CHAPTER VII

by Sinclair Lewis

　　IGOPHER PRAIRIE was digging in for the winter. Through late November andall December it snowed daily; the thermometer was at zero and mightdrop to twenty below, or thirty. Winter is not a season in the NorthMiddlewest; it is an industry. Storm sheds were erected at every door.In every block the householders, Sam Clark, the wealthy Mr. Dawson, allsave asthmatic Ezra Stowbody who extravagantly hired a boy, were seenperilously staggering up ladders, carrying storm windows and screwingthem to second-story jambs. While Kennicott put up his windows Caroldanced inside the bedrooms and begged him not to swallow the screws,which he held in his mouth like an extraordinary set of external falseteeth.The universal sign of winter was the town handyman--Miles Bjornstam, atall, thick, red-mustached bachelor, opinionated atheist, general-storearguer, cynical Santa Claus. Children loved him, and he sneakedaway from work to tell them improbable stories of sea-faring andhorse-trading and bears. The children's parents either laughed at himor hated him. He was the one democrat in town. He called both Lyman Cassthe miller and the Finn homesteader from Lost Lake by their first names.He was known as "The Red Swede," and considered slightly insane.Bjornstam could do anything with his hands--solder a pan, weld anautomobile spring, soothe a frightened filly, tinker a clock, carve aGloucester schooner which magically went into a bottle. Now, for a week,he was commissioner general of Gopher Prairie. He was the only personbesides the repairman at Sam Clark's who understood plumbing. Everybodybegged him to look over the furnace and the water-pipes. He rushedfrom house to house till after bedtime--ten o'clock. Icicles from burstwater-pipes hung along the skirt of his brown dog-skin overcoat; hisplush cap, which he never took off in the house, was a pulp of ice andcoal-dust; his red hands were cracked to rawness; he chewed the stub ofa cigar.But he was courtly to Carol. He stooped to examine the furnace flues; hestraightened, glanced down at her, and hemmed, "Got to fix your furnace,no matter what else I do."The poorer houses of Gopher Prairie, where the services of MilesBjornstam were a luxury--which included the shanty of MilesBjornstam--were banked to the lower windows with earth and manure. Alongthe railroad the sections of snow fence, which had been stacked allsummer in romantic wooden tents occupied by roving small boys, were setup to prevent drifts from covering the track.The farmers came into town in home-made sleighs, with bed-quilts and haypiled in the rough boxes.Fur coats, fur caps, fur mittens, overshoes buckling almost to theknees, gray knitted scarfs ten feet long, thick woolen socks, canvasjackets lined with fluffy yellow wool like the plumage of ducklings,moccasins, red flannel wristlets for the blazing chapped wristsof boys--these protections against winter were busily dug out ofmoth-ball-sprinkled drawers and tar-bags in closets, and all over townsmall boys were squealing, "Oh, there's my mittens!" or "Look at myshoe-packs!" There is so sharp a division between the panting summer andthe stinging winter of the Northern plains that they rediscovered withsurprise and a feeling of heroism this armor of an Artic explorer.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 manydistinctions in wraps as in motor cars. The lesser sort appeared inyellow and black dogskin coats, but Kennicott was lordly in a longraccoon ulster and a new seal cap. When the snow was too deep for hismotor he went off on country calls in a shiny, floral, steel-tippedcutter, only his ruddy nose and his cigar emerging from the fur.Carol herself stirred Main Street by a loose coat of nutria. Herfinger-tips loved the silken fur.Her liveliest activity now was organizing outdoor sports in themotor-paralyzed town.The automobile and bridge-whist had not only made more evident thesocial divisions in Gopher Prairie but they had also enfeebled thelove of activity. It was so rich-looking to sit and drive--and so easy.Skiing and sliding were "stupid" and "old-fashioned." In fact, thevillage longed for the elegance of city recreations almost as much asthe cities longed for village sports; and Gopher Prairie took asmuch pride in neglecting coasting as St. Paul--or New York--in goingcoasting. Carol did inspire a successful skating-party in mid-November.Plover Lake glistened in clear sweeps of gray-green ice, ringing to theskates. On shore the ice-tipped reeds clattered in the wind, and oaktwigs with stubborn last leaves hung against a milky sky. Harry Haydockdid figure-eights, and Carol was certain that she had found the perfectlife. But when snow had ended the skating and she tried to get up amoonlight sliding party, the matrons hesitated to stir away from theirradiators and their daily bridge-whist imitations of the city. She hadto nag them. They scooted down a long hill on a bob-sled, they upsetand got snow down their necks they shrieked that