CHAPTER XI

by Sinclair Lewis

　　ISHE 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 touchwith all the intellectual thoughts that are going on everywhere."Early in March Mrs. Westlake, wife of the veteran physician, marchedinto Carol's living-room like an amiable old pussy and suggested, "Mydear, 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 brightenup the meeting with your knowledge of books and writings. (Englishpoetry is our topic today.) So shoo! Put on your coat!""English poetry? Really? I'd love to go. I didn't realize you werereading poetry.""Oh, we're not so slow!"Mrs. Luke Dawson, wife of the richest man in town, gaped at thempiteously when they appeared. Her expensive frock of beaver-coloredsatin with rows, plasters, and pendants of solemn brown beads wasintended for a woman twice her size. She stood wringing her hands infront of nineteen folding chairs, in her front parlor with its fadedphotograph of Minnehaha Falls in 1890, its "colored enlargement" ofMr. Dawson, its bulbous lamp painted with sepia cows and mountains andstanding on a mortuary marble column.She creaked, "O Mrs. Kennicott, I'm in such a fix. I'm supposed to leadthe discussion, and I wondered would you come and help?""What poet do you take up today?" demanded Carol, in her library tone of"What book do you wish to take out?""Why, the English ones.""Not all of them?""W-why yes. We're learning all of European Literature this year.The club gets such a nice magazine, Culture Hints, and we follow itsprograms. Last year our subject was Men and Women of the Bible, and nextyear we'll probably take up Furnishings and China. My, it does make abody hustle to keep up with all these new culture subjects, but it isimproving. So will you help us with the discussion today?"On her way over Carol had decided to use the Thanatopsis as the toolwith which to liberalize the town. She had immediately conceivedenormous enthusiasm; she had chanted, "These are the real people. Whenthe housewives, who bear the burdens, are interested in poetry, it meanssomething. I'll work with them--for them--anything!"Her enthusiasm had become watery even before thirteen women resolutelyremoved their overshoes, sat down meatily, ate peppermints, dusted theirfingers, folded their hands, composed their lower thoughts, and invitedthe naked muse of poetry to deliver her most improving message. They hadgreeted Carol affectionately, and she tried to be a daughter to them.But she felt insecure. Her chair was out in the open, exposed to theirgaze, and it was a hard-slatted, quivery, slippery church-parlor chair,likely to collapse publicly and without warning. It was impossible tosit on it without folding the hands and listening piously.She wanted to kick the chair and run. It would make a magnificentclatter.She saw that Vida Sherwin was watching her. She pinched her wrist, asthough she were a noisy child in church, and when she was decent andcramped again, she listened.Mrs. Dawson opened the meeting by sighing, "I'm sure I'm glad to see youall here today, and I understand that the ladies have prepared a numberof very interesting papers, this is such an interesting subject, thepoets, they have been an inspiration for higher thought, in fact wasn'tit Reverend Benlick who said that some of the poets have been as much aninspiration as a good many of the ministers, and so we shall be glad tohear----"The poor lady smiled neuralgically, panted with fright, scrabbled aboutthe small oak table to find her eye-glasses, and continued, "Wewill first have the pleasure of hearing Mrs. Jenson on the subject'Shakespeare and Milton.'"Mrs. Ole Jenson said that Shakespeare was born in 1564 and died 1616. Helived in London, England, and in Stratford-on-Avon, which many Americantourists loved to visit, a lovely town with many curios and old houseswell worth examination. Many people believed that Shakespeare was thegreatest play-wright who ever lived, also a fine poet. Not much wasknown about his life, but after all that did not really make so muchdifference, because they loved to read his numerous plays, several ofthe best known of which she would now criticize.Perhaps the best known of his plays was "The Merchant of Venice," havinga 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 themselveson the question of suffrage, ought to appreciate. (Laughter.) Mrs.Jenson was sure that she, for one, would love to be like Portia. Theplay was about a Jew named Shylock, and he didn't want his daughter tomarry a Venice gentleman named Antonio----Mrs. Leonard Warren, a slender, gray, nervous woman, president of theThanatopsis and wife of the Congregational pastor, reported the birthand death dates of Byron, Scott, Moore, Burns; and wound up:"Burns was quite a poor boy and he did not enjoy the advantages we enjoytoday, except for the advantages of the fine old Scotch kirk where heheard the Word of God preached more fearlessly than even in the finestbig brick churches in the big and so-called advanced cities of today,but he did not have our educational advantages and Latin and the othertreasures of the mind so richly strewn before the, alas, too ofttimesinattentive feet of our youth who do not always sufficiently appreciatethe privileges freely granted to every American boy rich or poor. Burnshad to work hard and was sometimes led by evil companionship into lowhabits. But