_ CHAPTER XXV
"CARRIE'S all right. She's finicky, but she'll get over it. But
I wish she'd hurry up about it! What she can't understand
is that a fellow practising medicine in a small town like this
has got to cut out the highbrow stuff, and not spend all his
time going to concerts and shining his shoes. (Not but what
he might be just as good at all these intellectual and art
things as some other folks, if he had the time for it!)" Dr.
Will Kennicott was brooding in his office, during a free moment
toward the end of the summer afternoon. He hunched down
in his tilted desk-chair, undid a button of his shirt, glanced
at the state news in the back of the Journal of the American
Medical Association, dropped the magazine, leaned back with
his right thumb hooked in the arm-hole of his vest and his
left thumb stroking the back of his hair.
"By golly, she's taking an awful big chance, though. You'd
expect her to learn by and by that I won't be a parlor lizard.
She says we try to `make her over.' Well, she's always trying
to make me over, from a perfectly good M. D. into a damn
poet with a socialist necktie! She'd have a fit if she knew
how many women would be willing to cuddle up to Friend Will
and comfort him, if he'd give 'em the chance! There's
still a few dames that think the old man isn't so darn
unattractive! I'm glad I've ducked all that woman-game since
I've been married but---- Be switched if sometimes I don't
feel tempted to shine up to some girl that has sense enough
to take life as it is; some frau that doesn't want to talk
Longfellow all the time, but just hold my hand and say, `You
look all in, honey. Take it easy, and don't try to talk.'
"Carrie thinks she's such a whale at analyzing folks. Giving
the town the once-over. Telling us where we get off. Why,
she'd simply turn up her toes and croak if she found out how
much she doesn't know about the high old times a wise guy
could have in this burg on the Q.T., if he wasn't faithful to
his wife. But I am. At that, no matter what faults she's
got, there's nobody here, no, nor in Minn'aplus either, that's
as nice-looking and square and bright as Carrie. She ought
to of been an artist or a writer or one of those things. But
once she took a shot at living here, she ought to stick by it.
Pretty---- Lord yes. But cold. She simply doesn't know
what passion is. She simply hasn't got an I--dea how hard
it is for a full-blooded man to go on pretending to be satisfied
with just being endured. It gets awful tiresome, having to
feel like a criminal just because I'm normal. She's getting
so she doesn't even care for my kissing her. Well----
"I guess I can weather it, same as I did earning my way
through school and getting started in practise. But I wonder
how long I can stand being an outsider in my own home?"
He sat up at the entrance of Mrs. Dave Dyer. She slumped
into a chair and gasped with the heat. He chuckled, "Well,
well, Maud, this is fine. Where's the subscription-list? What
cause do I get robbed for, this trip?"
"I haven't any subscription-list, Will. I want to see you
professionally."
"And you a Christian Scientist? Have you given that up?
What next? New Thought or Spiritualism?"
"No, I have not given it up!"
"Strikes me it's kind of a knock on the sisterhood, your
coming to see a doctor!"
"No, it isn't. It's just that my faith isn't strong enough
yet. So there now! And besides, you ARE kind of consoling,
Will. I mean as a man, not just as a doctor. You're so strong
and placid."
He sat on the edge of his desk, coatless, his vest swinging
open with the thick gold line of his watch-chain across the
gap, his hands in his trousers pockets, his big arms bent and
easy. As she purred he cocked an interested eye. Maud
Dyer was neurotic, religiocentric, faded; her emotions were
moist, and her figure was unsystematic--splendid thighs and
arms, with thick ankles, and a body that was bulgy in the
wrong places. But her milky skin was delicious, her eyes were
alive, her chestnut hair shone, and there was a tender slope
from her ears to the shadowy place below her jaw.
With unusual solicitude he uttered his stock phrase, "Well,
what seems to be the matter, Maud?"
"I've got such a backache all the time. I'm afraid the
organic trouble that you treated me for is coming back."
"Any definite signs of it?"
"N-no, but I think you'd better examine me."
"Nope. Don't believe it's necessary, Maud. To be honest,
between old friends, I think your troubles are mostly imaginary.
