III
There was about the house an unofficial theory that he was
to take his vacation alone, to spend a week or ten days in
Catawba, but he was nagged by the memory that a year ago
he had been with Paul in Maine. He saw himself returning;
finding peace there, and the presence of Paul, in a life primitive
and heroic. Like a shock came the thought that he
actually could go. Only, he couldn't, really; he couldn't leave
his business, and "Myra would think it sort of funny, his
going way off there alone. Course he'd decided to do whatever
he darned pleased, from now on, but still—to go way
off to Maine!''
He went, after lengthy meditations.
With his wife, since it was inconceivable to explain that
he was going to seek Paul's spirit in the wilderness, he frugally
employed the lie prepared over a year ago and scarcely used
at all. He said that he had to see a man in New York on
business. He could not have explained even to himself why he
drew from the bank several hundred dollars more than he
needed, nor why he kissed Tinka so tenderly, and cried, "God
bless you, baby!'' From the train he waved to her till she was
but a scarlet spot beside the brown bulkier presence of Mrs.
Babbitt, at the end of a steel and cement aisle ending in vast
barred gates. With melancholy he looked back at the last
suburb of Zenith.
All the way north he pictured the Maine guides: simple
and strong and daring, jolly as they played stud-poker in
their unceiled shack, wise in woodcraft as they tramped the
forest and shot the rapids. He particularly remembered Joe
Paradise, half Yankee, half Indian. If he could but take up a
backwoods claim with a man like Joe, work hard with his
hands, be free and noisy in a flannel shirt, and never come
back to this dull decency!
Or, like a trapper in a Northern Canada movie, plunge
through the forest, make camp in the Rockies, a grim and
wordless caveman! Why not? He could do it! There'd
be enough money at home for the family to live on till Verona
was married and Ted self-supporting. Old Henry T. would
look out for them. Honestly! Why not? Really
live—
He longed for it, admitted that he longed for it, then almost
believed that he was going lo do it. Whenever common sense
snorted, "Nonsense! Folks don't run away from decent
families and partners; just simply don't do it, that's all!''
then Babbitt answered pleadingly, "Well, it wouldn't take any
more nerve than for Paul to go to jail and—Lord, how I'd'
like to do it! Moccasins-six-gun-frontier town-gamblers
—sleep under the stars—be a regular man, with he-men like
Joe Paradise—gosh!''
So he came to Maine, again stood on the wharf before the
camp-hotel, again spat heroically into the delicate and shivering
water, while the pines rustled, the mountains glowed, and
a trout leaped and fell in a sliding circle. He hurried to the
guides' shack as to his real home, his real friends, long missed.
They would be glad to see him. They would stand up and
shout? "Why, here's Mr. Babbitt! He ain't one of these
ordinary sports! He's a real guy!''
In their boarded and rather littered cabin the guides sat
about the greasy table playing stud-poker with greasy cards:
half a dozen wrinkled men in old trousers and easy old felt
hats. They glanced up and nodded. Joe Paradise, the swart
aging man with the big mustache, grunted, "How do. Back
again?''
Silence, except for the clatter of chips.
Babbitt stood beside them, very lonely. He hinted, after
a period of highly concentrated playing, "Guess I might take
a hand, Joe.''
"Sure. Sit in. How many chips you want? Let's see;
you were here with your wife, last year, wa'n't you?'' said Joe
Paradise.
That was all of Babbitt's welcome to the old home.
He played for half an hour before he spoke again. His
head was reeking with the smoke of pipes and cheap cigars,
and he was weary of pairs and four-flushes, resentful of the
way in which they ignored him. He flung at Joe:
"Working now?''
"Nope.''
"Like to guide me for a few days?''
"Well, jus' soon. I ain't engaged till next week.''
Only thus did Joe recognize the friendship Babbitt was
offering him. Babbitt paid up his losses and left the shack
rather childishly. Joe raised his head from the coils of smoke
like a seal rising from surf, grunted, "I'll come 'round
t'morrow,'' and dived down to his three aces.
Neither in his voiceless cabin, fragrant with planks of new-cut
pine, nor along the lake, nor in the sunset clouds which
presently eddied behind the lavender-misted mountains, could
Babbitt find the spirit of Paul as a reassuring presence. He
was so lonely that after supper he stopped to talk with an
ancient old lady, a gasping and steadily discoursing old lady,
by the stove in the hotel-office. He told her of Ted's
presumable future triumphs in the State University and of Tinka's
remarkable vocabulary till he was homesick for the home he
had left forever.
Through the darkness, through that Northern pine-walled
silence, he blundered down to the lake-front and found a
canoe. There were no paddles in it but with a board, sitting
awkwardly amidships and poking at the water rather than
paddling, he made his way far out on the lake. The lights
of the hotel and the cottages became yellow dots, a cluster
of glow-worms at the base of Sachem Mountain. Larger and
ever more imperturbable was the mountain in the star-filtered
darkness, and the lake a limitless pavement of black marble.
He was dwarfed and dumb and a little awed, but that insignificance
freed him from the pomposities of being Mr. George
F. Babbitt of Zenith; saddened and freed his heart. Now he
was conscious of the presence of Paul, fancied him (rescued
from prison, from Zilla and the brisk exactitudes of the tar-roofing
business) playing his violin at the end of the canoe.
He vowed, "I will go on! I'll never go back! Now that
Paul's out of it, I don't want to see any of those damn people
again! I was a fool to get sore because Joe Paradise didn't
jump up and hug me. He's one of these woodsmen; too wise
to go yelping and talking your arm off like a cityman. But
get him back in the mountains, out on the trail—! That's
real living!''