Arrowsmith, Sinclair Lewis [children's ebooks free online .TXT] 📗

to distinguish between the general store of Norblom and that of Frazier & Lamb⁠—but to Martin the two-story wooden shacks creeping aimlessly along the wide Main Street were featureless and inappreciable. Then “There’s our house, end of the next block,” said Leora, as they turned the corner at the feed and implement store, and in a panic of embarrassment Martin wanted to halt. He saw a storm coming: Mr. Tozer denouncing him as a failure who desired to ruin Leora, Mrs. Tozer weeping.

“Say⁠—say⁠—say⁠—have you told ’em about me?” he stammered.

“Yes. Sort of. I said you were a wonder in medic school, and maybe we’d get married when you finished your internship, and then when your wire came, they wanted to know why you were coming, and why it was you wired from Wisconsin, and what color necktie you had on when you were sending the wire, and I couldn’t make ’em understand I didn’t know. They discussed it. Quite a lot. They do discuss things. All through supper. Solemn. Oh, Sandy, do curse and swear some at meals.”

He was in a funk. Her parents, formerly amusing figures in a story, became oppressively real in sight of the wide, brown, porchy house. A large plate-glass window with a colored border had recently been cut through the wall, as a sign of prosperity, and the garage was new and authoritative.

He tagged after Leora, expecting the blast. Mrs. Tozer opened the door, and stared at him plaintively⁠—a thin, faded, unhumorous woman. She bowed as though he was not so much unwelcome as unexplained and doubtful.

“Will you show Mr. Arrowsmith his room, Ory, or shall I?” she peeped.

It was the kind of house that has a large phonograph but no books, and if there were any pictures, as beyond hope there must have been, Martin never remembered them. The bed in his room was lumpy but covered with a chaste figured spread, and the flowery pitcher and bowl rested on a cover embroidered in red with lambs, frogs, water lilies, and a pious motto.

He took as long as he could in unpacking things which needed no unpacking, and hesitated down the stairs. No one was in the parlor, which smelled of furnace-heat and balsam pillows; then, from nowhere apparent, Mrs. Tozer was there, worrying about him and trying to think of something polite to say.

“Did you have a comfortable trip on the train?”

“Oh, yes, it was⁠—Well, it was pretty crowded.”

“Oh, was it crowded?”

“Yes, there were a lot of people traveling.”

“Were there? I suppose⁠—Yes. Sometimes I wonder where all the people can be going that you see going places all the time. Did you⁠—was it very cold in the Cities⁠—in Minneapolis and St. Paul?”

“Yes, it was pretty cold.”

“Oh, was it cold?”

Mrs. Tozer was so still, so anxiously polite. He felt like a burglar taken for a guest, and intensely he wondered where Leora could be. She came in serenely, with coffee and a tremendous Swedish coffee-ring voluptuous with raisins and glistening brown sugar, and she had them talking, almost easily, about the coldness of winter and the value of Fords when into the midst of all this brightness slid Mr. Andrew Jackson Tozer, and they drooped again to politeness.

Mr. Tozer was as thin and undistinguished and sun-worn as his wife, and like her he peered, he kept silence and fretted. He was astonished by everything in the world that did not bear on his grain elevator, his creamery, his tiny bank, the United Brethren Church, and the careful conduct of an Overland car. It was not astounding that he should have become almost rich, for he accepted nothing that was not natural and convenient to Andrew Jackson Tozer.

He hinted a desire to know whether Martin “drank,” how prosperous he was, and how he could possibly have come all this way from the urbanities of Winnemac. (The Tozers were born in Illinois, but they had been in Dakota since childhood, and they regarded Wisconsin as the farthest, most perilous rim of the Eastern horizon.) They were so blank, so creepily polite, that Martin was able to avoid such unpleasant subjects as being suspended. He dandled an impression that he was an earnest young medic who in no time at all would be making large and suitable sums of money for the support of their Leora, but as he was beginning to lean back in his chair he was betrayed by the appearance of Leora’s brother.

Bert Tozer, Albert R. Tozer, cashier and vice-president of the Wheatsylvania State Bank, auditor and vice-president of the Tozer Grain and Storage Company, treasurer and vice-president of the Star Creamery, was not in the least afflicted by the listening dubiousness of his parents. Bertie was a very articulate and modern man of affairs. He had buck teeth, and on his eyeglasses was a gold chain leading to a dainty hook behind his left ear. He believed in town-boosting, organized motor tours, Boy Scouts, baseball, and the hanging of I.W.W.s; and his most dolorous regret was that Wheatsylvania was too small⁠—as yet⁠—to have a Y.M.C.A. or a Commercial Club. Plunging in beside him was his fiancée, Miss Ada Quist, daughter of the feed and implement store. Her nose was sharp, but not so sharp as her voice or the suspiciousness with which she faced Martin.

“This Arrowswith?” demanded Bert. “Huh! Well, guess you’re glad to be out here in God’s country!”

“Yes, it’s fine⁠—”

“Trouble with the Eastern states is, they haven’t got the git, or the room to grow. You ought to see a real Dakota harvest! Look here, how come you’re away from school this time of year?”

“Why⁠—”

“I know all about school-terms. I went to business college in Grand Forks. How come you can get away now?”

“I took a little layoff.”

“Leora says you and her are thinking of getting married.”

“We⁠—”

“Got any cash outside your school-money?”

“I have not!”

“Thought so! How juh expect to support a wife?”

“I suppose I’ll be practicing medicine some day.”

“Some day! Then what’s the use of talking about being engaged till you can support a wife?”

“That,” interrupted Bert’s ladylove,