3. CHAPTER III
I
To George F. Babbitt, as to most prosperous citizens of
Zenith, his motor car was poetry and tragedy, love and heroism.
The office was his pirate ship but the car his perilous
excursion ashore.
Among the tremendous crises of each day none was more
dramatic than starting the engine. It was slow on cold mornings;
there was the long, anxious whirr of the starter; and
sometimes he had to drip ether into the cocks of the cylinders,
which was so very interesting that at lunch he would
chronicle it drop by drop, and orally calculate how much each
drop had cost him.
This morning he was darkly prepared to find something
wrong, and he felt belittled when the mixture exploded sweet
and strong, and the car didn't even brush the door-jamb,
gouged and splintery with many bruisings by fenders, as he
backed out of the garage. He was confused. He shouted
"Morning!'' to Sam Doppelbrau with more cordiality than
he had intended.
Babbitt's green and white Dutch Colonial house was one
of three in that block on Chatham Road. To the left of it
was the residence of Mr. Samuel Doppelbrau, secretary of
an excellent firm of bathroom-fixture jobbers. His was a
comfortable house with no architectural manners whatever; a
large wooden box with a squat tower, a broad porch, and
glossy paint yellow as a yolk. Babbitt disapproved of Mr.
and Mrs. Doppelbrau as "Bohemian.'' From their house
came midnight music and obscene laughter; there were
neighborhood rumors of bootlegged whisky and fast motor
rides. They furnished Babbitt with many happy evenings of
discussion, during which he announced firmly, "I'm not
strait-laced, and I don't mind seeing a fellow throw in a drink once
in a while, but when it comes to deliberately trying to get
away with a lot of hell-raising all the while like the
Doppelbraus do, it's too rich for my blood!''
On the other side of Babbitt lived Howard Littlefield, Ph.D.,
in a strictly modern house whereof the lower part was dark
red tapestry brick, with a leaded oriel, the upper part of pale
stucco like spattered clay, and the roof red-tiled. Littlefield
was the Great Scholar of the neighborhood; the authority on
everything in the world except babies, cooking, and motors.
He was a Bachelor of Arts of Blodgett College, and a Doctor
of Philosophy in economics of Yale. He was the employment-manager
and publicity-counsel of the Zenith Street Traction
Company. He could, on ten hours' notice, appear before
the board of aldermen or the state legislature and prove, absolutely,
with figures all in rows and with precedents from
Poland and New Zealand, that the street-car company loved
the Public and yearned over its employees; that all its stock
was owned by Widows and Orphans; and that whatever it
desired to do would benefit property-owners by increasing
rental values, and help the poor by lowering rents. All his
acquaintances turned to Littlefield when they desired to know
the date of the battle of Saragossa, the definition of the word
"sabotage,'' the future of the German mark, the translation
of "hinc illæ lachrimæ,'' or the number of products of
coal
tar. He awed Babbitt by confessing that he often sat up
till midnight reading the figures and footnotes in Government
reports, or skimming (with amusement at the author's mistakes)
the latest volumes of chemistry, archeology, and ichthyology.
But Littlefield's great value was as a spiritual example.
Despite his strange learnings he was as strict a Presbyterian
and as firm a Republican as George F. Babbitt. He confirmed
the business men in the faith. Where they knew only
by passionate instinct that their system of industry and manners
was perfect, Dr. Howard Littlefield proved it to them, out
of history, economics, and the confessions of reformed radicals.
Babbitt had a good deal of honest pride in being the neighbor
of such a savant, and in Ted's intimacy with Eunice Littlefield.
At sixteen Eunice was interested in no statistics save
those regarding the ages and salaries of motion-picture stars,
but—as Babbitt definitively put it—"she was her father's
daughter.''
