SHE was home.
“No. I couldn't in love with him. I like him, very much. But he's too much of a recluse. Could I him? No! No! Guy Pollock at twenty-six I have him then, maybe, if I were married to some one else, and I'd have been in myself that 'it wasn't wrong.'
“The thing is that I'm not more at myself. I, the matron. Am I to be trusted? If the Prince Charming came——
“A Gopher Prairie housewife, married a year, and for a 'Prince Charming' like a of sixteen! They say that marriage is a magic change. But I'm not changed. But——
“No! I wouldn't want to in love, if the Prince did come. I wouldn't want to Will. I am of Will. I am! He doesn't me, not any longer. But I on him. He is home and children.
“I wonder when we will to have children? I do want them.
“I wonder I to tell Bea to have tomorrow, of oatmeal? She will have gone to by now. Perhaps I'll be up early enough——
“Ever so of Will. I wouldn't him, if I had to the love. If the Prince came I'd look once at him, and run. Darn fast! Oh, Carol, you are not fine. You are the female.
“But I'm not the wife who that she's 'misunderstood.' Oh, I'm not, I'm not!
“Am I?
“At least I didn't to Guy about Will's and his to my soul. I didn't! Matter of fact, Will me perfectly! If only—if he would just me up in the town.
“How many, how many there must be who over the Guy Pollock who at them. No! I will not be one of that of yearners! The brides. Yet if the Prince were and to life——
“I'm not as well as that Mrs. Dillon. So her dentist! And Guy only as an fogy.
“They weren't silk, Mrs. Dillon's stockings. They were lisle. Her are and slim. But no than mine. I on stockings. . . . Are my fat? I will NOT have ankles!
“No. I am of Will. His work—one farmer he through is all my for a in Spain. A with baths.
“This is so tight. I must it. Guy liked it.
“There's the house. I'm chilly. Time to out the coat. I wonder if I'll have a coat? Nutria is NOT the same thing! Beaver-glossy. Like to my over it. Guy's like beaver. How absurd!
“I am, I AM of Will, and——Can't I another word than 'fond'?
“He's home. He'll think I was out late.
“Why can't he to the shades? Cy Bogart and all the boys in. But the dear, he's absent-minded about minute—minush—whatever the word is. He has so much worry and work, while I do nothing but to Bea.
“I MUSTN'T the hominy——”
She was into the hall. Kennicott looked up from the Journal of the American Medical Society.
“Hello! What time did you back?” she cried.
“About nine. You been gadding. Here it is past eleven!” Good-natured yet not approving.
“Did it neglected?”
“Well, you didn't to close the in the furnace.”
“Oh, I'm so sorry. But I don't often like that, do I?”
She into his and (after he had his to save his eye-glasses, and the glasses, and settled her in a position less to his legs, and his throat) he her amiably, and remarked:
“Nope, I must say you're good about like that. I wasn't kicking. I just meant I wouldn't want the fire to go out on us. Leave that open and the fire might up and go out on us. And the nights are to cold again. Pretty cold on my drive. I put the side-curtains up, it was so chilly. But the is all right now.”
“Yes. It is chilly. But I after my walk.”
“Go walking?”
“I up to see the Perrys.” By a act of will she added the truth: “They weren't in. And I saw Guy Pollock. Dropped into his office.”
“Why, you haven't been and with him till eleven o'clock?”
“Of there were some other people there and——Will! What do you think of Dr. Westlake?”
“Westlake? Why?”
“I noticed him on the today.”
“Was he limping? If the fish would have his teeth X-rayed, I'll nine and a he'd an there. 'Rheumatism' he calls it. Rheumatism, hell! He's the times. Wonder he doesn't himself! Wellllllll——” A and yawn. “I to up the party, but it's late, and a doctor when he'll out morning.” (She that he had this explanation, in these words, not less than thirty times in the year.) “I we be up to bed. I've the clock and looked at the furnace. Did you lock the door when you came in?”
They up-stairs, after he had out the lights and twice the door to make sure it was fast. While they talked they were preparing for bed. Carol still to maintain by the screen of the door. Kennicott was not so reticent. Tonight, as every night, she was by having to push the old chair out of the way she open the door. Every time she opened the door she the chair. Ten times an hour. But Kennicott liked to have the chair in the room, and there was no place for it in of the closet.
She pushed it, angry, her anger. Kennicott was yawning, more portentously. The room stale. She and chatty:
“You were speaking of Dr. Westlake. Tell me—you've him up: Is he a good doctor?”
“Oh yes, he's a wise old coot.”
(“There! You see there is no medical rivalry. Not in my house!” she said to Guy Pollock.)
