, + “Dentistry,” she desperately hazarded, “Architecture.” + </p> + <p> + “That's a real nice art. I've always said—when Haydock & Simons + were finishing the new front on the Bon Ton building, the old man came to + me, you know, Harry's father, 'D. H.,' I always call him, and he asked me + how I liked it, and I said to him, 'Look here, D. H.,' I said—you + see, he was going to leave the front plain, and I said to him, 'It's all + very well to have modern lighting and a big display-space,' I said, 'but + when you get that in, you want to have some architecture, too,' I said, + and he laughed and said he guessed maybe I was right, and so he had 'em + put on a cornice.” + </p> + <p> + “Tin!” observed the traveling salesman. + </p> + <p> + Raymie bared his teeth like a belligerent mouse. “Well, what if it is tin? + That's not my fault. I told D. H. to make it polished granite. You make me + tired!” + </p> + <p> + “Leave us go! Come on, Carrie, leave us go!” from Kennicott. + </p> + <p> + Raymie waylaid them in the hall and secretly informed Carol that she + musn't mind the traveling salesman's coarseness—he belonged to the + hwa pollwa. + </p> + <p> + Kennicott chuckled, “Well, child, how about it? Do you prefer an artistic + guy like Raymie to stupid boobs like Sam Clark and me?” + </p> + <p> + “My dear! Let's go home, and play pinochle, and laugh, and be foolish, and + slip up to bed, and sleep without dreaming. It's beautiful to be just a + solid citizeness!” + </p> + <p> + III + </p> + <p> + From the Gopher Prairie Weekly Dauntless: + </p> + <p> + One of the most charming affairs of the season was held Tuesday evening at + the handsome new residence of Sam and Mrs. Clark when many of our most + prominent citizens gathered to greet the lovely new bride of our popular + local physician, Dr. Will Kennicott. All present spoke of the many charms + of the bride, formerly Miss Carol Milford of St. Paul. Games and stunts + were the order of the day, with merry talk and conversation. At a late + hour dainty refreshments were served, and the party broke up with many + expressions of pleasure at the pleasant affair. Among those present were + Mesdames Kennicott, Elder—— + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Dr. Will Kennicott, for the past several years one of our most popular and + skilful physicians and surgeons, gave the town a delightful surprise when + he returned from an extended honeymoon tour in Colorado this week with his + charming bride, nee Miss Carol Milford of St. Paul, whose family are + socially prominent in Minneapolis and Mankato. Mrs. Kennicott is a lady of + manifold charms, not only of striking charm of appearance but is also a + distinguished graduate of a school in the East and has for the past year + been prominently connected in an important position of responsibility with + the St. Paul Public Library, in which city Dr. “Will” had the good fortune + to meet her. The city of Gopher Prairie welcomes her to our midst and + prophesies for her many happy years in the energetic city of the twin + lakes and the future. The Dr. and Mrs. Kennicott will reside for the + present at the Doctor's home on Poplar Street which his charming mother + has been keeping for him who has now returned to her own home at + Lac-qui-Meurt leaving a host of friends who regret her absence and hope to + see her soon with us again. + </p> + <p> + IV + </p> + <p> + She knew that if she was ever to effect any of the “reforms” which she had + pictured, she must have a starting-place. What confused her during the + three or four months after her marriage was not lack of perception that + she must be definite, but sheer careless happiness of her first home. + </p> + <p> + In the pride of being a housewife she loved every detail—the brocade + armchair with the weak back, even the brass water-cock on the hot-water + reservoir, when she had become familiar with it by trying to scour it to + brilliance. + </p> + <p> + She found a maid—plump radiant Bea Sorenson from Scandia Crossing. + Bea was droll in her attempt to be at once a respectful servant and a + bosom friend. They laughed together over the fact that the stove did not + draw, over the slipperiness of fish in the pan. + </p> + <p> + Like a child playing Grandma in a trailing skirt, Carol paraded uptown for + her marketing, crying greetings to housewives along the way. Everybody + bowed to her, strangers and all, and made her feel that they wanted her, + that she belonged here. In city shops she was merely A Customer—a + hat, a voice to bore a harassed clerk. Here she was Mrs. Doc Kennicott, + and her preferences in grape-fruit and manners were known and remembered + and worth discussing . . . even if they weren't worth fulfilling. + </p> + <p> + Shopping was a delight of brisk conferences. The very merchants whose + droning she found the dullest at the two or three parties which were given + to welcome her were the pleasantest confidants of all when they had + something to talk about—lemons or cotton voile or floor-oil. With + that skip-jack Dave Dyer, the druggist, she conducted a long mock-quarrel. + She pretended that he cheated her in the price of magazines and candy; he + pretended she was a detective from the Twin Cities. He hid behind the + prescription-counter, and when she stamped her foot he came out wailing, + “Honest, I haven't done nothing crooked today—not yet.” + </p> + <p> + She never recalled her first impression of Main Street; never had + precisely the same despair at its ugliness. By the end of two + shopping-tours everything had changed proportions. As she never entered + it, the Minniemashie House ceased to exist for her. Clark's Hardware + Store, Dyer's Drug Store, the groceries of Ole Jenson and Frederick + Ludelmeyer and Howland & Gould, the meat markets, the notions shop—they + expanded, and hid all other structures. When she entered Mr. Ludelmeyer's + store and he wheezed, “Goot mornin', Mrs. Kennicott. Vell, dis iss a fine + day,” she did not notice the dustiness of the shelves nor the stupidity of + the girl clerk; and she did not remember the mute colloquy with him on her + first view of Main Street. + </p> + <p> + She could not find half the kinds of food she wanted, but that made + shopping more of an adventure. When she did contrive to get sweetbreads at + Dahl & Oleson's Meat Market the triumph was so vast that she buzzed + with excitement and admired the strong wise butcher, Mr. Dahl. + </p> + <p> + She appreciated the homely ease of village life. She liked the old men, + farmers, G.A.R. veterans, who when they gossiped sometimes squatted on + their heels on the sidewalk, like resting Indians, and reflectively spat + over the curb. + </p> + <p> + She found beauty in the children. + </p> + <p> + She had suspected that her married friends exaggerated their passion for + children. But in her work in the library, children had become individuals + to her, citizens of the State with their own rights and their own senses + of humor. In the library she had not had much time to give them, but now + she knew the luxury of stopping, gravely asking Bessie Clark whether her + doll had yet recovered from its rheumatism, and agreeing with Oscar + Martinsen that it would be Good Fun to go trapping “mushrats.” + </p> + <p> + She touched the thought, “It would be sweet to have a baby of my own. I do + want one. Tiny——No! Not yet! There's so much to do. And I'm + still tired from the job. It's in my bones.” + </p> + <p> + She rested at home. She listened to the village noises common to all the + world, jungle or prairie; sounds simple and charged with magic—dogs + barking, chickens making a gurgling sound of content, children at play, a + man beating a rug, wind in the cottonwood trees, a locust fiddling, a + footstep on the walk, jaunty voices of Bea and a grocer's boy in the + kitchen, a clinking anvil, a piano—not too near. + </p> + <p> + Twice a week, at least, she drove into the country with Kennicott, to hunt + ducks in lakes enameled with sunset, or to call on patients who looked up + to her as the squire's lady and thanked her for toys and magazines. + Evenings she went with her husband to the motion pictures and was + boisterously greeted by every other couple; or, till it became too cold, + they sat on the porch, bawling to passers-by in motors, or to neighbors + who were raking the leaves. The dust became golden in the low sun; the + street was filled with the fragrance of burning leaves. + </p> + <p> + V + </p> + <p> + But she hazily wanted some one to whom she could say what she thought. + </p> + <p> + On a slow afternoon when she fidgeted over sewing and wished that the + telephone would ring, Bea announced Miss Vida Sherwin. + </p> + <p> + Despite Vida Sherwin's lively blue eyes, if you had looked at her in + detail you would have found her face slightly lined, and not so much + sallow as with the bloom rubbed off; you would have found her chest flat, + and her fingers rough from needle and chalk and penholder; her blouses and + plain cloth skirts undistinguished; and her hat worn too far back, + betraying a dry forehead. But you never did look at Vida Sherwin in + detail. You couldn't. Her electric activity veiled her. She was as + energetic as a chipmunk. Her fingers fluttered; her sympathy came out in + spurts; she sat on the edge of a chair in eagerness to be near her + auditor, to send her enthusiasms and optimism across. + </p> + <p> + She rushed into the room pouring out: “I'm afraid you'll think the + teachers have been shabby in not coming near you, but we wanted to give + you a chance to get settled. I am Vida Sherwin, and I try to teach French + and English and a few other things in the high school.” + </p> + <p> + “I've been hoping to know the teachers. You see, I was a librarian——” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, you needn't tell me. I know all about you! Awful how much I know—this + gossipy village. We need you so much here. It's a dear loyal town (and + isn't loyalty the finest thing in the world!) but it's a rough diamond, + and we need you for the polishing, and we're ever so humble——” + She stopped for breath and finished her compliment with a smile. + </p> + <p> + “If I COULD help you in any way——Would I be committing the + unpardonable sin if I whispered that I think Gopher Prairie is a tiny bit + ugly?” + </p> + <p> + “Of course it's ugly. Dreadfully! Though I'm probably the only person in + town to whom you could safely say that. (Except perhaps Guy Pollock the + lawyer—have you met him?—oh, you MUST!—he's simply a + darling—intelligence and culture and so gentle.) But I don't care so + much about the ugliness. That will change. It's the spirit that gives me + hope. It's sound. Wholesome. But afraid. It needs live creatures like you + to awaken it. I shall slave-drive you!” + </p> + <p> + “Splendid. What shall I do? I've been wondering if it would be possible to + have a good architect come here to lecture.” + </p> + <p> + “Ye-es, but don't you think it would be better to work with existing + agencies? Perhaps it will sound slow to you, but I was thinking——It + would be lovely if we could get you to teach Sunday School.” + </p> + <p> + Carol had the empty expression of one who finds that she has been + affectionately bowing to a complete stranger. “Oh yes. But I'm afraid I + wouldn't be much good at that. My religion is so foggy.” + </p> + <p> + “I know. So is mine. I don't care a bit for dogma. Though I do stick + firmly to the belief in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man + and the leadership of Jesus. As you do, of course.” + </p> + <p> + Carol looked respectable and thought about having tea. + </p> + <p> + “And that's all you need teach in Sunday School. It's the personal + influence. Then there's the library-board. You'd be so useful on that. And + of course there's our women's study club—the Thanatopsis Club.” + </p> + <p> + “Are they doing anything? Or do they read papers made out of the + Encyclopedia?” + </p> + <p> + Miss Sherwin shrugged. “Perhaps. But still, they are so earnest. They will + respond to your fresher interest. And the Thanatopsis does do a good + social work—they've made the city plant ever so many trees, and they + run the rest-room for farmers' wives. And they do take such an interest in + refinement and culture. So—in fact, so very unique.” + </p> + <p> + Carol was disappointed—by nothing very tangible. She said politely, + “I'll think them all over. I must have a while to look around first.” + </p> + <p> + Miss Sherwin darted to her, smoothed her hair, peered at her. “Oh, my + dear, don't you suppose I know? These first tender days of marriage—they're + sacred to me. Home, and children that need you, and depend on you to keep + them alive, and turn to you with their wrinkly little smiles. And the + hearth and——” She hid her face from Carol as she made an + activity of patting the cushion of her chair, but she went on with her + former briskness: + </p> + <p> + “I mean, you must help us when you're ready. . . . I'm afraid you'll think + I'm conservative. I am! So much to conserve. All this treasure of American + ideals. Sturdiness and democracy and opportunity. Maybe not at Palm Beach. + But, thank heaven, we're free from such social distinctions in Gopher + Prairie. I have only one good quality—overwhelming belief in the + brains and hearts of our nation, our state, our town. It's so strong that + sometimes I do have a tiny effect on the haughty ten-thousandaires. I + shake 'em up and make 'em believe in ideals—yes, in themselves. But + I get into a rut of teaching. I need young critical things like you to + punch me up. Tell me, what are you reading?” + </p> + <p> + “I've been re-reading 'The Damnation of Theron Ware.' Do you know it?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. It was clever. But hard. Man wanted to tear down, not build up. + Cynical. Oh, I do hope I'm not a sentimentalist. But I can't see any use + in this high-art stuff that doesn't encourage us day-laborers to plod on.” + </p> + <p> + Ensued a fifteen-minute argument about the oldest topic in the world: It's + art but is it pretty? Carol tried to be eloquent regarding honesty of + observation. Miss Sherwin stood out for sweetness and a cautious use of + the uncomfortable properties of light. At the end Carol cried: + </p> + <p> + “I don't care how much we disagree. It's a relief to have somebody talk + something besides crops. Let's make Gopher Prairie rock to its + foundations: let's have afternoon tea instead of afternoon coffee.” + </p> + <p> + The delighted Bea helped her bring out the ancestral folding sewing-table, + whose yellow and black top was scarred with dotted lines from a + dressmaker's tracing-wheel, and to set it with an embroidered lunch-cloth, + and the mauve-glazed Japanese tea-set which she had brought from St. Paul. + Miss Sherwin confided her latest scheme—moral motion pictures for + country districts, with light from a portable dynamo hitched to a Ford + engine. Bea was twice called to fill the hot-water pitcher and to make + cinnamon toast. + </p> + <p> + When Kennicott came home at five he tried to be courtly, as befits the + husband of one who has afternoon tea. Carol suggested that Miss Sherwin + stay for supper, and that Kennicott invite Guy Pollock, the much-praised + lawyer, the poetic bachelor. + </p> + <p> + Yes, Pollock could come. Yes, he was over the grippe which had prevented + his going to Sam Clark's party. + </p> + <p> + Carol regretted her impulse. The man would be an opinionated politician, + heavily jocular about The Bride. But at the entrance of Guy Pollock she + discovered a personality. Pollock was a man of perhaps thirty-eight, + slender, still, deferential. His voice was low. “It was very good of you + to want me,” he said, and he offered no humorous remarks, and did not ask + her if she didn't think Gopher Prairie was “the livest little burg in the + state.” + </p> + <p> + She fancied that his even grayness might reveal a thousand tints of + lavender and blue and silver. + </p> + <p> + At supper he hinted his love for Sir Thomas Browne, Thoreau, Agnes + Repplier, Arthur Symons, Claude Washburn, Charles Flandrau. He presented + his idols diffidently, but he expanded in Carol's bookishness, in Miss + Sherwin's voluminous praise, in Kennicott's tolerance of any one who + amused his wife. + </p> + <p> + Carol wondered why Guy Pollock went on digging at routine law-cases; why + he remained in Gopher Prairie. She had no one whom she could ask. Neither + Kennicott nor Vida Sherwin would understand that there might be reasons + why a Pollock should not remain in Gopher Prairie. She enjoyed the faint + mystery. She felt triumphant and rather literary. She already had a Group. + It would be only a while now before she provided the town with fanlights + and a knowledge of Galsworthy. She was doing things! As she served the + emergency dessert of cocoanut and sliced oranges, she cried to Pollock, + “Don't you think we ought to get up a dramatic club?” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VI + </h2> + <h3> + I + </h3> + <p> + WHEN the first dubious November snow had filtered down, shading with white + the bare clods in the plowed fields, when the first small fire had been + started in the furnace, which is the shrine of a Gopher Prairie home, + Carol began to make the house her own. She dismissed the parlor furniture—the + golden oak table with brass knobs, the moldy brocade chairs, the picture + of “The Doctor.” She went to Minneapolis, to scamper through department + stores and small Tenth Street shops devoted to ceramics and high thought. + She had to ship her treasures, but she wanted to bring them back in her + arms. + </p> + <p> + Carpenters had torn out the partition between front parlor and back + parlor, thrown it into a long room on which she lavished yellow and deep + blue; a Japanese obi with an intricacy of gold thread on stiff ultramarine + tissue, which she hung as a panel against the maize wall; a couch with + pillows of sapphire velvet and gold bands; chairs which, in Gopher + Prairie, seemed flippant. She hid the sacred family phonograph in the + dining-room, and replaced its stand with a square cabinet on which was a + squat blue jar between yellow candles. + </p> + <p> + Kennicott decided against a fireplace. “We'll have a new house in a couple + of years, anyway.” + </p> + <p> + She decorated only one room. The rest, Kennicott hinted, she'd better + leave till he “made a ten-strike.” + </p> + <p> + The brown cube of a house stirred and awakened; it seemed to be in motion; + it welcomed her back from shopping; it lost its mildewed repression. + </p> + <p> + The supreme verdict was Kennicott's “Well, by golly, I was afraid the new + junk wouldn't be so comfortable, but I must say this divan, or whatever + you call it, is a lot better than that bumpy old sofa we had, and when I + look around——Well, it's worth all it cost, I guess.” + </p> + <p> + Every one in town took an interest in the refurnishing. The carpenters and + painters who did not actually assist crossed the lawn to peer through the + windows and exclaim, “Fine! Looks swell!” Dave Dyer at the drug store, + Harry Haydock and Raymie Wutherspoon at the Bon Ton, repeated daily, + “How's the good work coming? I hear the house is getting to be real + classy.” + </p> + <p> + Even Mrs. Bogart. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bogart lived across the alley from the rear of Carol's house. She was + a widow, and a Prominent Baptist, and a Good Influence. She had so + painfully reared three sons to be Christian gentlemen that one of them had + become an Omaha bartender, one a professor of Greek, and one, Cyrus N. + Bogart, a boy of fourteen who was still at home, the most brazen member of + the toughest gang in Boytown. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bogart was not the acid type of Good Influence. She was the soft, + damp, fat, sighing, indigestive, clinging, melancholy, depressingly + hopeful kind. There are in every large chicken-yard a number of old and + indignant hens who resemble Mrs. Bogart, and when they are served at + Sunday noon dinner, as fricasseed chicken with thick dumplings, they keep + up the resemblance. + </p> + <p> + Carol had noted that Mrs. Bogart from her side window kept an eye upon the + house. The Kennicotts and Mrs. Bogart did not move in the same sets—which + meant precisely the same in Gopher Prairie as it did on Fifth Avenue or in + Mayfair. But the good widow came calling. + </p> + <p> + She wheezed in, sighed, gave Carol a pulpy hand, sighed, glanced sharply + at the revelation of ankles as Carol crossed her legs, sighed, inspected + the new blue chairs, smiled with a coy sighing sound, and gave voice: + </p> + <p> + “I've wanted to call on you so long, dearie, you know we're neighbors, but + I thought I'd wait till you got settled, you must run in and see me, how + much did that big chair cost?” + </p> + <p> + “Seventy-seven dollars!” + </p> + <p> + “Sev——Sakes alive! Well, I suppose it's all right for them + that can afford it, though I do sometimes think——Of course as + our pastor said once, at Baptist Church——By the way, we + haven't seen you there yet, and of course your husband was raised up a + Baptist, and I do hope he won't drift away from the fold, of course we all + know there isn't anything, not cleverness or gifts of gold or anything, + that can make up for humility and the inward grace and they can say what + they want to about the P. E. church, but of course there's no church that + has more history or has stayed by the true principles of Christianity + better than the Baptist Church and——In what church were you + raised, Mrs. Kennicott?” + </p> + <p> + “W-why, I went to Congregational, as a girl in Mankato, but my college was + Universalist.” + </p> + <p> + “Well——But of course as the Bible says, is it the Bible, at + least I know I have heard it in church and everybody admits it, it's + proper for the little bride to take her husband's vessel of faith, so we + all hope we shall see you at the Baptist Church and——As I was + saying, of course I agree with Reverend Zitterel in thinking that the + great trouble with this nation today is lack of spiritual faith—so + few going to church, and people automobiling on Sunday and heaven knows + what all. But still I do think that one trouble is this terrible waste of + money, people feeling that they've got to have bath-tubs and telephones in + their houses——I heard you were selling the old furniture + cheap.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes!” + </p> + <p> + “Well—of course you know your own mind, but I can't help thinking, + when Will's ma was down here keeping house for him—SHE used to run + in to SEE me, real OFTEN!—it was good enough furniture for her. But + there, there, I mustn't croak, I just wanted to let you know that when you + find you can't depend on a lot of these gadding young folks like the + Haydocks and the Dyers—and heaven only knows how much money Juanita + Haydock blows in in a year—why then you may be glad to know that + slow old Aunty Bogart is always right there, and heaven knows——” + A portentous sigh. “—I HOPE you and your husband won't have any of + the troubles, with sickness and quarreling and wasting money and all that + so many of these young couples do have and——But I must be + running along now, dearie. It's been such a pleasure and——Just + run in and see me any time. I hope Will is well? I thought he looked a wee + mite peaked.” + </p> + <p> + It was twenty minutes later when Mrs. Bogart finally oozed out of the + front door. Carol ran back into the living-room and jerked open the + windows. “That woman has left damp finger-prints in the air,” she said. + </p> + <p> + II + </p> + <p> + Carol was extravagant, but at least she did not try to clear herself of + blame by going about whimpering, “I know I'm terribly extravagant but I + don't seem to be able to help it.” + </p> + <p> + Kennicott had never thought of giving her an allowance. His mother had + never had one! As a wage-earning spinster Carol had asserted to her fellow + librarians that when she was married, she was going to have an allowance + and be business-like and modern. But it was too much trouble to explain to + Kennicott's kindly stubbornness that she was a practical housekeeper as + well as a flighty playmate. She bought a budget-plan account book and made + her budgets as exact as budgets are likely to be when they lack budgets. + </p> + <p> + For the first month it was a honeymoon jest to beg prettily, to confess, + “I haven't a cent in the house, dear,” and to be told, “You're an + extravagant little rabbit.” But the budget book made her realize how + inexact were her finances. She became self-conscious; occasionally she was + indignant that she should always have to petition him for the money with + which to buy his food. She caught herself criticizing his belief that, + since his joke about trying to keep her out of the poorhouse had once been + accepted as admirable humor, it should continue to be his daily bon mot. + It was a nuisance to have to run down the street after him because she had + forgotten to ask him for money at breakfast. + </p> + <p> + But she couldn't “hurt his feelings,” she reflected. He liked the + lordliness of giving largess. + </p> + <p> + She tried to reduce the frequency of begging by opening accounts and + having the bills sent to him. She had found that staple groceries, sugar, + flour, could be most cheaply purchased at Axel Egge's rustic general + store. She said sweetly to Axel: + </p> + <p> + “I think I'd better open a charge account here.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't do no business except for cash,” grunted Axel. + </p> + <p> + She flared, “Do you know who I am?” + </p> + <p> + “Yuh, sure, I know. The doc is good for it. But that's yoost a rule I + made. I make low prices. I do business for cash.” + </p> + <p> + She stared at his red impassive face, and her fingers had the undignified + desire to slap him, but her reason agreed with him. “You're quite right. + You shouldn't break your rule for me.” + </p> + <p> + Her rage had not been lost. It had been transferred to her husband. She + wanted ten pounds of sugar in a hurry, but she had no money. She ran up + the stairs to Kennicott's office. On the door was a sign advertising a + headache cure and stating, “The doctor is out, back at——” + Naturally, the blank space was not filled out. She stamped her foot. She + ran down to the drug store—the doctor's club. + </p> + <p> + As she entered she heard Mrs. Dyer demanding, “Dave, I've got to have some + money.” + </p> + <p> + Carol saw that her husband was there, and two other men, all listening in + amusement. + </p> + <p> + Dave Dyer snapped, “How much do you want? Dollar be enough?” + </p> + <p> + “No, it won't! I've got to get some underclothes for the kids.” + </p> + <p> + “Why, good Lord, they got enough now to fill the closet so I couldn't find + my hunting boots, last time I wanted them.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't care. They're all in rags. You got to give me ten dollars——” + </p> + <p> + Carol perceived that Mrs. Dyer was accustomed to this indignity. She + perceived that the men, particularly Dave, regarded it as an excellent + jest. She waited—she knew what would come—it did. Dave yelped, + “Where's that ten dollars I gave you last year?” and he looked to the + other men to laugh. They laughed. + </p> + <p> + Cold and still, Carol walked up to Kennicott and commanded, “I want to see + you upstairs.” + </p> + <p> + “Why—something the matter?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes!” + </p> + <p> + He clumped after her, up the stairs, into his barren office. Before he + could get out a query she stated: + </p> + <p> + “Yesterday, in front of a saloon, I heard a German farm-wife beg her + husband for a quarter, to get a toy for the baby—and he refused. + Just now I've heard Mrs. Dyer going through the same humiliation. And I—I'm + in the same position! I have to beg you for money. Daily! I have just been + informed that I couldn't have any sugar because I hadn't the money to pay + for it!” + </p> + <p> + “Who said that? By God, I'll kill any——” + </p> + <p> + “Tut. It wasn't his fault. It was yours. And mine. I now humbly beg you to + give me the money with which to buy meals for you to eat. And hereafter to + remember it. The next time, I sha'n't beg. I shall simply starve. Do you + understand? I can't go on being a slave——” + </p> + <p> + Her defiance, her enjoyment of the role, ran out. She was sobbing against + his overcoat, “How can you shame me so?” and he was blubbering, “Dog-gone + it, I meant to give you some, and I forgot it. I swear I won't again. By + golly I won't!” + </p> + <p> + He pressed fifty dollars upon her, and after that he remembered to give + her money regularly . . . sometimes. + </p> + <p> + Daily she determined, “But I must have a stated amount—be + business-like. System. I must do something about it.” And daily she didn't + do anything about it. + </p> + <p> + III + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bogart had, by the simpering viciousness of her comments on the new + furniture, stirred Carol to economy. She spoke judiciously to Bea about + left-overs. She read the cookbook again and, like a child with a + picture-book, she studied the diagram of the beef which gallantly + continues to browse though it is divided into cuts. + </p> + <p> + But she was a deliberate and joyous spendthrift in her preparations for + her first party, the housewarming. She made lists on every envelope and + laundry-slip in her desk. She sent orders to Minneapolis “fancy grocers.” + She pinned patterns and sewed. She was irritated when Kennicott was + jocular about “these frightful big doings that are going on.” She regarded + the affair as an attack on Gopher Prairie's timidity in pleasure. “I'll + make 'em lively, if nothing else. I'll make 'em stop regarding parties as + committee-meetings.” + </p> + <p> + Kennicott usually considered himself the master of the house. At his + desire, she went hunting, which was his symbol of happiness, and she + ordered porridge for breakfast, which was his symbol of morality. But when + he came home on the afternoon before the housewarming he found himself a + slave, an intruder, a blunderer. Carol wailed, “Fix the furnace so you + won't have to touch it after supper. And for heaven's sake take that + horrible old door-mat off the porch. And put on your nice brown and white + shirt. Why did you come home so late? Would you mind hurrying? Here it is + almost suppertime, and those fiends are just as likely as not to come at + seven instead of eight. PLEASE hurry!” + </p> + <p> + She was as unreasonable as an amateur leading woman on a first night, and + he was reduced to humility. When she came down to supper, when she stood + in the doorway, he gasped. She was in a silver sheath, the calyx of a + lily, her piled hair like black glass; she had the fragility and + costliness of a Viennese goblet; and her eyes were intense. He was stirred + to rise from the table and to hold the chair for her; and all through + supper he ate his bread dry because he felt that she would think him + common if he said “Will you hand me the butter?” + </p> + <p> + IV + </p> + <p> + She had reached the calmness of not caring whether her guests liked the + party or not, and a state of satisfied suspense in regard to Bea's + technique in serving, before Kennicott cried from the bay-window in the + living-room, “Here comes somebody!” and Mr. and Mrs. Luke Dawson faltered + in, at a quarter to eight. Then in a shy avalanche arrived the entire + aristocracy of Gopher Prairie: all persons engaged in a profession, or + earning more than twenty-five hundred dollars a year, or possessed of + grandparents born in America. + </p> + <p> + Even while they were removing their overshoes they were peeping at the new + decorations. Carol saw Dave Dyer secretively turn over the gold pillows to + find a price-tag, and heard Mr. Julius Flickerbaugh, the attorney, gasp, + “Well, I'll be switched,” as he viewed the vermilion print hanging against + the Japanese obi. She was amused. But her high spirits slackened as she + beheld them form in dress parade, in a long, silent, uneasy circle clear + round the living-room. She felt that she had been magically whisked back + to her first party, at Sam Clark's. + </p> + <p> + “Have I got to lift them, like so many pigs of iron? I don't know that I + can make them happy, but I'll make them hectic.” + </p> + <p> + A silver flame in the darkling circle, she whirled around, drew them with + her smile, and sang, “I want my party to be noisy and undignified! This is + the christening of my house, and I want you to help me have a bad + influence on it, so that it will be a giddy house. For me, won't you all + join in an old-fashioned square dance? And Mr. Dyer will call.” + </p> + <p> + She had a record on the phonograph; Dave Dyer was capering in the center + of the floor, loose-jointed, lean, small, rusty headed, pointed of nose, + clapping his hands and shouting, “Swing y' pardners—alamun lef!” + </p> + <p> + Even the millionaire Dawsons and Ezra Stowbody and “Professor” George + Edwin Mott danced, looking only slightly foolish; and by rushing about the + room and being coy and coaxing to all persons over forty-five, Carol got + them into a waltz and a Virginia Reel. But when she left them to disenjoy + themselves in their own way Harry Haydock put a one-step record on the + phonograph, the younger people took the floor, and all the elders sneaked + back to their chairs, with crystallized smiles which meant, “Don't believe + I'll try this one myself, but I do enjoy watching the youngsters dance.” + </p> + <p> + Half of them were silent; half resumed the discussions of that afternoon + in the store. Ezra Stowbody hunted for something to say, hid a yawn, and + offered to Lyman Cass, the owner of the flour-mill, “How d' you folks like + the new furnace, Lym? Huh? So.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, let them alone. Don't pester them. They must like it, or they + wouldn't do it.” Carol warned herself. But they gazed at her so + expectantly when she flickered past that she was reconvinced that in their + debauches of respectability they had lost the power of play as well as the + power of impersonal thought. Even the dancers were gradually crushed by + the invisible force of fifty perfectly pure and well-behaved and negative + minds; and they sat down, two by two. In twenty minutes the party was + again elevated to the decorum of a prayer-meeting. + </p> + <p> + “We're going to do something exciting,” Carol exclaimed to her new + confidante, Vida Sherwin. She saw that in the growing quiet her voice had + carried across the room. Nat Hicks, Ella Stowbody, and Dave Dyer were + abstracted, fingers and lips slightly moving. She knew with a cold + certainty that Dave was rehearsing his “stunt” about the Norwegian + catching the hen, Ella running over the first lines of “An Old Sweetheart + of Mine,” and Nat thinking of his popular parody on Mark Antony's oration. + </p> + <p> + “But I will not have anybody use the word 'stunt' in my house,” she + whispered to Miss Sherwin. + </p> + <p> + “That's good. I tell you: why not have Raymond Wutherspoon sing?” + </p> + <p> + “Raymie? Why, my dear, he's the most sentimental yearner in town!” + </p> + <p> + “See here, child! Your opinions on house-decorating are sound, but your + opinions of people are rotten! Raymie does wag his tail. But the poor dear——Longing + for what he calls 'self-expression' and no training in anything except + selling shoes. But he can sing. And some day when he gets away from Harry + Haydock's patronage and ridicule, he'll do something fine.” + </p> + <p> + Carol apologized for her superciliousness. She urged Raymie, and warned + the planners of “stunts,” “We all want you to sing, Mr. Wutherspoon. + You're the only famous actor I'm going to let appear on the stage + tonight.” + </p> + <p> + While Raymie blushed and admitted, “Oh, they don't want to hear me,” he + was clearing his throat, pulling his clean handkerchief farther out of his + breast pocket, and thrusting his fingers between the buttons of his vest. + </p> + <p> + In her affection for Raymie's defender, in her desire to “discover + artistic talent,” Carol prepared to be delighted by the recital. + </p> + <p> + Raymie sang “Fly as a Bird,” “Thou Art My Dove,” and “When the Little + Swallow Leaves Its Tiny Nest,” all in a reasonably bad offertory tenor. + </p> + <p> + Carol was shuddering with the vicarious shame which sensitive people feel + when they listen to an “elocutionist” being humorous, or to a precocious + child publicly doing badly what no child should do at all. She wanted to + laugh at the gratified importance in Raymie's half-shut eyes; she wanted + to weep over the meek ambitiousness which clouded like an aura his pale + face, flap ears, and sandy pompadour. She tried to look admiring, for the + benefit of Miss Sherwin, that trusting admirer of all that was or + conceivably could be the good, the true, and the beautiful. + </p> + <p> + At the end of the third ornithological lyric Miss Sherwin roused from her + attitude of inspired vision and breathed to Carol, “My! That was sweet! Of + course Raymond hasn't an unusually good voice, but don't you think he puts + such a lot of feeling into it?” + </p> + <p> + Carol lied blackly and magnificently, but without originality: “Oh yes, I + do think he has so much FEELING!” + </p> + <p> + She saw that after the strain of listening in a cultured manner the + audience had collapsed; had given up their last hope of being amused. She + cried, “Now we're going to play an idiotic game which I learned in + Chicago. You will have to take off your shoes, for a starter! After that + you will probably break your knees and shoulder-blades.” + </p> + <p> + Much attention and incredulity. A few eyebrows indicating a verdict that + Doc Kennicott's bride was noisy and improper. + </p> + <p> + “I shall choose the most vicious, like Juanita Haydock and myself, as the + shepherds. The rest of you are wolves. Your shoes are the sheep. The + wolves go out into the hall. The shepherds scatter the sheep through this + room, then turn off all the lights, and the wolves crawl in from the hall + and in the darkness they try to get the shoes away from the shepherds—who + are permitted to do anything except bite and use black-jacks. The wolves + chuck the captured shoes out into the hall. No one excused! Come on! Shoes + off!” + </p> + <p> + Every one looked at every one else and waited for every one else to begin. + </p> + <p> + Carol kicked off her silver slippers, and ignored the universal glance at + her arches. The embarrassed but loyal Vida Sherwin unbuttoned her high + black shoes. Ezra Stowbody cackled, “Well, you're a terror to old folks. + You're like the gals I used to go horseback-riding with, back in the + sixties. Ain't much accustomed to attending parties barefoot, but here + goes!” With a whoop and a gallant jerk Ezra snatched off his elastic-sided + Congress shoes. + </p> + <p> + The others giggled and followed. + </p> + <p> + When the sheep had been penned up, in the darkness the timorous wolves + crept into the living-room, squealing, halting, thrown out of their habit + of stolidity by the strangeness of advancing through nothingness toward a + waiting foe, a mysterious foe which expanded and grew more menacing. The + wolves peered to make out landmarks, they touched gliding arms which did + not seem to be attached to a body, they quivered with a rapture of fear. + Reality had vanished. A yelping squabble suddenly rose, then Juanita + Haydock's high titter, and Guy Pollock's astonished, “Ouch! Quit! You're + scalping me!” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Luke Dawson galloped backward on stiff hands and knees into the + safety of the lighted hallway, moaning, “I declare, I nev' was so upset in + my life!” But the propriety was shaken out of her, and she delightedly + continued to ejaculate “Nev' in my LIFE” as she saw the living-room door + opened by invisible hands and shoes hurling through it, as she heard from + the darkness beyond the door a squawling, a bumping, a resolute “Here's a + lot of shoes. Come on, you wolves. Ow! Y' would, would you!” + </p> + <p> + When Carol abruptly turned on the lights in the embattled living-room, + half of the company were sitting back against the walls, where they had + craftily remained throughout the engagement, but in the middle of the + floor Kennicott was wrestling with Harry Haydock—their collars torn + off, their hair in their eyes; and the owlish Mr. Julius Flickerbaugh was + retreating from Juanita Haydock, and gulping with unaccustomed laughter. + Guy Pollock's discreet brown scarf hung down his back. Young Rita Simons's + net blouse had lost two buttons, and betrayed more of her delicious plump + shoulder than was regarded as pure in Gopher Prairie. Whether by shock, + disgust, joy of combat, or physical activity, all the party were freed + from their years of social decorum. George Edwin Mott giggled; Luke Dawson + twisted his beard; Mrs. Clark insisted, “I did too, Sam—I got a shoe—I + never knew I could fight so terrible!” + </p> + <p> + Carol was certain that she was a great reformer. + </p> + <p> + She mercifully had combs, mirrors, brushes, needle and thread ready. She + permitted them to restore the divine decency of buttons. + </p> + <p> + The grinning Bea brought down-stairs a pile of soft thick sheets of paper + with designs of lotos blossoms, dragons, apes, in cobalt and crimson and + gray, and patterns of purple birds flying among sea-green trees in the + valleys of Nowhere. + </p> + <p> + “These,” Carol announced, “are real Chinese masquerade costumes. I got + them from an importing shop in Minneapolis. You are to put them on over + your clothes, and please forget that you are Minnesotans, and turn into + mandarins and coolies and—and samurai (isn't it?), and anything else + you can think of.” + </p> + <p> + While they were shyly rustling the paper costumes she disappeared. Ten + minutes after she gazed down from the stairs upon grotesquely ruddy Yankee + heads above Oriental robes, and cried to them, “The Princess Winky Poo + salutes her court!” + </p> + <p> + As they looked up she caught their suspense of admiration. They saw an + airy figure in trousers and coat of green brocade edged with gold; a high + gold collar under a proud chin; black hair pierced with jade pins; a + languid peacock fan in an out-stretched hand; eyes uplifted to a vision of + pagoda towers. When she dropped her pose and smiled down she discovered + Kennicott apoplectic with domestic pride—and gray Guy Pollock + staring beseechingly. For a second she saw nothing in all the pink and + brown mass of their faces save the hunger of the two men. + </p> + <p> + She shook off the spell and ran down. “We're going to have a real Chinese + concert. Messrs. Pollock, Kennicott, and, well, Stowbody are drummers; the + rest of us sing and play the fife.” + </p> + <p> + The fifes were combs with tissue paper; the drums were tabourets and the + sewing-table. Loren Wheeler, editor of the Dauntless, led the orchestra, + with a ruler and a totally inaccurate sense of rhythm. The music was a + reminiscence of tom-toms heard at circus fortune-telling tents or at the + Minnesota State Fair, but the whole company pounded and puffed and whined + in a sing-song, and looked rapturous. + </p> + <p> + Before they were quite tired of the concert Carol led them in a dancing + procession to the dining-room, to blue bowls of chow mein, with Lichee + nuts and ginger preserved in syrup. + </p> + <p> + None of them save that city-rounder Harry Haydock had heard of any Chinese + dish except chop sooey. With agreeable doubt they ventured through the + bamboo shoots into the golden fried noodles of the chow mein; and Dave + Dyer did a not very humorous Chinese dance with Nat Hicks; and there was + hubbub and contentment. + </p> + <p> + Carol relaxed, and found that she was shockingly tired. She had carried + them on her thin shoulders. She could not keep it up. She longed for her + father, that artist at creating hysterical parties. She thought of smoking + a cigarette, to shock them, and dismissed the obscene thought before it + was quite formed. She wondered whether they could for five minutes be + coaxed to talk about something besides the winter top of Knute Stamquist's + Ford, and what Al Tingley had said about his mother-in-law. She sighed, + “Oh, let 'em alone. I've done enough.” She crossed her trousered legs, and + snuggled luxuriously above her saucer of ginger; she caught Pollock's + congratulatory still smile, and thought well of herself for having thrown + a rose light on the pallid lawyer; repented the heretical supposition that + any male save her husband existed; jumped up to find Kennicott and + whisper, “Happy, my lord? . . . No, it didn't cost much!” + </p> + <p> + “Best party this town ever saw. Only——Don't cross your legs in + that costume. Shows your knees too plain.” + </p> + <p> + She was vexed. She resented his clumsiness. She returned to Guy Pollock + and talked of Chinese religions—not that she knew anything whatever + about Chinese religions, but he had read a book on the subject as, on + lonely evenings in his office, he had read at least one book on every + subject in the world. Guy's thin maturity was changing in her vision to + flushed youth and they were roaming an island in the yellow sea of chatter + when she realized that the guests were beginning that cough which + indicated, in the universal instinctive language, that they desired to go + home and go to bed. + </p> + <p> + While they asserted that it had been “the nicest party they'd ever seen—my! + so clever and original,” she smiled tremendously, shook hands, and cried + many suitable things regarding children, and being sure to wrap up warmly, + and Raymie's singing and Juanita Haydock's prowess at games. Then she + turned wearily to Kennicott in a house filled with quiet and crumbs and + shreds of Chinese costumes. + </p> + <p> + He was gurgling, “I tell you, Carrie, you certainly are a wonder, and + guess you're right about waking folks up. Now you've showed 'em how, they + won't go on having the same old kind of parties and stunts and everything. + Here! Don't touch a thing! Done enough. Pop up to bed, and I'll clear up.” + </p> + <p> + His wise surgeon's-hands stroked her shoulder, and her irritation at his + clumsiness was lost in his strength. + </p> + <p> + V + </p> + <p> + From the Weekly Dauntless: + </p> + <p> + One of the most delightful social events of recent months was held + Wednesday evening in the housewarming of Dr. and Mrs. Kennicott, who have + completely redecorated their charming home on Poplar Street, and is now + extremely nifty in modern color scheme. The doctor and his bride were at + home to their numerous friends and a number of novelties in diversions + were held, including a Chinese orchestra in original and genuine Oriental + costumes, of which Ye Editor was leader. Dainty refreshments were served + in true Oriental style, and one and all voted a delightful time. + </p> + <p> + VI + </p> + <p> + The week after, the Chet Dashaways gave a party. The circle of mourners + kept its place all evening, and Dave Dyer did the “stunt” of the Norwegian + and the hen. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VII + </h2> + <h3> + I + </h3> + <p> + GOPHER PRAIRIE was digging in for the winter. Through late November and + all December it snowed daily; the thermometer was at zero and might drop + to twenty below, or thirty. Winter is not a season in the North + Middlewest; it is an industry. Storm sheds were erected at every door. In + every block the householders, Sam Clark, the wealthy Mr. Dawson, all save + asthmatic Ezra Stowbody who extravagantly hired a boy, were seen + perilously staggering up ladders, carrying storm windows and screwing them + to second-story jambs. While Kennicott put up his windows Carol danced + inside the bedrooms and begged him not to swallow the screws, which he + held in his mouth like an extraordinary set of external false teeth. + </p> + <p> + The universal sign of winter was the town handyman—Miles Bjornstam, + a tall, thick, red-mustached bachelor, opinionated atheist, general-store + arguer, cynical Santa Claus. Children loved him, and he sneaked away from + work to tell them improbable stories of sea-faring and horse-trading and + bears. The children's parents either laughed at him or hated him. He was + the one democrat in town. He called both Lyman Cass the miller and the + Finn homesteader from Lost Lake by their first names. He was known as “The + Red Swede,” and considered slightly insane. + </p> + <p> + Bjornstam could do anything with his hands—solder a pan, weld an + automobile spring, soothe a frightened filly, tinker a clock, carve a + Gloucester schooner which magically went into a bottle. Now, for a week, + he was commissioner general of Gopher Prairie. He was the only person + besides the repairman at Sam Clark's who understood plumbing. Everybody + begged him to look over the furnace and the water-pipes. He rushed from + house to house till after bedtime—ten o'clock. Icicles from burst + water-pipes hung along the skirt of his brown dog-skin overcoat; his plush + cap, which he never took off in the house, was a pulp of ice and + coal-dust; his red hands were cracked to rawness; he chewed the stub of a + cigar. + </p> + <p> + But he was courtly to Carol. He stooped to examine the furnace flues; he + straightened, glanced down at her, and hemmed, “Got to fix your furnace, + no matter what else I do.” + </p> + <p> + The poorer houses of Gopher Prairie, where the services of Miles Bjornstam + were a luxury—which included the shanty of Miles Bjornstam—were + banked to the lower windows with earth and manure. Along the railroad the + sections of snow fence, which had been stacked all summer in romantic + wooden tents occupied by roving small boys, were set up to prevent drifts + from covering the track. + </p> + <p> + The farmers came into town in home-made sleighs, with bed-quilts and hay + piled in the rough boxes. + </p> + <p> + Fur coats, fur caps, fur mittens, overshoes buckling almost to the knees, + gray knitted scarfs ten feet long, thick woolen socks, canvas jackets + lined with fluffy yellow wool like the plumage of ducklings, moccasins, + red flannel wristlets for the blazing chapped wrists of boys—these + protections against winter were busily dug out of moth-ball-sprinkled + drawers and tar-bags in closets, and all over town small boys were + squealing, “Oh, there's my mittens!” or “Look at my shoe-packs!” There is + so sharp a division between the panting summer and the stinging winter of + the Northern plains that they rediscovered with surprise and a feeling of + heroism this armor of an Artic explorer. + </p> + <p> + Winter garments surpassed even personal gossip as the topic at parties. It + was good form to ask, “Put on your heavies yet?” There were as many + distinctions in wraps as in motor cars. The lesser sort appeared in yellow + and black dogskin coats, but Kennicott was lordly in a long raccoon ulster + and a new seal cap. When the snow was too deep for his motor he went off + on country calls in a shiny, floral, steel-tipped cutter, only his ruddy + nose and his cigar emerging from the fur. + </p> + <p> + Carol herself stirred Main Street by a loose coat of nutria. Her + finger-tips loved the silken fur. + </p> + <p> + Her liveliest activity now was organizing outdoor sports in the + motor-paralyzed town. + </p> + <p> + The automobile and bridge-whist had not only made more evident the social + divisions in Gopher Prairie but they had also enfeebled the love of + activity. It was so rich-looking to sit and drive—and so easy. + Skiing and sliding were “stupid” and “old-fashioned.” In fact, the village + longed for the elegance of city recreations almost as much as the cities + longed for village sports; and Gopher Prairie took as much pride in + neglecting coasting as St. Paul—or New York—in going coasting. + Carol did inspire a successful skating-party in mid-November. Plover Lake + glistened in clear sweeps of gray-green ice, ringing to the skates. On + shore the ice-tipped reeds clattered in the wind, and oak twigs with + stubborn last leaves hung against a milky sky. Harry Haydock did + figure-eights, and Carol was certain that she had found the perfect life. + But when snow had ended the skating and she tried to get up a moonlight + sliding party, the matrons hesitated to stir away from their radiators and + their daily bridge-whist imitations of the city. She had to nag them. They + scooted down a long hill on a bob-sled, they upset and got snow down their + necks they shrieked that they would do it again immediately—and they + did not do it again at all. + </p> + <p> + She badgered another group into going skiing. They shouted and threw + snowballs, and informed her that it was SUCH fun, and they'd have another + skiing expedition right away, and they jollily returned home and never + thereafter left their manuals of bridge. + </p> + <p> + Carol was discouraged. She was grateful when Kennicott invited her to go + rabbit-hunting in the woods. She waded down stilly cloisters between burnt + stump and icy oak, through drifts marked with a million hieroglyphics of + rabbit and mouse and bird. She squealed as he leaped on a pile of brush + and fired at the rabbit which ran out. He belonged there, masculine in + reefer and sweater and high-laced boots. That night she ate prodigiously + of steak and fried potatoes; she produced electric sparks by touching his + ear with her finger-tip; she slept twelve hours; and awoke to think how + glorious was this brave land. + </p> + <p> + She rose to a radiance of sun on snow. Snug in her furs she trotted + up-town. Frosted shingles smoked against a sky colored like flax-blossoms, + sleigh-bells clinked, shouts of greeting were loud in the thin bright air, + and everywhere was a rhythmic sound of wood-sawing. It was Saturday, and + the neighbors' sons were getting up the winter fuel. Behind walls of + corded wood in back yards their sawbucks stood in depressions scattered + with canary-yellow flakes of sawdust. The frames of their buck-saws were + cherry-red, the blades blued steel, and the fresh cut ends of the sticks—poplar, + maple, iron-wood, birch—were marked with engraved rings of growth. + The boys wore shoe-packs, blue flannel shirts with enormous pearl buttons, + and mackinaws of crimson, lemon yellow, and foxy brown. + </p> + <p> + Carol cried “Fine day!” to the boys; she came in a glow to Howland & + Gould's grocery, her collar white with frost from her breath; she bought a + can of tomatoes as though it were Orient fruit; and returned home planning + to surprise Kennicott with an omelet creole for dinner. + </p> + <p> + So brilliant was the snow-glare that when she entered the house she saw + the door-knobs, the newspaper on the table, every white surface as + dazzling mauve, and her head was dizzy in the pyrotechnic dimness. When + her eyes had recovered she felt expanded, drunk with health, mistress of + life. The world was so luminous that she sat down at her rickety little + desk in the living-room to make a poem. (She got no farther than “The sky + is bright, the sun is warm, there ne'er will be another storm.”) + </p> + <p> + In the mid-afternoon of this same day Kennicott was called into the + country. It was Bea's evening out—her evening for the Lutheran + Dance. Carol was alone from three till midnight. She wearied of reading + pure love stories in the magazines and sat by a radiator, beginning to + brood. + </p> + <p> + Thus she chanced to discover that she had nothing to do. + </p> + <p> + II + </p> + <p> + She had, she meditated, passed through the novelty of seeing the town and + meeting people, of skating and sliding and hunting. Bea was competent; + there was no household labor except sewing and darning and gossipy + assistance to Bea in bed-making. She couldn't satisfy her ingenuity in + planning meals. At Dahl & Oleson's Meat Market you didn't give orders—you + wofully inquired whether there was anything today besides steak and pork + and ham. The cuts of beef were not cuts. They were hacks. Lamb chops were + as exotic as sharks' fins. The meat-dealers shipped their best to the + city, with its higher prices. + </p> + <p> + In all the shops there was the same lack of choice. She could not find a + glass-headed picture-nail in town; she did not hunt for the sort of + veiling she wanted—she took what she could get; and only at Howland + & Gould's was there such a luxury as canned asparagus. Routine care + was all she could devote to the house. Only by such fussing as the Widow + Bogart's could she make it fill her time. + </p> + <p> + She could not have outside employment. To the village doctor's wife it was + taboo. + </p> + <p> + She was a woman with a working brain and no work. + </p> + <p> + There were only three things which she could do: Have children; start her + career of reforming; or become so definitely a part of the town that she + would be fulfilled by the activities of church and study-club and + bridge-parties. + </p> + <p> + Children, yes, she wanted them, but——She was not quite ready. + She had been embarrassed by Kennicott's frankness, but she agreed with him + that in the insane condition of civilization, which made the rearing of + citizens more costly and perilous than any other crime, it was inadvisable + to have children till he had made more money. She was sorry——Perhaps + he had made all the mystery of love a mechanical cautiousness but——She + fled from the thought with a dubious, “Some day.” + </p> + <p> + Her “reforms,” her impulses toward beauty in raw Main Street, they had + become indistinct. But she would set them going now. She would! She swore + it with soft fist beating the edges of the radiator. And at the end of all + her vows she had no notion as to when and where the crusade was to begin. + </p> + <p> + Become an authentic part of the town? She began to think with unpleasant + lucidity. She reflected that she did not know whether the people liked + her. She had gone to the women at afternoon-coffees, to the merchants in + their stores, with so many outpouring comments and whimsies that she + hadn't given them a chance to betray their opinions of her. The men smiled—but + did they like her? She was lively among the women—but was she one of + them? She could not recall many times when she had been admitted to the + whispering of scandal which is the secret chamber of Gopher Prairie + conversation. + </p> + <p> + She was poisoned with doubt, as she drooped up to bed. + </p> + <p> + Next day, through her shopping, her mind sat back and observed. Dave Dyer + and Sam Clark were as cordial as she had been fancying; but wasn't there + an impersonal abruptness in the “H' are yuh?” of Chet Dashaway? Howland + the grocer was curt. Was that merely his usual manner? + </p> + <p> + “It's infuriating to have to pay attention to what people think. In St. + Paul I didn't care. But here I'm spied on. They're watching me. I mustn't + let it make me self-conscious,” she coaxed herself—overstimulated by + the drug of thought, and offensively on the defensive. + </p> + <p> + III + </p> + <p> + A thaw which stripped the snow from the sidewalks; a ringing iron night + when the lakes could be heard booming; a clear roistering morning. In tam + o'shanter and tweed skirt Carol felt herself a college junior going out to + play hockey. She wanted to whoop, her legs ached to run. On the way home + from shopping she yielded, as a pup would have yielded. She galloped down + a block and as she jumped from a curb across a welter of slush, she gave a + student “Yippee!” + </p> + <p> + She saw that in a window three old women were gasping. Their triple glare + was paralyzing. Across the street, at another window, the curtain had + secretively moved. She stopped, walked on sedately, changed from the girl + Carol into Mrs. Dr. Kennicott. + </p> + <p> + She never again felt quite young enough and defiant enough and free enough + to run and halloo in the public streets; and it was as a Nice Married + Woman that she attended the next weekly bridge of the Jolly Seventeen. + </p> + <p> + IV + </p> + <p> + The Jolly Seventeen (the membership of which ranged from fourteen to + twenty-six) was the social cornice of Gopher Prairie. It was the country + club, the diplomatic set, the St. Cecilia, the Ritz oval room, the Club de + Vingt. To belong to it was to be “in.” Though its membership partly + coincided with that of the Thanatopsis study club, the Jolly Seventeen as + a separate entity guffawed at the Thanatopsis, and considered it + middle-class and even “highbrow.” + </p> + <p> + Most of the Jolly Seventeen were young married women, with their husbands + as associate members. Once a week they had a women's afternoon-bridge; + once a month the husbands joined them for supper and evening-bridge; twice + a year they had dances at I. O. O. F. Hall. Then the town exploded. Only + at the annual balls of the Firemen and of the Eastern Star was there such + prodigality of chiffon scarfs and tangoing and heart-burnings, and these + rival institutions were not select—hired girls attended the + Firemen's Ball, with section-hands and laborers. Ella Stowbody had once + gone to a Jolly Seventeen Soiree in the village hack, hitherto confined to + chief mourners at funerals; and Harry Haydock and Dr. Terry Gould always + appeared in the town's only specimens of evening clothes. + </p> + <p> + The afternoon-bridge of the Jolly Seventeen which followed Carol's lonely + doubting was held at Juanita Haydock's new concrete bungalow, with its + door of polished oak and beveled plate-glass, jar of ferns in the + plastered hall, and in the living-room, a fumed oak Morris chair, sixteen + color-prints, and a square varnished table with a mat made of + cigar-ribbons on which was one Illustrated Gift Edition and one pack of + cards in a burnt-leather case. + </p> + <p> + Carol stepped into a sirocco of furnace heat. They were already playing. + Despite her flabby resolves she had not yet learned bridge. She was + winningly apologetic about it to Juanita, and ashamed that she should have + to go on being apologetic. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Dave Dyer, a sallow woman with a thin prettiness devoted to + experiments in religious cults, illnesses, and scandal-bearing, shook her + finger at Carol and trilled, “You're a naughty one! I don't believe you + appreciate the honor, when you got into the Jolly Seventeen so easy!” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Chet Dashaway nudged her neighbor at the second table. But Carol kept + up the appealing bridal manner so far as possible. She twittered, “You're + perfectly right. I'm a lazy thing. I'll make Will start teaching me this + very evening.” Her supplication had all the sound of birdies in the nest, + and Easter church-bells, and frosted Christmas cards. Internally she + snarled, “That ought to be saccharine enough.” She sat in the smallest + rocking-chair, a model of Victorian modesty. But she saw or she imagined + that the women who had gurgled at her so welcomingly when she had first + come to Gopher Prairie were nodding at her brusquely. + </p> + <p> + During the pause after the first game she petitioned Mrs. Jackson Elder, + “Don't you think we ought to get up another bob-sled party soon?” + </p> + <p> + “It's so cold when you get dumped in the snow,” said Mrs. Elder, + indifferently. + </p> + <p> + “I hate snow down my neck,” volunteered Mrs. Dave Dyer, with an unpleasant + look at Carol and, turning her back, she bubbled at Rita Simons, “Dearie, + won't you run in this evening? I've got the loveliest new Butterick + pattern I want to show you.” + </p> + <p> + Carol crept back to her chair. In the fervor of discussing the game they + ignored her. She was not used to being a wallflower. She struggled to keep + from oversensitiveness, from becoming unpopular by the sure method of + believing that she was unpopular; but she hadn't much reserve of patience, + and at the end of the second game, when Ella Stowbody sniffily asked her, + “Are you going to send to Minneapolis for your dress for the next soiree—heard + you were,” Carol said “Don't know yet” with unnecessary sharpness. + </p> + <p> + She was relieved by the admiration with which the jeune fille Rita Simons + looked at the steel buckles on her pumps; but she resented Mrs. Howland's + tart demand, “Don't you find that new couch of yours is too broad to be + practical?” She nodded, then shook her head, and touchily left Mrs. + Howland to get out of it any meaning she desired. Immediately she wanted + to make peace. She was close to simpering in the sweetness with which she + addressed Mrs Howland: “I think that is the prettiest display of beef-tea + your husband has in his store.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh yes, Gopher Prairie isn't so much behind the times,” gibed Mrs. + Howland. Some one giggled. + </p> + <p> + Their rebuffs made her haughty; her haughtiness irritated them to franker + rebuffs; they were working up to a state of painfully righteous war when + they were saved by the coming of food. + </p> + <p> + Though Juanita Haydock was highly advanced in the matters of finger-bowls, + doilies, and bath-mats, her “refreshments” were typical of all the + afternoon-coffees. Juanita's best friends, Mrs. Dyer and Mrs. Dashaway, + passed large dinner plates, each with a spoon, a fork, and a coffee cup + without saucer. They apologized and discussed the afternoon's game as they + passed through the thicket of women's feet. Then they distributed hot + buttered rolls, coffee poured from an enamel-ware pot, stuffed olives, + potato salad, and angel's-food cake. There was, even in the most strictly + conforming Gopher Prairie circles, a certain option as to collations. The + olives need not be stuffed. Doughnuts were in some houses well thought of + as a substitute for the hot buttered rolls. But there was in all the town + no heretic save Carol who omitted angel's-food. + </p> + <p> + They ate enormously. Carol had a suspicion that the thriftier housewives + made the afternoon treat do for evening supper. + </p> + <p> + She tried to get back into the current. She edged over to Mrs. McGanum. + Chunky, amiable, young Mrs. McGanum with her breast and arms of a + milkmaid, and her loud delayed laugh which burst startlingly from a sober + face, was the daughter of old Dr. Westlake, and the wife of Westlake's + partner, Dr. McGanum. Kennicott asserted that Westlake and McGanum and + their contaminated families were tricky, but Carol had found them + gracious. She asked for friendliness by crying to Mrs. McGanum, “How is + the baby's throat now?” and she was attentive while Mrs. McGanum rocked + and knitted and placidly described symptoms. + </p> + <p> + Vida Sherwin came in after school, with Miss Ethel Villets, the town + librarian. Miss Sherwin's optimistic presence gave Carol more confidence. + She talked. She informed the circle “I drove almost down to Wahkeenyan + with Will, a few days ago. Isn't the country lovely! And I do admire the + Scandinavian farmers down there so: their big red barns and silos and + milking-machines and everything. Do you all know that lonely Lutheran + church, with the tin-covered spire, that stands out alone on a hill? It's + so bleak; somehow it seems so brave. I do think the Scandinavians are the + hardiest and best people——” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, do you THINK so?” protested Mrs. Jackson Elder. “My husband says the + Svenskas that work in the planing-mill are perfectly terrible—so + silent and cranky, and so selfish, the way they keep demanding raises. If + they had their way they'd simply ruin the business.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, and they're simply GHASTLY hired girls!” wailed Mrs. Dave Dyer. “I + swear, I work myself to skin and bone trying to please my hired girls—when + I can get them! I do everything in the world for them. They can have their + gentleman friends call on them in the kitchen any time, and they get just + the same to eat as we do, if there's, any left over, and I practically + never jump on them.” + </p> + <p> + Juanita Haydock rattled, “They're ungrateful, all that class of people. I + do think the domestic problem is simply becoming awful. I don't know what + the country's coming to, with these Scandahoofian clodhoppers demanding + every cent you can save, and so ignorant and impertinent, and on my word, + demanding bath-tubs and everything—as if they weren't mighty good + and lucky at home if they got a bath in the wash-tub.” + </p> + <p> + They were off, riding hard. Carol thought of Bea and waylaid them: + </p> + <p> + “But isn't it possibly the fault of the mistresses if the maids are + ungrateful? For generations we've given them the leavings of food, and + holes to live in. I don't want to boast, but I must say I don't have much + trouble with Bea. She's so friendly. The Scandinavians are sturdy and + honest——” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Dave Dyer snapped, “Honest? Do you call it honest to hold us up for + every cent of pay they can get? I can't say that I've had any of them + steal anything (though you might call it stealing to eat so much that a + roast of beef hardly lasts three days), but just the same I don't intend + to let them think they can put anything over on ME! I always make them + pack and unpack their trunks down-stairs, right under my eyes, and then I + know they aren't being tempted to dishonesty by any slackness on MY part!” + </p> + <p> + “How much do the maids get here?” Carol ventured. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. B. J. Gougerling, wife of the banker, stated in a shocked manner, + “Any place from three-fifty to five-fifty a week! I know positively that + Mrs. Clark, after swearing that she wouldn't weaken and encourage them in + their outrageous demands, went and paid five-fifty—think of it! + practically a dollar a day for unskilled work and, of course, her food and + room and a chance to do her own washing right in with the rest of the + wash. HOW MUCH DO YOU PAY, Mrs. KENNICOTT?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes! How much do you pay?” insisted half a dozen. + </p> + <p> + “W-why, I pay six a week,” she feebly confessed. + </p> + <p> + They gasped. Juanita protested, “Don't you think it's hard on the rest of + us when you pay so much?” Juanita's demand was reinforced by the universal + glower. + </p> + <p> + Carol was angry. “I don't care! A maid has one of the hardest jobs on + earth. She works from ten to eighteen hours a day. She has to wash slimy + dishes and dirty clothes. She tends the children and runs to the door with + wet chapped hands and——” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Dave Dyer broke into Carol's peroration with a furious, “That's all + very well, but believe me, I do those things myself when I'm without a + maid—and that's a good share of the time for a person that isn't + willing to yield and pay exorbitant wages!” + </p> + <p> + Carol was retorting, “But a maid does it for strangers, and all she gets + out of it is the pay——” + </p> + <p> + Their eyes were hostile. Four of them were talking at once. Vida Sherwin's + dictatorial voice cut through, took control of the revolution: + </p> + <p> + “Tut, tut, tut, tut! What angry passions—and what an idiotic + discussion! All of you getting too serious. Stop it! Carol Kennicott, + you're probably right, but you're too much ahead of the times. Juanita, + quit looking so belligerent. What is this, a card party or a hen fight? + Carol, you stop admiring yourself as the Joan of Arc of the hired girls, + or I'll spank you. You come over here and talk libraries with Ethel + Villets. Boooooo! If there's any more pecking, I'll take charge of the hen + roost myself!” + </p> + <p> + They all laughed artificially, and Carol obediently “talked libraries.” + </p> + <p> + A small-town bungalow, the wives of a village doctor and a village + dry-goods merchant, a provincial teacher, a colloquial brawl over paying a + servant a dollar more a week. Yet this insignificance echoed cellar-plots + and cabinet meetings and labor conferences in Persia and Prussia, Rome and + Boston, and the orators who deemed themselves international leaders were + but the raised voices of a billion Juanitas denouncing a million Carols, + with a hundred thousand Vida Sherwins trying to shoo away the storm. + </p> + <p> + Carol felt guilty. She devoted herself to admiring the spinsterish Miss + Villets—and immediately committed another offense against the laws + of decency. + </p> + <p> + “We haven't seen you at the library yet,” Miss Villets reproved. + </p> + <p> + “I've wanted to run in so much but I've been getting settled and——I'll + probably come in so often you'll get tired of me! I hear you have such a + nice library.” + </p> + <p> + “There are many who like it. We have two thousand more books than + Wakamin.” + </p> + <p> + “Isn't that fine. I'm sure you are largely responsible. I've had some + experience, in St. Paul.” + </p> + <p> + “So I have been informed. Not that I entirely approve of library methods + in these large cities. So careless, letting tramps and all sorts of dirty + persons practically sleep in the reading-rooms.” + </p> + <p> + “I know, but the poor souls——Well, I'm sure you will agree + with me in one thing: The chief task of a librarian is to get people to + read.” + </p> + <p> + “You feel so? My feeling, Mrs. Kennicott, and I am merely quoting the + librarian of a very large college, is that the first duty of the + CONSCIENTIOUS librarian is to preserve the books.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh!” Carol repented her “Oh.” Miss Villets stiffened, and attacked: + </p> + <p> + “It may be all very well in cities, where they have unlimited funds, to + let nasty children ruin books and just deliberately tear them up, and + fresh young men take more books out than they are entitled to by the + regulations, but I'm never going to permit it in this library!” + </p> + <p> + “What if some children are destructive? They learn to read. Books are + cheaper than minds.” + </p> + <p> + “Nothing is cheaper than the minds of some of these children that come in + and bother me simply because their mothers don't keep them home where they + belong. Some librarians may choose to be so wishy-washy and turn their + libraries into nursing-homes and kindergartens, but as long as I'm in + charge, the Gopher Prairie library is going to be quiet and decent, and + the books well kept!” + </p> + <p> + Carol saw that the others were listening, waiting for her to be + objectionable. She flinched before their dislike. She hastened to smile in + agreement with Miss Villets, to glance publicly at her wrist-watch, to + warble that it was “so late—have to hurry home—husband—such + nice party—maybe you were right about maids, prejudiced because Bea + so nice—such perfectly divine angel's-food, Mrs. Haydock must give + me the recipe—good-by, such happy party——” + </p> + <p> + She walked home. She reflected, “It was my fault. I was touchy. And I + opposed them so much. Only——I can't! I can't be one of them if + I must damn all the maids toiling in filthy kitchens, all the ragged + hungry children. And these women are to be my arbiters, the rest of my + life!” + </p> + <p> + She ignored Bea's call from the kitchen; she ran up-stairs to the + unfrequented guest-room; she wept in terror, her body a pale arc as she + knelt beside a cumbrous black-walnut bed, beside a puffy mattress covered + with a red quilt, in a shuttered and airless room. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VIII + </h2> + <p> + “DON'T I, in looking for things to do, show that I'm not attentive enough + to Will? Am I impressed enough by his work? I will be. Oh, I will be. If I + can't be one of the town, if I must be an outcast——” + </p> + <p> + When Kennicott came home she bustled, “Dear, you must tell me a lot more + about your cases. I want to know. I want to understand.” + </p> + <p> + “Sure. You bet.” And he went down to fix the furnace. + </p> + <p> + At supper she asked, “For instance, what did you do today?” + </p> + <p> + “Do today? How do you mean?” + </p> + <p> + “Medically. I want to understand——” + </p> + <p> + “Today? Oh, there wasn't much of anything: couple chumps with bellyaches, + and a sprained wrist, and a fool woman that thinks she wants to kill + herself because her husband doesn't like her and——Just routine + work.” + </p> + <p> + “But the unhappy woman doesn't sound routine!” + </p> + <p> + “Her? Just case of nerves. You can't do much with these marriage mix-ups.” + </p> + <p> + “But dear, PLEASE, will you tell me about the next case that you do think + is interesting?” + </p> + <p> + “Sure. You bet. Tell you about anything that——Say that's + pretty good salmon. Get it at Howland's?” + </p> + <p> + II + </p> + <p> + Four days after the Jolly Seventeen debacle Vida Sherwin called and + casually blew Carol's world to pieces. + </p> + <p> + “May I come in and gossip a while?” she said, with such excess of bright + innocence that Carol was uneasy. Vida took off her furs with a bounce, she + sat down as though it were a gymnasium exercise, she flung out: + </p> + <p> + “Feel disgracefully good, this weather! Raymond Wutherspoon says if he had + my energy he'd be a grand opera singer. I always think this climate is the + finest in the world, and my friends are the dearest people in the world, + and my work is the most essential thing in the world. Probably I fool + myself. But I know one thing for certain: You're the pluckiest little + idiot in the world.” + </p> + <p> + “And so you are about to flay me alive.” Carol was cheerful about it. + </p> + <p> + “Am I? Perhaps. I've been wondering—I know that the third party to a + squabble is often the most to blame: the one who runs between A and B + having a beautiful time telling each of them what the other has said. But + I want you to take a big part in vitalizing Gopher Prairie and so——Such + a very unique opportunity and——Am I silly?” + </p> + <p> + “I know what you mean. I was too abrupt at the Jolly Seventeen.” + </p> + <p> + “It isn't that. Matter of fact, I'm glad you told them some wholesome + truths about servants. (Though perhaps you were just a bit tactless.) It's + bigger than that. I wonder if you understand that in a secluded community + like this every newcomer is on test? People cordial to her but watching + her all the time. I remember when a Latin teacher came here from + Wellesley, they resented her broad A. Were sure it was affected. Of course + they have discussed you——” + </p> + <p> + “Have they talked about me much?” + </p> + <p> + “My dear!” + </p> + <p> + “I always feel as though I walked around in a cloud, looking out at others + but not being seen. I feel so inconspicuous and so normal—so normal + that there's nothing about me to discuss. I can't realize that Mr. and + Mrs. Haydock must gossip about me.” Carol was working up a small passion + of distaste. “And I don't like it. It makes me crawly to think of their + daring to talk over all I do and say. Pawing me over! I resent it. I hate——” + </p> + <p> + “Wait, child! Perhaps they resent some things in you. I want you to try + and be impersonal. They'd paw over anybody who came in new. Didn't you, + with newcomers in College?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “Well then! Will you be impersonal? I'm paying you the compliment of + supposing that you can be. I want you to be big enough to help me make + this town worth while.” + </p> + <p> + “I'll be as impersonal as cold boiled potatoes. (Not that I shall ever be + able to help you 'make the town worth while.') What do they say about me? + Really. I want to know.” + </p> + <p> + “Of course the illiterate ones resent your references to anything farther + away than Minneapolis. They're so suspicious—that's it, suspicious. + And some think you dress too well.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, they do, do they! Shall I dress in gunny-sacking to suit them?” + </p> + <p> + “Please! Are you going to be a baby?” + </p> + <p> + “I'll be good,” sulkily. + </p> + <p> + “You certainly will, or I won't tell you one single thing. You must + understand this: I'm not asking you to change yourself. Just want you to + know what they think. You must do that, no matter how absurd their + prejudices are, if you're going to handle them. Is it your ambition to + make this a better town, or isn't it?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know whether it is or not!” + </p> + <p> + “Why—why——Tut, tut, now, of course it is! Why, I depend + on you. You're a born reformer.” + </p> + <p> + “I am not—not any more!” + </p> + <p> + “Of course you are.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, if I really could help——So they think I'm affected?” + </p> + <p> + “My lamb, they do! Now don't say they're nervy. After all, Gopher Prairie + standards are as reasonable to Gopher Prairie as Lake Shore Drive + standards are to Chicago. And there's more Gopher Prairies than there are + Chicagos. Or Londons. And——I'll tell you the whole story: They + think you're showing off when you say 'American' instead of 'Ammurrican.' + They think you're too frivolous. Life's so serious to them that they can't + imagine any kind of laughter except Juanita's snortling. Ethel Villets was + sure you were patronizing her when——” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I was not!” + </p> + <p> + “——you talked about encouraging reading; and Mrs. Elder + thought you were patronizing when you said she had 'such a pretty little + car.' She thinks it's an enormous car! And some of the merchants say + you're too flip when you talk to them in the store and——” + </p> + <p> + “Poor me, when I was trying to be friendly!” + </p> + <p> + “——every housewife in town is doubtful about your being so + chummy with your Bea. All right to be kind, but they say you act as though + she were your cousin. (Wait now! There's plenty more.) And they think you + were eccentric in furnishing this room—they think the broad couch + and that Japanese dingus are absurd. (Wait! I know they're silly.) And I + guess I've heard a dozen criticize you because you don't go to church + oftener and——” + </p> + <p> + “I can't stand it—I can't bear to realize that they've been saying + all these things while I've been going about so happily and liking them. I + wonder if you ought to have told me? It will make me self-conscious.” + </p> + <p> + “I wonder the same thing. Only answer I can get is the old saw about + knowledge being power. And some day you'll see how absorbing it is to have + power, even here; to control the town——Oh, I'm a crank. But I + do like to see things moving.” + </p> + <p> + “It hurts. It makes these people seem so beastly and treacherous, when + I've been perfectly natural with them. But let's have it all. What did + they say about my Chinese house-warming party?” + </p> + <p> + “Why, uh——” + </p> + <p> + “Go on. Or I'll make up worse things than anything you can tell me.” + </p> + <p> + “They did enjoy it. But I guess some of them felt you were showing off—pretending + that your husband is richer than he is.” + </p> + <p> + “I can't——Their meanness of mind is beyond any horrors I could + imagine. They really thought that I——And you want to 'reform' + people like that when dynamite is so cheap? Who dared to say that? The + rich or the poor?” + </p> + <p> + “Fairly well assorted.” + </p> + <p> + “Can't they at least understand me well enough to see that though I might + be affected and culturine, at least I simply couldn't commit that other + kind of vulgarity? If they must know, you may tell them, with my + compliments, that Will makes about four thousand a year, and the party + cost half of what they probably thought it did. Chinese things are not + very expensive, and I made my own costume——” + </p> + <p> + “Stop it! Stop beating me! I know all that. What they meant was: they felt + you were starting dangerous competition by giving a party such as most + people here can't afford. Four thousand is a pretty big income for this + town.” + </p> + <p> + “I never thought of starting competition. Will you believe that it was in + all love and friendliness that I tried to give them the gayest party I + could? It was foolish; it was childish and noisy. But I did mean it so + well.” + </p> + <p> + “I know, of course. And it certainly is unfair of them to make fun of your + having that Chinese food—chow men, was it?—and to laugh about + your wearing those pretty trousers——” + </p> + <p> + Carol sprang up, whimpering, “Oh, they didn't do that! They didn't poke + fun at my feast, that I ordered so carefully for them! And my little + Chinese costume that I was so happy making—I made it secretly, to + surprise them. And they've been ridiculing it, all this while!” + </p> + <p> + She was huddled on the couch. + </p> + <p> + Vida was stroking her hair, muttering, “I shouldn't——” + </p> + <p> + Shrouded in shame, Carol did not know when Vida slipped away. The clock's + bell, at half past five, aroused her. “I must get hold of myself before + Will comes. I hope he never knows what a fool his wife is. . . . Frozen, + sneering, horrible hearts.” + </p> + <p> + Like a very small, very lonely girl she trudged up-stairs, slow step by + step, her feet dragging, her hand on the rail. It was not her husband to + whom she wanted to run for protection—it was her father, her smiling + understanding father, dead these twelve years. + </p> + <p> + III + </p> + <p> + Kennicott was yawning, stretched in the largest chair, between the + radiator and a small kerosene stove. + </p> + <p> + Cautiously, “Will dear, I wonder if the people here don't criticize me + sometimes? They must. I mean: if they ever do, you mustn't let it bother + you.” + </p> + <p> + “Criticize you? Lord, I should say not. They all keep telling me you're + the swellest girl they ever saw.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, I've just fancied——The merchants probably think I'm too + fussy about shopping. I'm afraid I bore Mr. Dashaway and Mr. Howland and + Mr. Ludelmeyer.” + </p> + <p> + “I can tell you how that is. I didn't want to speak of it but since you've + brought it up: Chet Dashaway probably resents the fact that you got this + new furniture down in the Cities instead of here. I didn't want to raise + any objection at the time but——After all, I make my money here + and they naturally expect me to spend it here.” + </p> + <p> + “If Mr. Dashaway will kindly tell me how any civilized person can furnish + a room out of the mortuary pieces that he calls——” She + remembered. She said meekly, “But I understand.” + </p> + <p> + “And Howland and Ludelmeyer——Oh, you've probably handed 'em a + few roasts for the bum stocks they carry, when you just meant to jolly + 'em. But rats, what do we care! This is an independent town, not like + these Eastern holes where you have to watch your step all the time, and + live up to fool demands and social customs, and a lot of old tabbies + always busy criticizing. Everybody's free here to do what he wants to.” He + said it with a flourish, and Carol perceived that he believed it. She + turned her breath of fury into a yawn. + </p> + <p> + “By the way, Carrie, while we're talking of this: Of course I like to keep + independent, and I don't believe in this business of binding yourself to + trade with the man that trades with you unless you really want to, but + same time: I'd be just as glad if you dealt with Jenson or Ludelmeyer as + much as you ran, instead of Howland & Gould, who go to Dr. Gould every + last time, and the whole tribe of 'em the same way. I don't see why I + should be paying out my good money for groceries and having them pass it + on to Terry Gould!” + </p> + <p> + “I've gone to Howland & Gould because they're better, and cleaner.” + </p> + <p> + “I know. I don't mean cut them out entirely. Course Jenson is tricky—give + you short weight—and Ludelmeyer is a shiftless old Dutch hog. But + same time, I mean let's keep the trade in the family whenever it is + convenient, see how I mean?” + </p> + <p> + “I see.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, guess it's about time to turn in.” + </p> + <p> + He yawned, went out to look at the thermometer, slammed the door, patted + her head, unbuttoned his waistcoat, yawned, wound the clock, went down to + look at the furnace, yawned, and clumped up-stairs to bed, casually + scratching his thick woolen undershirt. + </p> + <p> + Till he bawled, “Aren't you ever coming up to bed?” she sat unmoving. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER IX + </h2> + <p> + I + </p> + <p> + SHE had tripped into the meadow to teach the lambs a pretty educational + dance and found that the lambs were wolves. There was no way out between + their pressing gray shoulders. She was surrounded by fangs and sneering + eyes. + </p> + <p> + She could not go on enduring the hidden derision. She wanted to flee. She + wanted to hide in the generous indifference of cities. She practised + saying to Kennicott, “Think perhaps I'll run down to St. Paul for a few + days.” But she could not trust herself to say it carelessly; could not + abide his certain questioning. + </p> + <p> + Reform the town? All she wanted was to be tolerated! + </p> + <p> + She could not look directly at people. She flushed and winced before + citizens who a week ago had been amusing objects of study, and in their + good-mornings she heard a cruel sniggering. + </p> + <p> + She encountered Juanita Haydock at Ole Jenson's grocery. She besought, + “Oh, how do you do! Heavens, what beautiful celery that is!” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, doesn't it look fresh. Harry simply has to have his celery on + Sunday, drat the man!” + </p> + <p> + Carol hastened out of the shop exulting, “She didn't make fun of me. . . . + Did she?” + </p> + <p> + In a week she had recovered from consciousness of insecurity, of shame and + whispering notoriety, but she kept her habit of avoiding people. She + walked the streets with her head down. When she spied Mrs. McGanum or Mrs. + Dyer ahead she crossed over with an elaborate pretense of looking at a + billboard. Always she was acting, for the benefit of every one she saw—and + for the benefit of the ambushed leering eyes which she did not see. + </p> + <p> + She perceived that Vida Sherwin had told the truth. Whether she entered a + store, or swept the back porch, or stood at the bay-window in the + living-room, the village peeped at her. Once she had swung along the + street triumphant in making a home. Now she glanced at each house, and + felt, when she was safely home, that she had won past a thousand enemies + armed with ridicule. She told herself that her sensitiveness was + preposterous, but daily she was thrown into panic. She saw curtains slide + back into innocent smoothness. Old women who had been entering their + houses slipped out again to stare at her—in the wintry quiet she + could hear them tiptoeing on their porches. When she had for a blessed + hour forgotten the searchlight, when she was scampering through a chill + dusk, happy in yellow windows against gray night, her heart checked as she + realized that a head covered with a shawl was thrust up over a snow-tipped + bush to watch her. + </p> + <p> + She admitted that she was taking herself too seriously; that villagers + gape at every one. She became placid, and thought well of her philosophy. + But next morning she had a shock of shame as she entered Ludelmeyer's. The + grocer, his clerk, and neurotic Mrs. Dave Dyer had been giggling about + something. They halted, looked embarrassed, babbled about onions. Carol + felt guilty. That evening when Kennicott took her to call on the crochety + Lyman Casses, their hosts seemed flustered at their arrival. Kennicott + jovially hooted, “What makes you so hang-dog, Lym?” The Casses tittered + feebly. + </p> + <p> + Except Dave Dyer, Sam Clark, and Raymie Wutherspoon, there were no + merchants of whose welcome Carol was certain. She knew that she read + mockery into greetings but she could not control her suspicion, could not + rise from her psychic collapse. She alternately raged and flinched at the + superiority of the merchants. They did not know that they were being rude, + but they meant to have it understood that they were prosperous and “not + scared of no doctor's wife.” They often said, “One man's as good as + another—and a darn sight better.” This motto, however, they did not + commend to farmer customers who had had crop failures. The Yankee + merchants were crabbed; and Ole Jenson, Ludelmeyer, and Gus Dahl, from the + “Old Country,” wished to be taken for Yankees. James Madison Howland, born + in New Hampshire, and Ole Jenson, born in Sweden, both proved that they + were free American citizens by grunting, “I don't know whether I got any + or not,” or “Well, you can't expect me to get it delivered by noon.” + </p> + <p> + It was good form for the customers to fight back. Juanita Haydock + cheerfully jabbered, “You have it there by twelve or I'll snatch that + fresh delivery-boy bald-headed.” But Carol had never been able to play the + game of friendly rudeness; and now she was certain that she never would + learn it. She formed the cowardly habit of going to Axel Egge's. + </p> + <p> + Axel was not respectable and rude. He was still a foreigner, and he + expected to remain one. His manner was heavy and uninterrogative. His + establishment was more fantastic than any cross-roads store. No one save + Axel himself could find anything. A part of the assortment of children's + stockings was under a blanket on a shelf, a part in a tin ginger-snap box, + the rest heaped like a nest of black-cotton snakes upon a flour-barrel + which was surrounded by brooms, Norwegian Bibles, dried cod for ludfisk, + boxes of apricots, and a pair and a half of lumbermen's rubber-footed + boots. The place was crowded with Scandinavian farmwives, standing aloof + in shawls and ancient fawn-colored leg o' mutton jackets, awaiting the + return of their lords. They spoke Norwegian or Swedish, and looked at + Carol uncomprehendingly. They were a relief to her—they were not + whispering that she was a poseur. + </p> + <p> + But what she told herself was that Axel Egge's was “so picturesque and + romantic.” + </p> + <p> + It was in the matter of clothes that she was most self-conscious. + </p> + <p> + When she dared to go shopping in her new checked suit with the + black-embroidered sulphur collar, she had as good as invited all of Gopher + Prairie (which interested itself in nothing so intimately as in new + clothes and the cost thereof) to investigate her. It was a smart suit with + lines unfamiliar to the dragging yellow and pink frocks of the town. The + Widow Bogart's stare, from her porch, indicated, “Well I never saw + anything like that before!” Mrs. McGanum stopped Carol at the notions shop + to hint, “My, that's a nice suit—wasn't it terribly expensive?” The + gang of boys in front of the drug store commented, “Hey, Pudgie, play you + a game of checkers on that dress.” Carol could not endure it. She drew her + fur coat over the suit and hastily fastened the buttons, while the boys + snickered. + </p> + <p> + II + </p> + <p> + No group angered her quite so much as these staring young roues. + </p> + <p> + She had tried to convince herself that the village, with its fresh air, + its lakes for fishing and swimming, was healthier than the artificial + city. But she was sickened by glimpses of the gang of boys from fourteen + to twenty who loafed before Dyer's Drug Store, smoking cigarettes, + displaying “fancy” shoes and purple ties and coats of diamond-shaped + buttons, whistling the Hoochi-Koochi and catcalling, “Oh, you baby-doll” + at every passing girl. + </p> + <p> + She saw them playing pool in the stinking room behind Del Snafflin's + barber shop, and shaking dice in “The Smoke House,” and gathered in a + snickering knot to listen to the “juicy stories” of Bert Tybee, the + bartender of the Minniemashie House. She heard them smacking moist lips + over every love-scene at the Rosebud Movie Palace. At the counter of the + Greek Confectionery Parlor, while they ate dreadful messes of decayed + bananas, acid cherries, whipped cream, and gelatinous ice-cream, they + screamed to one another, “Hey, lemme 'lone,” “Quit dog-gone you, looka + what you went and done, you almost spilled my glass swater,” “Like hell I + did,” “Hey, gol darn your hide, don't you go sticking your coffin nail in + my i-scream,” “Oh you Batty, how juh like dancing with Tillie McGuire, + last night? Some squeezing, heh, kid?” + </p> + <p> + By diligent consultation of American fiction she discovered that this was + the only virile and amusing manner in which boys could function; that boys + who were not compounded of the gutter and the mining-camp were + mollycoddles and unhappy. She had taken this for granted. She had studied + the boys pityingly, but impersonally. It had not occurred to her that they + might touch her. + </p> + <p> + Now she was aware that they knew all about her; that they were waiting for + some affectation over which they could guffaw. No schoolgirl passed their + observation-posts more flushingly than did Mrs. Dr. Kennicott. In shame + she knew that they glanced appraisingly at her snowy overshoes, + speculating about her legs. Theirs were not young eyes—there was no + youth in all the town, she agonized. They were born old, grim and old and + spying and censorious. + </p> + <p> + She cried again that their youth was senile and cruel on the day when she + overheard Cy Bogart and Earl Haydock. + </p> + <p> + Cyrus N. Bogart, son of the righteous widow who lived across the alley, + was at this time a boy of fourteen or fifteen. Carol had already seen + quite enough of Cy Bogart. On her first evening in Gopher Prairie Cy had + appeared at the head of a “charivari,” banging immensely upon a discarded + automobile fender. His companions were yelping in imitation of coyotes. + Kennicott had felt rather complimented; had gone out and distributed a + dollar. But Cy was a capitalist in charivaris. He returned with an + entirely new group, and this time there were three automobile fenders and + a carnival rattle. When Kennicott again interrupted his shaving, Cy piped, + “Naw, you got to give us two dollars,” and he got it. A week later Cy + rigged a tic-tac to a window of the living-room, and the tattoo out of the + darkness frightened Carol into screaming. Since then, in four months, she + had beheld Cy hanging a cat, stealing melons, throwing tomatoes at the + Kennicott house, and making ski-tracks across the lawn, and had heard him + explaining the mysteries of generation, with great audibility and + dismaying knowledge. He was, in fact, a museum specimen of what a small + town, a well-disciplined public school, a tradition of hearty humor, and a + pious mother could produce from the material of a courageous and ingenious + mind. + </p> + <p> + Carol was afraid of him. Far from protesting when he set his mongrel on a + kitten, she worked hard at not seeing him. + </p> + <p> + The Kennicott garage was a shed littered with paint-cans, tools, a + lawn-mower, and ancient wisps of hay. Above it was a loft which Cy Bogart + and Earl Haydock, young brother of Harry, used as a den, for smoking, + hiding from whippings, and planning secret societies. They climbed to it + by a ladder on the alley side of the shed. + </p> + <p> + This morning of late January, two or three weeks after Vida's revelations, + Carol had gone into the stable-garage to find a hammer. Snow softened her + step. She heard voices in the loft above her: + </p> + <p> + “Ah gee, lez—oh, lez go down the lake and swipe some mushrats out of + somebody's traps,” Cy was yawning. + </p> + <p> + “And get our ears beat off!” grumbled Earl Haydock. + </p> + <p> + “Gosh, these cigarettes are dandy. 'Member when we were just kids, and + used to smoke corn-silk and hayseed?” + </p> + <p> + “Yup. Gosh!” + </p> + <p> + Spit. “Silence.” + </p> + <p> + “Say Earl, ma says if you chew tobacco you get consumption.” + </p> + <p> + “Aw rats, your old lady is a crank.” + </p> + <p> + “Yuh, that's so.” Pause. “But she says she knows a fella that did.” + </p> + <p> + “Aw, gee whiz, didn't Doc Kennicott used to chew tobacco all the time + before he married this-here girl from the Cities? He used to spit—-Gee! + Some shot! He could hit a tree ten feet off.” + </p> + <p> + This was news to the girl from the Cities. + </p> + <p> + “Say, how is she?” continued Earl. + </p> + <p> + “Huh? How's who?” + </p> + <p> + “You know who I mean, smarty.” + </p> + <p> + A tussle, a thumping of loose boards, silence, weary narration from Cy: + </p> + <p> + “Mrs. Kennicott? Oh, she's all right, I guess.” Relief to Carol, below. + “She gimme a hunk o' cake, one time. But Ma says she's stuck-up as hell. + Ma's always talking about her. Ma says if Mrs. Kennicott thought as much + about the doc as she does about her clothes, the doc wouldn't look so + peaked.” + </p> + <p> + Spit. Silence. + </p> + <p> + “Yuh. Juanita's always talking about her, too,” from Earl. “She says Mrs. + Kennicott thinks she knows it all. Juanita says she has to laugh till she + almost busts every time she sees Mrs. Kennicott peerading along the street + with that 'take a look—I'm a swell skirt' way she's got. But gosh, I + don't pay no attention to Juanita. She's meaner 'n a crab.” + </p> + <p> + “Ma was telling somebody that she heard that Mrs. Kennicott claimed she + made forty dollars a week when she was on some job in the Cities, and Ma + says she knows posolutely that she never made but eighteen a week—Ma + says that when she's lived here a while she won't go round making a fool + of herself, pulling that bighead stuff on folks that know a whole lot more + than she does. They're all laughing up their sleeves at her.” + </p> + <p> + “Say, jever notice how Mrs. Kennicott fusses around the house? Other + evening when I was coming over here, she'd forgot to pull down the + curtain, and I watched her for ten minutes. Jeeze, you'd 'a' died + laughing. She was there all alone, and she must 'a' spent five minutes + getting a picture straight. It was funny as hell the way she'd stick out + her finger to straighten the picture—deedle-dee, see my tunnin' + 'ittle finger, oh my, ain't I cute, what a fine long tail my cat's got!” + </p> + <p> + “But say, Earl, she's some good-looker, just the same, and O Ignatz! the + glad rags she must of bought for her wedding. Jever notice these low-cut + dresses and these thin shimmy-shirts she wears? I had a good squint at 'em + when they were out on the line with the wash. And some ankles she's got, + heh?” + </p> + <p> + Then Carol fled. + </p> + <p> + In her innocence she had not known that the whole town could discuss even + her garments, her body. She felt that she was being dragged naked down + Main Street. + </p> + <p> + The moment it was dusk she pulled down the window-shades, all the shades + flush with the sill, but beyond them she felt moist fleering eyes. + </p> + <p> + III + </p> + <p> + She remembered, and tried to forget, and remembered more sharply the + vulgar detail of her husband's having observed the ancient customs of the + land by chewing tobacco. She would have preferred a prettier vice—gambling + or a mistress. For these she might have found a luxury of forgiveness. She + could not remember any fascinatingly wicked hero of fiction who chewed + tobacco. She asserted that it proved him to be a man of the bold free + West. She tried to align him with the hairy-chested heroes of the + motion-pictures. She curled on the couch a pallid softness in the + twilight, and fought herself, and lost the battle. Spitting did not + identify him with rangers riding the buttes; it merely bound him to Gopher + Prairie—to Nat Hicks the tailor and Bert Tybee the bartender. + </p> + <p> + “But he gave it up for me. Oh, what does it matter! We're all filthy in + some things. I think of myself as so superior, but I do eat and digest, I + do wash my dirty paws and scratch. I'm not a cool slim goddess on a + column. There aren't any! He gave it up for me. He stands by me, believing + that every one loves me. He's the Rock of Ages—in a storm of + meanness that's driving me mad . . . it will drive me mad.” + </p> + <p> + All evening she sang Scotch ballads to Kennicott, and when she noticed + that he was chewing an unlighted cigar she smiled maternally at his + secret. + </p> + <p> + She could not escape asking (in the exact words and mental intonations + which a thousand million women, dairy wenches and mischief-making queens, + had used before her, and which a million million women will know + hereafter), “Was it all a horrible mistake, my marrying him?” She quieted + the doubt—without answering it. + </p> + <p> + IV + </p> + <p> + Kennicott had taken her north to Lac-qui-Meurt, in the Big Woods. It was + the entrance to a Chippewa Indian reservation, a sandy settlement among + Norway pines on the shore of a huge snow-glaring lake. She had her first + sight of his mother, except the glimpse at the wedding. Mrs. Kennicott had + a hushed and delicate breeding which dignified her woodeny over-scrubbed + cottage with its worn hard cushions in heavy rockers. She had never lost + the child's miraculous power of wonder. She asked questions about books + and cities. She murmured: + </p> + <p> + “Will is a dear hard-working boy but he's inclined to be too serious, and + you've taught him how to play. Last night I heard you both laughing about + the old Indian basket-seller, and I just lay in bed and enjoyed your + happiness.” + </p> + <p> + Carol forgot her misery-hunting in this solidarity of family life. She + could depend upon them; she was not battling alone. Watching Mrs. + Kennicott flit about the kitchen she was better able to translate + Kennicott himself. He was matter-of-fact, yes, and incurably mature. He + didn't really play; he let Carol play with him. But he had his mother's + genius for trusting, her disdain for prying, her sure integrity. + </p> + <p> + From the two days at Lac-qui-Meurt Carol drew confidence in herself, and + she returned to Gopher Prairie in a throbbing calm like those golden + drugged seconds when, because he is for an instant free from pain, a sick + man revels in living. + </p> + <p> + A bright hard winter day, the wind shrill, black and silver clouds booming + across the sky, everything in panicky motion during the brief light. They + struggled against the surf of wind, through deep snow. Kennicott was + cheerful. He hailed Loren Wheeler, “Behave yourself while I been away?” + The editor bellowed, “B' gosh you stayed so long that all your patients + have got well!” and importantly took notes for the Dauntless about their + journey. Jackson Elder cried, “Hey, folks! How's tricks up North?” Mrs. + McGanum waved to them from her porch. + </p> + <p> + “They're glad to see us. We mean something here. These people are + satisfied. Why can't I be? But can I sit back all my life and be satisfied + with 'Hey, folks'? They want shouts on Main Street, and I want violins in + a paneled room. Why——?” + </p> + <p> + V + </p> + <p> + Vida Sherwin ran in after school a dozen times. She was tactful, + torrentially anecdotal. She had scuttled about town and plucked + compliments: Mrs. Dr. Westlake had pronounced Carol a “very sweet, bright, + cultured young woman,” and Brad Bemis, the tinsmith at Clark's Hardware + Store, had declared that she was “easy to work for and awful easy to look + at.” + </p> + <p> + But Carol could not yet take her in. She resented this outsider's + knowledge of her shame. Vida was not too long tolerant. She hinted, + “You're a great brooder, child. Buck up now. The town's quit criticizing + you, almost entirely. Come with me to the Thanatopsis Club. They have some + of the BEST papers, and current-events discussions—SO interesting.” + </p> + <p> + In Vida's demands Carol felt a compulsion, but she was too listless to + obey. + </p> + <p> + It was Bea Sorenson who was really her confidante. + </p> + <p> + However charitable toward the Lower Classes she may have thought herself, + Carol had been reared to assume that servants belong to a distinct and + inferior species. But she discovered that Bea was extraordinarily like + girls she had loved in college, and as a companion altogether superior to + the young matrons of the Jolly Seventeen. Daily they became more frankly + two girls playing at housework. Bea artlessly considered Carol the most + beautiful and accomplished lady in the country; she was always shrieking, + “My, dot's a swell hat!” or, “Ay t'ink all dese ladies yoost die when dey + see how elegant you do your hair!” But it was not the humbleness of a + servant, nor the hypocrisy of a slave; it was the admiration of Freshman + for Junior. + </p> + <p> + They made out the day's menus together. Though they began with propriety, + Carol sitting by the kitchen table and Bea at the sink or blacking the + stove, the conference was likely to end with both of them by the table, + while Bea gurgled over the ice-man's attempt to kiss her, or Carol + admitted, “Everybody knows that the doctor is lots more clever than Dr. + McGanum.” When Carol came in from marketing, Bea plunged into the hall to + take off her coat, rub her frostied hands, and ask, “Vos dere lots of + folks up-town today?” + </p> + <p> + This was the welcome upon which Carol depended. + </p> + <p> + VI + </p> + <p> + Through her weeks of cowering there was no change in her surface life. No + one save Vida was aware of her agonizing. On her most despairing days she + chatted to women on the street, in stores. But without the protection of + Kennicott's presence she did not go to the Jolly Seventeen; she delivered + herself to the judgment of the town only when she went shopping and on the + ritualistic occasions of formal afternoon calls, when Mrs. Lyman Cass or + Mrs. George Edwin Mott, with clean gloves and minute handkerchiefs and + sealskin card-cases and countenances of frozen approbation, sat on the + edges of chairs and inquired, “Do you find Gopher Prairie pleasing?” When + they spent evenings of social profit-and-loss at the Haydocks' or the + Dyers' she hid behind Kennicott, playing the simple bride. + </p> + <p> + Now she was unprotected. Kennicott had taken a patient to Rochester for an + operation. He would be away for two or three days. She had not minded; she + would loosen the matrimonial tension and be a fanciful girl for a time. + But now that he was gone the house was listeningly empty. Bea was out this + afternoon—presumably drinking coffee and talking about “fellows” + with her cousin Tina. It was the day for the monthly supper and + evening-bridge of the Jolly Seventeen, but Carol dared not go. + </p> + <p> + She sat alone. