________________________________________________
_ WHEN America entered the Great European War, Vida sent
Raymie off to an officers' training-camp--less than a year after
her wedding. Raymie was diligent and rather strong. He
came out a first lieutenant of infantry, and was one of the
earliest sent abroad.
Carol grew definitely afraid of Vida as Vida transferred
the passion which had been released in marriage to the cause
of the war; as she lost all tolerance. When Carol was touched
by the desire for heroism in Raymie and tried tactfully to
express it, Vida made her feel like an impertinent child.
By enlistment and draft, the sons of Lyman Cass, Nat
Hicks, Sam Clark joined the army. But most of the soldiers
were the sons of German and Swedish farmers unknown to
Carol. Dr. Terry Gould and Dr. McGanum became captains
in the medical corps, and were stationed at camps in Iowa and
Georgia. They were the only officers, besides Raymie, from
the Gopher Prairie district. Kennicott wanted to go with
them, but the several doctors of the town forgot medical
rivalry and, meeting in council, decided that he would do
better to wait and keep the town well till he should be needed.
Kennicott was forty-two now; the only youngish doctor left
in a radius of eighteen miles. Old Dr. Westlake, who loved
comfort like a cat, protestingly rolled out at night for country
calls, and hunted through his collar-box for his G. A. R. button.
Carol did not quite know what she thought about Kennicott's
going. Certainly she was no Spartan wife. She knew that
he wanted to go; she knew that this longing was always in
him, behind his unchanged trudging and remarks about the
weather. She felt for him an admiring affection--and she
was sorry that she had nothing more than affection.
Cy Bogart was the spectacular warrior of the town. Cy
was no longer the weedy boy who had sat in the loft speculating
about Carol's egotism and the mysteries of generation.
He was nineteen now, tall, broad, busy, the "town sport,"
famous for his ability to drink beer, to shake dice, to tell
undesirable stories, and, from his post in front of Dyer's drug
store, to embarrass the girls by "jollying" them as they passed.
His face was at once peach-bloomed and pimply.
Cy was to be heard publishing it abroad that if he couldn't
get the Widow Bogart's permission to enlist, he'd run away
and enlist without it. He shouted that he "hated every dirty
Hun; by gosh, if he could just poke a bayonet into one big
fat Heinie and learn him some decency and democracy, he'd
die happy." Cy got much reputation by whipping a farmboy
named Adolph Pochbauer for being a "damn hyphenated
German." . . . This was the younger Pochbauer, who was
killed in the Argonne, while he was trying to bring the body
of his Yankee captain back to the lines. At this time Cy Bogart
was still dwelling in Gopher Prairie and planning to go to
war.
II
Everywhere Carol heard that the war was going to bring
a basic change in psychology, to purify and uplift everything
from marital relations to national politics, and she tried to
exult in it. Only she did not find it. She saw the women who
made bandages for the Red Cross giving up bridge, and
laughing at having to do without sugar, but over the surgical-
dressings they did not speak of God and the souls of men,
but of Miles Bjornstam's impudence, of Terry Gould's scandalous
carryings-on with a farmer's daughter four years ago,
of cooking cabbage, and of altering blouses. Their references
to the war touched atrocities only. She herself was
punctual, and efficient at making dressings, but she could not,
like Mrs. Lyman Cass and Mrs. Bogart, fill the dressings
with hate for enemies.
When she protested to Vida, "The young do the work while
these old ones sit around and interrupt us and gag with hate
because they're too feeble to do anything but hate," then
Vida turned on her:
"If you can't be reverent, at least don't be so pert and
opinionated, now when men and women are dying. Some of
us--we have given up so much, and we're glad to. At least
we expect that you others sha'n't try to be witty at our
expense."
There was weeping.
Carol did desire to see the Prussian autocracy defeated;
she did persuade herself that there were no autocracies save
that of Prussia; she did thrill to motion-pictures of troops
embarking in New York; and she was uncomfortable when she
met Miles Bjornstam on the street and he croaked:
"How's tricks? Things going fine with me; got two new
cows. Well, have you become a patriot? Eh? Sure, they'll
bring democracy--the democracy of death. Yes, sure, in every
war since the Garden of Eden the workmen have gone out to
fight each other for perfectly good reasons--handed to them
by their bosses. Now me, I'm wise. I'm so wise that I know
I don't know anything about the war."
