Main Street
cut it out now. I'm not going to do the out-raged husband stunt. I like
you and I respect you, and I'd probably look like a boob if I tried to
be dramatic. But I think it's about time for you and Valborg to call a
halt before you get in Dutch, like Fern Mullins did.”
“Do you----”
“Course. I know all about it. What d' you expect in a town that's as
filled with busybodies, that have plenty of time to stick their noses
into other folks' business, as this is? Not that they've had the nerve
to do much tattling to me, but they've hinted around a lot, and anyway,
I could see for myself that you liked him. But of course I knew how cold
you were, I knew you wouldn't stand it even if Valborg did try to hold
your hand or kiss you, so I didn't worry. But same time, I hope you
don't suppose this husky young Swede farmer is as innocent and Platonic
and all that stuff as you are! Wait now, don't get sore! I'm not
knocking him. He isn't a bad sort. And he's young and likes to gas about
books. Course you like him. That isn't the real rub. But haven't you
just seen what this town can do, once it goes and gets moral on you,
like it did with Fern? You probably think that two young folks making
love are alone if anybody ever is, but there's nothing in this town
that you don't do in company with a whole lot of uninvited but awful
interested guests. Don't you realize that if Ma Westlake and a few
others got started they'd drive you up a tree, and you'd find yourself
so well advertised as being in love with this Valborg fellow that you'd
HAVE to be, just to spite 'em!”
“Let me sit down,” was all Carol could say. She drooped on the couch,
wearily, without elasticity.
He yawned, “Gimme your coat and rubbers,” and while she stripped them
off he twiddled his watch-chain, felt the radiator, peered at the
thermometer. He shook out her wraps in the hall, hung them up with
exactly his usual care. He pushed a chair near to her and sat bolt up.
He looked like a physician about to give sound and undesired advice.
Before he could launch into his heavy discourse she desperately got in,
“Please! I want you to know that I was going to tell you everything,
tonight.”
“Well, I don't suppose there's really much to tell.”
“But there is. I'm fond of Erik. He appeals to something in here.” She
touched her breast. “And I admire him. He isn't just a 'young Swede
farmer.' He's an artist----”
“Wait now! He's had a chance all evening to tell you what a whale of
a fine fellow he is. Now it's my turn. I can't talk artistic,
but----Carrie, do you understand my work?” He leaned forward, thick
capable hands on thick sturdy thighs, mature and slow, yet beseeching.
“No matter even if you are cold, I like you better than anybody in
the world. One time I said that you were my soul. And that still goes.
You're all the things that I see in a sunset when I'm driving in from
the country, the things that I like but can't make poetry of. Do you
realize what my job is? I go round twenty-four hours a day, in mud and
blizzard, trying my damnedest to heal everybody, rich or poor. You--that
're always spieling about how scientists ought to rule the world,
instead of a bunch of spread-eagle politicians--can't you see that I'm
all the science there is here? And I can stand the cold and the bumpy
roads and the lonely rides at night. All I need is to have you here at
home to welcome me. I don't expect you to be passionate--not any more
I don't--but I do expect you to appreciate my work. I bring babies into
the world, and save lives, and make cranky husbands quit being mean to
their wives. And then you go and moon over a Swede tailor because he can
talk about how to put ruchings on a skirt! Hell of a thing for a man to
fuss over!”
She flew out at him: “You make your side clear. Let me give mine. I
admit all you say--except about Erik. But is it only you, and the baby,
that want me to back you up, that demand things from me? They're all on
me, the whole town! I can feel their hot breaths on my neck! Aunt Bessie
and that horrible slavering old Uncle Whittier and Juanita and Mrs.
Westlake and Mrs. Bogart and all of them. And you welcome them, you
encourage them to drag me down into their cave! I won't stand it! Do you
hear? Now, right now, I'm done. And it's Erik who gives me the courage.
You say he just thinks about ruches (which do not usually go on skirts,
by the way!). I tell you he thinks about God, the God that Mrs. Bogart
covers up with greasy gingham wrappers! Erik will be a great man some
day, and if I could contribute one tiny bit to his success----”
“Wait, wait, wait now! Hold up! You're assuming that your Erik will make
good. As a matter of fact, at my age he'll be running a one-man tailor
shop in some burg about the size of Schoenstrom.”
“He will not!”
“That's what he's headed for now all right, and he's twenty-five or -six
and----What's he done to make you think he'll ever be anything but a
pants-presser?”
“He has sensitiveness and talent----”
“Wait now! What has he actually done in the art line? Has he done one
first-class picture or--sketch, d' you call it? Or one poem, or played
the piano, or anything except gas about what he's going to do?”
She looked thoughtful.
“Then it's a hundred to one shot that he never will. Way I understand
it, even these fellows that do something pretty good at home and get to
go to art school, there ain't more than one out of ten of 'em, maybe one
out of a hundred, that ever get above grinding out a bum living--about
as artistic as plumbing. And when it comes down to this tailor, why,
can't you see--you that take on so about psychology--can't you see that
it's just by contrast with folks like Doc McGanum or Lym Cass that this
fellow seems artistic? Suppose you'd met up with him first in one of
these reg'lar New York studios! You wouldn't notice him any more 'n a
rabbit!”