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER X + </h2> + <p> + THE house was haunted, long before evening. Shadows slipped down the walls + and waited behind every chair. + </p> + <p> + Did that door move? + </p> + <p> + No. She wouldn't go to the Jolly Seventeen. She hadn't energy enough to + caper before them, to smile blandly at Juanita's rudeness. Not today. But + she did want a party. Now! If some one would come in this afternoon, some + one who liked her—Vida or Mrs. Sam Clark or old Mrs. Champ Perry or + gentle Mrs. Dr. Westlake. Or Guy Pollock! She'd telephone—— + </p> + <p> + No. That wouldn't be it. They must come of themselves. + </p> + <p> + Perhaps they would. + </p> + <p> + Why not? + </p> + <p> + She'd have tea ready, anyway. If they came—splendid. If not—what + did she care? She wasn't going to yield to the village and let down; she + was going to keep up a belief in the rite of tea, to which she had always + looked forward as the symbol of a leisurely fine existence. And it would + be just as much fun, even if it was so babyish, to have tea by herself and + pretend that she was entertaining clever men. It would! + </p> + <p> + She turned the shining thought into action. She bustled to the kitchen, + stoked the wood-range, sang Schumann while she boiled the kettle, warmed + up raisin cookies on a newspaper spread on the rack in the oven. She + scampered up-stairs to bring down her filmiest tea-cloth. She arranged a + silver tray. She proudly carried it into the living-room and set it on the + long cherrywood table, pushing aside a hoop of embroidery, a volume of + Conrad from the library, copies of the Saturday Evening Post, the Literary + Digest, and Kennicott's National Geographic Magazine. + </p> + <p> + She moved the tray back and forth and regarded the effect. She shook her + head. She busily unfolded the sewing-table set it in the bay-window, + patted the tea-cloth to smoothness, moved the tray. “Some time I'll have a + mahogany tea-table,” she said happily. + </p> + <p> + She had brought in two cups, two plates. For herself, a straight chair, + but for the guest the big wing-chair, which she pantingly tugged to the + table. + </p> + <p> + She had finished all the preparations she could think of. She sat and + waited. She listened for the door-bell, the telephone. Her eagerness was + stilled. Her hands drooped. + </p> + <p> + Surely Vida Sherwin would hear the summons. + </p> + <p> + She glanced through the bay-window. Snow was sifting over the ridge of the + Howland house like sprays of water from a hose. The wide yards across the + street were gray with moving eddies. The black trees shivered. The roadway + was gashed with ruts of ice. + </p> + <p> + She looked at the extra cup and plate. She looked at the wing-chair. It + was so empty. + </p> + <p> + The tea was cold in the pot. With wearily dipping fingertip she tested it. + Yes. Quite cold. She couldn't wait any longer. + </p> + <p> + The cup across from her was icily clean, glisteningly empty. + </p> + <p> + Simply absurd to wait. She poured her own cup of tea. She sat and stared + at it. What was it she was going to do now? Oh yes; how idiotic; take a + lump of sugar. + </p> + <p> + She didn't want the beastly tea. + </p> + <p> + She was springing up. She was on the couch, sobbing. + </p> + <p> + II + </p> + <p> + She was thinking more sharply than she had for weeks. + </p> + <p> + She reverted to her resolution to change the town—awaken it, prod + it, “reform” it. What if they were wolves instead of lambs? They'd eat her + all the sooner if she was meek to them. Fight or be eaten. It was easier + to change the town completely than to conciliate it! She could not take + their point of view; it was a negative thing; an intellectual squalor; a + swamp of prejudices and fears. She would have to make them take hers. She + was not a Vincent de Paul, to govern and mold a people. What of that? The + tiniest change in their distrust of beauty would be the beginning of the + end; a seed to sprout and some day with thickening roots to crack their + wall of mediocrity. If she could not, as she desired, do a great thing + nobly and with laughter, yet she need not be content with village + nothingness. She would plant one seed in the blank wall. + </p> + <p> + Was she just? Was it merely a blank wall, this town which to three + thousand and more people was the center of the universe? Hadn't she, + returning from Lac-qui-Meurt, felt the heartiness of their greetings? No. + The ten thousand Gopher Prairies had no monopoly of greetings and friendly + hands. Sam Clark was no more loyal than girl librarians she knew in St. + Paul, the people she had met in Chicago. And those others had so much that + Gopher Prairie complacently lacked—the world of gaiety and + adventure, of music and the integrity of bronze, of remembered mists from + tropic isles and Paris nights and the walls of Bagdad, of industrial + justice and a God who spake not in doggerel hymns. + </p> + <p> + One seed. Which seed it was did not matter. All knowledge and freedom were + one. But she had delayed so long in finding that seed. Could she do + something with this Thanatopsis Club? Or should she make her house so + charming that it would be an influence? She'd make Kennicott like poetry. + That was it, for a beginning! She conceived so clear a picture of their + bending over large fair pages by the fire (in a non-existent fireplace) + that the spectral presences slipped away. Doors no longer moved; curtains + were not creeping shadows but lovely dark masses in the dusk; and when Bea + came home Carol was singing at the piano which she had not touched for + many days. + </p> + <p> + Their supper was the feast of two girls. Carol was in the dining-room, in + a frock of black satin edged with gold, and Bea, in blue gingham and an + apron, dined in the kitchen; but the door was open between, and Carol was + inquiring, “Did you see any ducks in Dahl's window?” and Bea chanting, + “No, ma'am. Say, ve have a svell time, dis afternoon. Tina she have coffee + and knackebrod, and her fella vos dere, and ve yoost laughed and laughed, + and her fella say he vos president and he going to make me queen of + Finland, and Ay stick a fedder in may hair and say Ay bane going to go to + var—oh, ve vos so foolish and ve LAUGH so!” + </p> + <p> + When Carol sat at the piano again she did not think of her husband but of + the book-drugged hermit, Guy Pollock. She wished that Pollock would come + calling. + </p> + <p> + “If a girl really kissed him, he'd creep out of his den and be human. If + Will were as literate as Guy, or Guy were as executive as Will, I think I + could endure even Gopher Prairie. It's so hard to mother Will. I could be + maternal with Guy. Is that what I want, something to mother, a man or a + baby or a town? I WILL have a baby. Some day. But to have him isolated + here all his receptive years—— + </p> + <p> + “And so to bed. + </p> + <p> + “Have I found my real level in Bea and kitchen-gossip? + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I do miss you, Will. But it will be pleasant to turn over in bed as + often as I want to, without worrying about waking you up. + </p> + <p> + “Am I really this settled thing called a 'married woman'? I feel so + unmarried tonight. So free. To think that there was once a Mrs. Kennicott + who let herself worry over a town called Gopher Prairie when there was a + whole world outside it! + </p> + <p> + “Of course Will is going to like poetry.” + </p> + <p> + III + </p> + <p> + A black February day. Clouds hewn of ponderous timber weighing down on the + earth; an irresolute dropping of snow specks upon the trampled wastes. + Gloom but no veiling of angularity. The lines of roofs and sidewalks sharp + and inescapable. + </p> + <p> + The second day of Kennicott's absence. + </p> + <p> + She fled from the creepy house for a walk. It was thirty below zero; too + cold to exhilarate her. In the spaces between houses the wind caught her. + It stung, it gnawed at nose and ears and aching cheeks, and she hastened + from shelter to shelter, catching her breath in the lee of a barn, + grateful for the protection of a billboard covered with ragged posters + showing layer under layer of paste-smeared green and streaky red. + </p> + <p> + The grove of oaks at the end of the street suggested Indians, hunting, + snow-shoes, and she struggled past the earth-banked cottages to the open + country, to a farm and a low hill corrugated with hard snow. In her loose + nutria coat, seal toque, virginal cheeks unmarked by lines of village + jealousies, she was as out of place on this dreary hillside as a scarlet + tanager on an ice-floe. She looked down on Gopher Prairie. The snow, + stretching without break from streets to devouring prairie beyond, wiped + out the town's pretense of being a shelter. The houses were black specks + on a white sheet. Her heart shivered with that still loneliness as her + body shivered with the wind. + </p> + <p> + She ran back into the huddle of streets, all the while protesting that she + wanted a city's yellow glare of shop-windows and restaurants, or the + primitive forest with hooded furs and a rifle, or a barnyard warm and + steamy, noisy with hens and cattle, certainly not these dun houses, these + yards choked with winter ash-piles, these roads of dirty snow and clotted + frozen mud. The zest of winter was gone. Three months more, till May, the + cold might drag on, with the snow ever filthier, the weakened body less + resistent. She wondered why the good citizens insisted on adding the chill + of prejudice, why they did not make the houses of their spirits more warm + and frivolous, like the wise chatterers of Stockholm and Moscow. + </p> + <p> + She circled the outskirts of the town and viewed the slum of “Swede + Hollow.” Wherever as many as three houses are gathered there will be a + slum of at least one house. In Gopher Prairie, the Sam Clarks boasted, + “you don't get any of this poverty that you find in cities—always + plenty of work—no need of charity—man got to be blame + shiftless if he don't get ahead.” But now that the summer mask of leaves + and grass was gone, Carol discovered misery and dead hope. In a shack of + thin boards covered with tar-paper she saw the washerwoman, Mrs. Steinhof, + working in gray steam. Outside, her six-year-old boy chopped wood. He had + a torn jacket, muffler of a blue like skimmed milk. His hands were covered + with red mittens through which protruded his chapped raw knuckles. He + halted to blow on them, to cry disinterestedly. + </p> + <p> + A family of recently arrived Finns were camped in an abandoned stable. A + man of eighty was picking up lumps of coal along the railroad. + </p> + <p> + She did not know what to do about it. She felt that these independent + citizens, who had been taught that they belonged to a democracy, would + resent her trying to play Lady Bountiful. + </p> + <p> + She lost her loneliness in the activity of the village industries—the + railroad-yards with a freight-train switching, the wheat-elevator, + oil-tanks, a slaughter-house with blood-marks on the snow, the creamery + with the sleds of farmers and piles of milk-cans, an unexplained stone hut + labeled “Danger—Powder Stored Here.” The jolly tombstone-yard, where + a utilitarian sculptor in a red calfskin overcoat whistled as he hammered + the shiniest of granite headstones. Jackson Elder's small planing-mill, + with the smell of fresh pine shavings and the burr of circular saws. Most + important, the Gopher Prairie Flour and Milling Company, Lyman Cass + president. Its windows were blanketed with flour-dust, but it was the most + stirring spot in town. Workmen were wheeling barrels of flour into a + box-car; a farmer sitting on sacks of wheat in a bobsled argued with the + wheat-buyer; machinery within the mill boomed and whined, water gurgled in + the ice-freed mill-race. + </p> + <p> + The clatter was a relief to Carol after months of smug houses. She wished + that she could work in the mill; that she did not belong to the caste of + professional-man's-wife. + </p> + <p> + She started for home, through the small slum. Before a tar-paper shack, at + a gateless gate, a man in rough brown dogskin coat and black plush cap + with lappets was watching her. His square face was confident, his foxy + mustache was picaresque. He stood erect, his hands in his side-pockets, + his pipe puffing slowly. He was forty-five or -six, perhaps. + </p> + <p> + “How do, Mrs. Kennicott,” he drawled. + </p> + <p> + She recalled him—the town handyman, who had repaired their furnace + at the beginning of winter. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, how do you do,” she fluttered. + </p> + <p> + “My name 's Bjornstam. 'The Red Swede' they call me. Remember? Always + thought I'd kind of like to say howdy to you again.” + </p> + <p> + “Ye—yes——I've been exploring the outskirts of town.” + </p> + <p> + “Yump. Fine mess. No sewage, no street cleaning, and the Lutheran minister + and the priest represent the arts and sciences. Well, thunder, we + submerged tenth down here in Swede Hollow are no worse off than you folks. + Thank God, we don't have to go and purr at Juanity Haydock at the Jolly + Old Seventeen.” + </p> + <p> + The Carol who regarded herself as completely adaptable was uncomfortable + at being chosen as comrade by a pipe-reeking odd-job man. Probably he was + one of her husband's patients. But she must keep her dignity. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, even the Jolly Seventeen isn't always so exciting. It's very cold + again today, isn't it. Well——” + </p> + <p> + Bjornstam was not respectfully valedictory. He showed no signs of pulling + a forelock. His eyebrows moved as though they had a life of their own. + With a subgrin he went on: + </p> + <p> + “Maybe I hadn't ought to talk about Mrs. Haydock and her Solemcholy + Seventeen in that fresh way. I suppose I'd be tickled to death if I was + invited to sit in with that gang. I'm what they call a pariah, I guess. + I'm the town badman, Mrs. Kennicott: town atheist, and I suppose I must be + an anarchist, too. Everybody who doesn't love the bankers and the Grand + Old Republican Party is an anarchist.” + </p> + <p> + Carol had unconsciously slipped from her attitude of departure into an + attitude of listening, her face full toward him, her muff lowered. She + fumbled: + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I suppose so.” Her own grudges came in a flood. “I don't see why you + shouldn't criticize the Jolly Seventeen if you want to. They aren't + sacred.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh yes, they are! The dollar-sign has chased the crucifix clean off the + map. But then, I've got no kick. I do what I please, and I suppose I ought + to let them do the same.” + </p> + <p> + “What do you mean by saying you're a pariah?” + </p> + <p> + “I'm poor, and yet I don't decently envy the rich. I'm an old bach. I make + enough money for a stake, and then I sit around by myself, and shake hands + with myself, and have a smoke, and read history, and I don't contribute to + the wealth of Brother Elder or Daddy Cass.” + </p> + <p> + “You——I fancy you read a good deal.” + </p> + <p> + “Yep. In a hit-or-a-miss way. I'll tell you: I'm a lone wolf. I trade + horses, and saw wood, and work in lumber-camps—I'm a first-rate + swamper. Always wished I could go to college. Though I s'pose I'd find it + pretty slow, and they'd probably kick me out.” + </p> + <p> + “You really are a curious person, Mr.——” + </p> + <p> + “Bjornstam. Miles Bjornstam. Half Yank and half Swede. Usually known as + 'that damn lazy big-mouthed calamity-howler that ain't satisfied with the + way we run things.' No, I ain't curious—whatever you mean by that! + I'm just a bookworm. Probably too much reading for the amount of digestion + I've got. Probably half-baked. I'm going to get in 'half-baked' first, and + beat you to it, because it's dead sure to be handed to a radical that + wears jeans!” + </p> + <p> + They grinned together. She demanded: + </p> + <p> + “You say that the Jolly Seventeen is stupid. What makes you think so?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, trust us borers into the foundation to know about your leisure class. + Fact, Mrs. Kennicott, I'll say that far as I can make out, the only people + in this man's town that do have any brains—I don't mean + ledger-keeping brains or duck-hunting brains or baby-spanking brains, but + real imaginative brains—are you and me and Guy Pollock and the + foreman at the flour-mill. He's a socialist, the foreman. (Don't tell Lym + Cass that! Lym would fire a socialist quicker than he would a + horse-thief!)” + </p> + <p> + “Indeed no, I sha'n't tell him.” + </p> + <p> + “This foreman and I have some great set-to's. He's a regular old-line + party-member. Too dogmatic. Expects to reform everything from + deforestration to nosebleed by saying phrases like 'surplus value.' Like + reading the prayer-book. But same time, he's a Plato J. Aristotle compared + with people like Ezry Stowbody or Professor Mott or Julius Flickerbaugh.” + </p> + <p> + “It's interesting to hear about him.” + </p> + <p> + He dug his toe into a drift, like a schoolboy. “Rats. You mean I talk too + much. Well, I do, when I get hold of somebody like you. You probably want + to run along and keep your nose from freezing.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I must go, I suppose. But tell me: Why did you leave Miss Sherwin, + of the high school, out of your list of the town intelligentsia?” + </p> + <p> + “I guess maybe she does belong in it. From all I can hear she's in + everything and behind everything that looks like a reform—lot more + than most folks realize. She lets Mrs. Reverend Warren, the president of + this-here Thanatopsis Club, think she's running the works, but Miss + Sherwin is the secret boss, and nags all the easy-going dames into doing + something. But way I figure it out——You see, I'm not + interested in these dinky reforms. Miss Sherwin's trying to repair the + holes in this barnacle-covered ship of a town by keeping busy bailing out + the water. And Pollock tries to repair it by reading poetry to the crew! + Me, I want to yank it up on the ways, and fire the poor bum of a shoemaker + that built it so it sails crooked, and have it rebuilt right, from the + keel up.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes—that—that would be better. But I must run home. My poor + nose is nearly frozen.” + </p> + <p> + “Say, you better come in and get warm, and see what an old bach's shack is + like.” + </p> + <p> + She looked doubtfully at him, at the low shanty, the yard that was + littered with cord-wood, moldy planks, a hoopless wash-tub. She was + disquieted, but Bjornstam did not give her the opportunity to be delicate. + He flung out his hand in a welcoming gesture which assumed that she was + her own counselor, that she was not a Respectable Married Woman but fully + a human being. With a shaky, “Well, just a moment, to warm my nose,” she + glanced down the street to make sure that she was not spied on, and bolted + toward the shanty. + </p> + <p> + She remained for one hour, and never had she known a more considerate host + than the Red Swede. + </p> + <p> + He had but one room: bare pine floor, small work-bench, wall bunk with + amazingly neat bed, frying-pan and ash-stippled coffee-pot on the shelf + behind the pot-bellied cannon-ball stove, backwoods chairs—one + constructed from half a barrel, one from a tilted plank—and a row of + books incredibly assorted; Byron and Tennyson and Stevenson, a manual of + gas-engines, a book by Thorstein Veblen, and a spotty treatise on “The + Care, Feeding, Diseases, and Breeding of Poultry and Cattle.” + </p> + <p> + There was but one picture—a magazine color-plate of a steep-roofed + village in the Harz Mountains which suggested kobolds and maidens with + golden hair. + </p> + <p> + Bjornstam did not fuss over her. He suggested, “Might throw open your coat + and put your feet up on the box in front of the stove.” He tossed his + dogskin coat into the bunk, lowered himself into the barrel chair, and + droned on: + </p> + <p> + “Yeh, I'm probably a yahoo, but by gum I do keep my independence by doing + odd jobs, and that's more 'n these polite cusses like the clerks in the + banks do. When I'm rude to some slob, it may be partly because I don't + know better (and God knows I'm not no authority on trick forks and what + pants you wear with a Prince Albert), but mostly it's because I mean + something. I'm about the only man in Johnson County that remembers the + joker in the Declaration of Independence about Americans being supposed to + have the right to 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.' + </p> + <p> + “I meet old Ezra Stowbody on the street. He looks at me like he wants me + to remember he's a highmuckamuck and worth two hundred thousand dollars, + and he says, 'Uh, Bjornquist——' + </p> + <p> + “'Bjornstam's my name, Ezra,' I says. HE knows my name, all rightee. + </p> + <p> + “'Well, whatever your name is,' he says, 'I understand you have a gasoline + saw. I want you to come around and saw up four cords of maple for me,' he + says. + </p> + <p> + “'So you like my looks, eh?' I says, kind of innocent. + </p> + <p> + “'What difference does that make? Want you to saw that wood before + Saturday,' he says, real sharp. Common workman going and getting fresh + with a fifth of a million dollars all walking around in a hand-me-down fur + coat! + </p> + <p> + “'Here's the difference it makes,' I says, just to devil him. 'How do you + know I like YOUR looks?' Maybe he didn't look sore! 'Nope,' I says, + thinking it all over, 'I don't like your application for a loan. Take it + to another bank, only there ain't any,' I says, and I walks off on him. + </p> + <p> + “Sure. Probably I was surly—and foolish. But I figured there had to + be ONE man in town independent enough to sass the banker!” + </p> + <p> + He hitched out of his chair, made coffee, gave Carol a cup, and talked on, + half defiant and half apologetic, half wistful for friendliness and half + amused by her surprise at the discovery that there was a proletarian + philosophy. + </p> + <p> + At the door, she hinted: + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Bjornstam, if you were I, would you worry when people thought you + were affected?” + </p> + <p> + “Huh? Kick 'em in the face! Say, if I were a sea-gull, and all over + silver, think I'd care what a pack of dirty seals thought about my + flying?” + </p> + <p> + It was not the wind at her back, it was the thrust of Bjornstam's scorn + which carried her through town. She faced Juanita Haydock, cocked her head + at Maud Dyer's brief nod, and came home to Bea radiant. She telephoned + Vida Sherwin to “run over this evening.” She lustily played Tschaikowsky—the + virile chords an echo of the red laughing philosopher of the tar-paper + shack. + </p> + <p> + (When she hinted to Vida, “Isn't there a man here who amuses himself by + being irreverent to the village gods—Bjornstam, some such a name?” + the reform-leader said “Bjornstam? Oh yes. Fixes things. He's awfully + impertinent.”) + </p> + <p> + IV + </p> + <p> + Kennicott had returned at midnight. At breakfast he said four several + times that he had missed her every moment. + </p> + <p> + On her way to market Sam Clark hailed her, “The top o' the mornin' to yez! + Going to stop and pass the time of day mit Sam'l? Warmer, eh? What'd the + doc's thermometer say it was? Say, you folks better come round and visit + with us, one of these evenings. Don't be so dog-gone proud, staying by + yourselves.” + </p> + <p> + Champ Perry the pioneer, wheat-buyer at the elevator, stopped her in the + post-office, held her hand in his withered paws, peered at her with faded + eyes, and chuckled, “You are so fresh and blooming, my dear. Mother was + saying t'other day that a sight of you was better 'n a dose of medicine.” + </p> + <p> + In the Bon Ton Store she found Guy Pollock tentatively buying a modest + gray scarf. “We haven't seen you for so long,” she said. “Wouldn't you + like to come in and play cribbage, some evening?” As though he meant it, + Pollock begged, “May I, really?” + </p> + <p> + While she was purchasing two yards of malines the vocal Raymie Wutherspoon + tiptoed up to her, his long sallow face bobbing, and he besought, “You've + just got to come back to my department and see a pair of patent leather + slippers I set aside for you.” + </p> + <p> + In a manner of more than sacerdotal reverence he unlaced her boots, tucked + her skirt about her ankles, slid on the slippers. She took them. + </p> + <p> + “You're a good salesman,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “I'm not a salesman at all! I just like elegant things. All this is so + inartistic.” He indicated with a forlornly waving hand the shelves of + shoe-boxes, the seat of thin wood perforated in rosettes, the display of + shoe-trees and tin boxes of blacking, the lithograph of a smirking young + woman with cherry cheeks who proclaimed in the exalted poetry of + advertising, “My tootsies never got hep to what pedal perfection was till + I got a pair of clever classy Cleopatra Shoes.” + </p> + <p> + “But sometimes,” Raymie sighed, “there is a pair of dainty little shoes + like these, and I set them aside for some one who will appreciate. When I + saw these I said right away, 'Wouldn't it be nice if they fitted Mrs. + Kennicott,' and I meant to speak to you first chance I had. I haven't + forgotten our jolly talks at Mrs. Gurrey's!” + </p> + <p> + That evening Guy Pollock came in and, though Kennicott instantly impressed + him into a cribbage game, Carol was happy again. + </p> + <p> + V + </p> + <p> + She did not, in recovering something of her buoyancy, forget her + determination to begin the liberalizing of Gopher Prairie by the easy and + agreeable propaganda of teaching Kennicott to enjoy reading poetry in the + lamplight. The campaign was delayed. Twice he suggested that they call on + neighbors; once he was in the country. The fourth evening he yawned + pleasantly, stretched, and inquired, “Well, what'll we do tonight? Shall + we go to the movies?” + </p> + <p> + “I know exactly what we're going to do. Now don't ask questions! Come and + sit down by the table. There, are you comfy? Lean back and forget you're a + practical man, and listen to me.” + </p> + <p> + It may be that she had been influenced by the managerial Vida Sherwin; + certainly she sounded as though she was selling culture. But she dropped + it when she sat on the couch, her chin in her hands, a volume of Yeats on + her knees, and read aloud. + </p> + <p> + Instantly she was released from the homely comfort of a prairie town. She + was in the world of lonely things—the flutter of twilight linnets, + the aching call of gulls along a shore to which the netted foam crept out + of darkness, the island of Aengus and the elder gods and the eternal + glories that never were, tall kings and women girdled with crusted gold, + the woful incessant chanting and the—— + </p> + <p> + “Heh-cha-cha!” coughed Dr. Kennicott. She stopped. She remembered that he + was the sort of person who chewed tobacco. She glared, while he uneasily + petitioned, “That's great stuff. Study it in college? I like poetry fine—James + Whitcomb Riley and some of Longfellow—this 'Hiawatha.' Gosh, I wish + I could appreciate that highbrow art stuff. But I guess I'm too old a dog + to learn new tricks.” + </p> + <p> + With pity for his bewilderment, and a certain desire to giggle, she + consoled him, “Then let's try some Tennyson. You've read him?” + </p> + <p> + “Tennyson? You bet. Read him in school. There's that: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + And let there be no (what is it?) of farewell + When I put out to sea, + But let the—— +</pre> + <p> + Well, I don't remember all of it but——Oh, sure! And there's + that 'I met a little country boy who——' I don't remember + exactly how it goes, but the chorus ends up, 'We are seven.'” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. Well——Shall we try 'The Idylls of the King?' They're so + full of color.” + </p> + <p> + “Go to it. Shoot.” But he hastened to shelter himself behind a cigar. + </p> + <p> + She was not transported to Camelot. She read with an eye cocked on him, + and when she saw how much he was suffering she ran to him, kissed his + forehead, cried, “You poor forced tube-rose that wants to be a decent + turnip!” + </p> + <p> + “Look here now, that ain't——” + </p> + <p> + “Anyway, I sha'n't torture you any longer.” + </p> + <p> + She could not quite give up. She read Kipling, with a great deal of + emphasis: + </p> + <p> + There's a REGIMENT a-COMING down the GRAND Trunk ROAD. + </p> + <p> + He tapped his foot to the rhythm; he looked normal and reassured. But when + he complimented her, “That was fine. I don't know but what you can elocute + just as good as Ella Stowbody,” she banged the book and suggested that + they were not too late for the nine o'clock show at the movies. + </p> + <p> + That was her last effort to harvest the April wind, to teach divine + unhappiness by a correspondence course, to buy the lilies of Avalon and + the sunsets of Cockaigne in tin cans at Ole Jenson's Grocery. + </p> + <p> + But the fact is that at the motion-pictures she discovered herself + laughing as heartily as Kennicott at the humor of an actor who stuffed + spaghetti down a woman's evening frock. For a second she loathed her + laughter; mourned for the day when on her hill by the Mississippi she had + walked the battlements with queens. But the celebrated cinema jester's + conceit of dropping toads into a soup-plate flung her into unwilling + tittering, and the afterglow faded, the dead queens fled through darkness. + </p> + <p> + VI + </p> + <p> + She went to the Jolly Seventeen's afternoon bridge. She had learned the + elements of the game from the Sam Clarks. She played quietly and + reasonably badly. She had no opinions on anything more polemic than woolen + union-suits, a topic on which Mrs. Howland discoursed for five minutes. + She smiled frequently, and was the complete canary-bird in her manner of + thanking the hostess, Mrs. Dave Dyer. + </p> + <p> + Her only anxious period was during the conference on husbands. + </p> + <p> + The young matrons discussed the intimacies of domesticity with a frankness + and a minuteness which dismayed Carol. Juanita Haydock communicated + Harry's method of shaving, and his interest in deer-shooting. Mrs. + Gougerling reported fully, and with some irritation, her husband's + inappreciation of liver and bacon. Maud Dyer chronicled Dave's digestive + disorders; quoted a recent bedtime controversy with him in regard to + Christian Science, socks and the sewing of buttons upon vests; announced + that she “simply wasn't going to stand his always pawing girls when he + went and got crazy-jealous if a man just danced with her”; and rather more + than sketched Dave's varieties of kisses. + </p> + <p> + So meekly did Carol give attention, so obviously was she at last desirous + of being one of them, that they looked on her fondly, and encouraged her + to give such details of her honeymoon as might be of interest. She was + embarrassed rather than resentful. She deliberately misunderstood. She + talked of Kennicott's overshoes and medical ideals till they were + thoroughly bored. They regarded her as agreeable but green. + </p> + <p> + Till the end she labored to satisfy the inquisition. She bubbled at + Juanita, the president of the club, that she wanted to entertain them. + “Only,” she said, “I don't know that I can give you any refreshments as + nice as Mrs. Dyer's salad, or that simply delicious angel's-food we had at + your house, dear.” + </p> + <p> + “Fine! We need a hostess for the seventeenth of March. Wouldn't it be + awfully original if you made it a St. Patrick's Day bridge! I'll be + tickled to death to help you with it. I'm glad you've learned to play + bridge. At first I didn't hardly know if you were going to like Gopher + Prairie. Isn't it dandy that you've settled down to being homey with us! + Maybe we aren't as highbrow as the Cities, but we do have the daisiest + times and—oh, we go swimming in summer, and dances and—oh, + lots of good times. If folks will just take us as we are, I think we're a + pretty good bunch!” + </p> + <p> + “I'm sure of it. Thank you so much for the idea about having a St. + Patrick's Day bridge.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, that's nothing. I always think the Jolly Seventeen are so good at + original ideas. If you knew these other towns Wakamin and Joralemon and + all, you'd find out and realize that G. P. is the liveliest, smartest town + in the state. Did you know that Percy Bresnahan, the famous auto + manufacturer, came from here and——Yes, I think that a St. + Patrick's Day party would be awfully cunning and original, and yet not too + queer or freaky or anything.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XI + </h2> + <h3> + I + </h3> + <p> + SHE had often been invited to the weekly meetings of the Thanatopsis, the + women's study club, but she had put it off. The Thanatopsis was, Vida + Sherwin promised, “such a cozy group, and yet it puts you in touch with + all the intellectual thoughts that are going on everywhere.” + </p> + <p> + Early in March Mrs. Westlake, wife of the veteran physician, marched into + Carol's living-room like an amiable old pussy and suggested, “My dear, you + really must come to the Thanatopsis this afternoon. Mrs. Dawson is going + to be leader and the poor soul is frightened to death. She wanted me to + get you to come. She says she's sure you will brighten up the meeting with + your knowledge of books and writings. (English poetry is our topic today.) + So shoo! Put on your coat!” + </p> + <p> + “English poetry? Really? I'd love to go. I didn't realize you were reading + poetry.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, we're not so slow!” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Luke Dawson, wife of the richest man in town, gaped at them piteously + when they appeared. Her expensive frock of beaver-colored satin with rows, + plasters, and pendants of solemn brown beads was intended for a woman + twice her size. She stood wringing her hands in front of nineteen folding + chairs, in her front parlor with its faded photograph of Minnehaha Falls + in 1890, its “colored enlargement” of Mr. Dawson, its bulbous lamp painted + with sepia cows and mountains and standing on a mortuary marble column. + </p> + <p> + She creaked, “O Mrs. Kennicott, I'm in such a fix. I'm supposed to lead + the discussion, and I wondered would you come and help?” + </p> + <p> + “What poet do you take up today?” demanded Carol, in her library tone of + “What book do you wish to take out?” + </p> + <p> + “Why, the English ones.” + </p> + <p> + “Not all of them?” + </p> + <p> + “W-why yes. We're learning all of European Literature this year. The club + gets such a nice magazine, Culture Hints, and we follow its programs. Last + year our subject was Men and Women of the Bible, and next year we'll + probably take up Furnishings and China. My, it does make a body hustle to + keep up with all these new culture subjects, but it is improving. So will + you help us with the discussion today?” + </p> + <p> + On her way over Carol had decided to use the Thanatopsis as the tool with + which to liberalize the town. She had immediately conceived enormous + enthusiasm; she had chanted, “These are the real people. When the + housewives, who bear the burdens, are interested in poetry, it means + something. I'll work with them—for them—anything!” + </p> + <p> + Her enthusiasm had become watery even before thirteen women resolutely + removed their overshoes, sat down meatily, ate peppermints, dusted their + fingers, folded their hands, composed their lower thoughts, and invited + the naked muse of poetry to deliver her most improving message. They had + greeted Carol affectionately, and she tried to be a daughter to them. But + she felt insecure. Her chair was out in the open, exposed to their gaze, + and it was a hard-slatted, quivery, slippery church-parlor chair, likely + to collapse publicly and without warning. It was impossible to sit on it + without folding the hands and listening piously. + </p> + <p> + She wanted to kick the chair and run. It would make a magnificent clatter. + </p> + <p> + She saw that Vida Sherwin was watching her. She pinched her wrist, as + though she were a noisy child in church, and when she was decent and + cramped again, she listened. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Dawson opened the meeting by sighing, “I'm sure I'm glad to see you + all here today, and I understand that the ladies have prepared a number of + very interesting papers, this is such an interesting subject, the poets, + they have been an inspiration for higher thought, in fact wasn't it + Reverend Benlick who said that some of the poets have been as much an + inspiration as a good many of the ministers, and so we shall be glad to + hear——” + </p> + <p> + The poor lady smiled neuralgically, panted with fright, scrabbled about + the small oak table to find her eye-glasses, and continued, “We will first + have the pleasure of hearing Mrs. Jenson on the subject 'Shakespeare and + Milton.'” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Ole Jenson said that Shakespeare was born in 1564 and died 1616. He + lived in London, England, and in Stratford-on-Avon, which many American + tourists loved to visit, a lovely town with many curios and old houses + well worth examination. Many people believed that Shakespeare was the + greatest play-wright who ever lived, also a fine poet. Not much was known + about his life, but after all that did not really make so much difference, + because they loved to read his numerous plays, several of the best known + of which she would now criticize. + </p> + <p> + Perhaps the best known of his plays was “The Merchant of Venice,” having a + beautiful love story and a fine appreciation of a woman's brains, which a + woman's club, even those who did not care to commit themselves on the + question of suffrage, ought to appreciate. (Laughter.) Mrs. Jenson was + sure that she, for one, would love to be like Portia. The play was about a + Jew named Shylock, and he didn't want his daughter to marry a Venice + gentleman named Antonio—— + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Leonard Warren, a slender, gray, nervous woman, president of the + Thanatopsis and wife of the Congregational pastor, reported the birth and + death dates of Byron, Scott, Moore, Burns; and wound up: + </p> + <p> + “Burns was quite a poor boy and he did not enjoy the advantages we enjoy + today, except for the advantages of the fine old Scotch kirk where he + heard the Word of God preached more fearlessly than even in the finest big + brick churches in the big and so-called advanced cities of today, but he + did not have our educational advantages and Latin and the other treasures + of the mind so richly strewn before the, alas, too ofttimes inattentive + feet of our youth who do not always sufficiently appreciate the privileges + freely granted to every American boy rich or poor. Burns had to work hard + and was sometimes led by evil companionship into low habits. But it is + morally instructive to know that he was a good student and educated + himself, in striking contrast to the loose ways and so-called aristocratic + society-life of Lord Byron, on which I have just spoken. And certainly + though the lords and earls of his day may have looked down upon Burns as a + humble person, many of us have greatly enjoyed his pieces about the mouse + and other rustic subjects, with their message of humble beauty—I am + so sorry I have not got the time to quote some of them.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. George Edwin Mott gave ten minutes to Tennyson and Browning. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Nat Hicks, a wry-faced, curiously sweet woman, so awed by her betters + that Carol wanted to kiss her, completed the day's grim task by a paper on + “Other Poets.” The other poets worthy of consideration were Coleridge, + Wordsworth, Shelley, Gray, Mrs. Hemans, and Kipling. + </p> + <p> + Miss Ella Stowbody obliged with a recital of “The Recessional” and + extracts from “Lalla Rookh.” By request, she gave “An Old Sweetheart of + Mine” as encore. + </p> + <p> + Gopher Prairie had finished the poets. It was ready for the next week's + labor: English Fiction and Essays. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Dawson besought, “Now we will have a discussion of the papers, and I + am sure we shall all enjoy hearing from one who we hope to have as a new + member, Mrs. Kennicott, who with her splendid literary training and all + should be able to give us many pointers and—many helpful pointers.” + </p> + <p> + Carol had warned herself not to be so “beastly supercilious.” She had + insisted that in the belated quest of these work-stained women was an + aspiration which ought to stir her tears. “But they're so self-satisfied. + They think they're doing Burns a favor. They don't believe they have a + 'belated quest.' They're sure that they have culture salted and hung up.” + It was out of this stupor of doubt that Mrs. Dawson's summons roused her. + She was in a panic. How could she speak without hurting them? + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Champ Perry leaned over to stroke her hand and whisper, “You look + tired, dearie. Don't you talk unless you want to.” + </p> + <p> + Affection flooded Carol; she was on her feet, searching for words and + courtesies: + </p> + <p> + “The only thing in the way of suggestion——I know you are + following a definite program, but I do wish that now you've had such a + splendid introduction, instead of going on with some other subject next + year you could return and take up the poets more in detail. Especially + actual quotations—even though their lives are so interesting and, as + Mrs. Warren said, so morally instructive. And perhaps there are several + poets not mentioned today whom it might be worth while considering—Keats, + for instance, and Matthew Arnold and Rossetti and Swinburne. Swinburne + would be such a—well, that is, such a contrast to life as we all + enjoy it in our beautiful Middle-west——” + </p> + <p> + She saw that Mrs. Leonard Warren was not with her. She captured her by + innocently continuing: + </p> + <p> + “Unless perhaps Swinburne tends to be, uh, more outspoken than you, than + we really like. What do you think, Mrs. Warren?” + </p> + <p> + The pastor's wife decided, “Why, you've caught my very thoughts, Mrs. + Kennicott. Of course I have never READ Swinburne, but years ago, when he + was in vogue, I remember Mr. Warren saying that Swinburne (or was it Oscar + Wilde? but anyway:) he said that though many so-called intellectual people + posed and pretended to find beauty in Swinburne, there can never be + genuine beauty without the message from the heart. But at the same time I + do think you have an excellent idea, and though we have talked about + Furnishings and China as the probable subject for next year, I believe + that it would be nice if the program committee would try to work in + another day entirely devoted to English poetry! In fact, Madame Chairman, + I so move you.” + </p> + <p> + When Mrs. Dawson's coffee and angel's-food had helped them to recover from + the depression caused by thoughts of Shakespeare's death they all told + Carol that it was a pleasure to have her with them. The membership + committee retired to the sitting-room for three minutes and elected her a + member. + </p> + <p> + And she stopped being patronizing. + </p> + <p> + She wanted to be one of them. They were so loyal and kind. It was they who + would carry out her aspiration. Her campaign against village sloth was + actually begun! On what specific reform should she first loose her army? + During the gossip after the meeting Mrs. George Edwin Mott remarked that + the city hall seemed inadequate for the splendid modern Gopher Prairie. + Mrs. Nat Hicks timidly wished that the young people could have free dances + there—the lodge dances were so exclusive. The city hall. That was + it! Carol hurried home. + </p> + <p> + She had not realized that Gopher Prairie was a city. From Kennicott she + discovered that it was legally organized with a mayor and city-council and + wards. She was delighted by the simplicity of voting one's self a + metropolis. Why not? + </p> + <p> + She was a proud and patriotic citizen, all evening. + </p> + <p> + II + </p> + <p> + She examined the city hall, next morning. She had remembered it only as a + bleak inconspicuousness. She found it a liver-colored frame coop half a + block from Main Street. The front was an unrelieved wall of clapboards and + dirty windows. It had an unobstructed view of a vacant lot and Nat Hicks's + tailor shop. It was larger than the carpenter shop beside it, but not so + well built. + </p> + <p> + No one was about. She walked into the corridor. On one side was the + municipal court, like a country school; on the other, the room of the + volunteer fire company, with a Ford hose-cart and the ornamental helmets + used in parades, at the end of the hall, a filthy two-cell jail, now empty + but smelling of ammonia and ancient sweat. The whole second story was a + large unfinished room littered with piles of folding chairs, a + lime-crusted mortar-mixing box, and the skeletons of Fourth of July floats + covered with decomposing plaster shields and faded red, white, and blue + bunting. At the end was an abortive stage. The room was large enough for + the community dances which Mrs. Nat Hicks advocated. But Carol was after + something bigger than dances. + </p> + <p> + In the afternoon she scampered to the public library. + </p> + <p> + The library was open three afternoons and four evenings a week. It was + housed in an old dwelling, sufficient but unattractive. Carol caught + herself picturing pleasanter reading-rooms, chairs for children, an art + collection, a librarian young enough to experiment. + </p> + <p> + She berated herself, “Stop this fever of reforming everything! I WILL be + satisfied with the library! The city hall is enough for a beginning. And + it's really an excellent library. It's—it isn't so bad. . . . Is it + possible that I am to find dishonesties and stupidity in every human + activity I encounter? In schools and business and government and + everything? Is there never any contentment, never any rest?” + </p> + <p> + She shook her head as though she were shaking off water, and hastened into + the library, a young, light, amiable presence, modest in unbuttoned fur + coat, blue suit, fresh organdy collar, and tan boots roughened from + scuffling snow. Miss Villets stared at her, and Carol purred, “I was so + sorry not to see you at the Thanatopsis yesterday. Vida said you might + come.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh. You went to the Thanatopsis. Did you enjoy it?” + </p> + <p> + “So much. Such good papers on the poets.” Carol lied resolutely. “But I + did think they should have had you give one of the papers on poetry!” + </p> + <p> + “Well——Of course I'm not one of the bunch that seem to have + the time to take and run the club, and if they prefer to have papers on + literature by other ladies who have no literary training—after all, + why should I complain? What am I but a city employee!” + </p> + <p> + “You're not! You're the one person that does—that does—oh, you + do so much. Tell me, is there, uh——Who are the people who + control the club?” + </p> + <p> + Miss Villets emphatically stamped a date in the front of “Frank on the + Lower Mississippi” for a small flaxen boy, glowered at him as though she + were stamping a warning on his brain, and sighed: + </p> + <p> + “I wouldn't put myself forward or criticize any one for the world, and + Vida is one of my best friends, and such a splendid teacher, and there is + no one in town more advanced and interested in all movements, but I must + say that no matter who the president or the committees are, Vida Sherwin + seems to be behind them all the time, and though she is always telling me + about what she is pleased to call my 'fine work in the library,' I notice + that I'm not often called on for papers, though Mrs. Lyman Cass once + volunteered and told me that she thought my paper on 'The Cathedrals of + England' was the most interesting paper we had, the year we took up + English and French travel and architecture. But——And of course + Mrs. Mott and Mrs. Warren are very important in the club, as you might + expect of the wives of the superintendent of schools and the + Congregational pastor, and indeed they are both very cultured, but——No, + you may regard me as entirely unimportant. I'm sure what I say doesn't + matter a bit!” + </p> + <p> + “You're much too modest, and I'm going to tell Vida so, and, uh, I wonder + if you can give me just a teeny bit of your time and show me where the + magazine files are kept?” + </p> + <p> + She had won. She was profusely escorted to a room like a grandmother's + attic, where she discovered periodicals devoted to house-decoration and + town-planning, with a six-year file of the National Geographic. Miss + Villets blessedly left her alone. Humming, fluttering pages with delighted + fingers, Carol sat cross-legged on the floor, the magazines in heaps about + her. + </p> + <p> + She found pictures of New England streets: the dignity of Falmouth, the + charm of Concord, Stockbridge and Farmington and Hillhouse Avenue. The + fairy-book suburb of Forest Hills on Long Island. Devonshire cottages and + Essex manors and a Yorkshire High Street and Port Sunlight. The Arab + village of Djeddah—an intricately chased jewel-box. A town in + California which had changed itself from the barren brick fronts and + slatternly frame sheds of a Main Street to a way which led the eye down a + vista of arcades and gardens. + </p> + <p> + Assured that she was not quite mad in her belief that a small American + town might be lovely, as well as useful in buying wheat and selling plows, + she sat brooding, her thin fingers playing a tattoo on her cheeks. She saw + in Gopher Prairie a Georgian city hall: warm brick walls with white + shutters, a fanlight, a wide hall and curving stair. She saw it the common + home and inspiration not only of the town but of the country about. It + should contain the court-room (she couldn't get herself to put in a jail), + public library, a collection of excellent prints, rest-room and model + kitchen for farmwives, theater, lecture room, free community ballroom, + farm-bureau, gymnasium. Forming about it and influenced by it, as + mediaeval villages gathered about the castle, she saw a new Georgian town + as graceful and beloved as Annapolis or that bowery Alexandria to which + Washington rode. + </p> + <p> + All this the Thanatopsis Club was to accomplish with no difficulty + whatever, since its several husbands were the controllers of business and + politics. She was proud of herself for this practical view. + </p> + <p> + She had taken only half an hour to change a wire-fenced potato-plot into a + walled rose-garden. She hurried out to apprize Mrs. Leonard Warren, as + president of the Thanatopsis, of the miracle which had been worked. + </p> + <p> + III + </p> + <p> + At a quarter to three Carol had left home; at half-past four she had + created the Georgian town; at a quarter to five she was in the dignified + poverty of the Congregational parsonage, her enthusiasm pattering upon + Mrs. Leonard Warren like summer rain upon an old gray roof; at two minutes + to five a town of demure courtyards and welcoming dormer windows had been + erected, and at two minutes past five the entire town was as flat as + Babylon. + </p> + <p> + Erect in a black William and Mary chair against gray and speckly-brown + volumes of sermons and Biblical commentaries and Palestine geographies + upon long pine shelves, her neat black shoes firm on a rag-rug, herself as + correct and low-toned as her background, Mrs. Warren listened without + comment till Carol was quite through, then answered delicately: + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I think you draw a very nice picture of what might easily come to + pass—some day. I have no doubt that such villages will be found on + the prairie—some day. But if I might make just the least little + criticism: it seems to me that you are wrong in supposing either that the + city hall would be the proper start, or that the Thanatopsis would be the + right instrument. After all, it's the churches, isn't it, that are the + real heart of the community. As you may possibly know, my husband is + prominent in Congregational circles all through the state for his advocacy + of church-union. He hopes to see all the evangelical denominations joined + in one strong body, opposing Catholicism and Christian Science, and + properly guiding all movements that make for morality and prohibition. + Here, the combined churches could afford a splendid club-house, maybe a + stucco and half-timber building with gargoyles and all sorts of pleasing + decorations on it, which, it seems to me, would be lots better to impress + the ordinary class of people than just a plain old-fashioned colonial + house, such as you describe. And that would be the proper center for all + educational and pleasurable activities, instead of letting them fall into + the hands of the politicians.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't suppose it will take more than thirty or forty years for the + churches to get together?” Carol said innocently. + </p> + <p> + “Hardly that long even; things are moving so rapidly. So it would be a + mistake to make any other plans.” + </p> + <p> + Carol did not recover her zeal till two days after, when she tried Mrs. + George Edwin Mott, wife of the superintendent of schools. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Mott commented, “Personally, I am terribly busy with dressmaking and + having the seamstress in the house and all, but it would be splendid to + have the other members of the Thanatopsis take up the question. Except for + one thing: First and foremost, we must have a new schoolbuilding. Mr. Mott + says they are terribly cramped.” + </p> + <p> + Carol went to view the old building. The grades and the high school were + combined in a damp yellow-brick structure with the narrow windows of an + antiquated jail—a hulk which expressed hatred and compulsory + training. She conceded Mrs. Mott's demand so violently that for two days + she dropped her own campaign. Then she built the school and city hall + together, as the center of the reborn town. + </p> + <p> + She ventured to the lead-colored dwelling of Mrs. Dave Dyer. Behind the + mask of winter-stripped vines and a wide porch only a foot above the + ground, the cottage was so impersonal that Carol could never visualize it. + Nor could she remember anything that was inside it. But Mrs. Dyer was + personal enough. With Carol, Mrs. Howland, Mrs. McGanum, and Vida Sherwin + she was a link between the Jolly Seventeen and the serious Thanatopsis (in + contrast to Juanita Haydock, who unnecessarily boasted of being a + “lowbrow” and publicly stated that she would “see herself in jail before + she'd write any darned old club papers”). Mrs. Dyer was superfeminine in + the kimono in which she received Carol. Her skin was fine, pale, soft, + suggesting a weak voluptuousness. At afternoon-coffees she had been rude + but now she addressed Carol as “dear,” and insisted on being called Maud. + Carol did not quite know why she was uncomfortable in this talcum-powder + atmosphere, but she hastened to get into the fresh air of her plans. + </p> + <p> + Maud Dyer granted that the city hall wasn't “so very nice,” yet, as Dave + said, there was no use doing anything about it till they received an + appropriation from the state and combined a new city hall with a national + guard armory. Dave had given verdict, “What these mouthy youngsters that + hang around the pool-room need is universal military training. Make men of + 'em.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Dyer removed the new schoolbuilding from the city hall: + </p> + <p> + “Oh, so Mrs. Mott has got you going on her school craze! She's been + dinging at that till everybody's sick and tired. What she really wants is + a big office for her dear bald-headed Gawge to sit around and look + important in. Of course I admire Mrs. Mott, and I'm very fond of her, + she's so brainy, even if she does try to butt in and run the Thanatopsis, + but I must say we're sick of her nagging. The old building was good enough + for us when we were kids! I hate these would-be women politicians, don't + you?” + </p> + <p> + IV + </p> + <p> + The first week of March had given promise of spring and stirred Carol with + a thousand desires for lakes and fields and roads. The snow was gone + except for filthy woolly patches under trees, the thermometer leaped in a + day from wind-bitten chill to itchy warmth. As soon as Carol was convinced + that even in this imprisoned North, spring could exist again, the snow + came down as abruptly as a paper storm in a theater; the northwest gale + flung it up in a half blizzard; and with her hope of a glorified town went + hope of summer meadows. + </p> + <p> + But a week later, though the snow was everywhere in slushy heaps, the + promise was unmistakable. By the invisible hints in air and sky and earth + which had aroused her every year through ten thousand generations she knew + that spring was coming. It was not a scorching, hard, dusty day like the + treacherous intruder of a week before, but soaked with languor, softened + with a milky light. Rivulets were hurrying in each alley; a calling robin + appeared by magic on the crab-apple tree in the Howlands' yard. Everybody + chuckled, “Looks like winter is going,” and “This 'll bring the frost out + of the roads—have the autos out pretty soon now—wonder what + kind of bass-fishing we'll get this summer—ought to be good crops + this year.” + </p> + <p> + Each evening Kennicott repeated, “We better not take off our Heavy + Underwear or the storm windows too soon—might be 'nother spell of + cold—got to be careful 'bout catching cold—wonder if the coal + will last through?” + </p> + <p> + The expanding forces of life within her choked the desire for reforming. + She trotted through the house, planning the spring cleaning with Bea. When + she attended her second meeting of the Thanatopsis she said nothing about + remaking the town. She listened respectably to statistics on Dickens, + Thackeray, Jane Austen, George Eliot, Scott, Hardy, Lamb, De Quincey, and + Mrs. Humphry Ward, who, it seemed, constituted the writers of English + Fiction and Essays. + </p> + <p> + Not till she inspected the rest-room did she again become a fanatic. She + had often glanced at the store-building which had been turned into a + refuge in which farmwives could wait while their husbands transacted + business. She had heard Vida Sherwin and Mrs. Warren caress the virtue of + the Thanatopsis in establishing the rest-room and in sharing with the city + council the expense of maintaining it. But she had never entered it till + this March day. + </p> + <p> + She went in impulsively; nodded at the matron, a plump worthy widow named + Nodelquist, and at a couple of farm-women who were meekly rocking. The + rest-room resembled a second-hand store. It was furnished with discarded + patent rockers, lopsided reed chairs, a scratched pine table, a gritty + straw mat, old steel engravings of milkmaids being morally amorous under + willow-trees, faded chromos of roses and fish, and a kerosene stove for + warming lunches. The front window was darkened by torn net curtains and by + a mound of geraniums and rubber-plants. + </p> + <p> + While she was listening to Mrs. Nodelquist's account of how many thousands + of farmers' wives used the rest-room every year, and how much they + “appreciated the kindness of the ladies in providing them with this lovely + place, and all free,” she thought, “Kindness nothing! The kind-ladies' + husbands get the farmers' trade. This is mere commercial accommodation. + And it's horrible. It ought to be the most charming room in town, to + comfort women sick of prairie kitchens. Certainly it ought to have a clear + window, so that they can see the metropolitan life go by. Some day I'm + going to make a better rest-room—a club-room. Why! I've already + planned that as part of my Georgian town hall!” + </p> + <p> + So it chanced that she was plotting against the peace of the Thanatopsis + at her third meeting (which covered Scandinavian, Russian, and Polish + Literature, with remarks by Mrs. Leonard Warren on the sinful paganism of + the Russian so-called church). Even before the entrance of the coffee and + hot rolls Carol seized on Mrs. Champ Perry, the kind and ample-bosomed + pioneer woman who gave historic dignity to the modern matrons of the + Thanatopsis. She poured out her plans. Mrs. Perry nodded and stroked + Carol's hand, but at the end she sighed: + </p> + <p> + “I wish I could agree with you, dearie. I'm sure you're one of the Lord's + anointed (even if we don't see you at the Baptist Church as often as we'd + like to)! But I'm afraid you're too tender-hearted. When Champ and I came + here we teamed-it with an ox-cart from Sauk Centre to Gopher Prairie, and + there was nothing here then but a stockade and a few soldiers and some log + cabins. When we wanted salt pork and gunpowder, we sent out a man on + horseback, and probably he was shot dead by the Injuns before he got back. + We ladies—of course we were all farmers at first—we didn't + expect any rest-room in those days. My, we'd have thought the one they + have now was simply elegant! My house was roofed with hay and it leaked + something terrible when it rained—only dry place was under a shelf. + </p> + <p> + “And when the town grew up we thought the new city hall was real fine. And + I don't see any need for dance-halls. Dancing isn't what it was, anyway. + We used to dance modest, and we had just as much fun as all these young + folks do now with their terrible Turkey Trots and hugging and all. But if + they must neglect the Lord's injunction that young girls ought to be + modest, then I guess they manage pretty well at the K. P. Hall and the + Oddfellows', even if some of tie lodges don't always welcome a lot of + these foreigners and hired help to all their dances. And I certainly don't + see any need of a farm-bureau or this domestic science demonstration you + talk about. In my day the boys learned to farm by honest sweating, and + every gal could cook, or her ma learned her how across her knee! Besides, + ain't there a county agent at Wakamin? He comes here once a fortnight, + maybe. That's enough monkeying with this scientific farming—Champ + says there's nothing to it anyway. + </p> + <p> + “And as for a lecture hall—haven't we got the churches? Good deal + better to listen to a good old-fashioned sermon than a lot of geography + and books and things that nobody needs to know—more 'n enough + heathen learning right here in the Thanatopsis. And as for trying to make + a whole town in this Colonial architecture you talk about——I + do love nice things; to this day I run ribbons into my petticoats, even if + Champ Perry does laugh at me, the old villain! But just the same I don't + believe any of us old-timers would like to see the town that we worked so + hard to build being tore down to make a place that wouldn't look like + nothing but some Dutch story-book and not a bit like the place we loved. + And don't you think it's sweet now? All the trees and lawns? And such + comfy houses, and hot-water heat and electric lights and telephones and + cement walks and everything? Why, I thought everybody from the Twin Cities + always said it was such a beautiful town!” + </p> + <p> + Carol forswore herself; declared that Gopher Prairie had the color of + Algiers and the gaiety of Mardi Gras. + </p> + <p> + Yet the next afternoon she was pouncing on Mrs. Lyman Cass, the hook-nosed + consort of the owner of the flour-mill. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Cass's parlor belonged to the crammed-Victorian school, as Mrs. Luke + Dawson's belonged to the bare-Victorian. It was furnished on two + principles: First, everything must resemble something else. A rocker had a + back like a lyre, a near-leather seat imitating tufted cloth, and arms + like Scotch Presbyterian lions; with knobs, scrolls, shields, and + spear-points on unexpected portions of the chair. The second principle of + the crammed-Victorian school was that every inch of the interior must be + filled with useless objects. + </p> + <p> + The walls of Mrs. Cass's parlor were plastered with “hand-painted” + pictures, “buckeye” pictures, of birch-trees, news-boys, puppies, and + church-steeples on Christmas Eve; with a plaque depicting the Exposition + Building in Minneapolis, burnt-wood portraits of Indian chiefs of no tribe + in particular, a pansy-decked poetic motto, a Yard of Roses, and the + banners of the educational institutions attended by the Casses' two sons—Chicopee + Falls Business College and McGillicuddy University. One small square table + contained a card-receiver of painted china with a rim of wrought and + gilded lead, a Family Bible, Grant's Memoirs, the latest novel by Mrs. + Gene Stratton Porter, a wooden model of a Swiss chalet which was also a + bank for dimes, a polished abalone shell holding one black-headed pin and + one empty spool, a velvet pin-cushion in a gilded metal slipper with + “Souvenir of Troy, N. Y.” stamped on the toe, and an unexplained red glass + dish which had warts. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Cass's first remark was, “I must show you all my pretty things and + art objects.” + </p> + <p> + She piped, after Carol's appeal: + </p> + <p> + “I see. You think the New England villages and Colonial houses are so much + more cunning than these Middlewestern towns. I'm glad you feel that way. + You'll be interested to know I was born in Vermont.” + </p> + <p> + “And don't you think we ought to try to make Gopher Prai——” + </p> + <p> + “My gracious no! We can't afford it. Taxes are much too high as it is. We + ought to retrench, and not let the city council spend another cent. Uh——Don't + you think that was a grand paper Mrs. Westlake read about Tolstoy? I was + so glad she pointed out how all his silly socialistic ideas failed.” + </p> + <p> + What Mrs. Cass said was what Kennicott said, that evening. Not in twenty + years would the council propose or Gopher Prairie vote the funds for a new + city hall. + </p> + <p> + V + </p> + <p> + Carol had avoided exposing her plans to Vida Sherwin. She was shy of the + big-sister manner; Vida would either laugh at her or snatch the idea and + change it to suit herself. But there was no other hope. When Vida came in + to tea Carol sketched her Utopia. + </p> + <p> + Vida was soothing but decisive: + </p> + <p> + “My dear, you're all off. I would like to see it: a real gardeny place to + shut out the gales. But it can't be done. What could the clubwomen + accomplish?” + </p> + <p> + “Their husbands are the most important men in town. They ARE the town!” + </p> + <p> + “But the town as a separate unit is not the husband of the Thanatopsis. If + you knew the trouble we had in getting the city council to spend the money + and cover the pumping-station with vines! Whatever you may think of Gopher + Prairie women, they're twice as progressive as the men.” + </p> + <p> + “But can't the men see the ugliness?” + </p> + <p> + “They don't think it's ugly. And how can you prove it? Matter of taste. + Why should they like what a Boston architect likes?” + </p> + <p> + “What they like is to sell prunes!” + </p> + <p> + “Well, why not? Anyway, the point is that you have to work from the + inside, with what we have, rather than from the outside, with foreign + ideas. The shell ought not to be forced on the spirit. It can't be! The + bright shell has to grow out of the spirit, and express it. That means + waiting. If we keep after the city council for another ten years they MAY + vote the bonds for a new school.” + </p> + <p> + “I refuse to believe that if they saw it the big men would be too + tight-fisted to spend a few dollars each for a building—think!—dancing + and lectures and plays, all done co-operatively!” + </p> + <p> + “You mention the word 'co-operative' to the merchants and they'll lynch + you! The one thing they fear more than mail-order houses is that farmers' + co-operative movements may get started.” + </p> + <p> + “The secret trails that lead to scared pocket-books! Always, in + everything! And I don't have any of the fine melodrama of fiction: the + dictagraphs and speeches by torchlight. I'm merely blocked by stupidity. + Oh, I know I'm a fool. I dream of Venice, and I live in Archangel and + scold because the Northern seas aren't tender-colored. But at least they + sha'n't keep me from loving Venice, and sometime I'll run away——All + right. No more.” + </p> + <p> + She flung out her hands in a gesture of renunciation. + </p> + <p> + VI + </p> + <p> + Early May; wheat springing up in blades like grass; corn and potatoes + being planted; the land humming. For two days there had been steady rain. + Even in town the roads were a furrowed welter of mud, hideous to view and + difficult to cross. Main Street was a black swamp from curb to curb; on + residence streets the grass parking beside the walks oozed gray water. It + was prickly hot, yet the town was barren under the bleak sky. Softened + neither by snow nor by waving boughs the houses squatted and scowled, + revealed in their unkempt harshness. + </p> + <p> + As she dragged homeward Carol looked with distaste at her clay-loaded + rubbers, the smeared hem of her skirt. She passed Lyman Cass's pinnacled, + dark-red, hulking house. She waded a streaky yellow pool. This morass was + not her home, she insisted. Her home, and her beautiful town, existed in + her mind. They had already been created. The task was done. What she + really had been questing was some one to share them with her. Vida would + not; Kennicott could not. + </p> + <p> + Some one to share her refuge. + </p> + <p> + Suddenly she was thinking of Guy Pollock. + </p> + <p> + She dismissed him. He was too cautious. She needed a spirit as young and + unreasonable as her own. And she would never find it. Youth would never + come singing. She was beaten. + </p> + <p> + Yet that same evening she had an idea which solved the rebuilding of + Gopher Prairie. + </p> + <p> + Within ten minutes she was jerking the old-fashioned bell-pull of Luke + Dawson. Mrs. Dawson opened the door and peered doubtfully about the edge + of it. Carol kissed her cheek, and frisked into the lugubrious + sitting-room. + </p> + <p> + “Well, well, you're a sight for sore eyes!” chuckled Mr. Dawson, dropping + his newspaper, pushing his spectacles back on his forehead. + </p> + <p> + “You seem so excited,” sighed Mrs. Dawson. + </p> + <p> + “I am! Mr. Dawson, aren't you a millionaire?” + </p> + <p> + He cocked his head, and purred, “Well, I guess if I cashed in on all my + securities and farm-holdings and my interests in iron on the Mesaba and in + Northern timber and cut-over lands, I could push two million dollars + pretty close, and I've made every cent of it by hard work and having the + sense to not go out and spend every——” + </p> + <p> + “I think I want most of it from you!” + </p> + <p> + The Dawsons glanced at each other in appreciation of the jest; and he + chirped, “You're worse than Reverend Benlick! He don't hardly ever strike + me for more than ten dollars—at a time!” + </p> + <p> + “I'm not joking. I mean it! Your children in the Cities are grown-up and + well-to-do. You don't want to die and leave your name unknown. Why not do + a big, original thing? Why not rebuild the whole town? Get a great + architect, and have him plan a town that would be suitable to the prairie. + Perhaps he'd create some entirely new form of architecture. Then tear down + all these shambling buildings——” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Dawson had decided that she really did mean it. He wailed, “Why, that + would cost at least three or four million dollars!” + </p> + <p> + “But you alone, just one man, have two of those millions!” + </p> + <p> + “Me? Spend all my hard-earned cash on building houses for a lot of + shiftless beggars that never had the sense to save their money? Not that + I've ever been mean. Mama could always have a hired girl to do the work—when + we could find one. But her and I have worked our fingers to the bone and—spend + it on a lot of these rascals——?” + </p> + <p> + “Please! Don't be angry! I just mean—I mean——Oh, not + spend all of it, of course, but if you led off the list, and the others + came in, and if they heard you talk about a more attractive town——” + </p> + <p> + “Why now, child, you've got a lot of notions. Besides what's the matter + with the town? Looks good to me. I've had people that have traveled all + over the world tell me time and again that Gopher Prairie is the prettiest + place in the Middlewest. Good enough for anybody. Certainly good enough + for Mama and me. Besides! Mama and me are planning to go out to Pasadena + and buy a bungalow and live there.” + </p> + <p> + VII + </p> + <p> + She had met Miles Bjornstam on the street. For the second of welcome + encounter this workman with the bandit mustache and the muddy overalls + seemed nearer than any one else to the credulous youth which she was + seeking to fight beside her, and she told him, as a cheerful anecdote, a + little of her story. + </p> + <p> + He grunted, “I never thought I'd be agreeing with Old Man Dawson, the + penny-pinching old land-thief—and a fine briber he is, too. But you + got the wrong slant. You aren't one of the people—yet. You want to + do something for the town. I don't! I want the town to do something for + itself. We don't want old Dawson's money—not if it's a gift, with a + string. We'll take it away from him, because it belongs to us. You got to + get more iron and cussedness into you. Come join us cheerful bums, and + some day—when we educate ourselves and quit being bums—we'll + take things and run 'em straight.” + </p> + <p> + He had changed from her friend to a cynical man in overalls. She could not + relish the autocracy of “cheerful bums.” + </p> + <p> + She forgot him as she tramped the outskirts of town. + </p> + <p> + She had replaced the city hall project by an entirely new and highly + exhilarating thought of how little was done for these unpicturesque poor. + </p> + <p> + VIII + </p> + <p> + The spring of the plains is not a reluctant virgin but brazen and soon + away. The mud roads of a few days ago are powdery dust and the puddles + beside them have hardened into lozenges of black sleek earth like cracked + patent leather. + </p> + <p> + Carol was panting as she crept to the meeting of the Thanatopsis program + committee which was to decide the subject for next fall and winter. + </p> + <p> + Madam Chairman (Miss Ella Stowbody in an oyster-colored blouse) asked if + there was any new business. + </p> + <p> + Carol rose. She suggested that the Thanatopsis ought to help the poor of + the town. She was ever so correct and modern. She did not, she said, want + charity for them, but a chance of self-help; an employment bureau, + direction in washing babies and making pleasing stews, possibly a + municipal fund for home-building. “What do you think of my plans, Mrs. + Warren?” she concluded. + </p> + <p> + Speaking judiciously, as one related to the church by marriage, Mrs. + Warren gave verdict: + </p> + <p> + “I'm sure we're all heartily in accord with Mrs. Kennicott in feeling that + wherever genuine poverty is encountered, it is not only noblesse oblige + but a joy to fulfil our duty to the less fortunate ones. But I must say it + seems to me we should lose the whole point of the thing by not regarding + it as charity. Why, that's the chief adornment of the true Christian and + the church! The Bible has laid it down for our guidance. 'Faith, Hope, and + CHARITY,' it says, and, 'The poor ye have with ye always,' which indicates + that there never can be anything to these so-called scientific schemes for + abolishing charity, never! And isn't it better so? I should hate to think + of a world in which we were deprived of all the pleasure of giving. + Besides, if these shiftless folks realize they're getting charity, and not + something to which they have a right, they're so much more grateful.” + </p> + <p> + “Besides,” snorted Miss Ella Stowbody, “they've been fooling you, Mrs. + Kennicott. There isn't any real poverty here. Take that Mrs. Steinhof you + speak of: I send her our washing whenever there's too much for our hired + girl—I must have sent her ten dollars' worth the past year alone! + I'm sure Papa would never approve of a city home-building fund. Papa says + these folks are fakers. Especially all these tenant farmers that pretend + they have so much trouble getting seed and machinery. Papa says they + simply won't pay their debts. He says he's sure he hates to foreclose + mortgages, but it's the only way to make them respect the law.” + </p> + <p> + “And then think of all the clothes we give these people!” said Mrs. + Jackson Elder. + </p> + <p> + Carol intruded again. “Oh yes. The clothes. I was going to speak of that. + Don't you think that when we give clothes to the poor, if we do give them + old ones, we ought to mend them first and make them as presentable as we + can? Next Christmas when the Thanatopsis makes its distribution, wouldn't + it be jolly if we got together and sewed on the clothes, and trimmed hats, + and made them——” + </p> + <p> + “Heavens and earth, they have more time than we have! They ought to be + mighty good and grateful to get anything, no matter what shape it's in. I + know I'm not going to sit and sew for that lazy Mrs. Vopni, with all I've + got to do!” snapped Ella Stowbody. + </p> + <p> + They were glaring at Carol. She reflected that Mrs. Vopni, whose husband + had been killed by a train, had ten children. + </p> + <p> + But Mrs. Mary Ellen Wilks was smiling. Mrs. Wilks was the proprietor of Ye + Art Shoppe and Magazine and Book Store, and the reader of the small + Christian Science church. She made it all clear: + </p> + <p> + “If this class of people had an understanding of Science and that we are + the children of God and nothing can harm us, they wouldn't be in error and + poverty.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Jackson Elder confirmed, “Besides, it strikes me the club is already + doing enough, with tree-planting and the anti-fly campaign and the + responsibility for the rest-room—to say nothing of the fact that + we've talked of trying to get the railroad to put in a park at the + station!” + </p> + <p> + “I think so too!” said Madam Chairman. She glanced uneasily at Miss + Sherwin. “But what do you think, Vida?” + </p> + <p> + Vida smiled tactfully at each of the committee, and announced, “Well, I + don't believe we'd better start anything more right now. But it's been a + privilege to hear Carol's dear generous ideas, hasn't it! Oh! There is one + thing we must decide on at once. We must get together and oppose any move + on the part of the Minneapolis clubs to elect another State Federation + president from the Twin Cities. And this Mrs. Edgar Potbury they're + putting forward—I know there are people who think she's a bright + interesting speaker, but I regard her as very shallow. What do you say to + my writing to the Lake Ojibawasha Club, telling them that if their + district will support Mrs. Warren for second vice-president, we'll support + their Mrs. Hagelton (and such a dear, lovely, cultivated woman, too) for + president.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes! We ought to show up those Minneapolis folks!” Ella Stowbody said + acidly. “And oh, by the way, we must oppose this movement of Mrs. + Potbury's to have the state clubs come out definitely in favor of woman + suffrage. Women haven't any place in politics. They would lose all their + daintiness and charm if they became involved in these horried plots and + log-rolling and all this awful political stuff about scandal and + personalities and so on.” + </p> + <p> + All—save one—nodded. They interrupted the formal + business-meeting to discuss Mrs. Edgar Potbury's husband, Mrs. Potbury's + income, Mrs. Potbury's sedan, Mrs. Potbury's residence, Mrs. Potbury's + oratorical style, Mrs. Potbury's mandarin evening coat, Mrs. Potbury's + coiffure, and Mrs. Potbury's altogether reprehensible influence on the + State Federation of Women's Clubs. + </p> + <p> + Before the program committee adjourned they took three minutes to decide + which of the subjects suggested by the magazine Culture Hints, Furnishings + and China, or The Bible as Literature, would be better for the coming + year. There was one annoying incident. Mrs. Dr. Kennicott interfered and + showed off again. She commented, “Don't you think that we already get + enough of the Bible in our churches and Sunday Schools?” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Leonard Warren, somewhat out of order but much more out of temper, + cried, “Well upon my word! I didn't suppose there was any one who felt + that we could get enough of the Bible! I guess if the Grand Old Book has + withstood the attacks of infidels for these two thousand years it is worth + our SLIGHT consideration!” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I didn't mean——” Carol begged. Inasmuch as she did mean, + it was hard to be extremely lucid. “But I wish, instead of limiting + ourselves either to the Bible, or to anecdotes about the Brothers Adam's + wigs, which Culture Hints seems to regard as the significant point about + furniture, we could study some of the really stirring ideas that are + springing up today—whether it's chemistry or anthropology or labor + problems—the things that are going to mean so terribly much.” + </p> + <p> + Everybody cleared her polite throat. + </p> + <p> + Madam Chairman inquired, “Is there any other discussion? Will some one + make a motion to adopt the suggestion of Vida Sherwin—to take up + Furnishings and China?” + </p> + <p> + It was adopted, unanimously. + </p> + <p> + “Checkmate!” murmured Carol, as she held up her hand. + </p> + <p> + Had she actually believed that she could plant a seed of liberalism in the + blank wall of mediocrity? How had she fallen into the folly of trying to + plant anything whatever in a wall so smooth and sun-glazed, and so + satisfying to the happy sleepers within? + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XII + </h2> + <p> + ONE week of authentic spring, one rare sweet week of May, one tranquil + moment between the blast of winter and the charge of summer. Daily Carol + walked from town into flashing country hysteric with new life. + </p> + <p> + One enchanted hour when she returned to youth and a belief in the + possibility of beauty. + </p> + <p> + She had walked northward toward the upper shore of Plover Lake, taking to + the railroad track, whose directness and dryness make it the natural + highway for pedestrians on the plains. She stepped from tie to tie, in + long strides. At each road-crossing she had to crawl over a cattle-guard + of sharpened timbers. She walked the rails, balancing with arms extended, + cautious heel before toe. As she lost balance her body bent over, her arms + revolved wildly, and when she toppled she laughed aloud. + </p> + <p> + The thick grass beside the track, coarse and prickly with many burnings, + hid canary-yellow buttercups and the mauve petals and woolly sage-green + coats of the pasque flowers. The branches of the kinnikinic brush were red + and smooth as lacquer on a saki bowl. + </p> + <p> + She ran down the gravelly embankment, smiled at children gathering flowers + in a little basket, thrust a handful of the soft pasque flowers into the + bosom of her white blouse. Fields of springing wheat drew her from the + straight propriety of the railroad and she crawled through the rusty + barbed-wire fence. She followed a furrow between low wheat blades and a + field of rye which showed silver lights as it flowed before the wind. She + found a pasture by the lake. So sprinkled was the pasture with rag-baby + blossoms and the cottony herb of Indian tobacco that it spread out like a + rare old Persian carpet of cream and rose and delicate green. Under her + feet the rough grass made a pleasant crunching. Sweet winds blew from the + sunny lake beside her, and small waves sputtered on the meadowy shore. She + leaped a tiny creek bowered in pussy-willow buds. She was nearing a + frivolous grove of birch and poplar and wild plum trees. + </p> + <p> + The poplar foliage had the downiness of a Corot arbor; the green and + silver trunks were as candid as the birches, as slender and lustrous as + the limbs of a Pierrot. The cloudy white blossoms of the plum trees filled + the grove with a springtime mistiness which gave an illusion of distance. + </p> + <p> + She ran into the wood, crying out for joy of freedom regained after + winter. Choke-cherry blossoms lured her from the outer sun-warmed spaces + to depths of green stillness, where a submarine light came through the + young leaves. She walked pensively along an abandoned road. She found a + moccasin-flower beside a lichen-covered log. At the end of the road she + saw the open acres—dipping rolling fields bright with wheat. + </p> + <p> + “I believe! The woodland gods still live! And out there, the great land. + It's beautiful as the mountains. What do I care for Thanatopsises?” + </p> + <p> + She came out on the prairie, spacious under an arch of boldly cut clouds. + Small pools glittered. Above a marsh red-winged blackbirds chased a crow + in a swift melodrama of the air. On a hill was silhouetted a man following + a drag. His horse bent its neck and plodded, content. + </p> + <p> + A path took her to the Corinth road, leading back to town. Dandelions + glowed in patches amidst the wild grass by the way. A stream golloped + through a concrete culvert beneath the road. She trudged in healthy + weariness. + </p> + <p> + A man in a bumping Ford rattled up beside her, hailed, “Give you a lift, + Mrs. Kennicott?” + </p> + <p> + “Thank you. It's awfully good of you, but I'm enjoying the walk.” + </p> + <p> + “Great day, by golly. I seen some wheat that must of been five inches + high. Well, so long.” + </p> + <p> + She hadn't the dimmest notion who he was, but his greeting warmed her. + This countryman gave her a companionship which she had never (whether by + her fault or theirs or neither) been able to find in the matrons and + commercial lords of the town. + </p> + <p> + Half a mile from town, in a hollow between hazelnut bushes and a brook, + she discovered a gipsy encampment: a covered wagon, a tent, a bunch of + pegged-out horses. A broad-shouldered man was squatted on his heels, + holding a frying-pan over a camp-fire. He looked toward her. He was Miles + Bjornstam. + </p> + <p> + “Well, well, what you doing out here?” he roared. “Come have a hunk o' + bacon. Pete! Hey, Pete!” + </p> + <p> + A tousled person came from behind the covered wagon. + </p> + <p> + “Pete, here's the one honest-to-God lady in my bum town. Come on, crawl in + and set a couple minutes, Mrs. Kennicott. I'm hiking off for all summer.” + </p> + <p> + The Red Swede staggered up, rubbed his cramped knees, lumbered to the wire + fence, held the strands apart for her. She unconsciously smiled at him as + she went through. Her skirt caught on a barb; he carefully freed it. + </p> + <p> + Beside this man in blue flannel shirt, baggy khaki trousers, uneven + suspenders, and vile felt hat, she was small and exquisite. + </p> + <p> + The surly Pete set out an upturned bucket for her. She lounged on it, her + elbows on her knees. “Where are you going?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “Just starting off for the summer, horse-trading.” Bjornstam chuckled. His + red mustache caught the sun. “Regular hoboes and public benefactors we + are. Take a hike like this every once in a while. Sharks on horses. Buy + 'em from farmers and sell 'em to others. We're honest—frequently. + Great time. Camp along the road. I was wishing I had a chance to say + good-by to you before I ducked out but——Say, you better come + along with us.” + </p> + <p> + “I'd like to.” + </p> + <p> + “While you're playing mumblety-peg with Mrs. Lym Cass, Pete and me will be + rambling across Dakota, through the Bad Lands, into the butte country, and + when fall comes, we'll be crossing over a pass of the Big Horn Mountains, + maybe, and camp in a snow-storm, quarter of a mile right straight up above + a lake. Then in the morning we'll lie snug in our blankets and look up + through the pines at an eagle. How'd it strike you? Heh? Eagle soaring and + soaring all day—big wide sky——” + </p> + <p> + “Don't! Or I will go with you, and I'm afraid there might be some slight + scandal. Perhaps some day I'll do it. Good-by.” + </p> + <p> + Her hand disappeared in his blackened leather glove. From the turn in the + road she waved at him. She walked on more soberly now, and she was lonely. + </p> + <p> + But the wheat and grass were sleek velvet under the sunset; the prairie + clouds were tawny gold; and she swung happily into Main Street. + </p> + <p> + II + </p> + <p> + Through the first days of June she drove with Kennicott on his calls. She + identified him with the virile land; she admired him as she saw with what + respect the farmers obeyed him. She was out in the early chill, after a + hasty cup of coffee, reaching open country as the fresh sun came up in + that unspoiled world. Meadow larks called from the tops of thin split + fence-posts. The wild roses smelled clean. + </p> + <p> + As they returned in late afternoon the low sun was a solemnity of radial + bands, like a heavenly fan of beaten gold; the limitless circle of the + grain was a green sea rimmed with fog, and the willow wind-breaks were + palmy isles. + </p> + <p> + Before July the close heat blanketed them. The tortured earth cracked. + Farmers panted through corn-fields behind cultivators and the sweating + flanks of horses. While she waited for Kennicott in the car, before a + farmhouse, the seat burned her fingers and her head ached with the glare + on fenders and hood. + </p> + <p> + A black thunder-shower was followed by a dust storm which turned the sky + yellow with the hint of a coming tornado. Impalpable black dust far-borne + from Dakota covered the inner sills of the closed windows. + </p> + <p> + The July heat was ever more stifling. They crawled along Main Street by + day; they found it hard to sleep at night. They brought mattresses down to + the living-room, and thrashed and turned by the open window. Ten times a + night they talked of going out to soak themselves with the hose and wade + through the dew, but they were too listless to take the trouble. On cool + evenings, when they tried to go walking, the gnats appeared in swarms + which peppered their faces and caught in their throats. + </p> + <p> + She wanted the Northern pines, the Eastern sea, but Kennicott declared + that it would be “kind of hard to get away, just NOW.” The Health and + Improvement Committee of the Thanatopsis asked her to take part in the + anti-fly campaign, and she toiled about town persuading householders to + use the fly-traps furnished by the club, or giving out money prizes to + fly-swatting children. She was loyal enough but not ardent, and without + ever quite intending to, she began to neglect the task as heat sucked at + her strength. + </p> + <p> + Kennicott and she motored North and spent a week with his mother—that + is, Carol spent it with his mother, while he fished for bass. + </p> + <p> + The great event was their purchase of a summer cottage, down on Lake + Minniemashie. + </p> + <p> + Perhaps the most amiable feature of life in Gopher Prairie was the summer + cottages. They were merely two-room shanties, with a seepage of + broken-down chairs, peeling veneered tables, chromos pasted on wooden + walls, and inefficient kerosene stoves. They were so thin-walled and so + close together that you could—and did—hear a baby being + spanked in the fifth cottage off. But they were set among elms and lindens + on a bluff which looked across the lake to fields of ripened wheat sloping + up to green woods. + </p> + <p> + Here the matrons forgot social jealousies, and sat gossiping in gingham; + or, in old bathing-suits, surrounded by hysterical children, they paddled + for hours. Carol joined them; she ducked shrieking small boys, and helped + babies construct sand-basins for unfortunate minnows. She liked Juanita + Haydock and Maud Dyer when she helped them make picnic-supper for the men, + who came motoring out from town each evening. She was easier and more + natural with them. In the debate as to whether there should be veal loaf + or poached egg on hash, she had no chance to be heretical and + oversensitive. + </p> + <p> + They danced sometimes, in the evening; they had a minstrel show, with + Kennicott surprisingly good as end-man; always they were encircled by + children wise in the lore of woodchucks and gophers and rafts and willow + whistles. + </p> + <p> + If they could have continued this normal barbaric life Carol would have + been the most enthusiastic citizen of Gopher Prairie. She was relieved to + be assured that she did not want bookish conversation alone; that she did + not expect the town to become a Bohemia. She was content now. She did not + criticize. + </p> + <p> + But in September, when the year was at its richest, custom dictated that + it was time to return to town; to remove the children from the waste + occupation of learning the earth, and send them back to lessons about the + number of potatoes which (in a delightful world untroubled by + commission-houses or shortages in freight-cars) William sold to John. The + women who had cheerfully gone bathing all summer looked doubtful when + Carol begged, “Let's keep up an outdoor life this winter, let's slide and + skate.” Their hearts shut again till spring, and the nine months of + cliques and radiators and dainty refreshments began all over. + </p> + <p> + III + </p> + <p> + Carol had started a salon. + </p> + <p> + Since Kennicott, Vida Sherwin, and Guy Pollock were her only lions, and + since Kennicott would have preferred Sam Clark to all the poets and + radicals in the entire world, her private and self-defensive clique did + not get beyond one evening dinner for Vida and Guy, on her first wedding + anniversary; and that dinner did not get beyond a controversy regarding + Raymie Wutherspoon's yearnings. + </p> + <p> + Guy Pollock was the gentlest person she had found here. He spoke of her + new jade and cream frock naturally, not jocosely; he held her chair for + her as they sat down to dinner; and he did not, like Kennicott, interrupt + her to shout, “Oh say, speaking of that, I heard a good story today.” But + Guy was incurably hermit. He sat late and talked hard, and did not come + again. + </p> + <p> + Then she met Champ Perry in the post-office—and decided that in the + history of the pioneers was the panacea for Gopher Prairie, for all of + America. We have lost their sturdiness, she told herself. We must restore + the last of the veterans to power and follow them on the backward path to + the integrity of Lincoln, to the gaiety of settlers dancing in a saw-mill. + </p> + <p> + She read in the records of the Minnesota Territorial Pioneers that only + sixty years ago, not so far back as the birth of her own father, four + cabins had composed Gopher Prairie. The log stockade which Mrs. Champ + Perry was to find when she trekked in was built afterward by the soldiers + as a defense against the Sioux. The four cabins were inhabited by Maine + Yankees who had come up the Mississippi to St. Paul and driven north over + virgin prairie into virgin woods. They ground their own corn; the + men-folks shot ducks and pigeons and prairie chickens; the new breakings + yielded the turnip-like rutabagas, which they ate raw and boiled and baked + and raw again. For treat they had wild plums and crab-apples and tiny wild + strawberries. + </p> + <p> + Grasshoppers came darkening the sky, and in an hour ate the farmwife's + garden and the farmer's coat. Precious horses painfully brought from + Illinois, were drowned in bogs or stampeded by the fear of blizzards. Snow + blew through the chinks of new-made cabins, and Eastern children, with + flowery muslin dresses, shivered all winter and in summer were red and + black with mosquito bites. Indians were everywhere; they camped in + dooryards, stalked into kitchens to demand doughnuts, came with rifles + across their backs into schoolhouses and begged to see the pictures in the + geographies. Packs of timber-wolves treed the children; and the settlers + found dens of rattle-snakes, killed fifty, a hundred, in a day. + </p> + <p> + Yet it was a buoyant life. Carol read enviously in the admirable Minnesota + chronicles called “Old Rail Fence Corners” the reminiscence of Mrs. Mahlon + Black, who settled in Stillwater in 1848: + </p> + <p> + “There was nothing to parade over in those days. We took it as it came and + had happy lives. . . . We would all gather together and in about two + minutes would be having a good time—playing cards or dancing. . . . + We used to waltz and dance contra dances. None of these new jigs and not + wear any clothes to speak of. We covered our hides in those days; no tight + skirts like now. You could take three or four steps inside our skirts and + then not reach the edge. One of the boys would fiddle a while and then + some one would spell him and he could get a dance. Sometimes they would + dance and fiddle too.” + </p> + <p> + She reflected that if she could not have ballrooms of gray and rose and + crystal, she wanted to be swinging across a puncheon-floor with a dancing + fiddler. This smug in-between town, which had exchanged “Money Musk” for + phonographs grinding out ragtime, it was neither the heroic old nor the + sophisticated new. Couldn't she somehow, some yet unimagined how, turn it + back to simplicity? + </p> + <p> + She herself knew two of the pioneers: the Perrys. Champ Perry was the + buyer at the grain-elevator. He weighed wagons of wheat on a rough + platform-scale, in the cracks of which the kernels sprouted every spring. + Between times he napped in the dusty peace of his office. + </p> + <p> + She called on the Perrys at their rooms above Howland & Gould's + grocery. + </p> + <p> + When they were already old they had lost the money, which they had + invested in an elevator. They had given up their beloved yellow brick + house and moved into these rooms over a store, which were the Gopher + Prairie equivalent of a flat. A broad stairway led from the street to the + upper hall, along which were the doors of a lawyer's office, a dentist's, + a photographer's “studio,” the lodge-rooms of the Affiliated Order of + Spartans and, at the back, the Perrys' apartment. + </p> + <p> + They received her (their first caller in a month) with aged fluttering + tenderness. Mrs. Perry confided, “My, it's a shame we got to entertain you + in such a cramped place. And there ain't any water except that ole iron + sink outside in the hall, but still, as I say to Champ, beggars can't be + choosers. 'Sides, the brick house was too big for me to sweep, and it was + way out, and it's nice to be living down here among folks. Yes, we're glad + to be here. But——Some day, maybe we can have a house of our + own again. We're saving up——Oh, dear, if we could have our own + home! But these rooms are real nice, ain't they!” + </p> + <p> + As old people will, the world over, they had moved as much as possible of + their familiar furniture into this small space. Carol had none of the + superiority she felt toward Mrs. Lyman Cass's plutocratic parlor. She was + at home here. She noted with tenderness all the makeshifts: the darned + chair-arms, the patent rocker covered with sleazy cretonne, the pasted + strips of paper mending the birch-bark napkin-rings labeled “Papa” and + “Mama.” + </p> + <p> + She hinted of her new enthusiasm. To find one of the “young folks” who + took them seriously, heartened the Perrys, and she easily drew from them + the principles by which Gopher Prairie should be born again—should + again become amusing to live in. + </p> + <p> + This was their philosophy complete . . . in the era of aeroplanes and + syndicalism: + </p> + <p> + The Baptist Church (and, somewhat less, the Methodist, Congregational, and + Presbyterian Churches) is the perfect, the divinely ordained standard in + music, oratory, philanthropy, and ethics. “We don't need all this + new-fangled science, or this terrible Higher Criticism that's ruining our + young men in colleges. What we need is to get back to the true Word of + God, and a good sound belief in hell, like we used to have it preached to + us.” + </p> + <p> + The Republican Party, the Grand Old Party of Blaine and McKinley, is the + agent of the Lord and of the Baptist Church in temporal affairs. + </p> + <p> + All socialists ought to be hanged. + </p> + <p> + “Harold Bell Wright is a lovely writer, and he teaches such good morals in + his novels, and folks say he's made prett' near a million dollars out of + 'em.” + </p> + <p> + People who make more than ten thousand a year or less than eight hundred + are wicked. + </p> + <p> + Europeans are still wickeder. + </p> + <p> + It doesn't hurt any to drink a glass of beer on a warm day, but anybody + who touches wine is headed straight for hell. + </p> + <p> + Virgins are not so virginal as they used to be. + </p> + <p> + Nobody needs drug-store ice cream; pie is good enough for anybody. + </p> + <p> + The farmers want too much for their wheat. + </p> + <p> + The owners of the elevator-company expect too much for the salaries they + pay. + </p> + <p> + There would be no more trouble or discontent in the world if everybody + worked as hard as Pa did when he cleared our first farm. + </p> + <p> + IV + </p> + <p> + Carol's hero-worship dwindled to polite nodding, and the nodding dwindled + to a desire to escape, and she went home with a headache. + </p> + <p> + Next day she saw Miles Bjornstam on the street. + </p> + <p> + “Just back from Montana. Great summer. Pumped my lungs chuck-full of Rocky + Mountain air. Now for another whirl at sassing the bosses of Gopher + Prairie.” She smiled at him, and the Perrys faded, the pioneers faded, + till they were but daguerreotypes in a black walnut cupboard. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XIII + </h2> + <p> + SHE tried, more from loyalty than from desire, to call upon the Perrys on + a November evening when Kennicott was away. They were not at home. + </p> + <p> + Like a child who has no one to play with she loitered through the dark + hall. She saw a light under an office door. She knocked. To the person who + opened she murmured, “Do you happen to know where the Perrys are?” She + realized that it was Guy Pollock. + </p> + <p> + “I'm awfully sorry, Mrs. Kennicott, but I don't know. Won't you come in + and wait for them?” + </p> + <p> + “W-why——” she observed, as she reflected that in Gopher + Prairie it is not decent to call on a man; as she decided that no, really, + she wouldn't go in; and as she went in. + </p> + <p> + “I didn't know your office was up here.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, office, town-house, and chateau in Picardy. But you can't see the + chateau and town-house (next to the Duke of Sutherland's). They're beyond + that inner door. They are a cot and a wash-stand and my other suit and the + blue crepe tie you said you liked.” + </p> + <p> + “You remember my saying that?” + </p> + <p> + “Of course. I always shall. Please try this chair.” + </p> + <p> + She glanced about the rusty office—gaunt stove, shelves of tan + law-books, desk-chair filled with newspapers so long sat upon that they + were in holes and smudged to grayness. There were only two things which + suggested Guy Pollock. On the green felt of the table-desk, between legal + blanks and a clotted inkwell, was a cloissone vase. On a swing shelf was a + row of books unfamiliar to Gopher Prairie: Mosher editions of the poets, + black and red German novels, a Charles Lamb in crushed levant. + </p> + <p> + Guy did not sit down. He quartered the office, a grayhound on the scent; a + grayhound with glasses tilted forward on his thin nose, and a silky + indecisive brown mustache. He had a golf jacket of jersey, worn through at + the creases in the sleeves. She noted that he did not apologize for it, as + Kennicott would have done. + </p> + <p> + He made conversation: “I didn't know you were a bosom friend of the + Perrys. Champ is the salt of the earth but somehow I can't imagine him + joining you in symbolic dancing, or making improvements on the Diesel + engine.” + </p> + <p> + “No. He's a dear soul, bless him, but he belongs in the National Museum, + along with General Grant's sword, and I'm——Oh, I suppose I'm + seeking for a gospel that will evangelize Gopher Prairie.” + </p> + <p> + “Really? Evangelize it to what?” + </p> + <p> + “To anything that's definite. Seriousness or frivolousness or both. I + wouldn't care whether it was a laboratory or a carnival. But it's merely + safe. Tell me, Mr. Pollock, what is the matter with Gopher Prairie?” + </p> + <p> + “Is anything the matter with it? Isn't there perhaps something the matter + with you and me? (May I join you in the honor of having something the + matter?)” + </p> + <p> + “(Yes, thanks.) No, I think it's the town.” + </p> + <p> + “Because they enjoy skating more than biology?” + </p> + <p> + “But I'm not only more interested in biology than the Jolly Seventeen, but + also in skating! I'll skate with them, or slide, or throw snowballs, just + as gladly as talk with you.” + </p> + <p> + (“Oh no!”) + </p> + <p> + (“Yes!) But they want to stay home and embroider.” