CHAPTER XXIV

by Sinclair Lewis

　　IALL that midsummer month Carol was sensitive to Kennicott. She recalleda hundred grotesqueries: her comic dismay at his having chewed tobacco,the evening when she had tried to read poetry to him; matters which hadseemed to vanish with no trace or sequence. Always she repeated thathe had been heroically patient in his desire to join the army. She mademuch of her consoling affection for him in little things. She liked thehomeliness of his tinkering about the house; his strength and handinessas he tightened the hinges of a shutter; his boyishness when he ranto her to be comforted because he had found rust in the barrel of hispump-gun. But at the highest he was to her another Hugh, without theglamor of Hugh's unknown future.There was, late in June, a day of heat-lightning.Because of the work imposed by the absence of the other doctors theKennicotts had not moved to the lake cottage but remained in town, dustyand irritable. In the afternoon, when she went to Oleson & McGuire's(formerly Dahl & Oleson's), Carol was vexed by the assumption ofthe youthful clerk, recently come from the farm, that he had to beneighborly and rude. He was no more brusquely familiar than a dozenother clerks of the town, but her nerves were heat-scorched.When she asked for codfish, for supper, he grunted, "What d'you wantthat darned old dry stuff for?""I like it!""Punk! Guess the doc can afford something better than that. Try some ofthe new wienies we got in. Swell. The Haydocks use 'em."She exploded. "My dear young man, it is not your duty to instruct me inhousekeeping, and it doesn't particularly concern me what the Haydockscondescend to approve!"He was hurt. He hastily wrapped up the leprous fragment of fish; hegaped as she trailed out. She lamented, "I shouldn't have spoken so. Hedidn't mean anything. He doesn't know when he is being rude."Her repentance was not proof against Uncle Whittier when she stopped inat 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 hisback, was whining at a clerk, "Come on now, get a hustle on and lugthat pound cake up to Mis' Cass's. Some folks in this town think astorekeeper 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 tome. May be decent and modest--I suppose I'm old-fashioned--but I neverthought much of showing the whole town a woman's bust! Hee, hee, hee!. . . Afternoon, Mrs. Hicks. Sage? Just out of it. Lemme sell you someother spices. Heh?" Uncle Whittier was nasally indignant "CERTAINLY! GotPLENTY other spices jus' good as sage for any purp'se whatever! What'sthe matter with--well, with allspice?" When Mrs. Hicks had gone, heraged, "Some folks don't know what they want!""Sweating sanctimonious bully--my husband's uncle!" thought Carol.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 fiveyears Dave had kept up this game of pretending that she threatened hislife.As she went dragging through the prickly-hot street she reflected that acitizen of Gopher Prairie does not have jests--he has a jest. Everycold morning for five winters Lyman Cass had remarked, "Fair to middlin'chilly--get worse before it gets better." Fifty times had Ezra Stowbodyinformed the public that Carol had once asked, "Shall I indorse thischeck on the back?" Fifty times had Sam Clark called to her, "Where'dyou steal that hat?" Fifty times had the mention of Barney Cahoon,the town drayman, like a nickel in a slot produced from Kennicott theapocryphal story of Barney's directing a minister, "Come down to thedepot and get your case of religious books--they're leaking!"She came home by the unvarying route. She knew every house-front, everystreet-crossing, every billboard, every tree, every dog. She knew everyblackened banana-skin and empty cigarette-box in the gutters. She knewevery greeting. When Jim Howland stopped and gaped at her there wasno possibility that he was about to confide anything but his grudging,"Well, haryuh t'day?"All her future life, this same red-labeled bread-crate in front of thebakery, this same thimble-shaped crack in the sidewalk a quarter of ablock beyond Stowbody's granite hitching-post----She silently handed her purchases to the silent Oscarina. She sat on theporch, rocking, fanning, twitchy with Hugh's whining.Kennicott came home, grumbled, "What the devil is the kid yappingabout?""I guess you can stand it ten minutes if I can stand it all day!"He came to supper in his shirt sleeves, his vest partly open, revealingdiscolored suspenders."Why don't you put on your nice Palm Beach suit, and take off thathideous vest?" she complained."Too much trouble. Too hot to go up-stairs."She realized that for perhaps a year she had