II
Till they had a maid they took noon dinner and six o'clock
supper at Mrs. Gurrey's boarding-house.
Mrs. Elisha Gurrey, relict of Deacon Gurrey the dealer in
hay and grain, was a pointed-nosed, simpering woman with
iron-gray hair drawn so tight that it resembled a soiled
handkerchief covering her head. But she was unexpectedly
cheerful, and her dining-room, with its thin tablecloth on a long
pine table, had the decency of clean bareness.
In the line of unsmiling, methodically chewing guests, like
horses at a manger, Carol came to distinguish one countenance:
the pale, long, spectacled face and sandy pompadour hair of
Mr. Raymond P. Wutherspoon, known as "Raymie," professional
bachelor, manager and one half the sales-force in the
shoe-department of the Bon Ton Store.
"You will enjoy Gopher Prairie very much, Mrs. Kennicott,"
petitioned Raymie. His eyes were like those of a dog waiting
to be let in out of the cold. He passed the stewed apricots
effusively. "There are a great many bright cultured people
here. Mrs. Wilks, the Christian Science reader, is a very
bright woman—though I am not a Scientist myself, in fact I
sing in the Episcopal choir. And Miss Sherwin of the high
school—she is such a pleasing, bright girl—I was fitting her
to a pair of tan gaiters yesterday, I declare, it really was a
pleasure."
"Gimme the butter, Carrie," was Kennicott's comment. She
defied him by encouraging Raymie:
"Do you have amateur dramatics and so on here?"
"Oh yes! The town's just full of talent. The Knights of
Pythias put on a dandy minstrel show last year."
"It's nice you're so enthusiastic."
"Oh, do you really think so? Lots of folks jolly me for
trying to get up shows and so on. I tell them they have more
artistic gifts than they know. Just yesterday I was saying
to Harry Haydock: if he would read poetry, like Longfellow,
or if he would join the band—I get so much pleasure out of
playing the cornet, and our band-leader, Del Snafflin, is such
a good musician, I often say he ought to give up his barbering
and become a professional musician, he could play the clarinet
in Minneapolis or New York or anywhere, but—but I couldn't
get Harry to see it at all and—I hear you and the doctor went
out hunting yesterday. Lovely country, isn't it. And did you
make some calls? The mercantile life isn't inspiring like
medicine. It must be wonderful to see how patients trust
you, doctor."
"Huh. It's me that's got to do all the trusting. Be damn
sight more wonderful 'f they'd pay their bills," grumbled
Kennicott and, to Carol, he whispered something which
sounded like "gentleman hen."
But Raymie's pale eyes were watering at her. She helped
him with, "So you like to read poetry?"
"Oh yes, so much—though to tell the truth, I don't get much
time for reading, we're always so busy at the store and—
But we had the dandiest professional reciter at the Pythian
Sisters sociable last winter."
Carol thought she heard a grunt from the traveling salesman
at the end of the table, and Kennicott's jerking elbow was a
grunt embodied. She persisted:
"Do you get to see many plays, Mr. Wutherspoon?"
He shone at her like a dim blue March moon, and sighed,
"No, but I do love the movies. I'm a real fan. One trouble
with books is that they're not so thoroughly safeguarded by
intelligent censors as the movies are, and when you drop into
the library and take out a book you never know what you're
wasting your time on. What I like in books is a wholesome,
really improving story, and sometimes— Why, once I started
a novel by this fellow Balzac that you read about, and it
told how a lady wasn't living with her husband, I mean she
wasn't his wife. It went into details, disgustingly! And the
English was real poor. I spoke to the library about it, and
they took it off the shelves. I'm not narrow, but I must say
I don't see any use in this deliberately dragging in immorality!
Life itself is so full of temptations that in literature one wants
only that which is pure and uplifting."
"What's the name of that Balzac yarn? Where can I get
hold of it?" giggled the traveling salesman.
Raymie ignored him. "But the movies, they are mostly
clean, and their humor—Don't you think that the most
essential quality for a person to have is a sense of humor?"
"I don't know. I really haven't much," said Carol.
He shook his finger at her. "Now, now, you're too modest.
I'm sure we can all see that you have a perfectly corking sense
of humor. Besides, Dr. Kennicott wouldn't marry a lady that
didn't have. We all know how he loves his fun!"
"You bet. I'm a jokey old bird. Come on, Carrie; let's
beat it," remarked Kennicott.
Raymie implored, "And what is your chief artistic interest,
Mrs. Kennicott?"
"Oh—" Aware that the traveling salesman had murmured,
"Dentistry," she desperately hazarded, "Architecture."
"That's a real nice art. I've always said—when Haydock &
Simons were finishing the new front on the Bon Ton building,
the old man came to me, you know, Harry's father, `D. H.,'
I always call him, and he asked me how I liked it, and I said
to him, `Look here, D. H.,' I said—you see, he was going to
leave the front plain, and I said to him, `It's all very well
to have modern lighting and a big display-space,' I said, `but
when you get that in, you want to have some architecture, too,'
I said, and he laughed and said he guessed maybe I was right,
and so he had 'em put on a cornice."
"Tin!" observed the traveling salesman.
Raymie bared his teeth like a belligerent mouse. "Well,
what if it is tin? That's not my fault. I told D. H. to make
it polished granite. You make me tired!"
"Leave us go! Come on, Carrie, leave us go!" from
Kennicott.
Raymie waylaid them in the hall and secretly informed Carol
that she musn't mind the traveling salesman's coarseness—
he belonged to the hwa pollwa.
Kennicott chuckled, "Well, child, how about it? Do you
prefer an artistic guy like Raymie to stupid boobs like Sam
Clark and me?"
"My dear! Let's go home, and play pinochle, and laugh,
and be foolish, and slip up to bed, and sleep without dreaming.
It's beautiful to be just a solid citizeness!"
