III
The last thing she saw on the station platform was Kennicott,
faithfully waving his hand, his face so full of uncomprehending
loneliness that he could not smile but only twitch up
his lips. She waved to him as long as she could, and when
he was lost she wanted to leap from the vestibule and run
back to him. She thought of a hundred tendernesses she had
neglected.
She had her freedom, and it was empty. The moment was
not the highest of her life, but the lowest and most desolate,
which was altogether excellent, for instead of slipping downward
she began to climb.
She sighed, "I couldn't do this if it weren't for Will's
kindness, his giving me money." But a second after: "I wonder
how many women would always stay home if they had the
money?"
Hugh complained, "Notice me, mummy!" He was beside
her on the red plush seat of the day-coach; a boy of three
and a half. "I'm tired of playing train. Let's play something
else. Let's go see Auntie Bogart."
"Oh, no! Do you really like Mrs. Bogart?"
"Yes. She gives me cookies and she tells me about the
Dear Lord. You never tell me about the Dear Lord. Why
don't you tell me about the Dear Lord? Auntie Bogart says
I'm going to be a preacher. Can I be a preacher? Can
I preach about the Dear Lord?"
"Oh, please wait till my generation has stopped rebelling
before yours starts in!"
"What's a generation?"
"It's a ray in the illumination of the spirit."
"That's foolish." He was a serious and literal person, and
rather humorless. She kissed his frown, and marveled:
"I am running away from my husband, after liking a
Swedish ne'er-do-well and expressing immoral opinions, just
as in a romantic story. And my own son reproves me because
I haven't given him religious instruction. But the story
doesn't go right. I'm neither groaning nor being dramatically
saved. I keep on running away, and I enjoy it. I'm mad
with joy over it. Gopher Prairie is lost back there in the
dust and stubble, and I look forward—"
She continued it to Hugh: "Darling, do you know what
mother and you are going to find beyond the blue horizon
rim?"
"What?" flatly.
"We're going to find elephants with golden howdahs from
which peep young maharanees with necklaces of rubies, and a
dawn sea colored like the breast of a dove, and a white and
green house filled with books and silver tea-sets."
"And cookies?"
"Cookies? Oh, most decidedly cookies. We've had enough
of bread and porridge. We'd get sick on too many cookies,
but ever so much sicker on no cookies at all."
"That's foolish."
"It is, O male Kennicott!"
"Huh!" said Kennicott II, and went to sleep on her
shoulder.