It was not a thought of the war that remained with her
after Miles's declamation but a perception that she and Vida
and all of the good-intentioners who wanted to "do something
for the common people" were insignificant, because the
"common people" were able to do things for themselves,
and highly likely to, as soon as they learned the fact. The
conception of millions of workmen like Miles taking control
frightened her, and she scuttled rapidly away from the thought
of a time when she might no longer retain the position of
Lady Bountiful to the Bjornstams and Beas and Oscarinas
whom she loved--and patronized.
III
It was in June, two months after America's entrance into
the war, that the momentous event happened--the visit of
the great Percy Bresnahan, the millionaire president of the
Velvet Motor Car Company of Boston, the one native son
who was always to be mentioned to strangers.
For two weeks there were rumors. Sam Clark cried to
Kennicott, "Say, I hear Perce Bresnahan is coming! By
golly it'll be great to see the old scout, eh?" Finally the
Dauntless printed, on the front page with a No. 1 head, a letter
from Bresnahan to Jackson Elder:
DEAR JACK:
Well, Jack, I find I can make it. I'm to go to Washington as a
dollar a year man for the government, in the aviation motor section,
and tell them how much I don't know about carburetors. But before
I start in being a hero I want to shoot out and catch me a big black
bass and cuss out you and Sam Clark and Harry Haydock and Will
Kennicott and the rest of you pirates. I'll land in G. P. on June 7,
on No. 7 from Mpls. Shake a day-day. Tell Bert Tybee to save
me a glass of beer.
Sincerely yours,
Perce.
All members of the social, financial, scientific, literary, and
sporting sets were at No. 7 to meet Bresnahan; Mrs. Lyman
Cass was beside Del Snafflin the barber, and Juanita Haydock
almost cordial to Miss Villets the librarian. Carol saw Bresnahan
laughing down at them from the train vestibule--big,
immaculate, overjawed, with the eye of an executive. In the
voice of the professional Good Fellow he bellowed, "Howdy,
folks!" As she was introduced to him (not he to her) Bresnahan
looked into her eyes, and his hand-shake was warm, unhurried.
He declined the offers of motors; he walked off, his arm
about the shoulder of Nat Hicks the sporting tailor, with the
elegant Harry Haydock carrying one of his enormous pale
leather bags, Del Snafflin the other, Jack Elder bearing an
overcoat, and Julius Flickerbaugh the fishing-tackle. Carol
noted that though Bresnahan wore spats and a stick, no small
boy jeered. She decided, "I must have Will get a double-
breasted blue coat and a wing collar and a dotted bow-tie
like his."
That evening, when Kennicott was trimming the grass along
the walk with sheep-shears, Bresnahan rolled up, alone. He
was now in corduroy trousers, khaki shirt open at the throat,
a white boating hat, and marvelous canvas-and-leather shoes
"On the job there, old Will! Say, my Lord, this is living, to
come back and get into a regular man-sized pair of pants.
They can talk all they want to about the city, but my idea
of a good time is to loaf around and see you boys and catch
a gamey bass!"
He hustled up the walk and blared at Carol, "Where's that
little fellow? I hear you've got one fine big he-boy that you're
holding out on me!"
"He's gone to bed," rather briefly.
"I know. And rules are rules, these days. Kids get routed
through the shop like a motor. But look here, sister; I'm
one great hand at busting rules. Come on now, let Uncle
Perce have a look at him. Please now, sister?"
He put his arm about her waist; it was a large, strong,
sophisticated arm, and very agreeable; he grinned at her with
a devastating knowingness, while Kennicott glowed inanely.
She flushed; she was alarmed by the ease with which the
big-city man invaded her guarded personality. She was glad,
in retreat, to scamper ahead of the two men up-stairs to the
hall-room in which Hugh slept. All the way Kennicott
muttered, "Well, well, say, gee whittakers but it's good to have
you back, certainly is good to see you!"
