11. CHAPTER XI
I
THEY had four hours in New York between trains. The
one thing Babbitt wished to see was the Pennsylvania Hotel,
which had been built since his last visit. He stared up at it,
muttering, "Twenty-two hundred rooms and twenty-two hundred
baths! That's got everything in the world beat. Lord,
their turnover must be—well, suppose price of rooms is four
to eight dollars a day, and I suppose maybe some ten and—
four times twenty-two hundred-say six times twenty-two hundred—
well, anyway, with restaurants and everything, say summers
between eight and fifteen thousand a day. Every day!
I never thought I'd see a thing like that! Some town! Of
course the average fellow in Zenith has got more Individual
Initiative than the fourflushers here, but I got to hand it to
New York. Yes, sir, town, you're all right—some ways. Well,
old Paulski, I guess we've seen everything that's worth while.
How'll we kill the rest of the time? Movie?''
But Paul desired to see a liner. "Always wanted to go to
Europe—and, by thunder, I will, too, some day before I past
out,'' he sighed.
From a rough wharf on the North River they stared at the
stern of the Aquitania and her stacks and wireless antenna
lifted above the dock-house which shut her in.
"By golly,'' Babbitt droned, "wouldn't be so bad to go over
to the Old Country and take a squint at all these ruins, and
the place where Shakespeare was born. And think of being
able to order a drink whenever you wanted one! Just range
up to a bar and holler out loud, `Gimme a cocktail, and darn
the police!' Not bad at all. What juh like to see, over there,
Paulibus?''
Paul did not answer. Babbitt turned. Paul was standing
with clenched fists, head drooping, staring at the liner as in
terror. His thin body, seen against the summer-glaring planks
of the wharf, was childishly meager.
Again, "What would you hit for on the other side, Paul?''
Scowling at the steamer, his breast heaving, Paul whispered,
"Oh, my God!'' While Babbitt watched him anxiously he
snapped, "Come on, let's get out of this,'' and hastened down
the wharf, not looking back.
"That's funny,'' considered Babbitt. "The boy didn't care
for seeing the ocean boats after all. I thought he'd be interested
in 'em.''
II
Though he exulted, and made sage speculations about locomotive
horse-power, as their train climbed the Maine mountain-ridge and from the summit he looked down the shining way
among the pines; though he remarked, "Well, by golly!'' when
he discovered that the station at Katadumcook, the end of
the line, was an aged freight-car; Babbitt's moment of impassioned
release came when they sat on a tiny wharf on Lake
Sunasquam, awaiting the launch from the hotel. A raft had
floated down the lake; between the logs and the shore, the
water was transparent, thin-looking, flashing with minnows.
A guide in black felt hat with trout-flies in the band, and
flannel shirt of a peculiarly daring blue, sat on a log and
whittled and was silent. A dog, a good country dog, black and
woolly gray, a dog rich in leisure and in meditation, scratched
and grunted and slept. The thick sunlight was lavish on the
bright water, on the rim of gold-green balsam boughs, the
silver birches and tropic ferns, and across the lake it burned
on the sturdy shoulders of the mountains. Over everything
was a holy peace.
Silent, they loafed on the edge of the wharf, swinging their
legs above the water. The immense tenderness of the place
sank into Babbitt, and he murmured, "I'd just like to sit here
—the rest of my life—and whittle—and sit. And never hear
a typewriter. Or Stan Graff fussing in the 'phone. Or Rone
and Ted scrapping. Just sit. Gosh!''
He patted Paul's shoulder. "How does it strike you, old
snoozer?''
"Oh, it's darn good, Georgie. There's something sort of
eternal about it.''
For once, Babbitt understood him.
III
Their launch rounded the bend; at the head of the lake,
under a mountain slope, they saw the little central dining-shack
of their hotel and the crescent of squat log cottages
which served as bedrooms. They landed, and endured the critical
examination of the habitués who had been at the hotel for
a whole week. In their cottage, with its high stone fireplace,
they hastened, as Babbitt expressed it, to "get into some regular
he-togs.'' They came out; Paul in an old gray suit and
soft white shirt; Babbitt in khaki shirt and vast and flapping
khaki trousers. It was excessively new khaki; his rimless
spectacles belonged to a city office; and his face was not tanned
but a city pink. He made a discordant noise in the place. But
with infinite satisfaction he slapped his legs and crowed, "Say,
this is getting back home, eh?''
They stood on the wharf before the hotel. He winked at
Paul and drew from his back pocket a plug of chewing-tobacco,
a vulgarism forbidden in the Babbitt home. He took a
chew, beaming and wagging his head as he tugged at it. "Um!
Um! Maybe I haven't been hungry for a wad of eating-tobacco!
Have some?''
They looked at each other in a grin of understanding. Paul
took the plug, gnawed at it. They stood quiet, their jaws
working. They solemnly spat, one after the other, into the
placid water. They stretched voluptuously, with lifted arms
and arched backs. From beyond the mountains came the
shuffling sound of a far-off train. A trout leaped, and fell
back in a silver circle. They sighed together.
