Main Street
eyes, and his hand-shake was warm, unhurried.
He declined the offers of motors; he walked off, his arm about the
shoulder of Nat Hicks the sporting tailor, with the elegant Harry
Haydock carrying one of his enormous pale leather bags, Del Snafflin
the other, Jack Elder bearing an overcoat, and Julius Flickerbaugh
the fishing-tackle. Carol noted that though Bresnahan wore spats and
a stick, no small boy jeered. She decided, “I must have Will get a
double-breasted blue coat and a wing collar and a dotted bow-tie like
his.”
That evening, when Kennicott was trimming the grass along the walk
with sheep-shears, Bresnahan rolled up, alone. He was now in corduroy
trousers, khaki shirt open at the throat, a white boating hat, and
marvelous canvas-and-leather shoes “On the job there, old Will! Say, my
Lord, this is living, to come back and get into a regular man-sized pair
of pants. They can talk all they want to about the city, but my idea of
a good time is to loaf around and see you boys and catch a gamey bass!”
He hustled up the walk and blared at Carol, “Where's that little fellow?
I hear you've got one fine big he-boy that you're holding out on me!”
“He's gone to bed,” rather briefly.
“I know. And rules are rules, these days. Kids get routed through the
shop like a motor. But look here, sister; I'm one great hand at busting
rules. Come on now, let Uncle Perce have a look at him. Please now,
sister?”
He put his arm about her waist; it was a large, strong, sophisticated
arm, and very agreeable; he grinned at her with a devastating
knowingness, while Kennicott glowed inanely. She flushed; she was
alarmed by the ease with which the big-city man invaded her guarded
personality. She was glad, in retreat, to scamper ahead of the two men
up-stairs to the hall-room in which Hugh slept. All the way Kennicott
muttered, “Well, well, say, gee whittakers but it's good to have you
back, certainly is good to see you!”
Hugh lay on his stomach, making an earnest business of sleeping. He
burrowed his eyes in the dwarf blue pillow to escape the electric light,
then sat up abruptly, small and frail in his woolly nightdrawers, his
floss of brown hair wild, the pillow clutched to his breast. He
wailed. He stared at the stranger, in a manner of patient dismissal.
He explained confidentially to Carol, “Daddy wouldn't let it be morning
yet. What does the pillow say?”
Bresnahan dropped his arm caressingly on Carol's shoulder; he
pronounced, “My Lord, you're a lucky girl to have a fine young husk like
that. I figure Will knew what he was doing when he persuaded you to take
a chance on an old bum like him! They tell me you come from St. Paul.
We're going to get you to come to Boston some day.” He leaned over
the bed. “Young man, you're the slickest sight I've seen this side of
Boston. With your permission, may we present you with a slight token of
our regard and appreciation of your long service?”
He held out a red rubber Pierrot. Hugh remarked, “Gimme it,” hid it
under the bedclothes, and stared at Bresnahan as though he had never
seen the man before.
For once Carol permitted herself the spiritual luxury of not asking
“Why, Hugh dear, what do you say when some one gives you a present?”
The great man was apparently waiting. They stood in inane suspense till
Bresnahan led them out, rumbling, “How about planning a fishing-trip,
Will?”
He remained for half an hour. Always he told Carol what a charming
person she was; always he looked at her knowingly.
“Yes. He probably would make a woman fall in love with him. But it
wouldn't last a week. I'd get tired of his confounded buoyancy.
His hypocrisy. He's a spiritual bully. He makes me rude to him in
self-defense. Oh yes, he is glad to be here. He does like us. He's so
good an actor that he convinces his own self. . . . I'd HATE him in
Boston. He'd have all the obvious big-city things. Limousines.
Discreet evening-clothes. Order a clever dinner at a smart restaurant.
Drawing-room decorated by the best firm--but the pictures giving him
away. I'd rather talk to Guy Pollock in his dusty office. . . . How I
lie! His arm coaxed my shoulder and his eyes dared me not to admire him.
I'd be afraid of him. I hate him! . . . Oh, the inconceivable egotistic
imagination of women! All this stew of analysis about a man, a good,
decent, friendly, efficient man, because he was kind to me, as Will's
wife!”
IV
The Kennicotts, the Elders, the Clarks, and Bresnahan went fishing
at Red Squaw Lake. They drove forty miles to the lake in Elder's new
Cadillac. There was much laughter and bustle at the start, much storing
of lunch-baskets and jointed poles, much inquiry as to whether it would
really bother Carol to sit with her feet up on a roll of shawls.
When they were ready to go Mrs. Clark lamented, “Oh, Sam, I forgot
my magazine,” and Bresnahan bullied, “Come on now, if you women think
you're going to be literary, you can't go with us tough guys!” Every
one laughed a great deal, and as they drove on Mrs. Clark explained that
though probably she would not have read it, still, she might have wanted
to, while the other girls had a nap in the afternoon, and she was right
in the middle of a serial--it was an awfully exciting story--it seems
that this girl was a Turkish dancer (only she was really the daughter of
an American lady and a Russian prince) and men kept running after her,
just disgustingly, but she remained pure, and there was a scene----
While the men floated on the lake, casting for black bass, the women
prepared lunch and yawned. Carol was a little resentful of the manner in
which the men assumed that they did not care to fish. “I don't want to
go with them, but I would like the privilege of refusing.”