She her on a hook, and on, “Dr. Westlake is so and scholarly——”
“Well, I don't know as I'd say he was such a of a scholar. I've always had a he did a good of four-flushing about that. He to have people think he up his French and Greek and Lord what all; and he's always got an old Dago book around the sitting-room, but I've got a he reads 'bout like the of us. And I don't know where he'd learn so dog-gone many anyway! He of lets people assume he to Harvard or Berlin or Oxford or somewhere, but I looked him up in the medical register, and he from a college in Pennsylvania, 'way in 1861!”
“But this is the thing: Is he an doctor?”
“How do you 'honest'? Depends on what you mean.”
“Suppose you were sick. Would you call him in? Would you let me call him in?”
“Not if I were well to and bite, I wouldn't! No, SIR! I wouldn't have the old in the house. Makes me tired, his and soft-soaping. He's all right for an ordinary or some woman's hand, but I wouldn't call him in for an honest-to-God illness, not much I wouldn't, NO-sir! You know I don't do much back-biting, but same time——I'll tell you, Carrrie: I've got over being at Westlake for the way he Mrs. Jonderquist. Nothing the with her, what she needed was a rest, but Westlake calling on her and calling on her for weeks, almost every day, and he sent her a good big bill, too, you can bet! I did him for that. Nice hard-working people like the Jonderquists!”
In her she was at the in the of that she had a dressing-table with a mirror, of toward the and her to a pin-head on her throat, and of her hair. In to the she on:
“But, Will, there isn't any of what you might call financial you and the partners—Westlake and McGanum—is there?”
He into with a back-somersault and a of his as he his under the blankets. He snorted, “Lord no! I any man a he can away from me—fairly.”
“But is Westlake fair? Isn't he sly?”
“Sly is the word. He's a fox, that boy!”
She saw Guy Pollock's in the mirror. She flushed.
Kennicott, with his arms his head, was yawning:
“Yump. He's smooth, too smooth. But I I make prett' near as much as Westlake and McGanum together, though I've wanted to more than my just share. If wants to go to the partners of to me, that's his business. Though I must say it makes me when Westlake of the Dawsons. Here Luke Dawson had been to me for every and and a of little that just my time, and then when his was here last and had summer-complaint, I suppose, or something like that, probably—you know, the time you and I up to Lac-qui-Meurt—why, Westlake got of Ma Dawson, and her to death, and her think the kid had appendicitis, and, by golly, if he and McGanum didn't operate, and their off about the terrible they found, and what a regular Charley and Will Mayo they were for surgery. They let on that if they'd waited two hours more the kid would have peritonitis, and God what all; and then they a hundred and fifty dollars. And they'd have three hundred, if they hadn't been of me! I'm no hog, but I do to give old Luke ten dollars' of for a and a half, and then see a hundred and fifty go glimmering. And if I can't do a 'pendectomy than either Westlake or McGanum, I'll eat my hat!”
As she into she was by Guy's grin. She experimented:
“But Westlake is than his son-in-law, don't you think?”
“Yes, Westlake may be old-fashioned and all that, but he's got a amount of intuition, while McGanum goes into bull-headed, and his way through like a yahoo, and to argue his into having he them as having! About the best thing Mac can do is to to baby-snatching. He's just about on a with this bone-pounding female, Mrs. Mattie Gooch.”
“Mrs. Westlake and Mrs. McGanum, though—they're nice. They've been to me.”
“Well, no why they shouldn't be, is there? Oh, they're enough—though you can your they're for their husbands all the time, trying to the business. And I don't know as I call it so in Mrs. McGanum when I at her on the and she like she had a neck. Still, she's all right. It's Ma Westlake that makes the mischief, around all the time. But I wouldn't trust any Westlake out of the whole lot, and while Mrs. McGanum SEEMS square enough, you don't want to that she's Westlake's daughter. You bet!”
“What about Dr. Gould? Don't you think he's than either Westlake or McGanum? He's so cheap—drinking, and playing pool, and always in such a way——”
“That's all right now! Terry Gould is a good of a tin-horn sport, but he a about medicine, and don't you it for one second!”
She Guy's grin, and asked more cheerfully, “Is he honest, too?”
“Ooooooooooo! Gosh I'm sleepy!” He the in a stretch, and came up like a diver, his head, as he complained, “How's that? Who? Terry Gould honest? Don't start me laughing—I'm too and sleepy! I didn't say he was honest. I said he had to the in 'Gray's Anatomy,' which is more than McGanum can do! But I didn't say anything about his being honest. He isn't. Terry is as a dog's leg. He's done me more than one dirty trick. He told Mrs. Glorbach, seventeen miles out, that I wasn't up-to-date in obstetrics. Fat of good it did him! She came right in and told me! And Terry's lazy. He'd let a patient than a game.”