I can't really advise you to have an examination."
She flushed, looked out of the window. He was conscious
that his voice was not impersonal and even.
She turned quickly. "Will, you always say my troubles
are imaginary. Why can't you be scientific? I've been reading
an article about these new nerve-specialists, and they claim
that lots of `imaginary' ailments, yes, and lots of real pain,
too, are what they call psychoses, and they order a change in
a woman's way of living so she can get on a higher plane----"
"Wait! Wait! Whoa-up! Wait now! Don't mix up
your Christian Science and your psychology! They're two
entirely different fads! You'll be mixing in socialism next!
You're as bad as Carrie, with your `psychoses.' Why, Good
Lord, Maud, I could talk about neuroses and psychoses and
inhibitions and repressions and complexes just as well as any
damn specialist, if I got paid for it, if I was in the city and
had the nerve to charge the fees that those fellows do. If a
specialist stung you for a hundred-dollar consultation-fee and
told you to go to New York to duck Dave's nagging, you'd
do it, to save the hundred dollars! But you know me--I'm
your neighbor--you see me mowing the lawn--you figure I'm
just a plug general practitioner. If I said, `Go to New York,'
Dave and you would laugh your heads off and say, `Look at
the airs Will is putting on. What does he think he is?'
"As a matter of fact, you're right. You have a perfectly
well-developed case of repression of sex instinct, and it raises
the old Ned with your body. What you need is to get away
from Dave and travel, yes, and go to every dog-gone kind of
New Thought and Bahai and Swami and Hooptedoodle meeting
you can find. I know it, well 's you do. But how can
I advise it? Dave would be up here taking my hide off.
I'm willing to be family physician and priest and lawyer and
plumber and wet-nurse, but I draw the line at making Dave
loosen up on money. Too hard a job in weather like this!
So, savvy, my dear? Believe it will rain if this heat
keeps----"
"But, Will, he'd never give it to me on my say-so. He'd
never let me go away. You know how Dave is: so jolly and
liberal in society, and oh, just LOVES to match quarters, and such
a perfect sport if he loses! But at home he pinches a nickel
till the buffalo drips blood. I have to nag him for every
single dollar."
"Sure, I know, but it's your fight, honey. Keep after him.
He'd simply resent my butting in."
He crossed over and patted her shoulder. Outside the window,
beyond the fly-screen that was opaque with dust and
cottonwood lint, Main Street was hushed except for the
impatient throb of a standing motor car. She took his firm
hand, pressed his knuckles against her cheek.
"O Will, Dave is so mean and little and noisy--the shrimp!
You're so calm. When he's cutting up at parties I see you
standing back and watching him--the way a mastiff watches
a terrier."
He fought for professional dignity with, "Dave 's not a
bad fellow."
Lingeringly she released his hand. "Will, drop round by
the house this evening and scold me. Make me be good and
sensible. And I'm so lonely."
"If I did, Dave would be there, and we'd have to play cards.
It's his evening off from the store."
"No. The clerk just got called to Corinth--mother sick.
Dave will be in the store till midnight. Oh, come on over.
There's some lovely beer on the ice, and we can sit and talk
and be all cool and lazy. That wouldn't be wrong of us, WOULD it!"
"No, no, course it wouldn't be wrong. But still, oughtn't
to----" He saw Carol, slim black and ivory, cool, scornful
of intrigue.
"All right. But I'll be so lonely."
Her throat seemed young, above her loose blouse of muslin
and machine-lace.
"Tell you, Maud: I'll drop in just for a minute, if I happen
to be called down that way."
"If you'd like," demurely. "O Will, I just want comfort.
I know you're all married, and my, such a proud papa, and of
course now---- If I could just sit near you in the dusk, and
be quiet, and forget Dave! You WILL come?"
"Sure I will!"
"I'll expect you. I'll be lonely if you don't come! Good-by."
