Main Street, Sinclair Lewis [red white and royal blue hardcover txt] 📗

off, nodded to Jim Howland, stopped indifferently to speak to Mrs. Terry Gould. But his heart was racing, his stomach was constricted. He walked more slowly. He reached Dave Dyer’s yard. He glanced in. On the porch, sheltered by a wild-grape vine, was the figure of a woman in white. He heard the swing-couch creak as she sat up abruptly, peered, then leaned back and pretended to relax.

“Be nice to have some cool beer. Just drop in for a second,” he insisted, as he opened the Dyer gate.

II

Mrs. Bogart was calling upon Carol, protected by Aunt Bessie Smail.

“Have you heard about this awful woman that’s supposed to have come here to do dressmaking⁠—a Mrs. Swiftwaite⁠—awful peroxide blonde?” moaned Mrs. Bogart. “They say there’s some of the awfullest goings-on at her house⁠—mere boys and old gray-headed rips sneaking in there evenings and drinking licker and every kind of goings-on. We women can’t never realize the carnal thoughts in the hearts of men. I tell you, even though I been acquainted with Will Kennicott almost since he was a mere boy, seems like, I wouldn’t trust even him! Who knows what designin’ women might tempt him! Especially a doctor, with women rushin’ in to see him at his office and all! You know I never hint around, but haven’t you felt that⁠—”

Carol was furious. “I don’t pretend that Will has no faults. But one thing I do know: He’s as simple-hearted about what you call ‘goings-on’ as a babe. And if he ever were such a sad dog as to look at another woman, I certainly hope he’d have spirit enough to do the tempting, and not be coaxed into it, as in your depressing picture!”

“Why, what a wicked thing to say, Carrie!” from Aunt Bessie.

“No, I mean it! Oh, of course, I don’t mean it! But⁠—I know every thought in his head so well that he couldn’t hide anything even if he wanted to. Now this morning⁠—He was out late, last night; he had to go see Mrs. Perry, who is ailing, and then fix a man’s hand, and this morning he was so quiet and thoughtful at breakfast and⁠—” She leaned forward, breathed dramatically to the two perched harpies, “What do you suppose he was thinking of?”

“What?” trembled Mrs. Bogart.

“Whether the grass needs cutting, probably! There, there! Don’t mind my naughtiness. I have some fresh-made raisin cookies for you.”

XXVI I

Carol’s liveliest interest was in her walks with the baby. Hugh wanted to know what the box-elder tree said, and what the Ford garage said, and what the big cloud said, and she told him, with a feeling that she was not in the least making up stories, but discovering the souls of things. They had an especial fondness for the hitching-post in front of the mill. It was a brown post, stout and agreeable; the smooth leg of it held the sunlight, while its neck, grooved by hitching-straps, tickled one’s fingers. Carol had never been awake to the earth except as a show of changing color and great satisfying masses; she had lived in people and in ideas about having ideas; but Hugh’s questions made her attentive to the comedies of sparrows, robins, blue jays, yellowhammers; she regained her pleasure in the arching flight of swallows, and added to it a solicitude about their nests and family squabbles.

She forgot her seasons of boredom. She said to Hugh, “We’re two fat disreputable old minstrels roaming round the world,” and he echoed her, “Roamin’ round⁠—roamin’ round.”

The high adventure, the secret place to which they both fled joyously, was the house of Miles and Bea and Olaf Bjornstam.

Kennicott steadily disapproved of the Bjornstams. He protested, “What do you want to talk to that crank for?” He hinted that a former “Swede hired girl” was low company for the son of Dr. Will Kennicott. She did not explain. She did not quite understand it herself; did not know that in the Bjornstams she found her friends, her club, her sympathy and her ration of blessed cynicism. For a time the gossip of Juanita Haydock and the Jolly Seventeen had been a refuge from the droning of Aunt Bessie, but the relief had not continued. The young matrons made her nervous. They talked so loud, always so loud. They filled a room with clashing cackle; their jests and gags they repeated nine times over. Unconsciously, she had discarded the Jolly Seventeen, Guy Pollock, Vida, and everyone save Mrs. Dr. Westlake and the friends whom she did not clearly know as friends⁠—the Bjornstams.

To Hugh, the Red Swede was the most heroic and powerful person in the world. With unrestrained adoration he trotted after while Miles fed the cows, chased his one pig⁠—an animal of lax and migratory instincts⁠—or dramatically slaughtered a chicken. And to Hugh, Olaf was lord among mortal men, less stalwart than the old monarch, King Miles, but more understanding of the relations and values of things, of small sticks, lone playing-cards, and irretrievably injured hoops.

Carol saw, though she did not admit, that Olaf was not only more beautiful than her own dark child, but more gracious. Olaf was a Norse chieftain: straight, sunny-haired, large-limbed, resplendently amiable to his subjects. Hugh was a vulgarian; a bustling business man. It was Hugh that bounced and said “Let’s play”; Olaf that opened luminous blue eyes and agreed “All right,” in condescending gentleness. If Hugh batted him⁠—and Hugh did bat him⁠—Olaf was unafraid but shocked. In magnificent solitude he marched toward the house, while Hugh bewailed his sin and the overclouding of august favor.

The two friends played with an imperial chariot which Miles had made out of a starch-box and four red spools; together they stuck switches into a mouse-hole, with vast satisfaction though entirely without known results.

Bea, the chubby and humming Bea, impartially gave cookies and scoldings to both children, and if Carol refused a cup of coffee and a wafer of buttered knäckebröd, she was desolated.

Miles had done well