not definitely lookedat her husband. She regarded his table-manners. He violently chasedfragments of fish about his plate with a knife and licked the knifeafter gobbling them. She was slightly sick. She asserted, "I'mridiculous. What do these things matter! Don't be so simple!" But sheknew that to her they did matter, these solecisms and mixed tenses ofthe table.She realized that they found little to say; that, incredibly, they werelike the talked-out couples whom she had pitied at restaurants.Bresnahan would have spouted in a lively, exciting, unreliable manner.She realized that Kennicott's clothes were seldom pressed. His coat waswrinkled; his trousers would flap at the knees when he arose. His shoeswere unblacked, and they were of an elderly shapelessness. He refusedto wear soft hats; cleaved to a hard derby, as a symbol of virility andprosperity; and sometimes he forgot to take it off in the house. Shepeeped at his cuffs. They were frayed in prickles of starched linen.She had turned them once; she clipped them every week; but when she hadbegged him to throw the shirt away, last Sunday morning at the crisisof the weekly bath, he had uneasily protested, "Oh, it'll wear quite awhile yet."He was shaved (by himself or more socially by Del Snafflin) only threetimes a week. This morning had not been one of the three times.Yet he was vain of his new turn-down collars and sleek ties; he oftenspoke of the "sloppy dressing" of Dr. McGanum; and he laughed at old menwho wore detachable cuffs or Gladstone collars.Carol did not care much for the creamed codfish that evening.She noted that his nails were jagged and ill-shaped from his habit ofcutting them with a pocket-knife and despising a nail-file as effeminateand urban. That they were invariably clean, that his were the scouredfingers of the surgeon, made his stubborn untidiness the more jarring.They were wise hands, kind hands, but they were not the hands of love.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 strawhat. Was it possible that those days of fumbling for each other weregone so completely? He had read books, to impress her; had said (sherecalled it ironically) that she was to point out his every fault; hadinsisted once, as they sat in the secret place beneath the walls of FortSnelling----She shut the door on her thoughts. That was sacred ground. But it WAS ashame that----She nervously pushed away her cake and stewed apricots.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 satreading, and she noted, and detested herself for noting, and noted againhis habitual awkwardness. He slumped down in one chair, his legs up onanother, and he explored the recesses of his left ear with the end ofhis little finger--she could hear the faint smack--he kept it up--hekept it up----He blurted, "Oh. Forgot tell you. Some of the fellows coming in to playpoker this evening. Suppose we could have some crackers and cheese andbeer?"She nodded."He might have mentioned it before. Oh well, it's his house."The poker-party straggled in: Sam Clark, Jack Elder, Dave Dyer, JimHowland. To her they mechanically said, "'Devenin'," but to Kennicott,in a heroic male manner, "Well, well, shall we start playing? Got ahunch I'm going to lick somebody real bad." No one suggested that shejoin them. She told herself that it was her own fault, because she wasnot more friendly; but she remembered that they never asked Mrs. SamClark to play.Bresnahan would have asked her.She sat in the living-room, glancing across the hall at the men as theyhumped over the dining table.They were in shirt sleeves; smoking, chewing, spitting incessantly;lowering their voices for a moment so that she did not hear what theysaid and afterward giggling hoarsely; using over and over the canonicalphrases: "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 andpervasive. The firmness with which the men mouthed their cigars made thelower part of their faces expressionless, heavy, unappealing. They werelike politicians cynically dividing appointments.How could they understand her world?Did that faint and delicate world exist? Was she a fool? She doubted herworld, doubted herself, and was sick in the acid, smoke-stained air.She slipped back into brooding upon the habituality of the house.Kennicott was as fixed in routine as an isolated old man. At firsthe had amorously deceived himself into liking her experiments withfood--the one medium in which she could express imagination--but nowhe wanted only his round of favorite dishes: steak, roast beef, boiledpig's-feet, oatmeal, baked apples. Because at some more flexible periodhe had advanced from oranges to grape-fruit he