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps. I'm not defending the town. It's merely——I'm a + confirmed doubter of myself. (Probably I'm conceited about my lack of + conceit!) Anyway, Gopher Prairie isn't particularly bad. It's like all + villages in all countries. Most places that have lost the smell of earth + but not yet acquired the smell of patchouli—or of factory-smoke—are + just as suspicious and righteous. I wonder if the small town isn't, with + some lovely exceptions, a social appendix? Some day these dull + market-towns may be as obsolete as monasteries. I can imagine the farmer + and his local store-manager going by monorail, at the end of the day, into + a city more charming than any William Morris Utopia—music, a + university, clubs for loafers like me. (Lord, how I'd like to have a real + club!)” + </p> + <p> + She asked impulsively, “You, why do you stay here?” + </p> + <p> + “I have the Village Virus.” + </p> + <p> + “It sounds dangerous.” + </p> + <p> + “It is. More dangerous than the cancer that will certainly get me at fifty + unless I stop this smoking. The Village Virus is the germ which—it's + extraordinarily like the hook-worm—it infects ambitious people who + stay too long in the provinces. You'll find it epidemic among lawyers and + doctors and ministers and college-bred merchants—all these people + who have had a glimpse of the world that thinks and laughs, but have + returned to their swamp. I'm a perfect example. But I sha'n't pester you + with my dolors.” + </p> + <p> + “You won't. And do sit down, so I can see you.” + </p> + <p> + He dropped into the shrieking desk-chair. He looked squarely at her; she + was conscious of the pupils of his eyes; of the fact that he was a man, + and lonely. They were embarrassed. They elaborately glanced away, and were + relieved as he went on: + </p> + <p> + “The diagnosis of my Village Virus is simple enough. I was born in an Ohio + town about the same size as Gopher Prairie, and much less friendly. It'd + had more generations in which to form an oligarchy of respectability. + Here, a stranger is taken in if he is correct, if he likes hunting and + motoring and God and our Senator. There, we didn't take in even our own + till we had contemptuously got used to them. It was a red-brick Ohio town, + and the trees made it damp, and it smelled of rotten apples. The country + wasn't like our lakes and prairie. There were small stuffy corn-fields and + brick-yards and greasy oil-wells. + </p> + <p> + “I went to a denominational college and learned that since dictating the + Bible, and hiring a perfect race of ministers to explain it, God has never + done much but creep around and try to catch us disobeying it. From college + I went to New York, to the Columbia Law School. And for four years I + lived. Oh, I won't rhapsodize about New York. It was dirty and noisy and + breathless and ghastly expensive. But compared with the moldy academy in + which I had been smothered——! I went to symphonies twice a + week. I saw Irving and Terry and Duse and Bernhardt, from the top gallery. + I walked in Gramercy Park. And I read, oh, everything. + </p> + <p> + “Through a cousin I learned that Julius Flickerbaugh was sick and needed a + partner. I came here. Julius got well. He didn't like my way of loafing + five hours and then doing my work (really not so badly) in one. We parted. + </p> + <p> + “When I first came here I swore I'd 'keep up my interests.' Very lofty! I + read Browning, and went to Minneapolis for the theaters. I thought I was + 'keeping up.' But I guess the Village Virus had me already. I was reading + four copies of cheap fiction-magazines to one poem. I'd put off the + Minneapolis trips till I simply had to go there on a lot of legal matters. + </p> + <p> + “A few years ago I was talking to a patent lawyer from Chicago, and I + realized that——I'd always felt so superior to people like + Julius Flickerbaugh, but I saw that I was as provincial and + behind-the-times as Julius. (Worse! Julius plows through the Literary + Digest and the Outlook faithfully, while I'm turning over pages of a book + by Charles Flandrau that I already know by heart.) + </p> + <p> + “I decided to leave here. Stern resolution. Grasp the world. Then I found + that the Village Virus had me, absolute: I didn't want to face new streets + and younger men—real competition. It was too easy to go on making + out conveyances and arguing ditching cases. So——That's all of + the biography of a living dead man, except the diverting last chapter, the + lies about my having been 'a tower of strength and legal wisdom' which + some day a preacher will spin over my lean dry body.” + </p> + <p> + He looked down at his table-desk, fingering the starry enameled vase. + </p> + <p> + She could not comment. She pictured herself running across the room to pat + his hair. She saw that his lips were firm, under his soft faded mustache. + She sat still and maundered, “I know. The Village Virus. Perhaps it will + get me. Some day I'm going——Oh, no matter. At least, I am + making you talk! Usually you have to be polite to my garrulousness, but + now I'm sitting at your feet.” + </p> + <p> + “It would be rather nice to have you literally sitting at my feet, by a + fire.” + </p> + <p> + “Would you have a fireplace for me?” + </p> + <p> + “Naturally! Please don't snub me now! Let the old man rave. How old are + you, Carol?” + </p> + <p> + “Twenty-six, Guy.” + </p> + <p> + “Twenty-six! I was just leaving New York, at twenty-six. I heard Patti + sing, at twenty-six. And now I'm forty-seven. I feel like a child, yet I'm + old enough to be your father. So it's decently paternal to imagine you + curled at my feet. . . . Of course I hope it isn't, but we'll reflect the + morals of Gopher Prairie by officially announcing that it is! . . . These + standards that you and I live up to! There's one thing that's the matter + with Gopher Prairie, at least with the ruling-class (there is a + ruling-class, despite all our professions of democracy). And the penalty + we tribal rulers pay is that our subjects watch us every minute. We can't + get wholesomely drunk and relax. We have to be so correct about sex + morals, and inconspicuous clothes, and doing our commercial trickery only + in the traditional ways, that none of us can live up to it, and we become + horribly hypocritical. Unavoidably. The widow-robbing deacon of fiction + can't help being hypocritical. The widows themselves demand it! They + admire his unctuousness. And look at me. Suppose I did dare to make love + to—some exquisite married woman. I wouldn't admit it to myself. I + giggle with the most revolting salaciousness over La Vie Parisienne, when + I get hold of one in Chicago, yet I shouldn't even try to hold your hand. + I'm broken. It's the historical Anglo-Saxon way of making life miserable. + . . . Oh, my dear, I haven't talked to anybody about myself and all our + selves for years.” + </p> + <p> + “Guy! Can't we do something with the town? Really?” + </p> + <p> + “No, we can't!” He disposed of it like a judge ruling out an improper + objection; returned to matters less uncomfortably energetic: “Curious. + Most troubles are unnecessary. We have Nature beaten; we can make her grow + wheat; we can keep warm when she sends blizzards. So we raise the devil + just for pleasure—wars, politics, race-hatreds, labor-disputes. Here + in Gopher Prairie we've cleared the fields, and become soft, so we make + ourselves unhappy artificially, at great expense and exertion: Methodists + disliking Episcopalians, the man with the Hudson laughing at the man with + the flivver. The worst is the commercial hatred—the grocer feeling + that any man who doesn't deal with him is robbing him. What hurts me is + that it applies to lawyers and doctors (and decidedly to their wives!) as + much as to grocers. The doctors—you know about that—how your + husband and Westlake and Gould dislike one another.” + </p> + <p> + “No! I won't admit it!” + </p> + <p> + He grinned. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, maybe once or twice, when Will has positively known of a case where + Doctor—where one of the others has continued to call on patients + longer than necessary, he has laughed about it, but——” + </p> + <p> + He still grinned. + </p> + <p> + “No, REALLY! And when you say the wives of the doctors share these + jealousies——Mrs. McGanum and I haven't any particular crush on + each other; she's so stolid. But her mother, Mrs. Westlake—nobody + could be sweeter.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I'm sure she's very bland. But I wouldn't tell her my heart's + secrets if I were you, my dear. I insist that there's only one + professional-man's wife in this town who doesn't plot, and that is you, + you blessed, credulous outsider!” + </p> + <p> + “I won't be cajoled! I won't believe that medicine, the priesthood of + healing, can be turned into a penny-picking business.” + </p> + <p> + “See here: Hasn't Kennicott ever hinted to you that you'd better be nice + to some old woman because she tells her friends which doctor to call in? + But I oughtn't to——” + </p> + <p> + She remembered certain remarks which Kennicott had offered regarding the + Widow Bogart. She flinched, looked at Guy beseechingly. + </p> + <p> + He sprang up, strode to her with a nervous step, smoothed her hand. She + wondered if she ought to be offended by his caress. Then she wondered if + he liked her hat, the new Oriental turban of rose and silver brocade. + </p> + <p> + He dropped her hand. His elbow brushed her shoulder. He flitted over to + the desk-chair, his thin back stooped. He picked up the cloisonne vase. + Across it he peered at her with such loneliness that she was startled. But + his eyes faded into impersonality as he talked of the jealousies of Gopher + Prairie. He stopped himself with a sharp, “Good Lord, Carol, you're not a + jury. You are within your legal rights in refusing to be subjected to this + summing-up. I'm a tedious old fool analyzing the obvious, while you're the + spirit of rebellion. Tell me your side. What is Gopher Prairie to you?” + </p> + <p> + “A bore!” + </p> + <p> + “Can I help?” + </p> + <p> + “How could you?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know. Perhaps by listening. I haven't done that tonight. But + normally——Can't I be the confidant of the old French plays, + the tiring-maid with the mirror and the loyal ears?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, what is there to confide? The people are savorless and proud of it. + And even if I liked you tremendously, I couldn't talk to you without + twenty old hexes watching, whispering.” + </p> + <p> + “But you will come talk to me, once in a while?” + </p> + <p> + “I'm not sure that I shall. I'm trying to develop my own large capacity + for dullness and contentment. I've failed at every positive thing I've + tried. I'd better 'settle down,' as they call it, and be satisfied to be—nothing.” + </p> + <p> + “Don't be cynical. It hurts me, in you. It's like blood on the wing of a + humming-bird.” + </p> + <p> + “I'm not a humming-bird. I'm a hawk; a tiny leashed hawk, pecked to death + by these large, white, flabby, wormy hens. But I am grateful to you for + confirming me in the faith. And I'm going home!” + </p> + <p> + “Please stay and have some coffee with me.” + </p> + <p> + “I'd like to. But they've succeeded in terrorizing me. I'm afraid of what + people might say.” + </p> + <p> + “I'm not afraid of that. I'm only afraid of what you might say!” He + stalked to her; took her unresponsive hand. “Carol! You have been happy + here tonight? (Yes. I'm begging!)” + </p> + <p> + She squeezed his hand quickly, then snatched hers away. She had but little + of the curiosity of the flirt, and none of the intrigante's joy in + furtiveness. If she was the naive girl, Guy Pollock was the clumsy boy. He + raced about the office; he rammed his fists into his pockets. He + stammered, “I—I—I——Oh, the devil! Why do I awaken + from smooth dustiness to this jagged rawness? I'll make I'm going to trot + down the hall and bring in the Dillons, and we'll all have coffee or + something.” + </p> + <p> + “The Dillons?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. Really quite a decent young pair—Harvey Dillon and his wife. + He's a dentist, just come to town. They live in a room behind his office, + same as I do here. They don't know much of anybody——” + </p> + <p> + “I've heard of them. And I've never thought to call. I'm horribly ashamed. + Do bring them——” + </p> + <p> + She stopped, for no very clear reason, but his expression said, her + faltering admitted, that they wished they had never mentioned the Dillons. + With spurious enthusiasm he said, “Splendid! I will.” From the door he + glanced at her, curled in the peeled leather chair. He slipped out, came + back with Dr. and Mrs. Dillon. + </p> + <p> + The four of them drank rather bad coffee which Pollock made on a kerosene + burner. They laughed, and spoke of Minneapolis, and were tremendously + tactful; and Carol started for home, through the November wind. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XIV + </h2> + <h3> + SHE was marching home. + </h3> + <p> + “No. I couldn't fall in love with him. I like him, very much. But he's too + much of a recluse. Could I kiss him? No! No! Guy Pollock at twenty-six I + could have kissed him then, maybe, even if I were married to some one + else, and probably I'd have been glib in persuading myself that 'it wasn't + really wrong.' + </p> + <p> + “The amazing thing is that I'm not more amazed at myself. I, the virtuous + young matron. Am I to be trusted? If the Prince Charming came—— + </p> + <p> + “A Gopher Prairie housewife, married a year, and yearning for a 'Prince + Charming' like a bachfisch of sixteen! They say that marriage is a magic + change. But I'm not changed. But—— + </p> + <p> + “No! I wouldn't want to fall in love, even if the Prince did come. I + wouldn't want to hurt Will. I am fond of Will. I am! He doesn't stir me, + not any longer. But I depend on him. He is home and children. + </p> + <p> + “I wonder when we will begin to have children? I do want them. + </p> + <p> + “I wonder whether I remembered to tell Bea to have hominy tomorrow, + instead of oatmeal? She will have gone to bed by now. Perhaps I'll be up + early enough—— + </p> + <p> + “Ever so fond of Will. I wouldn't hurt him, even if I had to lose the mad + love. If the Prince came I'd look once at him, and run. Darn fast! Oh, + Carol, you are not heroic nor fine. You are the immutable vulgar young + female. + </p> + <p> + “But I'm not the faithless wife who enjoys confiding that she's + 'misunderstood.' Oh, I'm not, I'm not! + </p> + <p> + “Am I? + </p> + <p> + “At least I didn't whisper to Guy about Will's faults and his blindness to + my remarkable soul. I didn't! Matter of fact, Will probably understands me + perfectly! If only—if he would just back me up in rousing the town. + </p> + <p> + “How many, how incredibly many wives there must be who tingle over the + first Guy Pollock who smiles at them. No! I will not be one of that herd + of yearners! The coy virgin brides. Yet probably if the Prince were young + and dared to face life—— + </p> + <p> + “I'm not half as well oriented as that Mrs. Dillon. So obviously adoring + her dentist! And seeing Guy only as an eccentric fogy. + </p> + <p> + “They weren't silk, Mrs. Dillon's stockings. They were lisle. Her legs are + nice and slim. But no nicer than mine. I hate cotton tops on silk + stockings. . . . Are my ankles getting fat? I will NOT have fat ankles! + </p> + <p> + “No. I am fond of Will. His work—one farmer he pulls through + diphtheria is worth all my yammering for a castle in Spain. A castle with + baths. + </p> + <p> + “This hat is so tight. I must stretch it. Guy liked it. + </p> + <p> + “There's the house. I'm awfully chilly. Time to get out the fur coat. I + wonder if I'll ever have a beaver coat? Nutria is NOT the same thing! + Beaver-glossy. Like to run my fingers over it. Guy's mustache like beaver. + How utterly absurd! + </p> + <p> + “I am, I AM fond of Will, and——Can't I ever find another word + than 'fond'? + </p> + <p> + “He's home. He'll think I was out late. + </p> + <p> + “Why can't he ever remember to pull down the shades? Cy Bogart and all the + beastly boys peeping in. But the poor dear, he's absent-minded about + minute—minush—whatever the word is. He has so much worry and + work, while I do nothing but jabber to Bea. + </p> + <p> + “I MUSTN'T forget the hominy——” + </p> + <p> + She was flying into the hall. Kennicott looked up from the Journal of the + American Medical Society. + </p> + <p> + “Hello! What time did you get back?” she cried. + </p> + <p> + “About nine. You been gadding. Here it is past eleven!” Good-natured yet + not quite approving. + </p> + <p> + “Did it feel neglected?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, you didn't remember to close the lower draft in the furnace.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I'm so sorry. But I don't often forget things like that, do I?” + </p> + <p> + She dropped into his lap and (after he had jerked back his head to save + his eye-glasses, and removed the glasses, and settled her in a position + less cramping to his legs, and casually cleared his throat) he kissed her + amiably, and remarked: + </p> + <p> + “Nope, I must say you're fairly good about things like that. I wasn't + kicking. I just meant I wouldn't want the fire to go out on us. Leave that + draft open and the fire might burn up and go out on us. And the nights are + beginning to get pretty cold again. Pretty cold on my drive. I put the + side-curtains up, it was so chilly. But the generator is working all right + now.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. It is chilly. But I feel fine after my walk.” + </p> + <p> + “Go walking?” + </p> + <p> + “I went up to see the Perrys.” By a definite act of will she added the + truth: “They weren't in. And I saw Guy Pollock. Dropped into his office.” + </p> + <p> + “Why, you haven't been sitting and chinning with him till eleven o'clock?” + </p> + <p> + “Of course there were some other people there and——Will! What + do you think of Dr. Westlake?” + </p> + <p> + “Westlake? Why?” + </p> + <p> + “I noticed him on the street today.” + </p> + <p> + “Was he limping? If the poor fish would have his teeth X-rayed, I'll bet + nine and a half cents he'd find an abscess there. 'Rheumatism' he calls + it. Rheumatism, hell! He's behind the times. Wonder he doesn't bleed + himself! Wellllllll——” A profound and serious yawn. “I hate to + break up the party, but it's getting late, and a doctor never knows when + he'll get routed out before morning.” (She remembered that he had given + this explanation, in these words, not less than thirty times in the year.) + “I guess we better be trotting up to bed. I've wound the clock and looked + at the furnace. Did you lock the front door when you came in?” + </p> + <p> + They trailed up-stairs, after he had turned out the lights and twice + tested the front door to make sure it was fast. While they talked they + were preparing for bed. Carol still sought to maintain privacy by + undressing behind the screen of the closet door. Kennicott was not so + reticent. Tonight, as every night, she was irritated by having to push the + old plush chair out of the way before she could open the closet door. + Every time she opened the door she shoved the chair. Ten times an hour. + But Kennicott liked to have the chair in the room, and there was no place + for it except in front of the closet. + </p> + <p> + She pushed it, felt angry, hid her anger. Kennicott was yawning, more + portentously. The room smelled stale. She shrugged and became chatty: + </p> + <p> + “You were speaking of Dr. Westlake. Tell me—you've never summed him + up: Is he really a good doctor?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh yes, he's a wise old coot.” + </p> + <p> + (“There! You see there is no medical rivalry. Not in my house!” she said + triumphantly to Guy Pollock.) + </p> + <p> + She hung her silk petticoat on a closet hook, and went on, “Dr. Westlake + is so gentle and scholarly——” + </p> + <p> + “Well, I don't know as I'd say he was such a whale of a scholar. I've + always had a suspicion he did a good deal of four-flushing about that. He + likes to have people think he keeps up his French and Greek and Lord knows + what all; and he's always got an old Dago book lying around the + sitting-room, but I've got a hunch he reads detective stories 'bout like + the rest of us. And I don't know where he'd ever learn so dog-gone many + languages anyway! He kind of lets people assume he went to Harvard or + Berlin or Oxford or somewhere, but I looked him up in the medical + register, and he graduated from a hick college in Pennsylvania, 'way back + in 1861!” + </p> + <p> + “But this is the important thing: Is he an honest doctor?” + </p> + <p> + “How do you mean 'honest'? Depends on what you mean.” + </p> + <p> + “Suppose you were sick. Would you call him in? Would you let me call him + in?” + </p> + <p> + “Not if I were well enough to cuss and bite, I wouldn't! No, SIR! I + wouldn't have the old fake in the house. Makes me tired, his everlasting + palavering and soft-soaping. He's all right for an ordinary bellyache or + holding some fool woman's hand, but I wouldn't call him in for an + honest-to-God illness, not much I wouldn't, NO-sir! You know I don't do + much back-biting, but same time——I'll tell you, Carrrie: I've + never got over being sore at Westlake for the way he treated Mrs. + Jonderquist. Nothing the matter with her, what she really needed was a + rest, but Westlake kept calling on her and calling on her for weeks, + almost every day, and he sent her a good big fat bill, too, you can bet! I + never did forgive him for that. Nice decent hard-working people like the + Jonderquists!” + </p> + <p> + In her batiste nightgown she was standing at the bureau engaged in the + invariable rites of wishing that she had a real dressing-table with a + triple mirror, of bending toward the streaky glass and raising her chin to + inspect a pin-head mole on her throat, and finally of brushing her hair. + In rhythm to the strokes she went on: + </p> + <p> + “But, Will, there isn't any of what you might call financial rivalry + between you and the partners—Westlake and McGanum—is there?” + </p> + <p> + He flipped into bed with a solemn back-somersault and a ludicrous kick of + his heels as he tucked his legs under the blankets. He snorted, “Lord no! + I never begrudge any man a nickel he can get away from me—fairly.” + </p> + <p> + “But is Westlake fair? Isn't he sly?” + </p> + <p> + “Sly is the word. He's a fox, that boy!” + </p> + <p> + She saw Guy Pollock's grin in the mirror. She flushed. + </p> + <p> + Kennicott, with his arms behind his head, was yawning: + </p> + <p> + “Yump. He's smooth, too smooth. But I bet I make prett' near as much as + Westlake and McGanum both together, though I've never wanted to grab more + than my just share. If anybody wants to go to the partners instead of to + me, that's his business. Though I must say it makes me tired when Westlake + gets hold of the Dawsons. Here Luke Dawson had been coming to me for every + toeache and headache and a lot of little things that just wasted my time, + and then when his grandchild was here last summer and had + summer-complaint, I suppose, or something like that, probably—you + know, the time you and I drove up to Lac-qui-Meurt—why, Westlake got + hold of Ma Dawson, and scared her to death, and made her think the kid had + appendicitis, and, by golly, if he and McGanum didn't operate, and holler + their heads off about the terrible adhesions they found, and what a + regular Charley and Will Mayo they were for classy surgery. They let on + that if they'd waited two hours more the kid would have developed + peritonitis, and God knows what all; and then they collected a nice fat + hundred and fifty dollars. And probably they'd have charged three hundred, + if they hadn't been afraid of me! I'm no hog, but I certainly do hate to + give old Luke ten dollars' worth of advice for a dollar and a half, and + then see a hundred and fifty go glimmering. And if I can't do a better + 'pendectomy than either Westlake or McGanum, I'll eat my hat!” + </p> + <p> + As she crept into bed she was dazzled by Guy's blazing grin. She + experimented: + </p> + <p> + “But Westlake is cleverer than his son-in-law, don't you think?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, Westlake may be old-fashioned and all that, but he's got a certain + amount of intuition, while McGanum goes into everything bull-headed, and + butts his way through like a damn yahoo, and tries to argue his patients + into having whatever he diagnoses them as having! About the best thing Mac + can do is to stick to baby-snatching. He's just about on a par with this + bone-pounding chiropractor female, Mrs. Mattie Gooch.” + </p> + <p> + “Mrs. Westlake and Mrs. McGanum, though—they're nice. They've been + awfully cordial to me.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, no reason why they shouldn't be, is there? Oh, they're nice enough—though + you can bet your bottom dollar they're both plugging for their husbands + all the time, trying to get the business. And I don't know as I call it so + damn cordial in Mrs. McGanum when I holler at her on the street and she + nods back like she had a sore neck. Still, she's all right. It's Ma + Westlake that makes the mischief, pussyfooting around all the time. But I + wouldn't trust any Westlake out of the whole lot, and while Mrs. McGanum + SEEMS square enough, you don't never want to forget that she's Westlake's + daughter. You bet!” + </p> + <p> + “What about Dr. Gould? Don't you think he's worse than either Westlake or + McGanum? He's so cheap—drinking, and playing pool, and always + smoking cigars in such a cocky way——” + </p> + <p> + “That's all right now! Terry Gould is a good deal of a tin-horn sport, but + he knows a lot about medicine, and don't you forget it for one second!” + </p> + <p> + She stared down Guy's grin, and asked more cheerfully, “Is he honest, + too?” + </p> + <p> + “Ooooooooooo! Gosh I'm sleepy!” He burrowed beneath the bedclothes in a + luxurious stretch, and came up like a diver, shaking his head, as he + complained, “How's that? Who? Terry Gould honest? Don't start me laughing—I'm + too nice and sleepy! I didn't say he was honest. I said he had savvy + enough to find the index in 'Gray's Anatomy,' which is more than McGanum + can do! But I didn't say anything about his being honest. He isn't. Terry + is crooked as a dog's hind leg. He's done me more than one dirty trick. He + told Mrs. Glorbach, seventeen miles out, that I wasn't up-to-date in + obstetrics. Fat lot of good it did him! She came right in and told me! And + Terry's lazy. He'd let a pneumonia patient choke rather than interrupt a + poker game.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh no. I can't believe——” + </p> + <p> + “Well now, I'm telling you!” + </p> + <p> + “Does he play much poker? Dr. Dillon told me that Dr. Gould wanted him to + play——” + </p> + <p> + “Dillon told you what? Where'd you meet Dillon? He's just come to town.” + </p> + <p> + “He and his wife were at Mr. Pollock's tonight.” + </p> + <p> + “Say, uh, what'd you think of them? Didn't Dillon strike you as pretty + light-waisted?” + </p> + <p> + “Why no. He seemed intelligent. I'm sure he's much more wide-awake than + our dentist.” + </p> + <p> + “Well now, the old man is a good dentist. He knows his business. And + Dillon——I wouldn't cuddle up to the Dillons too close, if I + were you. All right for Pollock, and that's none of our business, but we——I + think I'd just give the Dillons the glad hand and pass 'em up.” + </p> + <p> + “But why? He isn't a rival.” + </p> + <p> + “That's—all—right!” Kennicott was aggressively awake now. + “He'll work right in with Westlake and McGanum. Matter of fact, I suspect + they were largely responsible for his locating here. They'll be sending + him patients, and he'll send all that he can get hold of to them. I don't + trust anybody that's too much hand-in-glove with Westlake. You give Dillon + a shot at some fellow that's just bought a farm here and drifts into town + to get his teeth looked at, and after Dillon gets through with him, you'll + see him edging around to Westlake and McGanum, every time!” + </p> + <p> + Carol reached for her blouse, which hung on a chair by the bed. She draped + it about her shoulders, and sat up studying Kennicott, her chin in her + hands. In the gray light from the small electric bulb down the hall she + could see that he was frowning. + </p> + <p> + “Will, this is—I must get this straight. Some one said to me the + other day that in towns like this, even more than in cities, all the + doctors hate each other, because of the money——” + </p> + <p> + “Who said that?” + </p> + <p> + “It doesn't matter.” + </p> + <p> + “I'll bet a hat it was your Vida Sherwin. She's a brainy woman, but she'd + be a damn sight brainier if she kept her mouth shut and didn't let so much + of her brains ooze out that way.” + </p> + <p> + “Will! O Will! That's horrible! Aside from the vulgarity——Some + ways, Vida is my best friend. Even if she HAD said it. Which, as a matter + of fact, she didn't.” He reared up his thick shoulders, in absurd pink and + green flannelette pajamas. He sat straight, and irritatingly snapped his + fingers, and growled: + </p> + <p> + “Well, if she didn't say it, let's forget her. Doesn't make any difference + who said it, anyway. The point is that you believe it. God! To think you + don't understand me any better than that! Money!” + </p> + <p> + (“This is the first real quarrel we've ever had,” she was agonizing.) + </p> + <p> + He thrust out his long arm and snatched his wrinkly vest from a chair. He + took out a cigar, a match. He tossed the vest on the floor. He lighted the + cigar and puffed savagely. He broke up the match and snapped the fragments + at the foot-board. + </p> + <p> + She suddenly saw the foot-board of the bed as the foot-stone of the grave + of love. + </p> + <p> + The room was drab-colored and ill-ventilated—Kennicott did not + “believe in opening the windows so darn wide that you heat all outdoors.” + The stale air seemed never to change. In the light from the hall they were + two lumps of bedclothes with shoulders and tousled heads attached. + </p> + <p> + She begged, “I didn't mean to wake you up, dear. And please don't smoke. + You've been smoking so much. Please go back to sleep. I'm sorry.” + </p> + <p> + “Being sorry 's all right, but I'm going to tell you one or two things. + This falling for anybody's say-so about medical jealousy and competition + is simply part and parcel of your usual willingness to think the worst you + possibly can of us poor dubs in Gopher Prairie. Trouble with women like + you is, you always want to ARGUE. Can't take things the way they are. Got + to argue. Well, I'm not going to argue about this in any way, shape, + manner, or form. Trouble with you is, you don't make any effort to + appreciate us. You're so damned superior, and think the city is such a + hell of a lot finer place, and you want us to do what YOU want, all the + time——” + </p> + <p> + “That's not true! It's I who make the effort. It's they—it's you—who + stand back and criticize. I have to come over to the town's opinion; I + have to devote myself to their interests. They can't even SEE my + interests, to say nothing of adopting them. I get ever so excited about + their old Lake Minniemashie and the cottages, but they simply guffaw (in + that lovely friendly way you advertise so much) if I speak of wanting to + see Taormina also.” + </p> + <p> + “Sure, Tormina, whatever that is—some nice expensive millionaire + colony, I suppose. Sure; that's the idea; champagne taste and beer income; + and make sure that we never will have more than a beer income, too!” + </p> + <p> + “Are you by any chance implying that I am not economical?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, I hadn't intended to, but since you bring it up yourself, I don't + mind saying the grocery bills are about twice what they ought to be.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, they probably are. I'm not economical. I can't be. Thanks to you!” + </p> + <p> + “Where d' you get that 'thanks to you'?” + </p> + <p> + “Please don't be quite so colloquial—or shall I say VULGAR?” + </p> + <p> + “I'll be as damn colloquial as I want to. How do you get that 'thanks to + you'? Here about a year ago you jump me for not remembering to give you + money. Well, I'm reasonable. I didn't blame you, and I SAID I was to + blame. But have I ever forgotten it since—practically?” + </p> + <p> + “No. You haven't—practically! But that isn't it. I ought to have an + allowance. I will, too! I must have an agreement for a regular stated + amount, every month.” + </p> + <p> + “Fine idea! Of course a doctor gets a regular stated amount! Sure! A + thousand one month—and lucky if he makes a hundred the next.” + </p> + <p> + “Very well then, a percentage. Or something else. No matter how much you + vary, you can make a rough average for——” + </p> + <p> + “But what's the idea? What are you trying to get at? Mean to say I'm + unreasonable? Think I'm so unreliable and tightwad that you've got to tie + me down with a contract? By God, that hurts! I thought I'd been pretty + generous and decent, and I took a lot of pleasure—thinks I, 'she'll + be tickled when I hand her over this twenty'—or fifty, or whatever + it was; and now seems you been wanting to make it a kind of alimony. Me, + like a poor fool, thinking I was liberal all the while, and you——” + </p> + <p> + “Please stop pitying yourself! You're having a beautiful time feeling + injured. I admit all you say. Certainly. You've given me money both freely + and amiably. Quite as if I were your mistress!” + </p> + <p> + “Carrie!” + </p> + <p> + “I mean it! What was a magnificent spectacle of generosity to you was + humiliation to me. You GAVE me money—gave it to your mistress, if + she was complaisant, and then you——” + </p> + <p> + “Carrie!” + </p> + <p> + “(Don't interrupt me!)—then you felt you'd discharged all + obligation. Well, hereafter I'll refuse your money, as a gift. Either I'm + your partner, in charge of the household department of our business, with + a regular budget for it, or else I'm nothing. If I'm to be a mistress, I + shall choose my lovers. Oh, I hate it—I hate it—this smirking + and hoping for money—and then not even spending it on jewels as a + mistress has a right to, but spending it on double-boilers and socks for + you! Yes indeed! You're generous! You give me a dollar, right out—the + only proviso is that I must spend it on a tie for you! And you give it + when and as you wish. How can I be anything but uneconomical?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh well, of course, looking at it that way——” + </p> + <p> + “I can't shop around, can't buy in large quantities, have to stick to + stores where I have a charge account, good deal of the time, can't plan + because I don't know how much money I can depend on. That's what I pay for + your charming sentimentalities about giving so generously. You make me——” + </p> + <p> + “Wait! Wait! You know you're exaggerating. You never thought about that + mistress stuff till just this minute! Matter of fact, you never have + 'smirked and hoped for money.' But all the same, you may be right. You + ought to run the household as a business. I'll figure out a definite plan + tomorrow, and hereafter you'll be on a regular amount or percentage, with + your own checking account.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, that IS decent of you!” She turned toward him, trying to be + affectionate. But his eyes were pink and unlovely in the flare of the + match with which he lighted his dead and malodorous cigar. His head + drooped, and a ridge of flesh scattered with pale small bristles bulged + out under his chin. + </p> + <p> + She sat in abeyance till he croaked: + </p> + <p> + “No. 'Tisn't especially decent. It's just fair. And God knows I want to be + fair. But I expect others to be fair, too. And you're so high and mighty + about people. Take Sam Clark; best soul that ever lived, honest and loyal + and a damn good fellow——” + </p> + <p> + (“Yes, and a good shot at ducks, don't forget that!”) + </p> + <p> + (“Well, and he is a good shot, too!) Sam drops around in the evening to + sit and visit, and by golly just because he takes a dry smoke and rolls + his cigar around in his mouth, and maybe spits a few times, you look at + him as if he was a hog. Oh, you didn't know I was onto you, and I + certainly hope Sam hasn't noticed it, but I never miss it.” + </p> + <p> + “I have felt that way. Spitting—ugh! But I'm sorry you caught my + thoughts. I tried to be nice; I tried to hide them.” + </p> + <p> + “Maybe I catch a whole lot more than you think I do!” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, perhaps you do.” + </p> + <p> + “And d' you know why Sam doesn't light his cigar when he's here?” + </p> + <p> + “Why?” + </p> + <p> + “He's so darn afraid you'll be offended if he smokes. You scare him. Every + time he speaks of the weather you jump him because he ain't talking about + poetry or Gertie—Goethe?—or some other highbrow junk. You've + got him so leery he scarcely dares to come here.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I AM sorry. (Though I'm sure it's you who are exaggerating now.”) + </p> + <p> + “Well now, I don't know as I am! And I can tell you one thing: if you keep + on you'll manage to drive away every friend I've got.” + </p> + <p> + “That would be horrible of me. You KNOW I don't mean to Will, what is it + about me that frightens Sam—if I do frighten him.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, you do, all right! 'Stead of putting his legs up on another chair, + and unbuttoning his vest, and telling a good story or maybe kidding me + about something, he sits on the edge of his chair and tries to make + conversation about politics, and he doesn't even cuss, and Sam's never + real comfortable unless he can cuss a little!” + </p> + <p> + “In other words, he isn't comfortable unless he can behave like a peasant + in a mud hut!” + </p> + <p> + “Now that'll be about enough of that! You want to know how you scare him? + First you deliberately fire some question at him that you know darn well + he can't answer—any fool could see you were experimenting with him—and + then you shock him by talking of mistresses or something, like you were + doing just now——” + </p> + <p> + “Of course the pure Samuel never speaks of such erring ladies in his + private conversations!” + </p> + <p> + “Not when there's ladies around! You can bet your life on that!” + </p> + <p> + “So the impurity lies in failing to pretend that——” + </p> + <p> + “Now we won't go into all that—eugenics or whatever damn fad you + choose to call it. As I say, first you shock him, and then you become so + darn flighty that nobody can follow you. Either you want to dance, or you + bang the piano, or else you get moody as the devil and don't want to talk + or anything else. If you must be temperamental, why can't you be that way + by yourself?” + </p> + <p> + “My dear man, there's nothing I'd like better than to be by myself + occasionally! To have a room of my own! I suppose you expect me to sit + here and dream delicately and satisfy my 'temperamentality' while you + wander in from the bathroom with lather all over your face, and shout, + 'Seen my brown pants?'” + </p> + <p> + “Huh!” He did not sound impressed. He made no answer. He turned out of + bed, his feet making one solid thud on the floor. He marched from the + room, a grotesque figure in baggy union-pajamas. She heard him drawing a + drink of water at the bathroom tap. She was furious at the + contemptuousness of his exit. She snuggled down in bed, and looked away + from him as he returned. He ignored her. As he flumped into bed he yawned, + and casually stated: + </p> + <p> + “Well, you'll have plenty of privacy when we build a new house. + </p> + <p> + “When?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I'll build it all right, don't you fret! But of course I don't expect + any credit for it.” + </p> + <p> + Now it was she who grunted “Huh!” and ignored him, and felt independent + and masterful as she shot up out of bed, turned her back on him, fished a + lone and petrified chocolate out of her glove-box in the top right-hand + drawer of the bureau, gnawed at it, found that it had cocoanut filling, + said “Damn!” wished that she had not said it, so that she might be + superior to his colloquialism, and hurled the chocolate into the + wastebasket, where it made an evil and mocking clatter among the debris of + torn linen collars and toothpaste box. Then, in great dignity and + self-dramatization, she returned to bed. + </p> + <p> + All this time he had been talking on, embroidering his assertion that he + “didn't expect any credit.” She was reflecting that he was a rustic, that + she hated him, that she had been insane to marry him, that she had married + him only because she was tired of work, that she must get her long gloves + cleaned, that she would never do anything more for him, and that she + mustn't forget his hominy for breakfast. She was roused to attention by + his storming: + </p> + <p> + “I'm a fool to think about a new house. By the time I get it built you'll + probably have succeeded in your plan to get me completely in Dutch with + every friend and every patient I've got.” + </p> + <p> + She sat up with a bounce. She said coldly, “Thank you very much for + revealing your real opinion of me. If that's the way you feel, if I'm such + a hindrance to you, I can't stay under this roof another minute. And I am + perfectly well able to earn my own living. I will go at once, and you may + get a divorce at your pleasure! What you want is a nice sweet cow of a + woman who will enjoy having your dear friends talk about the weather and + spit on the floor!” + </p> + <p> + “Tut! Don't be a fool!” + </p> + <p> + “You will very soon find out whether I'm a fool or not! I mean it! Do you + think I'd stay here one second after I found out that I was injuring you? + At least I have enough sense of justice not to do that.” + </p> + <p> + “Please stop flying off at tangents, Carrie. This——” + </p> + <p> + “Tangents? TANGENTS! Let me tell you——” + </p> + <p> + “——isn't a theater-play; it's a serious effort to have us get + together on fundamentals. We've both been cranky, and said a lot of things + we didn't mean. I wish we were a couple o' bloomin' poets and just talked + about roses and moonshine, but we're human. All right. Let's cut out + jabbing at each other. Let's admit we both do fool things. See here: You + KNOW you feel superior to folks. You're not as bad as I say, but you're + not as good as you say—not by a long shot! What's the reason you're + so superior? Why can't you take folks as they are?” + </p> + <p> + Her preparations for stalking out of the Doll's House were not yet + visible. She mused: + </p> + <p> + “I think perhaps it's my childhood.” She halted. When she went on her + voice had an artificial sound, her words the bookish quality of emotional + meditation. “My father was the tenderest man in the world, but he did feel + superior to ordinary people. Well, he was! And the Minnesota Valley——I + used to sit there on the cliffs above Mankato for hours at a time, my chin + in my hand, looking way down the valley, wanting to write poems. The shiny + tilted roofs below me, and the river, and beyond it the level fields in + the mist, and the rim of palisades across——It held my thoughts + in. I LIVED, in the valley. But the prairie—all my thoughts go + flying off into the big space. Do you think it might be that?” + </p> + <p> + “Um, well, maybe, but——Carrie, you always talk so much about + getting all you can out of life, and not letting the years slip by, and + here you deliberately go and deprive yourself of a lot of real good home + pleasure by not enjoying people unless they wear frock coats and trot out——” + </p> + <p> + (“Morning clothes. Oh. Sorry. Didn't mean t' interrupt you.”) + </p> + <p> + “——to a lot of tea-parties. Take Jack Elder. You think Jack + hasn't got any ideas about anything but manufacturing and the tariff on + lumber. But do you know that Jack is nutty about music? He'll put a + grand-opera record on the phonograph and sit and listen to it and close + his eyes——Or you take Lym Cass. Ever realize what a + well-informed man he is?” + </p> + <p> + “But IS he? Gopher Prairie calls anybody 'well-informed' who's been + through the State Capitol and heard about Gladstone.” + </p> + <p> + “Now I'm telling you! Lym reads a lot—solid stuff—history. Or + take Mart Mahoney, the garageman. He's got a lot of Perry prints of famous + pictures in his office. Or old Bingham Playfair, that died here 'bout a + year ago—lived seven miles out. He was a captain in the Civil War, + and knew General Sherman, and they say he was a miner in Nevada right + alongside of Mark Twain. You'll find these characters in all these small + towns, and a pile of savvy in every single one of them, if you just dig + for it.” + </p> + <p> + “I know. And I do love them. Especially people like Champ Perry. But I + can't be so very enthusiastic over the smug cits like Jack Elder.” + </p> + <p> + “Then I'm a smug cit, too, whatever that is.” + </p> + <p> + “No, you're a scientist. Oh, I will try and get the music out of Mr. + Elder. Only, why can't he let it COME out, instead of being ashamed of it, + and always talking about hunting dogs? But I will try. Is it all right + now?” + </p> + <p> + “Sure. But there's one other thing. You might give me some attention, + too!” + </p> + <p> + “That's unjust! You have everything I am!” + </p> + <p> + “No, I haven't. You think you respect me—you always hand out some + spiel about my being so 'useful.' But you never think of me as having + ambitions, just as much as you have——” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps not. I think of you as being perfectly satisfied.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, I'm not, not by a long shot! I don't want to be a plug general + practitioner all my life, like Westlake, and die in harness because I + can't get out of it, and have 'em say, 'He was a good fellow, but he + couldn't save a cent.' Not that I care a whoop what they say, after I've + kicked in and can't hear 'em, but I want to put enough money away so you + and I can be independent some day, and not have to work unless I feel like + it, and I want to have a good house—by golly, I'll have as good a + house as anybody in THIS town!—and if we want to travel and see your + Tormina or whatever it is, why we can do it, with enough money in our + jeans so we won't have to take anything off anybody, or fret about our old + age. You never worry about what might happen if we got sick and didn't + have a good fat wad salted away, do you!” + </p> + <p> + “I don't suppose I do.” + </p> + <p> + “Well then, I have to do it for you. And if you think for one moment I + want to be stuck in this burg all my life, and not have a chance to travel + and see the different points of interest and all that, then you simply + don't get me. I want to have a squint at the world, much's you do. Only, + I'm practical about it. First place, I'm going to make the money—I'm + investing in good safe farmlands. Do you understand why now?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “Will you try and see if you can't think of me as something more than just + a dollar-chasing roughneck?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, my dear, I haven't been just! I AM difficile. And I won't call on the + Dillons! And if Dr. Dillon is working for Westlake and McGanum, I hate + him!” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XV + </h2> + <h3> + THAT December she was in love with her husband. + </h3> + <p> + She romanticized herself not as a great reformer but as the wife of a + country physician. The realities of the doctor's household were colored by + her pride. + </p> + <p> + Late at night, a step on the wooden porch, heard through her confusion of + sleep; the storm-door opened; fumbling over the inner door-panels; the + buzz of the electric bell. Kennicott muttering “Gol darn it,” but + patiently creeping out of bed, remembering to draw the covers up to keep + her warm, feeling for slippers and bathrobe, clumping down-stairs. + </p> + <p> + From below, half-heard in her drowsiness, a colloquy in the pidgin-German + of the farmers who have forgotten the Old Country language without + learning the new: + </p> + <p> + “Hello, Barney, wass willst du?” + </p> + <p> + “Morgen, doctor. Die Frau ist ja awful sick. All night she been having an + awful pain in de belly.” + </p> + <p> + “How long she been this way? Wie lang, eh?” + </p> + <p> + “I dunno, maybe two days.” + </p> + <p> + “Why didn't you come for me yesterday, instead of waking me up out of a + sound sleep? Here it is two o'clock! So spat—warum, eh?” + </p> + <p> + “Nun aber, I know it, but she got soch a lot vorse last evening. I t'ought + maybe all de time it go avay, but it got a lot vorse.” + </p> + <p> + “Any fever?” + </p> + <p> + “Vell ja, I t'ink she got fever.” + </p> + <p> + “Which side is the pain on?” + </p> + <p> + “Huh?” + </p> + <p> + “Das Schmertz—die Weh—which side is it on? Here?” + </p> + <p> + “So. Right here it is.” + </p> + <p> + “Any rigidity there?” + </p> + <p> + “Huh?” + </p> + <p> + “Is it rigid—stiff—I mean, does the belly feel hard to the + fingers?” + </p> + <p> + “I dunno. She ain't said yet.” + </p> + <p> + “What she been eating?” + </p> + <p> + “Vell, I t'ink about vot ve alwis eat, maybe corn beef and cabbage and + sausage, und so weiter. Doc, sie weint immer, all the time she holler like + hell. I vish you come.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, all right, but you call me earlier, next time. Look here, Barney, + you better install a 'phone—telephone haben. Some of you Dutchmen + will be dying one of these days before you can fetch the doctor.” + </p> + <p> + The door closing. Barney's wagon—the wheels silent in the snow, but + the wagon-body rattling. Kennicott clicking the receiver-hook to rouse the + night telephone-operator, giving a number, waiting, cursing mildly, + waiting again, and at last growling, “Hello, Gus, this is the doctor. Say, + uh, send me up a team. Guess snow's too thick for a machine. Going eight + miles south. All right. Huh? The hell I will! Don't you go back to sleep. + Huh? Well, that's all right now, you didn't wait so very darn long. All + right, Gus; shoot her along. By!” + </p> + <p> + His step on the stairs; his quiet moving about the frigid room while he + dressed; his abstracted and meaningless cough. She was supposed to be + asleep; she was too exquisitely drowsy to break the charm by speaking. On + a slip of paper laid on the bureau—she could hear the pencil + grinding against the marble slab—he wrote his destination. He went + out, hungry, chilly, unprotesting; and she, before she fell asleep again, + loved him for his sturdiness, and saw the drama of his riding by night to + the frightened household on the distant farm; pictured children standing + at a window, waiting for him. He suddenly had in her eyes the heroism of a + wireless operator on a ship in a collision; of an explorer, fever-clawed, + deserted by his bearers, but going on—jungle—going—— + </p> + <p> + At six, when the light faltered in as through ground glass and bleakly + identified the chairs as gray rectangles, she heard his step on the porch; + heard him at the furnace: the rattle of shaking the grate, the slow + grinding removal of ashes, the shovel thrust into the coal-bin, the abrupt + clatter of the coal as it flew into the fire-box, the fussy regulation of + drafts—the daily sounds of a Gopher Prairie life, now first + appealing to her as something brave and enduring, many-colored and free. + She visioned the fire-box: flames turned to lemon and metallic gold as the + coal-dust sifted over them; thin twisty flutters of purple, ghost flames + which gave no light, slipping up between the dark banked coals. + </p> + <p> + It was luxurious in bed, and the house would be warm for her when she + rose, she reflected. What a worthless cat she was! What were her + aspirations beside his capability? + </p> + <p> + She awoke again as he dropped into bed. + </p> + <p> + “Seems just a few minutes ago that you started out!” + </p> + <p> + “I've been away four hours. I've operated a woman for appendicitis, in a + Dutch kitchen. Came awful close to losing her, too, but I pulled her + through all right. Close squeak. Barney says he shot ten rabbits last + Sunday.” + </p> + <p> + He was instantly asleep—one hour of rest before he had to be up and + ready for the farmers who came in early. She marveled that in what was to + her but a night-blurred moment, he should have been in a distant place, + have taken charge of a strange house, have slashed a woman, saved a life. + </p> + <p> + What wonder he detested the lazy Westlake and McGanum! How could the easy + Guy Pollock understand this skill and endurance? + </p> + <p> + Then Kennicott was grumbling, “Seven-fifteen! Aren't you ever going to get + up for breakfast?” and he was not a hero-scientist but a rather irritable + and commonplace man who needed a shave. They had coffee, griddle-cakes, + and sausages, and talked about Mrs. McGanum's atrocious alligator-hide + belt. Night witchery and morning disillusion were alike forgotten in the + march of realities and days. + </p> + <p> + II + </p> + <p> + Familiar to the doctor's wife was the man with an injured leg, driven in + from the country on a Sunday afternoon and brought to the house. He sat in + a rocker in the back of a lumber-wagon, his face pale from the anguish of + the jolting. His leg was thrust out before him, resting on a starch-box + and covered with a leather-bound horse-blanket. His drab courageous wife + drove the wagon, and she helped Kennicott support him as he hobbled up the + steps, into the house. + </p> + <p> + “Fellow cut his leg with an ax—pretty bad gash—Halvor Nelson, + nine miles out,” Kennicott observed. + </p> + <p> + Carol fluttered at the back of the room, childishly excited when she was + sent to fetch towels and a basin of water. Kennicott lifted the farmer + into a chair and chuckled, “There we are, Halvor! We'll have you out + fixing fences and drinking aquavit in a month.” The farmwife sat on the + couch, expressionless, bulky in a man's dogskin coat and unplumbed layers + of jackets. The flowery silk handkerchief which she had worn over her head + now hung about her seamed neck. Her white wool gloves lay in her lap. + </p> + <p> + Kennicott drew from the injured leg the thick red “German sock,” the + innumerous other socks of gray and white wool, then the spiral bandage. + The leg was of an unwholesome dead white, with the black hairs feeble and + thin and flattened, and the scar a puckered line of crimson. Surely, Carol + shuddered, this was not human flesh, the rosy shining tissue of the + amorous poets. + </p> + <p> + Kennicott examined the scar, smiled at Halvor and his wife, chanted, + “Fine, b' gosh! Couldn't be better!” + </p> + <p> + The Nelsons looked deprecating. The farmer nodded a cue to his wife and + she mourned: + </p> + <p> + “Vell, how much ve going to owe you, doctor?” + </p> + <p> + “I guess it'll be——Let's see: one drive out and two calls. I + guess it'll be about eleven dollars in all, Lena.” + </p> + <p> + “I dunno ve can pay you yoost a little w'ile, doctor.” + </p> + <p> + Kennicott lumbered over to her, patted her shoulder, roared, “Why, Lord + love you, sister, I won't worry if I never get it! You pay me next fall, + when you get your crop. . . . Carrie! Suppose you or Bea could shake up a + cup of coffee and some cold lamb for the Nelsons? They got a long cold + drive ahead.” + </p> + <p> + III + </p> + <p> + He had been gone since morning; her eyes ached with reading; Vida Sherwin + could not come to tea. She wandered through the house, empty as the bleary + street without. The problem of “Will the doctor be home in time for + supper, or shall I sit down without him?” was important in the household. + Six was the rigid, the canonical supper-hour, but at half-past six he had + not come. Much speculation with Bea: Had the obstetrical case taken longer + than he had expected? Had he been called somewhere else? Was the snow much + heavier out in the country, so that he should have taken a buggy, or even + a cutter, instead of the car? Here in town it had melted a lot, but still—— + </p> + <p> + A honking, a shout, the motor engine raced before it was shut off. + </p> + <p> + She hurried to the window. The car was a monster at rest after furious + adventures. The headlights blazed on the clots of ice in the road so that + the tiniest lumps gave mountainous shadows, and the taillight cast a + circle of ruby on the snow behind. Kennicott was opening the door, crying, + “Here we are, old girl! Got stuck couple times, but we made it, by golly, + we made it, and here we be! Come on! Food! Eatin's!” + </p> + <p> + She rushed to him, patted his fur coat, the long hairs smooth but chilly + to her fingers. She joyously summoned Bea, “All right! He's here! We'll + sit right down!” + </p> + <p> + IV + </p> + <p> + There were, to inform the doctor's wife of his successes no clapping + audiences nor book-reviews nor honorary degrees. But there was a letter + written by a German farmer recently moved from Minnesota to Saskatchewan: + </p> + <p> + Dear sor, as you haf bin treading mee for a fue Weaks dis Somer and seen + wat is rong wit mee so in Regarding to dat i wont to tank you. the Doctor + heir say wat shot bee rong wit mee and day give mee som Madsin but it + diten halp mee like wat you dit. Now day glaim dat i Woten Neet aney + Madsin ad all wat you tink? + </p> + <p> + Well i haven ben tacking aney ting for about one & 1/2 Mont but i dont + get better so i like to heir Wat you tink about it i feel like dis + Disconfebil feeling around the Stomac after eating and dat Pain around + Heard and down the arm and about 3 to 3 1/2 Hour after Eating i feel weeak + like and dissy and a dull Hadig. Now you gust lett mee know Wat you tink + about mee, i do Wat you say. + </p> + <p> + V + </p> + <p> + She encountered Guy Pollock at the drug store. He looked at her as though + he had a right to; he spoke softly. “I haven't see you, the last few + days.” + </p> + <p> + “No. I've been out in the country with Will several times. He's so——Do + you know that people like you and me can never understand people like him? + We're a pair of hypercritical loafers, you and I, while he quietly goes + and does things.” + </p> + <p> + She nodded and smiled and was very busy about purchasing boric acid. He + stared after her, and slipped away. + </p> + <p> + When she found that he was gone she was slightly disconcerted. + </p> + <p> + VI + </p> + <p> + She could—at times—agree with Kennicott that the + shaving-and-corsets familiarity of married life was not dreary vulgarity + but a wholesome frankness; that artificial reticences might merely be + irritating. She was not much disturbed when for hours he sat about the + living-room in his honest socks. But she would not listen to his theory + that “all this romance stuff is simply moonshine—elegant when you're + courting, but no use busting yourself keeping it up all your life.” + </p> + <p> + She thought of surprises, games, to vary the days. She knitted an + astounding purple scarf, which she hid under his supper plate. (When he + discovered it he looked embarrassed, and gasped, “Is today an anniversary + or something? Gosh, I'd forgotten it!”) + </p> + <p> + Once she filled a thermos bottle with hot coffee a corn-flakes box with + cookies just baked by Bea, and bustled to his office at three in the + afternoon. She hid her bundles in the hall and peeped in. + </p> + <p> + The office was shabby. Kennicott had inherited it from a medical + predecessor, and changed it only by adding a white enameled + operating-table, a sterilizer, a Roentgen-ray apparatus, and a small + portable typewriter. It was a suite of two rooms: a waiting-room with + straight chairs, shaky pine table, and those coverless and unknown + magazines which are found only in the offices of dentists and doctors. The + room beyond, looking on Main Street, was business-office, consulting-room, + operating-room, and, in an alcove, bacteriological and chemical + laboratory. The wooden floors of both rooms were bare; the furniture was + brown and scaly. + </p> + <p> + Waiting for the doctor were two women, as still as though they were + paralyzed, and a man in a railroad brakeman's uniform, holding his + bandaged right hand with his tanned left. They stared at Carol. She sat + modestly in a stiff chair, feeling frivolous and out of place. + </p> + <p> + Kennicott appeared at the inner door, ushering out a bleached man with a + trickle of wan beard, and consoling him, “All right, Dad. Be careful about + the sugar, and mind the diet I gave you. Gut the prescription filled, and + come in and see me next week. Say, uh, better, uh, better not drink too + much beer. All right, Dad.” + </p> + <p> + His voice was artificially hearty. He looked absently at Carol. He was a + medical machine now, not a domestic machine. “What is it, Carrie?” he + droned. + </p> + <p> + “No hurry. Just wanted to say hello.” + </p> + <p> + “Well——” + </p> + <p> + Self-pity because he did not divine that this was a surprise party + rendered her sad and interesting to herself, and she had the pleasure of + the martyrs in saying bravely to him, “It's nothing special. If you're + busy long I'll trot home.” + </p> + <p> + While she waited she ceased to pity and began to mock herself. For the + first time she observed the waiting-room. Oh yes, the doctor's family had + to have obi panels and a wide couch and an electric percolator, but any + hole was good enough for sick tired common people who were nothing but the + one means and excuse for the doctor's existing! No. She couldn't blame + Kennicott. He was satisfied by the shabby chairs. He put up with them as + his patients did. It was her neglected province—she who had been + going about talking of rebuilding the whole town! + </p> + <p> + When the patients were gone she brought in her bundles. + </p> + <p> + “What's those?” wondered Kennicott. + </p> + <p> + “Turn your back! Look out of the window!” + </p> + <p> + He obeyed—not very much bored. When she cried “Now!” a feast of + cookies and small hard candies and hot coffee was spread on the roll-top + desk in the inner room. + </p> + <p> + His broad face lightened. “That's a new one on me! Never was more + surprised in my life! And, by golly, I believe I am hungry. Say, this is + fine.” + </p> + <p> + When the first exhilaration of the surprise had declined she demanded, + “Will! I'm going to refurnish your waiting-room!” + </p> + <p> + “What's the matter with it? It's all right.” + </p> + <p> + “It is not! It's hideous. We can afford to give your patients a better + place. And it would be good business.” She felt tremendously politic. + </p> + <p> + “Rats! I don't worry about the business. You look here now: As I told you——Just + because I like to tuck a few dollars away, I'll be switched if I'll stand + for your thinking I'm nothing but a dollar-chasing——” + </p> + <p> + “Stop it! Quick! I'm not hurting your feelings! I'm not criticizing! I'm + the adoring least one of thy harem. I just mean——” + </p> + <p> + Two days later, with pictures, wicker chairs, a rug, she had made the + waiting-room habitable; and Kennicott admitted, “Does look a lot better. + Never thought much about it. Guess I need being bullied.” + </p> + <p> + She was convinced that she was gloriously content in her career as + doctor's-wife. + </p> + <p> + VII + </p> + <p> + She tried to free herself from the speculation and disillusionment which + had been twitching at her; sought to dismiss all the opinionation of an + insurgent era. She wanted to shine upon the veal-faced bristly-bearded + Lyman Cass as much as upon Miles Bjornstam or Guy Pollock. She gave a + reception for the Thanatopsis Club. But her real acquiring of merit was in + calling upon that Mrs. Bogart whose gossipy good opinion was so valuable + to a doctor. + </p> + <p> + Though the Bogart house was next door she had entered it but three times. + Now she put on her new moleskin cap, which made her face small and + innocent, she rubbed off the traces of a lip-stick—and fled across + the alley before her admirable resolution should sneak away. + </p> + <p> + The age of houses, like the age of men, has small relation to their years. + The dull-green cottage of the good Widow Bogart was twenty years old, but + it had the antiquity of Cheops, and the smell of mummy-dust. Its neatness + rebuked the street. The two stones by the path were painted yellow; the + outhouse was so overmodestly masked with vines and lattice that it was not + concealed at all; the last iron dog remaining in Gopher Prairie stood + among whitewashed conch-shells upon the lawn. The hallway was dismayingly + scrubbed; the kitchen was an exercise in mathematics, with problems worked + out in equidistant chairs. + </p> + <p> + The parlor was kept for visitors. Carol suggested, “Let's sit in the + kitchen. Please don't trouble to light the parlor stove.” + </p> + <p> + “No trouble at all! My gracious, and you coming so seldom and all, and the + kitchen is a perfect sight, I try to keep it clean, but Cy will track mud + all over it, I've spoken to him about it a hundred times if I've spoken + once, no, you sit right there, dearie, and I'll make a fire, no trouble at + all, practically no trouble at all.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bogart groaned, rubbed her joints, and repeatedly dusted her hands + while she made the fire, and when Carol tried to help she lamented, “Oh, + it doesn't matter; guess I ain't good for much but toil and workin' + anyway; seems as though that's what a lot of folks think.” + </p> + <p> + The parlor was distinguished by an expanse of rag carpet from which, as + they entered, Mrs. Bogart hastily picked one sad dead fly. In the center + of the carpet was a rug depicting a red Newfoundland dog, reclining in a + green and yellow daisy field and labeled “Our Friend.” The parlor organ, + tall and thin, was adorned with a mirror partly circular, partly square, + and partly diamond-shaped, and with brackets holding a pot of geraniums, a + mouth-organ, and a copy of “The Oldtime Hymnal.” On the center table was a + Sears-Roebuck mail-order catalogue, a silver frame with photographs of the + Baptist Church and of an elderly clergyman, and an aluminum tray + containing a rattlesnake's rattle and a broken spectacle-lens. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bogart spoke of the eloquence of the Reverend Mr. Zitterel, the + coldness of cold days, the price of poplar wood, Dave Dyer's new hair-cut, + and Cy Bogart's essential piety. “As I said to his Sunday School teacher, + Cy may be a little wild, but that's because he's got so much better brains + than a lot of these boys, and this farmer that claims he caught Cy + stealing 'beggies, is a liar, and I ought to have the law on him.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bogart went thoroughly into the rumor that the girl waiter at Billy's + Lunch was not all she might be—or, rather, was quite all she might + be. + </p> + <p> + “My lands, what can you expect when everybody knows what her mother was? + And if these traveling salesmen would let her alone she would be all + right, though I certainly don't believe she ought to be allowed to think + she can pull the wool over our eyes. The sooner she's sent to the school + for incorrigible girls down at Sauk Centre, the better for all and——Won't + you just have a cup of coffee, Carol dearie, I'm sure you won't mind old + Aunty Bogart calling you by your first name when you think how long I've + known Will, and I was such a friend of his dear lovely mother when she + lived here and—was that fur cap expensive? But——Don't + you think it's awful, the way folks talk in this town?” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bogart hitched her chair nearer. Her large face, with its disturbing + collection of moles and lone black hairs, wrinkled cunningly. She showed + her decayed teeth in a reproving smile, and in the confidential voice of + one who scents stale bedroom scandal she breathed: + </p> + <p> + “I just don't see how folks can talk and act like they do. You don't know + the things that go on under cover. This town—why it's only the + religious training I've given Cy that's kept him so innocent of—things. + Just the other day——I never pay no attention to stories, but I + heard it mighty good and straight that Harry Haydock is carrying on with a + girl that clerks in a store down in Minneapolis, and poor Juanita not + knowing anything about it—though maybe it's the judgment of God, + because before she married Harry she acted up with more than one boy——Well, + I don't like to say it, and maybe I ain't up-to-date, like Cy says, but I + always believed a lady shouldn't even give names to all sorts of dreadful + things, but just the same I know there was at least one case where Juanita + and a boy—well, they were just dreadful. And—and——Then + there's that Ole Jenson the grocer, that thinks he's so plaguey smart, and + I know he made up to a farmer's wife and——And this awful man + Bjornstam that does chores, and Nat Hicks and——” + </p> + <p> + There was, it seemed, no person in town who was not living a life of shame + except Mrs. Bogart, and naturally she resented it. + </p> + <p> + She knew. She had always happened to be there. Once, she whispered, she + was going by when an indiscreet window-shade had been left up a couple of + inches. Once she had noticed a man and woman holding hands, and right at a + Methodist sociable! + </p> + <p> + “Another thing——Heaven knows I never want to start trouble, + but I can't help what I see from my back steps, and I notice your hired + girl Bea carrying on with the grocery boys and all——” + </p> + <p> + “Mrs. Bogart! I'd trust Bea as I would myself!” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, dearie, you don't understand me! I'm sure she's a good girl. I mean + she's green, and I hope that none of these horrid young men that there are + around town will get her into trouble! It's their parents' fault, letting + them run wild and hear evil things. If I had my way there wouldn't be none + of them, not boys nor girls neither, allowed to know anything about—about + things till they was married. It's terrible the bald way that some folks + talk. It just shows and gives away what awful thoughts they got inside + them, and there's nothing can cure them except coming right to God and + kneeling down like I do at prayer-meeting every Wednesday evening, and + saying, 'O God, I would be a miserable sinner except for thy grace.' + </p> + <p> + “I'd make every last one of these brats go to Sunday School and learn to + think about nice things 'stead of about cigarettes and goings-on—and + these dances they have at the lodges are the worst thing that ever + happened to this town, lot of young men squeezing girls and finding out——Oh, + it's dreadful. I've told the mayor he ought to put a stop to them and——There + was one boy in this town, I don't want to be suspicious or uncharitable + but——” + </p> + <p> + It was half an hour before Carol escaped. + </p> + <p> + She stopped on her own porch and thought viciously: + </p> + <p> + “If that woman is on the side of the angels, then I have no choice; I must + be on the side of the devil. But—isn't she like me? She too wants to + 'reform the town'! She too criticizes everybody! She too thinks the men + are vulgar and limited! AM I LIKE HER? This is ghastly!” + </p> + <p> + That evening she did not merely consent to play cribbage with Kennicott; + she urged him to play; and she worked up a hectic interest in land-deals + and Sam Clark. + </p> + <p> + VIII + </p> + <p> + In courtship days Kennicott had shown her a photograph of Nels Erdstrom's + baby and log cabin, but she had never seen the Erdstroms. They had become + merely “patients of the doctor.” Kennicott telephoned her on a + mid-December afternoon, “Want to throw your coat on and drive out to + Erdstrom's with me? Fairly warm. Nels got the jaundice.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh yes!” She hastened to put on woolen stockings, high boots, sweater, + muffler, cap, mittens. + </p> + <p> + The snow was too thick and the ruts frozen too hard for the motor. They + drove out in a clumsy high carriage. Tucked over them was a blue woolen + cover, prickly to her wrists, and outside of it a buffalo robe, humble and + moth-eaten now, used ever since the bison herds had streaked the prairie a + few miles to the west. + </p> + <p> + The scattered houses between which they passed in town were small and + desolate in contrast to the expanse of huge snowy yards and wide street. + They crossed the railroad tracks, and instantly were in the farm country. + The big piebald horses snorted clouds of steam, and started to trot. The + carriage squeaked in rhythm. Kennicott drove with clucks of “There boy, + take it easy!” He was thinking. He paid no attention to Carol. Yet it was + he who commented, “Pretty nice, over there,” as they approached an + oak-grove where shifty winter sunlight quivered in the hollow between two + snow-drifts. + </p> + <p> + They drove from the natural prairie to a cleared district which twenty + years ago had been forest. The country seemed to stretch unchanging to the + North Pole: low hill, brush-scraggly bottom, reedy creek, muskrat mound, + fields with frozen brown clods thrust up through the snow. + </p> + <p> + Her ears and nose were pinched; her breath frosted her collar; her fingers + ached. + </p> + <p> + “Getting colder,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “Yup.” + </p> + <p> + That was all their conversation for three miles. Yet she was happy. + </p> + <p> + They reached Nels Erdstrom's at four, and with a throb she recognized the + courageous venture which had lured her to Gopher Prairie: the cleared + fields, furrows among stumps, a log cabin chinked with mud and roofed with + dry hay. But Nels had prospered. He used the log cabin as a barn; and a + new house reared up, a proud, unwise, Gopher Prairie house, the more naked + and ungraceful in its glossy white paint and pink trimmings. Every tree + had been cut down. The house was so unsheltered, so battered by the wind, + so bleakly thrust out into the harsh clearing, that Carol shivered. But + they were welcomed warmly enough in the kitchen, with its crisp new + plaster, its black and nickel range, its cream separator in a corner. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Erdstrom begged her to sit in the parlor, where there was a + phonograph and an oak and leather davenport, the prairie farmer's proofs + of social progress, but she dropped down by the kitchen stove and + insisted, “Please don't mind me.” When Mrs. Erdstrom had followed the + doctor out of the room Carol glanced in a friendly way at the grained pine + cupboard, the framed Lutheran Konfirmations Attest, the traces of fried + eggs and sausages on the dining table against the wall, and a jewel among + calendars, presenting not only a lithographic young woman with cherry + lips, and a Swedish advertisement of Axel Egge's grocery, but also a + thermometer and a match-holder. + </p> + <p> + She saw that a boy of four or five was staring at her from the hall, a boy + in gingham shirt and faded corduroy trousers, but large-eyed, + firm-mouthed, wide-browed. He vanished, then peeped in again, biting his + knuckles, turning his shoulder toward her in shyness. + </p> + <p> + Didn't she remember—what was it?—Kennicott sitting beside her + at Fort Snelling, urging, “See how scared that baby is. Needs some woman + like you.” + </p> + <p> + Magic had fluttered about her then—magic of sunset and cool air and + the curiosity of lovers. She held out her hands as much to that sanctity + as to the boy. + </p> + <p> + He edged into the room, doubtfully sucking his thumb. + </p> + <p> + “Hello,” she said. “What's your name?” + </p> + <p> + “Hee, hee, hee!” + </p> + <p> + “You're quite right. I agree with you. Silly people like me always ask + children their names.” + </p> + <p> + “Hee, hee, hee!” + </p> + <p> + “Come here and I'll tell you the story of—well, I don't know what it + will be about, but it will have a slim heroine and a Prince Charming.” + </p> + <p> + He stood stoically while she spun nonsense. His giggling ceased. She was + winning him. Then the telephone bell—two long rings, one short. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Erdstrom galloped into the room, shrieked into the transmitter, + “Vell? Yes, yes, dis is Erdstrom's place! Heh? Oh, you vant de doctor?” + </p> + <p> + Kennicott appeared, growled into the telephone: + </p> + <p> + “Well, what do you want? Oh, hello Dave; what do you want? Which + Morgenroth's? Adolph's? All right. Amputation? Yuh, I see. Say, Dave, get + Gus to harness up and take my surgical kit down there—and have him + take some chloroform. I'll go straight down from here. May not get home + tonight. You can get me at Adolph's. Huh? No, Carrie can give the + anesthetic, I guess. G'-by. Huh? No; tell me about that tomorrow—too + damn many people always listening in on this farmers' line.” + </p> + <p> + He turned to Carol. “Adolph Morgenroth, farmer ten miles southwest of + town, got his arm crushed-fixing his cow-shed and a post caved in on him—smashed + him up pretty bad—may have to amputate, Dave Dyer says. Afraid we'll + have to go right from here. Darn sorry to drag you clear down there with + me——” + </p> + <p> + “Please do. Don't mind me a bit.” + </p> + <p> + “Think you could give the anesthetic? Usually have my driver do it.” + </p> + <p> + “If you'll tell me how.” + </p> + <p> + “All right. Say, did you hear me putting one over on these goats that are + always rubbering in on party-wires? I hope they heard me! Well. . . . Now, + Bessie, don't you worry about Nels. He's getting along all right. Tomorrow + you or one of the neighbors drive in and get this prescription filled at + Dyer's. Give him a teaspoonful every four hours. Good-by. Hel-lo! Here's + the little fellow! My Lord, Bessie, it ain't possible this is the fellow + that used to be so sickly? Why, say, he's a great big strapping Svenska + now—going to be bigger 'n his daddy!” + </p> + <p> + Kennicott's bluffness made the child squirm with a delight which Carol + could not evoke. It was a humble wife who followed the busy doctor out to + the carriage, and her ambition was not to play Rachmaninoff better, nor to + build town halls, but to chuckle at babies. + </p> + <p> + The sunset was merely a flush of rose on a dome of silver, with oak twigs + and thin poplar branches against it, but a silo on the horizon changed + from a red tank to a tower of violet misted over with gray. The purple + road vanished, and without lights, in the darkness of a world destroyed, + they swayed on—toward nothing. + </p> + <p> + It was a bumpy cold way to the Morgenroth farm, and she was asleep when + they arrived. + </p> + <p> + Here was no glaring new house with a proud phonograph, but a low + whitewashed kitchen smelling of cream and cabbage. Adolph Morgenroth was + lying on a couch in the rarely used dining-room. His heavy work-scarred + wife was shaking her hands in anxiety. + </p> + <p> + Carol felt that Kennicott would do something magnificent and startling. + But he was casual. He greeted the man, “Well, well, Adolph, have to fix + you up, eh?” Quietly, to the wife, “Hat die drug store my schwartze bag + hier geschickt? So—schon. Wie viel Uhr ist 's? Sieben? Nun, lassen + uns ein wenig supper zuerst haben. Got any of that good beer left—giebt + 's noch Bier?” + </p> + <p> + He had supped in four minutes. His coat off, his sleeves rolled up, he was + scrubbing his hands in a tin basin in the sink, using the bar of yellow + kitchen soap. + </p> + <p> + Carol had not dared to look into the farther room while she labored over + the supper of beer, rye bread, moist cornbeef and cabbage, set on the + kitchen table. The man in there was groaning. In her one glance she had + seen that his blue flannel shirt was open at a corded tobacco-brown neck, + the hollows of which were sprinkled with thin black and gray hairs. He was + covered with a sheet, like a corpse, and outside the sheet was his right + arm, wrapped in towels stained with blood. + </p> + <p> + But Kennicott strode into the other room gaily, and she followed him. With + surprising delicacy in his large fingers he unwrapped the towels and + revealed an arm which, below the elbow, was a mass of blood and raw flesh. + The man bellowed. The room grew thick about her; she was very seasick; she + fled to a chair in the kitchen. Through the haze of nausea she heard + Kennicott grumbling, “Afraid it will have to come off, Adolph. What did + you do? Fall on a reaper blade? We'll fix it right up. Carrie! CAROL!” + </p> + <p> + She couldn't—she couldn't get up. Then she was up, her knees like + water, her stomach revolving a thousand times a second, her eyes filmed, + her ears full of roaring. She couldn't reach the dining-room. She was + going to faint. Then she was in the dining-room, leaning against the wall, + trying to smile, flushing hot and cold along her chest and sides, while + Kennicott mumbled, “Say, help Mrs. Morgenroth and me carry him in on the + kitchen table. No, first go out and shove those two tables together, and + put a blanket on them and a clean sheet.” + </p> + <p> + It was salvation to push the heavy tables, to scrub them, to be exact in + placing the sheet. Her head cleared; she was able to look calmly in at her + husband and the farmwife while they undressed the wailing man, got him + into a clean nightgown, and washed his arm. Kennicott came to lay out his + instruments. She realized that, with no hospital facilities, yet with no + worry about it, her husband—HER HUSBAND—was going to perform a + surgical operation, that miraculous boldness of which one read in stories + about famous surgeons. + </p> + <p> + She helped them to move Adolph into the kitchen. The man was in such a + funk that he would not use his legs. He was heavy, and smelled of sweat + and the stable. But she put her arm about his waist, her sleek head by his + chest; she tugged at him; she clicked her tongue in imitation of + Kennicott's cheerful noises. + </p> + <p> + When Adolph was on the table Kennicott laid a hemispheric steel and cotton + frame on his face; suggested to Carol, “Now you sit here at his head and + keep the ether dripping—about this fast, see? I'll watch his + breathing. Look who's here! Real anesthetist! Ochsner hasn't got a better + one! Class, eh? . . . Now, now, Adolph, take it easy. This won't hurt you + a bit. Put you all nice and asleep and it won't hurt a bit. Schweig' mal! + Bald schlaft man grat wie ein Kind. So! So! Bald geht's besser!” + </p> + <p> + As she let the ether drip, nervously trying to keep the rhythm that + Kennicott had indicated, Carol stared at her husband with the abandon of + hero-worship. + </p> + <p> + He shook his head. “Bad light—bad light. Here, Mrs. Morgenroth, you + stand right here and hold this lamp. Hier, und dieses—dieses lamp + halten—so!” + </p> + <p> + By that streaky glimmer he worked, swiftly, at ease. The room was still. + Carol tried to look at him, yet not look at the seeping blood, the crimson + slash, the vicious scalpel. The ether fumes were sweet, choking. Her head + seemed to be floating away from her body. Her arm was feeble. + </p> + <p> + It was not the blood but the grating of the surgical saw on the living + bone that broke her, and she knew that she had been fighting off nausea, + that she was beaten. She was lost in dizziness. She heard Kennicott's + voice— + </p> + <p> + “Sick? Trot outdoors couple minutes. Adolph will stay under now.” + </p> + <p> + She was fumbling at a door-knob which whirled in insulting circles; she + was on the stoop, gasping, forcing air into her chest, her head clearing. + As she returned she caught the scene as a whole: the cavernous kitchen, + two milk-cans a leaden patch by the wall, hams dangling from a beam, bats + of light at the stove door, and in the center, illuminated by a small + glass lamp held by a frightened stout woman, Dr. Kennicott bending over a + body which was humped under a sheet—the surgeon, his bare arms + daubed with blood, his hands, in pale-yellow rubber gloves, loosening the + tourniquet, his face without emotion save when he threw up his head and + clucked at the farmwife, “Hold that light steady just a second more—noch + blos esn wenig.” + </p> + <p> + “He speaks a vulgar, common, incorrect German of life and death and birth + and the soil. I read the French and German of sentimental lovers and + Christmas garlands. And I thought that it was I who had the culture!” she + worshiped as she returned to her place. + </p> + <p> + After a time he snapped, “That's enough. Don't give him any more ether.” + He was concentrated on tying an artery. His gruffness seemed heroic to + her. + </p> + <p> + As he shaped the flap of flesh she murmured, “Oh, you ARE wonderful!” + </p> + <p> + He was surprised. “Why, this is a cinch. Now if it had been like last week——Get + me some more water. Now last week I had a case with an ooze in the + peritoneal cavity, and by golly if it wasn't a stomach ulcer that I hadn't + suspected and——There. Say, I certainly am sleepy. Let's turn + in here. Too late to drive home. And tastes to me like a storm coming.” + </p> + <p> + IX + </p> + <p> + They slept on a feather bed with their fur coats over them; in the morning + they broke ice in the pitcher—the vast flowered and gilt pitcher. + </p> + <p> + Kennicott's storm had not come. When they set out it was hazy and growing + warmer. After a mile she saw that he was studying a dark cloud in the + north. He urged the horses to the run. But she forgot his unusual haste in + wonder at the tragic landscape. The pale snow, the prickles of old + stubble, and the clumps of ragged brush faded into a gray obscurity. Under + the hillocks were cold shadows. The willows about a farmhouse were + agitated by the rising wind, and the patches of bare wood where the bark + had peeled away were white as the flesh of a leper. The snowy slews were + of a harsh flatness. The whole land was cruel, and a climbing cloud of + slate-edged blackness dominated the sky. + </p> + <p> + “Guess we're about in for a blizzard,” speculated Kennicott “We can make + Ben McGonegal's, anyway.” + </p> + <p> + “Blizzard? Really? Why——But still we used to think they were + fun when I was a girl. Daddy had to stay home from court, and we'd stand + at the window and watch the snow.” + </p> + <p> + “Not much fun on the prairie. Get lost. Freeze to death. Take no chances.” + He chirruped at the horses. They were flying now, the carriage rocking on + the hard ruts. + </p> + <p> + The whole air suddenly crystallized into large damp flakes. The horses and + the buffalo robe were covered with snow; her face was wet; the thin butt + of the whip held a white ridge. The air became colder. The snowflakes were + harder; they shot in level lines, clawing at her face. + </p> + <p> + She could not see a hundred feet ahead. + </p> + <p> + Kennicott was stern. He bent forward, the reins firm in his coonskin + gauntlets. She was certain that he would get through. He always got + through things. + </p> + <p> + Save for his presence, the world and all normal living disappeared. They + were lost in the boiling snow. He leaned close to bawl, “Letting the + horses have their heads. They'll get us home.” + </p> + <p> + With a terrifying bump they were off the road, slanting with two wheels in + the ditch, but instantly they were jerked back as the horses fled on. She + gasped. She tried to, and did not, feel brave as she pulled the woolen + robe up about her chin. + </p> + <p> + They were passing something like a dark wall on the right. “I know that + barn!” he yelped. He pulled at the reins. Peeping from the covers she saw + his teeth pinch his lower lip, saw him scowl as he slackened and sawed and + jerked sharply again at the racing horses. + </p> + <p> + They stopped. + </p> + <p> + “Farmhouse there. Put robe around you and come on,” he cried. + </p> + <p> + It was like diving into icy water to climb out of the carriage, but on the + ground she smiled at him, her face little and childish and pink above the + buffalo robe over her shoulders. In a swirl of flakes which scratched at + their eyes like a maniac darkness, he unbuckled the harness. He turned and + plodded back, a ponderous furry figure, holding the horses' bridles, + Carol's hand dragging at his sleeve. + </p> + <p> + They came to the cloudy bulk of a barn whose outer wall was directly upon + the road. Feeling along it, he found a gate, led them into a yard, into + the barn. The interior was warm. It stunned them with its languid quiet. + </p> + <p> + He carefully drove the horses into stalls. + </p> + <p> + Her toes were coals of pain. “Let's run for the house,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “Can't. Not yet. Might never find it. Might get lost ten feet away from + it. Sit over in this stall, near the horses. We'll rush for the house when + the blizzard lifts.” + </p> + <p> + “I'm so stiff! I can't walk!” + </p> + <p> + He carried her into the stall, stripped off her overshoes and boots, + stopping to blow on his purple fingers as he fumbled at her laces. He + rubbed her feet, and covered her with the buffalo robe and horse-blankets + from the pile on the feed-box. She was drowsy, hemmed in by the storm. She + sighed: + </p> + <p> + “You're so strong and yet so skilful and not afraid of blood or storm or——” + </p> + <p> + “Used to it. Only thing that's bothered me was the chance the ether fumes + might explode, last night.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't understand.” + </p> + <p> + “Why, Dave, the darn fool, sent me ether, instead of chloroform like I + told him, and you know ether fumes are mighty inflammable, especially with + that lamp right by the table. But I had to operate, of course—wound + chuck-full of barnyard filth that way.” + </p> + <p> + “You knew all the time that——Both you and I might have been + blown up? You knew it while you were operating?” + </p> + <p> + “Sure. Didn't you? Why, what's the matter?” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XVI + </h2> + <p> + KENNICOTT was heavily pleased by her Christmas presents, and he gave her a + diamond bar-pin. But she could not persuade herself that he was much + interested in the rites of the morning, in the tree she had decorated, the + three stockings she had hung, the ribbons and gilt seals and hidden + messages. He said only: + </p> + <p> + “Nice way to fix things, all right. What do you say we go down to Jack + Elder's and have a game of five hundred this afternoon?” + </p> + <p> + She remembered her father's Christmas fantasies: the sacred old rag doll + at the top of the tree, the score of cheap presents, the punch and carols, + the roast chestnuts by the fire, and the gravity with which the judge + opened the children's scrawly notes and took cognizance of demands for + sled-rides, for opinions upon the existence of Santa Claus. She remembered + him reading out a long indictment of himself for being a sentimentalist, + against the peace and dignity of the State of Minnesota. She remembered + his thin legs twinkling before their sled—— + </p> + <p> + She muttered unsteadily, “Must run up and put on my shoes—slippers + so cold.” In the not very romantic solitude of the locked bathroom she sat + on the slippery edge of the tub and wept. + </p> + <p> + II + </p> + <p> + Kennicott had five hobbies: medicine, land-investment, Carol, motoring, + and hunting. It is not certain in what order he preferred them. Solid + though his enthusiasms were in the matter of medicine—his admiration + of this city surgeon, his condemnation of that for tricky ways of + persuading country practitioners to bring in surgical patients, his + indignation about fee-splitting, his pride in a new X-ray apparatus—none + of these beatified him as did motoring. + </p> + <p> + He nursed his two-year-old Buick even in winter, when it was stored in the + stable-garage behind the house. He filled the grease-cups, varnished a + fender, removed from beneath the back seat the debris of gloves, copper + washers, crumpled maps, dust, and greasy rags. Winter noons he wandered + out and stared owlishly at the car. He became excited over a fabulous + “trip we might take next summer.” He galloped to the station, brought home + railway maps, and traced motor-routes from Gopher Prairie to Winnipeg or + Des Moines or Grand Marais, thinking aloud and expecting her to be + effusive about such academic questions as “Now I wonder if we could stop + at Baraboo and break the jump from La Crosse to Chicago?” + </p> + <p> + To him motoring was a faith not to be questioned, a high-church cult, with + electric sparks for candles, and piston-rings possessing the sanctity of + altar-vessels. His liturgy was composed of intoned and metrical + road-comments: “They say there's a pretty good hike from Duluth to + International Falls.” + </p> + <p> + Hunting was equally a devotion, full of metaphysical concepts veiled from + Carol. All winter he read sporting-catalogues, and thought about + remarkable past shots: “'Member that time when I got two ducks on a long + chance, just at sunset?” At least once a month he drew his favorite + repeating shotgun, his “pump gun,” from its wrapper of greased canton + flannel; he oiled the trigger, and spent silent ecstatic moments aiming at + the ceiling. Sunday mornings Carol heard him trudging up to the attic and + there, an hour later, she found him turning over boots, wooden + duck-decoys, lunch-boxes, or reflectively squinting at old shells, rubbing + their brass caps with his sleeve and shaking his head as he thought about + their uselessness. + </p> + <p> + He kept the loading-tools he had used as a boy: a capper for shot-gun + shells, a mold for lead bullets. When once, in a housewifely frenzy for + getting rid of things, she raged, “Why don't you give these away?” he + solemnly defended them, “Well, you can't tell; they might come in handy + some day.” + </p> + <p> + She flushed. She wondered if he was thinking of the child they would have + when, as he put it, they were “sure they could afford one.” + </p> + <p> + Mysteriously aching, nebulously sad, she slipped away, half-convinced but + only half-convinced that it was horrible and unnatural, this postponement + of release of mother-affection, this sacrifice to her opinionation and to + his cautious desire for prosperity. + </p> + <p> + “But it would be worse if he were like Sam Clark—insisted on having + children,” she considered; then, “If Will were the Prince, wouldn't I + DEMAND his child?” + </p> + <p> + Kennicott's land-deals were both financial advancement and favorite game. + Driving through the country, he noticed which farms had good crops; he + heard the news about the restless farmer who was “thinking about selling + out here and pulling his freight for Alberta.” He asked the veterinarian + about the value of different breeds of stock; he inquired of Lyman Cass + whether or not Einar Gyseldson really had had a yield of forty bushels of + wheat to the acre. He was always consulting Julius Flickerbaugh, who + handled more real estate than law, and more law than justice. He studied + township maps, and read notices of auctions. + </p> + <p> + Thus he was able to buy a quarter-section of land for one hundred and + fifty dollars an acre, and to sell it in a year or two, after installing a + cement floor in the barn and running water in the house, for one hundred + and eighty or even two hundred. + </p> + <p> + He spoke of these details to Sam Clark . . . rather often. + </p> + <p> + In all his games, cars and guns and land, he expected Carol to take an + interest. But he did not give her the facts which might have created + interest. He talked only of the obvious and tedious aspects; never of his + aspirations in finance, nor of the mechanical principles of motors. + </p> + <p> + This month of romance she was eager to understand his hobbies. She + shivered in the garage while he spent half an hour in deciding whether to + put alcohol or patent non-freezing liquid into the radiator, or to drain + out the water entirely. “Or no, then I wouldn't want to take her out if it + turned warm—still, of course, I could fill the radiator again—wouldn't + take so awful long—just take a few pails of water—still, if it + turned cold on me again before I drained it——Course there's + some people that put in kerosene, but they say it rots the + hose-connections and——Where did I put that lug-wrench?” + </p> + <p> + It was at this point that she gave up being a motorist and retired to the + house. + </p> + <p> + In their new intimacy he was more communicative about his practise; he + informed her, with the invariable warning not to tell, that Mrs. + Sunderquist had another baby coming, that the “hired girl at Howland's was + in trouble.” But when she asked technical questions he did not know how to + answer; when she inquired, “Exactly what is the method of taking out the + tonsils?” he yawned, “Tonsilectomy? Why you just——If there's + pus, you operate. Just take 'em out. Seen the newspaper? What the devil + did Bea do with it?” + </p> + <p> + She did not try again. + </p> + <p> + III + </p> + <p> + They had gone to the “movies.” The movies were almost as vital to + Kennicott and the other solid citizens of Gopher Prairie as + land-speculation and guns and automobiles. + </p> + <p> + The feature film portrayed a brave young Yankee who conquered a South + American republic. He turned the natives from their barbarous habits of + singing and laughing to the vigorous sanity, the Pep and Punch and Go, of + the North; he taught them to work in factories, to wear Klassy Kollege + Klothes, and to shout, “Oh, you baby doll, watch me gather in the mazuma.” + He changed nature itself. A mountain which had borne nothing but lilies + and cedars and loafing clouds was by his Hustle so inspirited that it + broke out in long wooden sheds, and piles of iron ore to be converted into + steamers to carry iron ore to be converted into steamers to carry iron + ore. + </p> + <p> + The intellectual tension induced by the master film was relieved by a + livelier, more lyric and less philosophical drama: Mack Schnarken and the + Bathing Suit Babes in a comedy of manners entitled “Right on the Coco.” + Mr. Schnarken was at various high moments a cook, a life-guard, a + burlesque actor, and a sculptor. There was a hotel hallway up which + policemen charged, only to be stunned by plaster busts hurled upon them + from the innumerous doors. If the plot lacked lucidity, the dual motif of + legs and pie was clear and sure. Bathing and modeling were equally sound + occasions for legs; the wedding-scene was but an approach to the + thunderous climax when Mr. Schnarken slipped a piece of custard pie into + the clergyman's rear pocket. + </p> + <p> + The audience in the Rosebud Movie Palace squealed and wiped their eyes; + they scrambled under the seats for overshoes, mittens, and mufflers, while + the screen announced that next week Mr. Schnarken might be seen in a new, + riproaring, extra-special superfeature of the Clean Comedy Corporation + entitled, “Under Mollie's Bed.” + </p> + <p> + “I'm glad,” said Carol to Kennicott as they stooped before the northwest + gale which was torturing the barren street, “that this is a moral country. + We don't allow any of these beastly frank novels.” + </p> + <p> + “Yump. Vice Society and Postal Department won't stand for them. The + American people don't like filth.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. It's fine. I'm glad we have such dainty romances as 'Right on the + Coco' instead.” + </p> + <p> + “Say what in heck do you think you're trying to do? Kid me?” + </p> + <p> + He was silent. She awaited his anger. She meditated upon his gutter + patois, the Boeotian dialect characteristic of Gopher Prairie. He laughed + puzzlingly. When they came into the glow of the house he laughed again. He + condescended: + </p> + <p> + “I've got to hand it to you. You're consistent, all right. I'd of thought + that after getting this look-in at a lot of good decent farmers, you'd get + over this high-art stuff, but you hang right on.” + </p> + <p> + “Well——” To herself: “He takes advantage of my trying to be + good.” + </p> + <p> + “Tell you, Carrie: There's just three classes of people: folks that + haven't got any ideas at all; and cranks that kick about everything; and + Regular Guys, the fellows with sticktuitiveness, that boost and get the + world's work done.” + </p> + <p> + “Then I'm probably a crank.” She smiled negligently. + </p> + <p> + “No. I won't admit it. You do like to talk, but at a show-down you'd + prefer Sam Clark to any damn long-haired artist.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh—well——” + </p> + <p> + “Oh well!” mockingly. “My, we're just going to change everything, aren't + we! Going to tell fellows that have been making movies for ten years how + to direct 'em; and tell architects how to build towns; and make the + magazines publish nothing but a lot of highbrow stories about old maids, + and about wives that don't know what they want. Oh, we're a terror! . . . + Come on now, Carrie; come out of it; wake up! You've got a fine nerve, + kicking about a movie because it shows a few legs! Why, you're always + touting these Greek dancers, or whatever they are, that don't even wear a + shimmy!” + </p> + <p> + “But, dear, the trouble with that film—it wasn't that it got in so + many legs, but that it giggled coyly and promised to show more of them, + and then didn't keep the promise. It was Peeping Tom's idea of humor.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't get you. Look here now——” + </p> + <p> + She lay awake, while he rumbled with sleep + </p> + <p> + “I must go on. My 'crank ideas;' he calls them. I thought that adoring + him, watching him operate, would be enough. It isn't. Not after the first + thrill. + </p> + <p> + “I don't want to hurt him. But I must go on. + </p> + <p> + “It isn't enough, to stand by while he fills an automobile radiator and + chucks me bits of information. + </p> + <p> + “If I stood by and admired him long enough, I would be content. I would + become a 'nice little woman.' The Village Virus. Already——I'm + not reading anything. I haven't touched the piano for a week. I'm letting + the days drown in worship of 'a good deal, ten plunks more per acre.' I + won't! I won't succumb! + </p> + <p> + “How? I've failed at everything: the Thanatopsis, parties, pioneers, city + hall, Guy and Vida. But——It doesn't MATTER! I'm not trying to + 'reform the town' now. I'm not trying to organize Browning Clubs, and sit + in clean white kids yearning up at lecturers with ribbony eyeglasses. I am + trying to save my soul. + </p> + <p> + “Will Kennicott, asleep there, trusting me, thinking he holds me. And I'm + leaving him. All of me left him when he laughed at me. It wasn't enough + for him that I admired him; I must change myself and grow like him. He + takes advantage. No more. It's finished. I will go on.” + </p> + <p> + IV + </p> + <p> + Her violin lay on top of the upright piano. She picked it up. Since she + had last touched it the dried strings had snapped, and upon it lay a gold + and crimson cigar-band. + </p> + <p> + V + </p> + <p> + She longed to see Guy Pollock, for the confirming of the brethren in the + faith. But Kennicott's dominance was heavy upon her. She could not + determine whether she was checked by fear or him, or by inertia—by + dislike of the emotional labor of the “scenes” which would be involved in + asserting independence. She was like the revolutionist at fifty: not + afraid of death, but bored by the probability of bad steaks and bad + breaths and sitting up all night on windy barricades. + </p> + <p> + The second evening after the movies she impulsively summoned Vida Sherwin + and Guy to the house for pop-corn and cider. In the living-room Vida and + Kennicott debated “the value of manual training in grades below the + eighth,” while Carol sat beside Guy at the dining table, buttering + pop-corn. She was quickened by the speculation in his eyes. She murmured: + </p> + <p> + “Guy, do you want to help me?” + </p> + <p> + “My dear! How?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know!” + </p> + <p> + He waited. + </p> + <p> + “I think I want you to help me find out what has made the darkness of the + women. Gray darkness and shadowy trees. We're all in it, ten million + women, young married women with good prosperous husbands, and business + women in linen collars, and grandmothers that gad out to teas, and wives + of under-paid miners, and farmwives who really like to make butter and go + to church. What is it we want—and need? Will Kennicott there would + say that we need lots of children and hard work. But it isn't that. + There's the same discontent in women with eight children and one more + coming—always one more coming! And you find it in stenographers and + wives who scrub, just as much as in girl college-graduates who wonder how + they can escape their kind parents. What do we want?” + </p> + <p> + “Essentially, I think, you are like myself, Carol; you want to go back to + an age of tranquillity and charming manners. You want to enthrone good + taste again.” + </p> + <p> + “Just good taste? Fastidious people? Oh—no! I believe all of us want + the same things—we're all together, the industrial workers and the + women and the farmers and the negro race and the Asiatic colonies, and + even a few of the Respectables. It's all the same revolt, in all the + classes that have waited and taken advice. I think perhaps we want a more + conscious life. We're tired of drudging and sleeping and dying. We're + tired of seeing just a few people able to be individualists. We're tired + of always deferring hope till the next generation. We're tired of hearing + the politicians and priests and cautious reformers (and the husbands!) + coax us, 'Be calm! Be patient! Wait! We have the plans for a Utopia + already made; just give us a bit more time and we'll produce it; trust us; + we're wiser than you.' For ten thousand years they've said that. We want + our Utopia NOW—and we're going to try our hands at it. All we want + is—everything for all of us! For every housewife and every + longshoreman and every Hindu nationalist and every teacher. We want + everything. We shatn't get it. So we shatn't ever be content——” + </p> + <p> + She wondered why he was wincing. He broke in: + </p> + <p> + “See here, my dear, I certainly hope you don't class yourself with a lot + of trouble-making labor-leaders! Democracy is all right theoretically, and + I'll admit there are industrial injustices, but I'd rather have them than + see the world reduced to a dead level of mediocrity. I refuse to believe + that you have anything in common with a lot of laboring men rowing for + bigger wages so that they can buy wretched flivvers and hideous + player-pianos and——” + </p> + <p> + At this second, in Buenos Ayres, a newspaper editor broke his routine of + being bored by exchanges to assert, “Any injustice is better than seeing + the world reduced to a gray level of scientific dullness.” At this second + a clerk standing at the bar of a New York saloon stopped milling his + secret fear of his nagging office-manager long enough to growl at the + chauffeur beside him, “Aw, you socialists make me sick! I'm an + individualist. I ain't going to be nagged by no bureaus and take orders + off labor-leaders. And mean to say a hobo's as good as you and me?” + </p> + <p> + At this second Carol realized that for all Guy's love of dead elegances + his timidity was as depressing to her as the bulkiness of Sam Clark. She + realized that he was not a mystery, as she had excitedly believed; not a + romantic messenger from the World Outside on whom she could count for + escape. He belonged to Gopher Prairie, absolutely. She was snatched back + from a dream of far countries, and found herself on Main Street. + </p> + <p> + He was completing his protest, “You don't want to be mixed up in all this + orgy of meaningless discontent?” + </p> + <p> + She soothed him. “No, I don't. I'm not heroic. I'm scared by all the + fighting that's going on in the world. I want nobility and adventure, but + perhaps I want still more to curl on the hearth with some one I love.” + </p> + <p> + “Would you——” + </p> + <p> + He did not finish it. He picked up a handful of pop-corn, let it run + through his fingers, looked at her wistfully. + </p> + <p> + With the loneliness of one who has put away a possible love Carol saw that + he was a stranger. She saw that he had never been anything but a frame on + which she had hung shining garments. If she had let him diffidently make + love to her, it was not because she cared, but because she did not care, + because it did not matter. + </p> + <p> + She smiled at him with the exasperating tactfulness of a woman checking a + flirtation; a smile like an airy pat on the arm. She sighed, “You're a + dear to let me tell you my imaginary troubles.” She bounced up, and + trilled, “Shall we take the pop-corn in to them now?” + </p> + <p> + Guy looked after her desolately. + </p> + <p> + While she teased Vida and Kennicott she was repeating, “I must go on.” + </p> + <p> + VI + </p> + <p> + Miles Bjornstam, the pariah “Red Swede,” had brought his circular saw and + portable gasoline engine to the house, to cut the cords of poplar for the + kitchen range. Kennicott had given the order; Carol knew nothing of it + till she heard the ringing of the saw, and glanced out to see Bjornstam, + in black leather jacket and enormous ragged purple mittens, pressing + sticks against the whirling blade, and flinging the stove-lengths to one + side. The red irritable motor kept up a red irritable + “tip-tip-tip-tip-tip-tip.” The whine of the saw rose till it simulated the + shriek of a fire-alarm whistle at night, but always at the end it gave a + lively metallic clang, and in the stillness she heard the flump of the cut + stick falling on the pile. + </p> + <p> + She threw a motor robe over her, ran out. Bjornstam welcomed her, “Well, + well, well! Here's old Miles, fresh as ever. Well say, that's all right; + he ain't even begun to be cheeky yet; next summer he's going to take you + out on his horse-trading trip, clear into Idaho.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, and I may go!” + </p> + <p> + “How's tricks? Crazy about the town yet?” + </p> + <p> + “No, but I probably shall be, some day.” + </p> + <p> + “Don't let 'em get you. Kick 'em in the face!” + </p> + <p> + He shouted at her while he worked. The pile of stove-wood grew + astonishingly. The pale bark of the poplar sticks was mottled with lichens + of sage-green and dusty gray; the newly sawed ends were fresh-colored, + with the agreeable roughness of a woolen muffler. To the sterile winter + air the wood gave a scent of March sap. + </p> + <p> + Kennicott telephoned that he was going into the country. Bjornstam had not + finished his work at noon, and she invited him to have dinner with Bea in + the kitchen. She wished that she were independent enough to dine with + these her guests. She considered their friendliness, she sneered at + “social distinctions,” she raged at her own taboos—and she continued + to regard them as retainers and herself as a lady. She sat in the + dining-room and listened through the door to Bjornstam's booming and Bea's + giggles. She was the more absurd to herself in that, after the rite of + dining alone, she could go out to the kitchen, lean against the sink, and + talk to them. + </p> + <p> + They were attracted to each other; a Swedish Othello and Desdemona, more + useful and amiable than their prototypes. Bjornstam told his scapes: + selling horses in a Montana mining-camp, breaking a log-jam, being + impertinent to a “two-fisted” millionaire lumberman. Bea gurgled “Oh my!” + and kept his coffee cup filled. + </p> + <p> + He took a long time to finish the wood. He had frequently to go into the + kitchen to get warm. Carol heard him confiding to Bea, “You're a darn nice + Swede girl. I guess if I had a woman like you I wouldn't be such a + sorehead. Gosh, your kitchen is clean; makes an old bach feel sloppy. Say, + that's nice hair you got. Huh? Me fresh? Saaaay, girl, if I ever do get + fresh, you'll know it. Why, I could pick you up with one finger, and hold + you in the air long enough to read Robert J. Ingersoll clean through. + Ingersoll? Oh, he's a religious writer. Sure. You'd like him fine.” + </p> + <p> + When he drove off he waved to Bea; and Carol, lonely at the window above, + was envious of their pastoral. + </p> + <p> + “And I——But I will go on.