they would do it againimmediately--and they did not do it again at all.She badgered another group into going skiing. They shouted and threwsnowballs, and informed her that it was SUCH fun, and they'd haveanother skiing expedition right away, and they jollily returned home andnever thereafter left their manuals of bridge.Carol was discouraged. She was grateful when Kennicott invited her togo rabbit-hunting in the woods. She waded down stilly cloistersbetween burnt stump and icy oak, through drifts marked with a millionhieroglyphics of rabbit and mouse and bird. She squealed as he leapedon a pile of brush and fired at the rabbit which ran out. He belongedthere, masculine in reefer and sweater and high-laced boots. That nightshe ate prodigiously of steak and fried potatoes; she produced electricsparks by touching his ear with her finger-tip; she slept twelve hours;and awoke to think how glorious was this brave land.She rose to a radiance of sun on snow. Snug in her furs shetrotted up-town. Frosted shingles smoked against a sky colored likeflax-blossoms, sleigh-bells clinked, shouts of greeting were loud in thethin bright air, and everywhere was a rhythmic sound of wood-sawing. Itwas Saturday, and the neighbors' sons were getting up the winter fuel.Behind walls of corded wood in back yards their sawbucks stood indepressions scattered with canary-yellow flakes of sawdust. The framesof their buck-saws were cherry-red, the blades blued steel, and thefresh cut ends of the sticks--poplar, maple, iron-wood, birch--weremarked with engraved rings of growth. The boys wore shoe-packs, blueflannel shirts with enormous pearl buttons, and mackinaws of crimson,lemon yellow, and foxy brown.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 boughta can of tomatoes as though it were Orient fruit; and returned homeplanning to surprise Kennicott with an omelet creole for dinner.So brilliant was the snow-glare that when she entered the house shesaw the door-knobs, the newspaper on the table, every white surface asdazzling mauve, and her head was dizzy in the pyrotechnic dimness. Whenher eyes had recovered she felt expanded, drunk with health, mistress oflife. The world was so luminous that she sat down at her rickety littledesk in the living-room to make a poem. (She got no farther than "Thesky is bright, the sun is warm, there ne'er will be another storm.")In the mid-afternoon of this same day Kennicott was called into thecountry. It was Bea's evening out--her evening for the Lutheran Dance.Carol was alone from three till midnight. She wearied of reading purelove stories in the magazines and sat by a radiator, beginning to brood.Thus she chanced to discover that she had nothing to do.IIShe had, she meditated, passed through the novelty of seeing thetown and meeting people, of skating and sliding and hunting. Bea wascompetent; there was no household labor except sewing and darningand gossipy assistance to Bea in bed-making. She couldn't satisfy heringenuity in planning meals. At Dahl & Oleson's Meat Market you didn'tgive orders--you wofully inquired whether there was anything todaybesides steak and pork and ham. The cuts of beef were not cuts. Theywere hacks. Lamb chops were as exotic as sharks' fins. The meat-dealersshipped their best to the city, with its higher prices.In all the shops there was the same lack of choice. She could not finda glass-headed picture-nail in town; she did not hunt for the sort ofveiling she wanted--she took what she could get; and only at Howland &Gould's was there such a luxury as canned asparagus. Routine care wasall she could devote to the house. Only by such fussing as the WidowBogart's could she make it fill her time.She could not have outside employment. To the village doctor's wife itwas taboo.She was a woman with a working brain and no work.There were only three things which she could do: Have children; starther career of reforming; or become so definitely a part of the town thatshe would be fulfilled by the activities of church and study-club andbridge-parties.Children, yes, she wanted them, but----She was not quite ready. She hadbeen embarrassed by Kennicott's frankness, but she agreed with himthat in the insane condition of civilization, which made the rearingof citizens more costly and perilous than any other crime, it wasinadvisable to have children till he had made more money. She wassorry----Perhaps he had made all the mystery of love a mechanicalcautiousness but----She fled from the thought with a dubious, "Someday."Her "reforms," her impulses toward beauty in raw Main Street, they hadbecome indistinct. But she would set them going now. She would! Sheswore it with soft fist beating the edges of the radiator. And at theend of all her vows she had no notion as to when and where the crusadewas to begin.Become an authentic part of the town? She began to think with unpleasantlucidity. She reflected that she did not know whether the people likedher. She had gone to the women at afternoon-coffees, to the