CHAPTER XXVIII

by Sinclair Lewis

　　IT WAS at a supper of the Jolly Seventeen in August that Carol heard of"Elizabeth," from Mrs. Dave Dyer.Carol was fond of Maud Dyer, because she had been particularly agreeablelately; had obviously repented of the nervous distaste which she hadonce shown. Maud patted her hand when they met, and asked about Hugh.Kennicott said that he was "kind of sorry for the girl, some ways; she'stoo darn emotional, but still, Dave is sort of mean to her." He waspolite to poor Maud when they all went down to the cottages for a swim.Carol was proud of that sympathy in him, and now she took pains to sitwith their new friend.Mrs. Dyer was bubbling, "Oh, have you folks heard about this youngfellow that's just come to town that the boys call 'Elizabeth'? He'sworking in Nat Hicks's tailor shop. I bet he doesn't make eighteen aweek, but my! isn't he the perfect lady though! He talks so refined, andoh, the lugs he puts on--belted coat, and pique collar with a gold pin,and socks to match his necktie, and honest--you won't believe this, butI got it straight--this fellow, you know he's staying at Mrs. Gurrey'spunk old boarding-house, and they say he asked Mrs. Gurrey if he oughtto put on a dress-suit for supper! Imagine! Can you beat that? And himnothing but a Swede tailor--Erik Valborg his name is. But he used to bein a tailor shop in Minneapolis (they do say he's a smart needle-pusher,at that) and he tries to let on that he's a regular city fellow. Theysay he tries to make people think he's a poet--carries books around andpretends to read 'em. Myrtle Cass says she met him at a dance, and hewas mooning around all over the place, and he asked her did she likeflowers and poetry and music and everything; he spieled like he was aregular United States Senator; and Myrtle--she's a devil, that girl,ha! ha!--she kidded him along, and got him going, and honest, what d'youthink he said? He said he didn't find any intellectual companionshipin this town. Can you BEAT it? Imagine! And him a Swede tailor! My! Andthey say he's the most awful mollycoddle--looks just like a girl. Theboys call him 'Elizabeth,' and they stop him and ask about the books helets on to have read, and he goes and tells them, and they take itall in and jolly him terribly, and he never gets onto the fact they'rekidding him. Oh, I think it's just TOO funny!"The Jolly Seventeen laughed, and Carol laughed with them. Mrs. JackElder added that this Erik Valborg had confided to Mrs. Gurrey that hewould "love to design clothes for women." Imagine! Mrs. Harvey Dillonhad had a glimpse of him, but honestly, she'd thought he was awfullyhandsome. This was instantly controverted by Mrs. B. J. Gougerling, wifeof the banker. Mrs. Gougerling had had, she reported, a good lookat this Valborg fellow. She and B. J. had been motoring, and passed"Elizabeth" out by McGruder's Bridge. He was wearing the awfullestclothes, with the waist pinched in like a girl's. He was sitting ona rock doing nothing, but when he heard the Gougerling car coming hesnatched a book out of his pocket, and as they went by he pretended tobe reading it, to show off. And he wasn't really good-looking--just kindof soft, as B. J. had pointed out.When the husbands came they joined in the expose. "My name is Elizabeth.I'm the celebrated musical tailor. The skirts fall for me by the thou.Do I get some more veal loaf?" merrily shrieked Dave Dyer. He had someadmirable stories about the tricks the town youngsters had played onValborg. They had dropped a decaying perch into his pocket. They hadpinned on his back a sign, "I'm the prize boob, kick me."Glad of any laughter, Carol joined the frolic, and surprised them bycrying, "Dave, I do think you're the dearest thing since you got yourhair cut!" That was an excellent sally. Everybody applauded. Kennicottlooked proud.She decided that sometime she really must go out of her way to passHicks's shop and see this freak.IIShe was at Sunday morning service at the Baptist Church, in a solemn rowwith her husband, Hugh, Uncle Whittier, Aunt Bessie.Despite Aunt Bessie's nagging the Kennicotts rarely attended church. Thedoctor asserted, "Sure, religion is a fine influence--got to have it tokeep the lower classes in order--fact, it's the only thing that appealsto a lot of those fellows and makes 'em respect the rights of property.And I guess this theology is O.K.; lot of wise old coots figured itall out, and they knew more about it