Babbitt
bloody at the edges, protruding from the gash a cluster of forceps like
clinging parasites.
He shut the door with haste. It may be that his frightened repentance of
the night and morning had not eaten in, but this dehumanizing interment
of her who had been so pathetically human shook him utterly, and as he
crouched again on the high stool in the laboratory he swore faith to his
wife... to Zenith... to business efficiency... to the Boosters’ Club...
to every faith of the Clan of Good Fellows.
Then a nurse was soothing, “All over! Perfect success! She’ll come out
fine! She’ll be out from under the anesthetic soon, and you can see
her.”
He found her on a curious tilted bed, her face an unwholesome yellow but
her purple lips moving slightly. Then only did he really believe that
she was alive. She was muttering. He bent, and heard her sighing, “Hard
get real maple syrup for pancakes.” He laughed inexhaustibly; he beamed
on the nurse and proudly confided, “Think of her talking about maple
syrup! By golly, I’m going to go and order a hundred gallons of it,
right from Vermont!”
II
She was out of the hospital in seventeen days. He went to see her each
afternoon, and in their long talks they drifted back to intimacy. Once
he hinted something of his relations to Tanis and the Bunch, and she was
inflated by the view that a Wicked Woman had captivated her poor George.
If once he had doubted his neighbors and the supreme charm of the Good
Fellows, he was convinced now. You didn’t, he noted, “see Seneca Doane
coming around with any flowers or dropping in to chat with the Missus,”
but Mrs. Howard Littlefield brought to the hospital her priceless wine
jelly (flavored with real wine); Orville Jones spent hours in picking
out the kind of novels Mrs. Babbitt liked--nice love stories about New
York millionaries and Wyoming cowpunchers; Louetta Swanson knitted a
pink bed-jacket; Sidney Finkelstein and his merry brown-eyed flapper of
a wife selected the prettiest nightgown in all the stock of Parcher and
Stein.
All his friends ceased whispering about him, suspecting him. At the
Athletic Club they asked after her daily. Club members whose names he
did not know stopped him to inquire, “How’s your good lady getting on?”
Babbitt felt that he was swinging from bleak uplands down into the rich
warm air of a valley pleasant with cottages.
One noon Vergil Gunch suggested, “You planning to be at the hospital
about six? The wife and I thought we’d drop in.” They did drop in. Gunch
was so humorous that Mrs. Babbitt said he must “stop making her laugh
because honestly it was hurting her incision.” As they passed down the
hall Gunch demanded amiably, “George, old scout, you were soreheaded
about something, here a while back. I don’t know why, and it’s none of
my business. But you seem to be feeling all hunky-dory again, and why
don’t you come join us in the Good Citizens’ League, old man? We have
some corking times together, and we need your advice.”
Then did Babbitt, almost tearful with joy at being coaxed instead of
bullied, at being permitted to stop fighting, at being able to desert
without injuring his opinion of himself, cease utterly to be a domestic
revolutionist. He patted Gunch’s shoulder, and next day he became a
member of the Good Citizens’ League.
Within two weeks no one in the League was more violent regarding the
wickedness of Seneca Doane, the crimes of labor unions, the perils of
immigration, and the delights of golf, morality, and bank-accounts than
was George F. Babbitt.
CHAPTER XXXIV
I
The Good Citizens’ League had spread through the country, but nowhere
was it so effective and well esteemed as in cities of the type of
Zenith, commercial cities of a few hundred thousand inhabitants, most of
which--though not all--lay inland, against a background of cornfields
and mines and of small towns which depended upon them for
mortgage-loans, table-manners, art, social philosophy and millinery.
To the League belonged most of the prosperous citizens of Zenith. They
were not all of the kind who called themselves “Regular Guys.” Besides
these hearty fellows, these salesmen of prosperity, there were the
aristocrats, that is, the men who were richer or had been rich for more
generations: the presidents of banks and of factories, the land-owners,
the corporation lawyers, the fashionable doctors, and the few young-old
men who worked not at all but, reluctantly remaining in Zenith,
collected luster-ware and first editions as though they were back in
Paris. All of them agreed that the working-classes must be kept in their
place; and all of them perceived that American Democracy did not imply
any equality of wealth, but did demand a wholesome sameness of thought,
dress, painting, morals, and vocabulary.
In this they were like the ruling-class of any other country,
particularly of Great Britain, but they differed in being more vigorous
and in actually trying to produce the accepted standards which all
classes, everywhere, desire, but usually despair of realizing.
The longest struggle of the Good Citizens’ League was against the Open
Shop--which was secretly a struggle against all union labor.
Accompanying it was an Americanization Movement, with evening classes in
English and history and economics, and daily articles in the newspapers,
so that newly arrived foreigners might learn that the true-blue and one
hundred per cent. American way of settling labor-troubles was for
workmen to trust and love their employers.
The League was more than generous in approving other organizations which
agreed with its aims. It helped the Y.M.C.A. to raise a
two-hundred-thousand-dollar fund for a new building. Babbitt, Vergil
Gunch, Sidney Finkelstein, and even Charles McKelvey told the spectators
at movie theaters how great an influence for manly Christianity the
“good old Y.” had been in their own lives; and the hoar and mighty
Colonel Rutherford Snow, owner of the _Advocate-Times_, was photographed
clasping the hand of Sheldon Smeeth of the Y.M.C.A. It is true that
afterward, when Smeeth lisped, “You must come to one of our
prayer-meetings,” the ferocious Colonel bellowed, “What the hell would I
do that for? I’ve got a bar of my own,” but this did not appear in the
public prints.
