V
Every year since their marriage Carol had longed for a trip
through the East. Every year Kennicott had talked of
attending the American Medical Association convention, "and
then afterwards we could do the East up brown. I know New
York clean through—spent pretty near a week there—but I
would like to see New England and all these historic places
and have some sea-food." He talked of it from February to
May, and in May he invariably decided that coming
confinement-cases or land-deals would prevent his "getting away from
home-base for very long this year—and no sense
going till we
can do it right."
The weariness of dish-washing had increased her desire to
go. She pictured herself looking at Emerson's manse, bathing
in a surf of jade and ivory, wearing a trottoir and a summer
fur, meeting an aristocratic Stranger. In the spring Kennicott
had pathetically volunteered, "S'pose you'd like to get in a
good long tour this summer, but with Gould and Mac away
and so many patients depending on me, don't see how I can
make it. By golly, I feel like a tightwad though, not taking
you." Through all this restless July after she had tasted
Bresnahan's disturbing flavor of travel and gaiety, she wanted to go,
but she said nothing. They spoke of and postponed a trip
to the Twin Cities. When she suggested, as though it were a
tremendous joke, "I think baby and I might up and leave you,
and run off to Cape Cod by ourselves!" his only reaction was
"Golly, don't know but what you may almost have to do
that, if we don't get in a trip next year."
Toward the end of July he proposed, "Say, the Beavers are
holding a convention in Joralemon, street fair and everything.
We might go down tomorrow. And I'd like to see Dr. Calibree
about some business. Put in the whole day. Might help
some to make up for our trip. Fine fellow, Dr. Calibree."
Joralemon was a prairie town of the size of Gopher Prairie.
Their motor was out of order, and there was no
passenger-train at an early hour. They went down by freight-train,
after the weighty and conversational business of leaving Hugh
with Aunt Bessie. Carol was exultant over this irregular
jaunting. It was the first unusual thing, except the glance of
Bresnahan, that had happened since the weaning of Hugh.
They rode in the caboose, the small red cupola-topped car
jerked along at the end of the train. It was a roving shanty,
the cabin of a land schooner, with black oilcloth seats along
the side, and for desk, a pine board to be let down on hinges.
Kennicott played seven-up with the conductor and two brakemen.
Carol liked the blue silk kerchiefs about the brakemen's
throats; she liked their welcome to her, and their air of
friendly independence. Since there were no sweating passengers
crammed in beside her, she reveled in the train's slowness. She
was part of these lakes and tawny wheat-fields. She liked the
smell of hot earth and clean grease; and the leisurely
chug-a-chug, chug-a-chug of the trucks was a song of contentment in
the sun.
She pretended that she was going to the Rockies. When
they reached Joralemon she was radiant with holiday-making.
Her eagerness began to lessen the moment they stopped at
a red frame station exactly like the one they had just left
at Gopher Prairie, and Kennicott yawned, "Right on time.
Just in time for dinner at the Calibrees'. I 'phoned the doctor
from G. P. that we'd be here. `We'll catch the freight that
gets in before twelve,' I told him. He said he'd meet us at the
depot and take us right up to the house for dinner. Calibree
is a good man, and you'll find his wife is a mighty brainy
little woman, bright as a dollar. By golly, there he is."
Dr. Calibree was a squat, clean-shaven, conscientious-looking
man of forty. He was curiously like his own brown-painted
motor car, with eye-glasses for windshield. "Want you to
meet my wife, doctor—Carrie, make you 'quainted with Dr.
Calibree," said Kennicott. Calibree bowed quietly and shook
her hand, but before he had finished shaking it he was
concentrating upon Kennicott with, "Nice to see you, doctor.
Say, don't let me forget to ask you about what you did in that
exopthalmic goiter case—that Bohemian woman at Wahkeenyan."
The two men, on the front seat of the car, chanted goiters
and ignored her. She did not know it. She was trying to feed
her illusion of adventure by staring at unfamiliar houses. . . .
drab cottages, artificial stone bungalows, square painty stolidities
with immaculate clapboards and broad screened porches
and tidy grass-plots.
Calibree handed her over to his wife, a thick woman who
called her "dearie," and asked if she was hot and, visibly
searching for conversation, produced, "Let's see, you and the
doctor have a Little One, haven't you?" At dinner Mrs. Calibree
served the corned beef and cabbage and looked steamy,
looked like the steamy leaves of cabbage. The men were
oblivious of their wives as they gave the social passwords of
Main Street, the orthodox opinions on weather, crops, and
motor cars, then flung away restraint and gyrated in the
debauch of shop-talk. Stroking his chin, drawling in the ecstasy
of being erudite, Kennicott inquired, "Say, doctor, what
success have you had with thyroid for treatment of pains in the
legs before child-birth?"
Carol did not resent their assumption that she was too
ignorant to be admitted to masculine mysteries. She was used to
it. But the cabbage and Mrs. Calibree's monotonous "I don't
know what we're coming to with all this difficulty getting hired
girls" were gumming her eyes with drowsiness. She sought
to clear them by appealing to Calibree, in a manner of exaggerated
liveliness, "Doctor, have the medical societies in
Minnesota ever advocated legislation for help to nursing mothers?"