than we do." He believed in theChristian religion, and never thought about it, he believed in thechurch, and seldom went near it; he was shocked by Carol's lack offaith, and wasn't quite sure what was the nature of the faith that shelacked.Carol herself was an uneasy and dodging agnostic.When she ventured to Sunday School and heard the teachers droning thatthe genealogy of Shamsherai was a valuable ethical problem for childrento think about; when she experimented with Wednesday prayer-meeting andlistened to store-keeping elders giving their unvarying weekly testimonyin primitive erotic symbols and such gory Chaldean phrases as "washedin the blood of the lamb" and "a vengeful God"; when Mrs. Bogart boastedthat through his boyhood she had made Cy confess nightly upon the basisof the Ten Commandments; then Carol was dismayed to find the Christianreligion, in America, in the twentieth century, as abnormal asZoroastrianism--without the splendor. But when she went to churchsuppers and felt the friendliness, saw the gaiety with which the sistersserved cold ham and scalloped potatoes; when Mrs. Champ Perry cried toher, on an afternoon call, "My dear, if you just knew how happy it makesyou to come into abiding grace," then Carol found the humanness behindthe sanguinary and alien theology. Always she perceived that thechurches--Methodist, Baptist, Congregational, Catholic, all ofthem--which had seemed so unimportant to the judge's home in herchildhood, so isolated from the city struggle in St. Paul, werestill, in Gopher Prairie, the strongest of the forces compellingrespectability.This August Sunday she had been tempted by the announcement that theReverend Edmund Zitterel would preach on the topic "America, Face YourProblems!" With the great war, workmen in every nation showing a desireto control industries, Russia hinting a leftward revolution againstKerensky, woman suffrage coming, there seemed to be plenty of problemsfor the Reverend Mr. Zitterel to call on America to face. Carol gatheredher family and trotted off behind Uncle Whittier.The congregation faced the heat with informality. Men with highlyplastered hair, so painfully shaved that their faces looked sore,removed their coats, sighed, and unbuttoned two buttons of theiruncreased Sunday vests. Large-bosomed, white-bloused, hot-necked,spectacled matrons--the Mothers in Israel, pioneers and friends of Mrs.Champ Perry--waved their palm-leaf fans in a steady rhythm. Abashed boysslunk into the rear pews and giggled, while milky little girls, up frontwith their mothers, self-consciously kept from turning around.The church was half barn and half Gopher Prairie parlor. The streakybrown wallpaper was broken in its dismal sweep only by framed texts,"Come unto Me" and "The Lord is My Shepherd," by a list of hymns, and bya crimson and green diagram, staggeringly drawn upon hemp-colored paper,indicating the alarming ease with which a young man may descend fromPalaces of Pleasure and the House of Pride to Eternal Damnation. But thevarnished oak pews and the new red carpet and the three large chairs onthe platform, behind the bare reading-stand, were all of a rocking-chaircomfort.Carol was civic and neighborly and commendable today. She beamed andbowed. She trolled out with the others the hymn: How pleasant 'tis on Sabbath morn To gather in the church And there I'll have no carnal thoughts, Nor sin shall me besmirch. With a rustle of starched linen skirts and stiff shirt-fronts, thecongregation sat down, and gave heed to the Reverend Mr. Zitterel. Thepriest was a thin, swart, intense young man with a bang. He wore ablack sack suit and a lilac tie. He smote the enormous Bible on thereading-stand, vociferated, "Come, let us reason together," delivered aprayer informing Almighty God of the news of the past week, and began toreason.It proved that the only problems which America had to face wereMormonism and Prohibition:"Don't let any of these self-conceited fellows that are always trying tostir up trouble deceive you with the belief that there's anything toall these smart-aleck movements to let the unions and the Farmers'Nonpartisan League kill all our initiative and enterprise by fixingwages and prices. There isn't any movement that amounts to a whoopwithout it's got a moral background. And let me tell you that whilefolks are fussing about what they call 'economics' and 'socialism'and 'science' and a lot of things that are nothing in the world but adisguise for atheism, the Old Satan is busy spreading his secret netand tentacles out there in Utah, under his guise of Joe Smith or BrighamYoung or whoever their leaders happen to be today, it doesn't make anydifference, and they're making game of the Old Bible that has led thisAmerican people through its manifold trials and tribulations to its firmposition as the fulfilment of the prophecies and the recognized leaderof all nations. 