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XVII + </h2> + <h3> + I + </h3> + <p> + THEY were driving down the lake to the cottages that moonlit January + night, twenty of them in the bob-sled. They sang “Toy Land” and “Seeing + Nelly Home”; they leaped from the low back of the sled to race over the + slippery snow ruts; and when they were tired they climbed on the runners + for a lift. The moon-tipped flakes kicked up by the horses settled over + the revelers and dripped down their necks, but they laughed, yelped, beat + their leather mittens against their chests. The harness rattled, the + sleigh-bells were frantic, Jack Elder's setter sprang beside the horses, + barking. + </p> + <p> + For a time Carol raced with them. The cold air gave fictive power. She + felt that she could run on all night, leap twenty feet at a stride. But + the excess of energy tired her, and she was glad to snuggle under the + comforters which covered the hay in the sled-box. + </p> + <p> + In the midst of the babel she found enchanted quietude. + </p> + <p> + Along the road the shadows from oak-branches were inked on the snow like + bars of music. Then the sled came out on the surface of Lake Minniemashie. + Across the thick ice was a veritable road, a short-cut for farmers. On the + glaring expanse of the lake-levels of hard crust, flashes of green ice + blown clear, chains of drifts ribbed like the sea-beach—the + moonlight was overwhelming. It stormed on the snow, it turned the woods + ashore into crystals of fire. The night was tropical and voluptuous. In + that drugged magic there was no difference between heavy heat and + insinuating cold. + </p> + <p> + Carol was dream-strayed. The turbulent voices, even Guy Pollock being + connotative beside her, were nothing. She repeated: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Deep on the convent-roof the snows + Are sparkling to the moon. +</pre> + <p> + The words and the light blurred into one vast indefinite happiness, and + she believed that some great thing was coming to her. She withdrew from + the clamor into a worship of incomprehensible gods. The night expanded, + she was conscious of the universe, and all mysteries stooped down to her. + </p> + <p> + She was jarred out of her ecstasy as the bob-sled bumped up the steep road + to the bluff where stood the cottages. + </p> + <p> + They dismounted at Jack Elder's shack. The interior walls of unpainted + boards, which had been grateful in August, were forbidding in the chill. + In fur coats and mufflers tied over caps they were a strange company, + bears and walruses talking. Jack Elder lighted the shavings waiting in the + belly of a cast-iron stove which was like an enlarged bean-pot. They piled + their wraps high on a rocker, and cheered the rocker as it solemnly tipped + over backward. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Elder and Mrs. Sam Clark made coffee in an enormous blackened tin + pot; Vida Sherwin and Mrs. McGanum unpacked doughnuts and gingerbread; + Mrs. Dave Dyer warmed up “hot dogs”—frankfurters in rolls; Dr. Terry + Gould, after announcing, “Ladies and gents, prepare to be shocked; shock + line forms on the right,” produced a bottle of bourbon whisky. + </p> + <p> + The others danced, muttering “Ouch!” as their frosted feet struck the pine + planks. Carol had lost her dream. Harry Haydock lifted her by the waist + and swung her. She laughed. The gravity of the people who stood apart and + talked made her the more impatient for frolic. + </p> + <p> + Kennicott, Sam Clark, Jackson Elder, young Dr. McGanum, and James Madison + Howland, teetering on their toes near the stove, conversed with the sedate + pomposity of the commercialist. In details the men were unlike, yet they + said the same things in the same hearty monotonous voices. You had to look + at them to see which was speaking. + </p> + <p> + “Well, we made pretty good time coming up,” from one—any one. + </p> + <p> + “Yump, we hit it up after we struck the good going on the lake.” + </p> + <p> + “Seems kind of slow though, after driving an auto.” + </p> + <p> + “Yump, it does, at that. Say, how'd you make out with that Sphinx tire you + got?” + </p> + <p> + “Seems to hold out fine. Still, I don't know's I like it any better than + the Roadeater Cord.” + </p> + <p> + “Yump, nothing better than a Roadeater. Especially the cord. The cord's + lots better than the fabric.” + </p> + <p> + “Yump, you said something——Roadeater's a good tire.” + </p> + <p> + “Say, how'd you come out with Pete Garsheim on his payments?” + </p> + <p> + “He's paying up pretty good. That's a nice piece of land he's got.” + </p> + <p> + “Yump, that's a dandy farm.” + </p> + <p> + “Yump, Pete's got a good place there.” + </p> + <p> + They glided from these serious topics into the jocose insults which are + the wit of Main Street. Sam Clark was particularly apt at them. “What's + this wild-eyed sale of summer caps you think you're trying to pull off?” + he clamored at Harry Haydock. “Did you steal 'em, or are you just + overcharging us, as usual? . . . Oh say, speaking about caps, d'I ever + tell you the good one I've got on Will? The doc thinks he's a pretty good + driver, fact, he thinks he's almost got human intelligence, but one time + he had his machine out in the rain, and the poor fish, he hadn't put on + chains, and thinks I——” + </p> + <p> + Carol had heard the story rather often. She fled back to the dancers, and + at Dave Dyer's masterstroke of dropping an icicle down Mrs. McGanum's back + she applauded hysterically. + </p> + <p> + They sat on the floor, devouring the food. The men giggled amiably as they + passed the whisky bottle, and laughed, “There's a real sport!” when + Juanita Haydock took a sip. Carol tried to follow; she believed that she + desired to be drunk and riotous; but the whisky choked her and as she saw + Kennicott frown she handed the bottle on repentantly. Somewhat too late + she remembered that she had given up domesticity and repentance. + </p> + <p> + “Let's play charades!” said Raymie Wutherspoon. + </p> + <p> + “Oh yes, do let us,” said Ella Stowbody. + </p> + <p> + “That's the caper,” sanctioned Harry Haydock. + </p> + <p> + They interpreted the word “making” as May and King. The crown was a red + flannel mitten cocked on Sam Clark's broad pink bald head. They forgot + they were respectable. They made-believe. Carol was stimulated to cry: + </p> + <p> + “Let's form a dramatic club and give a play! Shall we? It's been so much + fun tonight!” + </p> + <p> + They looked affable. + </p> + <p> + “Sure,” observed Sam Clark loyally. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, do let us! I think it would be lovely to present 'Romeo and Juliet'!” + yearned Ella Stowbody. + </p> + <p> + “Be a whale of a lot of fun,” Dr. Terry Gould granted. + </p> + <p> + “But if we did,” Carol cautioned, “it would be awfully silly to have + amateur theatricals. We ought to paint our own scenery and everything, and + really do something fine. There'd be a lot of hard work. Would you—would + we all be punctual at rehearsals, do you suppose?” + </p> + <p> + “You bet!” “Sure.” “That's the idea.” “Fellow ought to be prompt at + rehearsals,” they all agreed. + </p> + <p> + “Then let's meet next week and form the Gopher Prairie Dramatic + Association!” Carol sang. + </p> + <p> + She drove home loving these friends who raced through moonlit snow, had + Bohemian parties, and were about to create beauty in the theater. + Everything was solved. She would be an authentic part of the town, yet + escape the coma of the Village Virus. . . . She would be free of Kennicott + again, without hurting him, without his knowing. + </p> + <p> + She had triumphed. + </p> + <p> + The moon was small and high now, and unheeding. + </p> + <p> + II + </p> + <p> + Though they had all been certain that they longed for the privilege of + attending committee meetings and rehearsals, the dramatic association as + definitely formed consisted only of Kennicott, Carol, Guy Pollock, Vida + Sherwin, Ella Stowbody, the Harry Haydocks, the Dave Dyers, Raymie + Wutherspoon, Dr. Terry Gould, and four new candidates: flirtatious Rita + Simons, Dr. and Mrs. Harvey Dillon and Myrtle Cass, an uncomely but + intense girl of nineteen. Of these fifteen only seven came to the first + meeting. The rest telephoned their unparalleled regrets and engagements + and illnesses, and announced that they would be present at all other + meetings through eternity. + </p> + <p> + Carol was made president and director. + </p> + <p> + She had added the Dillons. Despite Kennicott's apprehension the dentist + and his wife had not been taken up by the Westlakes but had remained as + definitely outside really smart society as Willis Woodford, who was + teller, bookkeeper, and janitor in Stowbody's bank. Carol had noted Mrs. + Dillon dragging past the house during a bridge of the Jolly Seventeen, + looking in with pathetic lips at the splendor of the accepted. She + impulsively invited the Dillons to the dramatic association meeting, and + when Kennicott was brusque to them she was unusually cordial, and felt + virtuous. + </p> + <p> + That self-approval balanced her disappointment at the smallness of the + meeting, and her embarrassment during Raymie Wutherspoon's repetitions of + “The stage needs uplifting,” and “I believe that there are great lessons + in some plays.” + </p> + <p> + Ella Stowbody, who was a professional, having studied elocution in + Milwaukee, disapproved of Carol's enthusiasm for recent plays. Miss + Stowbody expressed the fundamental principle of the American drama: the + only way to be artistic is to present Shakespeare. As no one listened to + her she sat back and looked like Lady Macbeth. + </p> + <p> + III + </p> + <p> + The Little Theaters, which were to give piquancy to American drama three + or four years later, were only in embryo. But of this fast coming revolt + Carol had premonitions. She knew from some lost magazine article that in + Dublin were innovators called The Irish Players. She knew confusedly that + a man named Gordon Craig had painted scenery—or had he written + plays? She felt that in the turbulence of the drama she was discovering a + history more important than the commonplace chronicles which dealt with + senators and their pompous puerilities. She had a sensation of + familiarity; a dream of sitting in a Brussels cafe and going afterward to + a tiny gay theater under a cathedral wall. + </p> + <p> + The advertisement in the Minneapolis paper leaped from the page to her + eyes: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + The Cosmos School of Music, Oratory, and + Dramatic Art announces a program of four + one-act plays by Schnitzler, Shaw, Yeats, + and Lord Dunsany. +</pre> + <p> + She had to be there! She begged Kennicott to “run down to the Cities” with + her. + </p> + <p> + “Well, I don't know. Be fun to take in a show, but why the deuce do you + want to see those darn foreign plays, given by a lot of amateurs? Why + don't you wait for a regular play, later on? There's going to be some + corkers coming: 'Lottie of Two-Gun Rancho,' and 'Cops and Crooks'—real + Broadway stuff, with the New York casts. What's this junk you want to see? + Hm. 'How He Lied to Her Husband.' That doesn't listen so bad. Sounds racy. + And, uh, well, I could go to the motor show, I suppose. I'd like to see + this new Hup roadster. Well——” + </p> + <p> + She never knew which attraction made him decide. + </p> + <p> + She had four days of delightful worry—over the hole in her one good + silk petticoat, the loss of a string of beads from her chiffon and brown + velvet frock, the catsup stain on her best georgette crepe blouse. She + wailed, “I haven't a single solitary thing that's fit to be seen in,” and + enjoyed herself very much indeed. + </p> + <p> + Kennicott went about casually letting people know that he was “going to + run down to the Cities and see some shows.” + </p> + <p> + As the train plodded through the gray prairie, on a windless day with the + smoke from the engine clinging to the fields in giant cotton-rolls, in a + low and writhing wall which shut off the snowy fields, she did not look + out of the window. She closed her eyes and hummed, and did not know that + she was humming. + </p> + <p> + She was the young poet attacking fame and Paris. + </p> + <p> + In the Minneapolis station the crowd of lumberjacks, farmers, and Swedish + families with innumerous children and grandparents and paper parcels, + their foggy crowding and their clamor confused her. She felt rustic in + this once familiar city, after a year and a half of Gopher Prairie. She + was certain that Kennicott was taking the wrong trolley-car. By dusk, the + liquor warehouses, Hebraic clothing-shops, and lodging-houses on lower + Hennepin Avenue were smoky, hideous, ill-tempered. She was battered by the + noise and shuttling of the rush-hour traffic. When a clerk in an overcoat + too closely fitted at the waist stared at her, she moved nearer to + Kennicott's arm. The clerk was flippant and urban. He was a superior + person, used to this tumult. Was he laughing at her? + </p> + <p> + For a moment she wanted the secure quiet of Gopher Prairie. + </p> + <p> + In the hotel-lobby she was self-conscious. She was not used to hotels; she + remembered with jealousy how often Juanita Haydock talked of the famous + hotels in Chicago. She could not face the traveling salesmen, baronial in + large leather chairs. She wanted people to believe that her husband and + she were accustomed to luxury and chill elegance; she was faintly angry at + him for the vulgar way in which, after signing the register “Dr. W. P. + Kennicott & wife,” he bellowed at the clerk, “Got a nice room with + bath for us, old man?” She gazed about haughtily, but as she discovered + that no one was interested in her she felt foolish, and ashamed of her + irritation. + </p> + <p> + She asserted, “This silly lobby is too florid,” and simultaneously she + admired it: the onyx columns with gilt capitals, the crown-embroidered + velvet curtains at the restaurant door, the silk-roped alcove where pretty + girls perpetually waited for mysterious men, the two-pound boxes of candy + and the variety of magazines at the news-stand. The hidden orchestra was + lively. She saw a man who looked like a European diplomat, in a loose + top-coat and a Homburg hat. A woman with a broadtail coat, a heavy lace + veil, pearl earrings, and a close black hat entered the restaurant. + “Heavens! That's the first really smart woman I've seen in a year!” Carol + exulted. She felt metropolitan. + </p> + <p> + But as she followed Kennicott to the elevator the coat-check girl, a + confident young woman, with cheeks powdered like lime, and a blouse low + and thin and furiously crimson, inspected her, and under that supercilious + glance Carol was shy again. She unconsciously waited for the bellboy to + precede her into the elevator. When he snorted “Go ahead!” she was + mortified. He thought she was a hayseed, she worried. + </p> + <p> + The moment she was in their room, with the bellboy safely out of the way, + she looked critically at Kennicott. For the first time in months she + really saw him. + </p> + <p> + His clothes were too heavy and provincial. His decent gray suit, made by + Nat Hicks of Gopher Prairie, might have been of sheet iron; it had no + distinction of cut, no easy grace like the diplomat's Burberry. His black + shoes were blunt and not well polished. His scarf was a stupid brown. He + needed a shave. + </p> + <p> + But she forgot her doubt as she realized the ingenuities of the room. She + ran about, turning on the taps of the bathtub, which gushed instead of + dribbling like the taps at home, snatching the new wash-rag out of its + envelope of oiled paper, trying the rose-shaded light between the twin + beds, pulling out the drawers of the kidney-shaped walnut desk to examine + the engraved stationery, planning to write on it to every one she knew, + admiring the claret-colored velvet armchair and the blue rug, testing the + ice-water tap, and squealing happily when the water really did come out + cold. She flung her arms about Kennicott, kissed him. + </p> + <p> + “Like it, old lady?” + </p> + <p> + “It's adorable. It's so amusing. I love you for bringing me. You really + are a dear!” + </p> + <p> + He looked blankly indulgent, and yawned, and condescended, “That's a + pretty slick arrangement on the radiator, so you can adjust it at any + temperature you want. Must take a big furnace to run this place. Gosh, I + hope Bea remembers to turn off the drafts tonight.” + </p> + <p> + Under the glass cover of the dressing-table was a menu with the most + enchanting dishes: breast of guinea hen De Vitresse, pommes de terre a la + Russe, meringue Chantilly, gateaux Bruxelles. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, let's——I'm going to have a hot bath, and put on my new + hat with the wool flowers, and let's go down and eat for hours, and we'll + have a cocktail!” she chanted. + </p> + <p> + While Kennicott labored over ordering it was annoying to see him permit + the waiter to be impertinent, but as the cocktail elevated her to a bridge + among colored stars, as the oysters came in—not canned oysters in + the Gopher Prairie fashion, but on the half-shell—she cried, “If you + only knew how wonderful it is not to have had to plan this dinner, and + order it at the butcher's and fuss and think about it, and then watch Bea + cook it! I feel so free. And to have new kinds of food, and different + patterns of dishes and linen, and not worry about whether the pudding is + being spoiled! Oh, this is a great moment for me!” + </p> + <p> + IV + </p> + <p> + They had all the experiences of provincials in a metropolis. After + breakfast Carol bustled to a hair-dresser's, bought gloves and a blouse, + and importantly met Kennicott in front of an optician's, in accordance + with plans laid down, revised, and verified. They admired the diamonds and + furs and frosty silverware and mahogany chairs and polished morocco + sewing-boxes in shop-windows, and were abashed by the throngs in the + department-stores, and were bullied by a clerk into buying too many shirts + for Kennicott, and gaped at the “clever novelty perfumes—just in + from New York.” Carol got three books on the theater, and spent an + exultant hour in warning herself that she could not afford this rajah-silk + frock, in thinking how envious it would make Juanita Haydock, in closing + her eyes, and buying it. Kennicott went from shop to shop, earnestly + hunting down a felt-covered device to keep the windshield of his car clear + of rain. + </p> + <p> + They dined extravagantly at their hotel at night, and next morning sneaked + round the corner to economize at a Childs' Restaurant. They were tired by + three in the afternoon, and dozed at the motion-pictures and said they + wished they were back in Gopher Prairie—and by eleven in the evening + they were again so lively that they went to a Chinese restaurant that was + frequented by clerks and their sweethearts on pay-days. They sat at a teak + and marble table eating Eggs Fooyung, and listened to a brassy automatic + piano, and were altogether cosmopolitan. + </p> + <p> + On the street they met people from home—the McGanums. They laughed, + shook hands repeatedly, and exclaimed, “Well, this is quite a + coincidence!” They asked when the McGanums had come down, and begged for + news of the town they had left two days before. Whatever the McGanums were + at home, here they stood out as so superior to all the undistinguishable + strangers absurdly hurrying past that the Kennicotts held them as long as + they could. The McGanums said good-by as though they were going to Tibet + instead of to the station to catch No. 7 north. + </p> + <p> + They explored Minneapolis. Kennicott was conversational and technical + regarding gluten and cockle-cylinders and No. I Hard, when they were shown + through the gray stone hulks and new cement elevators of the largest + flour-mills in the world. They looked across Loring Park and the Parade to + the towers of St. Mark's and the Procathedral, and the red roofs of houses + climbing Kenwood Hill. They drove about the chain of garden-circled lakes, + and viewed the houses of the millers and lumbermen and real estate peers—the + potentates of the expanding city. They surveyed the small eccentric + bungalows with pergolas, the houses of pebbledash and tapestry brick with + sleeping-porches above sun-parlors, and one vast incredible chateau + fronting the Lake of the Isles. They tramped through a shining-new section + of apartment-houses; not the tall bleak apartments of Eastern cities but + low structures of cheerful yellow brick, in which each flat had its + glass-enclosed porch with swinging couch and scarlet cushions and Russian + brass bowls. Between a waste of tracks and a raw gouged hill they found + poverty in staggering shanties. + </p> + <p> + They saw miles of the city which they had never known in their days of + absorption in college. They were distinguished explorers, and they + remarked, in great mutual esteem, “I bet Harry Haydock's never seen the + City like this! Why, he'd never have sense enough to study the machinery + in the mills, or go through all these outlying districts. Wonder folks in + Gopher Prairie wouldn't use their legs and explore, the way we do!” + </p> + <p> + They had two meals with Carol's sister, and were bored, and felt that + intimacy which beatifies married people when they suddenly admit that they + equally dislike a relative of either of them. + </p> + <p> + So it was with affection but also with weariness that they approached the + evening on which Carol was to see the plays at the dramatic school. + Kennicott suggested not going. “So darn tired from all this walking; don't + know but what we better turn in early and get rested up.” It was only from + duty that Carol dragged him and herself out of the warm hotel, into a + stinking trolley, up the brownstone steps of the converted residence which + lugubriously housed the dramatic school. + </p> + <p> + V + </p> + <p> + They were in a long whitewashed hall with a clumsy draw-curtain across the + front. The folding chairs were filled with people who looked washed and + ironed: parents of the pupils, girl students, dutiful teachers. + </p> + <p> + “Strikes me it's going to be punk. If the first play isn't good, let's + beat it,” said Kennicott hopefully. + </p> + <p> + “All right,” she yawned. With hazy eyes she tried to read the lists of + characters, which were hidden among lifeless advertisements of pianos, + music-dealers, restaurants, candy. + </p> + <p> + She regarded the Schnitzler play with no vast interest. The actors moved + and spoke stiffly. Just as its cynicism was beginning to rouse her + village-dulled frivolity, it was over. + </p> + <p> + “Don't think a whale of a lot of that. How about taking a sneak?” + petitioned Kennicott. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, let's try the next one, 'How He Lied to Her Husband.'” + </p> + <p> + The Shaw conceit amused her, and perplexed Kennicott: + </p> + <p> + “Strikes me it's darn fresh. Thought it would be racy. Don't know as I + think much of a play where a husband actually claims he wants a fellow to + make love to his wife. No husband ever did that! Shall we shake a leg?” + </p> + <p> + “I want to see this Yeats thing, 'Land of Heart's Desire.' I used to love + it in college.” She was awake now, and urgent. “I know you didn't care so + much for Yeats when I read him aloud to you, but you just see if you don't + adore him on the stage.” + </p> + <p> + Most of the cast were as unwieldy as oak chairs marching, and the setting + was an arty arrangement of batik scarfs and heavy tables, but Maire Bruin + was slim as Carol, and larger-eyed, and her voice was a morning bell. In + her, Carol lived, and on her lifting voice was transported from this + sleepy small-town husband and all the rows of polite parents to the stilly + loft of a thatched cottage where in a green dimness, beside a window + caressed by linden branches, she bent over a chronicle of twilight women + and the ancient gods. + </p> + <p> + “Well—gosh—nice kid played that girl—good-looker,” said + Kennicott. “Want to stay for the last piece? Heh?” + </p> + <p> + She shivered. She did not answer. + </p> + <p> + The curtain was again drawn aside. On the stage they saw nothing but long + green curtains and a leather chair. Two young men in brown robes like + furniture-covers were gesturing vacuously and droning cryptic sentences + full of repetitions. + </p> + <p> + It was Carol's first hearing of Dunsany. She sympathized with the restless + Kennicott as he felt in his pocket for a cigar and unhappily put it back. + </p> + <p> + Without understanding when or how, without a tangible change in the + stilted intoning of the stage-puppets, she was conscious of another time + and place. + </p> + <p> + Stately and aloof among vainglorious tiring-maids, a queen in robes that + murmured on the marble floor, she trod the gallery of a crumbling palace. + In the courtyard, elephants trumpeted, and swart men with beards dyed + crimson stood with blood-stained hands folded upon their hilts, guarding + the caravan from El Sharnak, the camels with Tyrian stuffs of topaz and + cinnabar. Beyond the turrets of the outer wall the jungle glared and + shrieked, and the sun was furious above drenched orchids. A youth came + striding through the steel-bossed doors, the sword-bitten doors that were + higher than ten tall men. He was in flexible mail, and under the rim of + his planished morion were amorous curls. His hand was out to her; before + she touched it she could feel its warmth—— + </p> + <p> + “Gosh all hemlock! What the dickens is all this stuff about, Carrie?” + </p> + <p> + She was no Syrian queen. She was Mrs. Dr. Kennicott. She fell with a jolt + into a whitewashed hall and sat looking at two scared girls and a young + man in wrinkled tights. + </p> + <p> + Kennicott fondly rambled as they left the hall: + </p> + <p> + “What the deuce did that last spiel mean? Couldn't make head or tail of + it. If that's highbrow drama, give me a cow-puncher movie, every time! + Thank God, that's over, and we can get to bed. Wonder if we wouldn't make + time by walking over to Nicollet to take a car? One thing I will say for + that dump: they had it warm enough. Must have a big hot-air furnace, I + guess. Wonder how much coal it takes to run 'em through the winter?” + </p> + <p> + In the car he affectionately patted her knee, and he was for a second the + striding youth in armor; then he was Doc Kennicott of Gopher Prairie, and + she was recaptured by Main Street. Never, not all her life, would she + behold jungles and the tombs of kings. There were strange things in the + world, they really existed; but she would never see them. + </p> + <p> + She would recreate them in plays! + </p> + <p> + She would make the dramatic association understand her aspiration. They + would, surely they would—— + </p> + <p> + She looked doubtfully at the impenetrable reality of yawning trolley + conductor and sleepy passengers and placards advertising soap and + underwear. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XVIII + </h2> + <h3> + I + </h3> + <p> + SHE hurried to the first meeting of the play-reading committee. Her jungle + romance had faded, but she retained a religious fervor, a surge of + half-formed thought about the creation of beauty by suggestion. + </p> + <p> + A Dunsany play would be too difficult for the Gopher Prairie association. + She would let them compromise on Shaw—on “Androcles and the Lion,” + which had just been published. + </p> + <p> + The committee was composed of Carol, Vida Sherwin, Guy Pollock, Raymie + Wutherspoon, and Juanita Haydock. They were exalted by the picture of + themselves as being simultaneously business-like and artistic. They were + entertained by Vida in the parlor of Mrs. Elisha Gurrey's boarding-house, + with its steel engraving of Grant at Appomattox, its basket of + stereoscopic views, and its mysterious stains on the gritty carpet. + </p> + <p> + Vida was an advocate of culture-buying and efficiency-systems. She hinted + that they ought to have (as at the committee-meetings of the Thanatopsis) + a “regular order of business,” and “the reading of the minutes,” but as + there were no minutes to read, and as no one knew exactly what was the + regular order of the business of being literary, they had to give up + efficiency. + </p> + <p> + Carol, as chairman, said politely, “Have you any ideas about what play + we'd better give first?” She waited for them to look abashed and vacant, + so that she might suggest “Androcles.” + </p> + <p> + Guy Pollock answered with disconcerting readiness, “I'll tell you: since + we're going to try to do something artistic, and not simply fool around, I + believe we ought to give something classic. How about 'The School for + Scandal'?” + </p> + <p> + “Why——Don't you think that has been done a good deal?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, perhaps it has.” + </p> + <p> + Carol was ready to say, “How about Bernard Shaw?” when he treacherously + went on, “How would it be then to give a Greek drama—say 'Oedipus + Tyrannus'?” + </p> + <p> + “Why, I don't believe——” + </p> + <p> + Vida Sherwin intruded, “I'm sure that would be too hard for us. Now I've + brought something that I think would be awfully jolly.” + </p> + <p> + She held out, and Carol incredulously took, a thin gray pamphlet entitled + “McGinerty's Mother-in-law.” It was the sort of farce which is advertised + in “school entertainment” catalogues as: + </p> + <p> + Riproaring knock-out, 5 m. 3 f., time 2 hrs., interior set, popular with + churches and all high-class occasions. + </p> + <p> + Carol glanced from the scabrous object to Vida, and realized that she was + not joking. + </p> + <p> + “But this is—this is—why, it's just a——Why, Vida, + I thought you appreciated—well—appreciated art.” + </p> + <p> + Vida snorted, “Oh. Art. Oh yes. I do like art. It's very nice. But after + all, what does it matter what kind of play we give as long as we get the + association started? The thing that matters is something that none of you + have spoken of, that is: what are we going to do with the money, if we + make any? I think it would be awfully nice if we presented the high school + with a full set of Stoddard's travel-lectures!” + </p> + <p> + Carol moaned, “Oh, but Vida dear, do forgive me but this farce——Now + what I'd like us to give is something distinguished. Say Shaw's + 'Androcles.' Have any of you read it?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. Good play,” said Guy Pollock. + </p> + <p> + Then Raymie Wutherspoon astoundingly spoke up: + </p> + <p> + “So have I. I read through all the plays in the public library, so's to be + ready for this meeting. And——But I don't believe you grasp the + irreligious ideas in this 'Androcles,' Mrs. Kennicott. I guess the + feminine mind is too innocent to understand all these immoral writers. I'm + sure I don't want to criticize Bernard Shaw; I understand he is very + popular with the highbrows in Minneapolis; but just the same——As + far as I can make out, he's downright improper! The things he SAYS——Well, + it would be a very risky thing for our young folks to see. It seems to me + that a play that doesn't leave a nice taste in the mouth and that hasn't + any message is nothing but—nothing but——Well, whatever + it may be, it isn't art. So——Now I've found a play that is + clean, and there's some awfully funny scenes in it, too. I laughed out + loud, reading it. It's called 'His Mother's Heart,' and it's about a young + man in college who gets in with a lot of free-thinkers and boozers and + everything, but in the end his mother's influence——” + </p> + <p> + Juanita Haydock broke in with a derisive, “Oh rats, Raymie! Can the + mother's influence! I say let's give something with some class to it. I + bet we could get the rights to 'The Girl from Kankakee,' and that's a real + show. It ran for eleven months in New York!” + </p> + <p> + “That would be lots of fun, if it wouldn't cost too much,” reflected Vida. + </p> + <p> + Carol's was the only vote cast against “The Girl from Kankakee.” + </p> + <p> + II + </p> + <p> + She disliked “The Girl from Kankakee” even more than she had expected. It + narrated the success of a farm-lassie in clearing her brother of a charge + of forgery. She became secretary to a New York millionaire and social + counselor to his wife; and after a well-conceived speech on the discomfort + of having money, she married his son. + </p> + <p> + There was also a humorous office-boy. + </p> + <p> + Carol discerned that both Juanita Haydock and Ella Stowbody wanted the + lead. She let Juanita have it. Juanita kissed her and in the exuberant + manner of a new star presented to the executive committee her theory, + “What we want in a play is humor and pep. There's where American + playwrights put it all over these darn old European glooms.” + </p> + <p> + As selected by Carol and confirmed by the committee, the persons of the + play were: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + John Grimm, a millionaire . . . . Guy Pollock + His wife. . . . . . . . . Miss Vida Sherwin + His son . . . . . . . . . Dr. Harvey Dillon + His business rival. . . . . . . Raymond T. Wutherspoon + Friend of Mrs. Grimm . . . . . . Miss Ella Stowbody + The girl from Kankakee . . . . . Mrs. Harold C. Haydock + Her brother. . . . . . . . Dr. Terence Gould + Her mother . . . . . . . . Mrs. David Dyer + Stenographer . . . . . . . . Miss Rita Simons + Office-boy . . . . . . . . Miss Myrtle Cass + Maid in the Grimms' home . . . . Mrs. W. P. Kennicott + Direction of Mrs. Kennicott +</pre> + <p> + Among the minor lamentations was Maud Dyer's “Well of course I suppose I + look old enough to be Juanita's mother, even if Juanita is eight months + older than I am, but I don't know as I care to have everybody noticing it + and——” + </p> + <p> + Carol pleaded, “Oh, my DEAR! You two look exactly the same age. I chose + you because you have such a darling complexion, and you know with powder + and a white wig, anybody looks twice her age, and I want the mother to be + sweet, no matter who else is.” + </p> + <p> + Ella Stowbody, the professional, perceiving that it was because of a + conspiracy of jealousy that she had been given a small part, alternated + between lofty amusement and Christian patience. + </p> + <p> + Carol hinted that the play would be improved by cutting, but as every + actor except Vida and Guy and herself wailed at the loss of a single line, + she was defeated. She told herself that, after all, a great deal could be + done with direction and settings. + </p> + <p> + Sam Clark had boastfully written about the dramatic association to his + schoolmate, Percy Bresnahan, president of the Velvet Motor Company of + Boston. Bresnahan sent a check for a hundred dollars; Sam added + twenty-five and brought the fund to Carol, fondly crying, “There! That'll + give you a start for putting the thing across swell!” + </p> + <p> + She rented the second floor of the city hall for two months. All through + the spring the association thrilled to its own talent in that dismal room. + They cleared out the bunting, ballot-boxes, handbills, legless chairs. + They attacked the stage. It was a simple-minded stage. It was raised above + the floor, and it did have a movable curtain, painted with the + advertisement of a druggist dead these ten years, but otherwise it might + not have been recognized as a stage. There were two dressing-rooms, one + for men, one for women, on either side. The dressing-room doors were also + the stage-entrances, opening from the house, and many a citizen of Gopher + Prairie had for his first glimpse of romance the bare shoulders of the + leading woman. + </p> + <p> + There were three sets of scenery: a woodland, a Poor Interior, and a Rich + Interior, the last also useful for railway stations, offices, and as a + background for the Swedish Quartette from Chicago. There were three + gradations of lighting: full on, half on, and entirely off. + </p> + <p> + This was the only theater in Gopher Prairie. It was known as the “op'ra + house.” Once, strolling companies had used it for performances of “The Two + Orphans,” and “Nellie the Beautiful Cloak Model,” and “Othello” with + specialties between acts, but now the motion-pictures had ousted the gipsy + drama. + </p> + <p> + Carol intended to be furiously modern in constructing the office-set, the + drawing-room for Mr. Grimm, and the Humble Home near Kankakee. It was the + first time that any one in Gopher Prairie had been so revolutionary as to + use enclosed scenes with continuous side-walls. The rooms in the op'ra + house sets had separate wing-pieces for sides, which simplified + dramaturgy, as the villain could always get out of the hero's way by + walking out through the wall. + </p> + <p> + The inhabitants of the Humble Home were supposed to be amiable and + intelligent. Carol planned for them a simple set with warm color. She + could see the beginning of the play: all dark save the high settles and + the solid wooden table between them, which were to be illuminated by a ray + from offstage. The high light was a polished copper pot filled with + primroses. Less clearly she sketched the Grimm drawing-room as a series of + cool high white arches. + </p> + <p> + As to how she was to produce these effects she had no notion. + </p> + <p> + She discovered that, despite the enthusiastic young writers, the drama was + not half so native and close to the soil as motor cars and telephones. She + discovered that simple arts require sophisticated training. She discovered + that to produce one perfect stage-picture would be as difficult as to turn + all of Gopher Prairie into a Georgian garden. + </p> + <p> + She read all she could find regarding staging, she bought paint and light + wood; she borrowed furniture and drapes unscrupulously; she made Kennicott + turn carpenter. She collided with the problem of lighting. Against the + protest of Kennicott and Vida she mortgaged the association by sending to + Minneapolis for a baby spotlight, a strip light, a dimming device, and + blue and amber bulbs; and with the gloating rapture of a born painter + first turned loose among colors, she spent absorbed evenings in grouping, + dimming-painting with lights. + </p> + <p> + Only Kennicott, Guy, and Vida helped her. They speculated as to how flats + could be lashed together to form a wall; they hung crocus-yellow curtains + at the windows; they blacked the sheet-iron stove; they put on aprons and + swept. The rest of the association dropped into the theater every evening, + and were literary and superior. They had borrowed Carol's manuals of + play-production and had become extremely stagey in vocabulary. + </p> + <p> + Juanita Haydock, Rita Simons, and Raymie Wutherspoon sat on a sawhorse, + watching Carol try to get the right position for a picture on the wall in + the first scene. + </p> + <p> + “I don't want to hand myself anything but I believe I'll give a swell + performance in this first act,” confided Juanita. “I wish Carol wasn't so + bossy though. She doesn't understand clothes. I want to wear, oh, a dandy + dress I have—all scarlet—and I said to her, 'When I enter + wouldn't it knock their eyes out if I just stood there at the door in this + straight scarlet thing?' But she wouldn't let me.” + </p> + <p> + Young Rita agreed, “She's so much taken up with her old details and + carpentering and everything that she can't see the picture as a whole. Now + I thought it would be lovely if we had an office-scene like the one in + 'Little, But Oh My!' Because I SAW that, in Duluth. But she simply + wouldn't listen at all.” + </p> + <p> + Juanita sighed, “I wanted to give one speech like Ethel Barrymore would, + if she was in a play like this. (Harry and I heard her one time in + Minneapolis—we had dandy seats, in the orchestra—I just know I + could imitate her.) Carol didn't pay any attention to my suggestion. I + don't want to criticize but I guess Ethel knows more about acting than + Carol does!” + </p> + <p> + “Say, do you think Carol has the right dope about using a strip light + behind the fireplace in the second act? I told her I thought we ought to + use a bunch,” offered Raymie. “And I suggested it would be lovely if we + used a cyclorama outside the window in the first act, and what do you + think she said? 'Yes, and it would be lovely to have Eleanora Duse play + the lead,' she said, 'and aside from the fact that it's evening in the + first act, you're a great technician,' she said. I must say I think she + was pretty sarcastic. I've been reading up, and I know I could build a + cyclorama, if she didn't want to run everything.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, and another thing, I think the entrance in the first act ought to be + L. U. E., not L. 3 E.,” from Juanita. + </p> + <p> + “And why does she just use plain white tormenters?” + </p> + <p> + “What's a tormenter?” blurted Rita Simons. + </p> + <p> + The savants stared at her ignorance. + </p> + <p> + III + </p> + <p> + Carol did not resent their criticisms, she didn't very much resent their + sudden knowledge, so long as they let her make pictures. It was at + rehearsals that the quarrrels broke. No one understood that rehearsals + were as real engagements as bridge-games or sociables at the Episcopal + Church. They gaily came in half an hour late, or they vociferously came in + ten minutes early, and they were so hurt that they whispered about + resigning when Carol protested. They telephoned, “I don't think I'd better + come out; afraid the dampness might start my toothache,” or “Guess can't + make it tonight; Dave wants me to sit in on a poker game.” + </p> + <p> + When, after a month of labor, as many as nine-elevenths of the cast were + often present at a rehearsal; when most of them had learned their parts + and some of them spoke like human beings, Carol had a new shock in the + realization that Guy Pollock and herself were very bad actors, and that + Raymie Wutherspoon was a surprisingly good one. For all her visions she + could not control her voice, and she was bored by the fiftieth repetition + of her few lines as maid. Guy pulled his soft mustache, looked + self-conscious, and turned Mr. Grimm into a limp dummy. But Raymie, as the + villain, had no repressions. The tilt of his head was full of character; + his drawl was admirably vicious. + </p> + <p> + There was an evening when Carol hoped she was going to make a play; a + rehearsal during which Guy stopped looking abashed. + </p> + <p> + From that evening the play declined. + </p> + <p> + They were weary. “We know our parts well enough now; what's the use of + getting sick of them?” they complained. They began to skylark; to play + with the sacred lights; to giggle when Carol was trying to make the + sentimental Myrtle Cass into a humorous office-boy; to act everything but + “The Girl from Kankakee.” After loafing through his proper part Dr. Terry + Gould had great applause for his burlesque of “Hamlet.” Even Raymie lost + his simple faith, and tried to show that he could do a vaudeville shuffle. + </p> + <p> + Carol turned on the company. “See here, I want this nonsense to stop. + We've simply got to get down to work.” + </p> + <p> + Juanita Haydock led the mutiny: “Look here, Carol, don't be so bossy. + After all, we're doing this play principally for the fun of it, and if we + have fun out of a lot of monkey-shines, why then——” + </p> + <p> + “Ye-es,” feebly. + </p> + <p> + “You said one time that folks in G. P. didn't get enough fun out of life. + And now we are having a circus, you want us to stop!” + </p> + <p> + Carol answered slowly: “I wonder if I can explain what I mean? It's the + difference between looking at the comic page and looking at Manet. I want + fun out of this, of course. Only——I don't think it would be + less fun, but more, to produce as perfect a play as we can.” She was + curiously exalted; her voice was strained; she stared not at the company + but at the grotesques scrawled on the backs of wing-pieces by forgotten + stage-hands. “I wonder if you can understand the 'fun' of making a + beautiful thing, the pride and satisfaction of it, and the holiness!” + </p> + <p> + The company glanced doubtfully at one another. In Gopher Prairie it is not + good form to be holy except at a church, between ten-thirty and twelve on + Sunday. + </p> + <p> + “But if we want to do it, we've got to work; we must have + self-discipline.” + </p> + <p> + They were at once amused and embarrassed. They did not want to affront + this mad woman. They backed off and tried to rehearse. Carol did not hear + Juanita, in front, protesting to Maud Dyer, “If she calls it fun and + holiness to sweat over her darned old play—well, I don't!” + </p> + <p> + IV + </p> + <p> + Carol attended the only professional play which came to Gopher Prairie + that spring. It was a “tent show, presenting snappy new dramas under + canvas.” The hard-working actors doubled in brass, and took tickets; and + between acts sang about the moon in June, and sold Dr. Wintergreen's + Surefire Tonic for Ills of the Heart, Lungs, Kidneys, and Bowels. They + presented “Sunbonnet Nell: A Dramatic Comedy of the Ozarks,” with J. + Witherbee Boothby wringing the soul by his resonant “Yuh ain't done right + by mah little gal, Mr. City Man, but yer a-goin' to find that back in + these-yere hills there's honest folks and good shots!” + </p> + <p> + The audience, on planks beneath the patched tent, admired Mr. Boothby's + beard and long rifle; stamped their feet in the dust at the spectacle of + his heroism; shouted when the comedian aped the City Lady's use of a + lorgnon by looking through a doughnut stuck on a fork; wept visibly over + Mr. Boothby's Little Gal Nell, who was also Mr. Boothby's legal wife + Pearl, and when the curtain went down, listened respectfully to Mr. + Boothby's lecture on Dr. Wintergreen's Tonic as a cure for tape-worms, + which he illustrated by horrible pallid objects curled in bottles of + yellowing alcohol. + </p> + <p> + Carol shook her head. “Juanita is right. I'm a fool. Holiness of the + drama! Bernard Shaw! The only trouble with 'The Girl from Kankakee' is + that it's too subtle for Gopher Prairie!” + </p> + <p> + She sought faith in spacious banal phrases, taken from books: “the + instinctive nobility of simple souls,” “need only the opportunity, to + appreciate fine things,” and “sturdy exponents of democracy.” But these + optimisms did not sound so loud as the laughter of the audience at the + funny-man's line, “Yes, by heckelum, I'm a smart fella.” She wanted to + give up the play, the dramatic association, the town. As she came out of + the tent and walked with Kennicott down the dusty spring street, she + peered at this straggling wooden village and felt that she could not + possibly stay here through all of tomorrow. + </p> + <p> + It was Miles Bjornstam who gave her strength—he and the fact that + every seat for “The Girl from Kankakee” had been sold. + </p> + <p> + Bjornstam was “keeping company” with Bea. Every night he was sitting on + the back steps. Once when Carol appeared he grumbled, “Hope you're going + to give this burg one good show. If you don't, reckon nobody ever will.” + </p> + <p> + V + </p> + <p> + It was the great night; it was the night of the play. The two + dressing-rooms were swirling with actors, panting, twitchy pale. Del + Snafflin the barber, who was as much a professional as Ella, having once + gone on in a mob scene at a stock-company performance in Minneapolis, was + making them up, and showing his scorn for amateurs with, “Stand still! For + the love o' Mike, how do you expect me to get your eyelids dark if you + keep a-wigglin'?” The actors were beseeching, “Hey, Del, put some red in + my nostrils—you put some in Rita's—gee, you didn't hardly do + anything to my face.” + </p> + <p> + They were enormously theatric. They examined Del's makeup box, they + sniffed the scent of grease-paint, every minute they ran out to peep + through the hole in the curtain, they came back to inspect their wigs and + costumes, they read on the whitewashed walls of the dressing-rooms the + pencil inscriptions: “The Flora Flanders Comedy Company,” and “This is a + bum theater,” and felt that they were companions of these vanished + troupers. + </p> + <p> + Carol, smart in maid's uniform, coaxed the temporary stage-hands to finish + setting the first act, wailed at Kennicott, the electrician, “Now for + heaven's sake remember the change in cue for the ambers in Act Two,” + slipped out to ask Dave Dyer, the ticket-taker, if he could get some more + chairs, warned the frightened Myrtle Cass to be sure to upset the + waste-basket when John Grimm called, “Here you, Reddy.” + </p> + <p> + Del Snafflin's orchestra of piano, violin, and cornet began to tune up and + every one behind the magic line of the proscenic arch was frightened into + paralysis. Carol wavered to the hole in the curtain. There were so many + people out there, staring so hard—— + </p> + <p> + In the second row she saw Miles Bjornstam, not with Bea but alone. He + really wanted to see the play! It was a good omen. Who could tell? Perhaps + this evening would convert Gopher Prairie to conscious beauty. + </p> + <p> + She darted into the women's dressing-room, roused Maud Dyer from her + fainting panic, pushed her to the wings, and ordered the curtain up. + </p> + <p> + It rose doubtfully, it staggered and trembled, but it did get up without + catching—this time. Then she realized that Kennicott had forgotten + to turn off the houselights. Some one out front was giggling. + </p> + <p> + She galloped round to the left wing, herself pulled the switch, looked so + ferociously at Kennicott that he quaked, and fled back. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Dyer was creeping out on the half-darkened stage. The play was begun. + </p> + <p> + And with that instant Carol realized that it was a bad play abominably + acted. + </p> + <p> + Encouraging them with lying smiles, she watched her work go to pieces. The + settings seemed flimsy, the lighting commonplace. She watched Guy Pollock + stammer and twist his mustache when he should have been a bullying + magnate; Vida Sherwin, as Grimm's timid wife, chatter at the audience as + though they were her class in high-school English; Juanita, in the leading + role, defy Mr. Grimm as though she were repeating a list of things she had + to buy at the grocery this morning; Ella Stowbody remark “I'd like a cup + of tea” as though she were reciting “Curfew Shall Not Ring Tonight”; and + Dr. Gould, making love to Rita Simons, squeak, “My—my—you—are—a—won'erful—girl.” + </p> + <p> + Myrtle Cass, as the office-boy, was so much pleased by the applause of her + relatives, then so much agitated by the remarks of Cy Bogart, in the back + row, in reference to her wearing trousers, that she could hardly be got + off the stage. Only Raymie was so unsociable as to devote himself entirely + to acting. + </p> + <p> + That she was right in her opinion of the play Carol was certain when Miles + Bjornstam went out after the first act, and did not come back. + </p> + <p> + VI + </p> + <p> + Between the second and third acts she called the company together, and + supplicated, “I want to know something, before we have a chance to + separate. Whether we're doing well or badly tonight, it is a beginning. + But will we take it as merely a beginning? How many of you will pledge + yourselves to start in with me, right away, tomorrow, and plan for another + play, to be given in September?” + </p> + <p> + They stared at her; they nodded at Juanita's protest: “I think one's + enough for a while. It's going elegant tonight, but another play——Seems + to me it'll be time enough to talk about that next fall. Carol! I hope you + don't mean to hint and suggest we're not doing fine tonight? I'm sure the + applause shows the audience think it's just dandy!” + </p> + <p> + Then Carol knew how completely she had failed. + </p> + <p> + As the audience seeped out she heard B. J. Gougerling the banker say to + Howland the grocer, “Well, I think the folks did splendid; just as good as + professionals. But I don't care much for these plays. What I like is a + good movie, with auto accidents and hold-ups, and some git to it, and not + all this talky-talk.” + </p> + <p> + Then Carol knew how certain she was to fail again. + </p> + <p> + She wearily did not blame them, company nor audience. Herself she blamed + for trying to carve intaglios in good wholesome jack-pine. + </p> + <p> + “It's the worst defeat of all. I'm beaten. By Main Street. 'I must go on.' + But I can't!” + </p> + <p> + She was not vastly encouraged by the Gopher Prairie Dauntless: + </p> + <p> + . . . would be impossible to distinguish among the actors when all gave + such fine account of themselves in difficult roles of this well-known New + York stage play. Guy Pollock as the old millionaire could not have been + bettered for his fine impersonation of the gruff old millionaire; Mrs. + Harry Haydock as the young lady from the West who so easily showed the New + York four-flushers where they got off was a vision of loveliness and with + fine stage presence. Miss Vida Sherwin the ever popular teacher in our + high school pleased as Mrs. Grimm, Dr. Gould was well suited in the role + of young lover—girls you better look out, remember the doc is a + bachelor. The local Four Hundred also report that he is a great hand at + shaking the light fantastic tootsies in the dance. As the stenographer + Rita Simons was pretty as a picture, and Miss Ella Stowbody's long and + intensive study of the drama and kindred arts in Eastern schools was seen + in the fine finish of her part. + </p> + <p> + . . . to no one is greater credit to be given than to Mrs. Will Kennicott + on whose capable shoulders fell the burden of directing. + </p> + <p> + “So kindly,” Carol mused, “so well meant, so neighborly—and so + confoundedly untrue. Is it really my failure, or theirs?” + </p> + <p> + She sought to be sensible; she elaborately explained to herself that it + was hysterical to condemn Gopher Prairie because it did not foam over the + drama. Its justification was in its service as a market-town for farmers. + How bravely and generously it did its work, forwarding the bread of the + world, feeding and healing the farmers! + </p> + <p> + Then, on the corner below her husband's office, she heard a farmer holding + forth: + </p> + <p> + “Sure. Course I was beaten. The shipper and the grocers here wouldn't pay + us a decent price for our potatoes, even though folks in the cities were + howling for 'em. So we says, well, we'll get a truck and ship 'em right + down to Minneapolis. But the commission merchants there were in cahoots + with the local shipper here; they said they wouldn't pay us a cent more + than he would, not even if they was nearer to the market. Well, we found + we could get higher prices in Chicago, but when we tried to get freight + cars to ship there, the railroads wouldn't let us have 'em—even + though they had cars standing empty right here in the yards. There you got + it—good market, and these towns keeping us from it. Gus, that's the + way these towns work all the time. They pay what they want to for our + wheat, but we pay what they want us to for their clothes. Stowbody and + Dawson foreclose every mortgage they can, and put in tenant farmers. The + Dauntless lies to us about the Nonpartisan League, the lawyers sting us, + the machinery-dealers hate to carry us over bad years, and then their + daughters put on swell dresses and look at us as if we were a bunch of + hoboes. Man, I'd like to burn this town!” + </p> + <p> + Kennicott observed, “There's that old crank Wes Brannigan shooting off his + mouth again. Gosh, but he loves to hear himself talk! They ought to run + that fellow out of town!” + </p> + <p> + VII + </p> + <p> + She felt old and detached through high-school commencement week, which is + the fete of youth in Gopher Prairie; through baccalaureate sermon, senior + Parade, junior entertainment, commencement address by an Iowa clergyman + who asserted that he believed in the virtue of virtuousness, and the + procession of Decoration Day, when the few Civil War veterans followed + Champ Perry, in his rusty forage-cap, along the spring-powdered road to + the cemetery. She met Guy; she found that she had nothing to say to him. + Her head ached in an aimless way. When Kennicott rejoiced, “We'll have a + great time this summer; move down to the lake early and wear old clothes + and act natural,” she smiled, but her smile creaked. + </p> + <p> + In the prairie heat she trudged along unchanging ways, talked about + nothing to tepid people, and reflected that she might never escape from + them. + </p> + <p> + She was startled to find that she was using the word “escape.” + </p> + <p> + Then, for three years which passed like one curt paragraph, she ceased to + find anything interesting save the Bjornstams and her baby. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XIX + </h2> + <h3> + I + </h3> + <p> + IN three years of exile from herself Carol had certain experiences + chronicled as important by the Dauntless, or discussed by the Jolly + Seventeen, but the event unchronicled, undiscussed, and supremely + controlling, was her slow admission of longing to find her own people. + </p> + <p> + II + </p> + <p> + Bea and Miles Bjornstam were married in June, a month after “The Girl from + Kankakee.” Miles had turned respectable. He had renounced his criticisms + of state and society; he had given up roving as horse-trader, and wearing + red mackinaws in lumber-camps; he had gone to work as engineer in Jackson + Elder's planing-mill; he was to be seen upon the streets endeavoring to be + neighborly with suspicious men whom he had taunted for years. + </p> + <p> + Carol was the patroness and manager of the wedding. Juanita Haydock + mocked, “You're a chump to let a good hired girl like Bea go. Besides! How + do you know it's a good thing, her marrying a sassy bum like this awful + Red Swede person? Get wise! Chase the man off with a mop, and hold onto + your Svenska while the holding's good. Huh? Me go to their Scandahoofian + wedding? Not a chance!” + </p> + <p> + The other matrons echoed Juanita. Carol was dismayed by the casualness of + their cruelty, but she persisted. Miles had exclaimed to her, “Jack Elder + says maybe he'll come to the wedding! Gee, it would be nice to have Bea + meet the Boss as a reg'lar married lady. Some day I'll be so well off that + Bea can play with Mrs. Elder—and you! Watch us!” + </p> + <p> + There was an uneasy knot of only nine guests at the service in the + unpainted Lutheran Church—Carol, Kennicott, Guy Pollock, and the + Champ Perrys, all brought by Carol; Bea's frightened rustic parents, her + cousin Tina, and Pete, Miles's ex-partner in horse-trading, a surly, hairy + man who had bought a black suit and come twelve hundred miles from Spokane + for the event. + </p> + <p> + Miles continuously glanced back at the church door. Jackson Elder did not + appear. The door did not once open after the awkward entrance of the first + guests. Miles's hand closed on Bea's arm. + </p> + <p> + He had, with Carol's help, made his shanty over into a cottage with white + curtains and a canary and a chintz chair. + </p> + <p> + Carol coaxed the powerful matrons to call on Bea. They half scoffed, half + promised to go. + </p> + <p> + Bea's successor was the oldish, broad, silent Oscarina, who was suspicious + of her frivolous mistress for a month, so that Juanita Haydock was able to + crow, “There, smarty, I told you you'd run into the Domestic Problem!” But + Oscarina adopted Carol as a daughter, and with her as faithful to the + kitchen as Bea had been, there was nothing changed in Carol's life. + </p> + <p> + III + </p> + <p> + She was unexpectedly appointed to the town library-board by Ole Jenson, + the new mayor. The other members were Dr. Westlake, Lyman Cass, Julius + Flickerbaugh the attorney, Guy Pollock, and Martin Mahoney, former + livery-stable keeper and now owner of a garage. She was delighted. She + went to the first meeting rather condescendingly, regarding herself as the + only one besides Guy who knew anything about books or library methods. She + was planning to revolutionize the whole system. + </p> + <p> + Her condescension was ruined and her humility wholesomely increased when + she found the board, in the shabby room on the second floor of the house + which had been converted into the library, not discussing the weather and + longing to play checkers, but talking about books. She discovered that + amiable old Dr. Westlake read everything in verse and “light fiction”; + that Lyman Cass, the veal-faced, bristly-bearded owner of the mill, had + tramped through Gibbon, Hume, Grote, Prescott, and the other thick + historians; that he could repeat pages from them—and did. When Dr. + Westlake whispered to her, “Yes, Lym is a very well-informed man, but he's + modest about it,” she felt uninformed and immodest, and scolded at herself + that she had missed the human potentialities in this vast Gopher Prairie. + When Dr. Westlake quoted the “Paradiso,” “Don Quixote,” “Wilhelm Meister,” + and the Koran, she reflected that no one she knew, not even her father, + had read all four. + </p> + <p> + She came diffidently to the second meeting of the board. She did not plan + to revolutionize anything. She hoped that the wise elders might be so + tolerant as to listen to her suggestions about changing the shelving of + the juveniles. + </p> + <p> + Yet after four sessions of the library-board she was where she had been + before the first session. She had found that for all their pride in being + reading men, Westlake and Cass and even Guy had no conception of making + the library familiar to the whole town. They used it, they passed + resolutions about it, and they left it as dead as Moses. Only the Henty + books and the Elsie books and the latest optimisms by moral female + novelists and virile clergymen were in general demand, and the board + themselves were interested only in old, stilted volumes. They had no + tenderness for the noisiness of youth discovering great literature. + </p> + <p> + If she was egotistic about her tiny learning, they were at least as much + so regarding theirs. And for all their talk of the need of additional + library-tax none of them was willing to risk censure by battling for it, + though they now had so small a fund that, after paying for rent, heat, + light, and Miss Villets's salary, they had only a hundred dollars a year + for the purchase of books. + </p> + <p> + The Incident of the Seventeen Cents killed her none too enduring interest. + </p> + <p> + She had come to the board-meeting singing with a plan. She had made a list + of thirty European novels of the past ten years, with twenty important + books on psychology, education, and economics which the library lacked. + She had made Kennicott promise to give fifteen dollars. If each of the + board would contribute the same, they could have the books. + </p> + <p> + Lym Cass looked alarmed, scratched himself, and protested, “I think it + would be a bad precedent for the board-members to contribute money—uh—not + that I mind, but it wouldn't be fair—establish precedent. Gracious! + They don't pay us a cent for our services! Certainly can't expect us to + pay for the privilege of serving!” + </p> + <p> + Only Guy looked sympathetic, and he stroked the pine table and said + nothing. + </p> + <p> + The rest of the meeting they gave to a bellicose investigation of the fact + that there was seventeen cents less than there should be in the Fund. Miss + Villets was summoned; she spent half an hour in explosively defending + herself; the seventeen cents were gnawed over, penny by penny; and Carol, + glancing at the carefully inscribed list which had been so lovely and + exciting an hour before, was silent, and sorry for Miss Villets, and + sorrier for herself. + </p> + <p> + She was reasonably regular in attendance till her two years were up and + Vida Sherwin was appointed to the board in her place, but she did not try + to be revolutionary. In the plodding course of her life there was nothing + changed, and nothing new. + </p> + <p> + IV + </p> + <p> + Kennicott made an excellent land-deal, but as he told her none of the + details, she was not greatly exalted or agitated. What did agitate her was + his announcement, half whispered and half blurted, half tender and half + coldly medical, that they “ought to have a baby, now they could afford + it.” They had so long agreed that “perhaps it would be just as well not to + have any children for a while yet,” that childlessness had come to be + natural. Now, she feared and longed and did not know; she hesitatingly + assented, and wished that she had not assented. + </p> + <p> + As there appeared no change in their drowsy relations, she forgot all + about it, and life was planless. + </p> + <p> + V + </p> + <p> + Idling on the porch of their summer cottage at the lake, on afternoons + when Kennicott was in town, when the water was glazed and the whole air + languid, she pictured a hundred escapes: Fifth Avenue in a snow-storm, + with limousines, golden shops, a cathedral spire. A reed hut on fantastic + piles above the mud of a jungle river. A suite in Paris, immense high + grave rooms, with lambrequins and a balcony. The Enchanted Mesa. An + ancient stone mill in Maryland, at the turn of the road, between rocky + brook and abrupt hills. An upland moor of sheep and flitting cool + sunlight. A clanging dock where steel cranes unloaded steamers from Buenos + Ayres and Tsing-tao. A Munich concert-hall, and a famous 'cellist playing—playing + to her. + </p> + <p> + One scene had a persistent witchery: + </p> + <p> + She stood on a terrace overlooking a boulevard by the warm sea. She was + certain, though she had no reason for it, that the place was Mentone. + Along the drive below her swept barouches, with a mechanical tlot-tlot, + tlot-tlot, tlot-tlot, and great cars with polished black hoods and engines + quiet as the sigh of an old man. In them were women erect, slender, + enameled, and expressionless as marionettes, their small hands upon + parasols, their unchanging eyes always forward, ignoring the men beside + them, tall men with gray hair and distinguished faces. Beyond the drive + were painted sea and painted sands, and blue and yellow pavilions. Nothing + moved except the gliding carriages, and the people were small and wooden, + spots in a picture drenched with gold and hard bright blues. There was no + sound of sea or winds; no softness of whispers nor of falling petals; + nothing but yellow and cobalt and staring light, and the never-changing + tlot-tlot, tlot-tlot—— + </p> + <p> + She startled. She whimpered. It was the rapid ticking of the clock which + had hypnotized her into hearing the steady hoofs. No aching color of the + sea and pride of supercilious people, but the reality of a round-bellied + nickel alarm-clock on a shelf against a fuzzy unplaned pine wall, with a + stiff gray wash-rag hanging above it and a kerosene-stove standing below. + </p> + <p> + A thousand dreams governed by the fiction she had read, drawn from the + pictures she had envied, absorbed her drowsy lake afternoons, but always + in the midst of them Kennicott came out from town, drew on khaki trousers + which were plastered with dry fish-scales, asked, “Enjoying yourself?” and + did not listen to her answer. + </p> + <p> + And nothing was changed, and there was no reason to believe that there + ever would be change. + </p> + <p> + VI + </p> + <p> + Trains! + </p> + <p> + At the lake cottage she missed the passing of the trains. She realized + that in town she had depended upon them for assurance that there remained + a world beyond. + </p> + <p> + The railroad was more than a means of transportation to Gopher Prairie. It + was a new god; a monster of steel limbs, oak ribs, flesh of gravel, and a + stupendous hunger for freight; a deity created by man that he might keep + himself respectful to Property, as elsewhere he had elevated and served as + tribal gods the mines, cotton-mills, motor-factories, colleges, army. + </p> + <p> + The East remembered generations when there had been no railroad, and had + no awe of it; but here the railroads had been before time was. The towns + had been staked out on barren prairie as convenient points for future + train-halts; and back in 1860 and 1870 there had been much profit, much + opportunity to found aristocratic families, in the possession of advance + knowledge as to where the towns would arise. + </p> + <p> + If a town was in disfavor, the railroad could ignore it, cut it off from + commerce, slay it. To Gopher Prairie the tracks were eternal verities, and + boards of railroad directors an omnipotence. The smallest boy or the most + secluded grandam could tell you whether No. 32 had a hot-box last Tuesday, + whether No. 7 was going to put on an extra day-coach; and the name of the + president of the road was familiar to every breakfast table. + </p> + <p> + Even in this new era of motors the citizens went down to the station to + see the trains go through. It was their romance; their only mystery + besides mass at the Catholic Church; and from the trains came lords of the + outer world—traveling salesmen with piping on their waistcoats, and + visiting cousins from Milwaukee. + </p> + <p> + Gopher Prairie had once been a “division-point.” The roundhouse and + repair-shops were gone, but two conductors still retained residence, and + they were persons of distinction, men who traveled and talked to + strangers, who wore uniforms with brass buttons, and knew all about these + crooked games of con-men. They were a special caste, neither above nor + below the Haydocks, but apart, artists and adventurers. + </p> + <p> + The night telegraph-operator at the railroad station was the most + melodramatic figure in town: awake at three in the morning, alone in a + room hectic with clatter of the telegraph key. All night he “talked” to + operators twenty, fifty, a hundred miles away. It was always to be + expected that he would be held up by robbers. He never was, but round him + was a suggestion of masked faces at the window, revolvers, cords binding + him to a chair, his struggle to crawl to the key before he fainted. + </p> + <p> + During blizzards everything about the railroad was melodramatic. There + were days when the town was completely shut off, when they had no mail, no + express, no fresh meat, no newspapers. At last the rotary snow-plow came + through, bucking the drifts, sending up a geyser, and the way to the + Outside was open again. The brakemen, in mufflers and fur caps, running + along the tops of ice-coated freight-cars; the engineers scratching frost + from the cab windows and looking out, inscrutable, self-contained, pilots + of the prairie sea—they were heroism, they were to Carol the daring + of the quest in a world of groceries and sermons. + </p> + <p> + To the small boys the railroad was a familiar playground. They climbed the + iron ladders on the sides of the box-cars; built fires behind piles of old + ties; waved to favorite brakemen. But to Carol it was magic. + </p> + <p> + She was motoring with Kennicott, the car lumping through darkness, the + lights showing mud-puddles and ragged weeds by the road. A train coming! A + rapid chuck-a-chuck, chuck-a-chuck, chuck-a-chuck. It was hurling past—the + Pacific Flyer, an arrow of golden flame. Light from the fire-box splashed + the under side of the trailing smoke. Instantly the vision was gone; Carol + was back in the long darkness; and Kennicott was giving his version of + that fire and wonder: “No. 19. Must be 'bout ten minutes late.” + </p> + <p> + In town, she listened from bed to the express whistling in the cut a mile + north. Uuuuuuu!—faint, nervous, distrait, horn of the free night + riders journeying to the tall towns where were laughter and banners and + the sound of bells—Uuuuu! Uuuuu!—the world going by—Uuuuuuu!—fainter, + more wistful, gone. + </p> + <p> + Down here there were no trains. The stillness was very great. The prairie + encircled the lake, lay round her, raw, dusty, thick. Only the train could + cut it. Some day she would take a train; and that would be a great taking. + </p> + <p> + VII + </p> + <p> + She turned to the Chautauqua as she had turned to the dramatic + association, to the library-board. + </p> + <p> + Besides the permanent Mother Chautauqua, in New York, there are, all over + these States, commercial Chautauqua companies which send out to every + smallest town troupes of lecturers and “entertainers” to give a week of + culture under canvas. Living in Minneapolis, Carol had never encountered + the ambulant Chautauqua, and the announcement of its coming to Gopher + Prairie gave her hope that others might be doing the vague things which + she had attempted. She pictured a condensed university course brought to + the people. Mornings when she came in from the lake with Kennicott she saw + placards in every shop-window, and strung on a cord across Main Street, a + line of pennants alternately worded “The Boland Chautauqua COMING!” and “A + solid week of inspiration and enjoyment!” But she was disappointed when + she saw the program. It did not seem to be a tabloid university; it did + not seem to be any kind of a university; it seemed to be a combination of + vaudeville performance Y. M. C. A. lecture, and the graduation exercises + of an elocution class. + </p> + <p> + She took her doubt to Kennicott. He insisted, “Well, maybe it won't be so + awful darn intellectual, the way you and I might like it, but it's a whole + lot better than nothing.” Vida Sherwin added, “They have some splendid + speakers. If the people don't carry off so much actual information, they + do get a lot of new ideas, and that's what counts.” + </p> + <p> + During the Chautauqua Carol attended three evening meetings, two afternoon + meetings, and one in the morning. She was impressed by the audience: the + sallow women in skirts and blouses, eager to be made to think, the men in + vests and shirt-sleeves, eager to be allowed to laugh, and the wriggling + children, eager to sneak away. She liked the plain benches, the portable + stage under its red marquee, the great tent over all, shadowy above + strings of incandescent bulbs at night and by day casting an amber + radiance on the patient crowd. The scent of dust and trampled grass and + sun-baked wood gave her an illusion of Syrian caravans; she forgot the + speakers while she listened to noises outside the tent: two farmers + talking hoarsely, a wagon creaking down Main Street, the crow of a + rooster. She was content. But it was the contentment of the lost hunter + stopping to rest. + </p> + <p> + For from the Chautauqua itself she got nothing but wind and chaff and + heavy laughter, the laughter of yokels at old jokes, a mirthless and + primitive sound like the cries of beasts on a farm. + </p> + <p> + These were the several instructors in the condensed university's seven-day + course: + </p> + <p> + Nine lecturers, four of them ex-ministers, and one an ex-congressman, all + of them delivering “inspirational addresses.” The only facts or opinions + which Carol derived from them were: Lincoln was a celebrated president of + the United States, but in his youth extremely poor. James J. Hill was the + best-known railroad-man of the West, and in his youth extremely poor. + Honesty and courtesy in business are preferable to boorishness and exposed + trickery, but this is not to be taken personally, since all persons in + Gopher Prairie are known to be honest and courteous. London is a large + city. A distinguished statesman once taught Sunday School. + </p> + <p> + Four “entertainers” who told Jewish stories, Irish stories, German + stories, Chinese stories, and Tennessee mountaineer stories, most of which + Carol had heard. + </p> + <p> + A “lady elocutionist” who recited Kipling and imitated children. + </p> + <p> + A lecturer with motion-pictures of an Andean exploration; excellent + pictures and a halting narrative. + </p> + <p> + Three brass-bands, a company of six opera-singers, a Hawaiian sextette, + and four youths who played saxophones and guitars disguised as + wash-boards. The most applauded pieces were those, such as the “Lucia” + inevitability, which the audience had heard most often. + </p> + <p> + The local superintendent, who remained through the week while the other + enlighteners went to other Chautauquas for their daily performances. The + superintendent was a bookish, underfed man who worked hard at rousing + artificial enthusiasm, at trying to make the audience cheer by dividing + them into competitive squads and telling them that they were intelligent + and made splendid communal noises. He gave most of the morning lectures, + droning with equal unhappy facility about poetry, the Holy Land, and the + injustice to employers in any system of profit-sharing. + </p> + <p> + The final item was a man who neither lectured, inspired, nor entertained; + a plain little man with his hands in his pockets. All the other speakers + had confessed, “I cannot keep from telling the citizens of your beautiful + city that none of the talent on this circuit have found a more charming + spot or more enterprising and hospitable people.” But the little man + suggested that the architecture of Gopher Prairie was haphazard, and that + it was sottish to let the lake-front be monopolized by the cinder-heaped + wall of the railroad embankment. Afterward the audience grumbled, “Maybe + that guy's got the right dope, but what's the use of looking on the dark + side of things all the time? New ideas are first-rate, but not all this + criticism. Enough trouble in life without looking for it!” + </p> + <p> + Thus the Chautauqua, as Carol saw it. After it, the town felt proud and + educated. + </p> + <p> + VIII + </p> + <p> + Two weeks later the Great War smote Europe. + </p> + <p> + For a month Gopher Prairie had the delight of shuddering, then, as the war + settled down to a business of trench-fighting, they forgot. + </p> + <p> + When Carol talked about the Balkans, and the possibility of a German + revolution, Kennicott yawned, “Oh yes, it's a great old scrap, but it's + none of our business. Folks out here are too busy growing corn to monkey + with any fool war that those foreigners want to get themselves into.” + </p> + <p> + It was Miles Bjornstam who said, “I can't figure it out. I'm opposed to + wars, but still, seems like Germany has got to be licked because them + Junkers stands in the way of progress.” + </p> + <p> + She was calling on Miles and Bea, early in autumn. They had received her + with cries, with dusting of chairs, and a running to fetch water for + coffee. Miles stood and beamed at her. He fell often and joyously into his + old irreverence about the lords of Gopher Prairie, but always—with a + certain difficulty—he added something decorous and appreciative. + </p> + <p> + “Lots of people have come to see you, haven't they?” Carol hinted. + </p> + <p> + “Why, Bea's cousin Tina comes in right along, and the foreman at the mill, + and——Oh, we have good times. Say, take a look at that Bea! + Wouldn't you think she was a canary-bird, to listen to her, and to see + that Scandahoofian tow-head of hers? But say, know what she is? She's a + mother hen! Way she fusses over me—way she makes old Miles wear a + necktie! Hate to spoil her by letting her hear it, but she's one pretty + darn nice—nice——Hell! What do we care if none of the + dirty snobs come and call? We've got each other.” + </p> + <p> + Carol worried about their struggle, but she forgot it in the stress of + sickness and fear. For that autumn she knew that a baby was coming, that + at last life promised to be interesting in the peril of the great change. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XX + </h2> + <h3> + I + </h3> + <p> + THE baby was coming. Each morning she was nauseated, chilly, bedraggled, + and certain that she would never again be attractive; each twilight she + was afraid. She did not feel exalted, but unkempt and furious. The period + of daily sickness crawled into an endless time of boredom. It became + difficult for her to move about, and she raged that she, who had been slim + and light-footed, should have to lean on a stick, and be heartily + commented upon by street gossips. She was encircled by greasy eyes. Every + matron hinted, “Now that you're going to be a mother, dearie, you'll get + over all these ideas of yours and settle down.” She felt that willy-nilly + she was being initiated into the assembly of housekeepers; with the baby + for hostage, she would never escape; presently she would be drinking + coffee and rocking and talking about diapers. + </p> + <p> + “I could stand fighting them. I'm used to that. But this being taken in, + being taken as a matter of course, I can't stand it—and I must stand + it!” + </p> + <p> + She alternately detested herself for not appreciating the kindly women, + and detested them for their advice: lugubrious hints as to how much she + would suffer in labor, details of baby-hygiene based on long experience + and total misunderstanding, superstitious cautions about the things she + must eat and read and look at in prenatal care for the baby's soul, and + always a pest of simpering baby-talk. Mrs. Champ Perry bustled in to lend + “Ben Hur,” as a preventive of future infant immorality. The Widow Bogart + appeared trailing pinkish exclamations, “And how is our lovely 'ittle + muzzy today! My, ain't it just like they always say: being in a Family Way + does make the girlie so lovely, just like a Madonna. Tell me—” Her + whisper was tinged with salaciousness—“does oo feel the dear itsy + one stirring, the pledge of love? I remember with Cy, of course he was so + big——” + </p> + <p> + “I do not look lovely, Mrs. Bogart. My complexion is rotten, and my hair + is coming out, and I look like a potato-bag, and I think my arches are + falling, and he isn't a pledge of love, and I'm afraid he WILL look like + us, and I don't believe in mother-devotion, and the whole business is a + confounded nuisance of a biological process,” remarked Carol. + </p> + <p> + Then the baby was born, without unusual difficulty: a boy with straight + back and strong legs. The first day she hated him for the tides of pain + and hopeless fear he had caused; she resented his raw ugliness. After that + she loved him with all the devotion and instinct at which she had scoffed. + She marveled at the perfection of the miniature hands as noisily as did + Kennicott, she was overwhelmed by the trust with which the baby turned to + her; passion for him grew with each unpoetic irritating thing she had to + do for him. + </p> + <p> + He was named Hugh, for her father. + </p> + <p> + Hugh developed into a thin healthy child with a large head and straight + delicate hair of a faint brown. He was thoughtful and casual—a + Kennicott. + </p> + <p> + For two years nothing else existed. She did not, as the cynical matrons + had prophesied, “give up worrying about the world and other folks' babies + soon as she got one of her own to fight for.” The barbarity of that + willingness to sacrifice other children so that one child might have too + much was impossible to her. But she would sacrifice herself. She + understood consecration—she who answered Kennicott's hints about + having Hugh christened: “I refuse to insult my baby and myself by asking + an ignorant young man in a frock coat to sanction him, to permit me to + have him! I refuse to subject him to any devil-chasing rites! If I didn't + give my baby—MY BABY—enough sanctification in those nine hours + of hell, then he can't get any more out of the Reverend Mr. Zitterel!” + </p> + <p> + “Well, Baptists hardly ever christen kids. I was kind of thinking more + about Reverend Warren,” said Kennicott. + </p> + <p> + Hugh was her reason for living, promise of accomplishment in the future, + shrine of adoration—and a diverting toy. “I thought I'd be a + dilettante mother, but I'm as dismayingly natural as Mrs. Bogart,” she + boasted. + </p> + <p> + For two—years Carol was a part of the town; as much one of Our Young + Mothers as Mrs. McGanum. Her opinionation seemed dead; she had no apparent + desire for escape; her brooding centered on Hugh. While she wondered at + the pearl texture of his ear she exulted, “I feel like an old woman, with + a skin like sandpaper, beside him, and I'm glad of it! He is perfect. He + shall have everything. He sha'n't always stay here in Gopher Prairie. . . + . I wonder which is really the best, Harvard or Yale or Oxford?” + </p> + <p> + II + </p> + <p> + The people who hemmed her in had been brilliantly reinforced by Mr. and + Mrs. Whittier N. Smail—Kennicott's Uncle Whittier and Aunt Bessie. + </p> + <p> + The true Main Streetite defines a relative as a person to whose house you + go uninvited, to stay as long as you like. If you hear that Lym Cass on + his journey East has spent all his time “visiting” in Oyster Center, it + does not mean that he prefers that village to the rest of New England, but + that he has relatives there. It does not mean that he has written to the + relatives these many years, nor that they have ever given signs of a + desire to look upon him. But “you wouldn't expect a man to go and spend + good money at a hotel in Boston, when his own third cousins live right in + the same state, would you?” + </p> + <p> + When the Smails sold their creamery in North Dakota they visited Mr. + Smail's sister, Kennicott's mother, at Lac-qui-Meurt, then plodded on to + Gopher Prairie to stay with their nephew. They appeared unannounced, + before the baby was born, took their welcome for granted, and immediately + began to complain of the fact that their room faced north. + </p> + <p> + Uncle Whittier and Aunt Bessie assumed that it was their privilege as + relatives to laugh at Carol, and their duty as Christians to let her know + how absurd her “notions” were. They objected to the food, to Oscarina's + lack of friendliness, to the wind, the rain, and the immodesty of Carol's + maternity gowns. They were strong and enduring; for an hour at a time they + could go on heaving questions about her father's income, about her + theology, and about the reason why she had not put on her rubbers when she + had gone across the street. For fussy discussion they had a rich, full + genius, and their example developed in Kennicott a tendency to the same + form of affectionate flaying. + </p> + <p> + If Carol was so indiscreet as to murmur that she had a small headache, + instantly the two Smails and Kennicott were at it. Every five minutes, + every time she sat down or rose or spoke to Oscarina, they twanged, “Is + your head better now? Where does it hurt? Don't you keep hartshorn in the + house? Didn't you walk too far today? Have you tried hartshorn? Don't you + keep some in the house so it will be handy? Does it feel better now? How + does it feel? Do your eyes hurt, too? What time do you usually get to bed? + As late as THAT? Well! How does it feel now?” + </p> + <p> + In her presence Uncle Whittier snorted at Kennicott, “Carol get these + headaches often? Huh? Be better for her if she didn't go gadding around to + all these bridge-whist parties, and took some care of herself once in a + while!” + </p> + <p> + They kept it up, commenting, questioning, commenting, questioning, till + her determination broke and she bleated, “For heaven's SAKE, don't + dis-CUSS it! My head 's all RIGHT!” + </p> + <p> + She listened to the Smails and Kennicott trying to determine by dialectics + whether the copy of the Dauntless, which Aunt Bessie wanted to send to her + sister in Alberta, ought to have two or four cents postage on it. Carol + would have taken it to the drug store and weighed it, but then she was a + dreamer, while they were practical people (as they frequently admitted). + So they sought to evolve the postal rate from their inner consciousnesses, + which, combined with entire frankness in thinking aloud, was their method + of settling all problems. + </p> + <p> + The Smails did not “believe in all this nonsense” about privacy and + reticence. When Carol left a letter from her sister on the table, she was + astounded to hear from Uncle Whittier, “I see your sister says her husband + is doing fine. You ought to go see her oftener. I asked Will and he says + you don't go see her very often. My! You ought to go see her oftener!” + </p> + <p> + If Carol was writing a letter to a classmate, or planning the week's + menus, she could be certain that Aunt Bessie would pop in and titter, “Now + don't let me disturb you, I just wanted to see where you were, don't stop, + I'm not going to stay only a second. I just wondered if you could possibly + have thought that I didn't eat the onions this noon because I didn't think + they were properly cooked, but that wasn't the reason at all, it wasn't + because I didn't think they were well cooked, I'm sure that everything in + your house is always very dainty and nice, though I do think that Oscarina + is careless about some things, she doesn't appreciate the big wages you + pay her, and she is so cranky, all these Swedes are so cranky, I don't + really see why you have a Swede, but——But that wasn't it, I + didn't eat them not because I didn't think they weren't cooked proper, it + was just—I find that onions don't agree with me, it's very strange, + ever since I had an attack of biliousness one time, I have found that + onions, either fried onions or raw ones, and Whittier does love raw onions + with vinegar and sugar on them——” + </p> + <p> + It was pure affection. + </p> + <p> + Carol was discovering that the one thing that can be more disconcerting + than intelligent hatred is demanding love. + </p> + <p> + She supposed that she was being gracefully dull and standardized in the + Smails' presence, but they scented the heretic, and with forward-stooping + delight they sat and tried to drag out her ludicrous concepts for their + amusement. They were like the Sunday-afternoon mob starting at monkeys in + the Zoo, poking fingers and making faces and giggling at the resentment of + the more dignified race. + </p> + <p> + With a loose-lipped, superior, village smile Uncle Whittier hinted, + “What's this I hear about your thinking Gopher Prairie ought to be all + tore down and rebuilt, Carrie? I don't know where folks get these + new-fangled ideas. Lots of farmers in Dakota getting 'em these days. About + co-operation. Think they can run stores better 'n storekeepers! Huh!” + </p> + <p> + “Whit and I didn't need no co-operation as long as we was farming!” + triumphed Aunt Bessie. “Carrie, tell your old auntie now: don't you ever + go to church on Sunday? You do go sometimes? But you ought to go every + Sunday! When you're as old as I am, you'll learn that no matter how smart + folks think they are, God knows a whole lot more than they do, and then + you'll realize and be glad to go and listen to your pastor!” + </p> + <p> + In the manner of one who has just beheld a two-headed calf they repeated + that they had “never HEARD such funny ideas!” They were staggered to learn + that a real tangible person, living in Minnesota, and married to their own + flesh-and-blood relation, could apparently believe that divorce may not + always be immoral; that illegitimate children do not bear any special and + guaranteed form of curse; that there are ethical authorities outside of + the Hebrew Bible; that men have drunk wine yet not died in the gutter; + that the capitalistic system of distribution and the Baptist + wedding-ceremony were not known in the Garden of Eden; that mushrooms are + as edible as corn-beef hash; that the word “dude” is no longer frequently + used; that there are Ministers of the Gospel who accept evolution; that + some persons of apparent intelligence and business ability do not always + vote the Republican ticket straight; that it is not a universal custom to + wear scratchy flannels next the skin in winter; that a violin is not + inherently more immoral than a chapel organ; that some poets do not have + long hair; and that Jews are not always pedlers or pants-makers. + </p> + <p> + “Where does she get all them the'ries?” marveled Uncle Whittier Smail; + while Aunt Bessie inquired, “Do you suppose there's many folks got notions + like hers? My! If there are,” and her tone settled the fact that there + were not, “I just don't know what the world's coming to!” + </p> + <p> + Patiently—more or less—Carol awaited the exquisite day when + they would announce departure. After three weeks Uncle Whittier remarked, + “We kinda like Gopher Prairie. Guess maybe we'll stay here. We'd been + wondering what we'd do, now we've sold the creamery and my farms. So I had + a talk with Ole Jenson about his grocery, and I guess I'll buy him out and + storekeep for a while.” + </p> + <p> + He did. + </p> + <p> + Carol rebelled. Kennicott soothed her: “Oh, we won't see much of them. + They'll have their own house.” + </p> + <p> + She resolved to be so chilly that they would stay away. But she had no + talent for conscious insolence. They found a house, but Carol was never + safe from their appearance with a hearty, “Thought we'd drop in this + evening and keep you from being lonely. Why, you ain't had them curtains + washed yet!” Invariably, whenever she was touched by the realization that + it was they who were lonely, they wrecked her pitying affection by + comments—questions—comments—advice. + </p> + <p> + They immediately became friendly with all of their own race, with the Luke + Dawsons, the Deacon Piersons, and Mrs. Bogart; and brought them along in + the evening. Aunt Bessie was a bridge over whom the older women, bearing + gifts of counsel and the ignorance of experience, poured into Carol's + island of reserve. Aunt Bessie urged the good Widow Bogart, “Drop in and + see Carrie real often. Young folks today don't understand housekeeping + like we do.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bogart showed herself perfectly willing to be an associate relative. + </p> + <p> + Carol was thinking up protective insults when Kennicott's mother came down + to stay with Brother Whittier for two months. Carol was fond of Mrs. + Kennicott. She could not carry out her insults. + </p> + <p> + She felt trapped. + </p> + <p> + She had been kidnaped by the town. She was Aunt Bessie's niece, and she + was to be a mother. She was expected, she almost expected herself, to sit + forever talking of babies, cooks, embroidery stitches, the price of + potatoes, and the tastes of husbands in the matter of spinach. + </p> + <p> + She found a refuge in the Jolly Seventeen. She suddenly understood that + they could be depended upon to laugh with her at Mrs. Bogart, and she now + saw Juanita Haydock's gossip not as vulgarity but as gaiety and remarkable + analysis. + </p> + <p> + Her life had changed, even before Hugh appeared. She looked forward to the + next bridge of the Jolly Seventeen, and the security of whispering with + her dear friends Maud Dyer and Juanita and Mrs. McGanum. + </p> + <p> + She was part of the town. Its philosophy and its feuds dominated her. + </p> + <p> + III + </p> + <p> + She was no longer irritated by the cooing of the matrons, nor by their + opinion that diet didn't matter so long as the Little Ones had plenty of + lace and moist kisses, but she concluded that in the care of babies as in + politics, intelligence was superior to quotations about pansies. She liked + best to talk about Hugh to Kennicott, Vida, and the Bjornstams. She was + happily domestic when Kennicott sat by her on the floor, to watch baby + make faces. She was delighted when Miles, speaking as one man to another, + admonished Hugh, “I wouldn't stand them skirts if I was you. Come on. Join + the union and strike. Make 'em give you pants.” + </p> + <p> + As a parent, Kennicott was moved to establish the first child-welfare week + held in Gopher Prairie. Carol helped him weigh babies and examine their + throats, and she wrote out the diets for mute German and Scandinavian + mothers. + </p> + <p> + The aristocracy of Gopher Prairie, even the wives of the rival doctors, + took part, and for several days there was community spirit and much + uplift. But this reign of love was overthrown when the prize for Best Baby + was awarded not to decent parents but to Bea and Miles Bjornstam! The good + matrons glared at Olaf Bjornstam, with his blue eyes, his honey-colored + hair, and magnificent back, and they remarked, “Well, Mrs. Kennicott, + maybe that Swede brat is as healthy as your husband says he is, but let me + tell you I hate to think of the future that awaits any boy with a hired + girl for a mother and an awful irreligious socialist for a pa!” + </p> + <p> + She raged, but so violent was the current of their respectability, so + persistent was Aunt Bessie in running to her with their blabber, that she + was embarrassed when she took Hugh to play with Olaf. She hated herself + for it, but she hoped that no one saw her go into the Bjornstam shanty. + She hated herself and the town's indifferent cruelty when she saw Bea's + radiant devotion to both babies alike; when she saw Miles staring at them + wistfully. + </p> + <p> + He had saved money, had quit Elder's planing-mill and started a dairy on a + vacant lot near his shack. He was proud of his three cows and sixty + chickens, and got up nights to nurse them. + </p> + <p> + “I'll be a big farmer before you can bat an eye! I tell you that young + fellow Olaf is going to go East to college along with the Haydock kids. Uh——Lots + of folks dropping in to chin with Bea and me now. Say! Ma Bogart come in + one day! She was——I liked the old lady fine. And the mill + foreman comes in right along. Oh, we got lots of friends. You bet!” + </p> + <p> + IV + </p> + <p> + Though the town seemed to Carol to change no more than the surrounding + fields, there was a constant shifting, these three years. The citizen of + the prairie drifts always westward. It may be because he is the heir of + ancient migrations—and it may be because he finds within his own + spirit so little adventure that he is driven to seek it by changing his + horizon. The towns remain unvaried, yet the individual faces alter like + classes in college. The Gopher Prairie jeweler sells out, for no + discernible reason, and moves on to Alberta or the state of Washington, to + open a shop precisely like his former one, in a town precisely like the + one he has left. There is, except among professional men and the wealthy, + small permanence either of residence or occupation. A man becomes farmer, + grocer, town policeman, garageman, restaurant-owner, postmaster, + insurance-agent, and farmer all over again, and the community more or less + patiently suffers from his lack of knowledge in each of his experiments. + </p> + <p> + Ole Jenson the grocer and Dahl the butcher moved on to South Dakota and + Idaho. Luke and Mrs. Dawson picked up ten thousand acres of prairie soil, + in the magic portable form of a small check book, and went to Pasadena, to + a bungalow and sunshine and cafeterias. Chet Dashaway sold his furniture + and undertaking business and wandered to Los Angeles, where, the Dauntless + reported, “Our good friend Chester has accepted a fine position with a + real-estate firm, and his wife has in the charming social circles of the + Queen City of the Southwestland that same popularity which she enjoyed in + our own society sets.” + </p> + <p> + Rita Simons was married to Terry Gould, and rivaled Juanita Haydock as the + gayest of the Young Married Set. But Juanita also acquired merit. Harry's + father died, Harry became senior partner in the Bon Ton Store, and Juanita + was more acidulous and shrewd and cackling than ever. She bought an + evening frock, and exposed her collar-bone to the wonder of the Jolly + Seventeen, and talked of moving to Minneapolis. + </p> + <p> + To defend her position against the new Mrs. Terry Gould she sought to + attach Carol to her faction by giggling that “SOME folks might call Rita + innocent, but I've got a hunch that she isn't half as ignorant of things + as brides are supposed to be—and of course Terry isn't one-two-three + as a doctor alongside of your husband.” + </p> + <p> + Carol herself would gladly have followed Mr. Ole Jenson, and migrated even + to another Main Street; flight from familiar tedium to new tedium would + have for a time the outer look and promise of adventure. She hinted to + Kennicott of the probable medical advantages of Montana and Oregon. She + knew that he was satisfied with Gopher Prairie, but it gave her vicarious + hope to think of going, to ask for railroad folders at the station, to + trace the maps with a restless forefinger. + </p> + <p> + Yet to the casual eye she was not discontented, she was not an abnormal + and distressing traitor to the faith of Main Street. + </p> + <p> + The settled citizen believes that the rebel is constantly in a stew of + complaining and, hearing of a Carol Kennicott, he gasps, “What an awful + person! She must be a Holy Terror to live with! Glad MY folks are + satisfied with things way they are!” Actually, it was not so much as five + minutes a day that Carol devoted to lonely desires. It is probable that + the agitated citizen has within his circle at least one inarticulate rebel + with aspirations as wayward as Carol's. + </p> + <p> + The presence of the baby had made her take Gopher Prairie and the brown + house seriously, as natural places of residence. She pleased Kennicott by + being friendly with the complacent maturity of Mrs. Clark and Mrs. Elder, + and when she had often enough been in conference upon the Elders' new + Cadillac car, or the job which the oldest Clark boy had taken in the + office of the flour-mill, these topics became important, things to follow + up day by day. + </p> + <p> + With nine-tenths of her emotion concentrated upon Hugh, she did not + criticize shops, streets, acquaintances . . . this year or two. She + hurried to Uncle Whittier's store for a package of corn-flakes, she + abstractedly listened to Uncle Whittier's denunciation of Martin Mahoney + for asserting that the wind last Tuesday had been south and not southwest, + she came back along streets that held no surprises nor the startling faces + of strangers. Thinking of Hugh's teething all the way, she did not reflect + that this store, these drab blocks, made up all her background. She did + her work, and she triumphed over winning from the Clarks at five hundred. + </p> + <p> + The most considerable event of the two years after the birth of Hugh + occurred when Vida Sherwin resigned from the high school and was married. + Carol was her attendant, and as the wedding was at the Episcopal Church, + all the women wore new kid slippers and long white kid gloves, and looked + refined. + </p> + <p> + For years Carol had been little sister to Vida, and had never in the least + known to what degree Vida loved her and hated her and in curious strained + ways was bound to her. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXI + </h2> + <h3> + I + </h3> + <p> + GRAY steel that seems unmoving because it spins so fast in the balanced + fly-wheel, gray snow in an avenue of elms, gray dawn with the sun behind + it—this was the gray of Vida Sherwin's life at thirty-six. + </p> + <p> + She was small and active and sallow; her yellow hair was faded, and looked + dry; her blue silk blouses and modest lace collars and high black shoes + and sailor hats were as literal and uncharming as a schoolroom desk; but + her eyes determined her appearance, revealed her as a personage and a + force, indicated her faith in the goodness and purpose of everything. They + were blue, and they were never still; they expressed amusement, pity, + enthusiasm. If she had been seen in sleep, with the wrinkles beside her + eyes stilled and the creased lids hiding the radiant irises, she would + have lost her potency. + </p> + <p> + She was born in a hill-smothered Wisconsin village where her father was a + prosy minister; she labored through a sanctimonious college; she taught + for two years in an iron-range town of blurry-faced Tatars and + Montenegrins, and wastes of ore, and when she came to Gopher Prairie, its + trees and the shining spaciousness of the wheat prairie made her certain + that she was in paradise. + </p> + <p> + She admitted to her fellow-teachers that the schoolbuilding was slightly + damp, but she insisted that the rooms were “arranged so conveniently—and + then that bust of President McKinley at the head of the stairs, it's a + lovely art-work, and isn't it an inspiration to have the brave, honest, + martyr president to think about!” She taught French, English, and history, + and the Sophomore Latin class, which dealt in matters of a metaphysical + nature called Indirect Discourse and the Ablative Absolute. Each year she + was reconvinced that the pupils were beginning to learn more quickly. She + spent four winters in building up the Debating Society, and when the + debate really was lively one Friday afternoon, and the speakers of pieces + did not forget their lines, she felt rewarded. + </p> + <p> + She lived an engrossed useful life, and seemed as cool and simple as an + apple. But secretly she was creeping among fears, longing, and guilt. She + knew what it was, but she dared not name it. She hated even the sound of + the word “sex.” When she dreamed of being a woman of the harem, with great + white warm limbs, she awoke to shudder, defenseless in the dusk of her + room. She prayed to Jesus, always to the Son of God, offering him the + terrible power of her adoration, addressing him as the eternal lover, + growing passionate, exalted, large, as she contemplated his splendor. Thus + she mounted to endurance and surcease. + </p> + <p> + By day, rattling about in many activities, she was able to ridicule her + blazing nights of darkness. With spurious cheerfulness she announced + everywhere, “I guess I'm a born spinster,” and “No one will ever marry a + plain schoolma'am like me,” and “You men, great big noisy bothersome + creatures, we women wouldn't have you round the place, dirtying up nice + clean rooms, if it wasn't that you have to be petted and guided. We just + ought to say 'Scat!' to all of you!” + </p> + <p> + But when a man held her close at a dance, even when “Professor” George + Edwin Mott patted her hand paternally as they considered the naughtinesses + of Cy Bogart, she quivered, and reflected how superior she was to have + kept her virginity. + </p> + <p> + In the autumn of 1911, a year before Dr. Will Kennicott was married, Vida + was his partner at a five-hundred tournament. She was thirty-four then; + Kennicott about thirty-six. To her he was a superb, boyish, diverting + creature; all the heroic qualities in a manly magnificent body. They had + been helping the hostess to serve the Waldorf salad and coffee and + gingerbread. They were in the kitchen, side by side on a bench, while the + others ponderously supped in the room beyond. + </p> + <p> + Kennicott was masculine and experimental. He stroked Vida's hand, he put + his arm carelessly about her shoulder. + </p> + <p> + “Don't!” she said sharply. + </p> + <p> + “You're a cunning thing,” he offered, patting the back of her shoulder in + an exploratory manner. + </p> + <p> + While she strained away, she longed to move nearer to him. He bent over, + looked at her knowingly. She glanced down at his left hand as it touched + her knee. She sprang up, started noisily and needlessly to wash the + dishes. He helped her. He was too lazy to adventure further—and too + used to women in his profession. She was grateful for the impersonality of + his talk. It enabled her to gain control. She knew that she had skirted + wild thoughts. + </p> + <p> + A month after, on a sleighing-party, under the buffalo robes in the + bob-sled, he whispered, “You pretend to be a grown-up schoolteacher, but + you're nothing but a kiddie.” His arm was about her. She resisted. + </p> + <p> + “Don't you like the poor lonely bachelor?” he yammered in a fatuous way. + </p> + <p> + “No, I don't! You don't care for me in the least. You're just practising + on me.” + </p> + <p> + “You're so mean! I'm terribly fond of you.” + </p> + <p> + “I'm not of you. And I'm not going to let myself be fond of you, either.” + </p> + <p> + He persistently drew her toward him. She clutched his arm. Then she threw + off the robe, climbed out of the sled, raced after it with Harry Haydock. + At the dance which followed the sleigh-ride Kennicott was devoted to the + watery prettiness of Maud Dyer, and Vida was noisily interested in getting + up a Virginia Reel. Without seeming to watch Kennicott, she knew that he + did not once look at her. + </p> + <p> + That was all of her first love-affair. + </p> + <p> + He gave no sign of remembering that he was “terribly fond.” She waited for + him; she reveled in longing, and in a sense of guilt because she longed. + She told herself that she did not want part of him; unless he gave her all + his devotion she would never let him touch her; and when she found that + she was probably lying, she burned with scorn. She fought it out in + prayer. She knelt in a pink flannel nightgown, her thin hair down her + back, her forehead as full of horror as a mask of tragedy, while she + identified her love for the Son of God with her love for a mortal, and + wondered if any other woman had ever been so sacrilegious. She wanted to + be a nun and observe perpetual adoration. She bought a rosary, but she had + been so bitterly reared as a Protestant that she could not bring herself + to use it. + </p> + <p> + Yet none of her intimates in the school and in the boarding-house knew of + her abyss of passion. They said she was “so optimistic.” + </p> + <p> + When she heard that Kennicott was to marry a girl, pretty, young, and + imposingly from the Cities, Vida despaired. She congratulated Kennicott; + carelessly ascertained from him the hour of marriage. At that hour, + sitting in her room, Vida pictured the wedding in St. Paul. Full of an + ecstasy which horrified her, she followed Kennicott and the girl who had + stolen her place, followed them to the train, through the evening, the + night. + </p> + <p> + She was relieved when she had worked out a belief that she wasn't really + shameful, that there was a mystical relation between herself and Carol, so + that she was vicariously yet veritably with Kennicott, and had the right + to be. + </p> + <p> + She saw Carol during the first five minutes in Gopher Prairie. She stared + at the passing motor, at Kennicott and the girl beside him. In that fog + world of transference of emotion Vida had no normal jealousy but a + conviction that, since through Carol she had received Kennicott's love, + then Carol was a part of her, an astral self, a heightened and more + beloved self. She was glad of the girl's charm, of the smooth black hair, + the airy head and young shoulders. But she was suddenly angry. Carol + glanced at her for a quarter-second, but looked past her, at an old + roadside barn. If she had made the great sacrifice, at least she expected + gratitude and recognition, Vida raged, while her conscious schoolroom mind + fussily begged her to control this insanity. + </p> + <p> + During her first call half of her wanted to welcome a fellow reader of + books; the other half itched to find out whether Carol knew anything about + Kennicott's former interest in herself. She discovered that Carol was not + aware that he had ever touched another woman's hand. Carol was an amusing, + naive, curiously learned child. While Vida was most actively describing + the glories of the Thanatopsis, and complimenting this librarian on her + training as a worker, she was fancying that this girl was the child born + of herself and Kennicott; and out of that symbolizing she had a comfort + she had not known for months. + </p> + <p> + When she came home, after supper with the Kennicotts and Guy Pollock, she + had a sudden and rather pleasant backsliding from devotion. She bustled + into her room, she slammed her hat on the bed, and chattered, “I don't + CARE! I'm a lot like her—except a few years older. I'm light and + quick, too, and I can talk just as well as she can, and I'm sure——Men + are such fools. I'd be ten times as sweet to make love to as that dreamy + baby. And I AM as good-looking!” + </p> + <p> + But as she sat on the bed and stared at her thin thighs, defiance oozed + away. She mourned: + </p> + <p> + “No. I'm not. Dear God, how we fool ourselves! I pretend I'm 'spiritual.' + I pretend my legs are graceful. They aren't. They're skinny. Old-maidish. + I hate it! I hate that impertinent young woman! A selfish cat, taking his + love for granted. . . . No, she's adorable. . . . I don't think she ought + to be so friendly with Guy Pollock.” + </p> + <p> + For a year Vida loved Carol, longed to and did not pry into the details of + her relations with Kennicott, enjoyed her spirit of play as expressed in + childish tea-parties, and, with the mystic bond between them forgotten, + was healthily vexed by Carol's assumption that she was a sociological + messiah come to save Gopher Prairie. This last facet of Vida's thought was + the one which, after a year, was most often turned to the light. In a + testy way she brooded, “These people that want to change everything all of + a sudden without doing any work, make me tired! Here I have to go and work + for four years, picking out the pupils for debates, and drilling them, and + nagging at them to get them to look up references, and begging them to + choose their own subjects—four years, to get up a couple of good + debates! And she comes rushing in, and expects in one year to change the + whole town into a lollypop paradise with everybody stopping everything + else to grow tulips and drink tea. And it's a comfy homey old town, too!” + </p> + <p> + She had such an outburst after each of Carol's campaigns—for better + Thanatopsis programs, for Shavian plays, for more human schools—but + she never betrayed herself, and always she was penitent. + </p> + <p> + Vida was, and always would be, a reformer, a liberal. She believed that + details could excitingly be altered, but that things-in-general were + comely and kind and immutable. Carol was, without understanding or + accepting it, a revolutionist, a radical, and therefore possessed of + “constructive ideas,” which only the destroyer can have, since the + reformer believes that all the essential constructing has already been + done. After years of intimacy it was this unexpressed opposition more than + the fancied loss of Kennicott's love which held Vida irritably fascinated. + </p> + <p> + But the birth of Hugh revived the transcendental emotion. She was + indignant that Carol should not be utterly fulfilled in having borne + Kennicott's child. She admitted that Carol seemed to have affection and + immaculate care for the baby, but she began to identify herself now with + Kennicott, and in this phase to feel that she had endured quite too much + from Carol's instability. + </p> + <p> + She recalled certain other women who had come from the Outside and had not + appreciated Gopher Prairie. She remembered the rector's wife who had been + chilly to callers and who was rumored throughout the town to have said, + “Re-ah-ly I cawn't endure this bucolic heartiness in the responses.” The + woman was positively known to have worn handkerchiefs in her bodice as + padding—oh, the town had simply roared at her. Of course the rector + and she were got rid of in a few months. + </p> + <p> + Then there was the mysterious woman with the dyed hair and penciled + eyebrows, who wore tight English dresses, like basques, who smelled of + stale musk, who flirted with the men and got them to advance money for her + expenses in a lawsuit, who laughed at Vida's reading at a + school-entertainment, and went off owing a hotel-bill and the three + hundred dollars she had borrowed. + </p> + <p> + Vida insisted that she loved Carol, but with some satisfaction she + compared her to these traducers of the town. + </p> + <p> + II + </p> + <p> + Vida had enjoyed Raymie Wutherspoon's singing in the Episcopal choir; she + had thoroughly reviewed the weather with him at Methodist sociables and in + the Bon Ton. But she did not really know him till she moved to Mrs. + Gurrey's boarding-house. It was five years after her affair with + Kennicott. She was thirty-nine, Raymie perhaps a year younger. + </p> + <p> + She said to him, and sincerely, “My! You can do anything, with your brains + and tact and that heavenly voice. You were so good in 'The Girl from + Kankakee.' You made me feel terribly stupid. If you'd gone on the stage, I + believe you'd be just as good as anybody in Minneapolis. But still, I'm + not sorry you stuck to business. It's such a constructive career.