considered himself anepicure.During their first autumn she had smiled over his affection for hishunting-coat, but now that the leather had come unstitched in dribblesof pale yellow thread, and tatters of canvas, smeared with dirt of thefields and grease from gun-cleaning, hung in a border of rags, she hatedthe thing.Wasn't her whole life like that hunting-coat?She knew every nick and brown spot on each piece of the set of chinapurchased by Kennicott's mother in 1895--discreet china with a patternof washed-out forget-me-nots, rimmed with blurred gold: the gravy-boat,in a saucer which did not match, the solemn and evangelical coveredvegetable-dishes, the two platters.Twenty times had Kennicott sighed over the fact that Bea had broken theother platter--the medium-sized one.The kitchen.Damp black iron sink, damp whitey-yellow drain-board with shreds ofdiscolored wood which from long scrubbing were as soft as cotton thread,warped table, alarm clock, stove bravely blackened by Oscarina but anabomination in its loose doors and broken drafts and oven that neverwould keep an even heat.Carol had done her best by the kitchen: painted it white, put upcurtains, replaced a six-year-old calendar by a color print. She hadhoped for tiling, and a kerosene range for summer cooking, but Kennicottalways postponed these expenses.She was better acquainted with the utensils in the kitchen than withVida Sherwin or Guy Pollock. The can-opener, whose soft gray metalhandle was twisted from some ancient effort to pry open a window,was more pertinent to her than all the cathedrals in Europe; andmore significant than the future of Asia was the never-settled weeklyquestion as to whether the small kitchen knife with the unpainted handleor the second-best buckhorn carving-knife was better for cutting up coldchicken for Sunday supper.IIShe was ignored by the males till midnight. Her husband called, "Supposewe could have some eats, Carrie?" As she passed through the dining-roomthe men smiled on her, belly-smiles. None of them noticed her while shewas serving the crackers and cheese and sardines and beer. They weredetermining the exact psychology of Dave Dyer in standing pat, two hoursbefore.When they were gone she said to Kennicott, "Your friends have themanners 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."So rarely did she nag in this petty, hot-weather fashion that he wasastonished rather than angry. "Hey! Wait! What's the idea? I must sayI don't get you. The boys----Barroom? Why, Perce Bresnahan was sayingthere isn't a finer bunch of royal good fellows anywhere than just thecrowd that were here tonight!"They stood in the lower hall. He was too shocked to go on with hisduties of locking the front door and winding his watch and the clock."Bresnahan! I'm sick of him!" She meant nothing in particular."Why, Carrie, he's one of the biggest men in the country! Boston justeats out of his hand!""I wonder if it does? How do we know but that in Boston, among well-bredpeople, he may be regarded as an absolute lout? The way he calls women'Sister,' and the way----""Now look here! That'll do! Of course I know you don't mean it--you'resimply hot and tired, and trying to work off your peeve on me. But justthe same, I won't stand your jumping on Perce. You----It's just likeyour attitude toward the war--so darn afraid that America will becomemilitaristic----""But you are the pure patriot!""By God, I am!""Yes, I heard you talking to Sam Clark tonight about ways of avoidingthe income tax!"He had recovered enough to lock the door; he clumped up-stairs ahead ofher, growling, "You don't know what you're talking about. I'm perfectlywilling to pay my full tax--fact, I'm in favor of the income tax--eventhough I do think it's a penalty on frugality and enterprise--fact, it'san unjust, darn-fool tax. But just the same, I'll pay it. Only, I'm notidiot enough to pay more than the government makes me pay, and Sam andI were just figuring out whether all automobile expenses oughn't to beexemptions. I'll take a lot off you, Carrie, but I don't propose for onesecond to stand your saying I'm not patriotic. You know mighty well andgood that I've tried to get away and join the army. And at the beginningof the whole fracas I said--I've said right along--that we ought to haveentered the war the minute Germany invaded Belgium. You don't get me atall. You can't appreciate a man's work. You're abnormal. You'vefussed so much with these fool novels and books and all this highbrowjunk----You like to argue!"It ended, a quarter of an hour later, in his calling her a "neurotic"before he turned away and pretended to sleep.For the first time they had failed to make peace."There are two races of people, only two, and they live side byside. His calls mine 'neurotic'; mine calls his 'stupid.' We'll neverunderstand each other, never; and it's madness for us to debate--to lietogether in a hot bed in a creepy room--enemies, yoked."IIIIt clarified in her the longing for a place of her own."While it's so hot, I think I'll sleep in the spare room," she said nextday."Not a bad idea." He was cheerful and kindly.