The difference between a light man like Sam Doppelbrau
and a really fine character like Littlefield was revealed in their
appearances. Doppelbrau was disturbingly young for a man
of forty-eight. He wore his derby on the back of his head,
and his red face was wrinkled with meaningless laughter. But
Littlefield was old for a man of forty-two. He was tall, broad,
thick; his gold-rimmed spectacles were engulfed in the folds
of his long face; his hair was a tossed mass of greasy blackness;
he puffed and rumbled as he talked; his Phi Beta Kappa
key shone against a spotty black vest; he smelled of old pipes;
he was altogether funereal and archidiaconal; and to real-estate brokerage and the jobbing of bathroom-fixtures he
added an aroma of sanctity.
This morning he was in front of his house, inspecting the
grass parking between the curb and the broad cement sidewalk.
Babbitt stopped his car and leaned out to shout
"Mornin'!'' Littlefield lumbered over and stood with one foot
up on the running-board.
"Fine morning,'' said Babbitt, lighting—illegally early—
his second cigar of the day.
"Yes, it's a mighty fine morning,'' said Littlefield.
"Spring coming along fast now.''
"Yes, it's real spring now, all right,'' said Littlefield.
"Still cold nights, though. Had to have a couple blankets,
on the sleeping-porch last night.''
"Yes, it wasn't any too warm last night,'' said Littlefield.
"But I don't anticipate we'll have any more real cold
weather now.''
"No, but still, there was snow at Tiflis, Montana, yesterday,''
said the Scholar, "and you remember the blizzard they
had out West three days ago—thirty inches of snow at Greeley,
Colorado—and two years ago we had a snow-squall right
here in Zenith on the twenty-fifth of April.''
"Is that a fact! Say, old man, what do you think about
the Republican candidate? Who'll they nominate for president?
Don't you think it's about time we had a real business
administration?''
"In my opinion, what the country needs, first and foremost,
is a good, sound, business-like conduct of its affairs. What
we need is—a business administration!'' said Littlefield.
"I'm glad to hear you say that! I certainly am glad to
hear you say that! I didn't know how you'd feel about it,
with all your associations with colleges and so on, and I'm
glad you feel that way. What the country needs—just at this
present juncture—is neither a college president nor a lot
of monkeying with foreign affairs, but a good—sound—
economical—business—administration, that will give us a chance
to have something like a decent turnover.''
"Yes. It isn't generally realized that even in China the
schoolmen are giving way to more practical men, and of
course you can see what that implies.''
"Is that a fact! Well, well!'' breathed Babbitt, feeling
much calmer, and much happier about the way things were
going in the world. "Well, it's been nice to stop and parleyvoo
a second. Guess I'll have to get down to the office now and
sting a few clients. Well, so long, old man. See you tonight.
So long.''
II
They had labored, these solid citizens. Twenty years before,
the hill on which Floral Heights was spread, with its
bright roofs and immaculate turf and amazing comfort, had
been a wilderness of rank second-growth elms and oaks and
maples. Along the precise streets were still a few wooded
vacant lots, and the fragment of an old orchard. It was brilliant
to-day; the apple boughs were lit with fresh leaves like
torches of green fire. The first white of cherry blossoms
flickered down a gully, and robins clamored.
Babbitt sniffed the earth, chuckled at the hysteric robins
as he would have chuckled at kittens or at a comic movie.
He was, to the eye, the perfect office-going executive—a well-fed man in a correct brown soft hat and frameless spectacles,
smoking a large cigar, driving a good motor along a semi-suburban
parkway. But in him was some genius of authentic
love for his neighborhood, his city, his clan. The winter was
over; the time was come for the building, the visible growth,
which to him was glory. He lost his dawn depression; he was
ruddily cheerful when he stopped on Smith Street to leave
the brown trousers, and to have the gasoline-tank filled.
The familiarity of the rite fortified him: the sight of the
tall red iron gasoline-pump, the hollow-tile and terra-cotta
garage, the window full of the most agreeable accessories—
shiny casings, spark-plugs with immaculate porcelain jackets
tire-chains of gold and silver. He was flattered by the friendliness
with which Sylvester Moon, dirtiest and most skilled
of motor mechanics, came out to serve him. "Mornin', Mr.