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you really think so?” yearned Raymie, across the apple-sauce. + </p> + <p> + It was the first time that either of them had found a dependable + intellectual companionship. They looked down on Willis Woodford the + bank-clerk, and his anxious babycentric wife, the silent Lyman Casses, the + slangy traveling man, and the rest of Mrs. Gurrey's unenlightened guests. + They sat opposite, and they sat late. They were exhilarated to find that + they agreed in confession of faith: + </p> + <p> + “People like Sam Clark and Harry Haydock aren't earnest about music and + pictures and eloquent sermons and really refined movies, but then, on the + other hand, people like Carol Kennicott put too much stress on all this + art. Folks ought to appreciate lovely things, but just the same, they got + to be practical and—they got to look at things in a practical way.” + </p> + <p> + Smiling, passing each other the pressed-glass pickle-dish, seeing Mrs. + Gurrey's linty supper-cloth irradiated by the light of intimacy, Vida and + Raymie talked about Carol's rose-colored turban, Carol's sweetness, + Carol's new low shoes, Carol's erroneous theory that there was no need of + strict discipline in school, Carol's amiability in the Bon Ton, Carol's + flow of wild ideas, which, honestly, just simply made you nervous trying + to keep track of them. + </p> + <p> + About the lovely display of gents' shirts in the Bon Ton window as dressed + by Raymie, about Raymie's offertory last Sunday, the fact that there + weren't any of these new solos as nice as “Jerusalem the Golden,” and the + way Raymie stood up to Juanita Haydock when she came into the store and + tried to run things and he as much as told her that she was so anxious to + have folks think she was smart and bright that she said things she didn't + mean, and anyway, Raymie was running the shoe-department, and if Juanita, + or Harry either, didn't like the way he ran things, they could go get + another man. + </p> + <p> + About Vida's new jabot which made her look thirty-two (Vida's estimate) or + twenty-two (Raymie's estimate), Vida's plan to have the high-school + Debating Society give a playlet, and the difficulty of keeping the younger + boys well behaved on the playground when a big lubber like Cy Bogart acted + up so. + </p> + <p> + About the picture post-card which Mrs. Dawson had sent to Mrs. Cass from + Pasadena, showing roses growing right outdoors in February, the change in + time on No. 4, the reckless way Dr. Gould always drove his auto, the + reckless way almost all these people drove their autos, the fallacy of + supposing that these socialists could carry on a government for as much as + six months if they ever did have a chance to try out their theories, and + the crazy way in which Carol jumped from subject to subject. + </p> + <p> + Vida had once beheld Raymie as a thin man with spectacles, mournful + drawn-out face, and colorless stiff hair. Now she noted that his jaw was + square, that his long hands moved quickly and were bleached in a refined + manner, and that his trusting eyes indicated that he had “led a clean + life.” She began to call him “Ray,” and to bounce in defense of his + unselfishness and thoughtfulness every time Juanita Haydock or Rita Gould + giggled about him at the Jolly Seventeen. + </p> + <p> + On a Sunday afternoon of late autumn they walked down to Lake + Minniemashie. Ray said that he would like to see the ocean; it must be a + grand sight; it must be much grander than a lake, even a great big lake. + Vida had seen it, she stated modestly; she had seen it on a summer trip to + Cape Cod. + </p> + <p> + “Have you been clear to Cape Cod? Massachusetts? I knew you'd traveled, + but I never realized you'd been that far!” + </p> + <p> + Made taller and younger by his interest she poured out, “Oh my yes. It was + a wonderful trip. So many points of interest through Massachusetts—historical. + There's Lexington where we turned back the redcoats, and Longfellow's home + at Cambridge, and Cape Cod—just everything—fishermen and + whale-ships and sand-dunes and everything.” + </p> + <p> + She wished that she had a little cane to carry. He broke off a willow + branch. + </p> + <p> + “My, you're strong!” she said. + </p> + <p> + “No, not very. I wish there was a Y. M. C. A. here, so I could take up + regular exercise. I used to think I could do pretty good acrobatics, if I + had a chance.” + </p> + <p> + “I'm sure you could. You're unusually lithe, for a large man.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh no, not so very. But I wish we had a Y. M. It would be dandy to have + lectures and everything, and I'd like to take a class in improving the + memory—I believe a fellow ought to go on educating himself and + improving his mind even if he is in business, don't you, Vida—I + guess I'm kind of fresh to call you 'Vida'!” + </p> + <p> + “I've been calling you 'Ray' for weeks!” + </p> + <p> + He wondered why she sounded tart. + </p> + <p> + He helped her down the bank to the edge of the lake but dropped her hand + abruptly, and as they sat on a willow log and he brushed her sleeve, he + delicately moved over and murmured, “Oh, excuse me—accident.” + </p> + <p> + She stared at the mud-browned chilly water, the floating gray reeds. + </p> + <p> + “You look so thoughtful,” he said. + </p> + <p> + She threw out her hands. “I am! Will you kindly tell me what's the use of—anything! + Oh, don't mind me. I'm a moody old hen. Tell me about your plan for + getting a partnership in the Bon Ton. I do think you're right: Harry + Haydock and that mean old Simons ought to give you one.” + </p> + <p> + He hymned the old unhappy wars in which he had been Achilles and the + mellifluous Nestor, yet gone his righteous ways unheeded by the cruel + kings. . . . “Why, if I've told 'em once, I've told 'em a dozen times to + get in a side-line of light-weight pants for gents' summer wear, and of + course here they go and let a cheap kike like Rifkin beat them to it and + grab the trade right off 'em, and then Harry said—you know how Harry + is, maybe he don't mean to be grouchy, but he's such a sore-head——” + </p> + <p> + He gave her a hand to rise. “If you don't MIND. I think a fellow is awful + if a lady goes on a walk with him and she can't trust him and he tries to + flirt with her and all.” + </p> + <p> + “I'm sure you're highly trustworthy!” she snapped, and she sprang up + without his aid. Then, smiling excessively, “Uh—don't you think + Carol sometimes fails to appreciate Dr. Will's ability?” + </p> + <p> + III + </p> + <p> + Ray habitually asked her about his window-trimming, the display of the new + shoes, the best music for the entertainment at the Eastern Star, and + (though he was recognized as a professional authority on what the town + called “gents' furnishings”) about his own clothes. She persuaded him not + to wear the small bow ties which made him look like an elongated Sunday + School scholar. Once she burst out: + </p> + <p> + “Ray, I could shake you! Do you know you're too apologetic? You always + appreciate other people too much. You fuss over Carol Kennicott when she + has some crazy theory that we all ought to turn anarchists or live on figs + and nuts or something. And you listen when Harry Haydock tries to show off + and talk about turnovers and credits and things you know lots better than + he does. Look folks in the eye! Glare at 'em! Talk deep! You're the + smartest man in town, if you only knew it. You ARE!” + </p> + <p> + He could not believe it. He kept coming back to her for confirmation. He + practised glaring and talking deep, but he circuitously hinted to Vida + that when he had tried to look Harry Haydock in the eye, Harry had + inquired, “What's the matter with you, Raymie? Got a pain?” But afterward + Harry had asked about Kantbeatum socks in a manner which, Ray felt, was + somehow different from his former condescension. + </p> + <p> + They were sitting on the squat yellow satin settee in the boarding-house + parlor. As Ray reannounced that he simply wouldn't stand it many more + years if Harry didn't give him a partnership, his gesticulating hand + touched Vida's shoulders. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, excuse me!” he pleaded. + </p> + <p> + “It's all right. Well, I think I must be running up to my room. Headache,” + she said briefly. + </p> + <p> + IV + </p> + <p> + Ray and she had stopped in at Dyer's for a hot chocolate on their way home + from the movies, that March evening. Vida speculated, “Do you know that I + may not be here next year?” + </p> + <p> + “What do you mean?” + </p> + <p> + With her fragile narrow nails she smoothed the glass slab which formed the + top of the round table at which they sat. She peeped through the glass at + the perfume-boxes of black and gold and citron in the hollow table. She + looked about at shelves of red rubber water-bottles, pale yellow sponges, + wash-rags with blue borders, hair-brushes of polished cherry backs. She + shook her head like a nervous medium coming out of a trance, stared at him + unhappily, demanded: + </p> + <p> + “Why should I stay here? And I must make up my mind. Now. Time to renew + our teaching-contracts for next year. I think I'll go teach in some other + town. Everybody here is tired of me. I might as well go. Before folks come + out and SAY they're tired of me. I have to decide tonight. I might as well——Oh, + no matter. Come. Let's skip. It's late.” + </p> + <p> + She sprang up, ignoring his wail of “Vida! Wait! Sit down! Gosh! I'm + flabbergasted! Gee! Vida!” She marched out. While he was paying his check + she got ahead. He ran after her, blubbering, “Vida! Wait!” In the shade of + the lilacs in front of the Gougerling house he came up with her, stayed + her flight by a hand on her shoulder. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, don't! Don't! What does it matter?” she begged. She was sobbing, her + soft wrinkly lids soaked with tears. “Who cares for my affection or help? + I might as well drift on, forgotten. O Ray, please don't hold me. Let me + go. I'll just decide not to renew my contract here, and—and drift—way + off——” + </p> + <p> + His hand was steady on her shoulder. She dropped her head, rubbed the back + of his hand with her cheek. + </p> + <p> + They were married in June. + </p> + <p> + V + </p> + <p> + They took the Ole Jenson house. “It's small,” said Vida, “but it's got the + dearest vegetable garden, and I love having time to get near to Nature for + once.” + </p> + <p> + Though she became Vida Wutherspoon technically, and though she certainly + had no ideals about the independence of keeping her name, she continued to + be known as Vida Sherwin. + </p> + <p> + She had resigned from the school, but she kept up one class in English. + She bustled about on every committee of the Thanatopsis; she was always + popping into the rest-room to make Mrs. Nodelquist sweep the floor; she + was appointed to the library-board to succeed Carol; she taught the Senior + Girls' Class in the Episcopal Sunday School, and tried to revive the + King's Daughters. She exploded into self-confidence and happiness; her + draining thoughts were by marriage turned into energy. She became daily + and visibly more plump, and though she chattered as eagerly, she was less + obviously admiring of marital bliss, less sentimental about babies, + sharper in demanding that the entire town share her reforms—the + purchase of a park, the compulsory cleaning of back-yards. + </p> + <p> + She penned Harry Haydock at his desk in the Bon Ton; she interrupted his + joking; she told him that it was Ray who had built up the shoe-department + and men's department; she demanded that he be made a partner. Before Harry + could answer she threatened that Ray and she would start a rival shop. + “I'll clerk behind the counter myself, and a Certain Party is all ready to + put up the money.” + </p> + <p> + She rather wondered who the Certain Party was. + </p> + <p> + Ray was made a one-sixth partner. + </p> + <p> + He became a glorified floor-walker, greeting the men with new poise, no + longer coyly subservient to pretty women. When he was not affectionately + coercing people into buying things they did not need, he stood at the back + of the store, glowing, abstracted, feeling masculine as he recalled the + tempestuous surprises of love revealed by Vida. + </p> + <p> + The only remnant of Vida's identification of herself with Carol was a + jealousy when she saw Kennicott and Ray together, and reflected that some + people might suppose that Kennicott was his superior. She was sure that + Carol thought so, and she wanted to shriek, “You needn't try to gloat! I + wouldn't have your pokey old husband. He hasn't one single bit of Ray's + spiritual nobility.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0022" id="link2HCH0022"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXII + </h2> + <h3> + I + </h3> + <p> + THE greatest mystery about a human being is not his reaction to sex or + praise, but the manner in which he contrives to put in twenty-four hours a + day. It is this which puzzles the long-shoreman about the clerk, the + Londoner about the bushman. It was this which puzzled Carol in regard to + the married Vida. Carol herself had the baby, a larger house to care for, + all the telephone calls for Kennicott when he was away; and she read + everything, while Vida was satisfied with newspaper headlines. + </p> + <p> + But after detached brown years in boarding-houses, Vida was hungry for + housework, for the most pottering detail of it. She had no maid, nor + wanted one. She cooked, baked, swept, washed supper-cloths, with the + triumph of a chemist in a new laboratory. To her the hearth was veritably + the altar. When she went shopping she hugged the cans of soup, and she + bought a mop or a side of bacon as though she were preparing for a + reception. She knelt beside a bean sprout and crooned, “I raised this with + my own hands—I brought this new life into the world.” + </p> + <p> + “I love her for being so happy,” Carol brooded. “I ought to be that way. I + worship the baby, but the housework——Oh, I suppose I'm + fortunate; so much better off than farm-women on a new clearing, or people + in a slum.” + </p> + <p> + It has not yet been recorded that any human being has gained a very large + or permanent contentment from meditation upon the fact that he is better + off than others. + </p> + <p> + In Carol's own twenty-four hours a day she got up, dressed the baby, had + breakfast, talked to Oscarina about the day's shopping, put the baby on + the porch to play, went to the butcher's to choose between steak and pork + chops, bathed the baby, nailed up a shelf, had dinner, put the baby to bed + for a nap, paid the iceman, read for an hour, took the baby out for a + walk, called on Vida, had supper, put the baby to bed, darned socks, + listened to Kennicott's yawning comment on what a fool Dr. McGanum was to + try to use that cheap X-ray outfit of his on an epithelioma, repaired a + frock, drowsily heard Kennicott stoke the furnace, tried to read a page of + Thorstein Veblen—and the day was gone. + </p> + <p> + Except when Hugh was vigorously naughty, or whiney, or laughing, or saying + “I like my chair” with thrilling maturity, she was always enfeebled by + loneliness. She no longer felt superior about that misfortune. She would + gladly have been converted to Vida's satisfaction in Gopher Prairie and + mopping the floor. + </p> + <p> + II + </p> + <p> + Carol drove through an astonishing number of books from the public library + and from city shops. Kennicott was at first uncomfortable over her + disconcerting habit of buying them. A book was a book, and if you had + several thousand of them right here in the library, free, why the dickens + should you spend your good money? After worrying about it for two or three + years, he decided that this was one of the Funny Ideas which she had + caught as a librarian and from which she would never entirely recover. + </p> + <p> + The authors whom she read were most of them frightfully annoyed by the + Vida Sherwins. They were young American sociologists, young English + realists, Russian horrorists; Anatole France, Rolland, Nexo, Wells, Shaw, + Key, Edgar Lee Masters, Theodore Dreiser, Sherwood Anderson, Henry + Mencken, and all the other subversive philosophers and artists whom women + were consulting everywhere, in batik-curtained studios in New York, in + Kansas farmhouses, San Francisco drawing-rooms, Alabama schools for + negroes. From them she got the same confused desire which the million + other women felt; the same determination to be class-conscious without + discovering the class of which she was to be conscious. + </p> + <p> + Certainly her reading precipitated her observations of Main Street, of + Gopher Prairie and of the several adjacent Gopher Prairies which she had + seen on drives with Kennicott. In her fluid thought certain convictions + appeared, jaggedly, a fragment of an impression at a time, while she was + going to sleep, or manicuring her nails, or waiting for Kennicott. + </p> + <p> + These convictions she presented to Vida Sherwin—Vida Wutherspoon—beside + a radiator, over a bowl of not very good walnuts and pecans from Uncle + Whittier's grocery, on an evening when both Kennicott and Raymie had gone + out of town with the other officers of the Ancient and Affiliated Order of + Spartans, to inaugurate a new chapter at Wakamin. Vida had come to the + house for the night. She helped in putting Hugh to bed, sputtering the + while about his soft skin. Then they talked till midnight. + </p> + <p> + What Carol said that evening, what she was passionately thinking, was also + emerging in the minds of women in ten thousand Gopher Prairies. Her + formulations were not pat solutions but visions of a tragic futility. She + did not utter them so compactly that they can be given in her words; they + were roughened with “Well, you see” and “if you get what I mean” and “I + don't know that I'm making myself clear.” But they were definite enough, + and indignant enough. + </p> + <p> + III + </p> + <p> + In reading popular stories and seeing plays, asserted Carol, she had found + only two traditions of the American small town. The first tradition, + repeated in scores of magazines every month, is that the American village + remains the one sure abode of friendship, honesty, and clean sweet + marriageable girls. Therefore all men who succeed in painting in Paris or + in finance in New York at last become weary of smart women, return to + their native towns, assert that cities are vicious, marry their childhood + sweethearts and, presumably, joyously abide in those towns until death. + </p> + <p> + The other tradition is that the significant features of all villages are + whiskers, iron dogs upon lawns, gold bricks, checkers, jars of gilded + cat-tails, and shrewd comic old men who are known as “hicks” and who + ejaculate “Waal I swan.” This altogether admirable tradition rules the + vaudeville stage, facetious illustrators, and syndicated newspaper humor, + but out of actual life it passed forty years ago. Carol's small town + thinks not in hoss-swapping but in cheap motor cars, telephones, + ready-made clothes, silos, alfalfa, kodaks, phonographs, + leather-upholstered Morris chairs, bridge-prizes, oil-stocks, + motion-pictures, land-deals, unread sets of Mark Twain, and a chaste + version of national politics. + </p> + <p> + With such a small-town life a Kennicott or a Champ Perry is content, but + there are also hundreds of thousands, particularly women and young men, + who are not at all content. The more intelligent young people (and the + fortunate widows!) flee to the cities with agility and, despite the + fictional tradition, resolutely stay there, seldom returning even for + holidays. The most protesting patriots of the towns leave them in old age, + if they can afford it, and go to live in California or in the cities. + </p> + <p> + The reason, Carol insisted, is not a whiskered rusticity. It is nothing so + amusing! + </p> + <p> + It is an unimaginatively standardized background, a sluggishness of speech + and manners, a rigid ruling of the spirit by the desire to appear + respectable. It is contentment . . . the contentment of the quiet dead, + who are scornful of the living for their restless walking. It is negation + canonized as the one positive virtue. It is the prohibition of happiness. + It is slavery self-sought and self-defended. It is dullness made God. + </p> + <p> + A savorless people, gulping tasteless food, and sitting afterward, + coatless and thoughtless, in rocking-chairs prickly with inane + decorations, listening to mechanical music, saying mechanical things about + the excellence of Ford automobiles, and viewing themselves as the greatest + race in the world. + </p> + <p> + IV + </p> + <p> + She had inquired as to the effect of this dominating dullness upon + foreigners. She remembered the feeble exotic quality to be found in the + first-generation Scandinavians; she recalled the Norwegian Fair at the + Lutheran Church, to which Bea had taken her. There, in the bondestue, the + replica of a Norse farm kitchen, pale women in scarlet jackets embroidered + with gold thread and colored beads, in black skirts with a line of blue, + green-striped aprons, and ridged caps very pretty to set off a fresh face, + had served rommegrod og lefse—sweet cakes and sour milk pudding + spiced with cinnamon. For the first time in Gopher Prairie Carol had found + novelty. She had reveled in the mild foreignness of it. + </p> + <p> + But she saw these Scandinavian women zealously exchanging their spiced + puddings and red jackets for fried pork chops and congealed white blouses, + trading the ancient Christmas hymns of the fjords for “She's My Jazzland + Cutie,” being Americanized into uniformity, and in less than a generation + losing in the grayness whatever pleasant new customs they might have added + to the life of the town. Their sons finished the process. In ready-made + clothes and ready-made high-school phrases they sank into propriety, and + the sound American customs had absorbed without one trace of pollution + another alien invasion. + </p> + <p> + And along with these foreigners, she felt herself being ironed into glossy + mediocrity, and she rebelled, in fear. + </p> + <p> + The respectability of the Gopher Prairies, said Carol, is reinforced by + vows of poverty and chastity in the matter of knowledge. Except for half a + dozen in each town the citizens are proud of that achievement of ignorance + which it is so easy to come by. To be “intellectual” or “artistic” or, in + their own word, to be “highbrow,” is to be priggish and of dubious virtue. + </p> + <p> + Large experiments in politics and in co-operative distribution, ventures + requiring knowledge, courage, and imagination, do originate in the West + and Middlewest, but they are not of the towns, they are of the farmers. If + these heresies are supported by the townsmen it is only by occasional + teachers doctors, lawyers, the labor unions, and workmen like Miles + Bjornstam, who are punished by being mocked as “cranks,” as “half-baked + parlor socialists.” The editor and the rector preach at them. The cloud of + serene ignorance submerges them in unhappiness and futility. + </p> + <p> + V + </p> + <p> + Here Vida observed, “Yes—well——Do you know, I've always + thought that Ray would have made a wonderful rector. He has what I call an + essentially religious soul. My! He'd have read the service beautifully! I + suppose it's too late now, but as I tell him, he can also serve the world + by selling shoes and——I wonder if we oughtn't to have + family-prayers?” + </p> + <p> + VI + </p> + <p> + Doubtless all small towns, in all countries, in all ages, Carol admitted, + have a tendency to be not only dull but mean, bitter, infested with + curiosity. In France or Tibet quite as much as in Wyoming or Indiana these + timidities are inherent in isolation. + </p> + <p> + But a village in a country which is taking pains to become altogether + standardized and pure, which aspires to succeed Victorian England as the + chief mediocrity of the world, is no longer merely provincial, no longer + downy and restful in its leaf-shadowed ignorance. It is a force seeking to + dominate the earth, to drain the hills and sea of color, to set Dante at + boosting Gopher Prairie, and to dress the high gods in Klassy Kollege + Klothes. Sure of itself, it bullies other civilizations, as a traveling + salesman in a brown derby conquers the wisdom of China and tacks + advertisements of cigarettes over arches for centuries dedicate to the + sayings of Confucius. + </p> + <p> + Such a society functions admirably in the large production of cheap + automobiles, dollar watches, and safety razors. But it is not satisfied + until the entire world also admits that the end and joyous purpose of + living is to ride in flivvers, to make advertising-pictures of dollar + watches, and in the twilight to sit talking not of love and courage but of + the convenience of safety razors. + </p> + <p> + And such a society, such a nation, is determined by the Gopher Prairies. + The greatest manufacturer is but a busier Sam Clark, and all the rotund + senators and presidents are village lawyers and bankers grown nine feet + tall. + </p> + <p> + Though a Gopher Prairie regards itself as a part of the Great World, + compares itself to Rome and Vienna, it will not acquire the scientific + spirit, the international mind, which would make it great. It picks at + information which will visibly procure money or social distinction. Its + conception of a community ideal is not the grand manner, the noble + aspiration, the fine aristocratic pride, but cheap labor for the kitchen + and rapid increase in the price of land. It plays at cards on greasy + oil-cloth in a shanty, and does not know that prophets are walking and + talking on the terrace. + </p> + <p> + If all the provincials were as kindly as Champ Perry and Sam Clark there + would be no reason for desiring the town to seek great traditions. It is + the Harry Haydocks, the Dave Dyers, the Jackson Elders, small busy men + crushingly powerful in their common purpose, viewing themselves as men of + the world but keeping themselves men of the cash-register and the comic + film, who make the town a sterile oligarchy. + </p> + <p> + VII + </p> + <p> + She had sought to be definite in analyzing the surface ugliness of the + Gopher Prairies. She asserted that it is a matter of universal similarity; + of flimsiness of construction, so that the towns resemble frontier camps; + of neglect of natural advantages, so that the hills are covered with + brush, the lakes shut off by railroads, and the creeks lined with + dumping-grounds; of depressing sobriety of color; rectangularity of + buildings; and excessive breadth and straightness of the gashed streets, + so that there is no escape from gales and from sight of the grim sweep of + land, nor any windings to coax the loiterer along, while the breadth which + would be majestic in an avenue of palaces makes the low shabby shops + creeping down the typical Main Street the more mean by comparison. + </p> + <p> + The universal similarity—that is the physical expression of the + philosophy of dull safety. Nine-tenths of the American towns are so alike + that it is the completest boredom to wander from one to another. Always, + west of Pittsburg, and often, east of it, there is the same lumber yard, + the same railroad station, the same Ford garage, the same creamery, the + same box-like houses and two-story shops. The new, more conscious houses + are alike in their very attempts at diversity: the same bungalows, the + same square houses of stucco or tapestry brick. The shops show the same + standardized, nationally advertised wares; the newspapers of sections + three thousand miles apart have the same “syndicated features”; the boy in + Arkansas displays just such a flamboyant ready-made suit as is found on + just such a boy in Delaware, both of them iterate the same slang phrases + from the same sporting-pages, and if one of them is in college and the + other is a barber, no one may surmise which is which. + </p> + <p> + If Kennicott were snatched from Gopher Prairie and instantly conveyed to a + town leagues away, he would not realize it. He would go down apparently + the same Main Street (almost certainly it would be called Main Street); in + the same drug store he would see the same young man serving the same + ice-cream soda to the same young woman with the same magazines and + phonograph records under her arm. Not till he had climbed to his office + and found another sign on the door, another Dr. Kennicott inside, would he + understand that something curious had presumably happened. + </p> + <p> + Finally, behind all her comments, Carol saw the fact that the prairie + towns no more exist to serve the farmers who are their reason of existence + than do the great capitals; they exist to fatten on the farmers, to + provide for the townsmen large motors and social preferment; and, unlike + the capitals, they do not give to the district in return for usury a + stately and permanent center, but only this ragged camp. It is a + “parasitic Greek civilization”—minus the civilization. + </p> + <p> + “There we are then,” said Carol. “The remedy? Is there any? Criticism, + perhaps, for the beginning of the beginning. Oh, there's nothing that + attacks the Tribal God Mediocrity that doesn't help a little . . . and + probably there's nothing that helps very much. Perhaps some day the + farmers will build and own their market-towns. (Think of the club they + could have!) But I'm afraid I haven't any 'reform program.' Not any more! + The trouble is spiritual, and no League or Party can enact a preference + for gardens rather than dumping-grounds. . . . There's my confession. + WELL?” + </p> + <p> + “In other words, all you want is perfection?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes! Why not?” + </p> + <p> + “How you hate this place! How can you expect to do anything with it if you + haven't any sympathy?” + </p> + <p> + “But I have! And affection. Or else I wouldn't fume so. I've learned that + Gopher Prairie isn't just an eruption on the prairie, as I thought first, + but as large as New York. In New York I wouldn't know more than forty or + fifty people, and I know that many here. Go on! Say what you're thinking.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, my dear, if I DID take all your notions seriously, it would be + pretty discouraging. Imagine how a person would feel, after working hard + for years and helping to build up a nice town, to have you airily flit in + and simply say 'Rotten!' Think that's fair?” + </p> + <p> + “Why not? It must be just as discouraging for the Gopher Prairieite to see + Venice and make comparisons.” + </p> + <p> + “It would not! I imagine gondolas are kind of nice to ride in, but we've + got better bath-rooms! But——My dear, you're not the only + person in this town who has done some thinking for herself, although + (pardon my rudeness) I'm afraid you think so. I'll admit we lack some + things. Maybe our theater isn't as good as shows in Paris. All right! I + don't want to see any foreign culture suddenly forced on us—whether + it's street-planning or table-manners or crazy communistic ideas.” + </p> + <p> + Vida sketched what she termed “practical things that will make a happier + and prettier town, but that do belong to our life, that actually are being + done.” Of the Thanatopsis Club she spoke; of the rest-room, the fight + against mosquitos, the campaign for more gardens and shade-trees and + sewers—matters not fantastic and nebulous and distant, but immediate + and sure. + </p> + <p> + Carol's answer was fantastic and nebulous enough: + </p> + <p> + “Yes. . . . Yes. . . . I know. They're good. But if I could put through + all those reforms at once, I'd still want startling, exotic things. Life + is comfortable and clean enough here already. And so secure. What it needs + is to be less secure, more eager. The civic improvements which I'd like + the Thanatopsis to advocate are Strindberg plays, and classic dancers—exquisite + legs beneath tulle—and (I can see him so clearly!) a thick, + black-bearded, cynical Frenchman who would sit about and drink and sing + opera and tell bawdy stories and laugh at our proprieties and quote + Rabelais and not be ashamed to kiss my hand!” + </p> + <p> + “Huh! Not sure about the rest of it but I guess that's what you and all + the other discontented young women really want: some stranger kissing your + hand!” At Carol's gasp, the old squirrel-like Vida darted out and cried, + “Oh, my dear, don't take that too seriously. I just meant——” + </p> + <p> + “I know. You just meant it. Go on. Be good for my soul. Isn't it funny: + here we all are—me trying to be good for Gopher Prairie's soul, and + Gopher Prairie trying to be good for my soul. What are my other sins?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, there's plenty of them. Possibly some day we shall have your fat + cynical Frenchman (horrible, sneering, tobacco-stained object, ruining his + brains and his digestion with vile liquor!) but, thank heaven, for a while + we'll manage to keep busy with our lawns and pavements! You see, these + things really are coming! The Thanatopsis is getting somewhere. And you——” + Her tone italicized the words—“to my great disappointment, are doing + less, not more, than the people you laugh at! Sam Clark, on the + school-board, is working for better school ventilation. Ella Stowbody + (whose elocuting you always think is so absurd) has persuaded the railroad + to share the expense of a parked space at the station, to do away with + that vacant lot. + </p> + <p> + “You sneer so easily. I'm sorry, but I do think there's something + essentially cheap in your attitude. Especially about religion. + </p> + <p> + “If you must know, you're not a sound reformer at all. You're an + impossibilist. And you give up too easily. You gave up on the new city + hall, the anti-fly campaign, club papers, the library-board, the dramatic + association—just because we didn't graduate into Ibsen the very + first thing. You want perfection all at once. Do you know what the finest + thing you've done is—aside from bringing Hugh into the world? It was + the help you gave Dr. Will during baby-welfare week. You didn't demand + that each baby be a philosopher and artist before you weighed him, as you + do with the rest of us. + </p> + <p> + “And now I'm afraid perhaps I'll hurt you. We're going to have a new + schoolbuilding in this town—in just a few years—and we'll have + it without one bit of help or interest from you! + </p> + <p> + “Professor Mott and I and some others have been dinging away at the + moneyed men for years. We didn't call on you because you would never stand + the pound-pound-pounding year after year without one bit of encouragement. + And we've won! I've got the promise of everybody who counts that just as + soon as war-conditions permit, they'll vote the bonds for the schoolhouse. + And we'll have a wonderful building—lovely brown brick, with big + windows, and agricultural and manual-training departments. When we get it, + that'll be my answer to all your theories!” + </p> + <p> + “I'm glad. And I'm ashamed I haven't had any part in getting it. But——Please + don't think I'm unsympathetic if I ask one question: Will the teachers in + the hygienic new building go on informing the children that Persia is a + yellow spot on the map, and 'Caesar' the title of a book of grammatical + puzzles?” + </p> + <p> + VIII + </p> + <p> + Vida was indignant; Carol was apologetic; they talked for another hour, + the eternal Mary and Martha—an immoralist Mary and a reformist + Martha. It was Vida who conquered. + </p> + <p> + The fact that she had been left out of the campaign for the new + schoolbuilding disconcerted Carol. She laid her dreams of perfection + aside. When Vida asked her to take charge of a group of Camp Fire Girls, + she obeyed, and had definite pleasure out of the Indian dances and ritual + and costumes. She went more regularly to the Thanatopsis. With Vida as + lieutenant and unofficial commander she campaigned for a village nurse to + attend poor families, raised the fund herself, saw to it that the nurse + was young and strong and amiable and intelligent. + </p> + <p> + Yet all the while she beheld the burly cynical Frenchman and the + diaphanous dancers as clearly as the child sees its air-born playmates; + she relished the Camp Fire Girls not because, in Vida's words, “this Scout + training will help so much to make them Good Wives,” but because she hoped + that the Sioux dances would bring subversive color into their dinginess. + </p> + <p> + She helped Ella Stowbody to set out plants in the tiny triangular park at + the railroad station; she squatted in the dirt, with a small curved trowel + and the most decorous of gardening gauntlets; she talked to Ella about the + public-spiritedness of fuchsias and cannas; and she felt that she was + scrubbing a temple deserted by the gods and empty even of incense and the + sound of chanting. Passengers looking from trains saw her as a village + woman of fading prettiness, incorruptible virtue, and no abnormalities; + the baggageman heard her say, “Oh yes, I do think it will be a good + example for the children”; and all the while she saw herself running + garlanded through the streets of Babylon. + </p> + <p> + Planting led her to botanizing. She never got much farther than + recognizing the tiger lily and the wild rose, but she rediscovered Hugh. + “What does the buttercup say, mummy?” he cried, his hand full of straggly + grasses, his cheek gilded with pollen. She knelt to embrace him; she + affirmed that he made life more than full; she was altogether reconciled . + . . for an hour. + </p> + <p> + But she awoke at night to hovering death. She crept away from the hump of + bedding that was Kennicott; tiptoed into the bathroom and, by the mirror + in the door of the medicine-cabinet, examined her pallid face. + </p> + <p> + Wasn't she growing visibly older in ratio as Vida grew plumper and + younger? Wasn't her nose sharper? Wasn't her neck granulated? She stared + and choked. She was only thirty. But the five years since her marriage—had + they not gone by as hastily and stupidly as though she had been under + ether; would time not slink past till death? She pounded her fist on the + cool enameled rim of the bathtub and raged mutely against the indifferent + gods: + </p> + <p> + “I don't care! I won't endure it! They lie so—Vida and Will and Aunt + Bessie—they tell me I ought to be satisfied with Hugh and a good + home and planting seven nasturtiums in a station garden! I am I! When I + die the world will be annihilated, as far as I'm concerned. I am I! I'm + not content to leave the sea and the ivory towers to others. I want them + for me! Damn Vida! Damn all of them! Do they think they can make me + believe that a display of potatoes at Howland & Gould's is enough + beauty and strangeness?” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0023" id="link2HCH0023"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXIII + </h2> + <h3> + I + </h3> + <p> + WHEN America entered the Great European War, Vida sent Raymie off to an + officers' training-camp—less than a year after her wedding. Raymie + was diligent and rather strong. He came out a first lieutenant of + infantry, and was one of the earliest sent abroad. + </p> + <p> + Carol grew definitely afraid of Vida as Vida transferred the passion which + had been released in marriage to the cause of the war; as she lost all + tolerance. When Carol was touched by the desire for heroism in Raymie and + tried tactfully to express it, Vida made her feel like an impertinent + child. + </p> + <p> + By enlistment and draft, the sons of Lyman Cass, Nat Hicks, Sam Clark + joined the army. But most of the soldiers were the sons of German and + Swedish farmers unknown to Carol. Dr. Terry Gould and Dr. McGanum became + captains in the medical corps, and were stationed at camps in Iowa and + Georgia. They were the only officers, besides Raymie, from the Gopher + Prairie district. Kennicott wanted to go with them, but the several + doctors of the town forgot medical rivalry and, meeting in council, + decided that he would do better to wait and keep the town well till he + should be needed. Kennicott was forty-two now; the only youngish doctor + left in a radius of eighteen miles. Old Dr. Westlake, who loved comfort + like a cat, protestingly rolled out at night for country calls, and hunted + through his collar-box for his G. A. R. button. + </p> + <p> + Carol did not quite know what she thought about Kennicott's going. + Certainly she was no Spartan wife. She knew that he wanted to go; she knew + that this longing was always in him, behind his unchanged trudging and + remarks about the weather. She felt for him an admiring affection—and + she was sorry that she had nothing more than affection. + </p> + <p> + Cy Bogart was the spectacular warrior of the town. Cy was no longer the + weedy boy who had sat in the loft speculating about Carol's egotism and + the mysteries of generation. He was nineteen now, tall, broad, busy, the + “town sport,” famous for his ability to drink beer, to shake dice, to tell + undesirable stories, and, from his post in front of Dyer's drug store, to + embarrass the girls by “jollying” them as they passed. His face was at + once peach-bloomed and pimply. + </p> + <p> + Cy was to be heard publishing it abroad that if he couldn't get the Widow + Bogart's permission to enlist, he'd run away and enlist without it. He + shouted that he “hated every dirty Hun; by gosh, if he could just poke a + bayonet into one big fat Heinie and learn him some decency and democracy, + he'd die happy.” Cy got much reputation by whipping a farmboy named Adolph + Pochbauer for being a “damn hyphenated German.” . . . This was the younger + Pochbauer, who was killed in the Argonne, while he was trying to bring the + body of his Yankee captain back to the lines. At this time Cy Bogart was + still dwelling in Gopher Prairie and planning to go to war. + </p> + <p> + II + </p> + <p> + Everywhere Carol heard that the war was going to bring a basic change in + psychology, to purify and uplift everything from marital relations to + national politics, and she tried to exult in it. Only she did not find it. + She saw the women who made bandages for the Red Cross giving up bridge, + and laughing at having to do without sugar, but over the + surgical-dressings they did not speak of God and the souls of men, but of + Miles Bjornstam's impudence, of Terry Gould's scandalous carryings-on with + a farmer's daughter four years ago, of cooking cabbage, and of altering + blouses. Their references to the war touched atrocities only. She herself + was punctual, and efficient at making dressings, but she could not, like + Mrs. Lyman Cass and Mrs. Bogart, fill the dressings with hate for enemies. + </p> + <p> + When she protested to Vida, “The young do the work while these old ones + sit around and interrupt us and gag with hate because they're too feeble + to do anything but hate,” then Vida turned on her: + </p> + <p> + “If you can't be reverent, at least don't be so pert and opinionated, now + when men and women are dying. Some of us—we have given up so much, + and we're glad to. At least we expect that you others sha'n't try to be + witty at our expense.” + </p> + <p> + There was weeping. + </p> + <p> + Carol did desire to see the Prussian autocracy defeated; she did persuade + herself that there were no autocracies save that of Prussia; she did + thrill to motion-pictures of troops embarking in New York; and she was + uncomfortable when she met Miles Bjornstam on the street and he croaked: + </p> + <p> + “How's tricks? Things going fine with me; got two new cows. Well, have you + become a patriot? Eh? Sure, they'll bring democracy—the democracy of + death. Yes, sure, in every war since the Garden of Eden the workmen have + gone out to fight each other for perfectly good reasons—handed to + them by their bosses. Now me, I'm wise. I'm so wise that I know I don't + know anything about the war.” + </p> + <p> + It was not a thought of the war that remained with her after Miles's + declamation but a perception that she and Vida and all of the + good-intentioners who wanted to “do something for the common people” were + insignificant, because the “common people” were able to do things for + themselves, and highly likely to, as soon as they learned the fact. The + conception of millions of workmen like Miles taking control frightened + her, and she scuttled rapidly away from the thought of a time when she + might no longer retain the position of Lady Bountiful to the Bjornstams + and Beas and Oscarinas whom she loved—and patronized. + </p> + <p> + III + </p> + <p> + It was in June, two months after America's entrance into the war, that the + momentous event happened—the visit of the great Percy Bresnahan, the + millionaire president of the Velvet Motor Car Company of Boston, the one + native son who was always to be mentioned to strangers. + </p> + <p> + For two weeks there were rumors. Sam Clark cried to Kennicott, “Say, I + hear Perce Bresnahan is coming! By golly it'll be great to see the old + scout, eh?” Finally the Dauntless printed, on the front page with a No. 1 + head, a letter from Bresnahan to Jackson Elder: + </p> + <p> + DEAR JACK: + </p> + <p> + Well, Jack, I find I can make it. I'm to go to Washington as a dollar a + year man for the government, in the aviation motor section, and tell them + how much I don't know about carburetors. But before I start in being a + hero I want to shoot out and catch me a big black bass and cuss out you + and Sam Clark and Harry Haydock and Will Kennicott and the rest of you + pirates. I'll land in G. P. on June 7, on No. 7 from Mpls. Shake a + day-day. Tell Bert Tybee to save me a glass of beer. + </p> + <p> + Sincerely yours, + </p> + <p> + Perce. + </p> + <p> + All members of the social, financial, scientific, literary, and sporting + sets were at No. 7 to meet Bresnahan; Mrs. Lyman Cass was beside Del + Snafflin the barber, and Juanita Haydock almost cordial to Miss Villets + the librarian. Carol saw Bresnahan laughing down at them from the train + vestibule—big, immaculate, overjawed, with the eye of an executive. + In the voice of the professional Good Fellow he bellowed, “Howdy, folks!” + As she was introduced to him (not he to her) Bresnahan looked into her + eyes, and his hand-shake was warm, unhurried. + </p> + <p> + He declined the offers of motors; he walked off, his arm about the + shoulder of Nat Hicks the sporting tailor, with the elegant Harry Haydock + carrying one of his enormous pale leather bags, Del Snafflin the other, + Jack Elder bearing an overcoat, and Julius Flickerbaugh the + fishing-tackle. Carol noted that though Bresnahan wore spats and a stick, + no small boy jeered. She decided, “I must have Will get a double-breasted + blue coat and a wing collar and a dotted bow-tie like his.” + </p> + <p> + That evening, when Kennicott was trimming the grass along the walk with + sheep-shears, Bresnahan rolled up, alone. He was now in corduroy trousers, + khaki shirt open at the throat, a white boating hat, and marvelous + canvas-and-leather shoes “On the job there, old Will! Say, my Lord, this + is living, to come back and get into a regular man-sized pair of pants. + They can talk all they want to about the city, but my idea of a good time + is to loaf around and see you boys and catch a gamey bass!” + </p> + <p> + He hustled up the walk and blared at Carol, “Where's that little fellow? I + hear you've got one fine big he-boy that you're holding out on me!” + </p> + <p> + “He's gone to bed,” rather briefly. + </p> + <p> + “I know. And rules are rules, these days. Kids get routed through the shop + like a motor. But look here, sister; I'm one great hand at busting rules. + Come on now, let Uncle Perce have a look at him. Please now, sister?” + </p> + <p> + He put his arm about her waist; it was a large, strong, sophisticated arm, + and very agreeable; he grinned at her with a devastating knowingness, + while Kennicott glowed inanely. She flushed; she was alarmed by the ease + with which the big-city man invaded her guarded personality. She was glad, + in retreat, to scamper ahead of the two men up-stairs to the hall-room in + which Hugh slept. All the way Kennicott muttered, “Well, well, say, gee + whittakers but it's good to have you back, certainly is good to see you!” + </p> + <p> + Hugh lay on his stomach, making an earnest business of sleeping. He + burrowed his eyes in the dwarf blue pillow to escape the electric light, + then sat up abruptly, small and frail in his woolly nightdrawers, his + floss of brown hair wild, the pillow clutched to his breast. He wailed. He + stared at the stranger, in a manner of patient dismissal. He explained + confidentially to Carol, “Daddy wouldn't let it be morning yet. What does + the pillow say?” + </p> + <p> + Bresnahan dropped his arm caressingly on Carol's shoulder; he pronounced, + “My Lord, you're a lucky girl to have a fine young husk like that. I + figure Will knew what he was doing when he persuaded you to take a chance + on an old bum like him! They tell me you come from St. Paul. We're going + to get you to come to Boston some day.” He leaned over the bed. “Young + man, you're the slickest sight I've seen this side of Boston. With your + permission, may we present you with a slight token of our regard and + appreciation of your long service?” + </p> + <p> + He held out a red rubber Pierrot. Hugh remarked, “Gimme it,” hid it under + the bedclothes, and stared at Bresnahan as though he had never seen the + man before. + </p> + <p> + For once Carol permitted herself the spiritual luxury of not asking “Why, + Hugh dear, what do you say when some one gives you a present?” The great + man was apparently waiting. They stood in inane suspense till Bresnahan + led them out, rumbling, “How about planning a fishing-trip, Will?” + </p> + <p> + He remained for half an hour. Always he told Carol what a charming person + she was; always he looked at her knowingly. + </p> + <p> + “Yes. He probably would make a woman fall in love with him. But it + wouldn't last a week. I'd get tired of his confounded buoyancy. His + hypocrisy. He's a spiritual bully. He makes me rude to him in + self-defense. Oh yes, he is glad to be here. He does like us. He's so good + an actor that he convinces his own self. . . . I'd HATE him in Boston. + He'd have all the obvious big-city things. Limousines. Discreet + evening-clothes. Order a clever dinner at a smart restaurant. Drawing-room + decorated by the best firm—but the pictures giving him away. I'd + rather talk to Guy Pollock in his dusty office. . . . How I lie! His arm + coaxed my shoulder and his eyes dared me not to admire him. I'd be afraid + of him. I hate him! . . . Oh, the inconceivable egotistic imagination of + women! All this stew of analysis about a man, a good, decent, friendly, + efficient man, because he was kind to me, as Will's wife!” + </p> + <p> + IV + </p> + <p> + The Kennicotts, the Elders, the Clarks, and Bresnahan went fishing at Red + Squaw Lake. They drove forty miles to the lake in Elder's new Cadillac. + There was much laughter and bustle at the start, much storing of + lunch-baskets and jointed poles, much inquiry as to whether it would + really bother Carol to sit with her feet up on a roll of shawls. When they + were ready to go Mrs. Clark lamented, “Oh, Sam, I forgot my magazine,” and + Bresnahan bullied, “Come on now, if you women think you're going to be + literary, you can't go with us tough guys!” Every one laughed a great + deal, and as they drove on Mrs. Clark explained that though probably she + would not have read it, still, she might have wanted to, while the other + girls had a nap in the afternoon, and she was right in the middle of a + serial—it was an awfully exciting story—it seems that this + girl was a Turkish dancer (only she was really the daughter of an American + lady and a Russian prince) and men kept running after her, just + disgustingly, but she remained pure, and there was a scene—— + </p> + <p> + While the men floated on the lake, casting for black bass, the women + prepared lunch and yawned. Carol was a little resentful of the manner in + which the men assumed that they did not care to fish. “I don't want to go + with them, but I would like the privilege of refusing.” + </p> + <p> + The lunch was long and pleasant. It was a background for the talk of the + great man come home, hints of cities and large imperative affairs and + famous people, jocosely modest admissions that, yes, their friend Perce + was doing about as well as most of these “Boston swells that think so much + of themselves because they come from rich old families and went to college + and everything. Believe me, it's us new business men that are running + Beantown today, and not a lot of fussy old bucks snoozing in their clubs!” + </p> + <p> + Carol realized that he was not one of the sons of Gopher Prairie who, if + they do not actually starve in the East, are invariably spoken of as + “highly successful”; and she found behind his too incessant flattery a + genuine affection for his mates. It was in the matter of the war that he + most favored and thrilled them. Dropping his voice while they bent nearer + (there was no one within two miles to overhear), he disclosed the fact + that in both Boston and Washington he'd been getting a lot of inside stuff + on the war—right straight from headquarters—he was in touch + with some men—couldn't name them but they were darn high up in both + the War and State Departments—and he would say—only for Pete's + sake they mustn't breathe one word of this; it was strictly on the Q.T. + and not generally known outside of Washington—but just between + ourselves—and they could take this for gospel—Spain had + finally decided to join the Entente allies in the Grand Scrap. Yes, sir, + there'd be two million fully equipped Spanish soldiers fighting with us in + France in one month now. Some surprise for Germany, all right! + </p> + <p> + “How about the prospects for revolution in Germany?” reverently asked + Kennicott. + </p> + <p> + The authority grunted, “Nothing to it. The one thing you can bet on is + that no matter what happens to the German people, win or lose, they'll + stick by the Kaiser till hell freezes over. I got that absolutely + straight, from a fellow who's on the inside of the inside in Washington. + No, sir! I don't pretend to know much about international affairs but one + thing you can put down as settled is that Germany will be a Hohenzollern + empire for the next forty years. At that, I don't know as it's so bad. The + Kaiser and the Junkers keep a firm hand on a lot of these red agitators + who'd be worse than a king if they could get control.” + </p> + <p> + “I'm terribly interested in this uprising that overthrew the Czar in + Russia,” suggested Carol. She had finally been conquered by the man's + wizard knowledge of affairs. + </p> + <p> + Kennicott apologized for her: “Carrie's nuts about this Russian + revolution. Is there much to it, Perce?” + </p> + <p> + “There is not!” Bresnahan said flatly. “I can speak by the book there. + Carol, honey, I'm surprised to find you talking like a New York Russian + Jew, or one of these long-hairs! I can tell you, only you don't need to + let every one in on it, this is confidential, I got it from a man who's + close to the State Department, but as a matter of fact the Czar will be + back in power before the end of the year. You read a lot about his + retiring and about his being killed, but I know he's got a big army back + of him, and he'll show these damn agitators, lazy beggars hunting for a + soft berth bossing the poor goats that fall for 'em, he'll show 'em where + they get off!” + </p> + <p> + Carol was sorry to hear that the Czar was coming back, but she said + nothing. The others had looked vacant at the mention of a country so far + away as Russia. Now they edged in and asked Bresnahan what he thought + about the Packard car, investments in Texas oil-wells, the comparative + merits of young men born in Minnesota and in Massachusetts, the question + of prohibition, the future cost of motor tires, and wasn't it true that + American aviators put it all over these Frenchmen? + </p> + <p> + They were glad to find that he agreed with them on every point. + </p> + <p> + As she heard Bresnahan announce, “We're perfectly willing to talk to any + committee the men may choose, but we're not going to stand for some + outside agitator butting in and telling us how we're going to run our + plant!” Carol remembered that Jackson Elder (now meekly receiving New + Ideas) had said the same thing in the same words. + </p> + <p> + While Sam Clark was digging up from his memory a long and immensely + detailed story of the crushing things he had said to a Pullman porter, + named George, Bresnahan hugged his knees and rocked and watched Carol. She + wondered if he did not understand the laboriousness of the smile with + which she listened to Kennicott's account of the “good one he had on + Carrie,” that marital, coyly improper, ten-times-told tale of how she had + forgotten to attend to Hugh because she was “all het up pounding the box”—which + may be translated as “eagerly playing the piano.” She was certain that + Bresnahan saw through her when she pretended not to hear Kennicott's + invitation to join a game of cribbage. She feared the comments he might + make; she was irritated by her fear. + </p> + <p> + She was equally irritated, when the motor returned through Gopher Prairie, + to find that she was proud of sharing in Bresnahan's kudos as people + waved, and Juanita Haydock leaned from a window. She said to herself, “As + though I cared whether I'm seen with this fat phonograph!” and + simultaneously, “Everybody has noticed how much Will and I are playing + with Mr. Bresnahan.” + </p> + <p> + The town was full of his stories, his friendliness, his memory for names, + his clothes, his trout-flies, his generosity. He had given a hundred + dollars to Father Klubok the priest, and a hundred to the Reverend Mr. + Zitterel the Baptist minister, for Americanization work. + </p> + <p> + At the Bon Ton, Carol heard Nat Hicks the tailor exulting: + </p> + <p> + “Old Perce certainly pulled a good one on this fellow Bjornstam that + always is shooting off his mouth. He's supposed to of settled down since + he got married, but Lord, those fellows that think they know it all, they + never change. Well, the Red Swede got the grand razz handed to him, all + right. He had the nerve to breeze up to Perce, at Dave Dyer's, and he + said, he said to Perce, 'I've always wanted to look at a man that was so + useful that folks would pay him a million dollars for existing,' and Perce + gave him the once-over and come right back, 'Have, eh?' he says. 'Well,' + he says, 'I've been looking for a man so useful sweeping floors that I + could pay him four dollars a day. Want the job, my friend?' Ha, ha, ha! + Say, you know how lippy Bjornstam is? Well for once he didn't have a thing + to say. He tried to get fresh, and tell what a rotten town this is, and + Perce come right back at him, 'If you don't like this country, you better + get out of it and go back to Germany, where you belong!' Say, maybe us + fellows didn't give Bjornstam the horse-laugh though! Oh, Perce is the + white-haired boy in this burg, all rightee!” + </p> + <p> + V + </p> + <p> + Bresnahan had borrowed Jackson Elder's motor; he stopped at the + Kennicotts'; he bawled at Carol, rocking with Hugh on the porch, “Better + come for a ride.” + </p> + <p> + She wanted to snub him. “Thanks so much, but I'm being maternal.” + </p> + <p> + “Bring him along! Bring him along!” Bresnahan was out of the seat, + stalking up the sidewalk, and the rest of her protests and dignities were + feeble. + </p> + <p> + She did not bring Hugh along. + </p> + <p> + Bresnahan was silent for a mile, in words, But he looked at her as though + he meant her to know that he understood everything she thought. + </p> + <p> + She observed how deep was his chest. + </p> + <p> + “Lovely fields over there,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “You really like them? There's no profit in them.” + </p> + <p> + He chuckled. “Sister, you can't get away with it. I'm onto you. You + consider me a big bluff. Well, maybe I am. But so are you, my dear—and + pretty enough so that I'd try to make love to you, if I weren't afraid + you'd slap me.” + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Bresnahan, do you talk that way to your wife's friends? And do you + call them 'sister'?” + </p> + <p> + “As a matter of fact, I do! And I make 'em like it. Score two!” But his + chuckle was not so rotund, and he was very attentive to the ammeter. + </p> + <p> + In a moment he was cautiously attacking: “That's a wonderful boy, Will + Kennicott. Great work these country practitioners are doing. The other + day, in Washington, I was talking to a big scientific shark, a professor + in Johns Hopkins medical school, and he was saying that no one has ever + sufficiently appreciated the general practitioner and the sympathy and + help he gives folks. These crack specialists, the young scientific + fellows, they're so cocksure and so wrapped up in their laboratories that + they miss the human element. Except in the case of a few freak diseases + that no respectable human being would waste his time having, it's the old + doc that keeps a community well, mind and body. And strikes me that Will + is one of the steadiest and clearest-headed counter practitioners I've + ever met. Eh?” + </p> + <p> + “I'm sure he is. He's a servant of reality.” + </p> + <p> + “Come again? Um. Yes. All of that, whatever that is. . . . Say, child, you + don't care a whole lot for Gopher Prairie, if I'm not mistaken.” + </p> + <p> + “Nope.” + </p> + <p> + “There's where you're missing a big chance. There's nothing to these + cities. Believe me, I KNOW! This is a good town, as they go. You're lucky + to be here. I wish I could shy on!” + </p> + <p> + “Very well, why don't you?” + </p> + <p> + “Huh? Why—Lord—can't get away fr——” + </p> + <p> + “You don't have to stay. I do! So I want to change it. Do you know that + men like you, prominent men, do quite a reasonable amount of harm by + insisting that your native towns and native states are perfect? It's you + who encourage the denizens not to change. They quote you, and go on + believing that they live in paradise, and——” She clenched her + fist. “The incredible dullness of it!” + </p> + <p> + “Suppose you were right. Even so, don't you think you waste a lot of + thundering on one poor scared little town? Kind of mean!” + </p> + <p> + “I tell you it's dull. DULL!” + </p> + <p> + “The folks don't find it dull. These couples like the Haydocks have a high + old time; dances and cards——” + </p> + <p> + “They don't. They're bored. Almost every one here is. Vacuousness and bad + manners and spiteful gossip—that's what I hate.” + </p> + <p> + “Those things—course they're here. So are they in Boston! And every + place else! Why, the faults you find in this town are simply human nature, + and never will be changed.” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps. But in a Boston all the good Carols (I'll admit I have no + faults) can find one another and play. But here—I'm alone, in a + stale pool—except as it's stirred by the great Mr. Bresnahan!” + </p> + <p> + “My Lord, to hear you tell it, a fellow 'd think that all the denizens, as + you impolitely call 'em, are so confoundedly unhappy that it's a wonder + they don't all up and commit suicide. But they seem to struggle along + somehow!” + </p> + <p> + “They don't know what they miss. And anybody can endure anything. Look at + men in mines and in prisons.” + </p> + <p> + He drew up on the south shore of Lake Minniemashie. He glanced across the + reeds reflected on the water, the quiver of wavelets like crumpled + tinfoil, the distant shores patched with dark woods, silvery oats and deep + yellow wheat. He patted her hand. “Sis——Carol, you're a + darling girl, but you're difficult. Know what I think?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “Humph. Maybe you do, but——My humble (not too humble!) opinion + is that you like to be different. You like to think you're peculiar. Why, + if you knew how many tens of thousands of women, especially in New York, + say just what you do, you'd lose all the fun of thinking you're a lone + genius and you'd be on the band-wagon whooping it up for Gopher Prairie + and a good decent family life. There's always about a million young women + just out of college who want to teach their grandmothers how to suck + eggs.” + </p> + <p> + “How proud you are of that homely rustic metaphor! You use it at + 'banquets' and directors' meetings, and boast of your climb from a humble + homestead.” + </p> + <p> + “Huh! You may have my number. I'm not telling. But look here: You're so + prejudiced against Gopher Prairie that you overshoot the mark; you + antagonize those who might be inclined to agree with you in some + particulars but——Great guns, the town can't be all wrong!” + </p> + <p> + “No, it isn't. But it could be. Let me tell you a fable. Imagine a + cavewoman complaining to her mate. She doesn't like one single thing; she + hates the damp cave, the rats running over her bare legs, the stiff skin + garments, the eating of half-raw meat, her husband's bushy face, the + constant battles, and the worship of the spirits who will hoodoo her + unless she gives the priests her best claw necklace. Her man protests, + 'But it can't all be wrong!' and he thinks he has reduced her to + absurdity. Now you assume that a world which produces a Percy Bresnahan + and a Velvet Motor Company must be civilized. It is? Aren't we only about + half-way along in barbarism? I suggest Mrs. Bogart as a test. And we'll + continue in barbarism just as long as people as nearly intelligent as you + continue to defend things as they are because they are.” + </p> + <p> + “You're a fair spieler, child. But, by golly, I'd like to see you try to + design a new manifold, or run a factory and keep a lot of your fellow reds + from Czech-slovenski-magyar-godknowswheria on the job! You'd drop your + theories so darn quick! I'm not any defender of things as they are. Sure. + They're rotten. Only I'm sensible.” + </p> + <p> + He preached his gospel: love of outdoors, Playing the Game, loyalty to + friends. She had the neophyte's shock of discovery that, outside of + tracts, conservatives do not tremble and find no answer when an iconoclast + turns on them, but retort with agility and confusing statistics. + </p> + <p> + He was so much the man, the worker, the friend, that she liked him when + she most tried to stand out against him; he was so much the successful + executive that she did not want him to despise her. His manner of sneering + at what he called “parlor socialists” (though the phrase was not + overwhelmingly new) had a power which made her wish to placate his company + of well-fed, speed-loving administrators. When he demanded, “Would you + like to associate with nothing but a lot of turkey-necked, horn-spectacled + nuts that have adenoids and need a hair-cut, and that spend all their time + kicking about 'conditions' and never do a lick of work?” she said, “No, + but just the same——” When he asserted, “Even if your cavewoman + was right in knocking the whole works, I bet some red-blooded Regular + Fellow, some real He-man, found her a nice dry cave, and not any whining + criticizing radical,” she wriggled her head feebly, between a nod and a + shake. + </p> + <p> + His large hands, sensual lips, easy voice supported his self-confidence. + He made her feel young and soft—as Kennicott had once made her feel. + She had nothing to say when he bent his powerful head and experimented, + “My dear, I'm sorry I'm going away from this town. You'd be a darling + child to play with. You ARE pretty! Some day in Boston I'll show you how + we buy a lunch. Well, hang it, got to be starting back.” + </p> + <p> + The only answer to his gospel of beef which she could find, when she was + home, was a wail of “But just the same——” + </p> + <p> + She did not see him again before he departed for Washington. + </p> + <p> + His eyes remained. His glances at her lips and hair and shoulders had + revealed to her that she was not a wife-and-mother alone, but a girl; that + there still were men in the world, as there had been in college days. + </p> + <p> + That admiration led her to study Kennicott, to tear at the shroud of + intimacy, to perceive the strangeness of the most familiar. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0024" id="link2HCH0024"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXIV + </h2> + <h3> + I + </h3> + <p> + ALL that midsummer month Carol was sensitive to Kennicott. She recalled a + hundred grotesqueries: her comic dismay at his having chewed tobacco, the + evening when she had tried to read poetry to him; matters which had seemed + to vanish with no trace or sequence. Always she repeated that he had been + heroically patient in his desire to join the army. She made much of her + consoling affection for him in little things. She liked the homeliness of + his tinkering about the house; his strength and handiness as he tightened + the hinges of a shutter; his boyishness when he ran to her to be comforted + because he had found rust in the barrel of his pump-gun. But at the + highest he was to her another Hugh, without the glamor of Hugh's unknown + future. + </p> + <p> + There was, late in June, a day of heat-lightning. + </p> + <p> + Because of the work imposed by the absence of the other doctors the + Kennicotts had not moved to the lake cottage but remained in town, dusty + and irritable. In the afternoon, when she went to Oleson & McGuire's + (formerly Dahl & Oleson's), Carol was vexed by the assumption of the + youthful clerk, recently come from the farm, that he had to be neighborly + and rude. He was no more brusquely familiar than a dozen other clerks of + the town, but her nerves were heat-scorched. + </p> + <p> + When she asked for codfish, for supper, he grunted, “What d'you want that + darned old dry stuff for?” + </p> + <p> + “I like it!” + </p> + <p> + “Punk! Guess the doc can afford something better than that. Try some of + the new wienies we got in. Swell. The Haydocks use 'em.” + </p> + <p> + She exploded. “My dear young man, it is not your duty to instruct me in + housekeeping, and it doesn't particularly concern me what the Haydocks + condescend to approve!” + </p> + <p> + He was hurt. He hastily wrapped up the leprous fragment of fish; he gaped + as she trailed out. She lamented, “I shouldn't have spoken so. He didn't + mean anything. He doesn't know when he is being rude.” + </p> + <p> + Her repentance was not proof against Uncle Whittier when she stopped in at + his grocery for salt and a package of safety matches. Uncle Whittier, in a + shirt collarless and soaked with sweat in a brown streak down his back, + was whining at a clerk, “Come on now, get a hustle on and lug that pound + cake up to Mis' Cass's. Some folks in this town think a storekeeper ain't + got nothing to do but chase out 'phone-orders. . . . Hello, Carrie. That + dress you got on looks kind of low in the neck to me. May be decent and + modest—I suppose I'm old-fashioned—but I never thought much of + showing the whole town a woman's bust! Hee, hee, hee! . . . Afternoon, + Mrs. Hicks. Sage? Just out of it. Lemme sell you some other spices. Heh?” + Uncle Whittier was nasally indignant “CERTAINLY! Got PLENTY other spices + jus' good as sage for any purp'se whatever! What's the matter with—well, + with allspice?” When Mrs. Hicks had gone, he raged, “Some folks don't know + what they want!” + </p> + <p> + “Sweating sanctimonious bully—my husband's uncle!” thought Carol. + </p> + <p> + She crept into Dave Dyer's. Dave held up his arms with, “Don't shoot! I + surrender!” She smiled, but it occurred to her that for nearly five years + Dave had kept up this game of pretending that she threatened his life. + </p> + <p> + As she went dragging through the prickly-hot street she reflected that a + citizen of Gopher Prairie does not have jests—he has a jest. Every + cold morning for five winters Lyman Cass had remarked, “Fair to middlin' + chilly—get worse before it gets better.” Fifty times had Ezra + Stowbody informed the public that Carol had once asked, “Shall I indorse + this check on the back?” Fifty times had Sam Clark called to her, “Where'd + you steal that hat?” Fifty times had the mention of Barney Cahoon, the + town drayman, like a nickel in a slot produced from Kennicott the + apocryphal story of Barney's directing a minister, “Come down to the depot + and get your case of religious books—they're leaking!” + </p> + <p> + She came home by the unvarying route. She knew every house-front, every + street-crossing, every billboard, every tree, every dog. She knew every + blackened banana-skin and empty cigarette-box in the gutters. She knew + every greeting. When Jim Howland stopped and gaped at her there was no + possibility that he was about to confide anything but his grudging, “Well, + haryuh t'day?” + </p> + <p> + All her future life, this same red-labeled bread-crate in front of the + bakery, this same thimble-shaped crack in the sidewalk a quarter of a + block beyond Stowbody's granite hitching-post—— + </p> + <p> + She silently handed her purchases to the silent Oscarina. She sat on the + porch, rocking, fanning, twitchy with Hugh's whining. + </p> + <p> + Kennicott came home, grumbled, “What the devil is the kid yapping about?” + </p> + <p> + “I guess you can stand it ten minutes if I can stand it all day!” + </p> + <p> + He came to supper in his shirt sleeves, his vest partly open, revealing + discolored suspenders. + </p> + <p> + “Why don't you put on your nice Palm Beach suit, and take off that hideous + vest?” she complained. + </p> + <p> + “Too much trouble. Too hot to go up-stairs.” + </p> + <p> + She realized that for perhaps a year she had not definitely looked at her + husband. She regarded his table-manners. He violently chased fragments of + fish about his plate with a knife and licked the knife after gobbling + them. She was slightly sick. She asserted, “I'm ridiculous. What do these + things matter! Don't be so simple!” But she knew that to her they did + matter, these solecisms and mixed tenses of the table. + </p> + <p> + She realized that they found little to say; that, incredibly, they were + like the talked-out couples whom she had pitied at restaurants. + </p> + <p> + Bresnahan would have spouted in a lively, exciting, unreliable manner. + </p> + <p> + She realized that Kennicott's clothes were seldom pressed. His coat was + wrinkled; his trousers would flap at the knees when he arose. His shoes + were unblacked, and they were of an elderly shapelessness. He refused to + wear soft hats; cleaved to a hard derby, as a symbol of virility and + prosperity; and sometimes he forgot to take it off in the house. She + peeped at his cuffs. They were frayed in prickles of starched linen. She + had turned them once; she clipped them every week; but when she had begged + him to throw the shirt away, last Sunday morning at the crisis of the + weekly bath, he had uneasily protested, “Oh, it'll wear quite a while + yet.” + </p> + <p> + He was shaved (by himself or more socially by Del Snafflin) only three + times a week. This morning had not been one of the three times. + </p> + <p> + Yet he was vain of his new turn-down collars and sleek ties; he often + spoke of the “sloppy dressing” of Dr. McGanum; and he laughed at old men + who wore detachable cuffs or Gladstone collars. + </p> + <p> + Carol did not care much for the creamed codfish that evening. + </p> + <p> + She noted that his nails were jagged and ill-shaped from his habit of + cutting them with a pocket-knife and despising a nail-file as effeminate + and urban. That they were invariably clean, that his were the scoured + fingers of the surgeon, made his stubborn untidiness the more jarring. + They were wise hands, kind hands, but they were not the hands of love. + </p> + <p> + She remembered him in the days of courtship. He had tried to please her, + then, had touched her by sheepishly wearing a colored band on his straw + hat. Was it possible that those days of fumbling for each other were gone + so completely? He had read books, to impress her; had said (she recalled + it ironically) that she was to point out his every fault; had insisted + once, as they sat in the secret place beneath the walls of Fort Snelling—— + </p> + <p> + She shut the door on her thoughts. That was sacred ground. But it WAS a + shame that—— + </p> + <p> + She nervously pushed away her cake and stewed apricots. + </p> + <p> + After supper, when they had been driven in from the porch by mosquitos, + when Kennicott had for the two-hundredth time in five years commented, “We + must have a new screen on the porch—lets all the bugs in,” they sat + reading, and she noted, and detested herself for noting, and noted again + his habitual awkwardness. He slumped down in one chair, his legs up on + another, and he explored the recesses of his left ear with the end of his + little finger—she could hear the faint smack—he kept it up—he + kept it up—— + </p> + <p> + He blurted, “Oh. Forgot tell you. Some of the fellows coming in to play + poker this evening. Suppose we could have some crackers and cheese and + beer?” + </p> + <p> + She nodded. + </p> + <p> + “He might have mentioned it before. Oh well, it's his house.” + </p> + <p> + The poker-party straggled in: Sam Clark, Jack Elder, Dave Dyer, Jim + Howland. To her they mechanically said, “'Devenin',” but to Kennicott, in + a heroic male manner, “Well, well, shall we start playing? Got a hunch I'm + going to lick somebody real bad.” No one suggested that she join them. She + told herself that it was her own fault, because she was not more friendly; + but she remembered that they never asked Mrs. Sam Clark to play. + </p> + <p> + Bresnahan would have asked her. + </p> + <p> + She sat in the living-room, glancing across the hall at the men as they + humped over the dining table. + </p> + <p> + They were in shirt sleeves; smoking, chewing, spitting incessantly; + lowering their voices for a moment so that she did not hear what they said + and afterward giggling hoarsely; using over and over the canonical + phrases: “Three to dole,” “I raise you a finif,” “Come on now, ante up; + what do you think this is, a pink tea?” The cigar-smoke was acrid and + pervasive. The firmness with which the men mouthed their cigars made the + lower part of their faces expressionless, heavy, unappealing. They were + like politicians cynically dividing appointments. + </p> + <p> + How could they understand her world? + </p> + <p> + Did that faint and delicate world exist? Was she a fool? She doubted her + world, doubted herself, and was sick in the acid, smoke-stained air. + </p> + <p> + She slipped back into brooding upon the habituality of the house. + </p> + <p> + Kennicott was as fixed in routine as an isolated old man. At first he had + amorously deceived himself into liking her experiments with food—the + one medium in which she could express imagination—but now he wanted + only his round of favorite dishes: steak, roast beef, boiled pig's-feet, + oatmeal, baked apples. Because at some more flexible period he had + advanced from oranges to grape-fruit he considered himself an epicure. + </p> + <p> + During their first autumn she had smiled over his affection for his + hunting-coat, but now that the leather had come unstitched in dribbles of + pale yellow thread, and tatters of canvas, smeared with dirt of the fields + and grease from gun-cleaning, hung in a border of rags, she hated the + thing. + </p> + <p> + Wasn't her whole life like that hunting-coat? + </p> + <p> + She knew every nick and brown spot on each piece of the set of china + purchased by Kennicott's mother in 1895—discreet china with a + pattern of washed-out forget-me-nots, rimmed with blurred gold: the + gravy-boat, in a saucer which did not match, the solemn and evangelical + covered vegetable-dishes, the two platters. + </p> + <p> + Twenty times had Kennicott sighed over the fact that Bea had broken the + other platter—the medium-sized one. + </p> + <p> + The kitchen. + </p> + <p> + Damp black iron sink, damp whitey-yellow drain-board with shreds of + discolored wood which from long scrubbing were as soft as cotton thread, + warped table, alarm clock, stove bravely blackened by Oscarina but an + abomination in its loose doors and broken drafts and oven that never would + keep an even heat. + </p> + <p> + Carol had done her best by the kitchen: painted it white, put up curtains, + replaced a six-year-old calendar by a color print. She had hoped for + tiling, and a kerosene range for summer cooking, but Kennicott always + postponed these expenses. + </p> + <p> + She was better acquainted with the utensils in the kitchen than with Vida + Sherwin or Guy Pollock. The can-opener, whose soft gray metal handle was + twisted from some ancient effort to pry open a window, was more pertinent + to her than all the cathedrals in Europe; and more significant than the + future of Asia was the never-settled weekly question as to whether the + small kitchen knife with the unpainted handle or the second-best buckhorn + carving-knife was better for cutting up cold chicken for Sunday supper. + </p> + <p> + II + </p> + <p> + She was ignored by the males till midnight. Her husband called, “Suppose + we could have some eats, Carrie?” As she passed through the dining-room + the men smiled on her, belly-smiles. None of them noticed her while she + was serving the crackers and cheese and sardines and beer. They were + determining the exact psychology of Dave Dyer in standing pat, two hours + before. + </p> + <p> + When they were gone she said to Kennicott, “Your friends have the manners + of a barroom. They expect me to wait on them like a servant. They're not + so much interested in me as they would be in a waiter, because they don't + have to tip me. Unfortunately! Well, good night.” + </p> + <p> + So rarely did she nag in this petty, hot-weather fashion that he was + astonished rather than angry. “Hey! Wait! What's the idea? I must say I + don't get you. The boys——Barroom? Why, Perce Bresnahan was + saying there isn't a finer bunch of royal good fellows anywhere than just + the crowd that were here tonight!” + </p> + <p> + They stood in the lower hall. He was too shocked to go on with his duties + of locking the front door and winding his watch and the clock. + </p> + <p> + “Bresnahan! I'm sick of him!” She meant nothing in particular. + </p> + <p> + “Why, Carrie, he's one of the biggest men in the country! Boston just eats + out of his hand!” + </p> + <p> + “I wonder if it does? How do we know but that in Boston, among well-bred + people, he may be regarded as an absolute lout? The way he calls women + 'Sister,' and the way——” + </p> + <p> + “Now look here! That'll do! Of course I know you don't mean it—you're + simply hot and tired, and trying to work off your peeve on me. But just + the same, I won't stand your jumping on Perce. You——It's just + like your attitude toward the war—so darn afraid that America will + become militaristic——” + </p> + <p> + “But you are the pure patriot!” + </p> + <p> + “By God, I am!” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I heard you talking to Sam Clark tonight about ways of avoiding the + income tax!” + </p> + <p> + He had recovered enough to lock the door; he clumped up-stairs ahead of + her, growling, “You don't know what you're talking about. I'm perfectly + willing to pay my full tax—fact, I'm in favor of the income tax—even + though I do think it's a penalty on frugality and enterprise—fact, + it's an unjust, darn-fool tax. But just the same, I'll pay it. Only, I'm + not idiot enough to pay more than the government makes me pay, and Sam and + I were just figuring out whether all automobile expenses oughn't to be + exemptions. I'll take a lot off you, Carrie, but I don't propose for one + second to stand your saying I'm not patriotic. You know mighty well and + good that I've tried to get away and join the army. And at the beginning + of the whole fracas I said—I've said right along—that we ought + to have entered the war the minute Germany invaded Belgium. You don't get + me at all. You can't appreciate a man's work. You're abnormal. You've + fussed so much with these fool novels and books and all this highbrow junk——You + like to argue!” + </p> + <p> + It ended, a quarter of an hour later, in his calling her a “neurotic” + before he turned away and pretended to sleep. + </p> + <p> + For the first time they had failed to make peace. + </p> + <p> + “There are two races of people, only two, and they live side by side. His + calls mine 'neurotic'; mine calls his 'stupid.' We'll never understand + each other, never; and it's madness for us to debate—to lie together + in a hot bed in a creepy room—enemies, yoked.” + </p> + <p> + III + </p> + <p> + It clarified in her the longing for a place of her own. + </p> + <p> + “While it's so hot, I think I'll sleep in the spare room,” she said next + day. + </p> + <p> + “Not a bad idea.” He was cheerful and kindly. + </p> + <p> + The room was filled with a lumbering double bed and a cheap pine bureau. + She stored the bed in the attic; replaced it by a cot which, with a denim + cover, made a couch by day; put in a dressing-table, a rocker transformed + by a cretonne cover; had Miles Bjornstam build book-shelves. + </p> + <p> + Kennicott slowly understood that she meant to keep up her seclusion. In + his queries, “Changing the whole room?” “Putting your books in there?” she + caught his dismay. But it was so easy, once her door was closed, to shut + out his worry. That hurt her—the ease of forgetting him. + </p> + <p> + Aunt Bessie Smail sleuthed out this anarchy. She yammered, “Why, Carrie, + you ain't going to sleep all alone by yourself? I don't believe in that. + Married folks should have the same room, of course! Don't go getting silly + notions. No telling what a thing like that might lead to. Suppose I up and + told your Uncle Whit that I wanted a room of my own!” + </p> + <p> + Carol spoke of recipes for corn-pudding. + </p> + <p> + But from Mrs. Dr. Westlake she drew encouragement. She had made an + afternoon call on Mrs. Westlake. She was for the first time invited + up-stairs, and found the suave old woman sewing in a white and mahogany + room with a small bed. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, do you have your own royal apartments, and the doctor his?” Carol + hinted. + </p> + <p> + “Indeed I do! The doctor says it's bad enough to have to stand my temper + at meals. Do——” Mrs. Westlake looked at her sharply. “Why, + don't you do the same thing?” + </p> + <p> + “I've been thinking about it.” Carol laughed in an embarrassed way. “Then + you wouldn't regard me as a complete hussy if I wanted to be by myself now + and then?” + </p> + <p> + “Why, child, every woman ought to get off by herself and turn over her + thoughts—about children, and God, and how bad her complexion is, and + the way men don't really understand her, and how much work she finds to do + in the house, and how much patience it takes to endure some things in a + man's love.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes!” Carol said it in a gasp, her hands twisted together. She wanted to + confess not only her hatred for the Aunt Bessies but her covert irritation + toward those she best loved: her alienation from Kennicott, her + disappointment in Guy Pollock, her uneasiness in the presence of Vida. She + had enough self-control to confine herself to, “Yes. Men! The dear + blundering souls, we do have to get off and laugh at them.” + </p> + <p> + “Of course we do. Not that you have to laugh at Dr. Kennicott so much, but + MY man, heavens, now there's a rare old bird! Reading story-books when he + ought to be tending to business! 'Marcus Westlake,' I say to him, 'you're + a romantic old fool.' And does he get angry? He does not! He chuckles and + says, 'Yes, my beloved, folks do say that married people grow to resemble + each other!' Drat him!” Mrs. Westlake laughed comfortably. + </p> + <p> + After such a disclosure what could Carol do but return the courtesy by + remarking that as for Kennicott, he wasn't romantic enough—the + darling. Before she left she had babbled to Mrs. Westlake her dislike for + Aunt Bessie, the fact that Kennicott's income was now more than five + thousand a year, her view of the reason why Vida had married Raymie (which + included some thoroughly insincere praise of Raymie's “kind heart”), her + opinion of the library-board, just what Kennicott had said about Mrs. + Carthal's diabetes, and what Kennicott thought of the several surgeons in + the Cities. + </p> + <p> + She went home soothed by confession, inspirited by finding a new friend. + </p> + <p> + IV + </p> + <p> + The tragicomedy of the “domestic situation.” + </p> + <p> + Oscarina went back home to help on the farm, and Carol had a succession of + maids, with gaps between. The lack of servants was becoming one of the + most cramping problems of the prairie town. Increasingly the farmers' + daughters rebelled against village dullness, and against the unchanged + attitude of the Juanitas toward “hired girls.” They went off to city + kitchens, or to city shops and factories, that they might be free and even + human after hours. + </p> + <p> + The Jolly Seventeen were delighted at Carol's desertion by the loyal + Oscarina. They reminded her that she had said, “I don't have any trouble + with maids; see how Oscarina stays on.” + </p> + <p> + Between incumbencies of Finn maids from the North Woods, Germans from the + prairies, occasional Swedes and Norwegians and Icelanders, Carol did her + own work—and endured Aunt Bessie's skittering in to tell her how to + dampen a broom for fluffy dust, how to sugar doughnuts, how to stuff a + goose. Carol was deft, and won shy praise from Kennicott, but as her + shoulder blades began to sting, she wondered how many millions of women + had lied to themselves during the death-rimmed years through which they + had pretended to enjoy the puerile methods persisting in housework. + </p> + <p> + She doubted the convenience and, as a natural sequent, the sanctity of the + monogamous and separate home which she had regarded as the basis of all + decent life. + </p> + <p> + She considered her doubts vicious. She refused to remember how many of the + women of the Jolly Seventeen nagged their husbands and were nagged by + them. + </p> + <p> + She energetically did not whine to Kennicott. But her eyes ached; she was + not the girl in breeches and a flannel shirt who had cooked over a + camp-fire in the Colorado mountains five years ago. Her ambition was to + get to bed at nine; her strongest emotion was resentment over rising at + half-past six to care for Hugh. The back of her neck ached as she got out + of bed. She was cynical about the joys of a simple laborious life. She + understood why workmen and workmen's wives are not grateful to their kind + employers. + </p> + <p> + At mid-morning, when she was momentarily free from the ache in her neck + and back, she was glad of the reality of work. The hours were living and + nimble. But she had no desire to read the eloquent little newspaper essays + in praise of labor which are daily written by the white-browed + journalistic prophets. She felt independent and (though she hid it) a bit + surly. + </p> + <p> + In cleaning the house she pondered upon the maid's-room. It was a + slant-roofed, small-windowed hole above the kitchen, oppressive in summer, + frigid in winter. She saw that while she had been considering herself an + unusually good mistress, she had been permitting her friends Bea and + Oscarina to live in a sty. She complained to Kennicott. “What's the matter + with it?” he growled, as they stood on the perilous stairs dodging up from + the kitchen. She commented upon the sloping roof of unplastered boards + stained in brown rings by the rain, the uneven floor, the cot and its + tumbled discouraged-looking quilts, the broken rocker, the distorting + mirror. + </p> + <p> + “Maybe it ain't any Hotel Radisson parlor, but still, it's so much better + than anything these hired girls are accustomed to at home that they think + it's fine. Seems foolish to spend money when they wouldn't appreciate it.” + </p> + <p> + But that night he drawled, with the casualness of a man who wishes to be + surprising and delightful, “Carrie, don't know but what we might begin to + think about building a new house, one of these days. How'd you like that?” + </p> + <p> + “W-why——” + </p> + <p> + “I'm getting to the point now where I feel we can afford one—and a + corker! I'll show this burg something like a real house! We'll put one + over on Sam and Harry! Make folks sit up an' take notice!” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” she said. + </p> + <p> + He did not go on. + </p> + <p> + Daily he returned to the subject of the new house, but as to time and mode + he was indefinite. At first she believed. She babbled of a low stone house + with lattice windows and tulip-beds, of colonial brick, of a white frame + cottage with green shutters and dormer windows. To her enthusiasms he + answered, “Well, ye-es, might be worth thinking about. Remember where I + put my pipe?” When she pressed him he fidgeted, “I don't know; seems to me + those kind of houses you speak of have been overdone.” + </p> + <p> + It proved that what he wanted was a house exactly like Sam Clark's, which + was exactly like every third new house in every town in the country: a + square, yellow stolidity with immaculate clapboards, a broad screened + porch, tidy grass-plots, and concrete walks; a house resembling the mind + of a merchant who votes the party ticket straight and goes to church once + a month and owns a good car. + </p> + <p> + He admitted, “Well, yes, maybe it isn't so darn artistic but——Matter + of fact, though, I don't want a place just like Sam's. Maybe I would cut + off that fool tower he's got, and I think probably it would look better + painted a nice cream color. That yellow on Sam's house is too kind of + flashy. Then there's another kind of house that's mighty nice and + substantial-looking, with shingles, in a nice brown stain, instead of + clapboards—seen some in Minneapolis. You're way off your base when + you say I only like one kind of house!” + </p> + <p> + Uncle Whittier and Aunt Bessie came in one evening when Carol was sleepily + advocating a rose-garden cottage. + </p> + <p> + “You've had a lot of experience with housekeeping, aunty, and don't you + think,” Kennicott appealed, “that it would be sensible to have a nice + square house, and pay more attention to getting a crackajack furnace than + to all this architecture and doodads?” + </p> + <p> + Aunt Bessie worked her lips as though they were an elastic band. “Why of + course! I know how it is with young folks like you, Carrie; you want + towers and bay-windows and pianos and heaven knows what all, but the thing + to get is closets and a good furnace and a handy place to hang out the + washing, and the rest don't matter.” + </p> + <p> + Uncle Whittier dribbled a little, put his face near to Carol's, and + sputtered, “Course it don't! What d'you care what folks think about the + outside of your house? It's the inside you're living in. None of my + business, but I must say you young folks that'd rather have cakes than + potatoes get me riled.” + </p> + <p> + She reached her room before she became savage. Below, dreadfully near, she + could hear the broom-swish of Aunt Bessie's voice, and the mop-pounding of + Uncle Whittier's grumble. She had a reasonless dread that they would + intrude on her, then a fear that she would yield to Gopher Prairie's + conception of duty toward an Aunt Bessie and go down-stairs to be “nice.” + She felt the demand for standardized behavior coming in waves from all the + citizens who sat in their sitting-rooms watching her with respectable + eyes, waiting, demanding, unyielding. She snarled, “Oh, all right, I'll + go!” She powdered her nose, straightened her collar, and coldly marched + down-stairs. The three elders ignored her. They had advanced from the new + house to agreeable general fussing. Aunt Bessie was saying, in a tone like + the munching of dry toast: + </p> + <p> + “I do think Mr. Stowbody ought to have had the rain-pipe fixed at our + store right away. I went to see him on Tuesday morning before ten, no, it + was couple minutes after ten, but anyway, it was long before noon—I + know because I went right from the bank to the meat market to get some + steak—my! I think it's outrageous, the prices Oleson & McGuire + charge for their meat, and it isn't as if they gave you a good cut either + but just any old thing, and I had time to get it, and I stopped in at Mrs. + Bogart's to ask about her rheumatism——” + </p> + <p> + Carol was watching Uncle Whittier. She knew from his taut expression that + he was not listening to Aunt Bessie but herding his own thoughts, and that + he would interrupt her bluntly. He did: + </p> + <p> + “Will, where c'n I get an extra pair of pants for this coat and vest? D' + want to pay too much.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, guess Nat Hicks could make you up a pair. But if I were you, I'd + drop into Ike Rifkin's—his prices are lower than the Bon Ton's.” + </p> + <p> + “Humph. Got the new stove in your office yet?” + </p> + <p> + “No, been looking at some at Sam Clark's but——” + </p> + <p> + “Well, y' ought get 't in. Don't do to put off getting a stove all summer, + and then have it come cold on you in the fall.” + </p> + <p> + Carol smiled upon them ingratiatingly. “Do you dears mind if I slip up to + bed? I'm rather tired—cleaned the upstairs today.” + </p> + <p> + She retreated. She was certain that they were discussing her, and foully + forgiving her. She lay awake till she heard the distant creak of a bed + which indicated that Kennicott had retired. Then she felt safe. + </p> + <p> + It was Kennicott who brought up the matter of the Smails at breakfast. + With no visible connection he said, “Uncle Whit is kind of clumsy, but + just the same, he's a pretty wise old coot. He's certainly making good + with the store.” + </p> + <p> + Carol smiled, and Kennicott was pleased that she had come to her senses. + “As Whit says, after all the first thing is to have the inside of a house + right, and darn the people on the outside looking in!” + </p> + <p> + It seemed settled that the house was to be a sound example of the Sam + Clark school. + </p> + <p> + Kennicott made much of erecting it entirely for her and the baby. He spoke + of closets for her frocks, and “a comfy sewing-room.” But when he drew on + a leaf from an old account-book (he was a paper-saver and a string-picker) + the plans for the garage, he gave much more attention to a cement floor + and a work-bench and a gasoline-tank than he had to sewing-rooms. + </p> + <p> + She sat back and was afraid. + </p> + <p> + In the present rookery there were odd things—a step up from the hall + to the dining-room, a picturesqueness in the shed and bedraggled lilac + bush. But the new place would be smooth, standardized, fixed. It was + probable, now that Kennicott was past forty, and settled, that this would + be the last venture he would ever make in building. So long as she stayed + in this ark, she would always have a possibility of change, but once she + was in the new house, there she would sit for all the rest of her life—there + she would die. Desperately she wanted to put it off, against the chance of + miracles. While Kennicott was chattering about a patent swing-door for the + garage she saw the swing-doors of a prison. + </p> + <p> + She never voluntarily returned to the project. Aggrieved, Kennicott + stopped drawing plans, and in ten days the new house was forgotten. + </p> + <p> + V + </p> + <p> + Every year since their marriage Carol had longed for a trip through the + East. Every year Kennicott had talked of attending the American Medical + Association convention, “and then afterwards we could do the East up + brown. I know New York clean through—spent pretty near a week there—but + I would like to see New England and all these historic places and have + some sea-food.” He talked of it from February to May, and in May he + invariably decided that coming confinement-cases or land-deals would + prevent his “getting away from home-base for very long THIS year—and + no sense going till we can do it right.” + </p> + <p> + The weariness of dish-washing had increased her desire to go. She pictured + herself looking at Emerson's manse, bathing in a surf of jade and ivory, + wearing a trottoir and a summer fur, meeting an aristocratic Stranger. In + the spring Kennicott had pathetically volunteered, “S'pose you'd like to + get in a good long tour this summer, but with Gould and Mac away and so + many patients depending on me, don't see how I can make it. By golly, I + feel like a tightwad though, not taking you.” Through all this restless + July after she had tasted Bresnahan's disturbing flavor of travel and + gaiety, she wanted to go, but she said nothing. They spoke of and + postponed a trip to the Twin Cities. When she suggested, as though it were + a tremendous joke, “I think baby and I might up and leave you, and run off + to Cape Cod by ourselves!” his only reaction was “Golly, don't know but + what you may almost have to do that, if we don't get in a trip next year.” + </p> + <p> + Toward the end of July he proposed, “Say, the Beavers are holding a + convention in Joralemon, street fair and everything. We might go down + tomorrow. And I'd like to see Dr. Calibree about some business. Put in the + whole day. Might help some to make up for our trip. Fine fellow, Dr. + Calibree.” + </p> + <p> + Joralemon was a prairie town of the size of Gopher Prairie. + </p> + <p> + Their motor was out of order, and there was no passenger-train at an early + hour. They went down by freight-train, after the weighty and + conversational business of leaving Hugh with Aunt Bessie. Carol was + exultant over this irregular jaunting. It was the first unusual thing, + except the glance of Bresnahan, that had happened since the weaning of + Hugh. They rode in the caboose, the small red cupola-topped car jerked + along at the end of the train. It was a roving shanty, the cabin of a land + schooner, with black oilcloth seats along the side, and for desk, a pine + board to be let down on hinges. Kennicott played seven-up with the + conductor and two brakemen. Carol liked the blue silk kerchiefs about the + brakemen's throats; she liked their welcome to her, and their air of + friendly independence. Since there were no sweating passengers crammed in + beside her, she reveled in the train's slowness. She was part of these + lakes and tawny wheat-fields. She liked the smell of hot earth and clean + grease; and the leisurely chug-a-chug, chug-a-chug of the trucks was a + song of contentment in the sun. + </p> + <p> + She pretended that she was going to the Rockies. When they reached + Joralemon she was radiant with holiday-making. + </p> + <p> + Her eagerness began to lessen the moment they stopped at a red frame + station exactly like the one they had just left at Gopher Prairie, and + Kennicott yawned, “Right on time. Just in time for dinner at the + Calibrees'. I 'phoned the doctor from G. P. that we'd be here. 