25. CHAPTER XXV
I
HE awoke to stretch cheerfully as he listened to the sparrows,
then to remember that everything was wrong; that he
was determined to go astray, and not in the least enjoying the
process. Why, he wondered, should he be in rebellion? What
was it all about? "Why not be sensible; stop all this idiotic
running around, and enjoy himself with his family, his business,
the fellows at the club?'' What was he getting out of
rebellion? Misery and shame—the shame of being treated as
an offensive small boy by a ragamuffin like Ida Putiak! And
yet— Always he came back to "And yet.'' Whatever the
misery, he could not regain contentment with a world which,
once doubted, became absurd.
Only, he assured himself, he was "through with this chasing
after girls.''
By noontime he was not so sure even of that. If in Miss
McGoun, Louetta Swanson, and Ida he had failed to find the
lady kind and lovely, it did not prove that she did not exist.
He was hunted by the ancient thought that somewhere must
exist the not impossible she who would understand him, value
him, and make him happy.
II
Mrs. Babbitt returned in August.
On her previous absences he had missed her reassuring buzz
and of her arrival he had made a fête. Now, though he dared
not hurt her by letting a hint of it appear in his letters, he
was sorry that she was coming before he had found himself,
and he was embarrassed by the need of meeting her and looking
joyful.
He loitered down to the station; he studied the summer-resort
posters, lest he have to speak to acquaintances and
expose his uneasiness. But he was well trained. When the
train clanked in he was out on the cement platform, peering
into the chair-cars, and as he saw her in the line of passengers
moving toward the vestibule he waved his hat. At the door
he embraced her, and announced, "Well, well, well, well, by
golly, you look fine, you look fine.'' Then he was aware of
Tinka. Here was something, this child with her absurd little
nose and lively eyes, that loved him, believed him great, and
as he clasped her, lifted and held her till she squealed, he
was for the moment come back to his old steady self.
Tinka sat beside him in the car, with one hand on the
steering-wheel, pretending to help him drive, and he shouted
back to his wife, "I'll bet the kid will be the best chuffer in
the family! She holds the wheel like an old professional!''
All the while he was dreading the moment when he would
be alone with his wife and she would patiently expect him
to be ardent.
III
There was about the house an unofficial theory that he was
to take his vacation alone, to spend a week or ten days in
Catawba, but he was nagged by the memory that a year ago
he had been with Paul in Maine. He saw himself returning;
finding peace there, and the presence of Paul, in a life primitive
and heroic. Like a shock came the thought that he
actually could go. Only, he couldn't, really; he couldn't leave
his business, and "Myra would think it sort of funny, his
going way off there alone. Course he'd decided to do whatever
he darned pleased, from now on, but still—to go way
off to Maine!''
He went, after lengthy meditations.
With his wife, since it was inconceivable to explain that
he was going to seek Paul's spirit in the wilderness, he frugally
employed the lie prepared over a year ago and scarcely used
at all. He said that he had to see a man in New York on
business. He could not have explained even to himself why he
drew from the bank several hundred dollars more than he
needed, nor why he kissed Tinka so tenderly, and cried, "God
bless you, baby!'' From the train he waved to her till she was
but a scarlet spot beside the brown bulkier presence of Mrs.
Babbitt, at the end of a steel and cement aisle ending in vast
barred gates. With melancholy he looked back at the last
suburb of Zenith.
All the way north he pictured the Maine guides: simple
and strong and daring, jolly as they played stud-poker in
their unceiled shack, wise in woodcraft as they tramped the
forest and shot the rapids. He particularly remembered Joe
Paradise, half Yankee, half Indian. If he could but take up a
backwoods claim with a man like Joe, work hard with his
hands, be free and noisy in a flannel shirt, and never come
back to this dull decency!
Or, like a trapper in a Northern Canada movie, plunge
through the forest, make camp in the Rockies, a grim and
wordless caveman! Why not? He could do it! There'd
be enough money at home for the family to live on till Verona
was married and Ted self-supporting. Old Henry T. would
look out for them. Honestly! Why not? Really
live—
He longed for it, admitted that he longed for it, then almost
believed that he was going lo do it. Whenever common sense
snorted, "Nonsense! Folks don't run away from decent
families and partners; just simply don't do it, that's all!''
then Babbitt answered pleadingly, "Well, it wouldn't take any
more nerve than for Paul to go to jail and—Lord, how I'd'
like to do it! Moccasins-six-gun-frontier town-gamblers
—sleep under the stars—be a regular man, with he-men like
Joe Paradise—gosh!''