Hugh lay on his stomach, making an earnest business of
sleeping. He burrowed his eyes in the dwarf blue pillow to
escape the electric light, then sat up abruptly, small and frail
in his woolly nightdrawers, his floss of brown hair wild, the
pillow clutched to his breast. He wailed. He stared at the
stranger, in a manner of patient dismissal. He explained
confidentially to Carol, "Daddy wouldn't let it be morning
yet. What does the pillow say?"
Bresnahan dropped his arm caressingly on Carol's shoulder;
he pronounced, "My Lord, you're a lucky girl to have a fine
young husk like that. I figure Will knew what he was doing
when he persuaded you to take a chance on an old bum like
him! They tell me you come from St. Paul. We're going to
get you to come to Boston some day." He leaned over the
bed. "Young man, you're the slickest sight I've seen this
side of Boston. With your permission, may we present you
with a slight token of our regard and appreciation of your
long service?"
He held out a red rubber Pierrot. Hugh remarked, "Gimme
it," hid it under the bedclothes, and stared at Bresnahan
as though he had never seen the man before.
For once Carol permitted herself the spiritual luxury of
not asking "Why, Hugh dear, what do you say when some
one gives you a present?" The great man was apparently
waiting. They stood in inane suspense till Bresnahan led
them out, rumbling, "How about planning a fishing-trip,
Will?"
He remained for half an hour. Always he told Carol what
a charming person she was; always he looked at her knowingly.
"Yes. He probably would make a woman fall in love with
him. But it wouldn't last a week. I'd get tired of his
confounded buoyancy. His hypocrisy. He's a spiritual bully.
He makes me rude to him in self-defense. Oh yes, he is glad
to be here. He does like us. He's so good an actor that he
convinces his own self. . . . I'd HATE him in Boston.
He'd have all the obvious big-city things. Limousines.
Discreet evening-clothes. Order a clever dinner at a smart
restaurant. Drawing-room decorated by the best firm--but the
pictures giving him away. I'd rather talk to Guy Pollock in
his dusty office. . . . How I lie! His arm coaxed my
shoulder and his eyes dared me not to admire him. I'd be
afraid of him. I hate him! . . . Oh, the inconceivable
egotistic imagination of women! All this stew of analysss.
about a man, a good, decent, friendly, efficient man, because he
was kind to me, as Will's wife!"
IV
The Kennicotts, the Elders, the Clarks, and Bresnahan went
fishing at Red Squaw Lake. They drove forty miles to the lake
in Elder's new Cadillac. There was much laughter and bustle
at the start, much storing of lunch-baskets and jointed poles,
much inquiry as to whether it would really bother Carol to
sit with her feet up on a roll of shawls. When they were
ready to go Mrs. Clark lamented, "Oh, Sam, I forgot my
magazine," and Bresnahan bullied, "Come on now, if you
women think you're going to be literary, you can't go with
us tough guys!" Every one laughed a great deal, and as
they drove on Mrs. Clark explained that though probably she
would not have read it, still, she might have wanted to, while
the other girls had a nap in the afternoon, and she was right
in the middle of a serial--it was an awfully exciting story--
it seems that this girl was a Turkish dancer (only she was
really the daughter of an American lady and a Russian prince)
and men kept running after her, just disgustingly, but she
remained pure, and there was a scene----
While the men floated on the lake, casting for black bass,
the women prepared lunch and yawned. Carol was a little
resentful of the manner in which the men assumed that they
did not care to fish. "I don't want to go with them, but
I would like the privilege of refusing."
The lunch was long and pleasant. It was a background
for the talk of the great man come home, hints of cities and
large imperative affairs and famous people, jocosely modest
admissions that, yes, their friend Perce was doing about as
well as most of these "Boston swells that think so much of
themselves because they come from rich old families and went
to college and everything. Believe me, it's us new business men
that are running Beantown today, and not a lot of fussy old
bucks snoozing in their clubs!"
Carol realized that he was not one of the sons of Gopher
Prairie who, if they do not actually starve in the East, are
invariably spoken of as "highly successful"; and she found
behind his too incessant flattery a genuine affection for his
mates. It was in the matter of the war that he most favored
and thrilled them. Dropping his voice while they bent nearer
(there was no one within two miles to overhear), he disclosed
the fact that in both Boston and Washington he'd been getting
a lot of inside stuff on the war--right straight from
headquarters--he was in touch with some men--couldn't name
them but they were darn high up in both the War and State
Departments--and he would say--only for Pete's sake they
mustn't breathe one word of this; it was strictly on the Q.T.
and not generally known outside of Washington--but just
between ourselves--and they could take this for gospel--Spain
had finally decided to join the Entente allies in the Grand
Scrap. Yes, sir, there'd be two million fully equipped Spanish
soldiers fighting with us in France in one month now. Some
surprise for Germany, all right!