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 adenim cover, made a couch by day; put in a dressing-table, a rockertransformed by a cretonne cover; had Miles Bjornstam build book-shelves.Kennicott slowly understood that she meant to keep up her seclusion. Inhis queries, "Changing the whole room?" "Putting your books in there?"she caught his dismay. But it was so easy, once her door was closed, toshut out his worry. That hurt her--the ease of forgetting him.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 gettingsilly notions. No telling what a thing like that might lead to. SupposeI up and told your Uncle Whit that I wanted a room of my own!"Carol spoke of recipes for corn-pudding.But from Mrs. Dr. Westlake she drew encouragement. She had made anafternoon call on Mrs. Westlake. She was for the first time invitedup-stairs, and found the suave old woman sewing in a white and mahoganyroom with a small bed."Oh, do you have your own royal apartments, and the doctor his?" Carolhinted."Indeed I do! The doctor says it's bad enough to have to stand my temperat meals. Do----" Mrs. Westlake looked at her sharply. "Why, don't youdo the same thing?""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 bymyself now and then?""Why, child, every woman ought to get off by herself and turn over herthoughts--about children, and God, and how bad her complexion is, andthe way men don't really understand her, and how much work she finds todo in the house, and how much patience it takes to endure some things ina man's love.""Yes!" Carol said it in a gasp, her hands twisted together. She wantedto confess not only her hatred for the Aunt Bessies but her covertirritation toward those she best loved: her alienation from Kennicott,her disappointment in Guy Pollock, her uneasiness in the presence ofVida. She had enough self-control to confine herself to, "Yes. Men! Thedear blundering souls, we do have to get off and laugh at them.""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-bookswhen he ought to be tending to business! 'Marcus Westlake,' I say tohim, '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 marriedpeople grow to resemble each other!' Drat him!" Mrs. Westlake laughedcomfortably.After such a disclosure what could Carol do but return the courtesy byremarking that as for Kennicott, he wasn't romantic enough--the darling.Before she left she had babbled to Mrs. Westlake her dislike for AuntBessie, the fact that Kennicott's income was now more than five thousanda year, her view of the reason why Vida had married Raymie (whichincluded some thoroughly insincere praise of Raymie's "kind heart"), heropinion of the library-board, just what Kennicott had said about Mrs.Carthal's diabetes, and what Kennicott thought of the several surgeonsin the Cities.She went home soothed by confession, inspirited by finding a new friend.IVThe tragicomedy of the "domestic situation."Oscarina went back home to help on the farm, and Carol had a successionof maids, with gaps between. The lack of servants was becoming oneof the most cramping problems of the prairie town. Increasingly thefarmers' daughters rebelled against village dullness, and against theunchanged attitude of the Juanitas toward "hired girls." They went offto city kitchens, or to city shops and factories, that they might befree and even human after hours.The Jolly Seventeen were delighted at Carol's desertion by the loyalOscarina. They reminded her that she had said, "I don't have any troublewith maids; see how Oscarina stays on."Between incumbencies of Finn maids from the North Woods, Germans fromthe prairies, occasional Swedes and Norwegians and Icelanders, Carol didher own work--and endured Aunt Bessie's skittering in to tell her how todampen a broom for fluffy dust, how to sugar doughnuts, how to stuffa goose. Carol was deft, and won shy praise from Kennicott, but as hershoulder blades began to sting, she wondered how many millions of womenhad lied to themselves during the death-rimmed years through which theyhad pretended to enjoy the puerile methods persisting in housework.She doubted the convenience and, as a natural sequent, the sanctity ofthe monogamous and