So he came to Maine, again stood on the wharf before the
camp-hotel, again spat heroically into the delicate and shivering
water, while the pines rustled, the mountains glowed, and
a trout leaped and fell in a sliding circle. He hurried to the
guides' shack as to his real home, his real friends, long missed.
They would be glad to see him. They would stand up and
shout? "Why, here's Mr. Babbitt! He ain't one of these
ordinary sports! He's a real guy!''
In their boarded and rather littered cabin the guides sat
about the greasy table playing stud-poker with greasy cards:
half a dozen wrinkled men in old trousers and easy old felt
hats. They glanced up and nodded. Joe Paradise, the swart
aging man with the big mustache, grunted, "How do. Back
again?''
Silence, except for the clatter of chips.
Babbitt stood beside them, very lonely. He hinted, after
a period of highly concentrated playing, "Guess I might take
a hand, Joe.''
"Sure. Sit in. How many chips you want? Let's see;
you were here with your wife, last year, wa'n't you?'' said Joe
Paradise.
That was all of Babbitt's welcome to the old home.
He played for half an hour before he spoke again. His
head was reeking with the smoke of pipes and cheap cigars,
and he was weary of pairs and four-flushes, resentful of the
way in which they ignored him. He flung at Joe:
"Working now?''
"Nope.''
"Like to guide me for a few days?''
"Well, jus' soon. I ain't engaged till next week.''
Only thus did Joe recognize the friendship Babbitt was
offering him. Babbitt paid up his losses and left the shack
rather childishly. Joe raised his head from the coils of smoke
like a seal rising from surf, grunted, "I'll come 'round
t'morrow,'' and dived down to his three aces.
Neither in his voiceless cabin, fragrant with planks of new-cut
pine, nor along the lake, nor in the sunset clouds which
presently eddied behind the lavender-misted mountains, could
Babbitt find the spirit of Paul as a reassuring presence. He
was so lonely that after supper he stopped to talk with an
ancient old lady, a gasping and steadily discoursing old lady,
by the stove in the hotel-office. He told her of Ted's
presumable future triumphs in the State University and of Tinka's
remarkable vocabulary till he was homesick for the home he
had left forever.
Through the darkness, through that Northern pine-walled
silence, he blundered down to the lake-front and found a
canoe. There were no paddles in it but with a board, sitting
awkwardly amidships and poking at the water rather than
paddling, he made his way far out on the lake. The lights
of the hotel and the cottages became yellow dots, a cluster
of glow-worms at the base of Sachem Mountain. Larger and
ever more imperturbable was the mountain in the star-filtered
darkness, and the lake a limitless pavement of black marble.
He was dwarfed and dumb and a little awed, but that insignificance
freed him from the pomposities of being Mr. George
F. Babbitt of Zenith; saddened and freed his heart. Now he
was conscious of the presence of Paul, fancied him (rescued
from prison, from Zilla and the brisk exactitudes of the tar-roofing
business) playing his violin at the end of the canoe.
He vowed, "I will go on! I'll never go back! Now that
Paul's out of it, I don't want to see any of those damn people
again! I was a fool to get sore because Joe Paradise didn't
jump up and hug me. He's one of these woodsmen; too wise
to go yelping and talking your arm off like a cityman. But
get him back in the mountains, out on the trail—! That's
real living!''
IV
Joe reported at Babbitt's cabin at nine the next morning.
Babbitt greeted him as a fellow caveman:
"Well, Joe, how d' you feel about hitting the trail, and
getting away from these darn soft summerites and these women
and all?''
"All right, Mr. Babbitt.''
"What do you say we go over to Box Car Pond—they tell
me the shack there isn't being used—and camp out?''
"Well, all right, Mr. Babbitt, but it's nearer to Skowtuit
Pond, and you can get just about as good fishing there.''
"No, I want to get into the real wilds.''
"Well, all right.''
"We'll put the old packs on our backs and get into the
woods and really hike.''
"I think maybe it would be easier to go by water, through
Lake Chogue. We can go all the way by motor boat—flat-bottom
boat with an Evinrude.''