Calibree slowly revolved toward her. "Uh—I've never—
uh—never looked into it. I don't believe much in getting
mixed up in politics." He turned squarely from her and, peering
earnestly at Kennicott, resumed, "Doctor, what's been your
experience with unilateral pyelonephritis? Buckburn of Baltimore
advocates decapsulation and nephrotomy, but seems to
me—"
Not till after two did they rise. In the lee of the stonily
mature trio Carol proceeded to the street fair which added
mundane gaiety to the annual rites of the United and Fraternal
Order of Beavers. Beavers, human Beavers, were everywhere:
thirty-second degree Beavers in gray sack suits and decent
derbies, more flippant Beavers in crash summer coats and straw
hats, rustic Beavers in shirt sleeves and frayed suspenders;
but whatever his caste-symbols, every Beaver was distinguished
by an enormous shrimp-colored ribbon lettered in silver, "Sir
Knight and Brother, U. F. O. B., Annual State Convention."
On the motherly shirtwaist of each of their wives was a badge
"Sir Knight's Lady." The Duluth delegation had brought their
famous Beaver amateur band, in Zouave costumes of green
velvet jacket, blue trousers, and scarlet fez. The strange
thing was that beneath their scarlet pride the Zouaves' faces
remained those of American business-men, pink, smooth,
eye-glassed; and as they stood playing in a circle, at the corner
of Main Street and Second, as they tootled on fifes or with
swelling cheeks blew into cornets, their eyes remained as
owlish as though they were sitting at desks under the sign
"This Is My Busy Day."
Carol had supposed that the Beavers were average citizens
organized for the purposes of getting cheap life-insurance and
playing poker at the lodge-rooms every second Wednesday, but
she saw a large poster which proclaimed:
BEAVERS
U. F. O. B.
The greatest influence for good citizenship in the
country. The jolliest aggregation of red-blooded,
open-handed, hustle-em-up good fellows in the world.
Joralemon welcomes you to her hospitable city.
Kennicott read the poster and to Calibree admired, "Strong
lodge, the Beavers. Never joined. Don't know but what I
will,"
Calibree adumbrated, "They're a good bunch. Good strong
lodge. See that fellow there that's playing the snare drum?
He's the smartest wholesale grocer in Duluth, they say. Guess
it would be worth joining. Oh say, are you doing much
insurance examining?"
They went on to the street fair.
Lining one block of Main Street were the "attractions"—
two hot-dog stands, a lemonade and pop-corn stand, a
merry-go-round, and booths in which balls might be thrown at rag
dolls, if one wished to throw balls at rag dolls. The dignified
delegates were shy of the booths, but country boys with brickred
necks and pale-blue ties and bright-yellow shoes, who had
brought sweethearts into town in somewhat dusty and listed
Fords, were wolfing sandwiches, drinking strawberry pop out of
bottles, and riding the revolving crimson and gold horses. They
shrieked and giggled; peanut-roasters whistled; the
merry-go-round pounded out monotonous music; the barkers bawled,
"Here's your chance—here's your chance—come on here, boy—
come on here—give that girl a good time—give her a swell
time—here's your chance to win a genuwine gold watch for
five cents, half a dime, the twentieth part of a dollah!" The
prairie sun jabbed the unshaded street with shafts that were
like poisonous thorns the tinny cornices above the brick stores
were glaring; the dull breeze scattered dust on sweaty Beavers
who crawled along in tight scorching new shoes, up two blocks
and back, up two blocks and back, wondering what to do next,
working at having a good time.
Carol's head ached as she trailed behind the unsmiling
Calibrees along the block of booths. She chirruped at Kennicott,
"Let's be wild! Let's ride on the merry-go-round and
grab a gold ring!"
Kennicott considered it, and mumbled to Calibree, "Think
you folks would like to stop and try a ride on the
merry-go-round?"
Calibree considered it, and mumbled to his wife, "Think
you'd like to stop and try a ride on the merry-go-round?"
Mrs. Calibree smiled in a washed-out manner, and sighed,
"Oh no, I don't believe I care to much, but you folks go ahead
and try it."
Calibree stated to Kennicott, "No, I don't believe we care
to a whole lot, but you folks go ahead and try it."
Kennicott summarized the whole case against wildness:
"Let's try it some other time, Carrie."
She gave it up. She looked at the town. She saw that in
adventuring from Main Street, Gopher Prairie, to Main Street,
Joralemon, she had not stirred. There were the same
two-story brick groceries with lodge-signs above the awnings; the
same one-story wooden millinery shop; the same fire-brick
garages; the same prairie at the open end of the wide street;
the same people wondering whether the levity of eating a
hot-dog sandwich would break their taboos.
They reached Gopher Prairie at nine in the evening.
"You look kind of hot," said Kennicott.
"Yes."
"Joralemon is an enterprising town, don't you think so?"
She broke. "No! I think it's an ash-heap."
"Why, Carrie!"
He worried over it for a week. While he ground his plate
with his knife as he energetically pursued fragments of bacon,
he peeped at her.