it is morally instructive to know that he was a goodstudent and educated himself, in striking contrast to the loose ways andso-called aristocratic society-life of Lord Byron, on which I have justspoken. And certainly though the lords and earls of his day may havelooked down upon Burns as a humble person, many of us have greatlyenjoyed his pieces about the mouse and other rustic subjects, with theirmessage of humble beauty--I am so sorry I have not got the time to quotesome of them."Mrs. George Edwin Mott gave ten minutes to Tennyson and Browning.Mrs. Nat Hicks, a wry-faced, curiously sweet woman, so awed by herbetters that Carol wanted to kiss her, completed the day's grim task bya paper on "Other Poets." The other poets worthy of consideration wereColeridge, Wordsworth, Shelley, Gray, Mrs. Hemans, and Kipling.Miss Ella Stowbody obliged with a recital of "The Recessional" andextracts from "Lalla Rookh." By request, she gave "An Old Sweetheart ofMine" as encore.Gopher Prairie had finished the poets. It was ready for the next week'slabor: English Fiction and Essays.Mrs. Dawson besought, "Now we will have a discussion of the papers, andI am sure we shall all enjoy hearing from one who we hope to have as anew member, Mrs. Kennicott, who with her splendid literary training andall should be able to give us many pointers and--many helpful pointers."Carol had warned herself not to be so "beastly supercilious." She hadinsisted that in the belated quest of these work-stained women wasan aspiration which ought to stir her tears. "But they're soself-satisfied. They think they're doing Burns a favor. They don'tbelieve they have a 'belated quest.' They're sure that they have culturesalted 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 speakwithout hurting them?Mrs. Champ Perry leaned over to stroke her hand and whisper, "You looktired, dearie. Don't you talk unless you want to."Affection flooded Carol; she was on her feet, searching for words andcourtesies:"The only thing in the way of suggestion----I know you are followinga definite program, but I do wish that now you've had such a splendidintroduction, instead of going on with some other subject next year youcould return and take up the poets more in detail. Especially actualquotations--even though their lives are so interesting and, as Mrs.Warren said, so morally instructive. And perhaps there are several poetsnot mentioned today whom it might be worth while considering--Keats, forinstance, and Matthew Arnold and Rossetti and Swinburne. Swinburne wouldbe such a--well, that is, such a contrast to life as we all enjoy it inour beautiful Middle-west----"She saw that Mrs. Leonard Warren was not with her. She captured her byinnocently continuing:"Unless perhaps Swinburne tends to be, uh, more outspoken than you, thanwe really like. What do you think, Mrs. Warren?"The pastor's wife decided, "Why, you've caught my very thoughts, Mrs.Kennicott. Of course I have never READ Swinburne, but years ago, whenhe was in vogue, I remember Mr. Warren saying that Swinburne (or wasit Oscar Wilde? but anyway:) he said that though many so-calledintellectual 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 thoughwe have talked about Furnishings and China as the probable subject fornext year, I believe that it would be nice if the program committeewould try to work in another day entirely devoted to English poetry! Infact, Madame Chairman, I so move you."When Mrs. Dawson's coffee and angel's-food had helped them to recoverfrom the depression caused by thoughts of Shakespeare's death they alltold Carol that it was a pleasure to have her with them. The membershipcommittee retired to the sitting-room for three minutes and elected hera member.And she stopped being patronizing.She wanted to be one of them. They were so loyal and kind. It was theywho would carry out her aspiration. Her campaign against village slothwas actually begun! On what specific reform should she first looseher army? During the gossip after the meeting Mrs. George Edwin Mottremarked that the city hall seemed inadequate for the splendid modernGopher Prairie. Mrs. Nat Hicks timidly wished that the young peoplecould have free dances there--the lodge dances were so exclusive. Thecity hall. That was it! Carol hurried home.She had not realized that Gopher Prairie was a city. From Kennicott shediscovered that it was legally organized with a mayor and city-counciland wards. She was delighted by the simplicity of voting one's self ametropolis. Why not?She was a proud and patriotic citizen, all evening.IIShe examined the city hall, next morning. She had remembered it only asa bleak inconspicuousness. She found it a liver-colored frame coop halfa block from Main Street. The front was an unrelieved wall of clapboardsand dirty windows. It had an unobstructed view of a vacant lot and NatHicks's tailor shop. It was larger than the carpenter shop beside it,but not so well built.No one was about. She walked into the corridor. On one side was themunicipal court, like a country school; on the other, the room of thevolunteer fire company, with a Ford hose-cart and the ornamental helmetsused in parades, at the end of the hall, a filthy two-cell jail, nowempty but smelling of ammonia and ancient sweat. The whole second storywas a large unfinished room littered with piles of folding chairs, alime-crusted