She huddled over folded hands like a temple virgin shivering on her
knees before the thin warmth of a brazier. She could not answer.
Kennicott rose quickly, sat on the couch, took both her hands. “Suppose
he fails--as he will! Suppose he goes back to tailoring, and you're his
wife. Is that going to be this artistic life you've been thinking about?
He's in some bum shack, pressing pants all day, or stooped over sewing,
and having to be polite to any grouch that blows in and jams a dirty
stinking old suit in his face and says, 'Here you, fix this, and be
blame quick about it.' He won't even have enough savvy to get him a big
shop. He'll pike along doing his own work--unless you, his wife, go help
him, go help him in the shop, and stand over a table all day, pushing a
big heavy iron. Your complexion will look fine after about fifteen years
of baking that way, won't it! And you'll be humped over like an old
hag. And probably you'll live in one room back of the shop. And then
at night--oh, you'll have your artist--sure! He'll come in stinking
of gasoline, and cranky from hard work, and hinting around that if it
hadn't been for you, he'd of gone East and been a great artist. Sure!
And you'll be entertaining his relatives----Talk about Uncle Whit!
You'll be having some old Axel Axelberg coming in with manure on his
boots and sitting down to supper in his socks and yelling at you, 'Hurry
up now, you vimmin make me sick!' Yes, and you'll have a squalling brat
every year, tugging at you while you press clothes, and you won't love
'em like you do Hugh up-stairs, all downy and asleep----”
“Please! Not any more!”
Her face was on his knee.
He bent to kiss her neck. “I don't want to be unfair. I guess love is
a great thing, all right. But think it would stand much of that kind of
stuff? Oh, honey, am I so bad? Can't you like me at all? I've--I've been
so fond of you!”
She snatched up his hand, she kissed it. Presently she sobbed, “I won't
ever see him again. I can't, now. The hot living-room behind the tailor
shop----I don't love him enough for that. And you are----Even if I were
sure of him, sure he was the real thing, I don't think I could actually
leave you. This marriage, it weaves people together. It's not easy to
break, even when it ought to be broken.”
“And do you want to break it?”
“No!”
He lifted her, carried her up-stairs, laid her on her bed, turned to the
door.
“Come kiss me,” she whimpered.
He kissed her lightly and slipped away. For an hour she heard him moving
about his room, lighting a cigar, drumming with his knuckles on a chair.
She felt that he was a bulwark between her and the darkness that grew
thicker as the delayed storm came down in sleet.
II
He was cheery and more casual than ever at breakfast. All day she tried
to devise a way of giving Erik up. Telephone? The village central would
unquestionably “listen in.” A letter? It might be found. Go to see
him? Impossible. That evening Kennicott gave her, without comment, an
envelope. The letter was signed “E. V.”
I know I can't do anything but make trouble for you, I think. I am going
to Minneapolis tonight and from there as soon as I can either to New
York or Chicago. I will do as big things as I can. I--I can't write I
love you too much--God keep you.
Until she heard the whistle which told her that the Minneapolis train
was leaving town, she kept herself from thinking, from moving. Then it
was all over. She had no plan nor desire for anything.
When she caught Kennicott looking at her over his newspaper she fled
to his arms, thrusting the paper aside, and for the first time in years
they were lovers. But she knew that she still had no plan in life, save
always to go along the same streets, past the same people, to the same
shops.
III
A week after Erik's going the maid startled her by announcing, “There's
a Mr. Valborg down-stairs say he vant to see you.”
She was conscious of the maid's interested stare, angry at this
shattering of the calm in which she had hidden. She crept down, peeped
into the living-room. It was not Erik Valborg who stood there; it was a
small, gray-bearded, yellow-faced man in mucky boots, canvas jacket, and
red mittens. He glowered at her with shrewd red eyes.
“You de doc's wife?”
“Yes.”
“I'm Adolph Valborg, from up by Jefferson. I'm Erik's father.”
“Oh!” He was a monkey-faced little man, and not gentle.
“What you done wit' my son?”
“I don't think I understand you.”
“I t'ink you're going to understand before I get t'rough! Where is he?”
“Why, really----I presume that he's in Minneapolis.”
“You presume!” He looked through her with a contemptuousness such as
she could not have imagined. Only an insane contortion of spelling could
portray his lyric whine, his mangled consonants. He clamored, “Presume!
Dot's a fine word! I don't want no fine words and I don't want no more
lies! I want to know what you KNOW!”
“See here, Mr. Valborg, you may stop this bullying right now. I'm not
one of your farmwomen. I don't know where your son is, and there's no
reason why I should know.” Her defiance ran out in face of his immense
flaxen stolidity. He raised his fist, worked up his anger with the
gesture, and sneered:
“You dirty city women wit' your fine ways and fine dresses! A father
come here trying to save his boy from wickedness, and you call him a
bully! By God, I don't have to take nothin' off you nor your husband! I
ain't one of your hired men. For one time a woman like you is going to
hear de trut' about what you are, and no fine city words to it, needer.”
“Really, Mr. Valborg----”
“What you done wit' him? Heh? I'll yoost tell you what you done! He was
a good boy, even if he was a damn fool. I want him back on de farm. He
don't make enough money tailoring. And I can't get me no hired man! I
want to take him back on de farm. And you butt in and fool wit' him and