merchantsin their stores, with so many outpouring comments and whimsies thatshe hadn't given them a chance to betray their opinions of her. The mensmiled--but did they like her? She was lively among the women--butwas she one of them? She could not recall many times when she had beenadmitted to the whispering of scandal which is the secret chamber ofGopher Prairie conversation.She was poisoned with doubt, as she drooped up to bed.Next day, through her shopping, her mind sat back and observed. DaveDyer and Sam Clark were as cordial as she had been fancying; but wasn'tthere an impersonal abruptness in the "H' are yuh?" of Chet Dashaway?Howland the grocer was curt. Was that merely his usual manner?"It's infuriating to have to pay attention to what people think. InSt. Paul I didn't care. But here I'm spied on. They're watchingme. I mustn't let it make me self-conscious," she coaxedherself--overstimulated by the drug of thought, and offensively on thedefensive.IIIA thaw which stripped the snow from the sidewalks; a ringing iron nightwhen the lakes could be heard booming; a clear roistering morning. Intam o'shanter and tweed skirt Carol felt herself a college junior goingout to play hockey. She wanted to whoop, her legs ached to run. On theway home from shopping she yielded, as a pup would have yielded. Shegalloped down a block and as she jumped from a curb across a welter ofslush, she gave a student "Yippee!"She saw that in a window three old women were gasping. Their tripleglare was paralyzing. Across the street, at another window, the curtainhad secretively moved. She stopped, walked on sedately, changed from thegirl Carol into Mrs. Dr. Kennicott.She never again felt quite young enough and defiant enough and freeenough to run and halloo in the public streets; and it was as a NiceMarried Woman that she attended the next weekly bridge of the JollySeventeen.IVThe Jolly Seventeen (the membership of which ranged from fourteen totwenty-six) was the social cornice of Gopher Prairie. It was the countryclub, the diplomatic set, the St. Cecilia, the Ritz oval room, the Clubde Vingt. To belong to it was to be "in." Though its membership partlycoincided with that of the Thanatopsis study club, the Jolly Seventeenas a separate entity guffawed at the Thanatopsis, and considered itmiddle-class and even "highbrow."Most of the Jolly Seventeen were young married women, with theirhusbands as associate members. Once a week they had a women'safternoon-bridge; once a month the husbands joined them for supper andevening-bridge; twice a year they had dances at I. O. O. F. Hall. Thenthe town exploded. Only at the annual balls of the Firemen and of theEastern Star was there such prodigality of chiffon scarfs and tangoingand heart-burnings, and these rival institutions were not select--hiredgirls attended the Firemen's Ball, with section-hands and laborers. EllaStowbody had once gone to a Jolly Seventeen Soiree in the village hack,hitherto confined to chief mourners at funerals; and Harry Haydock andDr. Terry Gould always appeared in the town's only specimens of eveningclothes.The afternoon-bridge of the Jolly Seventeen which followed Carol'slonely doubting was held at Juanita Haydock's new concrete bungalow,with its door of polished oak and beveled plate-glass, jar of ferns inthe plastered hall, and in the living-room, a fumed oak Morris chair,sixteen color-prints, and a square varnished table with a mat made ofcigar-ribbons on which was one Illustrated Gift Edition and one pack ofcards in a burnt-leather case.Carol stepped into a sirocco of furnace heat. They were already playing.Despite her flabby resolves she had not yet learned bridge. She waswinningly apologetic about it to Juanita, and ashamed that she shouldhave to go on being apologetic.Mrs. Dave Dyer, a sallow woman with a thin prettiness devoted toexperiments in religious cults, illnesses, and scandal-bearing, shookher finger at Carol and trilled, "You're a naughty one! I don't believeyou appreciate the honor, when you got into the Jolly Seventeen soeasy!"Mrs. Chet Dashaway nudged her neighbor at the second table. But Carolkept 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 teachingme this very evening." Her supplication had all the sound of birdiesin the nest, and Easter church-bells, and frosted Christmas cards.Internally she snarled, "That ought to be saccharine enough." She sat inthe smallest rocking-chair, a model of Victorian modesty. But she saw orshe imagined that the women who had gurgled at her so welcomingly whenshe had first come to Gopher Prairie were nodding at her brusquely.