mortar-mixing box, and the skeletons of Fourth of Julyfloats covered with decomposing plaster shields and faded red, white,and blue bunting. At the end was an abortive stage. The room was largeenough for the community dances which Mrs. Nat Hicks advocated. ButCarol was after something bigger than dances.In the afternoon she scampered to the public library.The library was open three afternoons and four evenings a week. It washoused in an old dwelling, sufficient but unattractive. Carol caughtherself picturing pleasanter reading-rooms, chairs for children, an artcollection, a librarian young enough to experiment.She berated herself, "Stop this fever of reforming everything! I WILL besatisfied 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. . . . Isit possible that I am to find dishonesties and stupidity in everyhuman activity I encounter? In schools and business and government andeverything? Is there never any contentment, never any rest?"She shook her head as though she were shaking off water, and hastenedinto the library, a young, light, amiable presence, modest in unbuttonedfur coat, blue suit, fresh organdy collar, and tan boots roughened fromscuffling snow. Miss Villets stared at her, and Carol purred, "I was sosorry not to see you at the Thanatopsis yesterday. Vida said you mightcome.""Oh. You went to the Thanatopsis. Did you enjoy it?""So much. Such good papers on the poets." Carol lied resolutely. "But Idid think they should have had you give one of the papers on poetry!""Well----Of course I'm not one of the bunch that seem to have thetime to take and run the club, and if they prefer to have papers onliterature by other ladies who have no literary training--after all, whyshould I complain? What am I but a city employee!""You're not! You're the one person that does--that does--oh, you do somuch. Tell me, is there, uh----Who are the people who control the club?"Miss Villets emphatically stamped a date in the front of "Frank on theLower Mississippi" for a small flaxen boy, glowered at him as though shewere stamping a warning on his brain, and sighed:"I wouldn't put myself forward or criticize any one for the world, andVida is one of my best friends, and such a splendid teacher, and thereis no one in town more advanced and interested in all movements, but Imust say that no matter who the president or the committees are, VidaSherwin seems to be behind them all the time, and though she is alwaystelling me about what she is pleased to call my 'fine work in thelibrary,' 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, theyear we took up English and French travel and architecture. But----Andof course Mrs. Mott and Mrs. Warren are very important in the club, asyou might expect of the wives of the superintendent of schools andthe Congregational pastor, and indeed they are both very cultured,but----No, you may regard me as entirely unimportant. I'm sure what Isay doesn't matter a bit!""You're much too modest, and I'm going to tell Vida so, and, uh, Iwonder if you can give me just a teeny bit of your time and show mewhere the magazine files are kept?"She had won. She was profusely escorted to a room like a grandmother'sattic, where she discovered periodicals devoted to house-decoration andtown-planning, with a six-year file of the National Geographic. MissVillets blessedly left her alone. Humming, fluttering pages withdelighted fingers, Carol sat cross-legged on the floor, the magazines inheaps about her.She found pictures of New England streets: the dignity of Falmouth, thecharm of Concord, Stockbridge and Farmington and Hillhouse Avenue. Thefairy-book suburb of Forest Hills on Long Island. Devonshire cottagesand Essex manors and a Yorkshire High Street and Port Sunlight. TheArab village of Djeddah--an intricately chased jewel-box. A town inCalifornia which had changed itself from the barren brick fronts andslatternly frame sheds of a Main Street to a way which led the eye downa vista of arcades and gardens.Assured that she was not quite mad in her belief that a small Americantown might be lovely, as well as useful in buying wheat and sellingplows, she sat brooding, her thin fingers playing a tattoo on hercheeks. She saw in Gopher Prairie a Georgian city hall: warm brick wallswith white shutters, a fanlight, a wide hall and curving stair. Shesaw it the common home and inspiration not only of the town but ofthe country about. It should contain the court-room (she couldn't getherself to put in a jail), public library, a collection of excellentprints, rest-room and model kitchen for farmwives, theater, lectureroom, free community ballroom, farm-bureau, gymnasium. Forming about itand influenced by it, as mediaeval villages gathered about the castle,she saw a new Georgian town as graceful and beloved as Annapolis or thatbowery Alexandria to which Washington rode.All this the Thanatopsis Club was to accomplish with no difficultywhatever, since its several husbands were the controllers of businessand politics. She was proud of herself for this practical view.She had taken only half an hour to change a wire-fenced potato-plot intoa walled rose-garden. She hurried out to apprize Mrs. Leonard Warren, aspresident of the Thanatopsis, of the miracle which had been worked.IIIAt a quarter to three Carol had left home; at half-past four she hadcreated the Georgian town; at a quarter to five she