Babbitt!'' said Moon, and Babbitt felt himself a person of
importance, one whose name even busy garagemen remembered—
not one of these cheap-sports flying around in flivvers.
He admired the ingenuity of the automatic dial, clicking off
gallon by gallon; admired the smartness of the sign: "A fill
in time saves getting stuck—gas to-day 31 cents''; admired
the rhythmic gurgle of the gasoline as it flowed into the tank,
and the mechanical regularity with which Moon turned the
handle.
"How much we takin' to-day?'' asked Moon, in a manner
which combined the independence of the great specialist, the
friendliness of a familiar gossip, and respect for a man of
weight in the community, like George F. Babbitt.
"Fill 'er up.''
"Who you rootin' for for Republican candidate, Mr. Babbitt?''
"It's too early to make any predictions yet. After all,
there's still a good month and two weeks—no, three weeks—
must be almost three weeks—well, there's more than six
weeks in all before the Republican convention, and I feel a
fellow ought to keep an open mind and give all the candidates
a show—look 'em all over and size 'em up, and then
decide carefully.''
"That's a fact, Mr. Babbitt.''
"But I'll tell you—and my stand on this is just the same as
it was four years ago, and eight years ago, and it'll be my
stand four years from now—yes, and eight years from now!
What I tell everybody, and it can't be too generally understood,
is that what we need first, last, and all the time is a
good, sound business administration!''
"By golly, that's right!''
"How do those front tires look to you?''
"Fine! Fine! Wouldn't be much work for garages if
everybody looked after their car the way you do.''
"Well, I do try and have some sense about it.'' Babbitt
paid his bill, said adequately, "Oh, keep the change,'' and
drove off in an ecstasy of honest self-appreciation. It was
with the manner of a Good Samaritan that he shouted at a
respectable-looking man who was waiting for a trolley car,
"Have a lift?'' As the man climbed in Babbitt condescended,
"Going clear down-town? Whenever I see a fellow waiting
for a trolley, I always make it a practice to give him a lift
—unless, of course, he looks like a bum.''
"Wish there were more folks that were so generous with
their machines,'' dutifully said the victim of benevolence.
"Oh, no, 'tain't a question of generosity, hardly. Fact, I
always feel—I was saying to my son just the other night—
it's a fellow's duty to share the good things of this world with
his neighbors, and it gets my goat when a fellow gets stuck
on himself and goes around tooting his horn merely because
he's charitable.''
The victim seemed unable to find the right answer. Babbitt
boomed on:
"Pretty punk service the Company giving us on these car-lines.
Nonsense to only run the Portland Road cars once
every seven minutes. Fellow gets mighty cold on a winter
morning, waiting on a street corner with the wind nipping
at his ankles.''
"That's right. The Street Car Company don't care a damn
what kind of a deal they give us. Something ought to happen
to 'em.''
Babbitt was alarmed. "But still, of course it won't do
to just keep knocking the Traction Company and not realize
the difficulties they're operating under, like these cranks that
want municipal ownership. The way these workmen hold up
the Company for high wages is simply a crime, and of course
the burden falls on you and me that have to pay a seven-cent
fare! Fact, there's remarkable service on all their lines
—considering.''
"Well—'' uneasily.
"Darn fine morning,'' Babbitt explained. "Spring coming
along fast.''
"Yes, it's real spring now.''
The victim had no originality, no wit, and Babbitt fell
into a great silence and devoted himself to the game of beating
trolley cars to the corner: a spurt, a tail-chase, nervous
speeding between the huge yellow side of the trolley and the
jagged row of parked motors, shooting past just as the trolley
stopped—a rare game and valiant.
And all the while he was conscious of the loveliness of
Zenith. For weeks together he noticed nothing but clients
and the vexing To Rent signs of rival brokers. To-day, in
mysterious malaise, he raged or rejoiced with equal nervous
swiftness, and to-day the light of spring was so winsome that
he lifted his head and saw.