separate home which she had regarded as the basis ofall decent life.She considered her doubts vicious. She refused to remember how many ofthe women of the Jolly Seventeen nagged their husbands and were naggedby them.She energetically did not whine to Kennicott. But her eyes ached; shewas not the girl in breeches and a flannel shirt who had cooked over acamp-fire in the Colorado mountains five years ago. Her ambition was toget to bed at nine; her strongest emotion was resentment over rising athalf-past six to care for Hugh. The back of her neck ached as she gotout 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 theirkind employers.At mid-morning, when she was momentarily free from the ache in her neckand back, she was glad of the reality of work. The hours were livingand nimble. But she had no desire to read the eloquent little newspaperessays in praise of labor which are daily written by the white-browedjournalistic prophets. She felt independent and (though she hid it) abit surly.In cleaning the house she pondered upon the maid's-room. It was aslant-roofed, small-windowed hole above the kitchen, oppressive insummer, frigid in winter. She saw that while she had been consideringherself an unusually good mistress, she had been permitting her friendsBea and Oscarina to live in a sty. She complained to Kennicott. "What'sthe matter with it?" he growled, as they stood on the perilous stairsdodging up from the kitchen. She commented upon the sloping roof ofunplastered 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."Maybe it ain't any Hotel Radisson parlor, but still, it's so muchbetter than anything these hired girls are accustomed to at home thatthey think it's fine. Seems foolish to spend money when they wouldn'tappreciate it."But that night he drawled, with the casualness of a man who wishes to besurprising and delightful, "Carrie, don't know but what we might beginto think about building a new house, one of these days. How'd you likethat?""W-why----""I'm getting to the point now where I feel we can afford one--and acorker! I'll show this burg something like a real house! We'll put oneover on Sam and Harry! Make folks sit up an' take notice!""Yes," she said.He did not go on.Daily he returned to the subject of the new house, but as to time andmode he was indefinite. At first she believed. She babbled of a lowstone house with lattice windows and tulip-beds, of colonial brick, ofa white frame cottage with green shutters and dormer windows. To herenthusiasms he answered, "Well, ye-es, might be worth thinking about.Remember where I put my pipe?" When she pressed him he fidgeted, "Idon't know; seems to me those kind of houses you speak of have beenoverdone."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 thecountry: a square, yellow stolidity with immaculate clapboards, a broadscreened porch, tidy grass-plots, and concrete walks; a house resemblingthe mind of a merchant who votes the party ticket straight and goes tochurch once a month and owns a good car.He admitted, "Well, yes, maybe it isn't so darn artistic but----Matterof fact, though, I don't want a place just like Sam's. Maybe I would cutoff that fool tower he's got, and I think probably it would look betterpainted a nice cream color. That yellow on Sam's house is too kindof flashy. Then there's another kind of house that's mighty nice andsubstantial-looking, with shingles, in a nice brown stain, instead ofclapboards--seen some in Minneapolis. You're way off your base when yousay I only like one kind of house!"Uncle Whittier and Aunt Bessie came in one evening when Carol wassleepily advocating a rose-garden cottage."You've had a lot of experience with housekeeping, aunty, and don't youthink," Kennicott appealed, "that it would be sensible to have a nicesquare house, and pay more attention to getting a crackajack furnacethan to all this architecture and doodads?"Aunt Bessie worked her lips as though they were an elastic band. "Whyof course! I know how it is with young folks like you, Carrie; you wanttowers and bay-windows and pianos and heaven knows what all, but thething to get is closets and a good furnace and a handy place to hang outthe washing, and the rest don't matter."Uncle Whittier dribbled a little, put his face near to Carol's, andsputtered, "Course it don't! What d'you care what folks think aboutthe outside of your house? It's the inside you're living in. None of mybusiness, but I must say you young folks that'd rather have cakes thanpotatoes get me riled."She reached her room before she became savage. Below, dreadfullynear, she could hear the broom-swish of Aunt Bessie's voice, and themop-pounding