was in the dignifiedpoverty of the Congregational parsonage, her enthusiasm pattering uponMrs. Leonard Warren like summer rain upon an old gray roof; at twominutes to five a town of demure courtyards and welcoming dormer windowshad been erected, and at two minutes past five the entire town was asflat as Babylon.Erect in a black William and Mary chair against gray and speckly-brownvolumes of sermons and Biblical commentaries and Palestine geographiesupon long pine shelves, her neat black shoes firm on a rag-rug, herselfas correct and low-toned as her background, Mrs. Warren listened withoutcomment till Carol was quite through, then answered delicately:"Yes, I think you draw a very nice picture of what might easily come topass--some day. I have no doubt that such villages will be found on theprairie--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 hallwould be the proper start, or that the Thanatopsis would be the rightinstrument. After all, it's the churches, isn't it, that are thereal heart of the community. As you may possibly know, my husbandis prominent in Congregational circles all through the state forhis advocacy of church-union. He hopes to see all the evangelicaldenominations joined in one strong body, opposing Catholicism andChristian Science, and properly guiding all movements that make formorality and prohibition. Here, the combined churches could afforda splendid club-house, maybe a stucco and half-timber building withgargoyles and all sorts of pleasing decorations on it, which, it seemsto me, would be lots better to impress the ordinary class of people thanjust a plain old-fashioned colonial house, such as you describe. Andthat would be the proper center for all educational and pleasurableactivities, instead of letting them fall into the hands of thepoliticians.""I don't suppose it will take more than thirty or forty years for thechurches to get together?" Carol said innocently."Hardly that long even; things are moving so rapidly. So it would be amistake to make any other plans."Carol did not recover her zeal till two days after, when she tried Mrs.George Edwin Mott, wife of the superintendent of schools.Mrs. Mott commented, "Personally, I am terribly busy with dressmakingand having the seamstress in the house and all, but it would be splendidto have the other members of the Thanatopsis take up the question.Except for one thing: First and foremost, we must have a newschoolbuilding. Mr. Mott says they are terribly cramped."Carol went to view the old building. The grades and the high school werecombined in a damp yellow-brick structure with the narrow windows of anantiquated jail--a hulk which expressed hatred and compulsory training.She conceded Mrs. Mott's demand so violently that for two days shedropped her own campaign. Then she built the school and city halltogether, as the center of the reborn town.She ventured to the lead-colored dwelling of Mrs. Dave Dyer. Behind themask of winter-stripped vines and a wide porch only a foot above theground, the cottage was so impersonal that Carol could never visualizeit. Nor could she remember anything that was inside it. But Mrs. Dyerwas personal enough. With Carol, Mrs. Howland, Mrs. McGanum, and VidaSherwin she was a link between the Jolly Seventeen and the seriousThanatopsis (in contrast to Juanita Haydock, who unnecessarily boastedof being a "lowbrow" and publicly stated that she would "see herselfin jail before she'd write any darned old club papers"). Mrs. Dyer wassuperfeminine in the kimono in which she received Carol. Her skin wasfine, pale, soft, suggesting a weak voluptuousness. At afternoon-coffeesshe had been rude but now she addressed Carol as "dear," and insisted onbeing called Maud. Carol did not quite know why she was uncomfortablein this talcum-powder atmosphere, but she hastened to get into the freshair of her plans.Maud Dyer granted that the city hall wasn't "so very nice," yet, as Davesaid, there was no use doing anything about it till they receivedan appropriation from the state and combined a new city hall witha national guard armory. Dave had given verdict, "What these mouthyyoungsters that hang around the pool-room need is universal militarytraining. Make men of 'em."Mrs. Dyer removed the new schoolbuilding from the city hall:"Oh, so Mrs. Mott has got you going on her school craze! She's beendinging at that till everybody's sick and tired. What she really wantsis a big office for her dear bald-headed Gawge to sit around and lookimportant in. Of course I admire Mrs. Mott, and I'm very fond ofher, she's so brainy, even if she does try to butt in and run theThanatopsis, but I must say we're sick of her nagging. The old buildingwas good enough for us when we were kids! I hate these would-be womenpoliticians, don't you?"IVThe first week of March had given promise of spring and stirred Carolwith a thousand desires for lakes and fields and roads. The snow wasgone except for filthy woolly patches under trees, the thermometerleaped in a day from wind-bitten chill to itchy warmth. As soon as Carolwas convinced that even in this imprisoned North, spring could existagain, the snow came down as abruptly as a paper storm in a theater; thenorthwest gale flung it up in a half blizzard; and with her hope of aglorified town went hope of summer meadows.But a week later, though the snow was everywhere in slushy