"How about the prospects for revolution in Germany?"
reverently asked Kennicott.
The authority grunted, "Nothing to it. The one thing you
can bet on is that no matter what happens to the German
people, win or lose, they'll stick by the Kaiser till hell freezes
over. I got that absolutely straight, from a fellow who's on
the inside of the inside in Washington. No, sir! I don't
pretend to know much about international affairs but one thing
you can put down as settled is that Germany will be a Hohenzollern
empire for the next forty years. At that, I don't know
as it's so bad. The Kaiser and the Junkers keep a firm hand
on a lot of these red agitators who'd be worse than a king if
they could get control."
"I'm terribly interested in this uprising that overthrew
the Czar in Russia," suggested Carol. She had finally been
conquered by the man's wizard knowledge of affairs.
Kennicott apologized for her: "Carrie's nuts about this
Russian revolution. Is there much to it, Perce?"
"There is not!" Bresnahan said flatly. "I can speak by
the book there. Carol, honey, I'm surprised to find you talking
like a New York Russian Jew, or one of these long-hairs! I
can tell you, only you don't need to let every one in on it,
this is confidential, I got it from a man who's close to the
State Department, but as a matter of fact the Czar will be back
in power before the end of the year. You read a lot about
his retiring and about his being killed, but I know he's got a
big army back of him, and he'll show these damn agitators,
lazy beggars hunting for a soft berth bossing the poor goats
that fall for 'em, he'll show 'em where they get off!"
Carol was sorry to hear that the Czar was coming back,
but she said nothing. The others had looked vacant at the
mention of a country so far away as Russia. Now they edged
in and asked Bresnahan what he thought about the Packard
car, investments in Texas oil-wells, the comparative merits of
young men born in Minnesota and in Massachusetts, the question
of prohibition, the future cost of motor tires, and wasn't
it true that American aviators put it all over these Frenchmen?
They were glad to find that he agreed with them on every
point.
As she heard Bresnahan announce, "We're perfectly willing
to talk to any committee the men may choose, but we're not
going to stand for some outside agitator butting in and telling
us how we're going to run our plant!" Carol remembered
that Jackson Elder (now meekly receiving New Ideas) had
said the same thing in the same words.
While Sam Clark was digging up from his memory a long
and immensely detailed story of the crushing things he had
said to a Pullman porter, named George, Bresnahan hugged
his knees and rocked and watched Carol. She wondered if he
did not understand the laboriousness of the smile with which
she listened to Kennicott's account of the "good one he had
on Carrie," that marital, coyly improper, ten-times-told tale
of how she had forgotten to attend to Hugh because she was
"all het up pounding the box"--which may be translated as
"eagerly playing the piano." She was certain that Bresnahan
saw through her when she pretended not to hear Kennicott's
invitation to join a game of cribbage. She feared the comments
he might make; she was irritated by her fear.
She was equally irritated, when the motor returned through
Gopher Prairie, to find that she was proud of sharing in
Bresnahan's kudos as people waved, and Juanita Haydock
leaned from a window. She said to herself, "As though I
cared whether I'm seen with this fat phonograph!" and
simultaneously, "Everybody has noticed how much Will and
I are playing with Mr. Bresnahan."
The town was full of his stories, his friendliness, his memory
for names, his clothes, his trout-flies, his generosity. He had
given a hundred dollars to Father Klubok the priest, and a
hundred to the Reverend Mr. Zitterel the Baptist minister,
for Americanization work.
At the Bon Ton, Carol heard Nat Hicks the tailor exulting:
"Old Perce certainly pulled a good one on this fellow
Bjornstam that always is shooting off his mouth. He's
supposed to of settled down since he got married, but Lord,
those fellows that think they know it all, they never change.