“Oh no. I can't believe——”
“Well now, I'm telling you!”
“Does he play much poker? Dr. Dillon told me that Dr. Gould wanted him to play——”
“Dillon told you what? Where'd you meet Dillon? He's just come to town.”
“He and his wife were at Mr. Pollock's tonight.”
“Say, uh, what'd you think of them? Didn't Dillon you as light-waisted?”
“Why no. He intelligent. I'm sure he's much more wide-awake than our dentist.”
“Well now, the old man is a good dentist. He his business. And Dillon——I wouldn't up to the Dillons too close, if I were you. All right for Pollock, and that's none of our business, but we——I think I'd just give the Dillons the hand and pass 'em up.”
“But why? He isn't a rival.”
“That's—all—right!” Kennicott was now. “He'll work right in with Westlake and McGanum. Matter of fact, I they were for his here. They'll be sending him patients, and he'll send all that he can of to them. I don't trust that's too much hand-in-glove with Westlake. You give Dillon a at some that's just a farm here and into town to his teeth looked at, and after Dillon through with him, you'll see him around to Westlake and McGanum, every time!”
Carol for her blouse, which on a chair by the bed. She it about her shoulders, and sat up studying Kennicott, her in her hands. In the light from the small electric the she see that he was frowning.
“Will, this is—I must this straight. Some one said to me the other day that in like this, more than in cities, all the doctors each other, of the money——”
“Who said that?”
“It doesn't matter.”
“I'll a it was your Vida Sherwin. She's a woman, but she'd be a if she her mouth and didn't let so much of her out that way.”
“Will! O Will! That's horrible! Aside from the vulgarity——Some ways, Vida is my best friend. Even if she HAD said it. Which, as a of fact, she didn't.” He up his thick shoulders, in pink and green pajamas. He sat straight, and his fingers, and growled:
“Well, if she didn't say it, let's her. Doesn't make any who said it, anyway. The point is that you it. God! To think you don't me any than that! Money!”
(“This is the we've had,” she was agonizing.)
He out his long arm and his from a chair. He took out a cigar, a match. He the on the floor. He the cigar and savagely. He up the match and the at the foot-board.
She saw the foot-board of the as the foot-stone of the of love.
The room was drab-colored and ill-ventilated—Kennicott did not “believe in opening the so wide that you all outdoors.” The air to change. In the light from the they were two of with and attached.
She begged, “I didn't to wake you up, dear. And don't smoke. You've been so much. Please go to sleep. I'm sorry.”
“Being sorry 's all right, but I'm going to tell you one or two things. This for anybody's say-so about medical and is part and parcel of your to think the you possibly can of us in Gopher Prairie. Trouble with like you is, you always want to ARGUE. Can't take the way they are. Got to argue. Well, I'm not going to argue about this in any way, shape, manner, or form. Trouble with you is, you don't make any to us. You're so superior, and think the city is such a of a place, and you want us to do what YOU want, all the time——”
“That's not true! It's I who make the effort. It's they—it's you—who and criticize. I have to come over to the town's opinion; I have to myself to their interests. They can't SEE my interests, to say nothing of them. I so about their old Lake Minniemashie and the cottages, but they (in that way you so much) if I speak of wanting to see Taormina also.”
“Sure, Tormina, that is—some colony, I suppose. Sure; that's the idea; taste and income; and make sure that we will have more than a income, too!”
“Are you by any that I am not economical?”
“Well, I hadn't to, but since you it up yourself, I don't mind saying the are about twice what they ought to be.”
“Yes, they are. I'm not economical. I can't be. Thanks to you!”
“Where d' you that 'thanks to you'?”
“Please don't be so colloquial—or shall I say VULGAR?”
“I'll be as as I want to. How do you that 'thanks to you'? Here about a year ago you jump me for not to give you money. Well, I'm reasonable. I didn't you, and I SAID I was to blame. But have I it since—practically?”
“No. You haven't—practically! But that isn't it. I ought to have an allowance. I will, too! I must have an agreement for a regular amount, every month.”
“Fine idea! Of a doctor a regular amount! Sure! A thousand one month—and lucky if he makes a hundred the next.”