heaps, thepromise was unmistakable. By the invisible hints in air and sky andearth which had aroused her every year through ten thousand generationsshe knew that spring was coming. It was not a scorching, hard, dusty daylike the treacherous intruder of a week before, but soaked with languor,softened with a milky light. Rivulets were hurrying in each alley; acalling robin appeared by magic on the crab-apple tree in the Howlands'yard. Everybody chuckled, "Looks like winter is going," and "This 'llbring the frost out of the roads--have the autos out pretty soonnow--wonder what kind of bass-fishing we'll get this summer--ought to begood crops this year."Each evening Kennicott repeated, "We better not take off our HeavyUnderwear or the storm windows too soon--might be 'nother spell ofcold--got to be careful 'bout catching cold--wonder if the coal willlast through?"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 nothingabout remaking the town. She listened respectably to statistics onDickens, Thackeray, Jane Austen, George Eliot, Scott, Hardy, Lamb, DeQuincey, and Mrs. Humphry Ward, who, it seemed, constituted the writersof English Fiction and Essays.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 intoa refuge in which farmwives could wait while their husbands transactedbusiness. She had heard Vida Sherwin and Mrs. Warren caress the virtueof the Thanatopsis in establishing the rest-room and in sharing with thecity council the expense of maintaining it. But she had never entered ittill this March day.She went in impulsively; nodded at the matron, a plump worthy widownamed Nodelquist, and at a couple of farm-women who were meekly rocking.The rest-room resembled a second-hand store. It was furnished withdiscarded patent rockers, lopsided reed chairs, a scratched pine table,a gritty straw mat, old steel engravings of milkmaids being morallyamorous under willow-trees, faded chromos of roses and fish, and akerosene stove for warming lunches. The front window was darkened bytorn net curtains and by a mound of geraniums and rubber-plants.While she was listening to Mrs. Nodelquist's account of how manythousands of farmers' wives used the rest-room every year, and how muchthey "appreciated the kindness of the ladies in providing them withthis lovely place, and all free," she thought, "Kindness nothing! Thekind-ladies' husbands get the farmers' trade. This is mere commercialaccommodation. And it's horrible. It ought to be the most charming roomin town, to comfort women sick of prairie kitchens. Certainly it oughtto have a clear window, so that they can see the metropolitan life goby. 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!"So it chanced that she was plotting against the peace of the Thanatopsisat her third meeting (which covered Scandinavian, Russian, and PolishLiterature, with remarks by Mrs. Leonard Warren on the sinful paganismof the Russian so-called church). Even before the entrance of thecoffee and hot rolls Carol seized on Mrs. Champ Perry, the kind andample-bosomed pioneer woman who gave historic dignity to the modernmatrons of the Thanatopsis. She poured out her plans. Mrs. Perry noddedand stroked Carol's hand, but at the end she sighed:"I wish I could agree with you, dearie. I'm sure you're one of theLord's anointed (even if we don't see you at the Baptist Church as oftenas we'd like to)! But I'm afraid you're too tender-hearted. When Champand I came here we teamed-it with an ox-cart from Sauk Centre to GopherPrairie, and there was nothing here then but a stockade and a fewsoldiers and some log cabins. When we wanted salt pork and gunpowder, wesent out a man on horseback, and probably he was shot dead by theInjuns before he got back. We ladies--of course we were all farmersat first--we didn't expect any rest-room in those days. My, we'd havethought the one they have now was simply elegant! My house was roofedwith hay and it leaked something terrible when it rained--only dry placewas under a shelf."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 allthese young folks do now with their terrible Turkey Trots and huggingand all. But if they must neglect the Lord's injunction that young girlsought 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 alwayswelcome 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 domesticscience demonstration you talk about. In my day the boys learned to farmby honest sweating, and every gal could cook, or her ma learned herhow across her knee! Besides, ain't there a county agent at Wakamin? Hecomes here once a fortnight, maybe. That's enough monkeying with thisscientific farming--Champ says there's nothing to it anyway."And as for a lecture hall--haven't we got the churches? Good dealbetter to listen to a good old-fashioned sermon than a lot of geographyand books and things that nobody needs to know--more 'n enough heathenlearning right here in the Thanatopsis. And as for trying to make awhole town in this Colonial architecture you talk about----I do lovenice things; to this day I run ribbons into my petticoats, even ifChamp Perry does laugh at me, the old villain! But just the same I don'tbelieve any of us old-timers would like to see the town that we workedso hard to build being tore down to make a place that wouldn't look likenothing 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 suchcomfy houses, and hot-water heat and