He cursed himself: "Darned fool, what 'd I promise to go
for? I'll have to keep my promise, or she'll feel hurt. She's
a good, decent, affectionate girl, and Dave's a cheap skate,
all right. She's got more life to her than Carol has. All my
fault, anyway. Why can't I be more cagey, like Calibree and
McGanum and the rest of the doctors? Oh, I am, but Maud's
such a demanding idiot. Deliberately bamboozling me into
going up there tonight. Matter of principle: ought not to
let her get away with it. I won't go. I'll call her up and
tell her I won't go. Me, with Carrie at home, finest little
woman in the world, and a messy-minded female like Maud
Dyer--no, SIR! Though there's no need of hurting her feelings.
I may just drop in for a second, to tell her I can't stay. All
my fault anyway; ought never to have started in and jollied
Maud along in the old days. If it's my fault, I've got no
right to punish Maud. I could just drop in for a second and
then pretend I had a country call and beat it. Damn nuisance,
though, having to fake up excuses. Lord, why can't the women
let you alone? Just because once or twice, seven hundred
million years ago, you were a poor fool, why can't they let
you forget it? Maud's own fault. I'll stay strictly away.
Take Carrie to the movies, and forget Maud. . . . But it
would be kind of hot at the movies tonight."
He fled from himself. He rammed on his hat, threw his
coat over his arm, banged the door, locked it, tramped
downstairs. "I won't go!" he said sturdily and, as he said it,
he would have given a good deal to know whether he was
going.
He was refreshed, as always, by the familiar windows and
faces. It restored his soul to have Sam Clark trustingly
bellow, "Better come down to the lake this evening and have a
swim, doc. Ain't you going to open your cottage at all, this
summer? By golly, we miss you." He noted the progress
on the new garage. He had triumphed in the laying of every
course of bricks; in them he had seen the growth of the town.
His pride was ushered back to its throne by the respectfulness
of Oley Sundquist: "Evenin', doc! The woman is a lot
better. That was swell medicine you gave her." He was
calmed by the mechanicalness of the tasks at home: burning
the gray web of a tent-worm on the wild cherry tree, sealing
with gum a cut in the right front tire of the car, sprinkling
the road before the house. The hose was cool to his hands.
As the bright arrows fell with a faint puttering sound, a
crescent of blackness was formed in the gray dust.
Dave Dyer came along.
"Where going, Dave?"
"Down to the store. Just had supper."
"But Thursday 's your night off."
"Sure, but Pete went home. His mother 's supposed to
be sick. Gosh, these clerks you get nowadays--overpay 'em
and then they won't work!"
"That's tough, Dave. You'll have to work clear up till
twelve, then."
"Yup. Better drop in and have a cigar, if you're downtown.
"Well, I may, at that. May have to go down and see Mrs.
Champ Perry. She's ailing. So long, Dave."
Kennicott had not yet entered the house. He was
conscious that Carol was near him, that she was important, that
he was afraid of her disapproval; but he was content to be
alone. When he had finished sprinkling he strolled into the
house, up to the baby's room, and cried to Hugh, "Story-
time for the old man, eh?"
Carol was in a low chair, framed and haloed by the window
behind her, an image in pale gold. The baby curled in her
lap, his head on her arm, listening with gravity while she
sang from Gene Field:
'Tis little Luddy-Dud in the morning--
'Tis little Luddy-Dud at night:
And all day long
'Tis the same dear song
Of that growing, crowing, knowing little sprite.
Kennicott was enchanted.
"Maud Dyer? I should say not!"
When the current maid bawled up-stairs, "Supper on de
table!" Kennicott was upon his back, flapping his hands in
the earnest effort to be a seal, thrilled by the strength with
which his son kicked him. He slipped his arm about Carol's
shoulder; he went down to supper rejoicing that he was cleansed
of perilous stuff. While Carol was putting the baby to bed
he sat on the front steps. Nat Hicks, tailor and roue, came
to sit beside him. Between waves of his hand as he drove
off mosquitos, Nat whispered, "Say, doc, you don't feel like
imagining you're a bacheldore again, and coming out for a Time
tonight, do you?"
"As how?"