“Very well then, a percentage. Or something else. No how much you vary, you can make a for——”
“But what's the idea? What are you trying to at? Mean to say I'm unreasonable? Think I'm so and that you've got to tie me with a contract? By God, that hurts! I I'd been and decent, and I took a of pleasure—thinks I, 'she'll be when I hand her over this twenty'—or fifty, or it was; and now you been wanting to make it a of alimony. Me, like a fool, I was all the while, and you——”
“Please stop yourself! You're having a time injured. I admit all you say. Certainly. You've me money and amiably. Quite as if I were your mistress!”
“Carrie!”
“I it! What was a of to you was to me. You GAVE me money—gave it to your mistress, if she was complaisant, and then you——”
“Carrie!”
“(Don't me!)—then you you'd all obligation. Well, I'll your money, as a gift. Either I'm your partner, in of the of our business, with a regular budget for it, or else I'm nothing. If I'm to be a mistress, I shall choose my lovers. Oh, I it—I it—this and for money—and then not it on as a has a right to, but it on double-boilers and for you! Yes indeed! You're generous! You give me a dollar, right out—the only is that I must it on a tie for you! And you give it when and as you wish. How can I be anything but uneconomical?”
“Oh well, of course, looking at it that way——”
“I can't shop around, can't in large quantities, have to to stores where I have a account, good of the time, can't plan I don't know how much money I can on. That's what I pay for your about so generously. You make me——”
“Wait! Wait! You know you're exaggerating. You about that till just this minute! Matter of fact, you have 'smirked and for money.' But all the same, you may be right. You ought to the as a business. I'll out a plan tomorrow, and you'll be on a regular amount or percentage, with your own account.”
“Oh, that IS of you!” She toward him, trying to be affectionate. But his were pink and in the of the match with which he his and cigar. His drooped, and a of with small out under his chin.
She sat in till he croaked:
“No. 'Tisn't decent. It's just fair. And God I want to be fair. But I others to be fair, too. And you're so high and about people. Take Sam Clark; best that lived, and and a good fellow——”
(“Yes, and a good at ducks, don't that!”)
(“Well, and he is a good shot, too!) Sam around in the to and visit, and by just he takes a and his cigar around in his mouth, and maybe a times, you look at him as if he was a hog. Oh, you didn't know I was onto you, and I Sam hasn't noticed it, but I miss it.”
“I have that way. Spitting—ugh! But I'm sorry you my thoughts. I to be nice; I to them.”
“Maybe I catch a whole more than you think I do!”
“Yes, you do.”
“And d' you know why Sam doesn't light his cigar when he's here?”
“Why?”
“He's so you'll be if he smokes. You him. Every time he speaks of the weather you jump him he ain't talking about or Gertie—Goethe?—or some other junk. You've got him so he to come here.”
“Oh, I AM sorry. (Though I'm sure it's you who are now.”)
“Well now, I don't know as I am! And I can tell you one thing: if you keep on you'll manage to drive away every friend I've got.”
“That would be of me. You KNOW I don't to Will, what is it about me that Sam—if I do him.”
“Oh, you do, all right! 'Stead of his up on another chair, and his vest, and telling a good or maybe me about something, he on the of his chair and to make about politics, and he doesn't cuss, and Sam's unless he can a little!”
“In other words, he isn't unless he can like a in a hut!”
“Now that'll be about of that! You want to know how you him? First you fire some question at him that you know well he can't answer—any see you were with him—and then you him by talking of or something, like you were doing just now——”
“Of the pure Samuel speaks of such ladies in his private conversations!”
“Not when there's ladies around! You can your life on that!”
“So the in to that——”
“Now we won't go into all that—eugenics or you choose to call it. As I say, you him, and then you so that nobody can you. Either you want to dance, or you the piano, or else you as the and don't want to talk or anything else. If you must be temperamental, why can't you be that way by yourself?”
“My dear man, there's nothing I'd like than to be by myself occasionally! To have a room of my own! I you me to here and and satisfy my 'temperamentality' while you in from the with all over your face, and shout, 'Seen my pants?'”
“Huh!” He did not impressed. He no answer. He out of bed, his making one solid on the floor. He from the room, a in union-pajamas. She him a drink of water at the tap. She was at the of his exit. She in bed, and looked away from him as he returned. He her. As he into he yawned, and stated:
“Well, you'll have of when we a new house.
“When?”
“Oh, I'll it all right, don't you fret! But of I don't any for it.”
Now it was she who “Huh!” and him, and and as she up out of bed, her on him, a and chocolate out of her glove-box in the top right-hand of the bureau, at it, that it had filling, said “Damn!” that she had not said it, so that she might be to his colloquialism, and the chocolate into the wastebasket, where it an and among the of and box. Then, in great and self-dramatization, she returned to bed.