IV
They had a week before their families came. Each evening
they planned to get up early and fish before breakfast. Each
morning they lay abed till the breakfast-bell, pleasantly conscious
that there were no efficient wives to rouse them. The
mornings were cold; the fire was kindly as they dressed.
Paul was distressingly clean, but Babbitt reveled in a good
sound dirtiness, in not having to shave till his spirit was moved
to it. He treasured every grease spot and fish-scale on his
new khaki trousers.
All morning they fished unenergetically, or tramped the dim
and aqueous-lighted trails among rank ferns and moss sprinkled
with crimson bells. They slept all afternoon, and till
midnight played stud-poker with the guides. Poker was a
serious business to the guides. They did not gossip; they
shuffled the thick greasy cards with a deft ferocity menacing
to the "sports;'' and Joe Paradise, king of guides, was sarcastic
to loiterers who halted the game even to scratch.
At midnight, as Paul and he blundered to their cottage over
the pungent wet grass, and pine-roots confusing in the darkness,
Babbitt rejoiced that he did not have to explain to his
wife where he had been all evening.
They did not talk much. The nervous loquacity and opinionation
of the Zenith Athletic Club dropped from them. But
when they did talk they slipped into the naïve intimacy of
college days. Once they drew their canoe up to the bank of
Sunasquam Water, a stream walled in by the dense green of
the hardhack. The sun roared on the green jungle but in the
shade was sleepy peace, and the water was golden and rippling.
Babbitt drew his hand through the cool flood, and mused:
"We never thought we'd come to Maine together!''
"No. We've never done anything the way we thought we
would. I expected to live in Germany with my granddad's
people, and study the fiddle.''
"That's so. And remember how I wanted to be a lawyer
and go into politics? I still think I might have made a go of it.
I've kind of got the gift of the gab—anyway, I can think on
my feet, and make some kind of a spiel on most anything,
and of course that's the thing you need in politics. By golly,
Ted's going to law-school, even if I didn't! Well— I guess
it's worked out all right. Myra's been a fine wife. And Zilla
means well, Paulibus.''
"Yes. Up here, I figure out all sorts of plans to keep her
amused. I kind of feel life is going to be different, now that
we're getting a good rest and can go back and start over
again.''
"I hope so, old boy.'' Shyly: "Say, gosh, it's been awful
nice to sit around and loaf and gamble and act regular, with
you along, you old horse-thief!''
"Well, you know what it means to me, Georgie. Saved my
life.''
The shame of emotion overpowered them; they cursed a
little, to prove they were good rough fellows; and in a mellow
silence, Babbitt whistling while Paul hummed, they paddled
back to the hotel.
V
Though it was Paul who had seemed overwrought, Babbitt
who had been the protecting big brother, Paul became clear-eyed
and merry, while Babbitt sank into irritability. He uncovered
layer on layer of hidden weariness. At first he had
played nimble jester to Paul and for him sought amusements;
by the end of the week Paul was nurse, and Babbitt accepted
favors with the condescension one always shows a patient
nurse.
The day before their families arrived, the women guests at
the hotel bubbled, "Oh, isn't it nice! You must be so excited;''
and the proprieties compelled Babbitt and Paul to look excited.
But they went to bed early and grumpy.
When Myra appeared she said at once, "Now, we want
you boys to go on playing around just as if we weren't here.''
The first evening, he stayed out for poker with the guides,
and she said in placid merriment, "My! You're a regular
bad one!'' The second evening, she groaned sleepily, "Good
heavens, are you going to be out every single night?'' The
third evening, he didn't play poker.
He was tired now in every cell. "Funny! Vacation doesn't
seem to have done me a bit of good,'' he lamented. "Paul's
frisky as a colt, but I swear, I'm crankier and nervouser than
when I came up here.''
He had three weeks of Maine. At the end of the second week
he began to feel calm, and interested in life. He planned an
expedition to climb Sachem Mountain, and wanted to camp
overnight at Box Car Pond. He was curiously weak, yet cheerful,
as though he had cleansed his veins of poisonous energy and
was filling them with wholesome blood.
He ceased to be irritated by Ted's infatuation with a waitress
(his seventh tragic affair this year); he played catch
with Ted, and with pride taught him to cast a fly in the
pine-shadowed silence of Skowtuit Pond.
At the end he sighed, "Hang it, I'm just beginning to enjoy
my vacation. But, well, I feel a lot better. And it's going to
be one great year! Maybe the Real Estate Board will elect
me president, instead of some fuzzy old-fashioned faker like
Chan Mott.''
On the way home, whenever he went into the smoking-compartment
he felt guilty at deserting his wife and angry at
being expected to feel guilty, but each time he triumphed,
"Oh, this is going to be a great year, a great old year!''