'Sit thou on my right hand till I make thine enemiesthe footstool of my feet,' said the Lord of Hosts, Acts II, thethirty-fourth verse--and let me tell you right now, you got to get up agood deal earlier in the morning than you get up even when you're goingfishing, if you want to be smarter than the Lord, who has shown us thestraight and narrow way, and he that passeth therefrom is ineternal peril and, to return to this vital and terrible subject ofMormonism--and as I say, it is terrible to realize how little attentionis given to this evil right here in our midst and on our very doorstep,as it were--it's a shame and a disgrace that the Congress of theseUnited States spends all its time talking about inconsequentialfinancial matters that ought to be left to the Treasury Department, as Iunderstand it, instead of arising in their might and passing a law thatany one admitting he is a Mormon shall simply be deported and as it werekicked out of this free country in which we haven't got any room forpolygamy and the tyrannies of Satan."And, to digress for a moment, especially as there are more of them inthis state than there are Mormons, though you never can tell what willhappen with this vain generation of young girls, that think more aboutwearing silk stockings than about minding their mothers and learning tobake a good loaf of bread, and many of them listening to these sneakingMormon missionaries--and I actually heard one of them talking right outon a street-corner in Duluth, a few years ago, and the officers of thelaw not protesting--but still, as they are a smaller but more immediateproblem, let me stop for just a moment to pay my respects to theseSeventh-Day Adventists. Not that they are immoral, I don't mean, butwhen a body of men go on insisting that Saturday is the Sabbath, afterChrist himself has clearly indicated the new dispensation, then I thinkthe legislature ought to step in----"At this point Carol awoke.She got through three more minutes by studying the face of a girl inthe pew across: a sensitive unhappy girl whose longing poured outwith intimidating self-revelation as she worshiped Mr. Zitterel. Carolwondered who the girl was. She had seen her at church suppers. Sheconsidered how many of the three thousand people in the town she did notknow; to how many of them the Thanatopsis and the Jolly Seventeen wereicy social peaks; how many of them might be toiling through boredomthicker than her own--with greater courage.She examined her nails. She read two hymns. She got some satisfactionout of rubbing an itching knuckle. She pillowed on her shoulder the headof the baby who, after killing time in the same manner as his mother,was so fortunate as to fall asleep. She read the introduction,title-page, and acknowledgment of copyrights, in the hymnal. She triedto evolve a philosophy which would explain why Kennicott could nevertie his scarf so that it would reach the top of the gap in his turn-downcollar.There were no other diversions to be found in the pew. She glanced backat the congregation. She thought that it would be amiable to bow to Mrs.Champ Perry.Her slow turning head stopped, galvanized.Across the aisle, two rows back, was a strange young man who shone amongthe cud-chewing citizens like a visitant from the sun-amber curls, lowforehead, fine nose, chin smooth but not raw from Sabbath shaving. Hislips startled her. The lips of men in Gopher Prairie are flat in theface, straight and grudging. The stranger's mouth was arched, the upperlip short. He wore a brown jersey coat, a delft-blue bow, a white silkshirt, white flannel trousers. He suggested the ocean beach, a tenniscourt, anything but the sun-blistered utility of Main Street.A visitor from Minneapolis, here for business? No. He wasn't a businessman. He was a poet. Keats was in his face, and Shelley, and ArthurUpson, whom she had once seen in Minneapolis. He was at once toosensitive and too sophisticated to touch business as she knew it inGopher Prairie.With restrained amusement he was