of Uncle Whittier's grumble. She had a reasonless dreadthat they would intrude on her, then a fear that she would yieldto Gopher Prairie's conception of duty toward an Aunt Bessie and godown-stairs to be "nice." She felt the demand for standardized behaviorcoming in waves from all the citizens who sat in their sitting-roomswatching her with respectable eyes, waiting, demanding, unyielding. Shesnarled, "Oh, all right, I'll go!" She powdered her nose, straightenedher collar, and coldly marched down-stairs. The three elders ignoredher. They had advanced from the new house to agreeable general fussing.Aunt Bessie was saying, in a tone like the munching of dry toast:"I do think Mr. Stowbody ought to have had the rain-pipe fixed at ourstore 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--Iknow because I went right from the bank to the meat market to get somesteak--my! I think it's outrageous, the prices Oleson & McGuire chargefor their meat, and it isn't as if they gave you a good cut either butjust any old thing, and I had time to get it, and I stopped in at Mrs.Bogart's to ask about her rheumatism----"Carol was watching Uncle Whittier. She knew from his taut expressionthat he was not listening to Aunt Bessie but herding his own thoughts,and that he would interrupt her bluntly. He did:"Will, where c'n I get an extra pair of pants for this coat and vest? D'want to pay too much.""Well, guess Nat Hicks could make you up a pair. But if I were you, I'ddrop into Ike Rifkin's--his prices are lower than the Bon Ton's.""Humph. Got the new stove in your office yet?""No, been looking at some at Sam Clark's but----""Well, y' ought get 't in. Don't do to put off getting a stove allsummer, and then have it come cold on you in the fall."Carol smiled upon them ingratiatingly. "Do you dears mind if I slip upto bed? I'm rather tired--cleaned the upstairs today."She retreated. She was certain that they were discussing her, and foullyforgiving her. She lay awake till she heard the distant creak of a bedwhich indicated that Kennicott had retired. Then she felt safe.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, butjust the same, he's a pretty wise old coot. He's certainly making goodwith the store."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 ahouse right, and darn the people on the outside looking in!"It seemed settled that the house was to be a sound example of the SamClark school.Kennicott made much of erecting it entirely for her and the baby. Hespoke of closets for her frocks, and "a comfy sewing-room." But whenhe drew on a leaf from an old account-book (he was a paper-saver and astring-picker) the plans for the garage, he gave much more attentionto a cement floor and a work-bench and a gasoline-tank than he had tosewing-rooms.She sat back and was afraid.In the present rookery there were odd things--a step up from the hallto the dining-room, a picturesqueness in the shed and bedraggled lilacbush. But the new place would be smooth, standardized, fixed. It wasprobable, now that Kennicott was past forty, and settled, that thiswould be the last venture he would ever make in building. So long as shestayed in this ark, she would always have a possibility of change, butonce she was in the new house, there she would sit for all the rest ofher life--there she would die. Desperately she wanted to put it off,against the chance of miracles. While Kennicott was chattering about apatent swing-door for the garage she saw the swing-doors of a prison.She never voluntarily returned to the project. Aggrieved, Kennicottstopped drawing plans, and in ten days the new house was forgotten.VEvery year since their marriage Carol had longed for a trip through theEast. Every year Kennicott had talked of attending the American MedicalAssociation convention, "and then afterwards we could do the Eastup brown. I know New York clean through--spent pretty near a weekthere--but I would like to see New England and all these historic placesand have some sea-food." He talked of it from February to May, and inMay he invariably decided that coming confinement-cases or land-dealswould prevent his "getting away from home-base for very long THISyear--and no sense going till we can do it right."The weariness of dish-washing had increased her desire to go. Shepictured herself looking at Emerson's manse, bathing in a surf of jadeand ivory, wearing a trottoir and a summer fur, meeting an aristocraticStranger. In the spring Kennicott had pathetically volunteered, "S'poseyou'd like to get in a good long tour this summer, but with Gould andMac away and so many patients depending on me, don't see how I can