"No, sir! Bust up the quiet with a chugging motor? Not
on your life! You just throw a pair of socks in the old pack,
and tell 'em what you want for eats. I'll be ready soon 's
you are.''
"Most of the sports go by boat, Mr. Babbitt. It's a long
walk.
"Look here, Joe: are you objecting to walking?''
"Oh, no, I guess I can do it. But I haven't tramped that
far for sixteen years. Most of the sports go by boat. But
I can do it if you say so—I guess.'' Joe walked away in
sadness.
Babbitt had recovered from his touchy wrath before Joe
returned. He pictured him as warming up and telling the most
entertaining stories. But Joe had not yet warmed up when
they took the trail. He persistently kept behind Babbitt, and
however much his shoulders ached from the pack, however
sorely he panted, Babbitt could hear his guide panting equally.
But the trail was satisfying: a path brown with pine-needles
and rough with roots, among the balsams, the ferns, the sudden
groves of white birch. He became credulous again, and
rejoiced in sweating. When he stopped to rest he chuckled,
"Guess we're hitting it up pretty good for a couple o' old
birds, eh?''
"Uh-huh,'' admitted Joe.
"This is a mighty pretty place. Look, you can see the lake
down through the trees. I tell you, Joe, you don't appreciate
how lucky you are to live in woods like this, instead of a city
with trolleys grinding and typewriters clacking and people
bothering the life out of you all the time! I wish I knew the
woods like you do. Say, what's the name of that little red
flower?''
Rubbing his back, Joe regarded the flower resentfully
"Well, some folks call it one thing and some calls it another
I always just call it Pink Flower.''
Babbitt blessedly ceased thinking as tramping turned into
blind plodding. He was submerged in weariness. His plump
legs seemed to go on by themselves, without guidance, and
he mechanically wiped away the sweat which stung his eyes.
He was too tired to be consciously glad as, after a sun-scourged
mile of corduroy tote-road through a swamp where
flies hovered over a hot waste of brush, they reached the cool
shore of Box Car Pond. When he lifted the pack from his
back he staggered from the change in balance, and for a moment
could not stand erect. He lay beneath an ample-bosomed
maple tree near the guest-shack, and joyously felt sleep running
through his veins.
He awoke toward dusk, to find Joe efficiently cooking bacon
and eggs and flapjacks for supper, and his admiration of the
woodsman returned. He sat on a stump and felt virile.
"Joe, what would you do if you had a lot of money? Would
you stick to guiding, or would you take a claim 'way back in
the woods and be independent of people?''
For the first time Joe brightened. He chewed his cud a
second, and bubbled, "I've often thought of that! If I had
the money, I'd go down to Tinker's Falls and open a swell
shoe store.''
After supper Joe proposed a game of stud-poker but Babbitt
refused with brevity, and Joe contentedly went to bed at
eight. Babbitt sat on the stump, facing the dark pond, slapping
mosquitos. Save the snoring guide, there was no other
human being within ten miles. He was lonelier than he had
ever been in his life. Then he was in Zenith.
He was worrying as to whether Miss McGoun wasn't paying
too much for carbon paper. He was at once resenting and
missing the persistent teasing at the Roughnecks' Table. He
was wondering what Zilla Riesling was doing now. He was
wondering whether, after the summer's maturity of being a
garageman, Ted would "get busy'' in the university. He was
thinking of his wife. "If she would only—if she wouldn't
be so darn satisfied with just settling down— No! I won't!
I won't go back! I'll be fifty in three years. Sixty in thirteen
years. I'm going to have some fun before it's too late. I
don't care! I will!''
He thought of Ida Putiak, of Louetta Swanson, of that nice
widow—what was her name?—Tanis Judique?—the one for
whom he'd found the flat. He was enmeshed in imaginary
conversations. Then:
"Gee, I can't seem to get away from thinking about folks!''
Thus it came to him merely to run away was folly, because
he could never run away from himself.
That moment he started for Zenith. In his journey there
was no appearance of flight, but he was fleeing, and four days
afterward he was on the Zenith train. He knew that he was
slinking back not because it was what he longed to do but
because it was all he could do. He scanned again his discovery
that he could never run away from Zenith and family
and office, because in his own brain he bore the office and the
family and every street and disquiet and illusion of Zenith.
"But I'm going to—oh, I'm going to start something!'' he
vowed, and he tried to make it valiant.