analyzing the noisy Mr. Zitterel. Carolwas ashamed to have this spy from the Great World hear the pastor'smaundering. She felt responsible for the town. She resented his gapingat their private rites. She flushed, turned away. But she continued tofeel his presence.How could she meet him? She must! For an hour of talk. He was all thatshe was hungry for. She could not let him get away without a word--andshe would have to. She pictured, and ridiculed, herself as walking upto him and remarking, "I am sick with the Village Virus. Will you pleasetell me what people are saying and playing in New York?" She pictured,and groaned over, the expression of Kennicott if she should say,"Why wouldn't it be reasonable for you, my soul, to ask that completestranger in the brown jersey coat to come to supper tonight?"She brooded, not looking back. She warned herself that she was probablyexaggerating; that no young man could have all these exalted qualities.Wasn't he too obviously smart, too glossy-new? Like a movie actor.Probably he was a traveling salesman who sang tenor and fancied himselfin imitations of Newport clothes and spoke of "the swellest businessproposition that ever came down the pike." In a panic she peered at him.No! This was no hustling salesman, this boy with the curving Grecianlips and the serious eyes.She rose after the service, carefully taking Kennicott's arm and smilingat him in a mute assertion that she was devoted to him no matter whathappened. She followed the Mystery's soft brown jersey shoulders out ofthe church.Fatty Hicks, the shrill and puffy son of Nat, flapped his hand at thebeautiful stranger and jeered, "How's the kid? All dolled up like aplush horse today, ain't we!"Carol was exceeding sick. Her herald from the outside was Erik Valborg,"Elizabeth." Apprentice tailor! Gasoline and hot goose! Mending dirtyjackets! Respectfully holding a tape-measure about a paunch!And yet, she insisted, this boy was also himself.IIIThey had Sunday dinner with the Smails, in a dining-room which centeredabout a fruit and flower piece and a crayon-enlargement of UncleWhittier. Carol did not heed Aunt Bessie's fussing in regard to Mrs.Robert B. Schminke's bead necklace and Whittier's error in putting onthe striped pants, day like this. She did not taste the shreds of roastpork. She said vacuously:"Uh--Will, I wonder if that young man in the white flannel trousers, atchurch this morning, was this Valborg person that they're all talkingabout?""Yump. That's him. Wasn't that the darndest get-up he had on!" Kennicottscratched at a white smear on his hard gray sleeve."It wasn't so bad. I wonder where he comes from? He seems to have livedin cities a good deal. Is he from the East?""The East? Him? Why, he comes from a farm right up north here, just thisside of Jefferson. I know his father slightly--Adolph Valborg--typicalcranky old Swede farmer.""Oh, really?" blandly."Believe he has lived in Minneapolis for quite some time, though.Learned his trade there. And I will say he's bright, some ways. Readsa lot. Pollock says he takes more books out of the library than anybodyelse in town. Huh! He's kind of like you in that!"The Smails and Kennicott laughed very much at this sly jest. UncleWhittier seized the conversation. "That fellow that's working for Hicks?Milksop, that's what he is. Makes me tired to see a young fellow thatought to be in the war, or anyway out in the fields earning his livinghonest, like I done when I was young, doing a woman's work and then comeout and dress up like a show-actor! Why, when I was his age----"Carol reflected that the carving-knife would make an excellent daggerwith which to kill Uncle Whittier. It would slide in easily. Theheadlines would be terrible.Kennicott said judiciously, "Oh, I don't want to be unjust to him.I believe he took his physical examination for military service. Gotvaricose veins--not bad, but enough to disqualify him. Though I will sayhe doesn't look like a fellow that would be so awful darn crazy to pokehis bayonet into a Hun's guts.""Will! PLEASE!""Well, he don't. Looks soft to me. And they say he told Del Snafflin,when he was getting a hair-cut on Saturday, that he wished he could playthe piano.""Isn't it wonderful how much we all know about one another in a townlike this," said Carol innocently.Kennicott was suspicious, but Aunt Bessie, serving the floating islandpudding, agreed, "Yes, it is wonderful. Folks can get away with allsorts of