electric lights and telephonesand cement walks and everything? Why, I thought everybody from the TwinCities always said it was such a beautiful town!"Carol forswore herself; declared that Gopher Prairie had the color ofAlgiers and the gaiety of Mardi Gras.Yet the next afternoon she was pouncing on Mrs. Lyman Cass, thehook-nosed consort of the owner of the flour-mill.Mrs. Cass's parlor belonged to the crammed-Victorian school, as Mrs.Luke Dawson's belonged to the bare-Victorian. It was furnished on twoprinciples: First, everything must resemble something else. A rocker hada back like a lyre, a near-leather seat imitating tufted cloth, andarms like Scotch Presbyterian lions; with knobs, scrolls, shields, andspear-points on unexpected portions of the chair. The second principleof the crammed-Victorian school was that every inch of the interior mustbe filled with useless objects.The walls of Mrs. Cass's parlor were plastered with "hand-painted"pictures, "buckeye" pictures, of birch-trees, news-boys, puppies, andchurch-steeples on Christmas Eve; with a plaque depicting the ExpositionBuilding in Minneapolis, burnt-wood portraits of Indian chiefs of notribe in particular, a pansy-decked poetic motto, a Yard of Roses, andthe banners of the educational institutions attended by the Casses' twosons--Chicopee Falls Business College and McGillicuddy University. Onesmall square table contained a card-receiver of painted china with a rimof wrought and gilded lead, a Family Bible, Grant's Memoirs, the latestnovel by Mrs. Gene Stratton Porter, a wooden model of a Swiss chaletwhich was also a bank for dimes, a polished abalone shell holding oneblack-headed pin and one empty spool, a velvet pin-cushion in a gildedmetal slipper with "Souvenir of Troy, N. Y." stamped on the toe, and anunexplained red glass dish which had warts.Mrs. Cass's first remark was, "I must show you all my pretty things andart objects."She piped, after Carol's appeal:"I see. You think the New England villages and Colonial houses are somuch more cunning than these Middlewestern towns. I'm glad you feel thatway. You'll be interested to know I was born in Vermont.""And don't you think we ought to try to make Gopher Prai----""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 aboutTolstoy? I was so glad she pointed out how all his silly socialisticideas failed."What Mrs. Cass said was what Kennicott said, that evening. Not in twentyyears would the council propose or Gopher Prairie vote the funds for anew city hall.VCarol had avoided exposing her plans to Vida Sherwin. She was shy of thebig-sister manner; Vida would either laugh at her or snatch the idea andchange it to suit herself. But there was no other hope. When Vida camein to tea Carol sketched her Utopia.Vida was soothing but decisive:"My dear, you're all off. I would like to see it: a real gardeny placeto shut out the gales. But it can't be done. What could the clubwomenaccomplish?""Their husbands are the most important men in town. They ARE the town!""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 themoney and cover the pumping-station with vines! Whatever you may thinkof Gopher Prairie women, they're twice as progressive as the men.""But can't the men see the ugliness?""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?""What they like is to sell prunes!""Well, why not? Anyway, the point is that you have to work from theinside, with what we have, rather than from the outside, with foreignideas. The shell ought not to be forced on the spirit. It can't be! Thebright shell has to grow out of the spirit, and express it. That meanswaiting. If we keep after the city council for another ten years theyMAY vote the bonds for a new school.""I refuse to believe that if they saw it the big men would be tootight-fisted to spend a few dollars each for a building--think!--dancingand lectures and plays, all done co-operatively!""You mention the word 'co-operative' to the merchants and they'lllynch you! The one thing they fear more than mail-order houses is thatfarmers' co-operative movements may get started.""The secret trails that lead to scared pocket-books! Always, ineverything! And I don't have any of the fine melodrama of fiction: thedictagraphs 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 andscold because the Northern seas aren't tender-colored. But at least theysha'n't keep me from loving Venice, and sometime I'll run away----Allright. No more."She flung out her hands in a gesture of renunciation.VIEarly May; wheat springing up in blades like grass; corn and potatoesbeing planted; the land humming. For two days there had been steadyrain. Even in town the roads were a furrowed welter of mud, hideous toview and difficult to cross. Main Street was a black swamp from curb tocurb; on residence streets the grass parking beside the walks oozed graywater. It was prickly hot, yet the town was barren under the bleak sky.Softened neither by snow nor by waving boughs the houses squatted andscowled, revealed in their unkempt harshness.As she dragged homeward Carol looked with distaste at her clay-loadedrubbers, the smeared hem of her skirt. She passed Lyman Cass'spinnacled, dark-red, hulking house. She waded a streaky yellow pool.This morass was not her home, she insisted. Her home, and her beautifultown, existed in her mind. They had already been created. The task wasdone. What