makeit. By golly, I feel like a tightwad though, not taking you." Throughall this restless July after she had tasted Bresnahan's disturbingflavor of travel and gaiety, she wanted to go, but she said nothing.They spoke of and postponed a trip to the Twin Cities. When shesuggested, as though it were a tremendous joke, "I think baby and Imight up and leave you, and run off to Cape Cod by ourselves!" his onlyreaction was "Golly, don't know but what you may almost have to do that,if we don't get in a trip next year."Toward the end of July he proposed, "Say, the Beavers are holding aconvention in Joralemon, street fair and everything. We might go downtomorrow. And I'd like to see Dr. Calibree about some business. Put inthe whole day. Might help some to make up for our trip. Fine fellow, Dr.Calibree."Joralemon was a prairie town of the size of Gopher Prairie.Their motor was out of order, and there was no passenger-train at anearly hour. They went down by freight-train, after the weighty andconversational business of leaving Hugh with Aunt Bessie. Carol wasexultant over this irregular jaunting. It was the first unusual thing,except the glance of Bresnahan, that had happened since the weaning ofHugh. They rode in the caboose, the small red cupola-topped car jerkedalong at the end of the train. It was a roving shanty, the cabin of aland schooner, with black oilcloth seats along the side, and for desk, apine board to be let down on hinges. Kennicott played seven-up with theconductor and two brakemen. Carol liked the blue silk kerchiefs aboutthe brakemen's throats; she liked their welcome to her, and their air offriendly independence. Since there were no sweating passengers crammedin beside her, she reveled in the train's slowness. She was part ofthese lakes and tawny wheat-fields. She liked the smell of hot earth andclean grease; and the leisurely chug-a-chug, chug-a-chug of the truckswas a song of contentment in the sun.She pretended that she was going to the Rockies. When they reachedJoralemon she was radiant with holiday-making.Her eagerness began to lessen the moment they stopped at a red framestation exactly like the one they had just left at Gopher Prairie,and Kennicott yawned, "Right on time. Just in time for dinner at theCalibrees'. I 'phoned the doctor from G. P. that we'd be here. 'We'llcatch the freight that gets in before twelve,' I told him. He saidhe'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 brainylittle woman, bright as a dollar. By golly, there he is."Dr. Calibree was a squat, clean-shaven, conscientious-looking man offorty. He was curiously like his own brown-painted motor car, witheye-glasses for windshield. "Want you to meet my wife, doctor--Carrie,make you 'quainted with Dr. Calibree," said Kennicott. Calibree bowedquietly and shook her hand, but before he had finished shaking it he wasconcentrating upon Kennicott with, "Nice to see you, doctor. Say, don'tlet me forget to ask you about what you did in that exopthalmic goitercase--that Bohemian woman at Wahkeenyan."The two men, on the front seat of the car, chanted goiters and ignoredher. She did not know it. She was trying to feed her illusion ofadventure by staring at unfamiliar houses . . . drab cottages, artificialstone bungalows, square painty stolidities with immaculate clapboardsand broad screened porches and tidy grass-plots.Calibree handed her over to his wife, a thick woman who calledher "dearie," and asked if she was hot and, visibly searching forconversation, produced, "Let's see, you and the doctor have a LittleOne, haven't you?" At dinner Mrs. Calibree served the corned beef andcabbage and looked steamy, looked like the steamy leaves of cabbage. Themen were oblivious of their wives as they gave the social passwords ofMain 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, Kennicottinquired, "Say, doctor, what success have you had with thyroid fortreatment of pains in the legs before child-birth?"Carol did not resent their assumption that she was too ignorant to beadmitted to masculine mysteries. She was used to it. But the cabbage andMrs. Calibree's monotonous "I don't know what we're coming to withall this difficulty getting hired girls" were gumming her eyes withdrowsiness. She sought to clear them by appealing to Calibree, in amanner of exaggerated liveliness, "Doctor, have the medical societiesin Minnesota ever advocated legislation for help to nursing mothers?"Calibree slowly revolved toward her. "Uh--I've never--uh--never lookedinto it. I don't believe much in getting mixed up in politics." Heturned 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 seemsto me----"Not till