meannesses and sins in these terrible cities, but they can'there. I was noticing this tailor fellow this morning, and when Mrs.Riggs offered to share her hymn-book with him, he shook his head, andall the while we was singing he just stood there like a bump on a logand never opened his mouth. Everybody says he's got an idea that he'sgot so much better manners and all than what the rest of us have, but ifthat's what he calls good manners, I want to know!"Carol again studied the carving-knife. Blood on the whiteness of atablecloth might be gorgeous.Then:"Fool! Neurotic impossibilist! Telling yourself orchard fairy-tales--atthirty. . . . Dear Lord, am I really THIRTY? That boy can't be more thantwenty-five."IVShe went calling.Boarding with the Widow Bogart was Fern Mullins, a girl of twenty-twowho was to be teacher of English, French, and gymnastics in the highschool this coming session. Fern Mullins had come to town early, for thesix-weeks normal course for country teachers. Carol had noticed her onthe street, had heard almost as much about her as about Erik Valborg.She was tall, weedy, pretty, and incurably rakish. Whether she wore alow middy collar or dressed reticently for school in a black suit with ahigh-necked blouse, she was airy, flippant. "She looks like an absolutetotty," said all the Mrs. Sam Clarks, disapprovingly, and all theJuanita Haydocks, enviously.That Sunday evening, sitting in baggy canvas lawn-chairs beside thehouse, the Kennicotts saw Fern laughing with Cy Bogart who, though stilla junior in high school, was now a lump of a man, only two or threeyears younger than Fern. Cy had to go downtown for weighty mattersconnected with the pool-parlor. Fern drooped on the Bogart porch, herchin in her hands."She looks lonely," said Kennicott."She does, poor soul. I believe I'll go over and speak to her. I wasintroduced to her at Dave's but I haven't called." Carol was slippingacross the lawn, a white figure in the dimness, faintly brushing thedewy grass. She was thinking of Erik and of the fact that her feetwere wet, and she was casual in her greeting: "Hello! The doctor and Iwondered if you were lonely."Resentfully, "I am!"Carol concentrated on her. "My dear, you sound so! I know how it is. Iused to be tired when I was on the job--I was a librarian. What was yourcollege? I was Blodgett."More interestedly, "I went to the U." Fern meant the University ofMinnesota."You must have had a splendid time. Blodgett was a bit dull.""Where were you a librarian?" challengingly."St. Paul--the main library.""Honest? Oh dear, I wish I was back in the Cities! This is my first yearof teaching, and I'm scared stiff. I did have the best time in college:dramatics and basket-ball and fussing and dancing--I'm simply crazyabout dancing. And here, except when I have the kids in gymnasium class,or when I'm chaperoning the basket-ball team on a trip out-of-town, Iwon't dare to move above a whisper. I guess they don't care much ifyou put any pep into teaching or not, as long as you look like a GoodInfluence out of school-hours--and that means never doing anything youwant to. This normal course is bad enough, but the regular school willbe FIERCE! If it wasn't too late to get a job in the Cities, I swear I'dresign here. I bet I won't dare to go to a single dance all winter. IfI cut loose and danced the way I like to, they'd think I was a perfecthellion--poor harmless me! Oh, I oughtn't to be talking like this. Fern,you never could be cagey!""Don't be frightened, my dear! . . . Doesn't that sound atrociously oldand kind! I'm talking to you the way Mrs. Westlake talks to me! That'shaving a husband and a kitchen range, I suppose. But I feel young, and Iwant to dance like a--like a hellion?--too. So I sympathize."Fern made a sound of gratitude. Carol inquired, "What experience did youhave with college dramatics? I tried to start a kind of Little Theaterhere. It was dreadful. I must tell you about it----"Two hours later, when Kennicott came over to greet Fern and to yawn,"Look here, Carrie, don't you suppose you better be thinking aboutturning in? I've got a hard day tomorrow," the two were talking sointimately that they constantly interrupted each other.As she went respectably home, convoyed by a husband, and decorouslyholding up her skirts, Carol rejoiced, "Everything has changed! I havetwo friends, Fern and----But who's the other? That's queer; I thoughtthere was----Oh, how absurd!"VShe often passed Erik