she really had been questing was some one to share them withher. Vida would not; Kennicott could not.Some one to share her refuge.Suddenly she was thinking of Guy Pollock.She dismissed him. He was too cautious. She needed a spirit as young andunreasonable as her own. And she would never find it. Youth would nevercome singing. She was beaten.Yet that same evening she had an idea which solved the rebuilding ofGopher Prairie.Within ten minutes she was jerking the old-fashioned bell-pull of LukeDawson. Mrs. Dawson opened the door and peered doubtfully about theedge of it. Carol kissed her cheek, and frisked into the lugubrioussitting-room."Well, well, you're a sight for sore eyes!" chuckled Mr. Dawson,dropping his newspaper, pushing his spectacles back on his forehead."You seem so excited," sighed Mrs. Dawson."I am! Mr. Dawson, aren't you a millionaire?"He cocked his head, and purred, "Well, I guess if I cashed in on all mysecurities and farm-holdings and my interests in iron on the Mesaba andin Northern timber and cut-over lands, I could push two million dollarspretty close, and I've made every cent of it by hard work and having thesense to not go out and spend every----""I think I want most of it from you!"The Dawsons glanced at each other in appreciation of the jest; andhe chirped, "You're worse than Reverend Benlick! He don't hardly everstrike me for more than ten dollars--at a time!""I'm not joking. I mean it! Your children in the Cities are grown-up andwell-to-do. You don't want to die and leave your name unknown. Why notdo a big, original thing? Why not rebuild the whole town? Get a greatarchitect, and have him plan a town that would be suitable to theprairie. Perhaps he'd create some entirely new form of architecture.Then tear down all these shambling buildings----"Mr. Dawson had decided that she really did mean it. He wailed, "Why,that would cost at least three or four million dollars!""But you alone, just one man, have two of those millions!""Me? Spend all my hard-earned cash on building houses for a lot ofshiftless beggars that never had the sense to save their money? Notthat I've ever been mean. Mama could always have a hired girl to do thework--when we could find one. But her and I have worked our fingers tothe bone and--spend it on a lot of these rascals----?""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 ifthey heard you talk about a more attractive town----""Why now, child, you've got a lot of notions. Besides what's the matterwith the town? Looks good to me. I've had people that have traveledall over the world tell me time and again that Gopher Prairie is theprettiest place in the Middlewest. Good enough for anybody. Certainlygood enough for Mama and me. Besides! Mama and me are planning to goout to Pasadena and buy a bungalow and live there."VIIShe had met Miles Bjornstam on the street. For the second of welcomeencounter this workman with the bandit mustache and the muddy overallsseemed nearer than any one else to the credulous youth which she wasseeking to fight beside her, and she told him, as a cheerful anecdote, alittle of her story.He grunted, "I never thought I'd be agreeing with Old Man Dawson, thepenny-pinching old land-thief--and a fine briber he is, too. But yougot the wrong slant. You aren't one of the people--yet. You want to dosomething for the town. I don't! I want the town to do something foritself. We don't want old Dawson's money--not if it's a gift, with astring. We'll take it away from him, because it belongs to us. You gotto 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 takethings and run 'em straight."He had changed from her friend to a cynical man in overalls. She couldnot relish the autocracy of "cheerful bums."She forgot him as she tramped the outskirts of town.She had replaced the city hall project by an entirely new and highlyexhilarating thought of how little was done for these unpicturesquepoor.VIIIThe spring of the plains is not a reluctant virgin but brazen and soonaway. The mud roads of a few days ago are powdery dust and the puddlesbeside them have hardened into lozenges of black sleek earth likecracked patent leather.Carol was panting as she crept to the meeting of the Thanatopsis programcommittee which was to decide the subject for next fall and winter.Madam Chairman (Miss Ella Stowbody in an oyster-colored blouse) asked ifthere was any new business.Carol rose. She suggested that the Thanatopsis ought to help the poorof 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 amunicipal fund for home-building. "What do you think of my plans, Mrs.Warren?" she concluded.Speaking judiciously, as one related to the church by marriage, Mrs.Warren gave verdict:"I'm sure we're all heartily in accord with Mrs. Kennicott in feelingthat wherever genuine poverty is encountered, it is not only noblesseoblige but a joy to fulfil our duty to the less fortunate ones. But Imust say it seems to me we should lose the whole point of the thing bynot regarding it as charity. Why, that's the chief adornment of the trueChristian and the church! The Bible has laid it down for our guidance.'Faith, Hope, and CHARITY,' it says, and, 'The poor ye have with yealways,' which indicates that there never can be anything to theseso-called scientific schemes for abolishing charity, never! And isn't itbetter so? I should hate to think of a world in