after two did they rise. In the lee of the stonily mature trioCarol proceeded to the street fair which added mundane gaiety to theannual rites of the United and Fraternal Order of Beavers. Beavers,human Beavers, were everywhere: thirty-second degree Beavers in graysack suits and decent derbies, more flippant Beavers in crash summercoats and straw hats, rustic Beavers in shirt sleeves and frayedsuspenders; but whatever his caste-symbols, every Beaver wasdistinguished by an enormous shrimp-colored ribbon lettered in silver,"Sir Knight and Brother, U. F. O. B., Annual State Convention." On themotherly shirtwaist of each of their wives was a badge "Sir Knight'sLady." The Duluth delegation had brought their famous Beaver amateurband, in Zouave costumes of green velvet jacket, blue trousers, andscarlet fez. The strange thing was that beneath their scarlet pride theZouaves' faces remained those of American business-men, pink, smooth,eye-glassed; and as they stood playing in a circle, at the corner ofMain Street and Second, as they tootled on fifes or with swelling cheeksblew into cornets, their eyes remained as owlish as though they weresitting at desks under the sign "This Is My Busy Day."Carol had supposed that the Beavers were average citizens organized forthe purposes of getting cheap life-insurance and playing poker at thelodge-rooms every second Wednesday, but she saw a large poster whichproclaimed: 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. Kennicott read the poster and to Calibree admired, "Strong lodge, theBeavers. Never joined. Don't know but what I will."Calibree adumbrated, "They're a good bunch. Good strong lodge. See thatfellow there that's playing the snare drum? He's the smartest wholesalegrocer in Duluth, they say. Guess it would be worth joining. Oh say, areyou doing much insurance examining?"They went on to the street fair.Lining one block of Main Street were the "attractions"--two hot-dogstands, a lemonade and pop-corn stand, a merry-go-round, and booths inwhich balls might be thrown at rag dolls, if one wished to throw ballsat rag dolls. The dignified delegates were shy of the booths, butcountry boys with brickred necks and pale-blue ties and bright-yellowshoes, who had brought sweethearts into town in somewhat dusty andlisted Fords, were wolfing sandwiches, drinking strawberry pop out ofbottles, and riding the revolving crimson and gold horses. They shriekedand giggled; peanut-roasters whistled; the merry-go-round pounded outmonotonous music; the barkers bawled, "Here's your chance--here'syour chance--come on here, boy--come on here--give that girl a goodtime--give her a swell time--here's your chance to win a genuwine goldwatch for five cents, half a dime, the twentieth part of a dollah!"The prairie sun jabbed the unshaded street with shafts that were likepoisonous thorns the tinny cornices above the brick stores were glaring;the dull breeze scattered dust on sweaty Beavers who crawled along intight scorching new shoes, up two blocks and back, up two blocks andback, wondering what to do next, working at having a good time.Carol's head ached as she trailed behind the unsmiling Calibrees alongthe block of booths. She chirruped at Kennicott, "Let's be wild! Let'sride on the merry-go-round and grab a gold ring!"Kennicott considered it, and mumbled to Calibree, "Think you folks wouldlike to stop and try a ride on the merry-go-round?"Calibree considered it, and mumbled to his wife, "Think you'd like tostop and try a ride on the merry-go-round?"Mrs. Calibree smiled in a washed-out manner, and sighed, "Oh no, I don'tbelieve I care to much, but you folks go ahead and try it."Calibree stated to Kennicott, "No, I don't believe we care to a wholelot, but you folks go ahead and try it."Kennicott summarized the whole case against wildness: "Let's try it someother time, Carrie."She gave it up. She looked at the town. She saw that in adventuringfrom Main Street, Gopher Prairie, to Main Street, Joralemon, she had notstirred. There were the same two-story brick groceries with lodge-signsabove the awnings; the same one-story wooden millinery shop; the samefire-brick garages; the same prairie at the open end of the widestreet; the same people wondering whether the levity of eating a hot-dogsandwich would break their taboos.They reached Gopher Prairie at nine in the evening."You look kind of hot," said Kennicott."Yes.""Joralemon is an enterprising town, don't you think so?" She broke. "No!I think it's an ash-heap.""Why, Carrie!"He worried over it for a week. While he ground his plate with his knifeas he energetically pursued fragments of bacon, he peeped at her.