All this time he had been talking on, his that he “didn't any credit.” She was that he was a rustic, that she him, that she had been to him, that she had married him only she was of work, that she must her long cleaned, that she would do anything more for him, and that she mustn't his for breakfast. She was to attention by his storming:
“I'm a to think about a new house. By the time I it you'll have succeeded in your plan to me in Dutch with every friend and every patient I've got.”
She sat up with a bounce. She said coldly, “Thank you very much for your opinion of me. If that's the way you feel, if I'm such a to you, I can't under this another minute. And I am perfectly well able to earn my own living. I will go at once, and you may a at your pleasure! What you want is a sweet cow of a woman who will having your dear friends talk about the weather and on the floor!”
“Tut! Don't be a fool!”
“You will very soon out I'm a or not! I it! Do you think I'd here one second after I out that I was you? At least I have of not to do that.”
“Please stop off at tangents, Carrie. This——”
“Tangents? TANGENTS! Let me tell you——”
“——isn't a theater-play; it's a to have us together on fundamentals. We've been cranky, and said a of we didn't mean. I wish we were a o' bloomin' and just talked about roses and moonshine, but we're human. All right. Let's cut out at each other. Let's admit we do things. See here: You KNOW you to folks. You're not as as I say, but you're not as good as you say—not by a long shot! What's the you're so superior? Why can't you take as they are?”
Her for out of the Doll's House were not yet visible. She mused:
“I think it's my childhood.” She halted. When she on her voice had an sound, her the quality of meditation. “My father was the man in the world, but he did to ordinary people. Well, he was! And the Minnesota Valley——I used to there on the above Mankato for hours at a time, my in my hand, looking way the valley, wanting to poems. The me, and the river, and it the level in the mist, and the of across——It my in. I LIVED, in the valley. But the prairie—all my go off into the big space. Do you think it might be that?”
“Um, well, maybe, but——Carrie, you always talk so much about all you can out of life, and not the years by, and here you go and of a of good home by not people unless they wear and out——”
(“Morning clothes. Oh. Sorry. Didn't t' you.”)
“——to a of tea-parties. Take Jack Elder. You think Jack hasn't got any ideas about anything but and the on lumber. But do you know that Jack is about music? He'll put a grand-opera record on the and and to it and close his eyes——Or you take Lym Cass. Ever what a well-informed man he is?”
“But IS he? Gopher Prairie calls 'well-informed' who's been through the State Capitol and about Gladstone.”
“Now I'm telling you! Lym reads a lot—solid stuff—history. Or take Mart Mahoney, the garageman. He's got a of Perry prints of famous pictures in his office. Or old Bingham Playfair, that died here 'bout a year ago—lived seven miles out. He was a captain in the Civil War, and General Sherman, and they say he was a in Nevada right alongside of Mark Twain. You'll these in all these small towns, and a of in every single one of them, if you just for it.”
“I know. And I do love them. Especially people like Champ Perry. But I can't be so very over the like Jack Elder.”
“Then I'm a cit, too, that is.”
“No, you're a scientist. Oh, I will try and the music out of Mr. Elder. Only, why can't he let it COME out, of being of it, and always talking about dogs? But I will try. Is it all right now?”
“Sure. But there's one other thing. You might give me some attention, too!”
“That's unjust! You have I am!”
“No, I haven't. You think you respect me—you always hand out some about my being so 'useful.' But you think of me as having ambitions, just as much as you have——”
“Perhaps not. I think of you as being perfectly satisfied.”
“Well, I'm not, not by a long shot! I don't want to be a all my life, like Westlake, and die in I can't out of it, and have 'em say, 'He was a good fellow, but he couldn't save a cent.' Not that I a what they say, after I've in and can't 'em, but I want to put money away so you and I can be some day, and not have to work unless I like it, and I want to have a good house—by golly, I'll have as good a house as in THIS town!—and if we want to travel and see your Tormina or it is, why we can do it, with money in our so we won't have to take anything off anybody, or about our old age. You worry about what might if we got and didn't have a good away, do you!”
“I don't I do.”
“Well then, I have to do it for you. And if you think for one moment I want to be in this all my life, and not have a to travel and see the different points of and all that, then you don't me. I want to have a at the world, much's you do. Only, I'm practical about it. First place, I'm going to make the money—I'm in good safe farmlands. Do you why now?”
“Yes.”
“Will you try and see if you can't think of me as something more than just a dollar-chasing roughneck?”
“Oh, my dear, I haven't been just! I AM difficile. And I won't call on the Dillons! And if Dr. Dillon is for Westlake and McGanum, I him!”