'We'll + catch the freight that gets in before twelve,' I told him. He said he'd + meet us at the depot and take us right up to the house for dinner. + Calibree is a good man, and you'll find his wife is a mighty brainy little + woman, bright as a dollar. By golly, there he is.” + </p> + <p> + Dr. Calibree was a squat, clean-shaven, conscientious-looking man of + forty. He was curiously like his own brown-painted motor car, with + eye-glasses for windshield. “Want you to meet my wife, doctor—Carrie, + make you 'quainted with Dr. Calibree,” said Kennicott. Calibree bowed + quietly and shook her hand, but before he had finished shaking it he was + concentrating upon Kennicott with, “Nice to see you, doctor. Say, don't + let me forget to ask you about what you did in that exopthalmic goiter + case—that Bohemian woman at Wahkeenyan.” + </p> + <p> + The two men, on the front seat of the car, chanted goiters and ignored + her. She did not know it. She was trying to feed her illusion of adventure + by staring at unfamiliar houses . . . drab cottages, artificial stone + bungalows, square painty stolidities with immaculate clapboards and broad + screened porches and tidy grass-plots. + </p> + <p> + Calibree handed her over to his wife, a thick woman who called her + “dearie,” and asked if she was hot and, visibly searching for + conversation, produced, “Let's see, you and the doctor have a Little One, + haven't you?” At dinner Mrs. Calibree served the corned beef and cabbage + and looked steamy, looked like the steamy leaves of cabbage. The men were + oblivious of their wives as they gave the social passwords of Main Street, + the orthodox opinions on weather, crops, and motor cars, then flung away + restraint and gyrated in the debauch of shop-talk. Stroking his chin, + drawling in the ecstasy of being erudite, Kennicott inquired, “Say, + doctor, what success have you had with thyroid for treatment of pains in + the legs before child-birth?” + </p> + <p> + Carol did not resent their assumption that she was too ignorant to be + admitted to masculine mysteries. She was used to it. But the cabbage and + Mrs. Calibree's monotonous “I don't know what we're coming to with all + this difficulty getting hired girls” were gumming her eyes with + drowsiness. She sought to clear them by appealing to Calibree, in a manner + of exaggerated liveliness, “Doctor, have the medical societies in + Minnesota ever advocated legislation for help to nursing mothers?” + </p> + <p> + Calibree slowly revolved toward her. “Uh—I've never—uh—never + looked into it. I don't believe much in getting mixed up in politics.” He + turned squarely from her and, peering earnestly at Kennicott, resumed, + “Doctor, what's been your experience with unilateral pyelonephritis? + Buckburn of Baltimore advocates decapsulation and nephrotomy, but seems to + me——” + </p> + <p> + Not till after two did they rise. In the lee of the stonily mature trio + Carol proceeded to the street fair which added mundane gaiety to the + annual rites of the United and Fraternal Order of Beavers. Beavers, human + Beavers, were everywhere: thirty-second degree Beavers in gray sack suits + and decent derbies, more flippant Beavers in crash summer coats and straw + hats, rustic Beavers in shirt sleeves and frayed suspenders; but whatever + his caste-symbols, every Beaver was distinguished by an enormous + shrimp-colored ribbon lettered in silver, “Sir Knight and Brother, U. F. + O. B., Annual State Convention.” On the motherly shirtwaist of each of + their wives was a badge “Sir Knight's Lady.” The Duluth delegation had + brought their famous Beaver amateur band, in Zouave costumes of green + velvet jacket, blue trousers, and scarlet fez. The strange thing was that + beneath their scarlet pride the Zouaves' faces remained those of American + business-men, pink, smooth, eye-glassed; and as they stood playing in a + circle, at the corner of Main Street and Second, as they tootled on fifes + or with swelling cheeks blew into cornets, their eyes remained as owlish + as though they were sitting at desks under the sign “This Is My Busy Day.” + </p> + <p> + Carol had supposed that the Beavers were average citizens organized for + the purposes of getting cheap life-insurance and playing poker at the + lodge-rooms every second Wednesday, but she saw a large poster which + proclaimed: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + BEAVERS + U. F. O. B. + + The greatest influence for good citizenship in the + country. The jolliest aggregation of red-blooded, + open-handed, hustle-em-up good fellows in the world. + Joralemon welcomes you to her hospitable city. +</pre> + <p> + Kennicott read the poster and to Calibree admired, “Strong lodge, the + Beavers. Never joined. Don't know but what I will.” + </p> + <p> + Calibree adumbrated, “They're a good bunch. Good strong lodge. See that + fellow there that's playing the snare drum? He's the smartest wholesale + grocer in Duluth, they say. Guess it would be worth joining. Oh say, are + you doing much insurance examining?” + </p> + <p> + They went on to the street fair. + </p> + <p> + Lining one block of Main Street were the “attractions”—two hot-dog + stands, a lemonade and pop-corn stand, a merry-go-round, and booths in + which balls might be thrown at rag dolls, if one wished to throw balls at + rag dolls. The dignified delegates were shy of the booths, but country + boys with brickred necks and pale-blue ties and bright-yellow shoes, who + had brought sweethearts into town in somewhat dusty and listed Fords, were + wolfing sandwiches, drinking strawberry pop out of bottles, and riding the + revolving crimson and gold horses. They shrieked and giggled; + peanut-roasters whistled; the merry-go-round pounded out monotonous music; + the barkers bawled, “Here's your chance—here's your chance—come + on here, boy—come on here—give that girl a good time—give + her a swell time—here's your chance to win a genuwine gold watch for + five cents, half a dime, the twentieth part of a dollah!” The prairie sun + jabbed the unshaded street with shafts that were like poisonous thorns the + tinny cornices above the brick stores were glaring; the dull breeze + scattered dust on sweaty Beavers who crawled along in tight scorching new + shoes, up two blocks and back, up two blocks and back, wondering what to + do next, working at having a good time. + </p> + <p> + Carol's head ached as she trailed behind the unsmiling Calibrees along the + block of booths. She chirruped at Kennicott, “Let's be wild! Let's ride on + the merry-go-round and grab a gold ring!” + </p> + <p> + Kennicott considered it, and mumbled to Calibree, “Think you folks would + like to stop and try a ride on the merry-go-round?” + </p> + <p> + Calibree considered it, and mumbled to his wife, “Think you'd like to stop + and try a ride on the merry-go-round?” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Calibree smiled in a washed-out manner, and sighed, “Oh no, I don't + believe I care to much, but you folks go ahead and try it.” + </p> + <p> + Calibree stated to Kennicott, “No, I don't believe we care to a whole lot, + but you folks go ahead and try it.” + </p> + <p> + Kennicott summarized the whole case against wildness: “Let's try it some + other time, Carrie.” + </p> + <p> + She gave it up. She looked at the town. She saw that in adventuring from + Main Street, Gopher Prairie, to Main Street, Joralemon, she had not + stirred. There were the same two-story brick groceries with lodge-signs + above the awnings; the same one-story wooden millinery shop; the same + fire-brick garages; the same prairie at the open end of the wide street; + the same people wondering whether the levity of eating a hot-dog sandwich + would break their taboos. + </p> + <p> + They reached Gopher Prairie at nine in the evening. + </p> + <p> + “You look kind of hot,” said Kennicott. + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “Joralemon is an enterprising town, don't you think so?” She broke. “No! I + think it's an ash-heap.” + </p> + <p> + “Why, Carrie!” + </p> + <p> + He worried over it for a week. While he ground his plate with his knife as + he energetically pursued fragments of bacon, he peeped at her. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0025" id="link2HCH0025"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXV + </h2> + <p> + “CARRIE'S all right. She's finicky, but she'll get over it. But I wish + she'd hurry up about it! What she can't understand is that a fellow + practising medicine in a small town like this has got to cut out the + highbrow stuff, and not spend all his time going to concerts and shining + his shoes. (Not but what he might be just as good at all these + intellectual and art things as some other folks, if he had the time for + it!)” Dr. Will Kennicott was brooding in his office, during a free moment + toward the end of the summer afternoon. He hunched down in his tilted + desk-chair, undid a button of his shirt, glanced at the state news in the + back of the Journal of the American Medical Association, dropped the + magazine, leaned back with his right thumb hooked in the arm-hole of his + vest and his left thumb stroking the back of his hair. + </p> + <p> + “By golly, she's taking an awful big chance, though. You'd expect her to + learn by and by that I won't be a parlor lizard. She says we try to 'make + her over.' Well, she's always trying to make me over, from a perfectly + good M. D. into a damn poet with a socialist necktie! She'd have a fit if + she knew how many women would be willing to cuddle up to Friend Will and + comfort him, if he'd give 'em the chance! There's still a few dames that + think the old man isn't so darn unattractive! I'm glad I've ducked all + that woman-game since I've been married but——Be switched if + sometimes I don't feel tempted to shine up to some girl that has sense + enough to take life as it is; some frau that doesn't want to talk + Longfellow all the time, but just hold my hand and say, 'You look all in, + honey. Take it easy, and don't try to talk.' + </p> + <p> + “Carrie thinks she's such a whale at analyzing folks. Giving the town the + once-over. Telling us where we get off. Why, she'd simply turn up her toes + and croak if she found out how much she doesn't know about the high old + times a wise guy could have in this burg on the Q.T., if he wasn't + faithful to his wife. But I am. At that, no matter what faults she's got, + there's nobody here, no, nor in Minn'aplus either, that's as nice-looking + and square and bright as Carrie. She ought to of been an artist or a + writer or one of those things. But once she took a shot at living here, + she ought to stick by it. Pretty——Lord yes. But cold. She + simply doesn't know what passion is. She simply hasn't got an Ã-dea how + hard it is for a full-blooded man to go on pretending to be satisfied with + just being endured. It gets awful tiresome, having to feel like a criminal + just because I'm normal. She's getting so she doesn't even care for my + kissing her. Well—— + </p> + <p> + “I guess I can weather it, same as I did earning my way through school and + getting started in practise. But I wonder how long I can stand being an + outsider in my own home?” + </p> + <p> + He sat up at the entrance of Mrs. Dave Dyer. She slumped into a chair and + gasped with the heat. He chuckled, “Well, well, Maud, this is fine. + Where's the subscription-list? What cause do I get robbed for, this trip?” + </p> + <p> + “I haven't any subscription-list, Will. I want to see you professionally.” + </p> + <p> + “And you a Christian Scientist? Have you given that up? What next? New + Thought or Spiritualism?” + </p> + <p> + “No, I have not given it up!” + </p> + <p> + “Strikes me it's kind of a knock on the sisterhood, your coming to see a + doctor!” + </p> + <p> + “No, it isn't. It's just that my faith isn't strong enough yet. So there + now! And besides, you ARE kind of consoling, Will. I mean as a man, not + just as a doctor. You're so strong and placid.” + </p> + <p> + He sat on the edge of his desk, coatless, his vest swinging open with the + thick gold line of his watch-chain across the gap, his hands in his + trousers pockets, his big arms bent and easy. As she purred he cocked an + interested eye. Maud Dyer was neurotic, religiocentric, faded; her + emotions were moist, and her figure was unsystematic—splendid thighs + and arms, with thick ankles, and a body that was bulgy in the wrong + places. But her milky skin was delicious, her eyes were alive, her + chestnut hair shone, and there was a tender slope from her ears to the + shadowy place below her jaw. + </p> + <p> + With unusual solicitude he uttered his stock phrase, “Well, what seems to + be the matter, Maud?” + </p> + <p> + “I've got such a backache all the time. I'm afraid the organic trouble + that you treated me for is coming back.” + </p> + <p> + “Any definite signs of it?” + </p> + <p> + “N-no, but I think you'd better examine me.” + </p> + <p> + “Nope. Don't believe it's necessary, Maud. To be honest, between old + friends, I think your troubles are mostly imaginary. I can't really advise + you to have an examination.” + </p> + <p> + She flushed, looked out of the window. He was conscious that his voice was + not impersonal and even. + </p> + <p> + She turned quickly. “Will, you always say my troubles are imaginary. Why + can't you be scientific? I've been reading an article about these new + nerve-specialists, and they claim that lots of 'imaginary' ailments, yes, + and lots of real pain, too, are what they call psychoses, and they order a + change in a woman's way of living so she can get on a higher plane——” + </p> + <p> + “Wait! Wait! Whoa-up! Wait now! Don't mix up your Christian Science and + your psychology! They're two entirely different fads! You'll be mixing in + socialism next! You're as bad as Carrie, with your 'psychoses.' Why, Good + Lord, Maud, I could talk about neuroses and psychoses and inhibitions and + repressions and complexes just as well as any damn specialist, if I got + paid for it, if I was in the city and had the nerve to charge the fees + that those fellows do. If a specialist stung you for a hundred-dollar + consultation-fee and told you to go to New York to duck Dave's nagging, + you'd do it, to save the hundred dollars! But you know me—I'm your + neighbor—you see me mowing the lawn—you figure I'm just a plug + general practitioner. If I said, 'Go to New York,' Dave and you would + laugh your heads off and say, 'Look at the airs Will is putting on. What + does he think he is?' + </p> + <p> + “As a matter of fact, you're right. You have a perfectly well-developed + case of repression of sex instinct, and it raises the old Ned with your + body. What you need is to get away from Dave and travel, yes, and go to + every dog-gone kind of New Thought and Bahai and Swami and Hooptedoodle + meeting you can find. I know it, well 's you do. But how can I advise it? + Dave would be up here taking my hide off. I'm willing to be family + physician and priest and lawyer and plumber and wet-nurse, but I draw the + line at making Dave loosen up on money. Too hard a job in weather like + this! So, savvy, my dear? Believe it will rain if this heat keeps——” + </p> + <p> + “But, Will, he'd never give it to me on my say-so. He'd never let me go + away. You know how Dave is: so jolly and liberal in society, and oh, just + LOVES to match quarters, and such a perfect sport if he loses! But at home + he pinches a nickel till the buffalo drips blood. I have to nag him for + every single dollar.” + </p> + <p> + “Sure, I know, but it's your fight, honey. Keep after him. He'd simply + resent my butting in.” + </p> + <p> + He crossed over and patted her shoulder. Outside the window, beyond the + fly-screen that was opaque with dust and cottonwood lint, Main Street was + hushed except for the impatient throb of a standing motor car. She took + his firm hand, pressed his knuckles against her cheek. + </p> + <p> + “O Will, Dave is so mean and little and noisy—the shrimp! You're so + calm. When he's cutting up at parties I see you standing back and watching + him—the way a mastiff watches a terrier.” + </p> + <p> + He fought for professional dignity with, “Dave 's not a bad fellow.” + </p> + <p> + Lingeringly she released his hand. “Will, drop round by the house this + evening and scold me. Make me be good and sensible. And I'm so lonely.” + </p> + <p> + “If I did, Dave would be there, and we'd have to play cards. It's his + evening off from the store.” + </p> + <p> + “No. The clerk just got called to Corinth—mother sick. Dave will be + in the store till midnight. Oh, come on over. There's some lovely beer on + the ice, and we can sit and talk and be all cool and lazy. That wouldn't + be wrong of us, WOULD it!” + </p> + <p> + “No, no, course it wouldn't be wrong. But still, oughtn't to——” + He saw Carol, slim black and ivory, cool, scornful of intrigue. + </p> + <p> + “All right. But I'll be so lonely.” + </p> + <p> + Her throat seemed young, above her loose blouse of muslin and + machine-lace. + </p> + <p> + “Tell you, Maud: I'll drop in just for a minute, if I happen to be called + down that way.” + </p> + <p> + “If you'd like,” demurely. “O Will, I just want comfort. I know you're all + married, and my, such a proud papa, and of course now——If I + could just sit near you in the dusk, and be quiet, and forget Dave! You + WILL come?” + </p> + <p> + “Sure I will!” + </p> + <p> + “I'll expect you. I'll be lonely if you don't come! Good-by.” + </p> + <p> + He cursed himself: “Darned fool, what 'd I promise to go for? I'll have to + keep my promise, or she'll feel hurt. She's a good, decent, affectionate + girl, and Dave's a cheap skate, all right. She's got more life to her than + Carol has. All my fault, anyway. Why can't I be more cagey, like Calibree + and McGanum and the rest of the doctors? Oh, I am, but Maud's such a + demanding idiot. Deliberately bamboozling me into going up there tonight. + Matter of principle: ought not to let her get away with it. I won't go. + I'll call her up and tell her I won't go. Me, with Carrie at home, finest + little woman in the world, and a messy-minded female like Maud Dyer—no, + SIR! Though there's no need of hurting her feelings. I may just drop in + for a second, to tell her I can't stay. All my fault anyway; ought never + to have started in and jollied Maud along in the old days. If it's my + fault, I've got no right to punish Maud. I could just drop in for a second + and then pretend I had a country call and beat it. Damn nuisance, though, + having to fake up excuses. Lord, why can't the women let you alone? Just + because once or twice, seven hundred million years ago, you were a poor + fool, why can't they let you forget it? Maud's own fault. I'll stay + strictly away. Take Carrie to the movies, and forget Maud. . . . But it + would be kind of hot at the movies tonight.” + </p> + <p> + He fled from himself. He rammed on his hat, threw his coat over his arm, + banged the door, locked it, tramped downstairs. “I won't go!” he said + sturdily and, as he said it, he would have given a good deal to know + whether he was going. + </p> + <p> + He was refreshed, as always, by the familiar windows and faces. It + restored his soul to have Sam Clark trustingly bellow, “Better come down + to the lake this evening and have a swim, doc. Ain't you going to open + your cottage at all, this summer? By golly, we miss you.” He noted the + progress on the new garage. He had triumphed in the laying of every course + of bricks; in them he had seen the growth of the town. His pride was + ushered back to its throne by the respectfulness of Oley Sundquist: + “Evenin', doc! The woman is a lot better. That was swell medicine you gave + her.” He was calmed by the mechanicalness of the tasks at home: burning + the gray web of a tent-worm on the wild cherry tree, sealing with gum a + cut in the right front tire of the car, sprinkling the road before the + house. The hose was cool to his hands. As the bright arrows fell with a + faint puttering sound, a crescent of blackness was formed in the gray + dust. + </p> + <p> + Dave Dyer came along. + </p> + <p> + “Where going, Dave?” + </p> + <p> + “Down to the store. Just had supper.” + </p> + <p> + “But Thursday 's your night off.” + </p> + <p> + “Sure, but Pete went home. His mother 's supposed to be sick. Gosh, these + clerks you get nowadays—overpay 'em and then they won't work!” + </p> + <p> + “That's tough, Dave. You'll have to work clear up till twelve, then.” + </p> + <p> + “Yup. Better drop in and have a cigar, if you're downtown. + </p> + <p> + “Well, I may, at that. May have to go down and see Mrs. Champ Perry. She's + ailing. So long, Dave.” + </p> + <p> + Kennicott had not yet entered the house. He was conscious that Carol was + near him, that she was important, that he was afraid of her disapproval; + but he was content to be alone. When he had finished sprinkling he + strolled into the house, up to the baby's room, and cried to Hugh, + “Story-time for the old man, eh?” + </p> + <p> + Carol was in a low chair, framed and haloed by the window behind her, an + image in pale gold. The baby curled in her lap, his head on her arm, + listening with gravity while she sang from Gene Field: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + 'Tis little Luddy-Dud in the morning— + 'Tis little Luddy-Dud at night: + And all day long + 'Tis the same dear song + Of that growing, crowing, knowing little sprite. +</pre> + <p> + Kennicott was enchanted. + </p> + <p> + “Maud Dyer? I should say not!” + </p> + <p> + When the current maid bawled up-stairs, “Supper on de table!” Kennicott + was upon his back, flapping his hands in the earnest effort to be a seal, + thrilled by the strength with which his son kicked him. He slipped his arm + about Carol's shoulder; he went down to supper rejoicing that he was + cleansed of perilous stuff. While Carol was putting the baby to bed he sat + on the front steps. Nat Hicks, tailor and roue, came to sit beside him. + Between waves of his hand as he drove off mosquitos, Nat whispered, “Say, + doc, you don't feel like imagining you're a bacheldore again, and coming + out for a Time tonight, do you?” + </p> + <p> + “As how?” + </p> + <p> + “You know this new dressmaker, Mrs. Swiftwaite?—swell dame with + blondine hair? Well, she's a pretty good goer. Me and Harry Haydock are + going to take her and that fat wren that works in the Bon Ton—nice + kid, too—on an auto ride tonight. Maybe we'll drive down to that + farm Harry bought. We're taking some beer, and some of the smoothest rye + you ever laid tongue to. I'm not predicting none, but if we don't have a + picnic, I'll miss my guess.” + </p> + <p> + “Go to it. No skin off my ear, Nat. Think I want to be fifth wheel in the + coach?” + </p> + <p> + “No, but look here: The little Swiftwaite has a friend with her from + Winona, dandy looker and some gay bird, and Harry and me thought maybe + you'd like to sneak off for one evening.” + </p> + <p> + “No—no——” + </p> + <p> + “Rats now, doc, forget your everlasting dignity. You used to be a pretty + good sport yourself, when you were foot-free.” + </p> + <p> + It may have been the fact that Mrs. Swiftwaite's friend remained to + Kennicott an ill-told rumor, it may have been Carol's voice, wistful in + the pallid evening as she sang to Hugh, it may have been natural and + commendable virtue, but certainly he was positive: + </p> + <p> + “Nope. I'm married for keeps. Don't pretend to be any saint. Like to get + out and raise Cain and shoot a few drinks. But a fellow owes a duty——Straight + now, won't you feel like a sneak when you come back to the missus after + your jamboree?” + </p> + <p> + “Me? My moral in life is, 'What they don't know won't hurt 'em none.' The + way to handle wives, like the fellow says, is to catch 'em early, treat + 'em rough, and tell 'em nothing!” + </p> + <p> + “Well, that's your business, I suppose. But I can't get away with it. + Besides that—way I figure it, this illicit love-making is the one + game that you always lose at. If you do lose, you feel foolish; and if you + win, as soon as you find out how little it is that you've been scheming + for, why then you lose worse than ever. Nature stinging us, as usual. But + at that, I guess a lot of wives in this burg would be surprised if they + knew everything that goes on behind their backs, eh, Nattie?” + </p> + <p> + “WOULD they! Say, boy! If the good wives knew what some of the boys get + away with when they go down to the Cities, why, they'd throw a fit! Sure + you won't come, doc? Think of getting all cooled off by a good long drive, + and then the lov-e-ly Swiftwaite's white hand mixing you a good stiff + highball!” + </p> + <p> + “Nope. Nope. Sorry. Guess I won't,” grumbled Kennicott. + </p> + <p> + He was glad that Nat showed signs of going. But he was restless. He heard + Carol on the stairs. “Come have a seat—have the whole earth!” he + shouted jovially. + </p> + <p> + She did not answer his joviality. She sat on the porch, rocked silently, + then sighed, “So many mosquitos out here. You haven't had the screen + fixed.” + </p> + <p> + As though he was testing her he said quietly, “Head aching again?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, not much, but——This maid is SO slow to learn. I have to + show her everything. I had to clean most of the silver myself. And Hugh + was so bad all afternoon. He whined so. Poor soul, he was hot, but he did + wear me out.” + </p> + <p> + “Uh——You usually want to get out. Like to walk down to the + lake shore? (The girl can stay home.) Or go to the movies? Come on, let's + go to the movies! Or shall we jump in the car and run out to Sam's, for a + swim?” + </p> + <p> + “If you don't mind, dear, I'm afraid I'm rather tired.” + </p> + <p> + “Why don't you sleep down-stairs tonight, on the couch? Be cooler. I'm + going to bring down my mattress. Come on! Keep the old man company. Can't + tell—I might get scared of burglars. Lettin' little fellow like me + stay all alone by himself!” + </p> + <p> + “It's sweet of you to think of it, but I like my own room so much. But you + go ahead and do it, dear. Why don't you sleep on the couch, instead of + putting your mattress on the floor? Well I believe I'll run in and read + for just a second—want to look at the last Vogue—and then + perhaps I'll go by-by. Unless you want me, dear? Of course if there's + anything you really WANT me for?” + </p> + <p> + “No. No. . . . Matter of fact, I really ought to run down and see Mrs. + Champ Perry. She's ailing. So you skip in and——May drop in at + the drug store. If I'm not home when you get sleepy, don't wait up for + me.” + </p> + <p> + He kissed her, rambled off, nodded to Jim Howland, stopped indifferently + to speak to Mrs. Terry Gould. But his heart was racing, his stomach was + constricted. He walked more slowly. He reached Dave Dyer's yard. He + glanced in. On the porch, sheltered by a wild-grape vine, was the figure + of a woman in white. He heard the swing-couch creak as she sat up + abruptly, peered, then leaned back and pretended to relax. + </p> + <p> + “Be nice to have some cool beer. Just drop in for a second,” he insisted, + as he opened the Dyer gate. + </p> + <p> + II + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bogart was calling upon Carol, protected by Aunt Bessie Smail. + </p> + <p> + “Have you heard about this awful woman that's supposed to have come here + to do dressmaking—a Mrs. Swiftwaite—awful peroxide blonde?” + moaned Mrs. Bogart. “They say there's some of the awfullest goings-on at + her house—mere boys and old gray-headed rips sneaking in there + evenings and drinking licker and every kind of goings-on. We women can't + never realize the carnal thoughts in the hearts of men. I tell you, even + though I been acquainted with Will Kennicott almost since he was a mere + boy, seems like, I wouldn't trust even him! Who knows what designin' women + might tempt him! Especially a doctor, with women rushin' in to see him at + his office and all! You know I never hint around, but haven't you felt + that——” + </p> + <p> + Carol was furious. “I don't pretend that Will has no faults. But one thing + I do know: He's as simple-hearted about what you call 'goings-on' as a + babe. And if he ever were such a sad dog as to look at another woman, I + certainly hope he'd have spirit enough to do the tempting, and not be + coaxed into it, as in your depressing picture!” + </p> + <p> + “Why, what a wicked thing to say, Carrie!” from Aunt Bessie. + </p> + <p> + “No, I mean it! Oh, of course, I don't mean it! But——I know + every thought in his head so well that he couldn't hide anything even if + he wanted to. Now this morning——He was out late, last night; + he had to go see Mrs. Perry, who is ailing, and then fix a man's hand, and + this morning he was so quiet and thoughtful at breakfast and——” + She leaned forward, breathed dramatically to the two perched harpies, + “What do you suppose he was thinking of?” + </p> + <p> + “What?” trembled Mrs. Bogart. + </p> + <p> + “Whether the grass needs cutting, probably! There, there! Don't mind my + naughtiness. I have some fresh-made raisin cookies for you.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0026" id="link2HCH0026"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXVI + </h2> + <p> + CAROL'S liveliest interest was in her walks with the baby. Hugh wanted to + know what the box-elder tree said, and what the Ford garage said, and what + the big cloud said, and she told him, with a feeling that she was not in + the least making up stories, but discovering the souls of things. They had + an especial fondness for the hitching-post in front of the mill. It was a + brown post, stout and agreeable; the smooth leg of it held the sunlight, + while its neck, grooved by hitching-straps, tickled one's fingers. Carol + had never been awake to the earth except as a show of changing color and + great satisfying masses; she had lived in people and in ideas about having + ideas; but Hugh's questions made her attentive to the comedies of + sparrows, robins, blue jays, yellowhammers; she regained her pleasure in + the arching flight of swallows, and added to it a solicitude about their + nests and family squabbles. + </p> + <p> + She forgot her seasons of boredom. She said to Hugh, “We're two fat + disreputable old minstrels roaming round the world,” and he echoed her, + “Roamin' round—roamin' round.” + </p> + <p> + The high adventure, the secret place to which they both fled joyously, was + the house of Miles and Bea and Olaf Bjornstam. + </p> + <p> + Kennicott steadily disapproved of the Bjornstams. He protested, “What do + you want to talk to that crank for?” He hinted that a former “Swede hired + girl” was low company for the son of Dr. Will Kennicott. She did not + explain. She did not quite understand it herself; did not know that in the + Bjornstams she found her friends, her club, her sympathy and her ration of + blessed cynicism. For a time the gossip of Juanita Haydock and the Jolly + Seventeen had been a refuge from the droning of Aunt Bessie, but the + relief had not continued. The young matrons made her nervous. They talked + so loud, always so loud. They filled a room with clashing cackle; their + jests and gags they repeated nine times over. Unconsciously, she had + discarded the Jolly Seventeen, Guy Pollock, Vida, and every one save Mrs. + Dr. Westlake and the friends whom she did not clearly know as friends—the + Bjornstams. + </p> + <p> + To Hugh, the Red Swede was the most heroic and powerful person in the + world. With unrestrained adoration he trotted after while Miles fed the + cows, chased his one pig—an animal of lax and migratory instincts—or + dramatically slaughtered a chicken. And to Hugh, Olaf was lord among + mortal men, less stalwart than the old monarch, King Miles, but more + understanding of the relations and values of things, of small sticks, lone + playing-cards, and irretrievably injured hoops. + </p> + <p> + Carol saw, though she did not admit, that Olaf was not only more beautiful + than her own dark child, but more gracious. Olaf was a Norse chieftain: + straight, sunny-haired, large-limbed, resplendently amiable to his + subjects. Hugh was a vulgarian; a bustling business man. It was Hugh that + bounced and said “Let's play”; Olaf that opened luminous blue eyes and + agreed “All right,” in condescending gentleness. If Hugh batted him—and + Hugh did bat him—Olaf was unafraid but shocked. In magnificent + solitude he marched toward the house, while Hugh bewailed his sin and the + overclouding of august favor. + </p> + <p> + The two friends played with an imperial chariot which Miles had made out + of a starch-box and four red spools; together they stuck switches into a + mouse-hole, with vast satisfaction though entirely without known results. + </p> + <p> + Bea, the chubby and humming Bea, impartially gave cookies and scoldings to + both children, and if Carol refused a cup of coffee and a wafer of + buttered knackebrod, she was desolated. + </p> + <p> + Miles had done well with his dairy. He had six cows, two hundred chickens, + a cream separator, a Ford truck. In the spring he had built a two-room + addition to his shack. That illustrious building was to Hugh a carnival. + Uncle Miles did the most spectacular, unexpected things: ran up the + ladder; stood on the ridge-pole, waving a hammer and singing something + about “To arms, my citizens”; nailed shingles faster than Aunt Bessie + could iron handkerchiefs; and lifted a two-by-six with Hugh riding on one + end and Olaf on the other. Uncle Miles's most ecstatic trick was to make + figures not on paper but right on a new pine board, with the broadest + softest pencil in the world. There was a thing worth seeing! + </p> + <p> + The tools! In his office Father had tools fascinating in their shininess + and curious shapes, but they were sharp, they were something called + sterized, and they distinctly were not for boys to touch. In fact it was a + good dodge to volunteer “I must not touch,” when you looked at the tools + on the glass shelves in Father's office. But Uncle Miles, who was a person + altogether superior to Father, let you handle all his kit except the saws. + There was a hammer with a silver head; there was a metal thing like a big + L; there was a magic instrument, very precious, made out of costly red + wood and gold, with a tube which contained a drop—no, it wasn't a + drop, it was a nothing, which lived in the water, but the nothing LOOKED + like a drop, and it ran in a frightened way up and down the tube, no + matter how cautiously you tilted the magic instrument. And there were + nails, very different and clever—big valiant spikes, middle-sized + ones which were not very interesting, and shingle-nails much jollier than + the fussed-up fairies in the yellow book. + </p> + <p> + II + </p> + <p> + While he had worked on the addition Miles had talked frankly to Carol. He + admitted now that so long as he stayed in Gopher Prairie he would remain a + pariah. Bea's Lutheran friends were as much offended by his agnostic gibes + as the merchants by his radicalism. “And I can't seem to keep my mouth + shut. I think I'm being a baa-lamb, and not springing any theories wilder + than 'c-a-t spells cat,' but when folks have gone, I re'lize I've been + stepping on their pet religious corns. Oh, the mill foreman keeps dropping + in, and that Danish shoemaker, and one fellow from Elder's factory, and a + few Svenskas, but you know Bea: big good-hearted wench like her wants a + lot of folks around—likes to fuss over 'em—never satisfied + unless she tiring herself out making coffee for somebody. + </p> + <p> + “Once she kidnapped me and drug me to the Methodist Church. I goes in, + pious as Widow Bogart, and sits still and never cracks a smile while the + preacher is favoring us with his misinformation on evolution. But + afterwards, when the old stalwarts were pumphandling everybody at the door + and calling 'em 'Brother' and 'Sister,' they let me sail right by with + nary a clinch. They figure I'm the town badman. Always will be, I guess. + It'll have to be Olaf who goes on. 'And sometimes——Blamed if I + don't feel like coming out and saying, 'I've been conservative. Nothing to + it. Now I'm going to start something in these rotten one-horse + lumber-camps west of town.' But Bea's got me hypnotized. Lord, Mrs. + Kennicott, do you re'lize what a jolly, square, faithful woman she is? And + I love Olaf——Oh well, I won't go and get sentimental on you. + </p> + <p> + “Course I've had thoughts of pulling up stakes and going West. Maybe if + they didn't know it beforehand, they wouldn't find out I'd ever been + guilty of trying to think for myself. But—oh, I've worked hard, and + built up this dairy business, and I hate to start all over again, and move + Bea and the kid into another one-room shack. That's how they get us! + Encourage us to be thrifty and own our own houses, and then, by golly, + they've got us; they know we won't dare risk everything by committing lez—what + is it? lez majesty?—I mean they know we won't be hinting around that + if we had a co-operative bank, we could get along without Stowbody. Well——As + long as I can sit and play pinochle with Bea, and tell whoppers to Olaf + about his daddy's adventures in the woods, and how he snared a wapaloosie + and knew Paul Bunyan, why, I don't mind being a bum. It's just for them + that I mind. Say! Say! Don't whisper a word to Bea, but when I get this + addition done, I'm going to buy her a phonograph!” + </p> + <p> + He did. + </p> + <p> + While she was busy with the activities her work-hungry muscles found—washing, + ironing, mending, baking, dusting, preserving, plucking a chicken, + painting the sink; tasks which, because she was Miles's full partner, were + exciting and creative—Bea listened to the phonograph records with + rapture like that of cattle in a warm stable. The addition gave her a + kitchen with a bedroom above. The original one-room shack was now a + living-room, with the phonograph, a genuine leather-upholstered golden-oak + rocker, and a picture of Governor John Johnson. + </p> + <p> + In late July Carol went to the Bjornstams' desirous of a chance to express + her opinion of Beavers and Calibrees and Joralemons. She found Olaf abed, + restless from a slight fever, and Bea flushed and dizzy but trying to keep + up her work. She lured Miles aside and worried: + </p> + <p> + “They don't look at all well. What's the matter?” + </p> + <p> + “Their stomachs are out of whack. I wanted to call in Doc Kennicott, but + Bea thinks the doc doesn't like us—she thinks maybe he's sore + because you come down here. But I'm getting worried.” + </p> + <p> + “I'm going to call the doctor at once.” + </p> + <p> + She yearned over Olaf. His lambent eyes were stupid, he moaned, he rubbed + his forehead. + </p> + <p> + “Have they been eating something that's been bad for them?” she fluttered + to Miles. + </p> + <p> + “Might be bum water. I'll tell you: We used to get our water at Oscar + Eklund's place, over across the street, but Oscar kept dinging at me, and + hinting I was a tightwad not to dig a well of my own. One time he said, + 'Sure, you socialists are great on divvying up other folks' money—and + water!' I knew if he kept it up there'd be a fuss, and I ain't safe to + have around, once a fuss starts; I'm likely to forget myself and let loose + with a punch in the snoot. I offered to pay Oscar but he refused—he'd + rather have the chance to kid me. So I starts getting water down at Mrs. + Fageros's, in the hollow there, and I don't believe it's real good. + Figuring to dig my own well this fall.” + </p> + <p> + One scarlet word was before Carol's eyes while she listened. She fled to + Kennicott's office. He gravely heard her out; nodded, said, “Be right + over.” + </p> + <p> + He examined Bea and Olaf. He shook his head. “Yes. Looks to me like + typhoid.” + </p> + <p> + “Golly, I've seen typhoid in lumber-camps,” groaned Miles, all the + strength dripping out of him. “Have they got it very bad?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, we'll take good care of them,” said Kennicott, and for the first time + in their acquaintance he smiled on Miles and clapped his shoulder. + </p> + <p> + “Won't you need a nurse?” demanded Carol. + </p> + <p> + “Why——” To Miles, Kennicott hinted, “Couldn't you get Bea's + cousin, Tina?” + </p> + <p> + “She's down at the old folks', in the country.” + </p> + <p> + “Then let me do it!” Carol insisted. “They need some one to cook for them, + and isn't it good to give them sponge baths, in typhoid?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. All right.” Kennicott was automatic; he was the official, the + physician. “I guess probably it would be hard to get a nurse here in town + just now. Mrs. Stiver is busy with an obstetrical case, and that town + nurse of yours is off on vacation, ain't she? All right, Bjornstam can + spell you at night.” + </p> + <p> + All week, from eight each morning till midnight, Carol fed them, bathed + them, smoothed sheets, took temperatures. Miles refused to let her cook. + Terrified, pallid, noiseless in stocking feet, he did the kitchen work and + the sweeping, his big red hands awkwardly careful. Kennicott came in three + times a day, unchangingly tender and hopeful in the sick-room, evenly + polite to Miles. + </p> + <p> + Carol understood how great was her love for her friends. It bore her + through; it made her arm steady and tireless to bathe them. What exhausted + her was the sight of Bea and Olaf turned into flaccid invalids, + uncomfortably flushed after taking food, begging for the healing of sleep + at night. + </p> + <p> + During the second week Olaf's powerful legs were flabby. Spots of a + viciously delicate pink came out on his chest and back. His cheeks sank. + He looked frightened. His tongue was brown and revolting. His confident + voice dwindled to a bewildered murmur, ceaseless and racking. + </p> + <p> + Bea had stayed on her feet too long at the beginning. The moment Kennicott + had ordered her to bed she had begun to collapse. One early evening she + startled them by screaming, in an intense abdominal pain, and within half + an hour she was in a delirium. Till dawn Carol was with her, and not all + of Bea's groping through the blackness of half-delirious pain was so + pitiful to Carol as the way in which Miles silently peered into the room + from the top of the narrow stairs. Carol slept three hours next morning, + and ran back. Bea was altogether delirious but she muttered nothing save, + “Olaf—ve have such a good time——” + </p> + <p> + At ten, while Carol was preparing an ice-bag in the kitchen, Miles + answered a knock. At the front door she saw Vida Sherwin, Maud Dyer, and + Mrs. Zitterel, wife of the Baptist pastor. They were carrying grapes, and + women's-magazines, magazines with high-colored pictures and optimistic + fiction. + </p> + <p> + “We just heard your wife was sick. We've come to see if there isn't + something we can do,” chirruped Vida. + </p> + <p> + Miles looked steadily at the three women. “You're too late. You can't do + nothing now. Bea's always kind of hoped that you folks would come see her. + She wanted to have a chance and be friends. She used to sit waiting for + somebody to knock. I've seen her sitting here, waiting. Now——Oh, + you ain't worth God-damning.” He shut the door. + </p> + <p> + All day Carol watched Olaf's strength oozing. He was emaciated. His ribs + were grim clear lines, his skin was clammy, his pulse was feeble but + terrifyingly rapid. It beat—beat—beat in a drum-roll of death. + Late that afternoon he sobbed, and died. + </p> + <p> + Bea did not know it. She was delirious. Next morning, when she went, she + did not know that Olaf would no longer swing his lath sword on the + door-step, no longer rule his subjects of the cattle-yard; that Miles's + son would not go East to college. + </p> + <p> + Miles, Carol, Kennicott were silent. They washed the bodies together, + their eyes veiled. + </p> + <p> + “Go home now and sleep. You're pretty tired. I can't ever pay you back for + what you done,” Miles whispered to Carol. + </p> + <p> + “Yes. But I'll be back here tomorrow. Go with you to the funeral,” she + said laboriously. + </p> + <p> + When the time for the funeral came, Carol was in bed, collapsed. She + assumed that neighbors would go. They had not told her that word of + Miles's rebuff to Vida had spread through town, a cyclonic fury. + </p> + <p> + It was only by chance that, leaning on her elbow in bed, she glanced + through the window and saw the funeral of Bea and Olaf. There was no + music, no carriages. There was only Miles Bjornstam, in his black + wedding-suit, walking quite alone, head down, behind the shabby hearse + that bore the bodies of his wife and baby. + </p> + <p> + An hour after, Hugh came into her room crying, and when she said as + cheerily as she could, “What is it, dear?” he besought, “Mummy, I want to + go play with Olaf.” + </p> + <p> + That afternoon Juanita Haydock dropped in to brighten Carol. She said, + “Too bad about this Bea that was your hired girl. But I don't waste any + sympathy on that man of hers. Everybody says he drank too much, and + treated his family awful, and that's how they got sick.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0027" id="link2HCH0027"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXVII + </h2> + <h3> + I + </h3> + <p> + A LETTER from Raymie Wutherspoon, in France, said that he had been sent to + the front, been slightly wounded, been made a captain. From Vida's pride + Carol sought to draw a stimulant to rouse her from depression. + </p> + <p> + Miles had sold his dairy. He had several thousand dollars. To Carol he + said good-by with a mumbled word, a harsh hand-shake, “Going to buy a farm + in northern Alberta—far off from folks as I can get.” He turned + sharply away, but he did not walk with his former spring. His shoulders + seemed old. + </p> + <p> + It was said that before he went he cursed the town. There was talk of + arresting him, of riding him on a rail. It was rumored that at the station + old Champ Perry rebuked him, “You better not come back here. We've got + respect for your dead, but we haven't got any for a blasphemer and a + traitor that won't do anything for his country and only bought one Liberty + Bond.” + </p> + <p> + Some of the people who had been at the station declared that Miles made + some dreadful seditious retort: something about loving German workmen more + than American bankers; but others asserted that he couldn't find one word + with which to answer the veteran; that he merely sneaked up on the + platform of the train. He must have felt guilty, everybody agreed, for as + the train left town, a farmer saw him standing in the vestibule and + looking out. + </p> + <p> + His house—with the addition which he had built four months ago—was + very near the track on which his train passed. + </p> + <p> + When Carol went there, for the last time, she found Olaf's chariot with + its red spool wheels standing in the sunny corner beside the stable. She + wondered if a quick eye could have noticed it from a train. + </p> + <p> + That day and that week she went reluctantly to Red Cross work; she + stitched and packed silently, while Vida read the war bulletins. And she + said nothing at all when Kennicott commented, “From what Champ says, I + guess Bjornstam was a bad egg, after all. In spite of Bea, don't know but + what the citizens' committee ought to have forced him to be patriotic—let + on like they could send him to jail if he didn't volunteer and come + through for bonds and the Y. M. C. A. They've worked that stunt fine with + all these German farmers.” + </p> + <p> + II + </p> + <p> + She found no inspiration but she did find a dependable kindness in Mrs. + Westlake, and at last she yielded to the old woman's receptivity and had + relief in sobbing the story of Bea. + </p> + <p> + Guy Pollock she often met on the street, but he was merely a pleasant + voice which said things about Charles Lamb and sunsets. + </p> + <p> + Her most positive experience was the revelation of Mrs. Flickerbaugh, the + tall, thin, twitchy wife of the attorney. Carol encountered her at the + drug store. + </p> + <p> + “Walking?” snapped Mrs. Flickerbaugh. + </p> + <p> + “Why, yes.” + </p> + <p> + “Humph. Guess you're the only female in this town that retains the use of + her legs. Come home and have a cup o' tea with me.” + </p> + <p> + Because she had nothing else to do, Carol went. But she was uncomfortable + in the presence of the amused stares which Mrs. Flickerbaugh's raiment + drew. Today, in reeking early August, she wore a man's cap, a skinny fur + like a dead cat, a necklace of imitation pearls, a scabrous satin blouse, + and a thick cloth skirt hiked up in front. + </p> + <p> + “Come in. Sit down. Stick the baby in that rocker. Hope you don't mind the + house looking like a rat's nest. You don't like this town. Neither do I,” + said Mrs. Flickerbaugh. + </p> + <p> + “Why——” + </p> + <p> + “Course you don't!” + </p> + <p> + “Well then, I don't! But I'm sure that some day I'll find some solution. + Probably I'm a hexagonal peg. Solution: find the hexagonal hole.” Carol + was very brisk. + </p> + <p> + “How do you know you ever will find it?” + </p> + <p> + “There's Mrs. Westlake. She's naturally a big-city woman—she ought + to have a lovely old house in Philadelphia or Boston—but she escapes + by being absorbed in reading.” + </p> + <p> + “You be satisfied to never do anything but read?” + </p> + <p> + “No, but Heavens, one can't go on hating a town always!” + </p> + <p> + “Why not? I can! I've hated it for thirty-two years. I'll die here—and + I'll hate it till I die. I ought to have been a business woman. I had a + good deal of talent for tending to figures. All gone now. Some folks think + I'm crazy. Guess I am. Sit and grouch. Go to church and sing hymns. Folks + think I'm religious. Tut! Trying to forget washing and ironing and mending + socks. Want an office of my own, and sell things. Julius never hear of it. + Too late.” + </p> + <p> + Carol sat on the gritty couch, and sank into fear. Could this drabness of + life keep up forever, then? Would she some day so despise herself and her + neighbors that she too would walk Main Street an old skinny eccentric + woman in a mangy cat's-fur? As she crept home she felt that the trap had + finally closed. She went into the house, a frail small woman, still + winsome but hopeless of eye as she staggered with the weight of the drowsy + boy in her arms. + </p> + <p> + She sat alone on the porch, that evening. It seemed that Kennicott had to + make a professional call on Mrs. Dave Dyer. + </p> + <p> + Under the stilly boughs and the black gauze of dusk the street was meshed + in silence. There was but the hum of motor tires crunching the road, the + creak of a rocker on the Howlands' porch, the slap of a hand attacking a + mosquito, a heat-weary conversation starting and dying, the precise rhythm + of crickets, the thud of moths against the screen—sounds that were a + distilled silence. It was a street beyond the end of the world, beyond the + boundaries of hope. Though she should sit here forever, no brave + procession, no one who was interesting, would be coming by. It was + tediousness made tangible, a street builded of lassitude and of futility. + </p> + <p> + Myrtle Cass appeared, with Cy Bogart. She giggled and bounced when Cy + tickled her ear in village love. They strolled with the half-dancing gait + of lovers, kicking their feet out sideways or shuffling a dragging jig, + and the concrete walk sounded to the broken two-four rhythm. Their voices + had a dusky turbulence. Suddenly, to the woman rocking on the porch of the + doctor's house, the night came alive, and she felt that everywhere in the + darkness panted an ardent quest which she was missing as she sank back to + wait for——There must be something. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0028" id="link2HCH0028"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXVIII + </h2> + <p> + IT WAS at a supper of the Jolly Seventeen in August that Carol heard of + “Elizabeth,” from Mrs. Dave Dyer. + </p> + <p> + Carol was fond of Maud Dyer, because she had been particularly agreeable + lately; had obviously repented of the nervous distaste which she had once + shown. Maud patted her hand when they met, and asked about Hugh. + </p> + <p> + Kennicott said that he was “kind of sorry for the girl, some ways; she's + too darn emotional, but still, Dave is sort of mean to her.” He was polite + to poor Maud when they all went down to the cottages for a swim. Carol was + proud of that sympathy in him, and now she took pains to sit with their + new friend. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Dyer was bubbling, “Oh, have you folks heard about this young fellow + that's just come to town that the boys call 'Elizabeth'? He's working in + Nat Hicks's tailor shop. I bet he doesn't make eighteen a week, but my! + isn't he the perfect lady though! He talks so refined, and oh, the lugs he + puts on—belted coat, and pique collar with a gold pin, and socks to + match his necktie, and honest—you won't believe this, but I got it + straight—this fellow, you know he's staying at Mrs. Gurrey's punk + old boarding-house, and they say he asked Mrs. Gurrey if he ought to put + on a dress-suit for supper! Imagine! Can you beat that? And him nothing + but a Swede tailor—Erik Valborg his name is. But he used to be in a + tailor shop in Minneapolis (they do say he's a smart needle-pusher, at + that) and he tries to let on that he's a regular city fellow. They say he + tries to make people think he's a poet—carries books around and + pretends to read 'em. Myrtle Cass says she met him at a dance, and he was + mooning around all over the place, and he asked her did she like flowers + and poetry and music and everything; he spieled like he was a regular + United States Senator; and Myrtle—she's a devil, that girl, ha! ha!—she + kidded him along, and got him going, and honest, what d'you think he said? + He said he didn't find any intellectual companionship in this town. Can + you BEAT it? Imagine! And him a Swede tailor! My! And they say he's the + most awful mollycoddle—looks just like a girl. The boys call him + 'Elizabeth,' and they stop him and ask about the books he lets on to have + read, and he goes and tells them, and they take it all in and jolly him + terribly, and he never gets onto the fact they're kidding him. Oh, I think + it's just TOO funny!” + </p> + <p> + The Jolly Seventeen laughed, and Carol laughed with them. Mrs. Jack Elder + added that this Erik Valborg had confided to Mrs. Gurrey that he would + “love to design clothes for women.” Imagine! Mrs. Harvey Dillon had had a + glimpse of him, but honestly, she'd thought he was awfully handsome. This + was instantly controverted by Mrs. B. J. Gougerling, wife of the banker. + Mrs. Gougerling had had, she reported, a good look at this Valborg fellow. + She and B. J. had been motoring, and passed “Elizabeth” out by McGruder's + Bridge. He was wearing the awfullest clothes, with the waist pinched in + like a girl's. He was sitting on a rock doing nothing, but when he heard + the Gougerling car coming he snatched a book out of his pocket, and as + they went by he pretended to be reading it, to show off. And he wasn't + really good-looking—just kind of soft, as B. J. had pointed out. + </p> + <p> + When the husbands came they joined in the expose. “My name is Elizabeth. + I'm the celebrated musical tailor. The skirts fall for me by the thou. Do + I get some more veal loaf?” merrily shrieked Dave Dyer. He had some + admirable stories about the tricks the town youngsters had played on + Valborg. They had dropped a decaying perch into his pocket. They had + pinned on his back a sign, “I'm the prize boob, kick me.” + </p> + <p> + Glad of any laughter, Carol joined the frolic, and surprised them by + crying, “Dave, I do think you're the dearest thing since you got your hair + cut!” That was an excellent sally. Everybody applauded. Kennicott looked + proud. + </p> + <p> + She decided that sometime she really must go out of her way to pass + Hicks's shop and see this freak. + </p> + <p> + II + </p> + <p> + She was at Sunday morning service at the Baptist Church, in a solemn row + with her husband, Hugh, Uncle Whittier, Aunt Bessie. + </p> + <p> + Despite Aunt Bessie's nagging the Kennicotts rarely attended church. The + doctor asserted, “Sure, religion is a fine influence—got to have it + to keep the lower classes in order—fact, it's the only thing that + appeals to a lot of those fellows and makes 'em respect the rights of + property. And I guess this theology is O.K.; lot of wise old coots figured + it all out, and they knew more about it than we do.” He believed in the + Christian religion, and never thought about it, he believed in the church, + and seldom went near it; he was shocked by Carol's lack of faith, and + wasn't quite sure what was the nature of the faith that she lacked. + </p> + <p> + Carol herself was an uneasy and dodging agnostic. + </p> + <p> + When she ventured to Sunday School and heard the teachers droning that the + genealogy of Shamsherai was a valuable ethical problem for children to + think about; when she experimented with Wednesday prayer-meeting and + listened to store-keeping elders giving their unvarying weekly testimony + in primitive erotic symbols and such gory Chaldean phrases as “washed in + the blood of the lamb” and “a vengeful God”; when Mrs. Bogart boasted that + through his boyhood she had made Cy confess nightly upon the basis of the + Ten Commandments; then Carol was dismayed to find the Christian religion, + in America, in the twentieth century, as abnormal as Zoroastrianism—without + the splendor. But when she went to church suppers and felt the + friendliness, saw the gaiety with which the sisters served cold ham and + scalloped potatoes; when Mrs. Champ Perry cried to her, on an afternoon + call, “My dear, if you just knew how happy it makes you to come into + abiding grace,” then Carol found the humanness behind the sanguinary and + alien theology. Always she perceived that the churches—Methodist, + Baptist, Congregational, Catholic, all of them—which had seemed so + unimportant to the judge's home in her childhood, so isolated from the + city struggle in St. Paul, were still, in Gopher Prairie, the strongest of + the forces compelling respectability. + </p> + <p> + This August Sunday she had been tempted by the announcement that the + Reverend Edmund Zitterel would preach on the topic “America, Face Your + Problems!” With the great war, workmen in every nation showing a desire to + control industries, Russia hinting a leftward revolution against Kerensky, + woman suffrage coming, there seemed to be plenty of problems for the + Reverend Mr. Zitterel to call on America to face. Carol gathered her + family and trotted off behind Uncle Whittier. + </p> + <p> + The congregation faced the heat with informality. Men with highly + plastered hair, so painfully shaved that their faces looked sore, removed + their coats, sighed, and unbuttoned two buttons of their uncreased Sunday + vests. Large-bosomed, white-bloused, hot-necked, spectacled matrons—the + Mothers in Israel, pioneers and friends of Mrs. Champ Perry—waved + their palm-leaf fans in a steady rhythm. Abashed boys slunk into the rear + pews and giggled, while milky little girls, up front with their mothers, + self-consciously kept from turning around. + </p> + <p> + The church was half barn and half Gopher Prairie parlor. The streaky brown + wallpaper was broken in its dismal sweep only by framed texts, “Come unto + Me” and “The Lord is My Shepherd,” by a list of hymns, and by a crimson + and green diagram, staggeringly drawn upon hemp-colored paper, indicating + the alarming ease with which a young man may descend from Palaces of + Pleasure and the House of Pride to Eternal Damnation. But the varnished + oak pews and the new red carpet and the three large chairs on the + platform, behind the bare reading-stand, were all of a rocking-chair + comfort. + </p> + <p> + Carol was civic and neighborly and commendable today. She beamed and + bowed. She trolled out with the others the hymn: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + How pleasant 'tis on Sabbath morn + To gather in the church + And there I'll have no carnal thoughts, + Nor sin shall me besmirch. +</pre> + <p> + With a rustle of starched linen skirts and stiff shirt-fronts, the + congregation sat down, and gave heed to the Reverend Mr. Zitterel. The + priest was a thin, swart, intense young man with a bang. He wore a black + sack suit and a lilac tie. He smote the enormous Bible on the + reading-stand, vociferated, “Come, let us reason together,” delivered a + prayer informing Almighty God of the news of the past week, and began to + reason. + </p> + <p> + It proved that the only problems which America had to face were Mormonism + and Prohibition: + </p> + <p> + “Don't let any of these self-conceited fellows that are always trying to + stir up trouble deceive you with the belief that there's anything to all + these smart-aleck movements to let the unions and the Farmers' Nonpartisan + League kill all our initiative and enterprise by fixing wages and prices. + There isn't any movement that amounts to a whoop without it's got a moral + background. And let me tell you that while folks are fussing about what + they call 'economics' and 'socialism' and 'science' and a lot of things + that are nothing in the world but a disguise for atheism, the Old Satan is + busy spreading his secret net and tentacles out there in Utah, under his + guise of Joe Smith or Brigham Young or whoever their leaders happen to be + today, it doesn't make any difference, and they're making game of the Old + Bible that has led this American people through its manifold trials and + tribulations to its firm position as the fulfilment of the prophecies and + the recognized leader of all nations. 'Sit thou on my right hand till I + make thine enemies the footstool of my feet,' said the Lord of Hosts, Acts + II, the thirty-fourth verse—and let me tell you right now, you got + to get up a good deal earlier in the morning than you get up even when + you're going fishing, if you want to be smarter than the Lord, who has + shown us the straight and narrow way, and he that passeth therefrom is in + eternal peril and, to return to this vital and terrible subject of + Mormonism—and as I say, it is terrible to realize how little + attention is given to this evil right here in our midst and on our very + doorstep, as it were—it's a shame and a disgrace that the Congress + of these United States spends all its time talking about inconsequential + financial matters that ought to be left to the Treasury Department, as I + understand it, instead of arising in their might and passing a law that + any one admitting he is a Mormon shall simply be deported and as it were + kicked out of this free country in which we haven't got any room for + polygamy and the tyrannies of Satan. + </p> + <p> + “And, to digress for a moment, especially as there are more of them in + this state than there are Mormons, though you never can tell what will + happen with this vain generation of young girls, that think more about + wearing silk stockings than about minding their mothers and learning to + bake a good loaf of bread, and many of them listening to these sneaking + Mormon missionaries—and I actually heard one of them talking right + out on a street-corner in Duluth, a few years ago, and the officers of the + law not protesting—but still, as they are a smaller but more + immediate problem, let me stop for just a moment to pay my respects to + these Seventh-Day Adventists. Not that they are immoral, I don't mean, but + when a body of men go on insisting that Saturday is the Sabbath, after + Christ himself has clearly indicated the new dispensation, then I think + the legislature ought to step in——” + </p> + <p> + At this point Carol awoke. + </p> + <p> + She got through three more minutes by studying the face of a girl in the + pew across: a sensitive unhappy girl whose longing poured out with + intimidating self-revelation as she worshiped Mr. Zitterel. Carol wondered + who the girl was. She had seen her at church suppers. She considered how + many of the three thousand people in the town she did not know; to how + many of them the Thanatopsis and the Jolly Seventeen were icy social + peaks; how many of them might be toiling through boredom thicker than her + own—with greater courage. + </p> + <p> + She examined her nails. She read two hymns. She got some satisfaction out + of rubbing an itching knuckle. She pillowed on her shoulder the head of + the baby who, after killing time in the same manner as his mother, was so + fortunate as to fall asleep. She read the introduction, title-page, and + acknowledgment of copyrights, in the hymnal. She tried to evolve a + philosophy which would explain why Kennicott could never tie his scarf so + that it would reach the top of the gap in his turn-down collar. + </p> + <p> + There were no other diversions to be found in the pew. She glanced back at + the congregation. She thought that it would be amiable to bow to Mrs. + Champ Perry. + </p> + <p> + Her slow turning head stopped, galvanized. + </p> + <p> + Across the aisle, two rows back, was a strange young man who shone among + the cud-chewing citizens like a visitant from the sun-amber curls, low + forehead, fine nose, chin smooth but not raw from Sabbath shaving. His + lips startled her. The lips of men in Gopher Prairie are flat in the face, + straight and grudging. The stranger's mouth was arched, the upper lip + short. He wore a brown jersey coat, a delft-blue bow, a white silk shirt, + white flannel trousers. He suggested the ocean beach, a tennis court, + anything but the sun-blistered utility of Main Street. + </p> + <p> + A visitor from Minneapolis, here for business? No. He wasn't a business + man. He was a poet. Keats was in his face, and Shelley, and Arthur Upson, + whom she had once seen in Minneapolis. He was at once too sensitive and + too sophisticated to touch business as she knew it in Gopher Prairie. + </p> + <p> + With restrained amusement he was analyzing the noisy Mr. Zitterel. Carol + was ashamed to have this spy from the Great World hear the pastor's + maundering. She felt responsible for the town. She resented his gaping at + their private rites. She flushed, turned away. But she continued to feel + his presence. + </p> + <p> + How could she meet him? She must! For an hour of talk. He was all that she + was hungry for. She could not let him get away without a word—and + she would have to. She pictured, and ridiculed, herself as walking up to + him and remarking, “I am sick with the Village Virus. Will you please tell + me what people are saying and playing in New York?” She pictured, and + groaned over, the expression of Kennicott if she should say, “Why wouldn't + it be reasonable for you, my soul, to ask that complete stranger in the + brown jersey coat to come to supper tonight?” + </p> + <p> + She brooded, not looking back. She warned herself that she was probably + exaggerating; that no young man could have all these exalted qualities. + Wasn't he too obviously smart, too glossy-new? Like a movie actor. + Probably he was a traveling salesman who sang tenor and fancied himself in + imitations of Newport clothes and spoke of “the swellest business + proposition that ever came down the pike.” In a panic she peered at him. + No! This was no hustling salesman, this boy with the curving Grecian lips + and the serious eyes. + </p> + <p> + She rose after the service, carefully taking Kennicott's arm and smiling + at him in a mute assertion that she was devoted to him no matter what + happened. She followed the Mystery's soft brown jersey shoulders out of + the church. + </p> + <p> + Fatty Hicks, the shrill and puffy son of Nat, flapped his hand at the + beautiful stranger and jeered, “How's the kid? All dolled up like a plush + horse today, ain't we!” + </p> + <p> + Carol was exceeding sick. Her herald from the outside was Erik Valborg, + “Elizabeth.” Apprentice tailor! Gasoline and hot goose! Mending dirty + jackets! Respectfully holding a tape-measure about a paunch! + </p> + <p> + And yet, she insisted, this boy was also himself. + </p> + <p> + III + </p> + <p> + They had Sunday dinner with the Smails, in a dining-room which centered + about a fruit and flower piece and a crayon-enlargement of Uncle Whittier. + Carol did not heed Aunt Bessie's fussing in regard to Mrs. Robert B. + Schminke's bead necklace and Whittier's error in putting on the striped + pants, day like this. She did not taste the shreds of roast pork. She said + vacuously: + </p> + <p> + “Uh—Will, I wonder if that young man in the white flannel trousers, + at church this morning, was this Valborg person that they're all talking + about?” + </p> + <p> + “Yump. That's him. Wasn't that the darndest get-up he had on!” Kennicott + scratched at a white smear on his hard gray sleeve. + </p> + <p> + “It wasn't so bad. I wonder where he comes from? He seems to have lived in + cities a good deal. Is he from the East?” + </p> + <p> + “The East? Him? Why, he comes from a farm right up north here, just this + side of Jefferson. I know his father slightly—Adolph Valborg—typical + cranky old Swede farmer.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, really?” blandly. + </p> + <p> + “Believe he has lived in Minneapolis for quite some time, though. Learned + his trade there. And I will say he's bright, some ways. Reads a lot. + Pollock says he takes more books out of the library than anybody else in + town. Huh! He's kind of like you in that!” + </p> + <p> + The Smails and Kennicott laughed very much at this sly jest. Uncle + Whittier seized the conversation. “That fellow that's working for Hicks? + Milksop, that's what he is. Makes me tired to see a young fellow that + ought to be in the war, or anyway out in the fields earning his living + honest, like I done when I was young, doing a woman's work and then come + out and dress up like a show-actor! Why, when I was his age——” + </p> + <p> + Carol reflected that the carving-knife would make an excellent dagger with + which to kill Uncle Whittier. It would slide in easily. The headlines + would be terrible. + </p> + <p> + Kennicott said judiciously, “Oh, I don't want to be unjust to him. I + believe he took his physical examination for military service. Got + varicose veins—not bad, but enough to disqualify him. Though I will + say he doesn't look like a fellow that would be so awful darn crazy to + poke his bayonet into a Hun's guts.” + </p> + <p> + “Will! PLEASE!” + </p> + <p> + “Well, he don't. Looks soft to me. And they say he told Del Snafflin, when + he was getting a hair-cut on Saturday, that he wished he could play the + piano.” + </p> + <p> + “Isn't it wonderful how much we all know about one another in a town like + this,” said Carol innocently. + </p> + <p> + Kennicott was suspicious, but Aunt Bessie, serving the floating island + pudding, agreed, “Yes, it is wonderful. Folks can get away with all sorts + of meannesses and sins in these terrible cities, but they can't here. I + was noticing this tailor fellow this morning, and when Mrs. Riggs offered + to share her hymn-book with him, he shook his head, and all the while we + was singing he just stood there like a bump on a log and never opened his + mouth. Everybody says he's got an idea that he's got so much better + manners and all than what the rest of us have, but if that's what he calls + good manners, I want to know!” + </p> + <p> + Carol again studied the carving-knife. Blood on the whiteness of a + tablecloth might be gorgeous. + </p> + <p> + Then: + </p> + <p> + “Fool! Neurotic impossibilist! Telling yourself orchard fairy-tales—at + thirty. . . . Dear Lord, am I really THIRTY? That boy can't be more than + twenty-five.” + </p> + <p> + IV + </p> + <p> + She went calling. + </p> + <p> + Boarding with the Widow Bogart was Fern Mullins, a girl of twenty-two who + was to be teacher of English, French, and gymnastics in the high school + this coming session. Fern Mullins had come to town early, for the + six-weeks normal course for country teachers. Carol had noticed her on the + street, had heard almost as much about her as about Erik Valborg. She was + tall, weedy, pretty, and incurably rakish. Whether she wore a low middy + collar or dressed reticently for school in a black suit with a high-necked + blouse, she was airy, flippant. “She looks like an absolute totty,” said + all the Mrs. Sam Clarks, disapprovingly, and all the Juanita Haydocks, + enviously. + </p> + <p> + That Sunday evening, sitting in baggy canvas lawn-chairs beside the house, + the Kennicotts saw Fern laughing with Cy Bogart who, though still a junior + in high school, was now a lump of a man, only two or three years younger + than Fern. Cy had to go downtown for weighty matters connected with the + pool-parlor. Fern drooped on the Bogart porch, her chin in her hands. + </p> + <p> + “She looks lonely,” said Kennicott. + </p> + <p> + “She does, poor soul. I believe I'll go over and speak to her. I was + introduced to her at Dave's but I haven't called.” Carol was slipping + across the lawn, a white figure in the dimness, faintly brushing the dewy + grass. She was thinking of Erik and of the fact that her feet were wet, + and she was casual in her greeting: “Hello! The doctor and I wondered if + you were lonely.” + </p> + <p> + Resentfully, “I am!” + </p> + <p> + Carol concentrated on her. “My dear, you sound so! I know how it is. I + used to be tired when I was on the job—I was a librarian. What was + your college? I was Blodgett.” + </p> + <p> + More interestedly, “I went to the U.” Fern meant the University of + Minnesota. + </p> + <p> + “You must have had a splendid time. Blodgett was a bit dull.” + </p> + <p> + “Where were you a librarian?” challengingly. + </p> + <p> + “St. Paul—the main library.” + </p> + <p> + “Honest? Oh dear, I wish I was back in the Cities! This is my first year + of teaching, and I'm scared stiff. I did have the best time in college: + dramatics and basket-ball and fussing and dancing—I'm simply crazy + about dancing. And here, except when I have the kids in gymnasium class, + or when I'm chaperoning the basket-ball team on a trip out-of-town, I + won't dare to move above a whisper. I guess they don't care much if you + put any pep into teaching or not, as long as you look like a Good + Influence out of school-hours—and that means never doing anything + you want to. This normal course is bad enough, but the regular school will + be FIERCE! If it wasn't too late to get a job in the Cities, I swear I'd + resign here. I bet I won't dare to go to a single dance all winter. If I + cut loose and danced the way I like to, they'd think I was a perfect + hellion—poor harmless me! Oh, I oughtn't to be talking like this. + Fern, you never could be cagey!” + </p> + <p> + “Don't be frightened, my dear! . . . Doesn't that sound atrociously old + and kind! I'm talking to you the way Mrs. Westlake talks to me! That's + having a husband and a kitchen range, I suppose. But I feel young, and I + want to dance like a—like a hellion?—too. So I sympathize.” + </p> + <p> + Fern made a sound of gratitude. Carol inquired, “What experience did you + have with college dramatics? I tried to start a kind of Little Theater + here. It was dreadful. I must tell you about it——” + </p> + <p> + Two hours later, when Kennicott came over to greet Fern and to yawn, “Look + here, Carrie, don't you suppose you better be thinking about turning in? + I've got a hard day tomorrow,” the two were talking so intimately that + they constantly interrupted each other. + </p> + <p> + As she went respectably home, convoyed by a husband, and decorously + holding up her skirts, Carol rejoiced, “Everything has changed! I have two + friends, Fern and——But who's the other? That's queer; I + thought there was——Oh, how absurd!” + </p> + <p> + V + </p> + <p> + She often passed Erik Valborg on the street; the brown jersey coat became + unremarkable. When she was driving with Kennicott, in early evening, she + saw him on the lake shore, reading a thin book which might easily have + been poetry. She noted that he was the only person in the motorized town + who still took long walks. + </p> + <p> + She told herself that she was the daughter of a judge, the wife of a + doctor, and that she did not care to know a capering tailor. She told + herself that she was not responsive to men . . . not even to Percy + Bresnahan. She told herself that a woman of thirty who heeded a boy of + twenty-five was ridiculous. And on Friday, when she had convinced herself + that the errand was necessary, she went to Nat Hicks's shop, bearing the + not very romantic burden of a pair of her husband's trousers. Hicks was in + the back room. She faced the Greek god who, in a somewhat ungodlike way, + was stitching a coat on a scaley sewing-machine, in a room of smutted + plaster walls. + </p> + <p> + She saw that his hands were not in keeping with a Hellenic face. They were + thick, roughened with needle and hot iron and plow-handle. Even in the + shop he persisted in his finery. He wore a silk shirt, a topaz scarf, thin + tan shoes. + </p> + <p> + This she absorbed while she was saying curtly, “Can I get these pressed, + please?” + </p> + <p> + Not rising from the sewing-machine he stuck out his hand, mumbled, “When + do you want them?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Monday.” + </p> + <p> + The adventure was over. She was marching out. + </p> + <p> + “What name?” he called after her. + </p> + <p> + He had risen and, despite the farcicality of Dr. Will Kennicott's bulgy + trousers draped over his arm, he had the grace of a cat. + </p> + <p> + “Kennicott.” + </p> + <p> + “Kennicott. Oh! Oh say, you're Mrs. Dr. Kennicott then, aren't you?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” She stood at the door. Now that she had carried out her + preposterous impulse to see what he was like, she was cold, she was as + ready to detect familiarities as the virtuous Miss Ella Stowbody. + </p> + <p> + “I've heard about you. Myrtle Cass was saying you got up a dramatic club + and gave a dandy play. I've always wished I had a chance to belong to a + Little Theater, and give some European plays, or whimsical like Barrie, or + a pageant.” + </p> + <p> + He pronounced it “pagent”; he rhymed “pag” with “rag.” + </p> + <p> + Carol nodded in the manner of a lady being kind to a tradesman, and one of + her selves sneered, “Our Erik is indeed a lost John Keats.” + </p> + <p> + He was appealing, “Do you suppose it would be possible to get up another + dramatic club this coming fall?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, it might be worth thinking of.” She came out of her several + conflicting poses, and said sincerely, “There's a new teacher, Miss + Mullins, who might have some talent. That would make three of us for a + nucleus. If we could scrape up half a dozen we might give a real play with + a small cast. Have you had any experience?” + </p> + <p> + “Just a bum club that some of us got up in Minneapolis when I was working + there. We had one good man, an interior decorator—maybe he was kind + of sis and effeminate, but he really was an artist, and we gave one dandy + play. But I——Of course I've always had to work hard, and study + by myself, and I'm probably sloppy, and I'd love it if I had training in + rehearsing—I mean, the crankier the director was, the better I'd + like it. If you didn't want to use me as an actor, I'd love to design the + costumes. I'm crazy about fabrics—textures and colors and designs.” + </p> + <p> + She knew that he was trying to keep her from going, trying to indicate + that he was something more than a person to whom one brought trousers for + pressing. He besought: + </p> + <p> + “Some day I hope I can get away from this fool repairing, when I have the + money saved up. I want to go East and work for some big dressmaker, and + study art drawing, and become a high-class designer. Or do you think + that's a kind of fiddlin' ambition for a fellow? I was brought up on a + farm. And then monkeyin' round with silks! I don't know. What do you + think? Myrtle Cass says you're awfully educated.” + </p> + <p> + “I am. Awfully. Tell me: Have the boys made fun of your ambition?” + </p> + <p> + She was seventy years old, and sexless, and more advisory than Vida + Sherwin. + </p> + <p> + “Well, they have, at that. They've jollied me a good deal, here and + Minneapolis both. They say dressmaking is ladies' work. (But I was willing + to get drafted for the war! I tried to get in. But they rejected me. But I + did try! ) I thought some of working up in a gents' furnishings store, and + I had a chance to travel on the road for a clothing house, but somehow—I + hate this tailoring, but I can't seem to get enthusiastic about + salesmanship. I keep thinking about a room in gray oatmeal paper with + prints in very narrow gold frames—or would it be better in white + enamel paneling?—but anyway, it looks out on Fifth Avenue, and I'm + designing a sumptuous——” He made it “sump-too-ous”—“robe + of linden green chiffon over cloth of gold! You know—tileul. It's + elegant. . . . What do you think?” + </p> + <p> + “Why not? What do you care for the opinion of city rowdies, or a lot of + farm boys? But you mustn't, you really mustn't, let casual strangers like + me have a chance to judge you.” + </p> + <p> + “Well——You aren't a stranger, one way. Myrtle Cass—Miss + Cass, should say—she's spoken about you so often. I wanted to call + on you—and the doctor—but I didn't quite have the nerve. One + evening I walked past your house, but you and your husband were talking on + the porch, and you looked so chummy and happy I didn't dare butt in.” + </p> + <p> + Maternally, “I think it's extremely nice of you to want to be trained in—in + enunciation by a stage-director. Perhaps I could help you. I'm a + thoroughly sound and uninspired schoolma'am by instinct; quite hopelessly + mature.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, you aren't EITHER!” + </p> + <p> + She was not very successful at accepting his fervor with the air of amused + woman of the world, but she sounded reasonably impersonal: “Thank you. + Shall we see if we really can get up a new dramatic club? I'll tell you: + Come to the house this evening, about eight. I'll ask Miss Mullins to come + over, and we'll talk about it.” + </p> + <p> + VI + </p> + <p> + “He has absolutely no sense of humor. Less than Will. But hasn't he——-What + is a 'sense of humor'? Isn't the thing he lacks the back-slapping jocosity + that passes for humor here? Anyway——Poor lamb, coaxing me to + stay and play with him! Poor lonely lamb! If he could be free from Nat + Hickses, from people who say 'dandy' and 'bum,' would he develop? + </p> + <p> + “I wonder if Whitman didn't use Brooklyn back-street slang, as a boy? + </p> + <p> + “No. Not Whitman. He's Keats—sensitive to silken things. + 'Innumerable of stains and splendid dyes as are the tiger-moth's + deep-damask'd wings.' Keats, here! A bewildered spirit fallen on Main + Street. And Main Street laughs till it aches, giggles till the spirit + doubts his own self and tries to give up the use of wings for the correct + uses of a 'gents' furnishings store.' Gopher Prairie with its celebrated + eleven miles of cement walk. . . . I wonder how much of the cement is made + out of the tombstones of John Keatses?” + </p> + <p> + VII + </p> + <p> + Kennicott was cordial to Fern Mullins, teased her, told her he was a + “great hand for running off with pretty school-teachers,” and promised + that if the school-board should object to her dancing, he would “bat 'em + one over the head and tell 'em how lucky they were to get a girl with some + go to her, for once.” + </p> + <p> + But to Erik Valborg he was not cordial. He shook hands loosely, and said, + “H' are yuh.” + </p> + <p> + Nat Hicks was socially acceptable; he had been here for years, and owned + his shop; but this person was merely Nat's workman, and the town's + principle of perfect democracy was not meant to be applied + indiscriminately. + </p> + <p> + The conference on a dramatic club theoretically included Kennicott, but he + sat back, patting yawns, conscious of Fern's ankles, smiling amiably on + the children at their sport. + </p> + <p> + Fern wanted to tell her grievances; Carol was sulky every time she thought + of “The Girl from Kankakee”; it was Erik who made suggestions. He had read + with astounding breadth, and astounding lack of judgment. His voice was + sensitive to liquids, but he overused the word “glorious.” He + mispronounced a tenth of the words he had from books, but he knew it. He + was insistent, but he was shy. + </p> + <p> + When he demanded, “I'd like to stage 'Suppressed Desires,' by Cook and + Miss Glaspell,” Carol ceased to be patronizing. He was not the yearner: he + was the artist, sure of his vision. “I'd make it simple. Use a big window + at the back, with a cyclorama of a blue that would simply hit you in the + eye, and just one tree-branch, to suggest a park below. Put the breakfast + table on a dais. Let the colors be kind of arty and tea-roomy—orange + chairs, and orange and blue table, and blue Japanese breakfast set, and + some place, one big flat smear of black—bang! Oh. Another play I + wish we could do is Tennyson Jesse's 'The Black Mask.' I've never seen it + but——Glorious ending, where this woman looks at the man with + his face all blown away, and she just gives one horrible scream.” + </p> + <p> + “Good God, is that your idea of a glorious ending?” bayed Kennicott. + </p> + <p> + “That sounds fierce! I do love artistic things, but not the horrible + ones,” moaned Fern Mullins. + </p> + <p> + Erik was bewildered; glanced at Carol. She nodded loyally. + </p> + <p> + At the end of the conference they had decided nothing. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0029" id="link2HCH0029"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXIX + </h2> + <h3> + SHE had walked up the railroad track with Hugh, this Sunday afternoon. + </h3> + <p> + She saw Erik Valborg coming, in an ancient highwater suit, tramping + sullenly and alone, striking at the rails with a stick. For a second she + unreasoningly wanted to avoid him, but she kept on, and she serenely + talked about God, whose voice, Hugh asserted, made the humming in the + telegraph wires. Erik stared, straightened. They greeted each other with + “Hello.” + </p> + <p> + “Hugh, say how-do-you-do to Mr. Valborg.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, dear me, he's got a button unbuttoned,” worried Erik, kneeling. Carol + frowned, then noted the strength with which he swung the baby in the air. + </p> + <p> + “May I walk along a piece with you?” + </p> + <p> + “I'm tired. Let's rest on those ties. Then I must be trotting back.” + </p> + <p> + They sat on a heap of discarded railroad ties, oak logs spotted with + cinnamon-colored dry-rot and marked with metallic brown streaks where iron + plates had rested. Hugh learned that the pile was the hiding-place of + Injuns; he went gunning for them while the elders talked of uninteresting + things. + </p> + <p> + The telegraph wires thrummed, thrummed, thrummed above them; the rails + were glaring hard lines; the goldenrod smelled dusty. Across the track was + a pasture of dwarf clover and sparse lawn cut by earthy cow-paths; beyond + its placid narrow green, the rough immensity of new stubble, jagged with + wheat-stacks like huge pineapples. + </p> + <p> + Erik talked of books; flamed like a recent convert to any faith. He + exhibited as many titles and authors as possible, halting only to appeal, + “Have you read his last book? Don't you think he's a terribly strong + writer?” + </p> + <p> + She was dizzy. But when he insisted, “You've been a librarian; tell me; do + I read too much fiction?” she advised him loftily, rather discursively. He + had, she indicated, never studied. He had skipped from one emotion to + another. Especially—she hesitated, then flung it at him—he + must not guess at pronunciations; he must endure the nuisance of stopping + to reach for the dictionary. + </p> + <p> + “I'm talking like a cranky teacher,” she sighed. + </p> + <p> + “No! And I will study! Read the damned dictionary right through.” He + crossed his legs and bent over, clutching his ankle with both hands. “I + know what you mean. I've been rushing from picture to picture, like a kid + let loose in an art gallery for the first time. You see, it's so awful + recent that I've found there was a world—well, a world where + beautiful things counted. I was on the farm till I was nineteen. Dad is a + good farmer, but nothing else. Do you know why he first sent me off to + learn tailoring? I wanted to study drawing, and he had a cousin that'd + made a lot of money tailoring out in Dakota, and he said tailoring was a + lot like drawing, so he sent me down to a punk hole called Curlew, to work + in a tailor shop. Up to that time I'd only had three months' schooling a + year—walked to school two miles, through snow up to my knees—and + Dad never would stand for my having a single book except schoolbooks. + </p> + <p> + “I never read a novel till I got 'Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall' out of + the library at Curlew. I thought it was the loveliest thing in the world! + Next I read 'Barriers Burned Away' and then Pope's translation of Homer. + Some combination, all right! When I went to Minneapolis, just two years + ago, I guess I'd read pretty much everything in that Curlew library, but + I'd never heard of Rossetti or John Sargent or Balzac or Brahms. But——Yump, + I'll study. Look here! Shall I get out of this tailoring, this pressing + and repairing?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't see why a surgeon should spend very much time cobbling shoes.” + </p> + <p> + “But what if I find I can't really draw and design? After fussing around + in New York or Chicago, I'd feel like a fool if I had to go back to work + in a gents' furnishings store!” + </p> + <p> + “Please say 'haberdashery.'” + </p> + <p> + “Haberdashery? All right. I'll remember.” He shrugged and spread his + fingers wide. + </p> + <p> + She was humbled by his humility; she put away in her mind, to take out and + worry over later, a speculation as to whether it was not she who was + naive. She urged, “What if you do have to go back? Most of us do! We can't + all be artists—myself, for instance. We have to darn socks, and yet + we're not content to think of nothing but socks and darning-cotton. I'd + demand all I could get—whether I finally settled down to designing + frocks or building temples or pressing pants. What if you do drop back? + You'll have had the adventure. Don't be too meek toward life! Go! You're + young, you're unmarried. Try everything! Don't listen to Nat Hicks and Sam + Clark and be a 'steady young man'—in order to help them make money. + You're still a blessed innocent. Go and play till the Good People capture + you!” + </p> + <p> + “But I don't just want to play. I want to make something beautiful. God! + And I don't know enough. Do you get it? Do you understand? Nobody else + ever has! Do you understand?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “And so——But here's what bothers me: I like fabrics; dinky + things like that; little drawings and elegant words. But look over there + at those fields. Big! New! Don't it seem kind of a shame to leave this and + go back to the East and Europe, and do what all those people have been + doing so long? Being careful about words, when there's millions of bushels + off wheat here! Reading this fellow Pater, when I've helped Dad to clear + fields!” + </p> + <p> + “It's good to clear fields. But it's not for you. It's one of our favorite + American myths that broad plains necessarily make broad minds, and high + mountains make high purpose. I thought that myself, when I first came to + the prairie. 'Big—new.' Oh, I don't want to deny the prairie future. + It will be magnificent. But equally I'm hanged if I want to be bullied by + it, go to war on behalf of Main Street, be bullied and BULLIED by the + faith that the future is already here in the present, and that all of us + must stay and worship wheat-stacks and insist that this is 'God's Country'—and + never, of course, do anything original or gay-colored that would help to + make that future! Anyway, you don't belong here. Sam Clark and Nat Hicks, + that's what our big newness has produced. Go! Before it's too late, as it + has been for—for some of us. Young man, go East and grow up with the + revolution! Then perhaps you may come back and tell Sam and Nat and me + what to do with the land we've been clearing—if we'll listen—if + we don't lynch you first!” + </p> + <p> + He looked at her reverently. She could hear him saying, + </p> + <p> + “I've always wanted to know a woman who would talk to me like that.” + </p> + <p> + Her hearing was faulty. He was saying nothing of the sort. He was saying: + </p> + <p> + “Why aren't you happy with your husband?” + </p> + <p> + “I—you——” + </p> + <p> + “He doesn't care for the 'blessed innocent' part of you, does he!” + </p> + <p> + “Erik, you mustn't——” + </p> + <p> + “First you tell me to go and be free, and then you say that I 'mustn't'!” + </p> + <p> + “I know. But you mustn't——You must be more impersonal!” + </p> + <p> + He glowered at her like a downy young owl. She wasn't sure but she thought + that he muttered, “I'm damned if I will.” She considered with wholesome + fear the perils of meddling with other people's destinies, and she said + timidly, “Hadn't we better start back now?” + </p> + <p> + He mused, “You're younger than I am. Your lips are for songs about rivers + in the morning and lakes at twilight. I don't see how anybody could ever + hurt you. . . . Yes. We better go.” + </p> + <p> + He trudged beside her, his eyes averted. Hugh experimentally took his + thumb. He looked down at the baby seriously. He burst out, “All right. + I'll do it. I'll stay here one year. Save. Not spend so much money on + clothes. And then I'll go East, to art-school. Work on the side-tailor + shop, dressmaker's. I'll learn what I'm good for: designing clothes, + stage-settings, illustrating, or selling collars to fat men. All settled.” + He peered at her, unsmiling. + </p> + <p> + “Can you stand it here in town for a year?” + </p> + <p> + “With you to look at?” + </p> + <p> + “Please! I mean: Don't the people here think you're an odd bird? (They do + me, I assure you!)” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know. I never notice much. Oh, they do kid me about not being in + the army—especially the old warhorses, the old men that aren't going + themselves. And this Bogart boy. And Mr. Hicks's son—he's a horrible + brat. But probably he's licensed to say what he thinks about his father's + hired man!” + </p> + <p> + “He's beastly!” + </p> + <p> + They were in town. They passed Aunt Bessie's house. Aunt Bessie and Mrs. + Bogart were at the window, and Carol saw that they were staring so + intently that they answered her wave only with the stiffly raised hands of + automatons. In the next block Mrs. Dr. Westlake was gaping from her porch. + Carol said with an embarrassed quaver: + </p> + <p> + “I want to run in and see Mrs. Westlake. I'll say good-by here.” + </p> + <p> + She avoided his eyes. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Westlake was affable. Carol felt that she was expected to explain; + and while she was mentally asserting that she'd be hanged if she'd + explain, she was explaining: + </p> + <p> + “Hugh captured that Valborg boy up the track. They became such good + friends. And I talked to him for a while. I'd heard he was eccentric, but + really, I found him quite intelligent. Crude, but he reads—reads + almost the way Dr. Westlake does.” + </p> + <p> + “That's fine. Why does he stick here in town? What's this I hear about his + being interested in Myrtle Cass?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know. Is he? I'm sure he isn't! He said he was quite lonely! + Besides, Myrtle is a babe in arms!” + </p> + <p> + “Twenty-one if she's a day!” + </p> + <p> + “Well——Is the doctor going to do any hunting this fall?” + </p> + <p> + II + </p> + <p> + The need of explaining Erik dragged her back into doubting. For all his + ardent reading, and his ardent life, was he anything but a small-town + youth bred on an illiberal farm and in cheap tailor shops? He had rough + hands. She had been attracted only by hands that were fine and suave, like + those of her father. Delicate hands and resolute purpose. But this boy—powerful + seamed hands and flabby will. + </p> + <p> + “It's not appealing weakness like his, but sane strength that will animate + the Gopher Prairies. Only——Does that mean anything? Or am I + echoing Vida? The world has always let 'strong' statesmen and soldiers—the + men with strong voices—take control, and what have the thundering + boobies done? What is 'strength'? + </p> + <p> + “This classifying of people! I suppose tailors differ as much as burglars + or kings. + </p> + <p> + “Erik frightened me when he turned on me. Of course he didn't mean + anything, but I mustn't let him be so personal. + </p> + <p> + “Amazing impertinence! + </p> + <p> + “But he didn't mean to be. + </p> + <p> + “His hands are FIRM. I wonder if sculptors don't have thick hands, too? + </p> + <p> + “Of course if there really is anything I can do to HELP the boy—— + </p> + <p> + “Though I despise these people who interfere. He must be independent.” + </p> + <p> + III + </p> + <p> + She wasn't altogether pleased, the week after, when Erik was independent + and, without asking for her inspiration, planned the tennis tournament. It + proved that he had learned to play in Minneapolis; that, next to Juanita + Haydock, he had the best serve in town. Tennis was well spoken of in + Gopher Prairie and almost never played. There were three courts: one + belonging to Harry Haydock, one to the cottages at the lake, and one, a + rough field on the outskirts, laid out by a defunct tennis association. + </p> + <p> + Erik had been seen in flannels and an imitation panama hat, playing on the + abandoned court with Willis Woodford, the clerk in Stowbody's bank. + Suddenly he was going about proposing the reorganization of the tennis + association, and writing names in a fifteen-cent note-book bought for the + purpose at Dyer's. When he came to Carol he was so excited over being an + organizer that he did not stop to talk of himself and Aubrey Beardsley for + more than ten minutes. He begged, “Will you get some of the folks to come + in?” and she nodded agreeably. + </p> + <p> + He proposed an informal exhibition match to advertise the association; he + suggested that Carol and himself, the Haydocks, the Woodfords, and the + Dillons play doubles, and that the association be formed from the gathered + enthusiasts. He had asked Harry Haydock to be tentative president. Harry, + he reported, had promised, “All right. You bet. But you go ahead and + arrange things, and I'll O.K. 'em.” Erik planned that the match should be + held Saturday afternoon, on the old public court at the edge of town. He + was happy in being, for the first time, part of Gopher Prairie. + </p> + <p> + Through the week Carol heard how select an attendance there was to be. + </p> + <p> + Kennicott growled that he didn't care to go. + </p> + <p> + Had he any objections to her playing with Erik? + </p> + <p> + No; sure not; she needed the exercise. Carol went to the match early. The + court was in a meadow out on the New Antonia road. Only Erik was there. He + was dashing about with a rake, trying to make the court somewhat less like + a plowed field. He admitted that he had stage fright at the thought of the + coming horde. Willis and Mrs. Woodford arrived, Willis in home-made + knickers and black sneakers through at the toe; then Dr. and Mrs. Harvey + Dillon, people as harmless and grateful as the Woodfords. + </p> + <p> + Carol was embarrassed and excessively agreeable, like the bishop's lady + trying not to feel out of place at a Baptist bazaar. + </p> + <p> + They waited. + </p> + <p> + The match was scheduled for three. As spectators there assembled one + youthful grocery clerk, stopping his Ford delivery wagon to stare from the + seat, and one solemn small boy, tugging a smaller sister who had a + careless nose. + </p> + <p> + “I wonder where the Haydocks are? They ought to show up, at least,” said + Erik. + </p> + <p> + Carol smiled confidently at him, and peered down the empty road toward + town. Only heat-waves and dust and dusty weeds. + </p> + <p> + At half-past three no one had come, and the grocery boy reluctantly got + out, cranked his Ford, glared at them in a disillusioned manner, and + rattled away. The small boy and his sister ate grass and sighed. + </p> + <p> + The players pretended to be exhilarated by practising service, but they + startled at each dust-cloud from a motor car. None of the cars turned into + the meadow-none till a quarter to four, when Kennicott drove in. + </p> + <p> + Carol's heart swelled. “How loyal he is! Depend on him! He'd come, if + nobody else did. Even though he doesn't care for the game. The old + darling!” + </p> + <p> + Kennicott did not alight. He called out, “Carrie! Harry Haydock 'phoned me + that they've decided to hold the tennis matches, or whatever you call 'em, + down at the cottages at the lake, instead of here. The bunch are down + there now: Haydocks and Dyers and Clarks and everybody. Harry wanted to + know if I'd bring you down. I guess I can take the time—come right + back after supper.” + </p> + <p> + Before Carol could sum it all up, Erik stammered, “Why, Haydock didn't say + anything to me about the change. Of course he's the president, but——” + </p> + <p> + Kennicott looked at him heavily, and grunted, “I don't know a thing about + it. . . . Coming, Carrie?” + </p> + <p> + “I am not! The match was to be here, and it will be here! You can tell + Harry Haydock that he's beastly rude!” She rallied the five who had been + left out, who would always be left out. “Come on! We'll toss to see which + four of us play the Only and Original First Annual Tennis Tournament of + Forest Hills, Del Monte, and Gopher Prairie!” + </p> + <p> + “Don't know as I blame you,” said Kennicott. “Well have supper at home + then?” He drove off. + </p> + <p> + She hated him for his composure. He had ruined her defiance. She felt much + less like Susan B. Anthony as she turned to her huddled followers. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Dillon and Willis Woodford lost the toss. The others played out the + game, slowly, painfully, stumbling on the rough earth, muffing the easiest + shots, watched only by the small boy and his sniveling sister. Beyond the + court stretched the eternal stubble-fields. The four marionettes, + awkwardly going through exercises, insignificant in the hot sweep of + contemptuous land, were not heroic; their voices did not ring out in the + score, but sounded apologetic; and when the game was over they glanced + about as though they were waiting to be laughed at. + </p> + <p> + They walked home. Carol took Erik's arm. Through her thin linen sleeve she + could feel the crumply warmth of his familiar brown jersey coat. She + observed that there were purple and red gold threads interwoven with the + brown. She remembered the first time she had seen it. + </p> + <p> + Their talk was nothing but improvisations on the theme: “I never did like + this Haydock. He just considers his own convenience.” Ahead of them, the + Dillons and Woodfords spoke of the weather and B. J. Gougerling's new + bungalow. No one referred to their tennis tournament. At her gate Carol + shook hands firmly with Erik and smiled at him. + </p> + <p> + Next morning, Sunday morning, when Carol was on the porch, the Haydocks + drove up. + </p> + <p> + “We didn't mean to be rude to you, dearie!” implored Juanita. “I wouldn't + have you think that for anything. We planned that Will and you should come + down and have supper at our cottage.” + </p> + <p> + “No. I'm sure you didn't mean to be.” Carol was super-neighborly. “But I + do think you ought to apologize to poor Erik Valborg. He was terribly + hurt.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh. Valborg. I don't care so much what he thinks,” objected Harry. “He's + nothing but a conceited buttinsky. Juanita and I kind of figured he was + trying to run this tennis thing too darn much anyway.” + </p> + <p> + “But you asked him to make arrangements.” + </p> + <p> + “I know, but I don't like him. Good Lord, you couldn't hurt his feelings! + He dresses up like a chorus man—and, by golly, he looks like one!—but + he's nothing but a Swede farm boy, and these foreigners, they all got + hides like a covey of rhinoceroses .” + </p> + <p> + “But he IS hurt!” + </p> + <p> + “Well——I don't suppose I ought to have gone off half-cocked, + and not jollied him along. I'll give him a cigar. He'll——” + </p> + <p> + Juanita had been licking her lips and staring at Carol. She interrupted + her husband, “Yes, I do think Harry ought to fix it up with him. You LIKE + him, DON'T you, Carol??” + </p> + <p> + Over and through Carol ran a frightened cautiousness. “Like him? I haven't + an Ã-dea. He seems to be a very decent young man. I just felt that when + he'd worked so hard on the plans for the match, it was a shame not to be + nice to him.” + </p> + <p> + “Maybe there's something to that,” mumbled Harry; then, at sight of + Kennicott coming round the corner tugging the red garden hose by its brass + nozzle, he roared in relief, “What d' you think you're trying to do, doc?” + </p> + <p> + While Kennicott explained in detail all that he thought he was trying to + do, while he rubbed his chin and gravely stated, “Struck me the grass was + looking kind of brown in patches—didn't know but what I'd give it a + sprinkling,” and while Harry agreed that this was an excellent idea, + Juanita made friendly noises and, behind the gilt screen of an + affectionate smile, watched Carol's face. + </p> + <p> + IV + </p> + <p> + She wanted to see Erik. She wanted some one to play with! There wasn't + even so dignified and sound an excuse as having Kennicott's trousers + pressed; when she inspected them, all three pairs looked discouragingly + neat. She probably would not have ventured on it had she not spied Nat + Hicks in the pool-parlor, being witty over bottle-pool. Erik was alone! + She fluttered toward the tailor shop, dashed into its slovenly heat with + the comic fastidiousness of a humming bird dipping into a dry tiger-lily. + It was after she had entered that she found an excuse. + </p> + <p> + Erik was in the back room, cross-legged on a long table, sewing a vest. + But he looked as though he were doing this eccentric thing to amuse + himself. + </p> + <p> + “Hello. I wonder if you couldn't plan a sports-suit for me?” she said + breathlessly. + </p> + <p> + He stared at her; he protested, “No, I won't! God! I'm not going to be a + tailor with you!” + </p> + <p> + “Why, Erik!” she said, like a mildly shocked mother. + </p> + <p> + It occurred to her that she did not need a suit, and that the order might + have been hard to explain to Kennicott. + </p> + <p> + He swung down from the table. “I want to show you something.” He rummaged + in the roll-top desk on which Nat Hicks kept bills, buttons, calendars, + buckles, thread-channeled wax, shotgun shells, samples of brocade for + “fancy vests,” fishing-reels, pornographic post-cards, shreds of buckram + lining. He pulled out a blurred sheet of Bristol board and anxiously gave + it to her. It was a sketch for a frock. It was not well drawn; it was too + finicking; the pillars in the background were grotesquely squat. But the + frock had an original back, very low, with a central triangular section + from the waist to a string of jet beads at the neck. + </p> + <p> + “It's stunning. But how it would shock Mrs. Clark!” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, wouldn't it!” + </p> + <p> + “You must let yourself go more when you're drawing.” + </p> + <p> + “Don't know if I can. I've started kind of late. But listen! What do you + think I've done this two weeks? I've read almost clear through a Latin + grammar, and about twenty pages of Caesar.” + </p> + <p> + “Splendid! You are lucky. You haven't a teacher to make you artificial.” + </p> + <p> + “You're my teacher!” + </p> + <p> + There was a dangerous edge of personality to his voice. She was offended + and agitated. She turned her shoulder on him, stared through the back + window, studying this typical center of a typical Main Street block, a + vista hidden from casual strollers. The backs of the chief establishments + in town surrounded a quadrangle neglected, dirty, and incomparably dismal. + From the front, Howland & Gould's grocery was smug enough, but + attached to the rear was a lean-to of storm streaked pine lumber with a + sanded tar roof—a staggering doubtful shed behind which was a heap + of ashes, splintered packing-boxes, shreds of excelsior, crumpled + straw-board, broken olive-bottles, rotten fruit, and utterly disintegrated + vegetables: orange carrots turning black, and potatoes with ulcers. The + rear of the Bon Ton Store was grim with blistered black-painted iron + shutters, under them a pile of once glossy red shirt-boxes, now a pulp + from recent rain. + </p> + <p> + As seen from Main Street, Oleson & McGuire's Meat Market had a + sanitary and virtuous expression with its new tile counter, fresh sawdust + on the floor, and a hanging veal cut in rosettes. But she now viewed a + back room with a homemade refrigerator of yellow smeared with black + grease. A man in an apron spotted with dry blood was hoisting out a hard + slab of meat. + </p> + <p> + Behind Billy's Lunch, the cook, in an apron which must long ago have been + white, smoked a pipe and spat at the pest of sticky flies. In the center + of the block, by itself, was the stable for the three horses of the + drayman, and beside it a pile of manure. + </p> + <p> + The rear of Ezra Stowbody's bank was whitewashed, and back of it was a + concrete walk and a three-foot square of grass, but the window was barred, + and behind the bars she saw Willis Woodford cramped over figures in + pompous books. He raised his head, jerkily rubbed his eyes, and went back + to the eternity of figures. + </p> + <p> + The backs of the other shops were an impressionistic picture of dirty + grays, drained browns, writhing heaps of refuse. + </p> + <p> + “Mine is a back-yard romance—with a journeyman tailor!” + </p> + <p> + She was saved from self-pity as she began to think through Erik's mind. + She turned to him with an indignant, “It's disgusting that this is all you + have to look at.” + </p> + <p> + He considered it. “Outside there? I don't notice much. I'm learning to + look inside. Not awful easy!” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. . . . I must be hurrying.” + </p> + <p> + As she walked home—without hurrying—she remembered her father + saying to a serious ten-year-old Carol, “Lady, only a fool thinks he's + superior to beautiful bindings, but only a double-distilled fool reads + nothing but bindings.” + </p> + <p> + She was startled by the return of her father, startled by a sudden + conviction that in this flaxen boy she had found the gray reticent judge + who was divine love, perfect under-standing. She debated it, furiously + denied it, reaffirmed it, ridiculed it. Of one thing she was unhappily + certain: there was nothing of the beloved father image in Will Kennicott. + </p> + <p> + V + </p> + <p> + She wondered why she sang so often, and why she found so many pleasant + things—lamplight seen though trees on a cool evening, sunshine on + brown wood, morning sparrows, black sloping roofs turned to plates of + silver by moonlight. Pleasant things, small friendly things, and pleasant + places—a field of goldenrod, a pasture by the creek—and + suddenly a wealth of pleasant people. Vida was lenient to Carol at the + surgical-dressing class; Mrs. Dave Dyer flattered her with questions about + her health, baby, cook, and opinions on the war. