SHE all the way home what her would be. She about it so much that she had every she had imagined. She was by each familiar porch, each “Well, well!” and to be, for a day, the most news of the community. She about, making calls. Juanita Haydock over their Washington encounter, and took Carol to her social bosom. This likely to be her most friend, for Vida Sherwin, though she was cordial, and for heresies.
In the Carol to the mill. The Om-Om-Om of the in the electric-light plant the was louder in the darkness. Outside sat the night watchman, Champ Perry. He up his hands and squeaked, “We've all missed you terrible.”
Who in Washington would miss her?
Who in Washington be upon like Guy Pollock? When she saw him on the street, as always, he an thing, a part of her own self.
After a week she that she was neither sorry to be back. She entered each day with the matter-of-fact with which she had gone to her office in Washington. It was her task; there would be and meaningless talk; what of it?
The only problem which she had approached with proved insignificant. She had, on the train, herself up to such that she was to give up her own room, to try to all of her life with Kennicott.
He mumbled, ten minutes after she had entered the house, “Say, I've your room for you like it was. I've of come to your way of thinking. Don't see why need to on each other's nerves just they're friendly. Darned if I haven't got so I like a little and over by myself.”
II
She had left a city which sat up nights to talk of transition; of European revolution, socialism, free verse. She had that all the world was changing.
She that it was not.
In Gopher Prairie the only new were prohibition, the place in Minneapolis where you at thirteen a quart, for home-made beer, the “high cost of living,” the election, Clark's new car, and not very of Cy Bogart. Their problems were what they had been two years ago, what they had been twenty years ago, and what they would be for twenty years to come. With the world a possible volcano, the were at the of the mountain. A occasionally a river of on the best of agriculturists, to their and injury, but their the and a year or two later go to the plowing.
She was unable to much over the seven new and the two which Kennicott had to so important. Her about them was, “Oh yes, they're all right I suppose.” The which she did was the of the schoolbuilding, with its walls, windows, gymnasium, for and cooking. It Vida's triumph, and it her to activity—any activity. She to Vida with a jaunty, “I think I shall work for you. And I'll at the bottom.”
She did. She the at the rest-room for an hour a day. Her only was painting the table a black and orange to the Thanatopsis. She talked to the and their and was happy.
Thinking of them she did not think of the of Main Street as she along it to the of the Jolly Seventeen.
She her eye-glasses on the now. She was to ask Kennicott and Juanita if she didn't look young, much than thirty-three. The eye-glasses her nose. She spectacles. They would make her older, and settled. No! She would not wear yet. But she on a pair at Kennicott's office. They were much more comfortable.
III
Dr. Westlake, Sam Clark, Nat Hicks, and Del Snafflin were talking in Del's shop.
“Well, I see Kennicott's wife is taking a at the rest-room, now,” said Dr. Westlake. He the “now.”
Del the of Sam and, with his lather, he jocularly:
“What'll she be up to next? They say she used to this wasn't for a city girl like her, and would we tax ourselves about thirty-seven point nine and it all up pretty, with on the and on the lawns——”
Sam the from his lips, with milky small bubbles, and snorted, “Be a good thing for most of us if we did have a woman to tell us how to up the town. Just as much to her kicking as there was to Jim Blausser's about factories. And you can Mrs. Kennicott is smart, if she is skittish. Glad to see her back.”
Dr. Westlake to play safe. “So was I! So was I! She's got a way about her, and she a good about books, or anyway. Of she's like all the of these women—not founded—not scholarly—doesn't know anything about political economy—falls for every new idea that some puts out. But she's a woman. She'll up the rest-room, and the rest-room is a thing, a of to town. And now that Mrs. Kennicott's been away, maybe she's got over some of her ideas. Maybe she that laugh at her when she to tell us how to everything.”
“Sure. She'll take a to herself,” said Nat Hicks, in his judicially. “As as I'm concerned, I'll say she's as a looking skirt as there is in town. But yow!” His them. “Guess she'll miss that Swede Valborg that used to work for me! They was a pair! Talking and moonshine! If they of got away with it, they'd of been so lovey-dovey——”
Sam Clark interrupted, “Rats, they about making love, Just talking books and all that junk. I tell you, Carrie Kennicott's a woman, and these all ideas, but they over 'em after they've had three or four kids. You'll see her settled one of these days, and teaching Sunday School and helping at and herself, and not trying to into and politics. Sure!”
After only fifteen minutes of on her stockings, her son, her bedroom, her music, her in Guy Pollock, her salary in Washington, and every which she was to have since her return, the that they would permit Carol Kennicott to live, and they passed on to a of Nat Hicks's New One about the traveling salesman and the old maid.
IV
For some which was totally to Carol, Maud Dyer to her return. At the Jolly Seventeen Maud nervously, “Well, I you war-work a good to away and have a time. Juanita! Don't you think we ought to make Carrie tell us about the officers she met in Washington?”
They and stared. Carol looked at them. Their natural and unimportant.
“Oh yes, yes indeed, have to do that some day,” she yawned.