He admired each district along his familiar route to the
office: The bungalows and shrubs and winding irregular drive
ways of Floral Heights. The one-story shops on Smith Street,
a glare of plate-glass and new yellow brick; groceries and
laundries and drug-stores to supply the more immediate needs
of East Side housewives. The market gardens in Dutch Hollow,
their shanties patched with corrugated iron and stolen
doors. Billboards with crimson goddesses nine feet tall advertising
cinema films, pipe tobacco, and talcum powder. The
old "mansions'' along Ninth Street, S. E., like aged dandies
in filthy linen; wooden castles turned into boarding-houses,
with muddy walks and rusty hedges, jostled by fast-intruding
garages, cheap apartment-houses, and fruit-stands conducted
by bland, sleek Athenians. Across the belt of railroad-tracks,
factories with high-perched water-tanks and tall stacks-factories
producing condensed milk, paper boxes, lighting-fixtures,
motor cars. Then the business center, the thickening darting
traffic, the crammed trolleys unloading, and high doorways of
marble and polished granite.
It was big—and Babbitt respected bigness in anything; in
mountains, jewels, muscles, wealth, or words. He was, for a
spring-enchanted moment, the lyric and almost unselfish lover
of Zenith. He thought of the outlying factory suburbs; of
the Chaloosa River with its strangely eroded banks; of the
orchard-dappled Tonawanda Hills to the North, and all the
fat dairy land and big barns and comfortable herds. As he
dropped his passenger he cried, "Gosh, I feel pretty good this
morning!''
III
Epochal as starting the car was the drama of parking it
before he entered his office. As he turned from Oberlin Avenue
round the corner into Third Street, N.E., he peered ahead
for a space in the line of parked cars. He angrily just missed
a space as a rival driver slid into it. Ahead, another car was
leaving the curb, and Babbitt slowed up, holding out his hand
to the cars pressing on him from behind, agitatedly motioning
an old woman to go ahead, avoiding a truck which bore down
on him from one side. With front wheels nicking the
wrought-steel bumper of the car in front, he stopped, feverishly cramped
his steering-wheel, slid back into the vacant space and, with
eighteen inches of room, manœuvered to bring the car level
with the curb. It was a virile adventure masterfully executed.
With satisfaction he locked a thief-proof steel wedge on the
front wheel, and crossed the street to his real-estate office on
the ground floor of the Reeves Building.
The Reeves Building was as fireproof as a rock and as efficient
as a typewriter; fourteen stories of yellow pressed
brick, with clean, upright, unornamented lines. It was filled
with the offices of lawyers, doctors, agents for machinery, for
emery wheels, for wire fencing, for mining-stock. Their gold
signs shone on the windows. The entrance was too modern
to be flamboyant with pillars; it was quiet, shrewd, neat.
Along the Third Street side were a Western Union Telegraph
Office, the Blue Delft Candy Shop, Shotwell's Stationery
Shop, and the Babbitt-Thompson Realty Company.
Babbitt could have entered his office from the street, as
customers did, but it made him feel an insider to go through
the corridor of the building and enter by the back door.
Thus he was greeted by the villagers.
The little unknown people who inhabited the Reeves Building
corridors—elevator-runners, starter, engineers, superintendent,
and the doubtful-looking lame man who conducted the
news and cigar stand—were in no way city-dwellers. They
were rustics, living in a constricted valley, interested only
in one another and in The Building. Their Main Street was
the entrance hall, with its stone floor, severe marble ceiling,
and the inner windows of the shops. The liveliest place on
the street was the Reeves Building Barber Shop, but this was
also Babbitt's one embarrassment. Himself, he patronized the
glittering Pompeian Barber Shop in the Hotel Thornleigh,
and every time he passed the Reeves shop—ten times a day,
a hundred times—he felt untrue to his own village.
Now, as one of the squirearchy, greeted with honorable
salutations by the villagers, he marched into his office, and
peace and dignity were upon him, and the morning's dissonances
all unheard.