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Dyer seemed not to share the town's prejudice against Erik. “He's a + nice-looking fellow; we must have him go on one of our picnics some time.” + Unexpectedly, Dave Dyer also liked him. The tight-fisted little farceur + had a confused reverence for anything that seemed to him refined or + clever. He answered Harry Haydock's sneers, “That's all right now! + Elizabeth may doll himself up too much, but he's smart, and don't you + forget it! I was asking round trying to find out where this Ukraine is, + and darn if he didn't tell me. What's the matter with his talking so + polite? Hell's bells, Harry, no harm in being polite. There's some regular + he-men that are just as polite as women, prett' near.” + </p> + <p> + Carol found herself going about rejoicing, “How neighborly the town is!” + She drew up with a dismayed “Am I falling in love with this boy? That's + ridiculous! I'm merely interested in him. I like to think of helping him + to succeed.” + </p> + <p> + But as she dusted the living-room, mended a collar-band, bathed Hugh, she + was picturing herself and a young artistan Apollo nameless and evasive—building + a house in the Berkshires or in Virginia; exuberantly buying a chair with + his first check; reading poetry together, and frequently being earnest + over valuable statistics about labor; tumbling out of bed early for a + Sunday walk, and chattering (where Kennicott would have yawned) over bread + and butter by a lake. Hugh was in her pictures, and he adored the young + artist, who made castles of chairs and rugs for him. Beyond these + playtimes she saw the “things I could do for Erik”—and she admitted + that Erik did partly make up the image of her altogether perfect artist. + </p> + <p> + In panic she insisted on being attentive to Kennicott, when he wanted to + be left alone to read the newspaper. + </p> + <p> + VI + </p> + <p> + She needed new clothes. Kennicott had promised, “We'll have a good trip + down to the Cities in the fall, and take plenty of time for it, and you + can get your new glad-rags then.” But as she examined her wardrobe she + flung her ancient black velvet frock on the floor and raged, “They're + disgraceful. Everything I have is falling to pieces.” + </p> + <p> + There was a new dressmaker and milliner, a Mrs. Swiftwaite. It was said + that she was not altogether an elevating influence in the way she glanced + at men; that she would as soon take away a legally appropriated husband as + not; that if there WAS any Mr. Swiftwaite, “it certainly was strange that + nobody seemed to know anything about him!” But she had made for Rita Gould + an organdy frock and hat to match universally admitted to be “too cunning + for words,” and the matrons went cautiously, with darting eyes and + excessive politeness, to the rooms which Mrs. Swiftwaite had taken in the + old Luke Dawson house, on Floral Avenue. + </p> + <p> + With none of the spiritual preparation which normally precedes the buying + of new clothes in Gopher Prairie, Carol marched into Mrs. Swiftwaite's, + and demanded, “I want to see a hat, and possibly a blouse.” + </p> + <p> + In the dingy old front parlor which she had tried to make smart with a + pier glass, covers from fashion magazines, anemic French prints, Mrs. + Swiftwaite moved smoothly among the dress-dummies and hat-rests, spoke + smoothly as she took up a small black and red turban. “I am sure the lady + will find this extremely attractive.” + </p> + <p> + “It's dreadfully tabby and small-towny,” thought Carol, while she soothed, + “I don't believe it quite goes with me.” + </p> + <p> + “It's the choicest thing I have, and I'm sure you'll find it suits you + beautifully. It has a great deal of chic. Please try it on,” said Mrs. + Swiftwaite, more smoothly than ever. + </p> + <p> + Carol studied the woman. She was as imitative as a glass diamond. She was + the more rustic in her effort to appear urban. She wore a severe + high-collared blouse with a row of small black buttons, which was becoming + to her low-breasted slim neatness, but her skirt was hysterically + checkered, her cheeks were too highly rouged, her lips too sharply + penciled. She was magnificently a specimen of the illiterate divorcee of + forty made up to look thirty, clever, and alluring. + </p> + <p> + While she was trying on the hat Carol felt very condescending. She took it + off, shook her head, explained with the kind smile for inferiors, “I'm + afraid it won't do, though it's unusually nice for so small a town as + this.” + </p> + <p> + “But it's really absolutely New-Yorkish.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, it——” + </p> + <p> + “You see, I know my New York styles. I lived in New York for years, + besides almost a year in Akron!” + </p> + <p> + “You did?” Carol was polite, and edged away, and went home unhappily. She + was wondering whether her own airs were as laughable as Mrs. Swiftwaite's. + She put on the eye-glasses which Kennicott had recently given to her for + reading, and looked over a grocery bill. She went hastily up to her room, + to her mirror. She was in a mood of self-depreciation. Accurately or not, + this was the picture she saw in the mirror: + </p> + <p> + Neat rimless eye-glasses. Black hair clumsily tucked under a mauve straw + hat which would have suited a spinster. Cheeks clear, bloodless. Thin + nose. Gentle mouth and chin. A modest voile blouse with an edging of lace + at the neck. A virginal sweetness and timorousness—no flare of + gaiety, no suggestion of cities, music, quick laughter. + </p> + <p> + “I have become a small-town woman. Absolute. Typical. Modest and moral and + safe. Protected from life. GENTEEL! The Village Virus—the village + virtuousness. My hair—just scrambled together. What can Erik see in + that wedded spinster there? He does like me! Because I'm the only woman + who's decent to him! How long before he'll wake up to me? . . . I've waked + up to myself. . . . Am I as old as—as old as I am? + </p> + <p> + “Not really old. Become careless. Let myself look tabby. + </p> + <p> + “I want to chuck every stitch I own. Black hair and pale cheeks—they'd + go with a Spanish dancer's costume—rose behind my ear, scarlet + mantilla over one shoulder, the other bare.” + </p> + <p> + She seized the rouge sponge, daubed her cheeks, scratched at her lips with + the vermilion pencil until they stung, tore open her collar. She posed + with her thin arms in the attitude of the fandango. She dropped them + sharply. She shook her head. “My heart doesn't dance,” she said. She + flushed as she fastened her blouse. + </p> + <p> + “At least I'm much more graceful than Fern Mullins. Heavens! When I came + here from the Cities, girls imitated me. Now I'm trying to imitate a city + girl.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0030" id="link2HCH0030"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXX + </h2> + <p> + FERN Mullins rushed into the house on a Saturday morning early in + September and shrieked at Carol, “School starts next Tuesday. I've got to + have one more spree before I'm arrested. Let's get up a picnic down the + lake for this afternoon. Won't you come, Mrs. Kennicott, and the doctor? + Cy Bogart wants to go—he's a brat but he's lively.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't think the doctor can go,” sedately. “He said something about + having to make a country call this afternoon. But I'd love to.” + </p> + <p> + “That's dandy! Who can we get?” + </p> + <p> + “Mrs. Dyer might be chaperon. She's been so nice. And maybe Dave, if he + could get away from the store.” + </p> + <p> + “How about Erik Valborg? I think he's got lots more style than these town + boys. You like him all right, don't you?” + </p> + <p> + So the picnic of Carol, Fern, Erik, Cy Bogart, and the Dyers was not only + moral but inevitable. + </p> + <p> + They drove to the birch grove on the south shore of Lake Minniemashie. + Dave Dyer was his most clownish self. He yelped, jigged, wore Carol's hat, + dropped an ant down Fern's back, and when they went swimming (the women + modestly changing in the car with the side curtains up, the men undressing + behind the bushes, constantly repeating, “Gee, hope we don't run into + poison ivy”), Dave splashed water on them and dived to clutch his wife's + ankle. He infected the others. Erik gave an imitation of the Greek dancers + he had seen in vaudeville, and when they sat down to picnic supper spread + on a lap-robe on the grass, Cy climbed a tree to throw acorns at them. + </p> + <p> + But Carol could not frolic. + </p> + <p> + She had made herself young, with parted hair, sailor blouse and large blue + bow, white canvas shoes and short linen skirt. Her mirror had asserted + that she looked exactly as she had in college, that her throat was smooth, + her collar-bone not very noticeable. But she was under restraint. When + they swam she enjoyed the freshness of the water but she was irritated by + Cy's tricks, by Dave's excessive good spirits. She admired Erik's dance; + he could never betray bad taste, as Cy did, and Dave. She waited for him + to come to her. He did not come. By his joyousness he had apparently + endeared himself to the Dyers. Maud watched him and, after supper, cried + to him, “Come sit down beside me, bad boy!” Carol winced at his + willingness to be a bad boy and come and sit, at his enjoyment of a not + very stimulating game in which Maud, Dave, and Cy snatched slices of cold + tongue from one another's plates. Maud, it seemed, was slightly dizzy from + the swim. She remarked publicly, “Dr. Kennicott has helped me so much by + putting me on a diet,” but it was to Erik alone that she gave the complete + version of her peculiarity in being so sensitive, so easily hurt by the + slightest cross word, that she simply had to have nice cheery friends. + </p> + <p> + Erik was nice and cheery. + </p> + <p> + Carol assured herself, “Whatever faults I may have, I certainly couldn't + ever be jealous. I do like Maud; she's always so pleasant. But I wonder if + she isn't just a bit fond of fishing for men's sympathy? Playing with + Erik, and her married——Well——But she looks at him + in that languishing, swooning, mid-Victorian way. Disgusting!” + </p> + <p> + Cy Bogart lay between the roots of a big birch, smoking his pipe and + teasing Fern, assuring her that a week from now, when he was again a + high-school boy and she his teacher, he'd wink at her in class. Maud Dyer + wanted Erik to “come down to the beach to see the darling little minnies.” + Carol was left to Dave, who tried to entertain her with humorous accounts + of Ella Stowbody's fondness for chocolate peppermints. She watched Maud + Dyer put her hand on Erik's shoulder to steady herself. + </p> + <p> + “Disgusting!” she thought. + </p> + <p> + Cy Bogart covered Fern's nervous hand with his red paw, and when she + bounced with half-anger and shrieked, “Let go, I tell you!” he grinned and + waved his pipe—a gangling twenty-year-old satyr. + </p> + <p> + “Disgusting!” + </p> + <p> + When Maud and Erik returned and the grouping shifted, Erik muttered at + Carol, “There's a boat on shore. Let's skip off and have a row.” + </p> + <p> + “What will they think?” she worried. She saw Maud Dyer peer at Erik with + moist possessive eyes. “Yes! Let's!” she said. + </p> + <p> + She cried to the party, with the canonical amount of sprightliness, + “Good-by, everybody. We'll wireless you from China.” + </p> + <p> + As the rhythmic oars plopped and creaked, as she floated on an unreality + of delicate gray over which the sunset was poured out thin, the irritation + of Cy and Maud slipped away. Erik smiled at her proudly. She considered + him—coatless, in white thin shirt. She was conscious of his male + differentness, of his flat masculine sides, his thin thighs, his easy + rowing. They talked of the library, of the movies. He hummed and she + softly sang “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.” A breeze shivered across the agate + lake. The wrinkled water was like armor damascened and polished. The + breeze flowed round the boat in a chill current. Carol drew the collar of + her middy blouse over her bare throat. + </p> + <p> + “Getting cold. Afraid we'll have to go back,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “Let's not go back to them yet. They'll be cutting up. Let's keep along + the shore.” + </p> + <p> + “But you enjoy the 'cutting up!' Maud and you had a beautiful time.” + </p> + <p> + “Why! We just walked on the shore and talked about fishing!” + </p> + <p> + She was relieved, and apologetic to her friend Maud. “Of course. I was + joking.” + </p> + <p> + “I'll tell you! Let's land here and sit on the shore—that bunch of + hazel-brush will shelter us from the wind—and watch the sunset. It's + like melted lead. Just a short while! We don't want to go back and listen + to them!” + </p> + <p> + “No, but——” She said nothing while he sped ashore. The keel + clashed on the stones. He stood on the forward seat, holding out his hand. + They were alone, in the ripple-lapping silence. She rose slowly, slowly + stepped over the water in the bottom of the old boat. She took his hand + confidently. Unspeaking they sat on a bleached log, in a russet twilight + which hinted of autumn. Linden leaves fluttered about them. + </p> + <p> + “I wish——Are you cold now?” he whispered. + </p> + <p> + “A little.” She shivered. But it was not with cold. + </p> + <p> + “I wish we could curl up in the leaves there, covered all up, and lie + looking out at the dark.” + </p> + <p> + “I wish we could.” As though it was comfortably understood that he did not + mean to be taken seriously. + </p> + <p> + “Like what all the poets say—brown nymph and faun.” + </p> + <p> + “No. I can't be a nymph any more. Too old——Erik, am I old? Am + I faded and small-towny?” + </p> + <p> + “Why, you're the youngest——Your eyes are like a girl's. + They're so—well, I mean, like you believed everything. Even if you + do teach me, I feel a thousand years older than you, instead of maybe a + year younger.” + </p> + <p> + “Four or five years younger!” + </p> + <p> + “Anyway, your eyes are so innocent and your cheeks so soft——Damn + it, it makes me want to cry, somehow, you're so defenseless; and I want to + protect you and——There's nothing to protect you against!” + </p> + <p> + “Am I young? Am I? Honestly? Truly?” She betrayed for a moment the + childish, mock-imploring tone that comes into the voice of the most + serious woman when an agreeable man treats her as a girl; the childish + tone and childish pursed-up lips and shy lift of the cheek. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, you are!” + </p> + <p> + “You're dear to believe it, Will—ERIK!” + </p> + <p> + “Will you play with me? A lot?” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps.” + </p> + <p> + “Would you really like to curl in the leaves and watch the stars swing by + overhead?” + </p> + <p> + “I think it's rather better to be sitting here!” He twined his fingers + with hers. “And Erik, we must go back.” + </p> + <p> + “Why?” + </p> + <p> + “It's somewhat late to outline all the history of social custom!” + </p> + <p> + “I know. We must. Are you glad we ran away though?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” She was quiet, perfectly simple. But she rose. + </p> + <p> + He circled her waist with a brusque arm. She did not resist. She did not + care. He was neither a peasant tailor, a potential artist, a social + complication, nor a peril. He was himself, and in him, in the personality + flowing from him, she was unreasoningly content. In his nearness she + caught a new view of his head; the last light brought out the planes of + his neck, his flat ruddied cheeks, the side of his nose, the depression of + his temples. Not as coy or uneasy lovers but as companions they walked to + the boat, and he lifted her up on the prow. + </p> + <p> + She began to talk intently, as he rowed: “Erik, you've got to work! You + ought to be a personage. You're robbed of your kingdom. Fight for it! Take + one of these correspondence courses in drawing—they mayn't be any + good in themselves, but they'll make you try to draw and——” + </p> + <p> + As they reached the picnic ground she perceived that it was dark, that + they had been gone for a long time. + </p> + <p> + “What will they say?” she wondered. + </p> + <p> + The others greeted them with the inevitable storm of humor and slight + vexation: “Where the deuce do you think you've been?” “You're a fine pair, + you are!” Erik and Carol looked self-conscious; failed in their effort to + be witty. All the way home Carol was embarrassed. Once Cy winked at her. + That Cy, the Peeping Tom of the garage-loft, should consider her a + fellow-sinner——She was furious and frightened and exultant by + turns, and in all her moods certain that Kennicott would read her + adventuring in her face. + </p> + <p> + She came into the house awkwardly defiant. + </p> + <p> + Her husband, half asleep under the lamp, greeted her, “Well, well, have + nice time?” + </p> + <p> + She could not answer. He looked at her. But his look did not sharpen. He + began to wind his watch, yawning the old “Welllllll, guess it's about time + to turn in.” + </p> + <p> + That was all. Yet she was not glad. She was almost disappointed. + </p> + <p> + II + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bogart called next day. She had a hen-like, crumb-pecking, diligent + appearance. Her smile was too innocent. The pecking started instantly: + </p> + <p> + “Cy says you had lots of fun at the picnic yesterday. Did you enjoy it?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh yes. I raced Cy at swimming. He beat me badly. He's so strong, isn't + he!” + </p> + <p> + “Poor boy, just crazy to get into the war, too, but——This Erik + Valborg was along, wa'n't he?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “I think he's an awful handsome fellow, and they say he's smart. Do you + like him?” + </p> + <p> + “He seems very polite.” + </p> + <p> + “Cy says you and him had a lovely boat-ride. My, that must have been + pleasant.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, except that I couldn't get Mr. Valborg to say a word. I wanted to + ask him about the suit Mr. Hicks is making for my husband. But he insisted + on singing. Still, it was restful, floating around on the water and + singing. So happy and innocent. Don't you think it's a shame, Mrs. Bogart, + that people in this town don't do more nice clean things like that, + instead of all this horrible gossiping?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. . . . Yes.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bogart sounded vacant. Her bonnet was awry; she was incomparably + dowdy. Carol stared at her, felt contemptuous, ready at last to rebel + against the trap, and as the rusty goodwife fished again, “Plannin' some + more picnics?” she flung out, “I haven't the slightest idea! Oh. Is that + Hugh crying? I must run up to him.” + </p> + <p> + But up-stairs she remembered that Mrs. Bogart had seen her walking with + Erik from the railroad track into town, and she was chilly with + disquietude. + </p> + <p> + At the Jolly Seventeen, two days after, she was effusive to Maud Dyer, to + Juanita Haydock. She fancied that every one was watching her, but she + could not be sure, and in rare strong moments she did not care. She could + rebel against the town's prying now that she had something, however + indistinct, for which to rebel. + </p> + <p> + In a passionate escape there must be not only a place from which to flee + but a place to which to flee. She had known that she would gladly leave + Gopher Prairie, leave Main Street and all that it signified, but she had + had no destination. She had one now. That destination was not Erik Valborg + and the love of Erik. She continued to assure herself that she wasn't in + love with him but merely “fond of him, and interested in his success.” Yet + in him she had discovered both her need of youth and the fact that youth + would welcome her. It was not Erik to whom she must escape, but universal + and joyous youth, in class-rooms, in studios, in offices, in meetings to + protest against Things in General. . . . But universal and joyous youth + rather resembled Erik. + </p> + <p> + All week she thought of things she wished to say to him. High, improving + things. She began to admit that she was lonely without him. Then she was + afraid. + </p> + <p> + It was at the Baptist church supper, a week after the picnic, that she saw + him again. She had gone with Kennicott and Aunt Bessie to the supper, + which was spread on oilcloth-covered and trestle-supported tables in the + church basement. Erik was helping Myrtle Cass to fill coffee cups for the + waitresses. The congregation had doffed their piety. Children tumbled + under the tables, and Deacon Pierson greeted the women with a rolling, + “Where's Brother Jones, sister, where's Brother Jones? Not going to be + with us tonight? Well, you tell Sister Perry to hand you a plate, and make + 'em give you enough oyster pie!” + </p> + <p> + Erik shared in the cheerfulness. He laughed with Myrtle, jogged her elbow + when she was filling cups, made deep mock bows to the waitresses as they + came up for coffee. Myrtle was enchanted by his humor. From the other end + of the room, a matron among matrons, Carol observed Myrtle, and hated her, + and caught herself at it. “To be jealous of a wooden-faced village girl!” + But she kept it up. She detested Erik; gloated over his gaucheries—his + “breaks,” she called them. When he was too expressive, too much like a + Russian dancer, in saluting Deacon Pierson, Carol had the ecstasy of pain + in seeing the deacon's sneer. When, trying to talk to three girls at once, + he dropped a cup and effeminately wailed, “Oh dear!” she sympathized with—and + ached over—the insulting secret glances of the girls. + </p> + <p> + From meanly hating him she rose to compassion as she saw that his eyes + begged every one to like him. She perceived how inaccurate her judgments + could be. At the picnic she had fancied that Maud Dyer looked upon Erik + too sentimentally, and she had snarled, “I hate these married women who + cheapen themselves and feed on boys.” But at the supper Maud was one of + the waitresses; she bustled with platters of cake, she was pleasant to old + women; and to Erik she gave no attention at all. Indeed, when she had her + own supper, she joined the Kennicotts, and how ludicrous it was to suppose + that Maud was a gourmet of emotions Carol saw in the fact that she talked + not to one of the town beaux but to the safe Kennicott himself! + </p> + <p> + When Carol glanced at Erik again she discovered that Mrs. Bogart had an + eye on her. It was a shock to know that at last there was something which + could make her afraid of Mrs. Bogart's spying. + </p> + <p> + “What am I doing? Am I in love with Erik? Unfaithful? I? I want youth but + I don't want him—I mean, I don't want youth—enough to break up + my life. I must get out of this. Quick.” + </p> + <p> + She said to Kennicott on their way home, “Will! I want to run away for a + few days. Wouldn't you like to skip down to Chicago?” + </p> + <p> + “Still be pretty hot there. No fun in a big city till winter. What do you + want to go for?” + </p> + <p> + “People! To occupy my mind. I want stimulus.” + </p> + <p> + “Stimulus?” He spoke good-naturedly. “Who's been feeding you meat? You got + that 'stimulus' out of one of these fool stories about wives that don't + know when they're well off. Stimulus! Seriously, though, to cut out the + jollying, I can't get away.” + </p> + <p> + “Then why don't I run off by myself?” + </p> + <p> + “Why——'Tisn't the money, you understand. But what about Hugh?” + </p> + <p> + “Leave him with Aunt Bessie. It would be just for a few days.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't think much of this business of leaving kids around. Bad for 'em.” + </p> + <p> + “So you don't think——” + </p> + <p> + “I'll tell you: I think we better stay put till after the war. Then we'll + have a dandy long trip. No, I don't think you better plan much about going + away now.” + </p> + <p> + So she was thrown at Erik. + </p> + <p> + III + </p> + <p> + She awoke at ebb-time, at three of the morning, woke sharply and fully; + and sharply and coldly as her father pronouncing sentence on a cruel + swindler she gave judgment: + </p> + <p> + “A pitiful and tawdry love-affair. + </p> + <p> + “No splendor, no defiance. A self-deceived little woman whispering in + corners with a pretentious little man. + </p> + <p> + “No, he is not. He is fine. Aspiring. It's not his fault. His eyes are + sweet when he looks at me. Sweet, so sweet.” + </p> + <p> + She pitied herself that her romance should be pitiful; she sighed that in + this colorless hour, to this austere self, it should seem tawdry. + </p> + <p> + Then, in a very great desire of rebellion and unleashing of all her + hatreds, “The pettier and more tawdry it is, the more blame to Main + Street. It shows how much I've been longing to escape. Any way out! Any + humility so long as I can flee. Main Street has done this to me. I came + here eager for nobilities, ready for work, and now——Any way + out. + </p> + <p> + “I came trusting them. They beat me with rods of dullness. They don't + know, they don't understand how agonizing their complacent dullness is. + Like ants and August sun on a wound. + </p> + <p> + “Tawdry! Pitiful! Carol—the clean girl that used to walk so fast!—sneaking + and tittering in dark corners, being sentimental and jealous at church + suppers!” + </p> + <p> + At breakfast-time her agonies were night-blurred, and persisted only as a + nervous irresolution. + </p> + <p> + IV + </p> + <p> + Few of the aristocrats of the Jolly Seventeen attended the humble + folk-meets of the Baptist and Methodist church suppers, where the Willis + Woodfords, the Dillons, the Champ Perrys, Oleson the butcher, Brad Bemis + the tinsmith, and Deacon Pierson found release from loneliness. But all of + the smart set went to the lawn-festivals of the Episcopal Church, and were + reprovingly polite to outsiders. + </p> + <p> + The Harry Haydocks gave the last lawn-festival of the season; a splendor + of Japanese lanterns and card-tables and chicken patties and Neapolitan + ice-cream. Erik was no longer entirely an outsider. He was eating his + ice-cream with a group of the people most solidly “in”—the Dyers, + Myrtle Cass, Guy Pollock, the Jackson Elders. The Haydocks themselves kept + aloof, but the others tolerated him. He would never, Carol fancied, be one + of the town pillars, because he was not orthodox in hunting and motoring + and poker. But he was winning approbation by his liveliness, his gaiety—the + qualities least important in him. + </p> + <p> + When the group summoned Carol she made several very well-taken points in + regard to the weather. + </p> + <p> + Myrtle cried to Erik, “Come on! We don't belong with these old folks. I + want to make you 'quainted with the jolliest girl, she comes from Wakamin, + she's staying with Mary Howland.” + </p> + <p> + Carol saw him being profuse to the guest from Wakamin. She saw him + confidentially strolling with Myrtle. She burst out to Mrs. Westlake, + “Valborg and Myrtle seem to have quite a crush on each other.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Westlake glanced at her curiously before she mumbled, “Yes, don't + they.” + </p> + <p> + “I'm mad, to talk this way,” Carol worried. + </p> + <p> + She had regained a feeling of social virtue by telling Juanita Haydock + “how darling her lawn looked with the Japanese lanterns” when she saw that + Erik was stalking her. Though he was merely ambling about with his hands + in his pockets, though he did not peep at her, she knew that he was + calling her. She sidled away from Juanita. Erik hastened to her. She + nodded coolly (she was proud of her coolness). + </p> + <p> + “Carol! I've got a wonderful chance! Don't know but what some ways it + might be better than going East to take art. Myrtle Cass says——I + dropped in to say howdy to Myrtle last evening, and had quite a long talk + with her father, and he said he was hunting for a fellow to go to work in + the flour mill and learn the whole business, and maybe become general + manager. I know something about wheat from my farming, and I worked a + couple of months in the flour mill at Curlew when I got sick of tailoring. + What do you think? You said any work was artistic if it was done by an + artist. And flour is so important. What do you think?” + </p> + <p> + “Wait! Wait!” + </p> + <p> + This sensitive boy would be very skilfully stamped into conformity by + Lyman Cass and his sallow daughter; but did she detest the plan for this + reason? “I must be honest. I mustn't tamper with his future to please my + vanity.” But she had no sure vision. She turned on him: + </p> + <p> + “How can I decide? It's up to you. Do you want to become a person like Lym + Cass, or do you want to become a person like—yes, like me! Wait! + Don't be flattering. Be honest. This is important.” + </p> + <p> + “I know. I am a person like you now! I mean, I want to rebel.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. We're alike,” gravely. + </p> + <p> + “Only I'm not sure I can put through my schemes. I really can't draw much. + I guess I have pretty fair taste in fabrics, but since I've known you I + don't like to think about fussing with dress-designing. But as a miller, + I'd have the means—books, piano, travel.” + </p> + <p> + “I'm going to be frank and beastly. Don't you realize that it isn't just + because her papa needs a bright young man in the mill that Myrtle is + amiable to you? Can't you understand what she'll do to you when she has + you, when she sends you to church and makes you become respectable?” + </p> + <p> + He glared at her. “I don't know. I suppose so.” + </p> + <p> + “You are thoroughly unstable!” + </p> + <p> + “What if I am? Most fish out of water are! Don't talk like Mrs. Bogart! + How can I be anything but 'unstable'—wandering from farm to tailor + shop to books, no training, nothing but trying to make books talk to me! + Probably I'll fail. Oh, I know it; probably I'm uneven. But I'm not + unstable in thinking about this job in the mill—and Myrtle. I know + what I want. I want you!” + </p> + <p> + “Please, please, oh, please!” + </p> + <p> + “I do. I'm not a schoolboy any more. I want you. If I take Myrtle, it's to + forget you.” + </p> + <p> + “Please, please!” + </p> + <p> + “It's you that are unstable! You talk at things and play at things, but + you're scared. Would I mind it if you and I went off to poverty, and I had + to dig ditches? I would not! But you would. I think you would come to like + me, but you won't admit it. I wouldn't have said this, but when you sneer + at Myrtle and the mill——If I'm not to have good sensible + things like those, d' you think I'll be content with trying to become a + damn dressmaker, after YOU? Are you fair? Are you?” + </p> + <p> + “No, I suppose not.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you like me? Do you?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes——No! Please! I can't talk any more.” + </p> + <p> + “Not here. Mrs. Haydock is looking at us.” + </p> + <p> + “No, nor anywhere. O Erik, I am fond of you, but I'm afraid.” + </p> + <p> + “What of?” + </p> + <p> + “Of Them! Of my rulers—Gopher Prairie. . . . My dear boy, we are + talking very foolishly. I am a normal wife and a good mother, and you are—oh, + a college freshman.” + </p> + <p> + “You do like me! I'm going to make you love me!” + </p> + <p> + She looked at him once, recklessly, and walked away with a serene gait + that was a disordered flight. + </p> + <p> + Kennicott grumbled on their way home, “You and this Valborg fellow seem + quite chummy.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, we are. He's interested in Myrtle Cass, and I was telling him how + nice she is.” + </p> + <p> + In her room she marveled, “I have become a liar. I'm snarled with lies and + foggy analyses and desires—I who was clear and sure.” + </p> + <p> + She hurried into Kennicott's room, sat on the edge of his bed. He flapped + a drowsy welcoming hand at her from the expanse of quilt and dented + pillows. + </p> + <p> + “Will, I really think I ought to trot off to St. Paul or Chicago or some + place.” + </p> + <p> + “I thought we settled all that, few nights ago! Wait till we can have a + real trip.” He shook himself out of his drowsiness. “You might give me a + good-night kiss.” + </p> + <p> + She did—dutifully. He held her lips against his for an intolerable + time. “Don't you like the old man any more?” he coaxed. He sat up and + shyly fitted his palm about the slimness of her waist. + </p> + <p> + “Of course. I like you very much indeed.” Even to herself it sounded flat. + She longed to be able to throw into her voice the facile passion of a + light woman. She patted his cheek. + </p> + <p> + He sighed, “I'm sorry you're so tired. Seems like——But of + course you aren't very strong.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. . . . Then you don't think—you're quite sure I ought to stay + here in town?” + </p> + <p> + “I told you so! I certainly do!” + </p> + <p> + She crept back to her room, a small timorous figure in white. + </p> + <p> + “I can't face Will down—demand the right. He'd be obstinate. And I + can't even go off and earn my living again. Out of the habit of it. He's + driving me——I'm afraid of what he's driving me to. Afraid. + </p> + <p> + “That man in there, snoring in stale air, my husband? Could any ceremony + make him my husband? + </p> + <p> + “No. I don't want to hurt him. I want to love him. I can't, when I'm + thinking of Erik. Am I too honest—a funny topsy-turvy honesty—the + faithfulness of unfaith? I wish I had a more compartmental mind, like men. + I'm too monogamous—toward Erik!—my child Erik, who needs me. + </p> + <p> + “Is an illicit affair like a gambling debt—demands stricter honor + than the legitimate debt of matrimony, because it's not legally enforced? + </p> + <p> + “That's nonsense! I don't care in the least for Erik! Not for any man. I + want to be let alone, in a woman world—a world without Main Street, + or politicians, or business men, or men with that sudden beastly hungry + look, that glistening unfrank expression that wives know—— + </p> + <p> + “If Erik were here, if he would just sit quiet and kind and talk, I could + be still, I could go to sleep. + </p> + <p> + “I am so tired. If I could sleep——” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0031" id="link2HCH0031"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXXI + </h2> + <h3> + THEIR night came unheralded. + </h3> + <p> + Kennicott was on a country call. It was cool but Carol huddled on the + porch, rocking, meditating, rocking. The house was lonely and repellent, + and though she sighed, “I ought to go in and read—so many things to + read—ought to go in,” she remained. Suddenly Erik was coming, + turning in, swinging open the screen door, touching her hand. + </p> + <p> + “Erik!” + </p> + <p> + “Saw your husband driving out of town. Couldn't stand it.” + </p> + <p> + “Well——You mustn't stay more than five minutes.” + </p> + <p> + “Couldn't stand not seeing you. Every day, towards evening, felt I had to + see you—pictured you so clear. I've been good though, staying away, + haven't I!” + </p> + <p> + “And you must go on being good.” + </p> + <p> + “Why must I?” + </p> + <p> + “We better not stay here on the porch. The Howlands across the street are + such window-peepers, and Mrs. Bogart——” + </p> + <p> + She did not look at him but she could divine his tremulousness as he + stumbled indoors. A moment ago the night had been coldly empty; now it was + incalculable, hot, treacherous. But it is women who are the calm realists + once they discard the fetishes of the premarital hunt. Carol was serene as + she murmured, “Hungry? I have some little honey-colored cakes. You may + have two, and then you must skip home.” + </p> + <p> + “Take me up and let me see Hugh asleep.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't believe——” + </p> + <p> + “Just a glimpse!” + </p> + <p> + “Well——” + </p> + <p> + She doubtfully led the way to the hallroom-nursery. Their heads close, + Erik's curls pleasant as they touched her cheek, they looked in at the + baby. Hugh was pink with slumber. He had burrowed into his pillow with + such energy that it was almost smothering him. Beside it was a celluloid + rhinoceros; tight in his hand a torn picture of Old King Cole. + </p> + <p> + “Shhh!” said Carol, quite automatically. She tiptoed in to pat the pillow. + As she returned to Erik she had a friendly sense of his waiting for her. + They smiled at each other. She did not think of Kennicott, the baby's + father. What she did think was that some one rather like Erik, an older + and surer Erik, ought to be Hugh's father. The three of them would play—incredible + imaginative games. + </p> + <p> + “Carol! You've told me about your own room. Let me peep in at it.” + </p> + <p> + “But you mustn't stay, not a second. We must go downstairs.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “Will you be good?” + </p> + <p> + “R-reasonably!” He was pale, large-eyed, serious. + </p> + <p> + “You've got to be more than reasonably good!” She felt sensible and + superior; she was energetic about pushing open the door. + </p> + <p> + Kennicott had always seemed out of place there but Erik surprisingly + harmonized with the spirit of the room as he stroked the books, glanced at + the prints. He held out his hands. He came toward her. She was weak, + betrayed to a warm softness. Her head was tilted back. Her eyes were + closed. Her thoughts were formless but many-colored. She felt his kiss, + diffident and reverent, on her eyelid. + </p> + <p> + Then she knew that it was impossible. + </p> + <p> + She shook herself. She sprang from him. “Please!” she said sharply. + </p> + <p> + He looked at her unyielding. + </p> + <p> + “I am fond of you,” she said. “Don't spoil everything. Be my friend.” + </p> + <p> + “How many thousands and millions of women must have said that! And now + you! And it doesn't spoil everything. It glorifies everything.” + </p> + <p> + “Dear, I do think there's a tiny streak of fairy in you—whatever you + do with it. Perhaps I'd have loved that once. But I won't. It's too late. + But I'll keep a fondness for you. Impersonal—I will be impersonal! + It needn't be just a thin talky fondness. You do need me, don't you? Only + you and my son need me. I've wanted so to be wanted! Once I wanted love to + be given to me. Now I'll be content if I can give. . . . Almost content! + </p> + <p> + “We women, we like to do things for men. Poor men! We swoop on you when + you're defenseless and fuss over you and insist on reforming you. But it's + so pitifully deep in us. You'll be the one thing in which I haven't + failed. Do something definite! Even if it's just selling cottons. Sell + beautiful cottons—caravans from China——” + </p> + <p> + “Carol! Stop! You do love me!” + </p> + <p> + “I do not! It's just——Can't you understand? Everything crushes + in on me so, all the gaping dull people, and I look for a way out——Please + go. I can't stand any more. Please!” + </p> + <p> + He was gone. And she was not relieved by the quiet of the house. She was + empty and the house was empty and she needed him. She wanted to go on + talking, to get this threshed out, to build a sane friendship. She wavered + down to the living-room, looked out of the bay-window. He was not to be + seen. But Mrs. Westlake was. She was walking past, and in the light from + the corner arc-lamp she quickly inspected the porch, the windows. Carol + dropped the curtain, stood with movement and reflection paralyzed. + Automatically, without reasoning, she mumbled, “I will see him again soon + and make him understand we must be friends. But——The house is + so empty. It echoes so.” + </p> + <p> + II + </p> + <p> + Kennicott had seemed nervous and absent-minded through that supper-hour, + two evenings after. He prowled about the living-room, then growled: + </p> + <p> + “What the dickens have you been saying to Ma Westlake?” + </p> + <p> + Carol's book rattled. “What do you mean?” + </p> + <p> + “I told you that Westlake and his wife were jealous of us, and here you + been chumming up to them and——From what Dave tells me, Ma + Westlake has been going around town saying you told her that you hate Aunt + Bessie, and that you fixed up your own room because I snore, and you said + Bjornstam was too good for Bea, and then, just recent, that you were sore + on the town because we don't all go down on our knees and beg this Valborg + fellow to come take supper with us. God only knows what else she says you + said.” + </p> + <p> + “It's not true, any of it! I did like Mrs. Westlake, and I've called on + her, and apparently she's gone and twisted everything I've said——” + </p> + <p> + “Sure. Of course she would. Didn't I tell you she would? She's an old cat, + like her pussyfooting, hand-holding husband. Lord, if I was sick, I'd + rather have a faith-healer than Westlake, and she's another slice off the + same bacon. What I can't understand though——” + </p> + <p> + She waited, taut. + </p> + <p> + “——is whatever possessed you to let her pump you, bright a + girl as you are. I don't care what you told her—we all get peeved + sometimes and want to blow off steam, that's natural—but if you + wanted to keep it dark, why didn't you advertise it in the Dauntless, or + get a megaphone and stand on top of the hotel and holler, or do anything + besides spill it to her!” + </p> + <p> + “I know. You told me. But she was so motherly. And I didn't have any woman——Vida + 's become so married and proprietary.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, next time you'll have better sense.” + </p> + <p> + He patted her head, flumped down behind his newspaper, said nothing more. + </p> + <p> + Enemies leered through the windows, stole on her from the hall. She had no + one save Erik. This kind good man Kennicott—he was an elder brother. + It was Erik, her fellow outcast, to whom she wanted to run for sanctuary. + Through her storm she was, to the eye, sitting quietly with her fingers + between the pages of a baby-blue book on home-dressmaking. But her dismay + at Mrs. Westlake's treachery had risen to active dread. What had the woman + said of her and Erik? What did she know? What had she seen? Who else would + join in the baying hunt? Who else had seen her with Erik? What had she to + fear from the Dyers, Cy Bogart, Juanita, Aunt Bessie? What precisely had + she answered to Mrs. Bogart's questioning? + </p> + <p> + All next day she was too restless to stay home, yet as she walked the + streets on fictitious errands she was afraid of every person she met. She + waited for them to speak; waited with foreboding. She repeated, “I mustn't + ever see Erik again.” But the words did not register. She had no ecstatic + indulgence in the sense of guilt which is, to the women of Main Street, + the surest escape from blank tediousness. + </p> + <p> + At five, crumpled in a chair in the living-room, she started at the sound + of the bell. Some one opened the door. She waited, uneasy. Vida Sherwin + charged into the room. “Here's the one person I can trust!” Carol + rejoiced. + </p> + <p> + Vida was serious but affectionate. She bustled at Carol with, “Oh, there + you are, dearie, so glad t' find you in, sit down, want to talk to you.” + </p> + <p> + Carol sat, obedient. + </p> + <p> + Vida fussily tugged over a large chair and launched out: + </p> + <p> + “I've been hearing vague rumors you were interested in this Erik Valborg. + I knew you couldn't be guilty, and I'm surer than ever of it now. Here we + are, as blooming as a daisy.” + </p> + <p> + “How does a respectable matron look when she feels guilty?” + </p> + <p> + Carol sounded resentful. + </p> + <p> + “Why——Oh, it would show! Besides! I know that you, of all + people, are the one that can appreciate Dr. Will.” + </p> + <p> + “What have you been hearing?” + </p> + <p> + “Nothing, really. I just heard Mrs. Bogart say she'd seen you and Valborg + walking together a lot.” Vida's chirping slackened. She looked at her + nails. “But——I suspect you do like Valborg. Oh, I don't mean + in any wrong way. But you're young; you don't know what an innocent liking + might drift into. You always pretend to be so sophisticated and all, but + you're a baby. Just because you are so innocent, you don't know what evil + thoughts may lurk in that fellow's brain.” + </p> + <p> + “You don't suppose Valborg could actually think about making love to me?” + </p> + <p> + Her rather cheap sport ended abruptly as Vida cried, with contorted face, + “What do you know about the thoughts in hearts? You just play at reforming + the world. You don't know what it means to suffer.” + </p> + <p> + There are two insults which no human being will endure: the assertion that + he hasn't a sense of humor, and the doubly impertinent assertion that he + has never known trouble. Carol said furiously, “You think I don't suffer? + You think I've always had an easy——” + </p> + <p> + “No, you don't. I'm going to tell you something I've never told a living + soul, not even Ray.” The dam of repressed imagination which Vida had + builded for years, which now, with Raymie off at the wars, she was + building again, gave way. + </p> + <p> + “I was—I liked Will terribly well. One time at a party—oh, + before he met you, of course—but we held hands, and we were so + happy. But I didn't feel I was really suited to him. I let him go. Please + don't think I still love him! I see now that Ray was predestined to be my + mate. But because I liked him, I know how sincere and pure and noble Will + is, and his thoughts never straying from the path of rectitude, and——If + I gave him up to you, at least you've got to appreciate him! We danced + together and laughed so, and I gave him up, but——This IS my + affair! I'm NOT intruding! I see the whole thing as he does, because of + all I've told you. Maybe it's shameless to bare my heart this way, but I + do it for him—for him and you!” + </p> + <p> + Carol understood that Vida believed herself to have recited minutely and + brazenly a story of intimate love; understood that, in alarm, she was + trying to cover her shame as she struggled on, “Liked him in the most + honorable way—simply can't help it if I still see things through his + eyes——If I gave him up, I certainly am not beyond my rights in + demanding that you take care to avoid even the appearance of evil and——” + She was weeping; an insignificant, flushed, ungracefully weeping woman. + </p> + <p> + Carol could not endure it. She ran to Vida, kissed her forehead, comforted + her with a murmur of dove-like sounds, sought to reassure her with worn + and hastily assembled gifts of words: “Oh, I appreciate it so much,” and + “You are so fine and splendid,” and “Let me assure you there isn't a thing + to what you've heard,” and “Oh, indeed, I do know how sincere Will is, and + as you say, so—so sincere.” + </p> + <p> + Vida believed that she had explained many deep and devious matters. She + came out of her hysteria like a sparrow shaking off rain-drops. She sat + up, and took advantage of her victory: + </p> + <p> + “I don't want to rub it in, but you can see for yourself now, this is all + a result of your being so discontented and not appreciating the dear good + people here. And another thing: People like you and me, who want to reform + things, have to be particularly careful about appearances. Think how much + better you can criticize conventional customs if you yourself live up to + them, scrupulously. Then people can't say you're attacking them to excuse + your own infractions.” + </p> + <p> + To Carol was given a sudden great philosophical understanding, an + explanation of half the cautious reforms in history. “Yes. I've heard that + plea. It's a good one. It sets revolts aside to cool. It keeps strays in + the flock. To word it differently: 'You must live up to the popular code + if you believe in it; but if you don't believe in it, then you MUST live + up to it!'” + </p> + <p> + “I don't think so at all,” said Vida vaguely. She began to look hurt, and + Carol let her be oracular. + </p> + <p> + III + </p> + <p> + Vida had done her a service; had made all agonizing seem so fatuous that + she ceased writhing and saw that her whole problem was simple as mutton: + she was interested in Erik's aspiration; interest gave her a hesitating + fondness for him; and the future would take care of the event. . . . But + at night, thinking in bed, she protested, “I'm not a falsely accused + innocent, though! If it were some one more resolute than Erik, a fighter, + an artist with bearded surly lips——They're only in books. Is + that the real tragedy, that I never shall know tragedy, never find + anything but blustery complications that turn out to be a farce? + </p> + <p> + “No one big enough or pitiful enough to sacrifice for. Tragedy in neat + blouses; the eternal flame all nice and safe in a kerosene stove. Neither + heroic faith nor heroic guilt. Peeping at love from behind lace curtains—on + Main Street!” + </p> + <p> + Aunt Bessie crept in next day, tried to pump her, tried to prime the pump + by again hinting that Kennicott might have his own affairs. Carol snapped, + “Whatever I may do, I'll have you to understand that Will is only too + safe!” She wished afterward that she had not been so lofty. How much would + Aunt Bessie make of “Whatever I may do?” + </p> + <p> + When Kennicott came home he poked at things, and hemmed, and brought out, + “Saw aunty, this afternoon. She said you weren't very polite to her.” + </p> + <p> + Carol laughed. He looked at her in a puzzled way and fled to his + newspaper. + </p> + <p> + IV + </p> + <p> + She lay sleepless. She alternately considered ways of leaving Kennicott, + and remembered his virtues, pitied his bewilderment in face of the subtle + corroding sicknesses which he could not dose nor cut out. Didn't he + perhaps need her more than did the book-solaced Erik? Suppose Will were to + die, suddenly. Suppose she never again saw him at breakfast, silent but + amiable, listening to her chatter. Suppose he never again played elephant + for Hugh. Suppose——A country call, a slippery road, his motor + skidding, the edge of the road crumbling, the car turning turtle, Will + pinned beneath, suffering, brought home maimed, looking at her with + spaniel eyes—or waiting for her, calling for her, while she was in + Chicago, knowing nothing of it. Suppose he were sued by some vicious + shrieking woman for malpractice. He tried to get witnesses; Westlake + spread lies; his friends doubted him; his self-confidence was so broken + that it was horrible to see the indecision of the decisive man; he was + convicted, handcuffed, taken on a train—— + </p> + <p> + She ran to his room. At her nervous push the door swung sharply in, struck + a chair. He awoke, gasped, then in a steady voice: “What is it, dear? + Anything wrong?” She darted to him, fumbled for the familiar harsh bristly + cheek. How well she knew it, every seam, and hardness of bone, and roll of + fat! Yet when he sighed, “This is a nice visit,” and dropped his hand on + her thin-covered shoulder, she said, too cheerily, “I thought I heard you + moaning. So silly of me. Good night, dear.” + </p> + <p> + V + </p> + <p> + She did not see Erik for a fortnight, save once at church and once when + she went to the tailor shop to talk over the plans, contingencies, and + strategy of Kennicott's annual campaign for getting a new suit. Nat Hicks + was there, and he was not so deferential as he had been. With unnecessary + jauntiness he chuckled, “Some nice flannels, them samples, heh?” + Needlessly he touched her arm to call attention to the fashion-plates, and + humorously he glanced from her to Erik. At home she wondered if the little + beast might not be suggesting himself as a rival to Erik, but that abysmal + bedragglement she would not consider. + </p> + <p> + She saw Juanita Haydock slowly walking past the house—as Mrs. + Westlake had once walked past. + </p> + <p> + She met Mrs. Westlake in Uncle Whittier's store, and before that alert + stare forgot her determination to be rude, and was shakily cordial. + </p> + <p> + She was sure that all the men on the street, even Guy Pollock and Sam + Clark, leered at her in an interested hopeful way, as though she were a + notorious divorcee. She felt as insecure as a shadowed criminal. She + wished to see Erik, and wished that she had never seen him. She fancied + that Kennicott was the only person in town who did not know all—know + incomparably more than there was to know—about herself and Erik. She + crouched in her chair as she imagined men talking of her, thick-voiced, + obscene, in barber shops and the tobacco-stinking pool parlor. + </p> + <p> + Through early autumn Fern Mullins was the only person who broke the + suspense. The frivolous teacher had come to accept Carol as of her own + youth, and though school had begun she rushed in daily to suggest dances, + welsh-rabbit parties. + </p> + <p> + Fern begged her to go as chaperon to a barn-dance in the country, on a + Saturday evening. Carol could not go. The next day, the storm crashed. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0032" id="link2HCH0032"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXXII + </h2> + <h3> + I + </h3> + <p> + CAROL was on the back porch, tightening a bolt on the baby's go-cart, this + Sunday afternoon. Through an open window of the Bogart house she heard a + screeching, heard Mrs. Bogart's haggish voice: + </p> + <p> + “ . . . did too, and there's no use your denying it no you don't, you + march yourself right straight out of the house . . . never in my life + heard of such . . . never had nobody talk to me like . . . walk in the + ways of sin and nastiness . . . leave your clothes here, and heaven knows + that's more than you deserve . . . any of your lip or I'll call the + policeman.” + </p> + <p> + The voice of the other interlocutor Carol did not catch, nor, though Mrs. + Bogart was proclaiming that he was her confidant and present assistant, + did she catch the voice of Mrs. Bogart's God. + </p> + <p> + “Another row with Cy,” Carol inferred. + </p> + <p> + She trundled the go-cart down the back steps and tentatively wheeled it + across the yard, proud of her repairs. She heard steps on the sidewalk. + She saw not Cy Bogart but Fern Mullins, carrying a suit-case, hurrying up + the street with her head low. The widow, standing on the porch with + buttery arms akimbo, yammered after the fleeing girl: + </p> + <p> + “And don't you dare show your face on this block again. You can send the + drayman for your trunk. My house has been contaminated long enough. Why + the Lord should afflict me——” + </p> + <p> + Fern was gone. The righteous widow glared, banged into the house, came out + poking at her bonnet, marched away. By this time Carol was staring in a + manner not visibly to be distinguished from the window-peeping of the rest + of Gopher Prairie. She saw Mrs. Bogart enter the Howland house, then the + Casses'. Not till suppertime did she reach the Kennicotts. The doctor + answered her ring, and greeted her, “Well, well? how's the good neighbor?” + </p> + <p> + The good neighbor charged into the living-room, waving the most unctuous + of black kid gloves and delightedly sputtering: + </p> + <p> + “You may well ask how I am! I really do wonder how I could go through the + awful scenes of this day—and the impudence I took from that woman's + tongue, that ought to be cut out——” + </p> + <p> + “Whoa! Whoa! Hold up!” roared Kennicott. “Who's the hussy, Sister Bogart? + Sit down and take it cool and tell us about it.” + </p> + <p> + “I can't sit down, I must hurry home, but I couldn't devote myself to my + own selfish cares till I'd warned you, and heaven knows I don't expect any + thanks for trying to warn the town against her, there's always so much + evil in the world that folks simply won't see or appreciate your trying to + safeguard them——And forcing herself in here to get in with you + and Carrie, many 's the time I've seen her doing it, and, thank heaven, + she was found out in time before she could do any more harm, it simply + breaks my heart and prostrates me to think what she may have done already, + even if some of us that understand and know about things——” + </p> + <p> + “Whoa-up! Who are you talking about?” + </p> + <p> + “She's talking about Fern Mullins,” Carol put in, not pleasantly. + </p> + <p> + “Huh?” + </p> + <p> + Kennicott was incredulous. + </p> + <p> + “I certainly am!” flourished Mrs. Bogart, “and good and thankful you may + be that I found her out in time, before she could get YOU into something, + Carol, because even if you are my neighbor and Will's wife and a cultured + lady, let me tell you right now, Carol Kennicott, that you ain't always as + respectful to—you ain't as reverent—you don't stick by the + good old ways like they was laid down for us by God in the Bible, and + while of course there ain't a bit of harm in having a good laugh, and I + know there ain't any real wickedness in you, yet just the same you don't + fear God and hate the transgressors of his commandments like you ought to, + and you may be thankful I found out this serpent I nourished in my bosom—and + oh yes! oh yes indeed! my lady must have two eggs every morning for + breakfast, and eggs sixty cents a dozen, and wa'n't satisfied with one, + like most folks—what did she care how much they cost or if a person + couldn't make hardly nothing on her board and room, in fact I just took + her in out of charity and I might have known from the kind of stockings + and clothes that she sneaked into my house in her trunk——” + </p> + <p> + Before they got her story she had five more minutes of obscene wallowing. + The gutter comedy turned into high tragedy, with Nemesis in black kid + gloves. The actual story was simple, depressing, and unimportant. As to + details Mrs. Bogart was indefinite, and angry that she should be + questioned. + </p> + <p> + Fern Mullins and Cy had, the evening before, driven alone to a barn-dance + in the country. (Carol brought out the admission that Fern had tried to + get a chaperon.) At the dance Cy had kissed Fern—she confessed that. + Cy had obtained a pint of whisky; he said that he didn't remember where he + had got it; Mrs. Bogart implied that Fern had given it to him; Fern + herself insisted that he had stolen it from a farmer's overcoat—which, + Mrs. Bogart raged, was obviously a lie. He had become soggily drunk. Fern + had driven him home; deposited him, retching and wabbling, on the Bogart + porch. + </p> + <p> + Never before had her boy been drunk, shrieked Mrs. Bogart. When Kennicott + grunted, she owned, “Well, maybe once or twice I've smelled licker on his + breath.” She also, with an air of being only too scrupulously exact, + granted that sometimes he did not come home till morning. But he couldn't + ever have been drunk, for he always had the best excuses: the other boys + had tempted him to go down the lake spearing pickerel by torchlight, or he + had been out in a “machine that ran out of gas.” Anyway, never before had + her boy fallen into the hands of a “designing woman.” + </p> + <p> + “What do you suppose Miss Mullins could design to do with him?” insisted + Carol. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bogart was puzzled, gave it up, went on. This morning, when she had + faced both of them, Cy had manfully confessed that all of the blame was on + Fern, because the teacher—his own teacher—had dared him to + take a drink. Fern had tried to deny it. + </p> + <p> + “Then,” gabbled Mrs. Bogart, “then that woman had the impudence to say to + me, 'What purpose could I have in wanting the filthy pup to get drunk?' + That's just what she called him—pup. 'I'll have no such nasty + language in my house,' I says, 'and you pretending and pulling the wool + over people's eyes and making them think you're educated and fit to be a + teacher and look out for young people's morals—you're worse 'n any + street-walker!' I says. I let her have it good. I wa'n't going to flinch + from my bounden duty and let her think that decent folks had to stand for + her vile talk. 'Purpose?' I says, 'Purpose? I'll tell you what purpose you + had! Ain't I seen you making up to everything in pants that'd waste time + and pay attention to your impert'nence? Ain't I seen you showing off your + legs with them short skirts of yours, trying to make out like you was so + girlish and la-de-da, running along the street?'” + </p> + <p> + Carol was very sick at this version of Fern's eager youth, but she was + sicker as Mrs. Bogart hinted that no one could tell what had happened + between Fern and Cy before the drive home. Without exactly describing the + scene, by her power of lustful imagination the woman suggested dark + country places apart from the lanterns and rude fiddling and banging + dance-steps in the barn, then madness and harsh hateful conquest. Carol + was too sick to interrupt. It was Kennicott who cried, “Oh, for God's sake + quit it! You haven't any idea what happened. You haven't given us a single + proof yet that Fern is anything but a rattle-brained youngster.” + </p> + <p> + “I haven't, eh? Well, what do you say to this? I come straight out and I + says to her, 'Did you or did you not taste the whisky Cy had?' and she + says, 'I think I did take one sip—Cy made me,' she said. She owned + up to that much, so you can imagine——” + </p> + <p> + “Does that prove her a prostitute?” asked Carol. + </p> + <p> + “Carrie! Don't you never use a word like that again!” wailed the outraged + Puritan. + </p> + <p> + “Well, does it prove her to be a bad woman, that she took a taste of + whisky? I've done it myself!” + </p> + <p> + “That's different. Not that I approve your doing it. What do the + Scriptures tell us? 'Strong drink is a mocker'! But that's entirely + different from a teacher drinking with one of her own pupils.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, it does sound bad. Fern was silly, undoubtedly. But as a matter of + fact she's only a year or two older than Cy and probably a good many years + younger in experience of vice.” + </p> + <p> + “That's—not—true! She is plenty old enough to corrupt him! + </p> + <p> + “The job of corrupting Cy was done by your sinless town, five years ago!” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bogart did not rage in return. Suddenly she was hopeless. Her head + drooped. She patted her black kid gloves, picked at a thread of her faded + brown skirt, and sighed, “He's a good boy, and awful affectionate if you + treat him right. Some thinks he's terrible wild, but that's because he's + young. And he's so brave and truthful—why, he was one of the first + in town that wanted to enlist for the war, and I had to speak real sharp + to him to keep him from running away. I didn't want him to get into no bad + influences round these camps—and then,” Mrs. Bogart rose from her + pitifulness, recovered her pace, “then I go and bring into my own house a + woman that's worse, when all's said and done, than any bad woman he could + have met. You say this Mullins woman is too young and inexperienced to + corrupt Cy. Well then, she's too young and inexperienced to teach him, + too, one or t'other, you can't have your cake and eat it! So it don't make + no difference which reason they fire her for, and that's practically + almost what I said to the school-board.” + </p> + <p> + “Have you been telling this story to the members of the school-board?” + </p> + <p> + “I certainly have! Every one of 'em! And their wives I says to them, + ''Tain't my affair to decide what you should or should not do with your + teachers,' I says, 'and I ain't presuming to dictate in any way, shape, + manner, or form. I just want to know,' I says, 'whether you're going to go + on record as keeping here in our schools, among a lot of innocent boys and + girls, a woman that drinks, smokes, curses, uses bad language, and does + such dreadful things as I wouldn't lay tongue to but you know what I + mean,' I says, 'and if so, I'll just see to it that the town learns about + it.' And that's what I told Professor Mott, too, being superintendent—and + he's a righteous man, not going autoing on the Sabbath like the + school-board members. And the professor as much as admitted he was + suspicious of the Mullins woman himself.” + </p> + <p> + II + </p> + <p> + Kennicott was less shocked and much less frightened than Carol, and more + articulate in his description of Mrs. Bogart, when she had gone. + </p> + <p> + Maud Dyer telephoned to Carol and, after a rather improbable question + about cooking lima beans with bacon, demanded, “Have you heard the scandal + about this Miss Mullins and Cy Bogart?” + </p> + <p> + “I'm sure it's a lie.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, probably is.” Maud's manner indicated that the falsity of the story + was an insignificant flaw in its general delightfulness. + </p> + <p> + Carol crept to her room, sat with hands curled tight together as she + listened to a plague of voices. She could hear the town yelping with it, + every soul of them, gleeful at new details, panting to win importance by + having details of their own to add. How well they would make up for what + they had been afraid to do by imagining it in another! They who had not + been entirely afraid (but merely careful and sneaky), all the barber-shop + roues and millinery-parlor mondaines, how archly they were giggling (this + second—she could hear them at it); with what self-commendation they + were cackling their suavest wit: “You can't tell ME she ain't a gay bird; + I'm wise!” + </p> + <p> + And not one man in town to carry out their pioneer tradition of superb and + contemptuous cursing, not one to verify the myth that their “rough + chivalry” and “rugged virtues” were more generous than the petty + scandal-picking of older lands, not one dramatic frontiersman to thunder, + with fantastic and fictional oaths, “What are you hinting at? What are you + snickering at? What facts have you? What are these unheard-of sins you + condemn so much—and like so well?” + </p> + <p> + No one to say it. Not Kennicott nor Guy Pollock nor Champ Perry. + </p> + <p> + Erik? Possibly. He would sputter uneasy protest. + </p> + <p> + She suddenly wondered what subterranean connection her interest in Erik + had with this affair. Wasn't it because they had been prevented by her + caste from bounding on her own trail that they were howling at Fern? + </p> + <p> + III + </p> + <p> + Before supper she found, by half a dozen telephone calls, that Fern had + fled to the Minniemashie House. She hastened there, trying not to be + self-conscious about the people who looked at her on the street. The clerk + said indifferently that he “guessed” Miss Mullins was up in Room 37, and + left Carol to find the way. She hunted along the stale-smelling corridors + with their wallpaper of cerise daisies and poison-green rosettes, streaked + in white spots from spilled water, their frayed red and yellow matting, + and rows of pine doors painted a sickly blue. She could not find the + number. In the darkness at the end of a corridor she had to feel the + aluminum figures on the door-panels. She was startled once by a man's + voice: “Yep? Whadyuh want?” and fled. When she reached the right door she + stood listening. She made out a long sobbing. There was no answer till her + third knock; then an alarmed “Who is it? Go away!” + </p> + <p> + Her hatred of the town turned resolute as she pushed open the door. + </p> + <p> + Yesterday she had seen Fern Mullins in boots and tweed skirt and + canary-yellow sweater, fleet and self-possessed. Now she lay across the + bed, in crumpled lavender cotton and shabby pumps, very feminine, utterly + cowed. She lifted her head in stupid terror. Her hair was in tousled + strings and her face was sallow, creased. Her eyes were a blur from + weeping. + </p> + <p> + “I didn't! I didn't!” was all she would say at first, and she repeated it + while Carol kissed her cheek, stroked her hair, bathed her forehead. She + rested then, while Carol looked about the room—the welcome to + strangers, the sanctuary of hospitable Main Street, the lucrative property + of Kennicott's friend, Jackson Elder. It smelled of old linen and decaying + carpet and ancient tobacco smoke. The bed was rickety, with a thin knotty + mattress; the sand-colored walls were scratched and gouged; in every + corner, under everything, were fluffy dust and cigar ashes; on the tilted + wash-stand was a nicked and squatty pitcher; the only chair was a grim + straight object of spotty varnish; but there was an altogether splendid + gilt and rose cuspidor. + </p> + <p> + She did not try to draw out Fern's story; Fern insisted on telling it. + </p> + <p> + She had gone to the party, not quite liking Cy but willing to endure him + for the sake of dancing, of escaping from Mrs. Bogart's flow of moral + comments, of relaxing after the first strained weeks of teaching. Cy + “promised to be good.” He was, on the way out. There were a few workmen + from Gopher Prairie at the dance, with many young farm-people. Half a + dozen squatters from a degenerate colony in a brush-hidden hollow, + planters of potatoes, suspected thieves, came in noisily drunk. They all + pounded the floor of the barn in old-fashioned square dances, swinging + their partners, skipping, laughing, under the incantations of Del Snafflin + the barber, who fiddled and called the figures. Cy had two drinks from + pocket-flasks. Fern saw him fumbling among the overcoats piled on the + feedbox at the far end of the barn; soon after she heard a farmer + declaring that some one had stolen his bottle. She taxed Cy with the + theft; he chuckled, “Oh, it's just a joke; I'm going to give it back.” He + demanded that she take a drink. Unless she did, he wouldn't return the + bottle. + </p> + <p> + “I just brushed my lips with it, and gave it back to him,” moaned Fern. + She sat up, glared at Carol. “Did you ever take a drink?” + </p> + <p> + “I have. A few. I'd love to have one right now! This contact with + righteousness has about done me up!” + </p> + <p> + Fern could laugh then. “So would I! I don't suppose I've had five drinks + in my life, but if I meet just one more Bogart and Son——Well, + I didn't really touch that bottle—horrible raw whisky—though + I'd have loved some wine. I felt so jolly. The barn was almost like a + stage scene—the high rafters, and the dark stalls, and tin lanterns + swinging, and a silage-cutter up at the end like some mysterious kind of + machine. And I'd been having lots of fun dancing with the nicest young + farmer, so strong and nice, and awfully intelligent. But I got uneasy when + I saw how Cy was. So I doubt if I touched two drops of the beastly stuff. + Do you suppose God is punishing me for even wanting wine?” + </p> + <p> + “My dear, Mrs. Bogart's god may be—Main Street's god. But all the + courageous intelligent people are fighting him . . . though he slay us.” + </p> + <p> + Fern danced again with the young farmer; she forgot Cy while she was + talking with a girl who had taken the University agricultural course. Cy + could not have returned the bottle; he came staggering toward her—taking + time to make himself offensive to every girl on the way and to dance a + jig. She insisted on their returning. Cy went with her, chuckling and + jigging. He kissed her, outside the door. . . . “And to think I used to + think it was interesting to have men kiss you at a dance!”. . . She + ignored the kiss, in the need of getting him home before he started a + fight. A farmer helped her harness the buggy, while Cy snored in the seat. + He awoke before they set out; all the way home he alternately slept and + tried to make love to her. + </p> + <p> + “I'm almost as strong as he is. I managed to keep him away while I drove—such + a rickety buggy. I didn't feel like a girl; I felt like a scrubwoman—no, + I guess I was too scared to have any feelings at all. It was terribly + dark. I got home, somehow. But it was hard, the time I had to get out, and + it was quite muddy, to read a sign-post—I lit matches that I took + from Cy's coat pocket, and he followed me—he fell off the buggy step + into the mud, and got up and tried to make love to me, and——I + was scared. But I hit him. Quite hard. And got in, and so he ran after the + buggy, crying like a baby, and I let him in again, and right away again he + was trying——But no matter. I got him home. Up on the porch. + Mrs. Bogart was waiting up. . . . + </p> + <p> + “You know, it was funny; all the time she was—oh, talking to me—and + Cy was being terribly sick—I just kept thinking, 'I've still got to + drive the buggy down to the livery stable. I wonder if the livery man will + be awake?' But I got through somehow. I took the buggy down to the stable, + and got to my room. I locked my door, but Mrs. Bogart kept saying things, + outside the door. Stood out there saying things about me, dreadful things, + and rattling the knob. And all the while I could hear Cy in the back + yard-being sick. I don't think I'll ever marry any man. And then today—— + </p> + <p> + “She drove me right out of the house. She wouldn't listen to me, all + morning. Just to Cy. I suppose he's over his headache now. Even at + breakfast he thought the whole thing was a grand joke. I suppose right + this minute he's going around town boasting about his 'conquest.' You + understand—oh, DON'T you understand? I DID keep him away! But I + don't see how I can face my school. They say country towns are fine for + bringing up boys in, but——I can't believe this is me, lying + here and saying this. I don't BELIEVE what happened last night. + </p> + <p> + “Oh. This was curious: When I took off my dress last night—it was a + darling dress, I loved it so, but of course the mud had spoiled it. I + cried over it and——No matter. But my white silk stockings were + all torn, and the strange thing is, I don't know whether I caught my legs + in the briers when I got out to look at the sign-post, or whether Cy + scratched me when I was fighting him off.” + </p> + <p> + IV + </p> + <p> + Sam Clark was president of the school-board. When Carol told him Fern's + story Sam looked sympathetic and neighborly, and Mrs. Clark sat by cooing, + “Oh, isn't that too bad.” Carol was interrupted only when Mrs. Clark + begged, “Dear, don't speak so bitter about 'pious' people. There's lots of + sincere practising Christians that are real tolerant. Like the Champ + Perrys.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. I know. Unfortunately there are enough kindly people in the churches + to keep them going.” + </p> + <p> + When Carol had finished, Mrs. Clark breathed, “Poor girl; I don't doubt + her story a bit,” and Sam rumbled, “Yuh, sure. Miss Mullins is young and + reckless, but everybody in town, except Ma Bogart, knows what Cy is. But + Miss Mullins was a fool to go with him.” + </p> + <p> + “But not wicked enough to pay for it with disgrace?” + </p> + <p> + “N-no, but——” Sam avoided verdicts, clung to the entrancing + horrors of the story. “Ma Bogart cussed her out all morning, did she? + Jumped her neck, eh? Ma certainly is one hell-cat.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, you know how she is; so vicious.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh no, her best style ain't her viciousness. What she pulls in our store + is to come in smiling with Christian Fortitude and keep a clerk busy for + one hour while she picks out half a dozen fourpenny nails. I remember one + time——” + </p> + <p> + “Sam!” Carol was uneasy. “You'll fight for Fern, won't you? When Mrs. + Bogart came to see you did she make definite charges?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, yes, you might say she did.” + </p> + <p> + “But the school-board won't act on them?” + </p> + <p> + “Guess we'll more or less have to.” + </p> + <p> + “But you'll exonerate Fern?” + </p> + <p> + “I'll do what I can for the girl personally, but you know what the board + is. There's Reverend Zitterel; Sister Bogart about half runs his church, + so of course he'll take her say-so; and Ezra Stowbody, as a banker he has + to be all hell for morality and purity. Might 's well admit it, Carrie; + I'm afraid there'll be a majority of the board against her. Not that any + of us would believe a word Cy said, not if he swore it on a stack of + Bibles, but still, after all this gossip, Miss Mullins wouldn't hardly be + the party to chaperon our basket-ball team when it went out of town to + play other high schools, would she!” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps not, but couldn't some one else?” + </p> + <p> + “Why, that's one of the things she was hired for.” Sam sounded stubborn. + </p> + <p> + “Do you realize that this isn't just a matter of a job, and hiring and + firing; that it's actually sending a splendid girl out with a beastly + stain on her, giving all the other Bogarts in the world a chance at her? + That's what will happen if you discharge her.” + </p> + <p> + Sam moved uncomfortably, looked at his wife, scratched his head, sighed, + said nothing. + </p> + <p> + “Won't you fight for her on the board? If you lose, won't you, and whoever + agrees with you, make a minority report?” + </p> + <p> + “No reports made in a case like this. Our rule is to just decide the thing + and announce the final decision, whether it's unanimous or not.” + </p> + <p> + “Rules! Against a girl's future! Dear God! Rules of a school-board! Sam! + Won't you stand by Fern, and threaten to resign from the board if they try + to discharge her?” + </p> + <p> + Rather testy, tired of so many subtleties, he complained, “Well, I'll do + what I can, but I'll have to wait till the board meets.” + </p> + <p> + And “I'll do what I can,” together with the secret admission “Of course + you and I know what Ma Bogart is,” was all Carol could get from + Superintendent George Edwin Mott, Ezra Stowbody, the Reverend Mr. Zitterel + or any other member of the school-board. + </p> + <p> + Afterward she wondered whether Mr. Zitterel could have been referring to + herself when he observed, “There's too much license in high places in this + town, though, and the wages of sin is death—or anyway, bein' fired.” + The holy leer with which the priest said it remained in her mind. + </p> + <p> + She was at the hotel before eight next morning. Fern longed to go to + school, to face the tittering, but she was too shaky. Carol read to her + all day and, by reassuring her, convinced her own self that the + school-board would be just. She was less sure of it that evening when, at + the motion pictures, she heard Mrs. Gougerling exclaim to Mrs. Howland, + “She may be so innocent and all, and I suppose she probably is, but still, + if she drank a whole bottle of whisky at that dance, the way everybody + says she did, she may have forgotten she was so innocent! Hee, hee, hee!” + Maud Dyer, leaning back from her seat, put in, “That's what I've said all + along. I don't want to roast anybody, but have you noticed the way she + looks at men?” + </p> + <p> + “When will they have me on the scaffold?” Carol speculated. + </p> + <p> + Nat Hicks stopped the Kennicotts on their way home. Carol hated him for + his manner of assuming that they two had a mysterious understanding. + Without quite winking he seemed to wink at her as he gurgled, “What do you + folks think about this Mullins woman? I'm not strait-laced, but I tell you + we got to have decent women in our schools. D' you know what I heard? They + say whatever she may of done afterwards, this Mullins dame took two quarts + of whisky to the dance with her, and got stewed before Cy did! Some tank, + that wren! Ha, ha, ha!” + </p> + <p> + “Rats, I don't believe it,” Kennicott muttered. + </p> + <p> + He got Carol away before she was able to speak. + </p> + <p> + She saw Erik passing the house, late, alone, and she stared after him, + longing for the lively bitterness of the things he would say about the + town. Kennicott had nothing for her but “Oh, course, ev'body likes a juicy + story, but they don't intend to be mean.” + </p> + <p> + She went up to bed proving to herself that the members of the school-board + were superior men. + </p> + <p> + It was Tuesday afternoon before she learned that the board had met at ten + in the morning and voted to “accept Miss Fern Mullins's resignation.” Sam + Clark telephoned the news to her. “We're not making any charges. We're + just letting her resign. Would you like to drop over to the hotel and ask + her to write the resignation, now we've accepted it? Glad I could get the + board to put it that way. It's thanks to you.” + </p> + <p> + “But can't you see that the town will take this as proof of the charges?” + </p> + <p> + “We're—not—making—no—charges—whatever!” Sam + was obviously finding it hard to be patient. + </p> + <p> + Fern left town that evening. + </p> + <p> + Carol went with her to the train. The two girls elbowed through a silent + lip-licking crowd. Carol tried to stare them down but in face of the + impishness of the boys and the bovine gaping of the men, she was + embarrassed. Fern did not glance at them. Carol felt her arm tremble, + though she was tearless, listless, plodding. She squeezed Carol's hand, + said something unintelligible, stumbled up into the vestibule. + </p> + <p> + Carol remembered that Miles Bjornstam had also taken a train. What would + be the scene at the station when she herself took departure? + </p> + <p> + She walked up-town behind two strangers. + </p> + <p> + One of them was giggling, “See that good-looking wench that got on here? + The swell kid with the small black hat? She's some charmer! I was here + yesterday, before my jump to Ojibway Falls, and I heard all about her. + Seems she was a teacher, but she certainly was a high-roller—O boy!—high, + wide, and fancy! Her and couple of other skirts bought a whole case of + whisky and went on a tear, and one night, darned if this bunch of + cradle-robbers didn't get hold of some young kids, just small boys, and + they all got lit up like a White Way, and went out to a roughneck dance, + and they say——” + </p> + <p> + The narrator turned, saw a woman near and, not being a common person nor a + coarse workman but a clever salesman and a householder, lowered his voice + for the rest of the tale. During it the other man laughed hoarsely. + </p> + <p> + Carol turned off on a side-street. + </p> + <p> + She passed Cy Bogart. He was humorously narrating some achievement to a + group which included Nat Hicks, Del Snafflin, Bert Tybee the bartender, + and A. Tennyson O'Hearn the shyster lawyer. They were men far older than + Cy but they accepted him as one of their own, and encouraged him to go on. + </p> + <p> + It was a week before she received from Fern a letter of which this was a + part: + </p> + <p> + . . . & of course my family did not really believe the story but as + they were sure I must have done something wrong they just lectured me + generally, in fact jawed me till I have gone to live at a boarding house. + The teachers' agencies must know the story, man at one almost slammed the + door in my face when I went to ask about a job, & at another the woman + in charge was beastly. Don't know what I will do. Don't seem to feel very + well. May marry a fellow that's in love with me but he's so stupid that he + makes me SCREAM. + </p> + <p> + Dear Mrs. Kennicott you were the only one that believed me. I guess it's a + joke on me, I was such a simp, I felt quite heroic while I was driving the + buggy back that night & keeping Cy away from me. I guess I expected + the people in Gopher Prairie to admire me. I did use to be admired for my + athletics at the U.—just five months ago. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0033" id="link2HCH0033"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXXIII + </h2> + <p> + FOR a month which was one suspended moment of doubt she saw Erik only + casually, at an Eastern Star dance, at the shop, where, in the presence of + Nat Hicks, they conferred with immense particularity on the significance + of having one or two buttons on the cuff of Kennicott's New Suit. For the + benefit of beholders they were respectably vacuous. + </p> + <p> + Thus barred from him, depressed in the thought of Fern, Carol was suddenly + and for the first time convinced that she loved Erik. + </p> + <p> + She told herself a thousand inspiriting things which he would say if he + had the opportunity; for them she admired him, loved him. But she was + afraid to summon him. He understood, he did not come. She forgot her every + doubt of him, and her discomfort in his background. Each day it seemed + impossible to get through the desolation of not seeing him. Each morning, + each afternoon, each evening was a compartment divided from all other + units of time, distinguished by a sudden “Oh! I want to see Erik!” which + was as devastating as though she had never said it before. + </p> + <p> + There were wretched periods when she could not picture him. Usually he + stood out in her mind in some little moment—glancing up from his + preposterous pressing-iron, or running on the beach with Dave Dyer. But + sometimes he had vanished; he was only an opinion. She worried then about + his appearance: Weren't his wrists too large and red? Wasn't his nose a + snub, like so many Scandinavians? Was he at all the graceful thing she had + fancied? When she encountered him on the street she was as much reassuring + herself as rejoicing in his presence. More disturbing than being unable to + visualize him was the darting remembrance of some intimate aspect: his + face as they had walked to the boat together at the picnic; the ruddy + light on his temples, neck-cords, flat cheeks. + </p> + <p> + On a November evening when Kennicott was in the country she answered the + bell and was confused to find Erik at the door, stooped, imploring, his + hands in the pockets of his topcoat. As though he had been rehearsing his + speech he instantly besought: + </p> + <p> + “Saw your husband driving away. I've got to see you. I can't stand it. + Come for a walk. I know! People might see us. But they won't if we hike + into the country. I'll wait for you by the elevator. Take as long as you + want to—oh, come quick!” + </p> + <p> + “In a few minutes,” she promised. + </p> + <p> + She murmured, “I'll just talk to him for a quarter of an hour and come + home.” She put an her tweed coat and rubber overshoes, considering how + honest and hopeless are rubbers, how clearly their chaperonage proved that + she wasn't going to a lovers' tryst. + </p> + <p> + She found him in the shadow of the grain-elevator, sulkily kicking at a + rail of the side-track. As she came toward him she fancied that his whole + body expanded. But he said nothing, nor she; he patted her sleeve, she + returned the pat, and they crossed the railroad tracks, found a road, + clumped toward open country. + </p> + <p> + “Chilly night, but I like this melancholy gray,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + They passed a moaning clump of trees and splashed along the wet road. He + tucked her hand into the side-pocket of his overcoat. She caught his thumb + and, sighing, held it exactly as Hugh held hers when they went walking. + She thought about Hugh. The current maid was in for the evening, but was + it safe to leave the baby with her? The thought was distant and elusive. + </p> + <p> + Erik began to talk, slowly, revealingly. He made for her a picture of his + work in a large tailor shop in Minneapolis: the steam and heat, and the + drudgery; the men in darned vests and crumpled trousers, men who “rushed + growlers of beer” and were cynical about women, who laughed at him and + played jokes on him. “But I didn't mind, because I could keep away from + them outside. I used to go to the Art Institute and the Walker Gallery, + and tramp clear around Lake Harriet, or hike out to the Gates house and + imagine it was a chateau in Italy and I lived in it. I was a marquis and + collected tapestries—that was after I was wounded in Padua. The only + really bad time was when a tailor named Finkelfarb found a diary I was + trying to keep and he read it aloud in the shop—it was a bad fight.” + He laughed. “I got fined five dollars. But that's all gone now. Seems as + though you stand between me and the gas stoves—the long flames with + mauve edges, licking up around the irons and making that sneering sound + all day—aaaaah!” + </p> + <p> + Her fingers tightened about his thumb as she perceived the hot low room, + the pounding of pressing-irons, the reek of scorched cloth, and Erik among + giggling gnomes. His fingertip crept through the opening of her glove and + smoothed her palm. She snatched her hand away, stripped off her glove, + tucked her hand back into his. + </p> + <p> + He was saying something about a “wonderful person.” In her tranquillity + she let the words blow by and heeded only the beating wings of his voice. + </p> + <p> + She was conscious that he was fumbling for impressive speech. + </p> + <p> + “Say, uh—Carol, I've written a poem about you.” + </p> + <p> + “That's nice. Let's hear it.” + </p> + <p> + “Damn it, don't be so casual about it! Can't you take me seriously?” + </p> + <p> + “My dear boy, if I took you seriously——! I don't want us to be + hurt more than—more than we will be. Tell me the poem. I've never + had a poem written about me!” + </p> + <p> + “It isn't really a poem. It's just some words that I love because it seems + to me they catch what you are. Of course probably they won't seem so to + anybody else, but——Well—— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Little and tender and merry and wise + With eyes that meet my eyes. +</pre> + <p> + Do you get the idea the way I do?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes! I'm terribly grateful!” And she was grateful—while she + impersonally noted how bad a verse it was. + </p> + <p> + She was aware of the haggard beauty in the lowering night. Monstrous + tattered clouds sprawled round a forlorn moon; puddles and rocks glistened + with inner light. They were passing a grove of scrub poplars, feeble by + day but looming now like a menacing wall. She stopped. They heard the + branches dripping, the wet leaves sullenly plumping on the soggy earth. + </p> + <p> + “Waiting—waiting—everything is waiting,” she whispered. She + drew her hand from his, pressed her clenched fingers against her lips. She + was lost in the somberness. “I am happy—so we must go home, before + we have time to become unhappy. But can't we sit on a log for a minute and + just listen?” + </p> + <p> + “No. Too wet. But I wish we could build a fire, and you could sit on my + overcoat beside it. I'm a grand fire-builder! My cousin Lars and me spent + a week one time in a cabin way up in the Big Woods, snowed in. The + fireplace was filled with a dome of ice when we got there, but we chopped + it out, and jammed the thing full of pine-boughs. Couldn't we build a fire + back here in the woods and sit by it for a while?” + </p> + <p> + She pondered, half-way between yielding and refusal. Her head ached + faintly. She was in abeyance. Everything, the night, his silhouette, the + cautious-treading future, was as undistinguishable as though she were + drifting bodiless in a Fourth Dimension. While her mind groped, the lights + of a motor car swooped round a bend in the road, and they stood farther + apart. “What ought I to do?” she mused. “I think——Oh, I won't + be robbed! I AM good! If I'm so enslaved that I can't sit by the fire with + a man and talk, then I'd better be dead!” + </p> + <p> + The lights of the thrumming car grew magically; were upon them; abruptly + stopped. From behind the dimness of the windshield a voice, annoyed, + sharp: “Hello there!” + </p> + <p> + She realized that it was Kennicott. + </p> + <p> + The irritation in his voice smoothed out. “Having a walk?” + </p> + <p> + They made schoolboyish sounds of assent. + </p> + <p> + “Pretty wet, isn't it? Better ride back. Jump up in front here, Valborg.” + </p> + <p> + His manner of swinging open the door was a command. Carol was conscious + that Erik was climbing in, that she was apparently to sit in the back, and + that she had been left to open the rear door for herself. Instantly the + wonder which had flamed to the gusty skies was quenched, and she was Mrs. + W. P. Kennicott of Gopher Prairie, riding in a squeaking old car, and + likely to be lectured by her husband. + </p> + <p> + She feared what Kennicott would say to Erik. She bent toward them. + Kennicott was observing, “Going to have some rain before the night 's + over, all right.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said Erik. + </p> + <p> + “Been funny season this year, anyway. Never saw it with such a cold + October and such a nice November. 'Member we had a snow way back on + October ninth! But it certainly was nice up to the twenty-first, this + month—as I remember it, not a flake of snow in November so far, has + there been? But I shouldn't wonder if we'd be having some snow 'most any + time now.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, good chance of it,” said Erik. + </p> + <p> + “Wish I'd had more time to go after the ducks this fall. By golly, what do + you think?” Kennicott sounded appealing. “Fellow wrote me from Man Trap + Lake that he shot seven mallards and couple of canvas-back in one hour!” + </p> + <p> + “That must have been fine,” said Erik. + </p> + <p> + Carol was ignored. But Kennicott was blustrously cheerful. He shouted to a + farmer, as he slowed up to pass the frightened team, “There we are—schon + gut!” She sat back, neglected, frozen, unheroic heroine in a drama + insanely undramatic. She made a decision resolute and enduring. She would + tell Kennicott——What would she tell him? She could not say + that she loved Erik. DID she love him? But she would have it out. She was + not sure whether it was pity for Kennicott's blindness, or irritation at + his assumption that he was enough to fill any woman's life, which prompted + her, but she knew that she was out of the trap, that she could be frank; + and she was exhilarated with the adventure of it . . . while in front he + was entertaining Erik: + </p> + <p> + “Nothing like an hour on a duck-pass to make you relish your victuals and——Gosh, + this machine hasn't got the power of a fountain pen. Guess the cylinders + are jam-cram-full of carbon again. Don't know but what maybe I'll have to + put in another set of piston-rings.” + </p> + <p> + He stopped on Main Street and clucked hospitably, “There, that'll give you + just a block to walk. G' night.” + </p> + <p> + Carol was in suspense. Would Erik sneak away? + </p> + <p> + He stolidly moved to the back of the car, thrust in his hand, muttered, + “Good night—Carol. I'm glad we had our walk.” She pressed his hand. + The car was flapping on. He was hidden from her—by a corner drug + store on Main Street! + </p> + <p> + Kennicott did not recognize her till he drew up before the house. Then he + condescended, “Better jump out here and I'll take the boat around back. + Say, see if the back door is unlocked, will you?” She unlatched the door + for him. She realized that she still carried the damp glove she had + stripped off for Erik. She drew it on. She stood in the center of the + living-room, unmoving, in damp coat and muddy rubbers. Kennicott was as + opaque as ever. Her task wouldn't be anything so lively as having to + endure a scolding, but only an exasperating effort to command his + attention so that he would understand the nebulous things she had to tell + him, instead of interrupting her by yawning, winding the clock, and going + up to bed. She heard him shoveling coal into the furnace. He came through + the kitchen energetically, but before he spoke to her he did stop in the + hall, did wind the clock. + </p> + <p> + He sauntered into the living-room and his glance passed from her drenched + hat to her smeared rubbers. She could hear—she could hear, see, + taste, smell, touch—his “Better take your coat off, Carrie; looks + kind of wet.” Yes, there it was: + </p> + <p> + “Well, Carrie, you better——” He chucked his own coat on a + chair, stalked to her, went on with a rising tingling voice, “——you + better cut it out now. I'm not going to do the out-raged husband stunt. I + like you and I respect you, and I'd probably look like a boob if I tried + to be dramatic. But I think it's about time for you and Valborg to call a + halt before you get in Dutch, like Fern Mullins did.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you——” + </p> + <p> + “Course. I know all about it. What d' you expect in a town that's as + filled with busybodies, that have plenty of time to stick their noses into + other folks' business, as this is? Not that they've had the nerve to do + much tattling to me, but they've hinted around a lot, and anyway, I could + see for myself that you liked him. But of course I knew how cold you were, + I knew you wouldn't stand it even if Valborg did try to hold your hand or + kiss you, so I didn't worry. But same time, I hope you don't suppose this + husky young Swede farmer is as innocent and Platonic and all that stuff as + you are! Wait now, don't get sore! I'm not knocking him. He isn't a bad + sort. And he's young and likes to gas about books. Course you like him. + That isn't the real rub. But haven't you just seen what this town can do, + once it goes and gets moral on you, like it did with Fern? You probably + think that two young folks making love are alone if anybody ever is, but + there's nothing in this town that you don't do in company with a whole lot + of uninvited but awful interested guests. Don't you realize that if Ma + Westlake and a few others got started they'd drive you up a tree, and + you'd find yourself so well advertised as being in love with this Valborg + fellow that you'd HAVE to be, just to spite 'em!” + </p> + <p> + “Let me sit down,” was all Carol could say. She drooped on the couch, + wearily, without elasticity. + </p> + <p> + He yawned, “Gimme your coat and rubbers,” and while she stripped them off + he twiddled his watch-chain, felt the radiator, peered at the thermometer. + He shook out her wraps in the hall, hung them up with exactly his usual + care. He pushed a chair near to her and sat bolt up. He looked like a + physician about to give sound and undesired advice. + </p> + <p> + Before he could launch into his heavy discourse she desperately got in, + “Please! I want you to know that I was going to tell you everything, + tonight.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, I don't suppose there's really much to tell.” + </p> + <p> + “But there is. I'm fond of Erik. He appeals to something in here.” She + touched her breast. “And I admire him. He isn't just a 'young Swede + farmer.' He's an artist——” + </p> + <p> + “Wait now! He's had a chance all evening to tell you what a whale of a + fine fellow he is. Now it's my turn. I can't talk artistic, but——Carrie, + do you understand my work?” He leaned forward, thick capable hands on + thick sturdy thighs, mature and slow, yet beseeching. “No matter even if + you are cold, I like you better than anybody in the world. One time I said + that you were my soul. And that still goes. You're all the things that I + see in a sunset when I'm driving in from the country, the things that I + like but can't make poetry of. Do you realize what my job is? I go round + twenty-four hours a day, in mud and blizzard, trying my damnedest to heal + everybody, rich or poor. You—that 're always spieling about how + scientists ought to rule the world, instead of a bunch of spread-eagle + politicians—can't you see that I'm all the science there is here? + And I can stand the cold and the bumpy roads and the lonely rides at + night. All I need is to have you here at home to welcome me. I don't + expect you to be passionate—not any more I don't—but I do + expect you to appreciate my work. I bring babies into the world, and save + lives, and make cranky husbands quit being mean to their wives. And then + you go and moon over a Swede tailor because he can talk about how to put + ruchings on a skirt! Hell of a thing for a man to fuss over!” + </p> + <p> + She flew out at him: “You make your side clear. Let me give mine. I admit + all you say—except about Erik. But is it only you, and the baby, + that want me to back you up, that demand things from me? They're all on + me, the whole town! I can feel their hot breaths on my neck! Aunt Bessie + and that horrible slavering old Uncle Whittier and Juanita and Mrs. + Westlake and Mrs. Bogart and all of them. And you welcome them, you + encourage them to drag me down into their cave! I won't stand it! Do you + hear? Now, right now, I'm done. And it's Erik who gives me the courage. + You say he just thinks about ruches (which do not usually go on skirts, by + the way!). I tell you he thinks about God, the God that Mrs. Bogart covers + up with greasy gingham wrappers! Erik will be a great man some day, and if + I could contribute one tiny bit to his success——” + </p> + <p> + “Wait, wait, wait now! Hold up! You're assuming that your Erik will make + good. As a matter of fact, at my age he'll be running a one-man tailor + shop in some burg about the size of Schoenstrom.” + </p> + <p> + “He will not!” + </p> + <p> + “That's what he's headed for now all right, and he's twenty-five or -six + and——What's he done to make you think he'll ever be anything + but a pants-presser?” + </p> + <p> + “He has sensitiveness and talent——” + </p> + <p> + “Wait now! What has he actually done in the art line? Has he done one + first-class picture or—sketch, d' you call it? Or one poem, or + played the piano, or anything except gas about what he's going to do?” + </p> + <p> + She looked thoughtful. + </p> + <p> + “Then it's a hundred to one shot that he never will. Way I understand it, + even these fellows that do something pretty good at home and get to go to + art school, there ain't more than one out of ten of 'em, maybe one out of + a hundred, that ever get above grinding out a bum living—about as + artistic as plumbing. And when it comes down to this tailor, why, can't + you see—you that take on so about psychology—can't you see + that it's just by contrast with folks like Doc McGanum or Lym Cass that + this fellow seems artistic? Suppose you'd met up with him first in one of + these reg'lar New York studios! You wouldn't notice him any more 'n a + rabbit!” + </p> + <p> + She huddled over folded hands like a temple virgin shivering on her knees + before the thin warmth of a brazier. She could not answer. + </p> + <p> + Kennicott rose quickly, sat on the couch, took both her hands. “Suppose he + fails—as he will! Suppose he goes back to tailoring, and you're his + wife. Is that going to be this artistic life you've been thinking about? + He's in some bum shack, pressing pants all day, or stooped over sewing, + and having to be polite to any grouch that blows in and jams a dirty + stinking old suit in his face and says, 'Here you, fix this, and be blame + quick about it.' He won't even have enough savvy to get him a big shop. + He'll pike along doing his own work—unless you, his wife, go help + him, go help him in the shop, and stand over a table all day, pushing a + big heavy iron. Your complexion will look fine after about fifteen years + of baking that way, won't it! And you'll be humped over like an old hag. + And probably you'll live in one room back of the shop. And then at night—oh, + you'll have your artist—sure! He'll come in stinking of gasoline, + and cranky from hard work, and hinting around that if it hadn't been for + you, he'd of gone East and been a great artist. Sure! And you'll be + entertaining his relatives——Talk about Uncle Whit! You'll be + having some old Axel Axelberg coming in with manure on his boots and + sitting down to supper in his socks and yelling at you, 'Hurry up now, you + vimmin make me sick!' Yes, and you'll have a squalling brat every year, + tugging at you while you press clothes, and you won't love 'em like you do + Hugh up-stairs, all downy and asleep——” + </p> + <p> + “Please! Not any more!” + </p> + <p> + Her face was on his knee. + </p> + <p> + He bent to kiss her neck. “I don't want to be unfair. I guess love is a + great thing, all right. But think it would stand much of that kind of + stuff? Oh, honey, am I so bad? Can't you like me at all? I've—I've + been so fond of you!” + </p> + <p> + She snatched up his hand, she kissed it. Presently she sobbed, “I won't + ever see him again. I can't, now. The hot living-room behind the tailor + shop——I don't love him enough for that. And you are——Even + if I were sure of him, sure he was the real thing, I don't think I could + actually leave you. This marriage, it weaves people together. It's not + easy to break, even when it ought to be broken.” + </p> + <p> + “And do you want to break it?” + </p> + <p> + “No!” + </p> + <p> + He lifted her, carried her up-stairs, laid her on her bed, turned to the + door. + </p> + <p> + “Come kiss me,” she whimpered. + </p> + <p> + He kissed her lightly and slipped away. For an hour she heard him moving + about his room, lighting a cigar, drumming with his knuckles on a chair. + She felt that he was a bulwark between her and the darkness that grew + thicker as the delayed storm came down in sleet. + </p> + <p> + II + </p> + <p> + He was cheery and more casual than ever at breakfast. All day she tried to + devise a way of giving Erik up. Telephone? The village central would + unquestionably “listen in.” A letter? It might be found. Go to see him? + Impossible. That evening Kennicott gave her, without comment, an envelope. + The letter was signed “E. V.” + </p> + <p> + I know I can't do anything but make trouble for you, I think. I am going + to Minneapolis tonight and from there as soon as I can either to New York + or Chicago. I will do as big things as I can. I—I can't write I love + you too much—God keep you. + </p> + <p> + Until she heard the whistle which told her that the Minneapolis train was + leaving town, she kept herself from thinking, from moving. Then it was all + over. She had no plan nor desire for anything. + </p> + <p> + When she caught Kennicott looking at her over his newspaper she fled to + his arms, thrusting the paper aside, and for the first time in years they + were lovers. But she knew that she still had no plan in life, save always + to go along the same streets, past the same people, to the same shops. + </p> + <p> + III + </p> + <p> + A week after Erik's going the maid startled her by announcing, “There's a + Mr. Valborg down-stairs say he vant to see you.” + </p> + <p> + She was conscious of the maid's interested stare, angry at this shattering + of the calm in which she had hidden. She crept down, peeped into the + living-room. It was not Erik Valborg who stood there; it was a small, + gray-bearded, yellow-faced man in mucky boots, canvas jacket, and red + mittens. He glowered at her with shrewd red eyes. + </p> + <p> + “You de doc's wife?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “I'm Adolph Valborg, from up by Jefferson. I'm Erik's father.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh!” He was a monkey-faced little man, and not gentle. + </p> + <p> + “What you done wit' my son?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't think I understand you.” + </p> + <p> + “I t'ink you're going to understand before I get t'rough! Where is he?” + </p> + <p> + “Why, really——I presume that he's in Minneapolis.” + </p> + <p> + “You presume!” He looked through her with a contemptuousness such as she + could not have imagined. Only an insane contortion of spelling could + portray his lyric whine, his mangled consonants. He clamored, “Presume! + Dot's a fine word! I don't want no fine words and I don't want no more + lies! I want to know what you KNOW!” + </p> + <p> + “See here, Mr. Valborg, you may stop this bullying right now. I'm not one + of your farmwomen. I don't know where your son is, and there's no reason + why I should know.” Her defiance ran out in face of his immense flaxen + stolidity. He raised his fist, worked up his anger with the gesture, and + sneered: + </p> + <p> + “You dirty city women wit' your fine ways and fine dresses! A father come + here trying to save his boy from wickedness, and you call him a bully! By + God, I don't have to take nothin' off you nor your husband! I ain't one of + your hired men. For one time a woman like you is going to hear de trut' + about what you are, and no fine city words to it, needer.” + </p> + <p> + “Really, Mr. Valborg——” + </p> + <p> + “What you done wit' him? Heh? I'll yoost tell you what you done! He was a + good boy, even if he was a damn fool. I want him back on de farm. He don't + make enough money tailoring. And I can't get me no hired man! I want to + take him back on de farm. And you butt in and fool wit' him and make love + wit' him, and get him to run away!” + </p> + <p> + “You are lying! It's not true that——It's not true, and if it + were, you would have no right to speak like this.” + </p> + <p> + “Don't talk foolish. I know. Ain't I heard from a fellow dot live right + here in town how you been acting wit' de boy? I know what you done! + Walking wit' him in de country! Hiding in de woods wit' him! Yes and I + guess you talk about religion in de woods! Sure! Women like you—you're + worse dan street-walkers! Rich women like you, wit' fine husbands and no + decent work to do—and me, look at my hands, look how I work, look at + those hands! But you, oh God no, you mustn't work, you're too fine to do + decent work. You got to play wit' young fellows, younger as you are, + laughing and rolling around and acting like de animals! You let my son + alone, d' you hear?” He was shaking his fist in her face. She could smell + the manure and sweat. “It ain't no use talkin' to women like you. Get no + trut' out of you. But next time I go by your husband!” + </p> + <p> + He was marching into the hall. Carol flung herself on him, her clenching + hand on his hayseed-dusty shoulder. “You horrible old man, you've always + tried to turn Erik into a slave, to fatten your pocketbook! You've sneered + at him, and overworked him, and probably you've succeeded in preventing + his ever rising above your muck-heap! And now because you can't drag him + back, you come here to vent——Go tell my husband, go tell him, + and don't blame me when he kills you, when my husband kills you—he + will kill you——” + </p> + <p> + The man grunted, looked at her impassively, said one word, and walked out. + </p> + <p> + She heard the word very plainly. + </p> + <p> + She did not quite reach the couch. Her knees gave way, she pitched + forward. She heard her mind saying, “You haven't fainted. This is + ridiculous. You're simply dramatizing yourself. Get up.” But she could not + move. When Kennicott arrived she was lying on the couch. His step + quickened. “What's happened, Carrie? You haven't got a bit of blood in + your face.” + </p> + <p> + She clutched his arm. “You've got to be sweet to me, and kind! I'm going + to California—mountains, sea. Please don't argue about it, because + I'm going.” + </p> + <p> + Quietly, “All right. We'll go. You and I. Leave the kid here with Aunt + Bessie.” + </p> + <p> + “Now!” + </p> + <p> + “Well yes, just as soon as we can get away. Now don't talk any more. Just + imagine you've already started.” He smoothed her hair, and not till after + supper did he continue: “I meant it about California. But I think we + better wait three weeks or so, till I get hold of some young fellow + released from the medical corps to take my practice. And if people are + gossiping, you don't want to give them a chance by running away. Can you + stand it and face 'em for three weeks or so?