which we were deprivedof all the pleasure of giving. Besides, if these shiftless folks realizethey're getting charity, and not something to which they have a right,they're so much more grateful.""Besides," snorted Miss Ella Stowbody, "they've been fooling you, Mrs.Kennicott. There isn't any real poverty here. Take that Mrs. Steinhofyou speak of: I send her our washing whenever there's too much for ourhired 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. Papasays these folks are fakers. Especially all these tenant farmers thatpretend they have so much trouble getting seed and machinery. Papasays they simply won't pay their debts. He says he's sure he hates toforeclose mortgages, but it's the only way to make them respect thelaw.""And then think of all the clothes we give these people!" said Mrs.Jackson Elder.Carol intruded again. "Oh yes. The clothes. I was going to speak ofthat. Don't you think that when we give clothes to the poor, if wedo give them old ones, we ought to mend them first and make them aspresentable as we can? Next Christmas when the Thanatopsis makes itsdistribution, wouldn't it be jolly if we got together and sewed on theclothes, and trimmed hats, and made them----""Heavens and earth, they have more time than we have! They ought to bemighty 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 allI've got to do!" snapped Ella Stowbody.They were glaring at Carol. She reflected that Mrs. Vopni, whose husbandhad been killed by a train, had ten children.But Mrs. Mary Ellen Wilks was smiling. Mrs. Wilks was the proprietor ofYe Art Shoppe and Magazine and Book Store, and the reader of the smallChristian Science church. She made it all clear:"If this class of people had an understanding of Science and that we arethe children of God and nothing can harm us, they wouldn't be in errorand poverty."Mrs. Jackson Elder confirmed, "Besides, it strikes me the club isalready doing enough, with tree-planting and the anti-fly campaign andthe responsibility for the rest-room--to say nothing of the fact thatwe've talked of trying to get the railroad to put in a park at thestation!""I think so too!" said Madam Chairman. She glanced uneasily at MissSherwin. "But what do you think, Vida?"Vida smiled tactfully at each of the committee, and announced, "Well, Idon't believe we'd better start anything more right now. But it's beena privilege to hear Carol's dear generous ideas, hasn't it! Oh! There isone thing we must decide on at once. We must get together and opposeany move on the part of the Minneapolis clubs to elect another StateFederation president from the Twin Cities. And this Mrs. Edgar Potburythey're putting forward--I know there are people who think she's abright interesting speaker, but I regard her as very shallow. What doyou say to my writing to the Lake Ojibawasha Club, telling them that iftheir district will support Mrs. Warren for second vice-president, we'llsupport their Mrs. Hagelton (and such a dear, lovely, cultivated woman,too) for president.""Yes! We ought to show up those Minneapolis folks!" Ella Stowbodysaid 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 womansuffrage. Women haven't any place in politics. They would lose all theirdaintiness and charm if they became involved in these horried plotsand log-rolling and all this awful political stuff about scandal andpersonalities and so on."All--save one--nodded. They interrupted the formal business-meetingto discuss Mrs. Edgar Potbury's husband, Mrs. Potbury's income, Mrs.Potbury's sedan, Mrs. Potbury's residence, Mrs. Potbury's oratoricalstyle, Mrs. Potbury's mandarin evening coat, Mrs. Potbury's coiffure,and Mrs. Potbury's altogether reprehensible influence on the StateFederation of Women's Clubs.Before the program committee adjourned they took three minutes todecide which of the subjects suggested by the magazine Culture Hints,Furnishings and China, or The Bible as Literature, would be better forthe coming year. There was one annoying incident. Mrs. Dr. Kennicottinterfered and showed off again. She commented, "Don't you think that wealready get enough of the Bible in our churches and Sunday Schools?"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 feltthat we could get enough of the Bible! I guess if the Grand Old Bookhas withstood the attacks of infidels for these two thousand years it isworth our SLIGHT consideration!""Oh, I didn't mean----" Carol begged. Inasmuch as she did mean, it washard to be extremely lucid. "But I wish, instead of limiting ourselveseither to the Bible, or to anecdotes about the Brothers Adam's wigs,which Culture Hints seems to regard as the significant point aboutfurniture, we could study some of the really stirring ideas that arespringing up today--whether it's chemistry or anthropology or laborproblems--the things that are going to mean so terribly much."Everybody cleared her polite throat.Madam Chairman inquired, "Is there any other discussion? Will someone make a motion to adopt the suggestion of Vida Sherwin--to take upFurnishings and China?"It was adopted, unanimously."Checkmate!" murmured Carol, as she held up her hand.Had she actually believed that she could plant a seed of liberalismin the blank wall of mediocrity? How had she fallen into the folly oftrying to plant anything whatever in a wall so smooth and sun-glazed,and so satisfying to the happy sleepers within?