Well, the Red Swede got the grand razz handed to him, all
right. He had the nerve to breeze up to Perce, at Dave Dyer's,
and he said, he said to Perce, `I've always wanted to look
at a man that was so useful that folks would pay him a million
dollars for existing,' and Perce gave him the once-over and
come right back, `Have, eh?' he says. `Well,' he says, `I've
been looking for a man so useful sweeping floors that I could
pay him four dollars a day. Want the job, my friend?' Ha,
ha, ha! Say, you know how lippy Bjornstam is? Well for
once he didn't have a thing to say. He tried to get fresh,
and tell what a rotten town this is, and Perce come right
back at him, `If you don't like this country, you better get
out of it and go back to Germany, where you belong!' Say,
maybe us fellows didn't give Bjornstam the horse-laugh though!
Oh, Perce is the white-haired boy in this burg, all rightee!"
V
Bresnahan had borrowed Jackson Elder's motor; he stopped
at the Kennicotts'; he bawled at Carol, rocking with Hugh
en the porch, "Better come for a ride."
She wanted to snub him. "Thanks so much, but I'm being
maternal."
"Bring him along! Bring him along!" Bresnahan was
out of the seat, stalking up the sidewalk, and the rest of her
protests and dignities were feeble.
She did not bring Hugh along.
Bresnahan was silent for a mile, in words, But he looked
at her as though he meant her to know that he understood
everything she thought.
She observed how deep was his chest.
"Lovely fields over there," he said.
"You really like them? There's no profit in them."
He chuckled. "Sister, you can't get away with it. I'm
onto you. You consider me a big bluff. Well, maybe I am.
But so are you, my dear--and pretty enough so that I'd
try to make love to you, if I weren't afraid you'd slap me."
"Mr. Bresnahan, do you talk that way to your' wife's
friends? And do you call them `sister'?"
"As a matter of fact, I do! And I make 'em like it.
Score two!" But his chuckle was not so rotund, and he was
very attentive to the ammeter.
In a moment he was cautiously attacking: "That's a wonderful
boy, Will Kennicott. Great work these country practitioners
are doing. The other day, in Washington, I was
talking to a big scientific shark, a professor in Johns Hopkins
medical school, and he was saying that no one has ever
sufficiently appreciated the general practitioner and the
sympathy and help he gives folks. These crack specialists, the
young scientific fellows, they're so cocksure and so wrapped
up in their laboratories that they miss the human element.
Except in the case of a few freak diseases that no respectable
human being would waste his time having, it's the old doc
that keeps a community well, mind and body. And strikes me
that Will is one of the steadiest and clearest-headed counter
practitioners I've ever met. Eh?"
"I'm sure he is. He's a servant of reality."
"Come again? Um. Yes. All of that, whatever that is. . . .
Say, child, you don't care a whole lot for Gopher Prairie,
if I'm not mistaken."
"Nope."
"There's where you're missing a big chance. There's nothing
to these cities. Believe me, I KNOW! This is a good town,
as they go. You're lucky to be here. I wish I could shy on!"
"Very well, why don't you?"
"Huh? Why--Lord--can't get away fr----"
"You don't have to stay. I do! So I want to change it.
Do you know that men like you, prominent men, do quite a
reasonable amount of harm by insisting that your native towns
and native states are perfect? It's you who encourage the
denizens not to change. They quote you, and go on believing
that they live in paradise, and----" She clenched her fist.
"The incredible dullness of it!"
"Suppose you were right. Even so, don't you think you
waste a lot of thundering on one poor scared little town?
Kind of mean!"
"I tell you it's dull. DULL!"
"The folks don't find it dull. These couples like the
Haydocks have a high old time; dances and cards----"
"They don't. They're bored. Almost every one here is.
Vacuousness and bad manners and spiteful gossip--that's what
I hate."
"Those things--course they're here. So are they in Boston!
And every place else! Why, the faults you find in this town
are simply human nature, and never will be changed."
"Perhaps. But in a Boston all the good Carols (I'll admit
I have no faults) can find one another and play. But here--
I'm alone, in a stale pool--except as it's stirred by the great
Mr. Bresnahan!"
"My Lord, to hear you tell it, a fellow 'd think that all
the denizens, as you impolitely call 'em, are so confoundedly
unhappy that it's a wonder they don't all up and commit
suicide. But they seem to struggle along somehow!"