The League was of value to the American Legion at a time when certain of
the lesser and looser newspapers were criticizing that organization of
veterans of the Great War. One evening a number of young men raided the
Zenith Socialist Headquarters, burned its records, beat the office
staff, and agreeably dumped desks out of the window. All of the
newspapers save the _Advocate-Times_ and the _Evening Advocate_
attributed this valuable but perhaps hasty direct-action to the American
Legion. Then a flying squadron from the Good Citizens’ League called on
the unfair papers and explained that no ex-soldier could possibly do
such a thing, and the editors saw the light, and retained their
advertising. When Zenith’s lone Conscientious Objector came home from
prison and was righteously run out of town, the newspapers referred to
the perpetrators as an “unidentified mob.”
II
In all the activities and triumphs of the Good Citizens’ League Babbitt
took part, and completely won back to self-respect, placidity, and the
affection of his friends. But he began to protest, “Gosh, I’ve done my
share in cleaning up the city. I want to tend to business. Think I’ll
just kind of slacken up on this G.C.L. stuff now.”
He had returned to the church as he had returned to the Boosters’ Club.
He had even endured the lavish greeting which Sheldon Smeeth gave him.
He was worried lest during his late discontent he had imperiled his
salvation. He was not quite sure there was a Heaven to be attained, but
Dr. John Jennison Drew said there was, and Babbitt was not going to take
a chance.
One evening when he was walking past Dr. Drew’s parsonage he impulsively
went in and found the pastor in his study.
“Jus’ minute--getting ’phone call,” said Dr. Drew in business-like
tones, then, aggressively, to the telephone: “’Lo--’lo! This Berkey and
Hannis? Reverend Drew speaking. Where the dickens is the proof for next
Sunday’s calendar? Huh? Y’ ought to have it here. Well, I can’t help it
if they’re _all_ sick! I got to have it to-night. Get an A.D.T. boy and
shoot it up here quick.”
He turned, without slackening his briskness. “Well, Brother Babbitt,
what c’n I do for you?”
“I just wanted to ask-- Tell you how it is, dominie: Here a while ago I
guess I got kind of slack. Took a few drinks and so on. What I wanted to
ask is: How is it if a fellow cuts that all out and comes back to his
senses? Does it sort of, well, you might say, does it score against him
in the long run?”
The Reverend Dr. Drew was suddenly interested. “And, uh, brother--the
other things, too? Women?”
“No, practically, you might say, practically not at all.”
“Don’t hesitate to tell me, brother! That’s what I’m here for. Been
going on joy-rides? Squeezing girls in cars?” The reverend eyes
glistened.
“No--no--”
“Well, I’ll tell you. I’ve got a deputation from the Don’t Make
Prohibition a Joke Association coming to see me in a quarter of an hour,
and one from the Anti-Birth-Control Union at a quarter of ten.” He
busily glanced at his watch. “But I can take five minutes off and pray
with you. Kneel right down by your chair, brother. Don’t be ashamed to
seek the guidance of God.”
Babbitt’s scalp itched and he longed to flee, but Dr. Drew had already
flopped down beside his desk-chair and his voice had changed from
rasping efficiency to an unctuous familiarity with sin and with the
Almighty. Babbitt also knelt, while Drew gloated:
“O Lord, thou seest our brother here, who has been led astray by
manifold temptations. O Heavenly Father, make his heart to be pure, as
pure as a little child’s. Oh, let him know again the joy of a manly
courage to abstain from evil--”
Sheldon Smeeth came frolicking into the study. At the sight of the two
men he smirked, forgivingly patted Babbitt on the shoulder, and knelt
beside him, his arm about him, while he authorized Dr. Drew’s
imprecations with moans of “Yes, Lord! Help our brother, Lord!”
Though he was trying to keep his eyes closed, Babbitt squinted between
his fingers and saw the pastor glance at his watch as he concluded with
a triumphant, “And let him never be afraid to come to Us for counsel and
tender care, and let him know that the church can lead him as a little
lamb.”
Dr. Drew sprang up, rolled his eyes in the general direction of Heaven,
chucked his watch into his pocket, and demanded, “Has the deputation
come yet, Sheldy?”
“Yep, right outside,” Sheldy answered, with equal liveliness; then,
caressingly, to Babbitt, “Brother, if it would help, I’d love to go
into the next room and pray with you while Dr. Drew is receiving the
brothers from the Don’t Make Prohibition a Joke Association.”
“No--no thanks--can’t take the time!” yelped Babbitt, rushing toward the
door.
Thereafter he was often seen at the Chatham Road Presbyterian Church,
but it is recorded that he avoided shaking hands with the pastor at the
door.
III
If his moral fiber had been so weakened by rebellion that he was not
quite dependable in the more rigorous campaigns of the Good Citizens’
League nor quite appreciative of the church, yet there was no doubt of
the joy with which Babbitt returned to the pleasures of his home and of
the Athletic Club, the Boosters, the Elks.
Verona and Kenneth Escott were eventually and hesitatingly married. For
the wedding Babbitt was dressed as carefully as was Verona; he was
crammed into the morning-coat he wore to teas thrice a year; and with a