Valborg on the street; the brown jersey coatbecame unremarkable. When she was driving with Kennicott, in earlyevening, she saw him on the lake shore, reading a thin book which mighteasily have been poetry. She noted that he was the only person in themotorized town who still took long walks.She told herself that she was the daughter of a judge, the wife of adoctor, and that she did not care to know a capering tailor. She toldherself that she was not responsive to men . . . not even to PercyBresnahan. She told herself that a woman of thirty who heeded a boyof twenty-five was ridiculous. And on Friday, when she had convincedherself that the errand was necessary, she went to Nat Hicks's shop,bearing the not very romantic burden of a pair of her husband'strousers. Hicks was in the back room. She faced the Greek god who, in asomewhat ungodlike way, was stitching a coat on a scaley sewing-machine,in a room of smutted plaster walls.She saw that his hands were not in keeping with a Hellenic face. Theywere thick, roughened with needle and hot iron and plow-handle. Evenin the shop he persisted in his finery. He wore a silk shirt, a topazscarf, thin tan shoes.This she absorbed while she was saying curtly, "Can I get these pressed,please?"Not rising from the sewing-machine he stuck out his hand, mumbled, "Whendo you want them?""Oh, Monday."The adventure was over. She was marching out."What name?" he called after her.He had risen and, despite the farcicality of Dr. Will Kennicott's bulgytrousers draped over his arm, he had the grace of a cat."Kennicott.""Kennicott. Oh! Oh say, you're Mrs. Dr. Kennicott then, aren't you?""Yes." She stood at the door. Now that she had carried out herpreposterous impulse to see what he was like, she was cold, she was asready to detect familiarities as the virtuous Miss Ella Stowbody."I've heard about you. Myrtle Cass was saying you got up a dramatic cluband gave a dandy play. I've always wished I had a chance to belong to aLittle Theater, and give some European plays, or whimsical like Barrie,or a pageant."He pronounced it "pagent"; he rhymed "pag" with "rag."Carol nodded in the manner of a lady being kind to a tradesman, and oneof her selves sneered, "Our Erik is indeed a lost John Keats."He was appealing, "Do you suppose it would be possible to get up anotherdramatic club this coming fall?""Well, it might be worth thinking of." She came out of her severalconflicting poses, and said sincerely, "There's a new teacher, MissMullins, who might have some talent. That would make three of us for anucleus. If we could scrape up half a dozen we might give a real playwith a small cast. Have you had any experience?""Just a bum club that some of us got up in Minneapolis when I wasworking there. We had one good man, an interior decorator--maybe he waskind of sis and effeminate, but he really was an artist, and we gave onedandy play. But I----Of course I've always had to work hard, and studyby myself, and I'm probably sloppy, and I'd love it if I had training inrehearsing--I mean, the crankier the director was, the better I'd likeit. If you didn't want to use me as an actor, I'd love to design thecostumes. I'm crazy about fabrics--textures and colors and designs."She knew that he was trying to keep her from going, trying to indicatethat he was something more than a person to whom one brought trousersfor pressing. He besought:"Some day I hope I can get away from this fool repairing, when I havethe money saved up. I want to go East and work for some big dressmaker,and study art drawing, and become a high-class designer. Or do you thinkthat's a kind of fiddlin' ambition for a fellow? I was brought up ona farm. And then monkeyin' round with silks! I don't know. What do youthink? Myrtle Cass says you're awfully educated.""I am. Awfully. Tell me: Have the boys made fun of your ambition?"She was seventy years old, and sexless, and more advisory than VidaSherwin."Well, they have, at that. They've jollied me a good deal, here andMinneapolis both. They say dressmaking is ladies' work. (But I waswilling to get drafted for the war! I tried to get in. But theyrejected me. But I did try! ) I thought some of working up in a gents'furnishings store, and I had a chance to travel on the road for aclothing house, but somehow--I hate this tailoring, but I can't seemto get enthusiastic about salesmanship. I keep thinking about a room ingray oatmeal paper with prints in very narrow gold frames--or would itbe better in white enamel paneling?