"They don't know what they miss. And anybody can
endure anything. Look at men in mines and in prisons."
He drew up on the south shore of Lake Minniemashie.
He glanced across the reeds reflected on the water, the quiver
of wavelets like crumpled tinfoil, the distant shores patched
with dark woods, silvery oats and deep yellow wheat. He
patted her hand. "Sis---- Carol, you're a darling girl, but
you're difficult. Know what I think?"
"Yes."
"Humph. Maybe you do, but---- My humble (not too
humble!) opinion is that you like to be different. You like
to think you're peculiar. Why, if you knew how many tens
of thousands of women, especially in New York, say just what
you do, you'd lose all the fun of thinking you're a lone genius
and you'd be on the band-wagon whooping it up for Gopher
Prairie and a good decent family life. There's always about
a million young women just out of college who want to teach
their grandmothers how to suck eggs."
"How proud you are of that homely rustic metaphor! You
use it at `banquets' and directors' meetings, and boast of
your climb from a humble homestead."
"Huh! You may have my number. I'm not telling. But
look here: You're so prejudiced against Gopher Prairie that
you overshoot the mark; you antagonize those who might be
inclined to agree with you in some particulars but---- Great
guns, the town can't be all wrong!"
"No, it isn't. But it could be. Let me tell you a fable.
Imagine a cavewoman complaining to her mate. She doesn't
like one single thing; she hates the damp cave, the rats
running over her bare legs, the stiff skin garments, the eating
of half-raw meat, her husband's bushy face, the constant
battles, and the worship of the spirits who will hoodoo her
unless she gives the priests her best claw necklace. Her man
protests, `But it can't all be wrong!' and he thinks he has
reduced her to absurdity. Now you assume that a world
which produces a Percy Bresnahan and a Velvet Motor Company
must be civilized. It is? Aren't we only about half-way
along in barbarism? I suggest Mrs. Bogart as a test. And
we'll continue in barbarism just as long as people as nearly
intelligent as you continue to defend things as they are
because they are."
"You're a fair spieler, child. But, by golly, I'd like to see
you try to design a new manifold, or run a factory and keep
a lot of your fellow reds from Czech-slovenski-magyar-
godknowswheria on the job! You'd drop your theories so
darn quick! I'm not any defender of things as they are.
Sure. They're rotten. Only I'm sensible."
He preached his gospel: love of outdoors, Playing the Game,
loyalty to friends. She had the neophyte's shock of discovery
that, outside of tracts, conservatives do not tremble and find
no answer when an iconoclast turns on them, but retort with
agility and confusing statistics.
He was so much the man, the worker, the friend, that she
liked him when she most tried to stand out against him; he
was so much the successful executive that she did not want
him to despise her. His manner of sneering at what he called
"parlor socialists" (though the phrase was not overwhelmingly
new) had a power which made her wish to placate his
company of well-fed, speed-loving administrators. When he
demanded, "Would you like to associate with nothing but a
lot of turkey-necked, horn-spectacled nuts that have
adenoids and need a hair-cut, and that spend all their time kicking
about `conditions' and never do a lick of work?" she said,
"No, but just the same----" When he asserted, "Even if
your cavewoman was right in knocking the whole works, I
bet some red-blooded Regular Fellow, some real He-man,
found her a nice dry cave, and not any whining criticizing
radical," she wriggled her head feebly, between a nod and a
shake.
His large hands, sensual lips, easy voice supported his self-
confidence. He made her feel young and soft--as Kennicott
had once made her feel. She had nothing to say when he
bent his powerful head and experimented, "My dear, I'm
sorry I'm going away from this town. You'd be a darling
child to play with. You ARE pretty! Some day in Boston
I'll show you how we buy a lunch. Well, hang it, got to be
starting back."
The only answer to his gospel of beef which she could find,
when she was home, was a wail of "But just the same----"
She did not see him again before he departed for Washington.
His eyes remained. His glances at her lips and hair and
shoulders had revealed to her that she was not a wife-and-
mother alone, but a girl; that there still were men in the
world, as there had been in college days.
That admiration led her to study Kennicott, to tear at the
shroud of intimacy, to perceive the strangeness of the most
familiar. _
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