They were heard again, immediately.
Stanley Graff, the outside salesman, was talking on the
telephone with tragic lack of that firm manner which disciplines
clients: "Say, uh, I think I got just the house that would
suit you—the Percival House, in Linton.... Oh, you've
seen it. Well, how'd it strike you? . . . Huh? . . . Oh,''
irresolutely, "oh, I see.''
As Babbitt marched into his private room, a coop with
semi-partition of oak and frosted glass, at the back of the office,
he reflected how hard it was to find employees who had his
own faith that he was going to make sales.
There were nine members of the staff, besides Babbitt and
his partner and father-in-law, Henry Thompson, who rarely
came to the office. The nine were Stanley Graff, the outside
salesman—a youngish man given to cigarettes and the playing
of pool; old Mat Penniman, general utility man, collector
of rents and salesman of insurance—broken, silent, gray;
a mystery, reputed to have been a "crack'' real-estate man
with a firm of his own in haughty Brooklyn; Chester Kirby
Laylock, resident salesman out at the Glen Oriole acreage
development—an enthusiastic person with a silky mustache
and much family; Miss Theresa McGoun, the swift and rather
pretty stenographer; Miss Wilberta Bannigan, the thick, slow,
laborious accountant and file-clerk; and four freelance
part-time commission salesmen.
As he looked from his own cage into the main room Babbitt
mourned, "McGoun's a good stenog., smart's a whip, but
Stan Graff and all those bums—'' The zest of the spring
morning was smothered in the stale office air.
Normally he admired the office, with a pleased surprise
that he should have created this sure lovely thing; normally
he was stimulated by the clean newness of it and the air of
bustle; but to-day it seemed flat—the tiled floor, like a bathroom,
the ocher-colored metal ceiling, the faded maps on
the hard plaster walls, the chairs of varnished pale oak, the
desks and filing-cabinets of steel painted in olive drab. It
was a vault, a steel chapel where loafing and laughter were
raw sin.
He hadn't even any satisfaction in the new water-cooler!
And it was the very best of water-coolers, up-to-date, scientific,
and right-thinking. It had cost a great deal of money
(in itself a virtue). It possessed a non-conducting fiber ice-container,
a porcelain water-jar (guaranteed hygienic), a drip-less
non-clogging sanitary faucet, and machine-painted
decorations in two tones of gold. He looked down the relentless
stretch of tiled floor at the water-cooler, and assured himself
that no tenant of the Reeves Building had a more expensive
one, but he could not recapture the feeling of social superiority
it had given him. He astoundingly grunted, "I'd like to
beat it off to the woods right now. And loaf all day. And
go to Gunch's again to-night, and play poker, and cuss as
much as I feel like, and drink a hundred and nine-thousand
bottles of beer.''
He sighed; he read through his mail; he shouted "Msgoun,''
which meant "Miss McGoun''; and began to dictate.
This was his own version of his first letter:
"Omar Gribble, send it to his office, Miss McGoun, yours
of twentieth to hand and in reply would say look here, Gribble,
I'm awfully afraid if we go on shilly-shallying like this we'll
just naturally lose the Allen sale, I had Allen up on carpet
day before yesterday and got right down to cases and think
I can assure you—uh, uh, no, change that: all my experience
indicates he is all right, means to do business, looked into his
financial record which is fine—that sentence seems to be a
little balled up, Miss McGoun; make a couple sentences out
of it if you have to, period, new paragraph.
"He is perfectly willing to pro rate the special assessment
and strikes me, am dead sure there will be no difficulty in
getting him to pay for title insurance, so now for heaven's
sake let's get busy—no, make that: so now let's go to it and
get down—no, that's enough—you can tie those sentences up
a little better when you type 'em, Miss McGoun—your sincerely,
etcetera.''
This is the version of his letter which he received, typed,
from Miss McGoun that afternoon:
BABBITT-THOMPSON REALTY CO.