--but anyway, it looks out onFifth Avenue, and I'm designing a sumptuous----" He made it"sump-too-ous"--"robe of linden green chiffon over cloth of gold! Youknow--tileul. It's elegant. . . . What do you think?""Why not? What do you care for the opinion of city rowdies, or a lotof farm boys? But you mustn't, you really mustn't, let casual strangerslike me have a chance to judge you.""Well----You aren't a stranger, one way. Myrtle Cass--Miss Cass, shouldsay--she's spoken about you so often. I wanted to call on you--and thedoctor--but I didn't quite have the nerve. One evening I walked pastyour house, but you and your husband were talking on the porch, and youlooked so chummy and happy I didn't dare butt in."Maternally, "I think it's extremely nice of you to want to be trainedin--in enunciation by a stage-director. Perhaps I could help you. I'ma thoroughly sound and uninspired schoolma'am by instinct; quitehopelessly mature.""Oh, you aren't EITHER!"She was not very successful at accepting his fervor with the air ofamused woman of the world, but she sounded reasonably impersonal: "Thankyou. Shall we see if we really can get up a new dramatic club? I'll tellyou: Come to the house this evening, about eight. I'll ask Miss Mullinsto come over, and we'll talk about it."VI"He has absolutely no sense of humor. Less than Will. But hasn'the-----What is a 'sense of humor'? Isn't the thing he lacks theback-slapping jocosity that passes for humor here? Anyway----Poor lamb,coaxing me to stay and play with him! Poor lonely lamb! If he could befree from Nat Hickses, from people who say 'dandy' and 'bum,' would hedevelop?"I wonder if Whitman didn't use Brooklyn back-street slang, as a boy?"No. Not Whitman. He's Keats--sensitive to silken things. 'Innumerableof stains and splendid dyes as are the tiger-moth's deep-damask'dwings.' Keats, here! A bewildered spirit fallen on Main Street. And MainStreet laughs till it aches, giggles till the spirit doubts his own selfand tries to give up the use of wings for the correct uses of a 'gents'furnishings store.' Gopher Prairie with its celebrated eleven miles ofcement walk. . . . I wonder how much of the cement is made out of thetombstones of John Keatses?"VIIKennicott was cordial to Fern Mullins, teased her, told her he was a"great hand for running off with pretty school-teachers," and promisedthat if the school-board should object to her dancing, he would "bat 'emone over the head and tell 'em how lucky they were to get a girl withsome go to her, for once."But to Erik Valborg he was not cordial. He shook hands loosely, andsaid, "H' are yuh."Nat Hicks was socially acceptable; he had been here for years, andowned his shop; but this person was merely Nat's workman, and thetown's principle of perfect democracy was not meant to be appliedindiscriminately.The conference on a dramatic club theoretically included Kennicott, buthe sat back, patting yawns, conscious of Fern's ankles, smiling amiablyon the children at their sport.Fern wanted to tell her grievances; Carol was sulky every time shethought of "The Girl from Kankakee"; it was Erik who made suggestions.He had read with astounding breadth, and astounding lack of judgment.His voice was sensitive to liquids, but he overused the word "glorious."He mispronounced a tenth of the words he had from books, but he knew it.He was insistent, but he was shy.When he demanded, "I'd like to stage 'Suppressed Desires,' by Cook andMiss Glaspell," Carol ceased to be patronizing. He was not the yearner:he was the artist, sure of his vision. "I'd make it simple. Use a bigwindow at the back, with a cyclorama of a blue that would simply hit youin the eye, and just one tree-branch, to suggest a park below. Putthe breakfast table on a dais. Let the colors be kind of arty andtea-roomy--orange chairs, and orange and blue table, and blue Japanesebreakfast set, and some place, one big flat smear of black--bang! Oh.Another play I wish we could do is Tennyson Jesse's 'The Black Mask.'I've never seen it but----Glorious ending, where this woman looks atthe man with his face all blown away, and she just gives one horriblescream.""Good God, is that your idea of a glorious ending?" bayed Kennicott."That sounds fierce! I do love artistic things, but not the horribleones," moaned Fern Mullins.Erik was bewildered; glanced at Carol. She nodded loyally.At the end of the conference they had decided nothing.