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” she said emptily. + </p> + <p> + IV + </p> + <p> + People covertly stared at her on the street. Aunt Bessie tried to + catechize her about Erik's disappearance, and it was Kennicott who + silenced the woman with a savage, “Say, are you hinting that Carrie had + anything to do with that fellow's beating it? Then let me tell you, and + you can go right out and tell the whole bloomin' town, that Carrie and I + took Val—took Erik riding, and he asked me about getting a better + job in Minneapolis, and I advised him to go to it. . . . Getting much + sugar in at the store now?” + </p> + <p> + Guy Pollock crossed the street to be pleasant apropos of California and + new novels. Vida Sherwin dragged her to the Jolly Seventeen. There, with + every one rigidly listening, Maud Dyer shot at Carol, “I hear Erik has + left town.” + </p> + <p> + Carol was amiable. “Yes, so I hear. In fact, he called me up—told me + he had been offered a lovely job in the city. So sorry he's gone. He would + have been valuable if we'd tried to start the dramatic association again. + Still, I wouldn't be here for the association myself, because Will is all + in from work, and I'm thinking of taking him to California. Juanita—you + know the Coast so well—tell me: would you start in at Los Angeles or + San Francisco, and what are the best hotels?” + </p> + <p> + The Jolly Seventeen looked disappointed, but the Jolly Seventeen liked to + give advice, the Jolly Seventeen liked to mention the expensive hotels at + which they had stayed. (A meal counted as a stay.) Before they could + question her again Carol escorted in with drum and fife the topic of + Raymie Wutherspoon. Vida had news from her husband. He had been gassed in + the trenches, had been in a hospital for two weeks, had been promoted to + major, was learning French. + </p> + <p> + She left Hugh with Aunt Bessie. + </p> + <p> + But for Kennicott she would have taken him. She hoped that in some + miraculous way yet unrevealed she might find it possible to remain in + California. She did not want to see Gopher Prairie again. + </p> + <p> + The Smails were to occupy the Kennicott house, and quite the hardest thing + to endure in the month of waiting was the series of conferences between + Kennicott and Uncle Whittier in regard to heating the garage and having + the furnace flues cleaned. + </p> + <p> + Did Carol, Kennicott inquired, wish to stop in Minneapolis to buy new + clothes? + </p> + <p> + “No! I want to get as far away as I can as soon as I can. Let's wait till + Los Angeles.” + </p> + <p> + “Sure, sure! Just as you like. Cheer up! We're going to have a large wide + time, and everything 'll be different when we come back.” + </p> + <p> + VI + </p> + <p> + Dusk on a snowy December afternoon. The sleeper which would connect at + Kansas City with the California train rolled out of St. Paul with a + chick-a-chick, chick-a-chick, chick-a-chick as it crossed the other + tracks. It bumped through the factory belt, gained speed. Carol could see + nothing but gray fields, which had closed in on her all the way from + Gopher Prairie. Ahead was darkness. + </p> + <p> + “For an hour, in Minneapolis, I must have been near Erik. He's still + there, somewhere. He'll be gone when I come back. I'll never know where he + has gone.” + </p> + <p> + As Kennicott switched on the seat-light she turned drearily to the + illustrations in a motion-picture magazine. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0034" id="link2HCH0034"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXXIV + </h2> + <p> + THEY journeyed for three and a half months. They saw the Grand Canyon, the + adobe walls of Sante Fe and, in a drive from El Paso into Mexico, their + first foreign land. They jogged from San Diego and La Jolla to Los + Angeles, Pasadena, Riverside, through towns with bell-towered missions and + orange-groves; they viewed Monterey and San Francisco and a forest of + sequoias. They bathed in the surf and climbed foothills and danced, they + saw a polo game and the making of motion-pictures, they sent one hundred + and seventeen souvenir post-cards to Gopher Prairie, and once, on a dune + by a foggy sea when she was walking alone, Carol found an artist, and he + looked up at her and said, “Too damned wet to paint; sit down and talk,” + and so for ten minutes she lived in a romantic novel. + </p> + <p> + Her only struggle was in coaxing Kennicott not to spend all his time with + the tourists from the ten thousand other Gopher Prairies. In winter, + California is full of people from Iowa and Nebraska, Ohio and Oklahoma, + who, having traveled thousands of miles from their familiar villages, + hasten to secure an illusion of not having left them. They hunt for people + from their own states to stand between them and the shame of naked + mountains; they talk steadily, in Pullmans, on hotel porches, at + cafeterias and motion-picture shows, about the motors and crops and county + politics back home. Kennicott discussed land-prices with them, he went + into the merits of the several sorts of motor cars with them, he was + intimate with train porters, and he insisted on seeing the Luke Dawsons at + their flimsy bungalow in Pasadena, where Luke sat and yearned to go back + and make some more money. But Kennicott gave promise of learning to play. + He shouted in the pool at the Coronado, and he spoke of (though he did + nothing more radical than speak of) buying evening-clothes. Carol was + touched by his efforts to enjoy picture galleries, and the dogged way in + which he accumulated dates and dimensions when they followed monkish + guides through missions. + </p> + <p> + She felt strong. Whenever she was restless she dodged her thoughts by the + familiar vagabond fallacy of running away from them, of moving on to a new + place, and thus she persuaded herself that she was tranquil. In March she + willingly agreed with Kennicott that it was time to go home. She was + longing for Hugh. + </p> + <p> + They left Monterey on April first, on a day of high blue skies and poppies + and a summer sea. + </p> + <p> + As the train struck in among the hills she resolved, “I'm going to love + the fine Will Kennicott quality that there is in Gopher Prairie. The + nobility of good sense. It will be sweet to see Vida and Guy and the + Clarks. And I'm going to see my baby! All the words he'll be able to say + now! It's a new start. Everything will be different!” + </p> + <p> + Thus on April first, among dappled hills and the bronze of scrub oaks, + while Kennicott seesawed on his toes and chuckled, “Wonder what Hugh'll + say when he sees us?” + </p> + <p> + Three days later they reached Gopher Prairie in a sleet storm. + </p> + <p> + II + </p> + <p> + No one knew that they were coming; no one met them; and because of the icy + roads, the only conveyance at the station was the hotel 'bus, which they + missed while Kennicott was giving his trunk-check to the station agent—the + only person to welcome them. Carol waited for him in the station, among + huddled German women with shawls and umbrellas, and ragged-bearded farmers + in corduroy coats; peasants mute as oxen, in a room thick with the steam + of wet coats, the reek of the red-hot stove, the stench of sawdust boxes + which served as cuspidors. The afternoon light was as reluctant as a + winter dawn. + </p> + <p> + “This is a useful market-center, an interesting pioneer post, but it is + not a home for me,” meditated the stranger Carol. + </p> + <p> + Kennicott suggested, “I'd 'phone for a flivver but it'd take quite a while + for it to get here. Let's walk.” + </p> + <p> + They stepped uncomfortably from the safety of the plank platform and, + balancing on their toes, taking cautious strides, ventured along the road. + The sleety rain was turning to snow. The air was stealthily cold. Beneath + an inch of water was a layer of ice, so that as they wavered with their + suit-cases they slid and almost fell. The wet snow drenched their gloves; + the water underfoot splashed their itching ankles. They scuffled inch by + inch for three blocks. In front of Harry Haydock's Kennicott sighed: + </p> + <p> + “We better stop in here and 'phone for a machine.” + </p> + <p> + She followed him like a wet kitten. + </p> + <p> + The Haydocks saw them laboring up the slippery concrete walk, up the + perilous front steps, and came to the door chanting: + </p> + <p> + “Well, well, well, back again, eh? Say, this is fine! Have a fine trip? + My, you look like a rose, Carol. How did you like the coast, doc? Well, + well, well! Where-all did you go?” + </p> + <p> + But as Kennicott began to proclaim the list of places achieved, Harry + interrupted with an account of how much he himself had seen, two years + ago. When Kennicott boasted, “We went through the mission at Santa + Barbara,” Harry broke in, “Yeh, that's an interesting old mission. Say, + I'll never forget that hotel there, doc. It was swell. Why, the rooms were + made just like these old monasteries. Juanita and I went from Santa + Barbara to San Luis Obispo. You folks go to San Luis Obispo?” + </p> + <p> + “No, but——” + </p> + <p> + “Well you ought to gone to San Luis Obispo. And then we went from there to + a ranch, least they called it a ranch——” + </p> + <p> + Kennicott got in only one considerable narrative, which began: + </p> + <p> + “Say, I never knew—did you, Harry?—that in the Chicago + district the Kutz Kar sells as well as the Overland? I never thought much + of the Kutz. But I met a gentleman on the train—it was when we were + pulling out of Albuquerque, and I was sitting on the back platform of the + observation car, and this man was next to me and he asked me for a light, + and we got to talking, and come to find out, he came from Aurora, and when + he found out I came from Minnesota he asked me if I knew Dr. Clemworth of + Red Wing, and of course, while I've never met him, I've heard of Clemworth + lots of times, and seems he's this man's brother! Quite a coincidence! + Well, we got to talking, and we called the porter—that was a pretty + good porter on that car—and we had a couple bottles of ginger ale, + and I happened to mention the Kutz Kar, and this man—seems he's + driven a lot of different kinds of cars—he's got a Franklin now—and + he said that he'd tried the Kutz and liked it first-rate. Well, when we + got into a station—I don't remember the name of it—Carrie, + what the deuce was the name of that first stop we made the other side of + Albuquerque?—well, anyway, I guess we must have stopped there to + take on water, and this man and I got out to stretch our legs, and darned + if there wasn't a Kutz drawn right up at the depot platform, and he + pointed out something I'd never noticed, and I was glad to learn about it: + seems that the gear lever in the Kutz is an inch longer——” + </p> + <p> + Even this chronicle of voyages Harry interrupted, with remarks on the + advantages of the ball-gear-shift. + </p> + <p> + Kennicott gave up hope of adequate credit for being a traveled man, and + telephoned to a garage for a Ford taxicab, while Juanita kissed Carol and + made sure of being the first to tell the latest, which included seven + distinct and proven scandals about Mrs. Swiftwaite, and one considerable + doubt as to the chastity of Cy Bogart. + </p> + <p> + They saw the Ford sedan making its way over the water-lined ice, through + the snow-storm, like a tug-boat in a fog. The driver stopped at a corner. + The car skidded, it turned about with comic reluctance, crashed into a + tree, and stood tilted on a broken wheel. + </p> + <p> + The Kennicotts refused Harry Haydock's not too urgent offer to take them + home in his car “if I can manage to get it out of the garage—terrible + day—stayed home from the store—but if you say so, I'll take a + shot at it.” Carol gurgled, “No, I think we'd better walk; probably make + better time, and I'm just crazy to see my baby.” With their suit-cases + they waddled on. Their coats were soaked through. + </p> + <p> + Carol had forgotten her facile hopes. She looked about with impersonal + eyes. But Kennicott, through rain-blurred lashes, caught the glory that + was Back Home. + </p> + <p> + She noted bare tree-trunks, black branches, the spongy brown earth between + patches of decayed snow on the lawns. The vacant lots were full of tall + dead weeds. Stripped of summer leaves the houses were hopeless—temporary + shelters. + </p> + <p> + Kennicott chuckled, “By golly, look down there! Jack Elder must have + painted his garage. And look! Martin Mahoney has put up a new fence around + his chicken yard. Say, that's a good fence, eh? Chicken-tight and + dog-tight. That's certainly a dandy fence. Wonder how much it cost a yard? + Yes, sir, they been building right along, even in winter. Got more + enterprise than these Californians. Pretty good to be home, eh?” + </p> + <p> + She noted that all winter long the citizens had been throwing garbage into + their back yards, to be cleaned up in spring. The recent thaw had + disclosed heaps of ashes, dog-bones, torn bedding, clotted paint-cans, all + half covered by the icy pools which filled the hollows of the yards. The + refuse had stained the water to vile colors of waste: thin red, sour + yellow, streaky brown. + </p> + <p> + Kennicott chuckled, “Look over there on Main Street! They got the feed + store all fixed up, and a new sign on it, black and gold. That'll improve + the appearance of the block a lot.” + </p> + <p> + She noted that the few people whom they passed wore their raggedest coats + for the evil day. They were scarecrows in a shanty town. . . . “To think,” + she marveled, “of coming two thousand miles, past mountains and cities, to + get off here, and to plan to stay here! What conceivable reason for + choosing this particular place?” + </p> + <p> + She noted a figure in a rusty coat and a cloth cap. + </p> + <p> + Kennicott chuckled, “Look who's coming! It's Sam Clark! Gosh, all rigged + out for the weather.” + </p> + <p> + The two men shook hands a dozen times and, in the Western fashion, + bumbled, “Well, well, well, well, you old hell-hound, you old devil, how + are you, anyway? You old horse-thief, maybe it ain't good to see you + again!” While Sam nodded at her over Kennicott's shoulder, she was + embarrassed. + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps I should never have gone away. I'm out of practise in lying. I + wish they would get it over! Just a block more and—my baby!” + </p> + <p> + They were home. She brushed past the welcoming Aunt Bessie and knelt by + Hugh. As he stammered, “O mummy, mummy, don't go away! Stay with me, + mummy!” she cried, “No, I'll never leave you again!” + </p> + <p> + He volunteered, “That's daddy.” + </p> + <p> + “By golly, he knows us just as if we'd never been away!” said Kennicott. + “You don't find any of these California kids as bright as he is, at his + age!” + </p> + <p> + When the trunk came they piled about Hugh the bewhiskered little wooden + men fitting one inside another, the miniature junk, and the Oriental drum, + from San Francisco Chinatown; the blocks carved by the old Frenchman in + San Diego; the lariat from San Antonio. + </p> + <p> + “Will you forgive mummy for going away? Will you?” she whispered. + </p> + <p> + Absorbed in Hugh, asking a hundred questions about him—had he had + any colds? did he still dawdle over his oatmeal? what about unfortunate + morning incidents? she viewed Aunt Bessie only as a source of information, + and was able to ignore her hint, pointed by a coyly shaken finger, “Now + that you've had such a fine long trip and spent so much money and all, I + hope you're going to settle down and be satisfied and not——” + </p> + <p> + “Does he like carrots yet?” replied Carol. + </p> + <p> + She was cheerful as the snow began to conceal the slatternly yards. She + assured herself that the streets of New York and Chicago were as ugly as + Gopher Prairie in such weather; she dismissed the thought, “But they do + have charming interiors for refuge.” She sang as she energetically looked + over Hugh's clothes. + </p> + <p> + The afternoon grew old and dark. Aunt Bessie went home. Carol took the + baby into her own room. The maid came in complaining, “I can't get no + extra milk to make chipped beef for supper.” Hugh was sleepy, and he had + been spoiled by Aunt Bessie. Even to a returned mother, his whining and + his trick of seven times snatching her silver brush were fatiguing. As a + background, behind the noises of Hugh and the kitchen, the house reeked + with a colorless stillness. + </p> + <p> + From the window she heard Kennicott greeting the Widow Bogart as he had + always done, always, every snowy evening: “Guess this 'll keep up all + night.” She waited. There they were, the furnace sounds, unalterable, + eternal: removing ashes, shoveling coal. + </p> + <p> + Yes. She was back home! Nothing had changed. She had never been away. + California? Had she seen it? Had she for one minute left this scraping + sound of the small shovel in the ash-pit of the furnace? But Kennicott + preposterously supposed that she had. Never had she been quite so far from + going away as now when he believed she had just come back. She felt oozing + through the walls the spirit of small houses and righteous people. At that + instant she knew that in running away she had merely hidden her doubts + behind the officious stir of travel. + </p> + <p> + “Dear God, don't let me begin agonizing again!” she sobbed. Hugh wept with + her. + </p> + <p> + “Wait for mummy a second!” She hastened down to the cellar, to Kennicott. + </p> + <p> + He was standing before the furnace. However inadequate the rest of the + house, he had seen to it that the fundamental cellar should be large and + clean, the square pillars whitewashed, and the bins for coal and potatoes + and trunks convenient. A glow from the drafts fell on the smooth gray + cement floor at his feet. He was whistling tenderly, staring at the + furnace with eyes which saw the black-domed monster as a symbol of home + and of the beloved routine to which he had returned—his gipsying + decently accomplished, his duty of viewing “sights” and “curios” performed + with thoroughness. Unconscious of her, he stooped and peered in at the + blue flames among the coals. He closed the door briskly, and made a + whirling gesture with his right hand, out of pure bliss. + </p> + <p> + He saw her. “Why, hello, old lady! Pretty darn good to be back, eh?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” she lied, while she quaked, “Not now. I can't face the job of + explaining now. He's been so good. He trusts me. And I'm going to break + his heart!” + </p> + <p> + She smiled at him. She tidied his sacred cellar by throwing an empty + bluing bottle into the trash bin. She mourned, “It's only the baby that + holds me. If Hugh died——” She fled upstairs in panic and made + sure that nothing had happened to Hugh in these four minutes. + </p> + <p> + She saw a pencil-mark on a window-sill. She had made it on a September day + when she had been planning a picnic for Fern Mullins and Erik. Fern and + she had been hysterical with nonsense, had invented mad parties for all + the coming winter. She glanced across the alley at the room which Fern had + occupied. A rag of a gray curtain masked the still window. + </p> + <p> + She tried to think of some one to whom she wanted to telephone. There was + no one. + </p> + <p> + The Sam Clarks called that evening and encouraged her to describe the + missions. A dozen times they told her how glad they were to have her back. + </p> + <p> + “It is good to be wanted,” she thought. “It will drug me. But——Oh, + is all life, always, an unresolved But?” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0035" id="link2HCH0035"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXXV + </h2> + <p> + SHE tried to be content, which was a contradiction in terms. She + fanatically cleaned house all April. She knitted a sweater for Hugh. She + was diligent at Red Cross work. She was silent when Vida raved that though + America hated war as much as ever, we must invade Germany and wipe out + every man, because it was now proven that there was no soldier in the + German army who was not crucifying prisoners and cutting off babies' + hands. + </p> + <p> + Carol was volunteer nurse when Mrs. Champ Perry suddenly died of + pneumonia. + </p> + <p> + In her funeral procession were the eleven people left out of the Grand + Army and the Territorial Pioneers, old men and women, very old and weak, + who a few decades ago had been boys and girls of the frontier, riding + broncos through the rank windy grass of this prairie. They hobbled behind + a band made up of business men and high-school boys, who straggled along + without uniforms or ranks or leader, trying to play Chopin's Funeral March—a + shabby group of neighbors with grave eyes, stumbling through the slush + under a solemnity of faltering music. + </p> + <p> + Champ was broken. His rheumatism was worse. The rooms over the store were + silent. He could not do his work as buyer at the elevator. Farmers coming + in with sled-loads of wheat complained that Champ could not read the + scale, that he seemed always to be watching some one back in the darkness + of the bins. He was seen slipping through alleys, talking to himself, + trying to avoid observation, creeping at last to the cemetery. Once Carol + followed him and found the coarse, tobacco-stained, unimaginative old man + lying on the snow of the grave, his thick arms spread out across the raw + mound as if to protect her from the cold, her whom he had carefully + covered up every night for sixty years, who was alone there now, uncared + for. + </p> + <p> + The elevator company, Ezra Stowbody president, let him go. The company, + Ezra explained to Carol, had no funds for giving pensions. + </p> + <p> + She tried to have him appointed to the postmastership, which, since all + the work was done by assistants, was the one sinecure in town, the one + reward for political purity. But it proved that Mr. Bert Tybee, the former + bartender, desired the postmastership. + </p> + <p> + At her solicitation Lyman Cass gave Champ a warm berth as night watchman. + Small boys played a good many tricks on Champ when he fell asleep at the + mill. + </p> + <p> + II + </p> + <p> + She had vicarious happiness in the return of Major Raymond Wutherspoon. He + was well, but still weak from having been gassed; he had been discharged + and he came home as the first of the war veterans. It was rumored that he + surprised Vida by coming unannounced, that Vida fainted when she saw him, + and for a night and day would not share him with the town. When Carol saw + them Vida was hazy about everything except Raymie, and never went so far + from him that she could not slip her hand under his. Without understanding + why Carol was troubled by this intensity. And Raymie—surely this was + not Raymie, but a sterner brother of his, this man with the tight blouse, + the shoulder emblems, the trim legs in boots. His face seemed different, + his lips more tight. He was not Raymie; he was Major Wutherspoon; and + Kennicott and Carol were grateful when he divulged that Paris wasn't half + as pretty as Minneapolis, that all of the American soldiers had been + distinguished by their morality when on leave. Kennicott was respectful as + he inquired whether the Germans had good aeroplanes, and what a salient + was, and a cootie, and Going West. + </p> + <p> + In a week Major Wutherspoon was made full manager of the Bon Ton. Harry + Haydock was going to devote himself to the half-dozen branch stores which + he was establishing at crossroads hamlets. Harry would be the town's rich + man in the coming generation, and Major Wutherspoon would rise with him, + and Vida was jubilant, though she was regretful at having to give up most + of her Red Cross work. Ray still needed nursing, she explained. + </p> + <p> + When Carol saw him with his uniform off, in a pepper-and salt suit and a + new gray felt hat, she was disappointed. He was not Major Wutherspoon; he + was Raymie. + </p> + <p> + For a month small boys followed him down the street, and everybody called + him Major, but that was presently shortened to Maje, and the small boys + did not look up from their marbles as he went by. + </p> + <p> + III + </p> + <p> + The town was booming, as a result of the war price of wheat. + </p> + <p> + The wheat money did not remain in the pockets of the farmers; the towns + existed to take care of all that. Iowa farmers were selling their land at + four hundred dollars an acre and coming into Minnesota. But whoever bought + or sold or mortgaged, the townsmen invited themselves to the feast—millers, + real-estate men, lawyers, merchants, and Dr. Will Kennicott. They bought + land at a hundred and fifty, sold it next day at a hundred and seventy, + and bought again. In three months Kennicott made seven thousand dollars, + which was rather more than four times as much as society paid him for + healing the sick. + </p> + <p> + In early summer began a “campaign of boosting.” The Commercial Club + decided that Gopher Prairie was not only a wheat-center but also the + perfect site for factories, summer cottages, and state institutions. In + charge of the campaign was Mr. James Blausser, who had recently come to + town to speculate in land. Mr. Blausser was known as a Hustler. He liked + to be called Honest Jim. He was a bulky, gauche, noisy, humorous man, with + narrow eyes, a rustic complexion, large red hands, and brilliant clothes. + He was attentive to all women. He was the first man in town who had not + been sensitive enough to feel Carol's aloofness. He put his arm about her + shoulder while he condescended to Kennicott, “Nice lil wifey, I'll say, + doc,” and when she answered, not warmly, “Thank you very much for the + imprimatur,” he blew on her neck, and did not know that he had been + insulted. + </p> + <p> + He was a layer-on of hands. He never came to the house without trying to + paw her. He touched her arm, let his fist brush her side. She hated the + man, and she was afraid of him. She wondered if he had heard of Erik, and + was taking advantage. She spoke ill of him at home and in public places, + but Kennicott and the other powers insisted, “Maybe he is kind of a + roughneck, but you got to hand it to him; he's got more git-up-and-git + than any fellow that ever hit this burg. And he's pretty cute, too. Hear + what he said to old Ezra? Chucked him in the ribs and said, 'Say, boy, + what do you want to go to Denver for? Wait 'll I get time and I'll move + the mountains here. Any mountain will be tickled to death to locate here + once we get the White Way in!'” + </p> + <p> + The town welcomed Mr. Blausser as fully as Carol snubbed him. He was the + guest of honor at the Commercial Club Banquet at the Minniemashie House, + an occasion for menus printed in gold (but injudiciously proof-read), for + free cigars, soft damp slabs of Lake Superior whitefish served as fillet + of sole, drenched cigar-ashes gradually filling the saucers of coffee + cups, and oratorical references to Pep, Punch, Go, Vigor, Enterprise, Red + Blood, He-Men, Fair Women, God's Country, James J. Hill, the Blue Sky, the + Green Fields, the Bountiful Harvest, Increasing Population, Fair Return on + Investments, Alien Agitators Who Threaten the Security of Our + Institutions, the Hearthstone the Foundation of the State, Senator Knute + Nelson, One Hundred Per Cent. Americanism, and Pointing with Pride. + </p> + <p> + Harry Haydock, as chairman, introduced Honest Jim Blausser. “And I am + proud to say, my fellow citizens, that in his brief stay here Mr. Blausser + has become my warm personal friend as well as my fellow booster, and I + advise you all to very carefully attend to the hints of a man who knows + how to achieve.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Blausser reared up like an elephant with a camel's neck—red + faced, red eyed, heavy fisted, slightly belching—a born leader, + divinely intended to be a congressman but deflected to the more lucrative + honors of real-estate. He smiled on his warm personal friends and fellow + boosters, and boomed: + </p> + <p> + “I certainly was astonished in the streets of our lovely little city, the + other day. I met the meanest kind of critter that God ever made—meaner + than the horned toad or the Texas lallapaluza! (Laughter.) And do you know + what the animile was? He was a knocker! (Laughter and applause.) + </p> + <p> + “I want to tell you good people, and it's just as sure as God made little + apples, the thing that distinguishes our American commonwealth from the + pikers and tin-horns in other countries is our Punch. You take a genuwine, + honest-to-God homo Americanibus and there ain't anything he's afraid to + tackle. Snap and speed are his middle name! He'll put her across if he has + to ride from hell to breakfast, and believe me, I'm mighty good and sorry + for the boob that's so unlucky as to get in his way, because that poor + slob is going to wonder where he was at when Old Mr. Cyclone hit town! + (Laughter.) + </p> + <p> + “Now, frien's, there's some folks so yellow and small and so few in the + pod that they go to work and claim that those of us that have the big + vision are off our trolleys. They say we can't make Gopher Prairie, God + bless her! just as big as Minneapolis or St. Paul or Duluth. But lemme + tell you right here and now that there ain't a town under the blue canopy + of heaven that's got a better chance to take a running jump and go + scooting right up into the two-hundred-thousand class than little old G. + P.! And if there's anybody that's got such cold kismets that he's afraid + to tag after Jim Blausser on the Big Going Up, then we don't want him + here! Way I figger it, you folks are just patriotic enough so that you + ain't going to stand for any guy sneering and knocking his own town, no + matter how much of a smart Aleck he is—and just on the side I want + to add that this Farmers' Nonpartisan League and the whole bunch of + socialists are right in the same category, or, as the fellow says, in the + same scategory, meaning This Way Out, Exit, Beat It While the Going's + Good, This Means You, for all knockers of prosperity and the rights of + property! + </p> + <p> + “Fellow citizens, there's a lot of folks, even right here in this fair + state, fairest and richest of all the glorious union, that stand up on + their hind legs and claim that the East and Europe put it all over the + golden Northwestland. Now let me nail that lie right here and now. + 'Ah-ha,' says they, 'so Jim Blausser is claiming that Gopher Prairie is as + good a place to live in as London and Rome and—and all the rest of + the Big Burgs, is he? How does the poor fish know?' says they. Well I'll + tell you how I know! I've seen 'em! I've done Europe from soup to nuts! + They can't spring that stuff on Jim Blausser and get away with it! And let + me tell you that the only live thing in Europe is our boys that are + fighting there now! London—I spent three days, sixteen straight + hours a day, giving London the once-over, and let me tell you that it's + nothing but a bunch of fog and out-of-date buildings that no live American + burg would stand for one minute. You may not believe it, but there ain't + one first-class skyscraper in the whole works. And the same thing goes for + that crowd of crabs and snobs Down East, and next time you hear some zob + from Yahooville-on-the-Hudson chewing the rag and bulling and trying to + get your goat, you tell him that no two-fisted enterprising Westerner + would have New York for a gift! + </p> + <p> + “Now the point of this is: I'm not only insisting that Gopher Prairie is + going to be Minnesota's pride, the brightest ray in the glory of the North + Star State, but also and furthermore that it is right now, and still more + shall be, as good a place to live in, and love in, and bring up the Little + Ones in, and it's got as much refinement and culture, as any burg on the + whole bloomin' expanse of God's Green Footstool, and that goes, get me, + that goes!” + </p> + <p> + Half an hour later Chairman Haydock moved a vote of thanks to Mr. + Blausser. + </p> + <p> + The boosters' campaign was on. + </p> + <p> + The town sought that efficient and modern variety of fame which is known + as “publicity.” The band was reorganized, and provided by the Commercial + Club with uniforms of purple and gold. The amateur baseball-team hired a + semi-professional pitcher from Des Moines, and made a schedule of games + with every town for fifty miles about. The citizens accompanied it as + “rooters,” in a special car, with banners lettered “Watch Gopher Prairie + Grow,” and with the band playing “Smile, Smile, Smile.” Whether the team + won or lost the Dauntless loyally shrieked, “Boost, Boys, and Boost + Together—Put Gopher Prairie on the Map—Brilliant Record of Our + Matchless Team.” + </p> + <p> + Then, glory of glories, the town put in a White Way. White Ways were in + fashion in the Middlewest. They were composed of ornamented posts with + clusters of high-powered electric lights along two or three blocks on Main + Street. The Dauntless confessed: “White Way Is Installed—Town Lit Up + Like Broadway—Speech by Hon. James Blausser—Come On You Twin + Cities—Our Hat Is In the Ring.” + </p> + <p> + The Commercial Club issued a booklet prepared by a great and expensive + literary person from a Minneapolis advertising agency, a red-headed young + man who smoked cigarettes in a long amber holder. Carol read the booklet + with a certain wonder. She learned that Plover and Minniemashie Lakes were + world-famed for their beauteous wooded shores and gamey pike and bass not + to be equalled elsewhere in the entire country; that the residences of + Gopher Prairie were models of dignity, comfort, and culture, with lawns + and gardens known far and wide; that the Gopher Prairie schools and public + library, in its neat and commodious building, were celebrated throughout + the state; that the Gopher Prairie mills made the best flour in the + country; that the surrounding farm lands were renowned, where'er men ate + bread and butter, for their incomparable No. 1 Hard Wheat and + Holstein-Friesian cattle; and that the stores in Gopher Prairie compared + favorably with Minneapolis and Chicago in their abundance of luxuries and + necessities and the ever-courteous attention of the skilled clerks. She + learned, in brief, that this was the one Logical Location for factories + and wholesale houses. + </p> + <p> + “THERE'S where I want to go; to that model town Gopher Prairie,” said + Carol. + </p> + <p> + Kennicott was triumphant when the Commercial Club did capture one small + shy factory which planned to make wooden automobile-wheels, but when Carol + saw the promoter she could not feel that his coming much mattered—and + a year after, when he failed, she could not be very sorrowful. + </p> + <p> + Retired farmers were moving into town. The price of lots had increased a + third. But Carol could discover no more pictures nor interesting food nor + gracious voices nor amusing conversation nor questing minds. She could, + she asserted, endure a shabby but modest town; the town shabby and + egomaniac she could not endure. She could nurse Champ Perry, and warm to + the neighborliness of Sam Clark, but she could not sit applauding Honest + Jim Blausser. Kennicott had begged her, in courtship days, to convert the + town to beauty. If it was now as beautiful as Mr. Blausser and the + Dauntless said, then her work was over, and she could go. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0036" id="link2HCH0036"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXXVI + </h2> + <p> + KENNICOTT was not so inhumanly patient that he could continue to forgive + Carol's heresies, to woo her as he had on the venture to California. She + tried to be inconspicuous, but she was betrayed by her failure to glow + over the boosting. Kennicott believed in it; demanded that she say + patriotic things about the White Way and the new factory. He snorted, “By + golly, I've done all I could, and now I expect you to play the game. Here + you been complaining for years about us being so poky, and now when + Blausser comes along and does stir up excitement and beautify the town + like you've always wanted somebody to, why, you say he's a roughneck, and + you won't jump on the band-wagon.” + </p> + <p> + Once, when Kennicott announced at noon-dinner, “What do you know about + this! They say there's a chance we may get another factory—cream-separator + works!” he added, “You might try to look interested, even if you ain't!” + The baby was frightened by the Jovian roar; ran wailing to hide his face + in Carol's lap; and Kennicott had to make himself humble and court both + mother and child. The dim injustice of not being understood even by his + son left him irritable. He felt injured. + </p> + <p> + An event which did not directly touch them brought down his wrath. + </p> + <p> + In the early autumn, news came from Wakamin that the sheriff had forbidden + an organizer for the National Nonpartisan League to speak anywhere in the + county. The organizer had defied the sheriff, and announced that in a few + days he would address a farmers' political meeting. That night, the news + ran, a mob of a hundred business men led by the sheriff—the tame + village street and the smug village faces ruddled by the light of bobbing + lanterns, the mob flowing between the squatty rows of shops—had + taken the organizer from his hotel, ridden him on a fence-rail, put him on + a freight train, and warned him not to return. + </p> + <p> + The story was threshed out in Dave Dyer's drug store, with Sam Clark, + Kennicott, and Carol present. + </p> + <p> + “That's the way to treat those fellows—only they ought to have + lynched him!” declared Sam, and Kennicott and Dave Dyer joined in a proud + “You bet!” + </p> + <p> + Carol walked out hastily, Kennicott observing her. + </p> + <p> + Through supper-time she knew that he was bubbling and would soon boil + over. When the baby was abed, and they sat composedly in canvas chairs on + the porch, he experimented; “I had a hunch you thought Sam was kind of + hard on that fellow they kicked out of Wakamin.” + </p> + <p> + “Wasn't Sam rather needlessly heroic?” + </p> + <p> + “All these organizers, yes, and a whole lot of the German and Squarehead + farmers themselves, they're seditious as the devil—disloyal, + non-patriotic, pro-German pacifists, that's what they are!” + </p> + <p> + “Did this organizer say anything pro-German?” + </p> + <p> + “Not on your life! They didn't give him a chance!” His laugh was stagey. + </p> + <p> + “So the whole thing was illegal—and led by the sheriff! Precisely + how do you expect these aliens to obey your law if the officer of the law + teaches them to break it? Is it a new kind of logic?” + </p> + <p> + “Maybe it wasn't exactly regular, but what's the odds? They knew this + fellow would try to stir up trouble. Whenever it comes right down to a + question of defending Americanism and our constitutional rights, it's + justifiable to set aside ordinary procedure.” + </p> + <p> + “What editorial did he get that from?” she wondered, as she protested, + “See here, my beloved, why can't you Tories declare war honestly? You + don't oppose this organizer because you think he's seditious but because + you're afraid that the farmers he is organizing will deprive you townsmen + of the money you make out of mortgages and wheat and shops. Of course, + since we're at war with Germany, anything that any one of us doesn't like + is 'pro-German,' whether it's business competition or bad music. If we + were fighting England, you'd call the radicals 'pro-English.' When this + war is over, I suppose you'll be calling them 'red anarchists.' What an + eternal art it is—such a glittery delightful art—finding hard + names for our opponents! How we do sanctify our efforts to keep them from + getting the holy dollars we want for ourselves! The churches have always + done it, and the political orators—and I suppose I do it when I call + Mrs. Bogart a 'Puritan' and Mr. Stowbody a 'capitalist.' But you business + men are going to beat all the rest of us at it, with your simple-hearted, + energetic, pompous——” + </p> + <p> + She got so far only because Kennicott was slow in shaking off respect for + her. Now he bayed: + </p> + <p> + “That'll be about all from you! I've stood for your sneering at this town, + and saying how ugly and dull it is. I've stood for your refusing to + appreciate good fellows like Sam. I've even stood for your ridiculing our + Watch Gopher Prairie Grow campaign. But one thing I'm not going to stand: + I'm not going to stand my own wife being seditious. You can camouflage all + you want to, but you know darn well that these radicals, as you call 'em, + are opposed to the war, and let me tell you right here and now, and you + and all these long-haired men and short-haired women can beef all you want + to, but we're going to take these fellows, and if they ain't patriotic, + we're going to make them be patriotic. And—Lord knows I never + thought I'd have to say this to my own wife—but if you go defending + these fellows, then the same thing applies to you! Next thing, I suppose + you'll be yapping about free speech. Free speech! There's too much free + speech and free gas and free beer and free love and all the rest of your + damned mouthy freedom, and if I had my way I'd make you folks live up to + the established rules of decency even if I had to take you——” + </p> + <p> + “Will!” She was not timorous now. “Am I pro-German if I fail to throb to + Honest Jim Blausser, too? Let's have my whole duty as a wife!” + </p> + <p> + He was grumbling, “The whole thing's right in line with the criticism + you've always been making. Might have known you'd oppose any decent + constructive work for the town or for——” + </p> + <p> + “You're right. All I've done has been in line. I don't belong to Gopher + Prairie. That isn't meant as a condemnation of Gopher Prairie, and it may + be a condemnation of me. All right! I don't care! I don't belong here, and + I'm going. I'm not asking permission any more. I'm simply going.” + </p> + <p> + He grunted. “Do you mind telling me, if it isn't too much trouble, how + long you're going for?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know. Perhaps for a year. Perhaps for a lifetime.” + </p> + <p> + “I see. Well, of course, I'll be tickled to death to sell out my practise + and go anywhere you say. Would you like to have me go with you to Paris + and study art, maybe, and wear velveteen pants and a woman's bonnet, and + live on spaghetti?” + </p> + <p> + “No, I think we can save you that trouble. You don't quite understand. I + am going—I really am—and alone! I've got to find out what my + work is——” + </p> + <p> + “Work? Work? Sure! That's the whole trouble with you! You haven't got + enough work to do. If you had five kids and no hired girl, and had to help + with the chores and separate the cream, like these farmers' wives, then + you wouldn't be so discontented.” + </p> + <p> + “I know. That's what most men—and women—like you WOULD say. + That's how they would explain all I am and all I want. And I shouldn't + argue with them. These business men, from their crushing labors of sitting + in an office seven hours a day, would calmly recommend that I have a dozen + children. As it happens, I've done that sort of thing. There've been a + good many times when we hadn't a maid, and I did all the housework, and + cared for Hugh, and went to Red Cross, and did it all very efficiently. + I'm a good cook and a good sweeper, and you don't dare say I'm not!” + </p> + <p> + “N-no, you're——” + </p> + <p> + “But was I more happy when I was drudging? I was not. I was just + bedraggled and unhappy. It's work—but not my work. I could run an + office or a library, or nurse and teach children. But solitary + dish-washing isn't enough to satisfy me—or many other women. We're + going to chuck it. We're going to wash 'em by machinery, and come out and + play with you men in the offices and clubs and politics you've cleverly + kept for yourselves! Oh, we're hopeless, we dissatisfied women! Then why + do you want to have us about the place, to fret you? So it's for your sake + that I'm going!” + </p> + <p> + “Of course a little thing like Hugh makes no difference!” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, all the difference. That's why I'm going to take him with me.” + </p> + <p> + “Suppose I refuse?” + </p> + <p> + “You won't!” + </p> + <p> + Forlornly, “Uh——Carrie, what the devil is it you want, + anyway?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, conversation! No, it's much more than that. I think it's a greatness + of life—a refusal to be content with even the healthiest mud.” + </p> + <p> + “Don't you know that nobody ever solved a problem by running away from + it?” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps. Only I choose to make my own definition of 'running away' I + don't call——Do you realize how big a world there is beyond + this Gopher Prairie where you'd keep me all my life? It may be that some + day I'll come back, but not till I can bring something more than I have + now. And even if I am cowardly and run away—all right, call it + cowardly, call me anything you want to! I've been ruled too long by fear + of being called things. I'm going away to be quiet and think. I'm—I'm + going! I have a right to my own life.” + </p> + <p> + “So have I to mine!” + </p> + <p> + “Well?” + </p> + <p> + “I have a right to my life—and you're it, you're my life! You've + made yourself so. I'm damned if I'll agree to all your freak notions, but + I will say I've got to depend on you. Never thought of that complication, + did you, in this 'off to Bohemia, and express yourself, and free love, and + live your own life' stuff!” + </p> + <p> + “You have a right to me if you can keep me. Can you?” + </p> + <p> + He moved uneasily. + </p> + <p> + II + </p> + <p> + For a month they discussed it. They hurt each other very much, and + sometimes they were close to weeping, and invariably he used banal phrases + about her duties and she used phrases quite as banal about freedom, and + through it all, her discovery that she really could get away from Main + Street was as sweet as the discovery of love. Kennicott never consented + definitely. At most he agreed to a public theory that she was “going to + take a short trip and see what the East was like in wartime.” + </p> + <p> + She set out for Washington in October—just before the war ended. + </p> + <p> + She had determined on Washington because it was less intimidating than the + obvious New York, because she hoped to find streets in which Hugh could + play, and because in the stress of war-work, with its demand for thousands + of temporary clerks, she could be initiated into the world of offices. + </p> + <p> + Hugh was to go with her, despite the wails and rather extensive comments + of Aunt Bessie. + </p> + <p> + She wondered if she might not encounter Erik in the East but it was a + chance thought, soon forgotten. + </p> + <p> + III + </p> + <p> + The last thing she saw on the station platform was Kennicott, faithfully + waving his hand, his face so full of uncomprehending loneliness that he + could not smile but only twitch up his lips. She waved to him as long as + she could, and when he was lost she wanted to leap from the vestibule and + run back to him. She thought of a hundred tendernesses she had neglected. + </p> + <p> + She had her freedom, and it was empty. The moment was not the highest of + her life, but the lowest and most desolate, which was altogether + excellent, for instead of slipping downward she began to climb. + </p> + <p> + She sighed, “I couldn't do this if it weren't for Will's kindness, his + giving me money.” But a second after: “I wonder how many women would + always stay home if they had the money?” + </p> + <p> + Hugh complained, “Notice me, mummy!” He was beside her on the red plush + seat of the day-coach; a boy of three and a half. “I'm tired of playing + train. Let's play something else. Let's go see Auntie Bogart.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, NO! Do you really like Mrs. Bogart?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. She gives me cookies and she tells me about the Dear Lord. You never + tell me about the Dear Lord. Why don't you tell me about the Dear Lord? + Auntie Bogart says I'm going to be a preacher. Can I be a preacher? Can I + preach about the Dear Lord?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, please wait till my generation has stopped rebelling before yours + starts in!” + </p> + <p> + “What's a generation?” + </p> + <p> + “It's a ray in the illumination of the spirit.” + </p> + <p> + “That's foolish.” He was a serious and literal person, and rather + humorless. She kissed his frown, and marveled: + </p> + <p> + “I am running away from my husband, after liking a Swedish ne'er-do-well + and expressing immoral opinions, just as in a romantic story. And my own + son reproves me because I haven't given him religious instruction. But the + story doesn't go right. I'm neither groaning nor being dramatically saved. + I keep on running away, and I enjoy it. I'm mad with joy over it. Gopher + Prairie is lost back there in the dust and stubble, and I look forward——” + </p> + <p> + She continued it to Hugh: “Darling, do you know what mother and you are + going to find beyond the blue horizon rim?” + </p> + <p> + “What?” flatly. + </p> + <p> + “We're going to find elephants with golden howdahs from which peep young + maharanees with necklaces of rubies, and a dawn sea colored like the + breast of a dove, and a white and green house filled with books and silver + tea-sets.” + </p> + <p> + “And cookies?” + </p> + <p> + “Cookies? Oh, most decidedly cookies. We've had enough of bread and + porridge. We'd get sick on too many cookies, but ever so much sicker on no + cookies at all.” + </p> + <p> + “That's foolish.” + </p> + <p> + “It is, O male Kennicott!” + </p> + <p> + “Huh!” said Kennicott II, and went to sleep on her shoulder. + </p> + <p> + IV + </p> + <p> + The theory of the Dauntless regarding Carol's absence: + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Will Kennicott and son Hugh left on No. 24 on Saturday last for a + stay of some months in Minneapolis, Chicago, New York and Washington. Mrs. + Kennicott confided to <i>Ye Scribe</i> that she will be connected with one + of the multifarious war activities now centering in the Nation's Capital + for a brief period before returning. Her countless friends who appreciate + her splendid labors with the local Red Cross realize how valuable she will + be to any war board with which she chooses to become connected. Gopher + Prairie thus adds another shining star to its service flag and without + wishing to knock any neighboring communities, we would like to know any + town of anywheres near our size in the state that has such a sterling war + record. Another reason why you'd better Watch Gopher Prairie Grow. + </p> + <p> + * * * + </p> + <p> + Mr. and Mrs. David Dyer, Mrs. Dyer's sister, Mrs. Jennie Dayborn of + Jackrabbit, and Dr. Will Kennicott drove to Minniemashie on Tuesday for a + delightful picnic. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0037" id="link2HCH0037"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXXVII + </h2> + <h3> + I + </h3> + <p> + SHE found employment in the Bureau of War Risk Insurance. Though the + armistice with Germany was signed a few weeks after her coming to + Washington, the work of the bureau continued. She filed correspondence all + day; then she dictated answers to letters of inquiry. It was an endurance + of monotonous details, yet she asserted that she had found “real work.” + </p> + <p> + Disillusions she did have. She discovered that in the afternoon, office + routine stretches to the grave. She discovered that an office is as full + of cliques and scandals as a Gopher Prairie. She discovered that most of + the women in the government bureaus lived unhealthfully, dining on + snatches in their crammed apartments. But she also discovered that + business women may have friendships and enmities as frankly as men and may + revel in a bliss which no housewife attains—a free Sunday. It did + not appear that the Great World needed her inspiration, but she felt that + her letters, her contact with the anxieties of men and women all over the + country, were a part of vast affairs, not confined to Main Street and a + kitchen but linked with Paris, Bangkok, Madrid. + </p> + <p> + She perceived that she could do office work without losing any of the + putative feminine virtue of domesticity; that cooking and cleaning, when + divested of the fussing of an Aunt Bessie, take but a tenth of the time + which, in a Gopher Prairie, it is but decent to devote to them. + </p> + <p> + Not to have to apologize for her thoughts to the Jolly Seventeen, not to + have to report to Kennicott at the end of the day all that she had done or + might do, was a relief which made up for the office weariness. She felt + that she was no longer one-half of a marriage but the whole of a human + being. + </p> + <p> + II + </p> + <p> + Washington gave her all the graciousness in which she had had faith: white + columns seen across leafy parks, spacious avenues, twisty alleys. Daily + she passed a dark square house with a hint of magnolias and a courtyard + behind it, and a tall curtained second-story window through which a woman + was always peering. The woman was mystery, romance, a story which told + itself differently every day; now she was a murderess, now the neglected + wife of an ambassador. It was mystery which Carol had most lacked in + Gopher Prairie, where every house was open to view, where every person was + but too easy to meet, where there were no secret gates opening upon moors + over which one might walk by moss-deadened paths to strange high + adventures in an ancient garden. + </p> + <p> + As she flitted up Sixteenth Street after a Kreisler recital, given late in + the afternoon for the government clerks, as the lamps kindled in spheres + of soft fire, as the breeze flowed into the street, fresh as prairie winds + and kindlier, as she glanced up the elm alley of Massachusetts Avenue, as + she was rested by the integrity of the Scottish Rite Temple, she loved the + city as she loved no one save Hugh. She encountered negro shanties turned + into studios, with orange curtains and pots of mignonette; marble houses + on New Hampshire Avenue, with butlers and limousines; and men who looked + like fictional explorers and aviators. Her days were swift, and she knew + that in her folly of running away she had found the courage to be wise. + </p> + <p> + She had a dispiriting first month of hunting lodgings in the crowded city. + She had to roost in a hall-room in a moldy mansion conducted by an + indignant decayed gentlewoman, and leave Hugh to the care of a doubtful nurse. + But later she made a home. + </p> + <p> + III + </p> + <p> + Her first acquaintances were the members of the Tincomb Methodist Church, + a vast red-brick tabernacle. Vida Sherwin had given her a letter to an + earnest woman with eye-glasses, plaid silk waist, and a belief in Bible + Classes, who introduced her to the Pastor and the Nicer Members of + Tincomb. Carol recognized in Washington as she had in California a + transplanted and guarded Main Street. Two-thirds of the church-members had + come from Gopher Prairies. The church was their society and their + standard; they went to Sunday service, Sunday School, Christian Endeavor, + missionary lectures, church suppers, precisely as they had at home; they + agreed that ambassadors and flippant newspapermen and infidel scientists + of the bureaus were equally wicked and to be avoided; and by cleaving to + Tincomb Church they kept their ideals from all contamination. + </p> + <p> + They welcomed Carol, asked about her husband, gave her advice regarding + colic in babies, passed her the gingerbread and scalloped potatoes at + church suppers, and in general made her very unhappy and lonely, so that + she wondered if she might not enlist in the militant suffrage organization + and be allowed to go to jail. + </p> + <p> + Always she was to perceive in Washington (as doubtless she would have + perceived in New York or London) a thick streak of Main Street. The + cautious dullness of a Gopher Prairie appeared in boarding-houses where + ladylike bureau-clerks gossiped to polite young army officers about the + movies; a thousand Sam Clarks and a few Widow Bogarts were to be + identified in the Sunday motor procession, in theater parties, and at the + dinners of State Societies, to which the emigres from Texas or Michigan + surged that they might confirm themselves in the faith that their several + Gopher Prairies were notoriously “a whole lot peppier and chummier than + this stuck-up East.” + </p> + <p> + But she found a Washington which did not cleave to Main Street. + </p> + <p> + Guy Pollock wrote to a cousin, a temporary army captain, a confiding and + buoyant lad who took Carol to tea-dances, and laughed, as she had always + wanted some one to laugh, about nothing in particular. The captain + introduced her to the secretary of a congressman, a cynical young widow + with many acquaintances in the navy. Through her Carol met commanders and + majors, newspapermen, chemists and geographers and fiscal experts from the + bureaus, and a teacher who was a familiar of the militant suffrage + headquarters. The teacher took her to headquarters. Carol never became a + prominent suffragist. Indeed her only recognized position was as an able + addresser of envelopes. But she was casually adopted by this family of + friendly women who, when they were not being mobbed or arrested, took + dancing lessons or went picnicking up the Chesapeake Canal or talked about + the politics of the American Federation of Labor. + </p> + <p> + With the congressman's secretary and the teacher Carol leased a small + flat. Here she found home, her own place and her own people. She had, + though it absorbed most of her salary, an excellent nurse for Hugh. She + herself put him to bed and played with him on holidays. There were walks + with him, there were motionless evenings of reading, but chiefly + Washington was associated with people, scores of them, sitting about the + flat, talking, talking, talking, not always wisely but always excitedly. + It was not at all the “artist's studio” of which, because of its + persistence in fiction, she had dreamed. Most of them were in offices all + day, and thought more in card-catalogues or statistics than in mass and + color. But they played, very simply, and they saw no reason why anything + which exists cannot also be acknowledged. + </p> + <p> + She was sometimes shocked quite as she had shocked Gopher Prairie by these + girls with their cigarettes and elfish knowledge. When they were most + eager about soviets or canoeing, she listened, longed to have some special + learning which would distinguish her, and sighed that her adventure had + come so late. Kennicott and Main Street had drained her self-reliance; the + presence of Hugh made her feel temporary. Some day—oh, she'd have to + take him back to open fields and the right to climb about hay-lofts. + </p> + <p> + But the fact that she could never be eminent among these scoffing + enthusiasts did not keep her from being proud of them, from defending them + in imaginary conversations with Kennicott, who grunted (she could hear his + voice), “They're simply a bunch of wild impractical theorists sittin' + round chewing the rag,” and “I haven't got the time to chase after a lot + of these fool fads; I'm too busy putting aside a stake for our old age.” + </p> + <p> + Most of the men who came to the flat, whether they were army officers or + radicals who hated the army, had the easy gentleness, the acceptance of + women without embarrassed banter, for which she had longed in Gopher + Prairie. Yet they seemed to be as efficient as the Sam Clarks. She + concluded that it was because they were of secure reputation, not hemmed + in by the fire of provincial jealousies. Kennicott had asserted that the + villager's lack of courtesy is due to his poverty. “We're no millionaire + dudes,” he boasted. Yet these army and navy men, these bureau experts, and + organizers of multitudinous leagues, were cheerful on three or four + thousand a year, while Kennicott had, outside of his land speculations, + six thousand or more, and Sam had eight. + </p> + <p> + Nor could she upon inquiry learn that many of this reckless race died in + the poorhouse. That institution is reserved for men like Kennicott who, + after devoting fifty years to “putting aside a stake,” incontinently + invest the stake in spurious oil-stocks. + </p> + <p> + IV + </p> + <p> + She was encouraged to believe that she had not been abnormal in viewing + Gopher Prairie as unduly tedious and slatternly. She found the same faith + not only in girls escaped from domesticity but also in demure old ladies + who, tragically deprived of esteemed husbands and huge old houses, yet + managed to make a very comfortable thing of it by living in small flats + and having time to read. + </p> + <p> + But she also learned that by comparison Gopher Prairie was a model of + daring color, clever planning, and frenzied intellectuality. From her + teacher-housemate she had a sardonic description of a Middlewestern + railroad-division town, of the same size as Gopher Prairie but devoid of + lawns and trees, a town where the tracks sprawled along the cinder-scabbed + Main Street, and the railroad shops, dripping soot from eaves and doorway, + rolled out smoke in greasy coils. + </p> + <p> + Other towns she came to know by anecdote: a prairie village where the wind + blew all day long, and the mud was two feet thick in spring, and in summer + the flying sand scarred new-painted houses and dust covered the few + flowers set out in pots. New England mill-towns with the hands living in + rows of cottages like blocks of lava. A rich farming-center in New Jersey, + off the railroad, furiously pious, ruled by old men, unbelievably ignorant + old men, sitting about the grocery talking of James G. Blaine. A Southern + town, full of the magnolias and white columns which Carol had accepted as + proof of romance, but hating the negroes, obsequious to the Old Families. + A Western mining-settlement like a tumor. A booming semi-city with parks + and clever architects, visited by famous pianists and unctuous lecturers, + but irritable from a struggle between union labor and the manufacturers' + association, so that in even the gayest of the new houses there was a + ceaseless and intimidating heresy-hunt. + </p> + <p> + V + </p> + <p> + The chart which plots Carol's progress is not easy to read. The lines are + broken and uncertain of direction; often instead of rising they sink in + wavering scrawls; and the colors are watery blue and pink and the dim gray + of rubbed pencil marks. A few lines are traceable. + </p> + <p> + Unhappy women are given to protecting their sensitiveness by cynical + gossip, by whining, by high-church and new-thought religions, or by a fog + of vagueness. Carol had hidden in none of these refuges from reality, but + she, who was tender and merry, had been made timorous by Gopher Prairie. + Even her flight had been but the temporary courage of panic. The thing she + gained in Washington was not information about office-systems and labor + unions but renewed courage, that amiable contempt called poise. Her + glimpse of tasks involving millions of people and a score of nations + reduced Main Street from bloated importance to its actual pettiness. She + could never again be quite so awed by the power with which she herself had + endowed the Vidas and Blaussers and Bogarts. + </p> + <p> + From her work and from her association with women who had organized + suffrage associations in hostile cities, or had defended political + prisoners, she caught something of an impersonal attitude; saw that she + had been as touchily personal as Maud Dyer. + </p> + <p> + And why, she began to ask, did she rage at individuals? Not individuals + but institutions are the enemies, and they most afflict the disciples who + the most generously serve them. They insinuate their tyranny under a + hundred guises and pompous names, such as Polite Society, the Family, the + Church, Sound Business, the Party, the Country, the Superior White Race; + and the only defense against them, Carol beheld, is unembittered laughter. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0038" id="link2HCH0038"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXXVIII + </h2> + <p> + SHE had lived in Washington for a year. She was tired of the office. It + was tolerable, far more tolerable than housework, but it was not + adventurous. + </p> + <p> + She was having tea and cinnamon toast, alone at a small round table on the + balcony of Rauscher's Confiserie. Four debutantes clattered in. She had + felt young and dissipated, had thought rather well of her black and + leaf-green suit, but as she watched them, thin of ankle, soft under the + chin, seventeen or eighteen at most, smoking cigarettes with the correct + ennui and talking of “bedroom farces” and their desire to “run up to New + York and see something racy,” she became old and rustic and plain, and + desirous of retreating from these hard brilliant children to a life easier + and more sympathetic. When they flickered out and one child gave orders to + a chauffeur, Carol was not a defiant philosopher but a faded government + clerk from Gopher Prairie, Minnesota. + </p> + <p> + She started dejectedly up Connecticut Avenue. She stopped, her heart + stopped. Coming toward her were Harry and Juanita Haydock. She ran to + them, she kissed Juanita, while Harry confided, “Hadn't expected to come + to Washington—had to go to New York for some buying—didn't + have your address along—just got in this morning—wondered how + in the world we could get hold of you.” + </p> + <p> + She was definitely sorry to hear that they were to leave at nine that + evening, and she clung to them as long as she could. She took them to St. + Mark's for dinner. Stooped, her elbows on the table, she heard with + excitement that “Cy Bogart had the 'flu, but of course he was too gol-darn + mean to die of it.” + </p> + <p> + “Will wrote me that Mr. Blausser has gone away. How did he get on?” + </p> + <p> + “Fine! Fine! Great loss to the town. There was a real public-spirited + fellow, all right!” + </p> + <p> + She discovered that she now had no opinions whatever about Mr. Blausser, + and she said sympathetically, “Will you keep up the town-boosting + campaign?” + </p> + <p> + Harry fumbled, “Well, we've dropped it just temporarily, but—sure + you bet! Say, did the doc write you about the luck B. J. Gougerling had + hunting ducks down in Texas?” + </p> + <p> + When the news had been told and their enthusiasm had slackened she looked + about and was proud to be able to point out a senator, to explain the + cleverness of the canopied garden. She fancied that a man with dinner-coat + and waxed mustache glanced superciliously at Harry's highly form-fitting + bright-brown suit and Juanita's tan silk frock, which was doubtful at the + seams. She glared back, defending her own, daring the world not to + appreciate them. + </p> + <p> + Then, waving to them, she lost them down the long train shed. She stood + reading the list of stations: Harrisburg, Pittsburg, Chicago. Beyond + Chicago——? She saw the lakes and stubble fields, heard the + rhythm of insects and the creak of a buggy, was greeted by Sam Clark's + “Well, well, how's the little lady?” + </p> + <p> + Nobody in Washington cared enough for her to fret about her sins as Sam + did. + </p> + <p> + But that night they had at the flat a man just back from Finland. + </p> + <p> + II + </p> + <p> + She was on the Powhatan roof with the captain. At a table, somewhat + vociferously buying improbable “soft drinks” for two fluffy girls, was a + man with a large familiar back. + </p> + <p> + “Oh! I think I know him,” she murmured. + </p> + <p> + “Who? There? Oh, Bresnahan, Percy Bresnahan.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. You've met him? What sort of a man is he?” + </p> + <p> + “He's a good-hearted idiot. I rather like him, and I believe that as a + salesman of motors he's a wonder. But he's a nuisance in the aeronautic + section. Tries so hard to be useful but he doesn't know anything—he + doesn't know anything. Rather pathetic: rich man poking around and trying + to be useful. Do you want to speak to him?” + </p> + <p> + “No—no—I don't think so.” + </p> + <p> + III + </p> + <p> + She was at a motion-picture show. The film was a highly advertised and + abysmal thing smacking of simpering hair-dressers, cheap perfume, + red-plush suites on the back streets of tenderloins, and complacent fat + women chewing gum. It pretended to deal with the life of studios. The + leading man did a portrait which was a masterpiece. He also saw visions in + pipe-smoke, and was very brave and poor and pure. He had ringlets, and his + masterpiece was strangely like an enlarged photograph. + </p> + <p> + Carol prepared to leave. + </p> + <p> + On the screen, in the role of a composer, appeared an actor called Eric + Valour. + </p> + <p> + She was startled, incredulous, then wretched. Looking straight out at her, + wearing a beret and a velvet jacket, was Erik Valborg. + </p> + <p> + He had a pale part, which he played neither well nor badly. She + speculated, “I could have made so much of him——” She did not + finish her speculation. + </p> + <p> + She went home and read Kennicott's letters. They had seemed stiff and + undetailed, but now there strode from them a personality, a personality + unlike that of the languishing young man in the velvet jacket playing a + dummy piano in a canvas room. + </p> + <p> + IV + </p> + <p> + Kennicott first came to see her in November, thirteen months after her + arrival in Washington. When he announced that he was coming she was not at + all sure that she wished to see him. She was glad that he had made the + decision himself. + </p> + <p> + She had leave from the office for two days. + </p> + <p> + She watched him marching from the train, solid, assured, carrying his + heavy suit-case, and she was diffident—he was such a bulky person to + handle. They kissed each other questioningly, and said at the same time, + “You're looking fine; how's the baby?” and “You're looking awfully well, + dear; how is everything?” + </p> + <p> + He grumbled, “I don't want to butt in on any plans you've made or your + friends or anything, but if you've got time for it, I'd like to chase + around Washington, and take in some restaurants and shows and stuff, and + forget work for a while.” + </p> + <p> + She realized, in the taxicab, that he was wearing a soft gray suit, a soft + easy hat, a flippant tie. + </p> + <p> + “Like the new outfit? Got 'em in Chicago. Gosh, I hope they're the kind + you like.” + </p> + <p> + They spent half an hour at the flat, with Hugh. She was flustered, but he + gave no sign of kissing her again. + </p> + <p> + As he moved about the small rooms she realized that he had had his new tan + shoes polished to a brassy luster. There was a recent cut on his chin. He + must have shaved on the train just before coming into Washington. + </p> + <p> + It was pleasant to feel how important she was, how many people she + recognized, as she took him to the Capitol, as she told him (he asked and + she obligingly guessed) how many feet it was to the top of the dome, as + she pointed out Senator LaFollette and the vice-president, and at + lunch-time showed herself an habitue by leading him through the catacombs + to the senate restaurant. + </p> + <p> + She realized that he was slightly more bald. The familiar way in which his + hair was parted on the left side agitated her. She looked down at his + hands, and the fact that his nails were as ill-treated as ever touched her + more than his pleading shoe-shine. + </p> + <p> + “You'd like to motor down to Mount Vernon this afternoon, wouldn't you?” + she said. + </p> + <p> + It was the one thing he had planned. He was delighted that it seemed to be + a perfectly well bred and Washingtonian thing to do. + </p> + <p> + He shyly held her hand on the way, and told her the news: they were + excavating the basement for the new schoolbuilding, Vida “made him tired + the way she always looked at the Maje,” poor Chet Dashaway had been killed + in a motor accident out on the Coast. He did not coax her to like him. At + Mount Vernon he admired the paneled library and Washington's dental tools. + </p> + <p> + She knew that he would want oysters, that he would have heard of Harvey's + apropos of Grant and Blaine, and she took him there. At dinner his hearty + voice, his holiday enjoyment of everything, turned into nervousness in his + desire to know a number of interesting matters, such as whether they still + were married. But he did not ask questions, and he said nothing about her + returning. He cleared his throat and observed, “Oh say, been trying out + the old camera. Don't you think these are pretty good?” + </p> + <p> + He tossed over to her thirty prints of Gopher Prairie and the country + about. Without defense, she was thrown into it. She remembered that he had + lured her with photographs in courtship days; she made a note of his + sameness, his satisfaction with the tactics which had proved good before; + but she forgot it in the familiar places. She was seeing the sun-speckled + ferns among birches on the shore of Minniemashie, wind-rippled miles of + wheat, the porch of their own house where Hugh had played, Main Street + where she knew every window and every face. + </p> + <p> + She handed them back, with praise for his photography, and he talked of + lenses and time-exposures. + </p> + <p> + Dinner was over and they were gossiping of her friends at the flat, but an + intruder was with them, sitting back, persistent, inescapable. She could + not endure it. She stammered: + </p> + <p> + “I had you check your bag at the station because I wasn't quite sure where + you'd stay. I'm dreadfully sorry we haven't room to put you up at the + flat. We ought to have seen about a room for you before. Don't you think + you better call up the Willard or the Washington now?” + </p> + <p> + He peered at her cloudily. Without words he asked, without speech she + answered, whether she was also going to the Willard or the Washington. But + she tried to look as though she did not know that they were debating + anything of the sort. She would have hated him had he been meek about it. + But he was neither meek nor angry. However impatient he may have been with + her blandness he said readily: + </p> + <p> + “Yes, guess I better do that. Excuse me a second. Then how about grabbing + a taxi (Gosh, isn't it the limit the way these taxi shuffers skin around a + corner? Got more nerve driving than I have!) and going up to your flat for + a while? Like to meet your friends—must be fine women—and I + might take a look and see how Hugh sleeps. Like to know how he breathes. + Don't think he has adenoids, but I better make sure, eh?” He patted her + shoulder. + </p> + <p> + At the flat they found her two housemates and a girl who had been to jail + for suffrage. Kennicott fitted in surprisingly. He laughed at the girl's + story of the humors of a hunger-strike; he told the secretary what to do + when her eyes were tired from typing; and the teacher asked him—not + as the husband of a friend but as a physician—whether there was + “anything to this inoculation for colds.” + </p> + <p> + His colloquialisms seemed to Carol no more lax than their habitual slang. + </p> + <p> + Like an older brother he kissed her good-night in the midst of the + company. + </p> + <p> + “He's terribly nice,” said her housemates, and waited for confidences. + They got none, nor did her own heart. She could find nothing definite to + agonize about. She felt that she was no longer analyzing and controlling + forces, but swept on by them. + </p> + <p> + He came to the flat for breakfast, and washed the dishes. That was her + only occasion for spite. Back home he never thought of washing dishes! + </p> + <p> + She took him to the obvious “sights”—the Treasury, the Monument, the + Corcoran Gallery, the Pan-American Building, the Lincoln Memorial, with + the Potomac beyond it and the Arlington hills and the columns of the Lee + Mansion. For all his willingness to play there was over him a melancholy + which piqued her. His normally expressionless eyes had depths to them now, + and strangeness. As they walked through Lafayette Square, looking past the + Jackson statue at the lovely tranquil facade of the White House, he + sighed, “I wish I'd had a shot at places like this. When I was in the U., + I had to earn part of my way, and when I wasn't doing that or studying, I + guess I was roughhousing. My gang were a great bunch for bumming around + and raising Cain. Maybe if I'd been caught early and sent to concerts and + all that——Would I have been what you call intelligent?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, my dear, don't be humble! You are intelligent! For instance, you're + the most thorough doctor——” + </p> + <p> + He was edging about something he wished to say. He pounced on it: + </p> + <p> + “You did like those pictures of G. P. pretty well, after all, didn't you!” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, of course.” + </p> + <p> + “Wouldn't be so bad to have a glimpse of the old town, would it!” + </p> + <p> + “No, it wouldn't. Just as I was terribly glad to see the Haydocks. But + please understand me! That doesn't mean that I withdraw all my criticisms. + The fact that I might like a glimpse of old friends hasn't any particular + relation to the question of whether Gopher Prairie oughtn't to have + festivals and lamb chops.” + </p> + <p> + Hastily, “No, no! Sure not. I und'stand.” + </p> + <p> + “But I know it must have been pretty tiresome to have to live with anybody + as perfect as I was.” + </p> + <p> + He grinned. She liked his grin. + </p> + <p> + V + </p> + <p> + He was thrilled by old negro coachmen, admirals, aeroplanes, the building + to which his income tax would eventually go, a Rolls-Royce, Lynnhaven + oysters, the Supreme Court Room, a New York theatrical manager down for + the try-out of a play, the house where Lincoln died, the cloaks of Italian + officers, the barrows at which clerks buy their box-lunches at noon, the + barges on the Chesapeake Canal, and the fact that District of Columbia + cars had both District and Maryland licenses. + </p> + <p> + She resolutely took him to her favorite white and green cottages and + Georgian houses. He admitted that fanlights, and white shutters against + rosy brick, were more homelike than a painty wooden box. He volunteered, + “I see how you mean. They make me think of these pictures of an + old-fashioned Christmas. Oh, if you keep at it long enough you'll have Sam + and me reading poetry and everything. Oh say, d' I tell you about this + fierce green Jack Elder's had his machine painted?” + </p> + <p> + VI + </p> + <p> + They were at dinner. + </p> + <p> + He hinted, “Before you showed me those places today, I'd already made up + my mind that when I built the new house we used to talk about, I'd fix it + the way you wanted it. I'm pretty practical about foundations and + radiation and stuff like that, but I guess I don't know a whole lot about + architecture.” + </p> + <p> + “My dear, it occurs to me with a sudden shock that I don't either!” + </p> + <p> + “Well—anyway—you let me plan the garage and the plumbing, and + you do the rest, if you ever—I mean—if you ever want to.” + </p> + <p> + Doubtfully, “That's sweet of you.” + </p> + <p> + “Look here, Carrie; you think I'm going to ask you to love me. I'm not. + And I'm not going to ask you to come back to Gopher Prairie!” + </p> + <p> + She gaped. + </p> + <p> + “It's been a whale of a fight. But I guess I've got myself to see that you + won't ever stand G. P. unless you WANT to come back to it. I needn't say + I'm crazy to have you. But I won't ask you. I just want you to know how I + wait for you. Every mail I look for a letter, and when I get one I'm kind + of scared to open it, I'm hoping so much that you're coming back. Evenings——You + know I didn't open the cottage down at the lake at all, this past summer. + Simply couldn't stand all the others laughing and swimming, and you not + there. I used to sit on the porch, in town, and I—I couldn't get + over the feeling that you'd simply run up to the drug store and would be + right back, and till after it got dark I'd catch myself watching, looking + up the street, and you never came, and the house was so empty and still + that I didn't like to go in. And sometimes I fell asleep there, in my + chair, and didn't wake up till after midnight, and the house——Oh, + the devil! Please get me, Carrie. I just want you to know how welcome + you'll be if you ever do come. But I'm not asking you to.” + </p> + <p> + “You're——It's awfully——” + </p> + <p> + “'Nother thing. I'm going to be frank. I haven't always been absolutely, + uh, absolutely, proper. I've always loved you more than anything else in + the world, you and the kid. But sometimes when you were chilly to me I'd + get lonely and sore, and pike out and——Never intended——” + </p> + <p> + She rescued him with a pitying, “It's all right. Let's forget it.” + </p> + <p> + “But before we were married you said if your husband ever did anything + wrong, you'd want him to tell you.” + </p> + <p> + “Did I? I can't remember. And I can't seem to think. Oh, my dear, I do + know how generously you're trying to make me happy. The only thing is——I + can't think. I don't know what I think.” + </p> + <p> + “Then listen! Don't think! Here's what I want you to do! Get a two-weeks + leave from your office. Weather's beginning to get chilly here. Let's run + down to Charleston and Savannah and maybe Florida. + </p> + <p> + “A second honeymoon?” indecisively. + </p> + <p> + “No. Don't even call it that. Call it a second wooing. I won't ask + anything. I just want the chance to chase around with you. I guess I never + appreciated how lucky I was to have a girl with imagination and lively + feet to play with. So——Could you maybe run away and see the + South with me? If you wanted to, you could just—you could just + pretend you were my sister and——I'll get an extra nurse for + Hugh! I'll get the best dog-gone nurse in Washington!” + </p> + <p> + VII + </p> + <p> + It was in the Villa Margherita, by the palms of the Charleston Battery and + the metallic harbor, that her aloofness melted. + </p> + <p> + When they sat on the upper balcony, enchanted by the moon glitter, she + cried, “Shall I go back to Gopher Prairie with you? Decide for me. I'm + tired of deciding and undeciding.” + </p> + <p> + “No. You've got to do your own deciding. As a matter of fact, in spite of + this honeymoon, I don't think I want you to come home. Not yet.” + </p> + <p> + She could only stare. + </p> + <p> + “I want you to be satisfied when you get there. I'll do everything I can + to keep you happy, but I'll make lots of breaks, so I want you to take + time and think it over.” + </p> + <p> + She was relieved. She still had a chance to seize splendid indefinite + freedoms. She might go—oh, she'd see Europe, somehow, before she was + recaptured. But she also had a firmer respect for Kennicott. She had + fancied that her life might make a story. She knew that there was nothing + heroic or obviously dramatic in it, no magic of rare hours, nor valiant + challenge, but it seemed to her that she was of some significance because + she was commonplaceness, the ordinary life of the age, made articulate and + protesting. It had not occurred to her that there was also a story of Will + Kennicott, into which she entered only so much as he entered into hers; + that he had bewilderments and concealments as intricate as her own, and + soft treacherous desires for sympathy. + </p> + <p> + Thus she brooded, looking at the amazing sea, holding his hand. + </p> + <p> + VIII + </p> + <p> + She was in Washington; Kennicott was in Gopher Prairie, writing as dryly + as ever about water-pipes and goose-hunting and Mrs. Fageros's mastoid. + </p> + <p> + She was talking at dinner to a generalissima of suffrage. Should she + return? + </p> + <p> + The leader spoke wearily: + </p> + <p> + “My dear, I'm perfectly selfish. I can't quite visualize the needs of your + husband, and it seems to me that your baby will do quite as well in the + schools here as in your barracks at home.” + </p> + <p> + “Then you think I'd better not go back?” Carol sounded disappointed. + </p> + <p> + “It's more difficult than that. When I say that I'm selfish I mean that + the only thing I consider about women is whether they're likely to prove + useful in building up real political power for women. And you? Shall I be + frank? Remember when I say 'you' I don't mean you alone. I'm thinking of + thousands of women who come to Washington and New York and Chicago every + year, dissatisfied at home and seeking a sign in the heavens—women + of all sorts, from timid mothers of fifty in cotton gloves, to girls just + out of Vassar who organize strikes in their own fathers' factories! All of + you are more or less useful to me, but only a few of you can take my + place, because I have one virtue (only one): I have given up father and + mother and children for the love of God. + </p> + <p> + “Here's the test for you: Do you come to 'conquer the East,' as people + say, or do you come to conquer yourself? + </p> + <p> + “It's so much more complicated than any of you know—so much more + complicated than I knew when I put on Ground Grippers and started out to + reform the world. The final complication in 'conquering Washington' or + 'conquering New York' is that the conquerors must beyond all things not + conquer! It must have been so easy in the good old days when authors + dreamed only of selling a hundred thousand volumes, and sculptors of being + feted in big houses, and even the Uplifters like me had a simple-hearted + ambition to be elected to important offices and invited to go round + lecturing. But we meddlers have upset everything. Now the one thing that + is disgraceful to any of us is obvious success. The Uplifter who is very + popular with wealthy patrons can be pretty sure that he has softened his + philosophy to please them, and the author who is making lots of money—poor + things, I've heard 'em apologizing for it to the shabby bitter-enders; + I've seen 'em ashamed of the sleek luggage they got from movie rights. + </p> + <p> + “Do you want to sacrifice yourself in such a topsy-turvy world, where + popularity makes you unpopular with the people you love, and the only + failure is cheap success, and the only individualist is the person who + gives up all his individualism to serve a jolly ungrateful proletariat + which thumbs its nose at him?” + </p> + <p> + Carol smiled ingratiatingly, to indicate that she was indeed one who + desired to sacrifice, but she sighed, “I don't know; I'm afraid I'm not + heroic. I certainly wasn't out home. Why didn't I do big effective——” + </p> + <p> + “Not a matter of heroism. Matter of endurance. Your Middlewest is + double-Puritan—prairie Puritan on top of New England Puritan; bluff + frontiersman on the surface, but in its heart it still has the ideal of + Plymouth Rock in a sleet-storm. There's one attack you can make on it, + perhaps the only kind that accomplishes much anywhere: you can keep on + looking at one thing after another in your home and church and bank, and + ask why it is, and who first laid down the law that it had to be that way. + If enough of us do this impolitely enough, then we'll become civilized in + merely twenty thousand years or so, instead of having to wait the two + hundred thousand years that my cynical anthropologist friends allow. . . . + Easy, pleasant, lucrative home-work for wives: asking people to define + their jobs. That's the most dangerous doctrine I know!” + </p> + <p> + Carol was mediating, “I will go back! I will go on asking questions. I've + always done it, and always failed at it, and it's all I can do. I'm going + to ask Ezra Stowbody why he's opposed to the nationalization of railroads, + and ask Dave Dyer why a druggist always is pleased when he's called + 'doctor,' and maybe ask Mrs. Bogart why she wears a widow's veil that + looks like a dead crow.” + </p> + <p> + The woman leader straightened. “And you have one thing. You have a baby to + hug. That's my temptation. I dream of babies—of a baby—and I + sneak around parks to see them playing. (The children in Dupont Circle are + like a poppy-garden.) And the antis call me 'unsexed'!” + </p> + <p> + Carol was thinking, in panic, “Oughtn't Hugh to have country air? I won't + let him become a yokel. I can guide him away from street-corner loafing. . + . . I think I can.” + </p> + <p> + On her way home: “Now that I've made a precedent, joined the union and + gone out on one strike and learned personal solidarity, I won't be so + afraid. Will won't always be resisting my running away. Some day I really + will go to Europe with him . . . or without him. + </p> + <p> + “I've lived with people who are not afraid to go to jail. I could invite a + Miles Bjornstam to dinner without being afraid of the Haydocks . . . I + think I could. + </p> + <p> + “I'll take back the sound of Yvette Guilbert's songs and Elman's violin. + They'll be only the lovelier against the thrumming of crickets in the + stubble on an autumn day. + </p> + <p> + “I can laugh now and be serene . . . I think I can.” + </p> + <p> + Though she should return, she said, she would not be utterly defeated. She + was glad of her rebellion. The prairie was no longer empty land in the + sun-glare; it was the living tawny beast which she had fought and made + beautiful by fighting; and in the village streets were shadows of her + desires and the sound of her marching and the seeds of mystery and + greatness. + </p> + <p> + IX + </p> + <p> + Her active hatred of Gopher Prairie had run out. She saw it now as a + toiling new settlement. With sympathy she remembered Kennicott's defense + of its citizens as “a lot of pretty good folks, working hard and trying to + bring up their families the best they can.” She recalled tenderly the + young awkwardness of Main Street and the makeshifts of the little brown + cottages; she pitied their shabbiness and isolation; had compassion for + their assertion of culture, even as expressed in Thanatopsis papers, for + their pretense of greatness, even as trumpeted in “boosting.” She saw Main + Street in the dusty prairie sunset, a line of frontier shanties with + solemn lonely people waiting for her, solemn and lonely as an old man who + has outlived his friends. She remembered that Kennicott and Sam Clark had + listened to her songs, and she wanted to run to them and sing. + </p> + <p> + “At last,” she rejoiced, “I've come to a fairer attitude toward the town. + I can love it, now.” + </p> + <p> + She was, perhaps, rather proud of herself for having acquired so much + tolerance. + </p> + <p> + She awoke at three in the morning, after a dream of being tortured by Ella + Stowbody and the Widow Bogart. + </p> + <p> + “I've been making the town a myth. This is how people keep up the + tradition of the perfect home-town, the happy boyhood, the brilliant + college friends. We forget so. I've been forgetting that Main Street + doesn't think it's in the least lonely and pitiful. It thinks it's God's + Own Country. It isn't waiting for me. It doesn't care.” + </p> + <p> + But the next evening she again saw Gopher Prairie as her home, waiting for + her in the sunset, rimmed round with splendor. + </p> + <p> + She did not return for five months more; five months crammed with greedy + accumulation of sounds and colors to take back for the long still days. + </p> + <p> + She had spent nearly two years in Washington. + </p> + <p> + When she departed for Gopher Prairie, in June, her second baby was + stirring within her. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0039" id="link2HCH0039"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXXIX + </h2> + <p> + SHE wondered all the way home what her sensations would be. She wondered + about it so much that she had every sensation she had imagined. She was + excited by each familiar porch, each hearty “Well, well!” and flattered to + be, for a day, the most important news of the community. She bustled + about, making calls. Juanita Haydock bubbled over their Washington + encounter, and took Carol to her social bosom. This ancient opponent + seemed likely to be her most intimate friend, for Vida Sherwin, though she + was cordial, stood back and watched for imported heresies. + </p> + <p> + In the evening Carol went to the mill. The mystical Om-Om-Om of the + dynamos in the electric-light plant behind the mill was louder in the + darkness. Outside sat the night watchman, Champ Perry. He held up his + stringy hands and squeaked, “We've all missed you terrible.” + </p> + <p> + Who in Washington would miss her? + </p> + <p> + Who in Washington could be depended upon like Guy Pollock? When she saw + him on the street, smiling as always, he seemed an eternal thing, a part + of her own self. + </p> + <p> + After a week she decided that she was neither glad nor sorry to be back. + She entered each day with the matter-of-fact attitude with which she had + gone to her office in Washington. It was her task; there would be + mechanical details and meaningless talk; what of it? + </p> + <p> + The only problem which she had approached with emotion proved + insignificant. She had, on the train, worked herself up to such devotion + that she was willing to give up her own room, to try to share all of her + life with Kennicott. + </p> + <p> + He mumbled, ten minutes after she had entered the house, “Say, I've kept + your room for you like it was. I've kind of come round to your way of + thinking. Don't see why folks need to get on each other's nerves just + because they're friendly. Darned if I haven't got so I like a little + privacy and mulling things over by myself.” + </p> + <p> + II + </p> + <p> + She had left a city which sat up nights to talk of universal transition; + of European revolution, guild socialism, free verse. She had fancied that + all the world was changing. + </p> + <p> + She found that it was not. + </p> + <p> + In Gopher Prairie the only ardent new topics were prohibition, the place + in Minneapolis where you could get whisky at thirteen dollars a quart, + recipes for home-made beer, the “high cost of living,” the presidential + election, Clark's new car, and not very novel foibles of Cy Bogart. Their + problems were exactly what they had been two years ago, what they had been + twenty years ago, and what they would be for twenty years to come. With + the world a possible volcano, the husbandmen were plowing at the base of + the mountain. A volcano does occasionally drop a river of lava on even the + best of agriculturists, to their astonishment and considerable injury, but + their cousins inherit the farms and a year or two later go back to the + plowing. + </p> + <p> + She was unable to rhapsodize much over the seven new bungalows and the two + garages which Kennicott had made to seem so important. Her intensest + thought about them was, “Oh yes, they're all right I suppose.” The change + which she did heed was the erection of the schoolbuilding, with its + cheerful brick walls, broad windows, gymnasium, classrooms for agriculture + and cooking. It indicated Vida's triumph, and it stirred her to activity—any + activity. She went to Vida with a jaunty, “I think I shall work for you. + And I'll begin at the bottom.” + </p> + <p> + She did. She relieved the attendant at the rest-room for an hour a day. + Her only innovation was painting the pine table a black and orange rather + shocking to the Thanatopsis. She talked to the farmwives and soothed their + babies and was happy. + </p> + <p> + Thinking of them she did not think of the ugliness of Main Street as she + hurried along it to the chatter of the Jolly Seventeen. + </p> + <p> + She wore her eye-glasses on the street now. She was beginning to ask + Kennicott and Juanita if she didn't look young, much younger than + thirty-three. The eye-glasses pinched her nose. She considered spectacles. + They would make her seem older, and hopelessly settled. No! She would not + wear spectacles yet. But she tried on a pair at Kennicott's office. They + really were much more comfortable. + </p> + <p> + III + </p> + <p> + Dr. Westlake, Sam Clark, Nat Hicks, and Del Snafflin were talking in Del's + barber shop. + </p> + <p> + “Well, I see Kennicott's wife is taking a whirl at the rest-room, now,” + said Dr. Westlake. He emphasized the “now.” + </p> + <p> + Del interrupted the shaving of Sam and, with his brush dripping lather, he + observed jocularly: + </p> + <p> + “What'll she be up to next? They say she used to claim this burg wasn't + swell enough for a city girl like her, and would we please tax ourselves + about thirty-seven point nine and fix it all up pretty, with tidies on the + hydrants and statoos on the lawns——” + </p> + <p> + Sam irritably blew the lather from his lips, with milky small bubbles, and + snorted, “Be a good thing for most of us roughnecks if we did have a smart + woman to tell us how to fix up the town. Just as much to her kicking as + there was to Jim Blausser's gassing about factories. And you can bet Mrs. + Kennicott is smart, even if she is skittish. Glad to see her back.” + </p> + <p> + Dr. Westlake hastened to play safe. “So was I! So was I! She's got a nice + way about her, and she knows a good deal about books, or fiction anyway. + Of course she's like all the rest of these women—not solidly founded—not + scholarly—doesn't know anything about political economy—falls + for every new idea that some windjamming crank puts out. But she's a nice + woman. She'll probably fix up the rest-room, and the rest-room is a fine + thing, brings a lot of business to town. And now that Mrs. Kennicott's + been away, maybe she's got over some of her fool ideas. Maybe she realizes + that folks simply laugh at her when she tries to tell us how to run + everything.” + </p> + <p> + “Sure. She'll take a tumble to herself,” said Nat Hicks, sucking in his + lips judicially. “As far as I'm concerned, I'll say she's as nice a + looking skirt as there is in town. But yow!” His tone electrified them. + “Guess she'll miss that Swede Valborg that used to work for me! They was a + pair! Talking poetry and moonshine! If they could of got away with it, + they'd of been so darn lovey-dovey——” + </p> + <p> + Sam Clark interrupted, “Rats, they never even thought about making love, + Just talking books and all that junk. I tell you, Carrie Kennicott's a + smart woman, and these smart educated women all get funny ideas, but they + get over 'em after they've had three or four kids. You'll see her settled + down one of these days, and teaching Sunday School and helping at + sociables and behaving herself, and not trying to butt into business and + politics. Sure!” + </p> + <p> + After only fifteen minutes of conference on her stockings, her son, her + separate bedroom, her music, her ancient interest in Guy Pollock, her + probable salary in Washington, and every remark which she was known to + have made since her return, the supreme council decided that they would + permit Carol Kennicott to live, and they passed on to a consideration of + Nat Hicks's New One about the traveling salesman and the old maid. + </p> + <p> + IV + </p> + <p> + For some reason which was totally mysterious to Carol, Maud Dyer seemed to + resent her return. At the Jolly Seventeen Maud giggled nervously, “Well, I + suppose you found war-work a good excuse to stay away and have a swell + time. Juanita! Don't you think we ought to make Carrie tell us about the + officers she met in Washington?” + </p> + <p> + They rustled and stared. Carol looked at them. Their curiosity seemed + natural and unimportant. + </p> + <p> + “Oh yes, yes indeed, have to do that some day,” she yawned. + </p> + <p> + She no longer took Aunt Bessie Smail seriously enough to struggle for + independence. She saw that Aunt Bessie did not mean to intrude; that she + wanted to do things for all the Kennicotts. Thus Carol hit upon the + tragedy of old age, which is not that it is less vigorous than youth, but + that it is not needed by youth; that its love and prosy sageness, so + important a few years ago, so gladly offered now, are rejected with + laughter. She divined that when Aunt Bessie came in with a jar of + wild-grape jelly she was waiting in hope of being asked for the recipe. + After that she could be irritated but she could not be depressed by Aunt + Bessie's simoom of questioning. + </p> + <p> + She wasn't depressed even when she heard Mrs. Bogart observe, “Now we've + got prohibition it seems to me that the next problem of the country ain't + so much abolishing cigarettes as it is to make folks observe the Sabbath + and arrest these law-breakers that play baseball and go to the movies and + all on the Lord's Day.” + </p> + <p> + Only one thing bruised Carol's vanity. Few people asked her about + Washington. They who had most admiringly begged Percy Bresnahan for his + opinions were least interested in her facts. She laughed at herself when + she saw that she had expected to be at once a heretic and a returned hero; + she was very reasonable and merry about it; and it hurt just as much as + ever. + </p> + <p> + Her baby, born in August, was a girl. Carol could not decide whether she + was to become a feminist leader or marry a scientist or both, but did + settle on Vassar and a tricolette suit with a small black hat for her + Freshman year. + </p> + <p> + VI + </p> + <p> + Hugh was loquacious at breakfast. He desired to give his impressions of + owls and F Street. + </p> + <p> + “Don't make so much noise. You talk too much,” growled Kennicott. + </p> + <p> + Carol flared. “Don't speak to him that way! Why don't you listen to him? + He has some very interesting things to tell.” + </p> + <p> + “What's the idea? Mean to say you expect me to spend all my time listening + to his chatter?” + </p> + <p> + “Why not?” + </p> + <p> + “For one thing, he's got to learn a little discipline. Time for him to + start getting educated.” + </p> + <p> + “I've learned much more discipline, I've had much more education, from him + than he has from me.” + </p> + <p> + “What's this? Some new-fangled idea of raising kids you got in + Washington?” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps. Did you ever realize that children are people?” + </p> + <p> + “That's all right. I'm not going to have him monopolizing the + conversation.” + </p> + <p> + “No, of course. We have our rights, too. But I'm going to bring him up as + a human being. He has just as many thoughts as we have, and I want him to + develop them, not take Gopher Prairie's version of them. That's my biggest + work now—keeping myself, keeping you, from 'educating' him.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, let's not scrap about it. But I'm not going to have him spoiled.” + </p> + <p> + Kennicott had forgotten it in ten minutes; and she forgot it—this + time. + </p> + <p> + VII + </p> + <p> + The Kennicotts and the Sam Clarks had driven north to a duck-pass between + two lakes, on an autumn day of blue and copper. + </p> + <p> + Kennicott had given her a light twenty-gauge shotgun. She had a first + lesson in shooting, in keeping her eyes open, not wincing, understanding + that the bead at the end of the barrel really had something to do with + pointing the gun. She was radiant; she almost believed Sam when he + insisted that it was she who had shot the mallard at which they had fired + together. + </p> + <p> + She sat on the bank of the reedy lake and found rest in Mrs. Clark's + drawling comments on nothing. The brown dusk was still. Behind them were + dark marshes. The plowed acres smelled fresh. The lake was garnet and + silver. The voices of the men, waiting for the last flight, were clear in + the cool air. + </p> + <p> + “Mark left!” sang Kennicott, in a long-drawn call. + </p> + <p> + Three ducks were swooping down in a swift line. The guns banged, and a + duck fluttered. The men pushed their light boat out on the burnished lake, + disappeared beyond the reeds. Their cheerful voices and the slow splash + and clank of oars came back to Carol from the dimness. In the sky a fiery + plain sloped down to a serene harbor. It dissolved; the lake was white + marble; and Kennicott was crying, “Well, old lady, how about hiking out + for home? Supper taste pretty good, eh?” + </p> + <p> + “I'll sit back with Ethel,” she said, at the car. + </p> + <p> + It was the first time she had called Mrs. Clark by her given name; the + first time she had willingly sat back, a woman of Main Street. + </p> + <p> + “I'm hungry. It's good to be hungry,” she reflected, as they drove away. + </p> + <p> + She looked across the silent fields to the west. She was conscious of an + unbroken sweep of land to the Rockies, to Alaska, a dominion which will + rise to unexampled greatness when other empires have grown senile. Before + that time, she knew, a hundred generations of Carols will aspire and go + down in tragedy devoid of palls and solemn chanting, the humdrum + inevitable tragedy of struggle against inertia. + </p> + <p> + “Let's all go to the movies tomorrow night. Awfully exciting film,” said + Ethel Clark. + </p> + <p> + “Well, I was going to read a new book but——All right, let's + go,” said Carol. + </p> + <p> + VIII + </p> + <p> + “They're too much for me,” Carol sighed to Kennicott. “I've been thinking + about getting up an annual Community Day, when the whole town would forget + feuds and go out and have sports and a picnic and a dance. But Bert Tybee + (why did you ever elect him mayor?)—he's kidnapped my idea. He wants + the Community Day, but he wants to have some politician 'give an address.' + That's just the stilted sort of thing I've tried to avoid. He asked Vida, + and of course she agreed with him.” + </p> + <p> + Kennicott considered the matter while he wound the clock and they tramped + up-stairs. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, it would jar you to have Bert butting in,” he said amiably. “Are you + going to do much fussing over this Community stunt? Don't you ever get + tired of fretting and stewing and experimenting?” + </p> + <p> + “I haven't even started. Look!” She led him to the nursery door, pointed + at the fuzzy brown head of her daughter. “Do you see that object on the + pillow? Do you know what it is? It's a bomb to blow up smugness. If you + Tories were wise, you wouldn't arrest anarchists; you'd arrest all these + children while they're asleep in their cribs. Think what that baby will + see and meddle with before she dies in the year 2000! She may see an + industrial union of the whole world, she may see aeroplanes going to + Mars.” + </p> + <p> + “Yump, probably be changes all right,” yawned Kennicott. + </p> + <p> + She sat on the edge of his bed while he hunted through his bureau for a + collar which ought to be there and persistently wasn't. + </p> + <p> + “I'll go on, always. And I am happy. But this Community Day makes me see + how thoroughly I'm beaten.” + </p> + <p> + “That darn collar certainly is gone for keeps,” muttered Kennicott and, + louder, “Yes, I guess you——I didn't quite catch what you said, + dear.” + </p> + <p> + She patted his pillows, turned down his sheets, as she reflected: + </p> + <p> + “But I have won in this: I've never excused my failures by sneering at my + aspirations, by pretending to have gone beyond them. I do not admit that + Main Street is as beautiful as it should be! I do not admit that Gopher + Prairie is greater or more generous than Europe! I do not admit that + dish-washing is enough to satisfy all women! I may not have fought the + good fight, but I have kept the faith.” + </p> + <p> + “Sure. You bet you have,” said Kennicott. “Well, good night. Sort of feels + to me like it might snow tomorrow. Have to be thinking about putting up + the storm-windows pretty soon. Say, did you notice whether the girl put + that screwdriver back?” + </p> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Main Street, by Sinclair Lewis + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MAIN STREET *** + +***** This file should be named 543-h.htm or 543-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/5/4/543/ + +Produced by Charles Keller and David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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