The lunch was long and pleasant. It was a background for the talk of the
great man come home, hints of cities and large imperative affairs and
famous people, jocosely modest admissions that, yes, their friend Perce
was doing about as well as most of these “Boston swells that think so
much of themselves because they come from rich old families and went to
college and everything. Believe me, it's us new business men that are
running Beantown today, and not a lot of fussy old bucks snoozing in
their clubs!”
Carol realized that he was not one of the sons of Gopher Prairie who,
if they do not actually starve in the East, are invariably spoken of as
“highly successful”; and she found behind his too incessant flattery a
genuine affection for his mates. It was in the matter of the war that
he most favored and thrilled them. Dropping his voice while they bent
nearer (there was no one within two miles to overhear), he disclosed
the fact that in both Boston and Washington he'd been getting a lot of
inside stuff on the war--right straight from headquarters--he was in
touch with some men--couldn't name them but they were darn high up in
both the War and State Departments--and he would say--only for Pete's
sake they mustn't breathe one word of this; it was strictly on the
Q.T. and not generally known outside of Washington--but just between
ourselves--and they could take this for gospel--Spain had finally
decided to join the Entente allies in the Grand Scrap. Yes, sir, there'd
be two million fully equipped Spanish soldiers fighting with us in
France in one month now. Some surprise for Germany, all right!
“How about the prospects for revolution in Germany?” reverently asked
Kennicott.
The authority grunted, “Nothing to it. The one thing you can bet on is
that no matter what happens to the German people, win or lose, they'll
stick by the Kaiser till hell freezes over. I got that absolutely
straight, from a fellow who's on the inside of the inside in Washington.
No, sir! I don't pretend to know much about international affairs
but one thing you can put down as settled is that Germany will be a
Hohenzollern empire for the next forty years. At that, I don't know as
it's so bad. The Kaiser and the Junkers keep a firm hand on a lot
of these red agitators who'd be worse than a king if they could get
control.”
“I'm terribly interested in this uprising that overthrew the Czar in
Russia,” suggested Carol. She had finally been conquered by the man's
wizard knowledge of affairs.
Kennicott apologized for her: “Carrie's nuts about this Russian
revolution. Is there much to it, Perce?”
“There is not!” Bresnahan said flatly. “I can speak by the book there.
Carol, honey, I'm surprised to find you talking like a New York Russian
Jew, or one of these long-hairs! I can tell you, only you don't need to
let every one in on it, this is confidential, I got it from a man who's
close to the State Department, but as a matter of fact the Czar will
be back in power before the end of the year. You read a lot about his
retiring and about his being killed, but I know he's got a big army back
of him, and he'll show these damn agitators, lazy beggars hunting for
a soft berth bossing the poor goats that fall for 'em, he'll show 'em
where they get off!”
Carol was sorry to hear that the Czar was coming back, but she said
nothing. The others had looked vacant at the mention of a country so far
away as Russia. Now they edged in and asked Bresnahan what he thought
about the Packard car, investments in Texas oil-wells, the comparative
merits of young men born in Minnesota and in Massachusetts, the question
of prohibition, the future cost of motor tires, and wasn't it true that
American aviators put it all over these Frenchmen?
They were glad to find that he agreed with them on every point.
As she heard Bresnahan announce, “We're perfectly willing to talk to
any committee the men may choose, but we're not going to stand for some
outside agitator butting in and telling us how we're going to run our
plant!” Carol remembered that Jackson Elder (now meekly receiving New
Ideas) had said the same thing in the same words.
While Sam Clark was digging up from his memory a long and immensely
detailed story of the crushing things he had said to a Pullman porter,
named George, Bresnahan hugged his knees and rocked and watched Carol.
She wondered if he did not understand the laboriousness of the smile
with which she listened to Kennicott's account of the “good one he had
on Carrie,” that marital, coyly improper, ten-times-told tale of how she
had forgotten to attend to Hugh because she was “all het up pounding the
box”--which may be translated as “eagerly playing the piano.” She was
certain that Bresnahan saw through her when she pretended not to hear
Kennicott's invitation to join a game of cribbage. She feared the
comments he might make; she was irritated by her fear.
She was equally irritated, when the motor returned through Gopher
Prairie, to find that she was proud of sharing in Bresnahan's kudos
as people waved, and Juanita Haydock leaned from a window. She said to
herself, “As though I cared whether I'm seen with this fat phonograph!”
and simultaneously, “Everybody has noticed how much Will and I are
playing with Mr. Bresnahan.”
The town was full of his stories, his friendliness, his memory for
names, his clothes, his trout-flies, his generosity. He had given
a hundred dollars to Father Klubok the priest, and a hundred to the
Reverend Mr. Zitterel the Baptist minister, for Americanization work.
At the Bon Ton, Carol heard Nat Hicks the tailor exulting:
“Old Perce certainly pulled a good one on this fellow Bjornstam that
always is shooting off his mouth. He's supposed to of settled down since
he got married, but Lord, those fellows that think they know it all,
they never change. Well, the Red Swede got the grand razz handed to him,
all right. He had the nerve to breeze up to Perce, at Dave Dyer's, and
he said, he said to Perce, 'I've always wanted to look at a man that was