V
Carol had avoided exposing her plans to Vida Sherwin. She
was shy of the big-sister manner; Vida would either laugh
at her or snatch the idea and change it to suit herself. But
there was no other hope. When Vida came in to tea Carol
sketched her Utopia.
Vida was soothing but decisive:
"My dear, you're all off. I would like to see it: a real
gardeny place to shut out the gales. But it can't be done.
What could the clubwomen accomplish?"
"Their husbands are the most important men in town.
They are the town!"
"But the town as a separate unit is not the husband of the
Thanatopsis. If you knew the trouble we had in getting the
city council to spend the money and cover the pumping-station
with vines! Whatever you may think of Gopher Prairie
women, they're twice as progressive as the men."
"But can't the men see the ugliness?"
"They don't think it's ugly. And how can you prove it?
Matter of taste. Why should they like what a Boston architect
likes?"
"What they like is to sell prunes!"
"Well, why not? Anyway, the point is that you have to
work from the inside, with what we have, rather than from
the outside, with foreign ideas. The shell ought not to be
forced on the spirit. It can't be! The bright shell has to
grow out of the spirit, and express it. That means waiting.
If we keep after the city council for another ten years they
may
vote the bonds for a new school."
"I refuse to believe that if they saw it the big men would
be too tight-fisted to spend a few dollars each for a building—
think!—dancing and lectures and plays, all done co-operatively!"
"You mention the word `co-operative' to the merchants and
they'll lynch you! The one thing they fear more than
mail-order houses is that farmers' co-operative movements may get
started."
"The secret trails that lead to scared pocket-books! Always,
in everything! And I don't have any of the fine melodrama
of fiction: the dictagraphs and speeches by torchlight. I'm
merely blocked by stupidity. Oh, I know I'm a fool. I dream
of Venice, and I live in Archangel and scold because the
Northern seas aren't tender-colored. But at least they sha'n't
keep me from loving Venice, and sometime I'll run away—
All right. No more."
She flung out her hands in a gesture of renunciation.