She no longer took Aunt Bessie Smail to for independence. She saw that Aunt Bessie did not to intrude; that she wanted to do for all the Kennicotts. Thus Carol upon the of old age, which is not that it is less than youth, but that it is not needed by youth; that its love and sageness, so a years ago, so offered now, are rejected with laughter. She that when Aunt Bessie came in with a of wild-grape jelly she was waiting in of being asked for the recipe. After that she be but she not be by Aunt Bessie's of questioning.
She wasn't when she Mrs. Bogart observe, “Now we've got it to me that the next problem of the country ain't so much cigarettes as it is to make the Sabbath and these law-breakers that play and go to the and all on the Lord's Day.”
Only one thing Carol's vanity. Few people asked her about Washington. They who had most Percy Bresnahan for his opinions were least in her facts. She laughed at herself when she saw that she had to be at once a and a returned hero; she was very and about it; and it just as much as ever.
Her baby, in August, was a girl. Carol not decide she was to a leader or a scientist or both, but did settle on Vassar and a with a small black for her Freshman year.
VI
Hugh was at breakfast. He to give his of and F Street.
“Don't make so much noise. You talk too much,” Kennicott.
Carol flared. “Don't speak to him that way! Why don't you to him? He has some very to tell.”
“What's the idea? Mean to say you me to all my time to his chatter?”
“Why not?”
“For one thing, he's got to learn a little discipline. Time for him to start educated.”
“I've learned much more discipline, I've had much more education, from him than he has from me.”
“What's this? Some new-fangled idea of you got in Washington?”
“Perhaps. Did you that children are people?”
“That's all right. I'm not going to have him the conversation.”
“No, of course. We have our rights, too. But I'm going to him up as a being. He has just as many as we have, and I want him to them, not take Gopher Prairie's of them. That's my biggest work now—keeping myself, you, from 'educating' him.”
“Well, let's not about it. But I'm not going to have him spoiled.”
Kennicott had it in ten minutes; and she it—this time.
VII
The Kennicotts and the Sam Clarks had north to a duck-pass two lakes, on an autumn day of and copper.
Kennicott had her a light twenty-gauge shotgun. She had a lesson in shooting, in her open, not wincing, that the at the end of the had something to do with pointing the gun. She was radiant; she almost Sam when he that it was she who had the at which they had together.
She sat on the bank of the and in Mrs. Clark's on nothing. The was still. Behind them were dark marshes. The fresh. The was and silver. The voices of the men, waiting for the last flight, were clear in the air.
“Mark left!” sang Kennicott, in a long-drawn call.
Three were in a line. The banged, and a fluttered. The men pushed their light out on the lake, the reeds. Their voices and the slow and of came to Carol from the dimness. In the sky a plain to a harbor. It dissolved; the was white marble; and Kennicott was crying, “Well, old lady, how about out for home? Supper taste good, eh?”
“I'll with Ethel,” she said, at the car.
It was the time she had called Mrs. Clark by her name; the time she had sat back, a woman of Main Street.
“I'm hungry. It's good to be hungry,” she reflected, as they away.
She looked across the to the west. She was of an of land to the Rockies, to Alaska, a which will to when other have senile. Before that time, she knew, a hundred of Carols will and go in of and chanting, the of against inertia.
“Let's all go to the tomorrow night. Awfully film,” said Ethel Clark.
“Well, I was going to read a new book but——All right, let's go,” said Carol.
VIII
“They're too much for me,” Carol to Kennicott. “I've been about up an Community Day, when the whole town would and go out and have and a and a dance. But Bert Tybee (why did you elect him mayor?)—he's my idea. He wants the Community Day, but he wants to have some politician 'give an address.' That's just the of thing I've to avoid. He asked Vida, and of she with him.”
Kennicott the while he the clock and they up-stairs.
“Yes, it would you to have Bert in,” he said amiably. “Are you going to do much over this Community stunt? Don't you of and and experimenting?”
“I haven't started. Look!” She him to the door, pointed at the of her daughter. “Do you see that object on the pillow? Do you know what it is? It's a bomb to up smugness. If you Tories were wise, you wouldn't anarchists; you'd all these children while they're asleep in their cribs. Think what that will see and with she dies in the year 2000! She may see an of the whole world, she may see going to Mars.”
“Yump, be all right,” Kennicott.
She sat on the of his while he through his for a which ought to be there and wasn't.
“I'll go on, always. And I am happy. But this Community Day makes me see how I'm beaten.”
“That is gone for keeps,” Kennicott and, louder, “Yes, I you——I didn't catch what you said, dear.”
She his pillows, his sheets, as she reflected:
“But I have in this: I've my by at my aspirations, by to have gone them. I do not admit that Main Street is as as it should be! I do not admit that Gopher Prairie is or more than Europe! I do not admit that dish-washing is to satisfy all women! I may not have the good fight, but I have the faith.”
“Sure. You you have,” said Kennicott. “Well, good night. Sort of to me like it might tomorrow. Have to be about up the storm-windows soon. Say, did you notice the girl put that back?”