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?""It's so cold when you get dumped in the snow," said Mrs. Elder,indifferently."I hate snow down my neck," volunteered Mrs. Dave Dyer, with anunpleasant look at Carol and, turning her back, she bubbled at RitaSimons, "Dearie, won't you run in this evening? I've got the loveliestnew Butterick pattern I want to show you."Carol crept back to her chair. In the fervor of discussing the game theyignored her. She was not used to being a wallflower. She struggled tokeep from oversensitiveness, from becoming unpopular by the sure methodof believing that she was unpopular; but she hadn't much reserve ofpatience, and at the end of the second game, when Ella Stowbody sniffilyasked her, "Are you going to send to Minneapolis for your dress forthe next soiree--heard you were," Carol said "Don't know yet" withunnecessary sharpness.She was relieved by the admiration with which the jeune fille RitaSimons 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 toobroad to be practical?" She nodded, then shook her head, and touchilyleft Mrs. Howland to get out of it any meaning she desired. Immediatelyshe wanted to make peace. She was close to simpering in the sweetnesswith which she addressed Mrs Howland: "I think that is the prettiestdisplay of beef-tea your husband has in his store.""Oh yes, Gopher Prairie isn't so much behind the times," gibed Mrs.Howland. Some one giggled.Their rebuffs made her haughty; her haughtiness irritated them tofranker rebuffs; they were working up to a state of painfully righteouswar when they were saved by the coming of food.Though Juanita Haydock was highly advanced in the matters offinger-bowls, doilies, and bath-mats, her "refreshments" were typicalof all the afternoon-coffees. Juanita's best friends, Mrs. Dyer and Mrs.Dashaway, passed large dinner plates, each with a spoon, a fork, and acoffee cup without saucer. They apologized and discussed the afternoon'sgame as they passed through the thicket of women's feet. Then theydistributed hot buttered rolls, coffee poured from an enamel-ware pot,stuffed olives, potato salad, and angel's-food cake. There was, even inthe most strictly conforming Gopher Prairie circles, a certain optionas to collations. The olives need not be stuffed. Doughnuts were in somehouses well thought of as a substitute for the hot buttered rolls.But there was in all the town no heretic save Carol who omittedangel's-food.They ate enormously. Carol had a suspicion that the thriftier housewivesmade the afternoon treat do for evening supper.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 amilkmaid, and her loud delayed laugh which burst startlingly froma sober face, was the daughter of old Dr. Westlake, and the wife ofWestlake's partner, Dr. McGanum. Kennicott asserted that Westlake andMcGanum and their contaminated families were tricky, but Carol had foundthem gracious. She asked for friendliness by crying to Mrs. McGanum,"How is the baby's throat now?" and she was attentive while Mrs. McGanumrocked and knitted and placidly described symptoms.Vida Sherwin came in after school, with Miss Ethel Villets, thetown librarian. Miss Sherwin's optimistic presence gave Carol moreconfidence. She talked. She informed the circle "I drove almost down toWahkeenyan with Will, a few days ago. Isn't the country lovely! And I doadmire the Scandinavian farmers down there so: their big red barns andsilos and milking-machines and everything. Do you all know that lonelyLutheran church, with the tin-covered spire, that stands out alone ona hill? It's so bleak; somehow it seems so brave. I do think theScandinavians are the hardiest and best people----""Oh, do you THINK so?" protested Mrs. Jackson Elder. "My husband saysthe Svenskas that work in the planing-mill are perfectly terrible--sosilent and cranky, and so selfish, the way they keep demanding raises.If they had their way they'd simply ruin the business.""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 hiredgirls--when I can get them! I do everything in the world for them. Theycan 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."Juanita Haydock rattled, "They're ungrateful, all that class of people.I do think the domestic problem is simply becoming awful. I don't knowwhat the country's coming to, with these Scandahoofian clodhoppersdemanding every cent you can save, and so ignorant and impertinent,and on my word, demanding bath-tubs and everything--as if they weren'tmighty good and lucky at home if they got a bath in the wash-tub."They were off, riding hard. Carol thought of Bea and waylaid them:"But isn't it possibly the fault of the mistresses if the maids areungrateful? For generations we've given them the leavings of food, andholes to live in. I don't want to boast, but I must say I don't havemuch trouble with Bea. She's so friendly. The Scandinavians are sturdyand honest----"Mrs. Dave Dyer snapped, "Honest? Do you call it honest to hold us up forevery cent of pay they can get? I can't say that I've had any of themsteal anything (though you might call it stealing to eat so much that aroast of beef hardly lasts three days), but just the same I don't intendto let them think they can put anything over on ME! I always make thempack and unpack their trunks down-stairs, right under my eyes, and thenI know they aren't being tempted to dishonesty by any slackness on MYpart!""How much do the maids get here?" Carol ventured.