"You know this new dressmaker, Mrs. Swiftwaite?--swell
dame with blondine hair? Well, she's a pretty good goer.
Me and Harry Haydock are going to take her and that fat
wren that works in the Bon Ton--nice kid, too--on an auto
ride tonight. Maybe we'll drive down to that farm Harry
bought. We're taking some beer, and some of the smoothest
rye you ever laid tongue to. I'm not predicting none, but
if we don't have a picnic, I'll miss my guess."
"Go to it. No skin off my ear, Nat. Think I want to
be fifth wheel in the coach?"
"No, but look here: The little Swiftwaite has a friend with
her from Winona, dandy looker and some gay bird, and Harry
and me thought maybe you'd like to sneak off for one evening."
"No--no----"
"Rats now, doc, forget your everlasting dignity. You used
to be a pretty good sport yourself, when you were foot-free."
It may have been the fact that Mrs. Swiftwaite's friend
remained to Kennicott an ill-told rumor, it may have been
Carol's voice, wistful in the pallid evening as she sang to
Hugh, it may have been natural and commendable virtue, but
certainly he was positive:
"Nope. I'm married for keeps. Don't pretend to be any
saint. Like to get out and raise Cain and shoot a few drinks.
But a fellow owes a duty---- Straight now, won't you feel
like a sneak when you come back to the missus after your
jamboree?"
"Me? My moral in life is, `What they don't know won't hurt
'em none.' The way to handle wives, like the fellow says,
is to catch 'em early, treat 'em rough, and tell 'em nothing!"
"Well, that's your business, I suppose. But I can't get
away with it. Besides that--way I figure it, this illicit love-
making is the one game that you always lose at. If you do
lose, you feel foolish; and if you win, as soon as you find out
how little it is that you've been scheming for, why then you
lose worse than ever. Nature stinging us, as usual. But at
that, I guess a lot of wives in this burg would be surprised if
they knew everything that goes on behind their backs, eh, Nattie?"
"WOULD they! Say, boy! If the good wives knew what
some of the boys get away with when they go down to the
Cities, why, they'd throw a fit! Sure you won't come, doc?
Think of getting all cooled off by a good long drive, and then the
lov-e-ly Swiftwaite's white hand mixing you a good stiff highball!"
"Nope. Nope. Sorry. Guess I won't," grumbled Kennicott.
He was glad that Nat showed signs of going. But he was
restless. He heard Carol on the stairs. "Come have a seat--
have the whole earth!" he shouted jovially.
She did not answer his joviality. She sat on the porch,
rocked silently, then sighed, "So many mosquitos out here.
You haven't had the screen fixed."
As though he was testing her he said quietly, "Head aching again?"
"Oh, not much, but---- This maid is SO slow to learn.
I have to show her everything. I had to clean most of the
silver myself. And Hugh was so bad all afternoon. He
whined so. Poor soul, he was hot, but he did wear me out."
"Uh---- You usually want to get out. Like to walk down
to the lake shore? (The girl can stay home.) Or go to
the movies? Come on, let's go to the movies! Or shall we
jump in the car and run out to Sam's, for a swim?"
"If you don't mind, dear, I'm afraid I'm rather tired."
"Why don't you sleep down-stairs tonight, on the couch?
Be cooler. I'm going to bring down my mattress. Come on!
Keep the old man company. Can't tell--I might get scared of
burglars. Lettin' little fellow like me stay all alone by
himself!"
"It's sweet of you to think of it, but I like my own room
so much. But you go ahead and do it, dear. Why don't
you sleep on the couch, instead of putting your mattress on
the floor? Well I believe I'll run in and read for just
a second--want to look at the last Vogue--and then perhaps
I'll go by-by. Unless you want me, dear? Of course if
there's anything you really WANT me for?"
"No. No. . . . Matter of fact, I really ought to run
down and see Mrs. Champ Perry. She's ailing. So you skip
in and---- May drop in at the drug store. If I'm not home
when you get sleepy, don't wait up for me."
He kissed her, rambled 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."
_________
CHAPTER XXV - Novel: Main Street - Author: Sinclair Lewis _