Homes for Folks
Reeves Bldg., Oberlin Avenue & 3d St., N.E
Zenith
Omar Gribble, Esq.,
376 North American Building,
Zenith.
Dear Mr. Gribble:
Your letter of the twentieth to hand. I must
say I'm awfully afraid that if we go on shilly-shallying like this
we'll just naturally lose the Allen sale. I had Allen up on the
carpet day before yesterday, and got right down to cases. All my
experience indicates that he means to do business. I have also
looked into his financial record, which is fine.
He is perfectly willing to pro rate the special assessment and
there will be no difficulty in getting him to pay for title insurance.
So let's go!
Yours sincerely,
As he read and signed it, in his correct flowing business-college
hand, Babbitt reflected, "Now that's a good, strong
letter, and clear's a bell. Now what the— I never told
McGoun to make a third paragraph there! Wish she'd quit
trying to improve on my dictation! But what I can't understand
is: why can't Stan Graff or Chet Laylock write a letter
like that? With punch! With a kick!''
The most important thing he dictated that morning was
the fortnightly form-letter, to be mimeographed and sent out
to a thousand "prospects.'' It was diligently imitative of
the best literary models of the day; of heart-to-heart-talk
advertisements, "sales-pulling'' letters, discourses on the
"development of Will-power,'' and hand-shaking house-organs, as
richly poured forth by the new school of Poets of Business.
He had painfully written out a first draft, and he intoned it
now like a poet delicate and distrait:
SAY, OLD MAN!
I just want to know can I do you a whaleuva favor? Honest!
No kidding! I know you're interested in getting a house, not
merely a place where you hang up the old bonnet but a love-nest
for the wife and kiddies—and maybe for the flivver out beyant (be
sure and spell that b-e-y-a-n-t, Miss McGoun) the spud garden.
Say, did you ever stop to think that we're here to save you trouble?
That's how we make a living—folks don't pay us for our lovely
beauty! Now take a look:
Sit right down at the handsome carved mahogany escritoire and
shoot us in a line telling us just what you want, and if we can
find it we'll come hopping down your lane with the good tidings,
and if we can't, we won't bother you. To save your time, just fill
out the blank enclosed. On request will also send blank regarding
store properties in Floral Heights, Silver Grove, Linton, Bellevue,
and all East Side residential districts.
Yours for service,
P.S.—Just a hint of some plums we can pick for you—some
genuine bargains that came in to-day:
SILVER GROVE.—Cute four-room California bungalow, a.m.i., garage,
dandy shade tree, swell neighborhood, handy car line. $3700, $780
down and balance liberal, Babbitt-Thompson terms, cheaper than
rent.
DORCHESTER.—A corker! Artistic two-family house, all oak trim,
parquet floors, lovely gas log, big porches, colonial, HEATED
ALL-WEATHER GARAGE, a bargain at $11,250.
Dictation over, with its need of sitting and thinking instead
of bustling around and making a noise and really doing
something, Babbitt sat creakily back in his revolving desk-chair
and beamed on Miss McGoun. He was conscious of
her as a girl, of black bobbed hair against demure cheeks.
A longing which was indistinguishable from loneliness enfeebled
him. While she waited, tapping a long, precise pencil-point
on the desk-tablet, he half identified her with the fairy
girl of his dreams. He imagined their eyes meeting with
terrifying recognition; imagined touching her lips with frightened
reverence and— She was chirping, "Any more, Mist'
Babbitt?'' He grunted, "That winds it up, I guess,'' and
turned heavily away.
For all his wandering thoughts, they had never been more
intimate than this. He often reflected, "Nev' forget how old
Jake Offutt said a wise bird never goes love-making in his own
office or his own home. Start trouble. Sure. But—''
In twenty-three years of married life he had peered uneasily
at every graceful ankle, every soft shoulder; in thought he
had treasured them; but not once had he hazarded respectability
by adventuring. Now, as he calculated the cost of repapering
the Styles house, he was restless again, discontented
about nothing and everything, ashamed of his discontentment,
and lonely for the fairy girl.