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 thatMrs. Clark, after swearing that she wouldn't weaken and encourage themin their outrageous demands, went and paid five-fifty--think of it!practically a dollar a day for unskilled work and, of course, her foodand room and a chance to do her own washing right in with the rest ofthe wash. HOW MUCH DO YOU PAY, Mrs. KENNICOTT?""Yes! How much do you pay?" insisted half a dozen."W-why, I pay six a week," she feebly confessed.They gasped. Juanita protested, "Don't you think it's hard on the restof us when you pay so much?" Juanita's demand was reinforced by theuniversal glower.Carol was angry. "I don't care! A maid has one of the hardest jobs onearth. She works from ten to eighteen hours a day. She has to wash slimydishes and dirty clothes. She tends the children and runs to the doorwith wet chapped hands and----"Mrs. Dave Dyer broke into Carol's peroration with a furious, "That's allvery well, but believe me, I do those things myself when I'm withouta maid--and that's a good share of the time for a person that isn'twilling to yield and pay exorbitant wages!"Carol was retorting, "But a maid does it for strangers, and all she getsout of it is the pay----"Their eyes were hostile. Four of them were talking at once. VidaSherwin's dictatorial voice cut through, took control of the revolution:"Tut, tut, tut, tut! What angry passions--and what an idioticdiscussion! 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 EthelVillets. Boooooo! If there's any more pecking, I'll take charge of thehen roost myself!"They all laughed artificially, and Carol obediently "talked libraries."A small-town bungalow, the wives of a village doctor and a villagedry-goods merchant, a provincial teacher, a colloquial brawl overpaying a servant a dollar more a week. Yet this insignificance echoedcellar-plots and cabinet meetings and labor conferences in Persiaand Prussia, Rome and Boston, and the orators who deemed themselvesinternational leaders were but the raised voices of a billion Juanitasdenouncing a million Carols, with a hundred thousand Vida Sherwinstrying to shoo away the storm.Carol felt guilty. She devoted herself to admiring the spinsterish MissVillets--and immediately committed another offense against the laws ofdecency."We haven't seen you at the library yet," Miss Villets reproved."I've wanted to run in so much but I've been getting settled and----I'llprobably come in so often you'll get tired of me! I hear you have such anice library.""There are many who like it. We have two thousand more books thanWakamin.""Isn't that fine. I'm sure you are largely responsible. I've had someexperience, in St. Paul.""So I have been informed. Not that I entirely approve of library methodsin these large cities. So careless, letting tramps and all sorts ofdirty persons practically sleep in the reading-rooms.""I know, but the poor souls----Well, I'm sure you will agree with me inone thing: The chief task of a librarian is to get people to read.""You feel so? My feeling, Mrs. Kennicott, and I am merely quotingthe librarian of a very large college, is that the first duty of theCONSCIENTIOUS librarian is to preserve the books.""Oh!" Carol repented her "Oh." Miss Villets stiffened, and attacked:"It may be all very well in cities, where they have unlimited funds, tolet nasty children ruin books and just deliberately tear them up, andfresh young men take more books out than they are entitled to by theregulations, but I'm never going to permit it in this library!""What if some children are destructive? They learn to read. Books arecheaper than minds.""Nothing is cheaper than the minds of some of these children that comein and bother me simply because their mothers don't keep them home wherethey belong. Some librarians may choose to be so wishy-washy and turntheir libraries into nursing-homes and kindergartens, but as long as I'min charge, the Gopher Prairie library is going to be quiet and decent,and the books well kept!"Carol saw that the others were listening, waiting for her to beobjectionable. She flinched before their dislike. She hastened to smilein agreement with Miss Villets, to glance publicly at her wrist-watch,to warble that it was "so late--have to hurry home--husband--such niceparty--maybe you were right about maids, prejudiced because Bea sonice--such perfectly divine angel's-food, Mrs. Haydock must give me therecipe--good-by, such happy party----"She walked home. She reflected, "It was my fault. I was touchy. And Iopposed them so much. Only----I can't! I can't be one of them if I mustdamn all the maids toiling in filthy kitchens, all the ragged hungrychildren. And these women are to be my arbiters, the rest of my life!"She ignored Bea's call from the kitchen; she ran up-stairs to theunfrequented guest-room; she wept in terror, her body a pale arc asshe knelt beside a cumbrous black-walnut bed, beside a puffy mattresscovered with a red quilt, in a shuttered and airless room.