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

very nice. But after all, what does it matter what kind of play we give as long as we get the association started? The thing that matters is something that none of you have spoken of, that is: what are we going to do with the money, if we make any? I think it would be awfully nice if we presented the high school with a full set of Stoddard’s travel-lectures!”

Carol moaned, “Oh, but Vida dear, do forgive me but this farce⁠—Now what I’d like us to give is something distinguished. Say Shaw’s Androcles. Have any of you read it?”

“Yes. Good play,” said Guy Pollock.

Then Raymie Wutherspoon astoundingly spoke up:

“So have I. I read through all the plays in the public library, so’s to be ready for this meeting. And⁠—But I don’t believe you grasp the irreligious ideas in this Androcles, Mrs. Kennicott. I guess the feminine mind is too innocent to understand all these immoral writers. I’m sure I don’t want to criticize Bernard Shaw; I understand he is very popular with the highbrows in Minneapolis; but just the same⁠—As far as I can make out, he’s downright improper! The things he says⁠—Well, it would be a very risky thing for our young folks to see. It seems to me that a play that doesn’t leave a nice taste in the mouth and that hasn’t any message is nothing but⁠—nothing but⁠—Well, whatever it may be, it isn’t art. So⁠—Now I’ve found a play that is clean, and there’s some awfully funny scenes in it, too. I laughed out loud, reading it. It’s called His Mother’s Heart, and it’s about a young man in college who gets in with a lot of freethinkers and boozers and everything, but in the end his mother’s influence⁠—”

Juanita Haydock broke in with a derisive, “Oh rats, Raymie! Can the mother’s influence! I say let’s give something with some class to it. I bet we could get the rights to The Girl from Kankakee, and that’s a real show. It ran for eleven months in New York!”

“That would be lots of fun, if it wouldn’t cost too much,” reflected Vida.

Carol’s was the only vote cast against The Girl from Kankakee.

II

She disliked The Girl from Kankakee even more than she had expected. It narrated the success of a farm-lassie in clearing her brother of a charge of forgery. She became secretary to a New York millionaire and social counselor to his wife; and after a well-conceived speech on the discomfort of having money, she married his son.

There was also a humorous office-boy.

Carol discerned that both Juanita Haydock and Ella Stowbody wanted the lead. She let Juanita have it. Juanita kissed her and in the exuberant manner of a new star presented to the executive committee her theory, “What we want in a play is humor and pep. There’s where American playwrights put it all over these darn old European glooms.”

As selected by Carol and confirmed by the committee, the persons of the play were:

John Grimm, a millionaire Guy Pollock His wife Miss Vida Sherwin His son Dr. Harvey Dillon His business rival Raymond T. Wutherspoon Friend of Mrs. Grimm Miss Ella Stowbody The girl from Kankakee Mrs. Harold C. Haydock Her brother Dr. Terence Gould Her mother Mrs. David Dyer Stenographer Miss Rita Simons Office-boy Miss Myrtle Cass Maid in the Grimms’ home Mrs. W. P. Kennicott Direction of Mrs. Kennicott

Among the minor lamentations was Maud Dyer’s “Well of course I suppose I look old enough to be Juanita’s mother, even if Juanita is eight months older than I am, but I don’t know as I care to have everybody noticing it and⁠—”

Carol pleaded, “Oh, my dear! You two look exactly the same age. I chose you because you have such a darling complexion, and you know with powder and a white wig, anybody looks twice her age, and I want the mother to be sweet, no matter who else is.”

Ella Stowbody, the professional, perceiving that it was because of a conspiracy of jealousy that she had been given a small part, alternated between lofty amusement and Christian patience.

Carol hinted that the play would be improved by cutting, but as every actor except Vida and Guy and herself wailed at the loss of a single line, she was defeated. She told herself that, after all, a great deal could be done with direction and settings.

Sam Clark had boastfully written about the dramatic association to his schoolmate, Percy Bresnahan, president of the Velvet Motor Company of Boston. Bresnahan sent a check for a hundred dollars; Sam added twenty-five and brought the fund to Carol, fondly crying, “There! That’ll give you a start for putting the thing across swell!”

She rented the second floor of the city hall for two months. All through the spring the association thrilled to its own talent in that dismal room. They cleared out the bunting, ballot-boxes, handbills, legless chairs. They attacked the stage. It was a simple-minded stage. It was raised above the floor, and it did have a movable curtain, painted with the advertisement of a druggist dead these ten years, but otherwise it might not have been recognized as a stage. There were two dressing-rooms, one for men, one for women, on either side. The dressing-room doors were also the stage-entrances, opening from the house, and many a citizen of Gopher Prairie had for his first glimpse of romance the bare shoulders of the leading woman.

There were three sets of scenery: a woodland, a Poor Interior, and a Rich Interior, the last also useful for railway stations, offices, and as a background for the Swedish Quartette from Chicago. There were three gradations of lighting: full on, half on, and entirely off.

This was the only theater in Gopher Prairie. It was known as the “op’ra house.” Once, strolling companies had used it for performances of The Two Orphans, and Nellie the Beautiful Cloak Model, and Othello with specialties between acts, but now the motion-pictures had ousted the gipsy drama.

Carol intended to be furiously modern in constructing the office-set, the drawing-room for Mr. Grimm, and the Humble