Bab Bab 17 · Chapter XVII
I
There are but three or four old houses in Floral Heights, and in Floral
Heights an old house is one which was built before 1880. The largest of
these is the residence of William Washington Eathorne, president of the
First State Bank.
The Eathorne Mansion preserves the memory of the “nice parts” of Zenith
as they appeared from 1860 to 1900. It is a red brick immensity with
gray sandstone lintels and a roof of slate in courses of red, green, and
dyspeptic yellow. There are two anemic towers, one roofed with copper,
the other crowned with castiron ferns. The porch is like an open tomb;
it is supported by squat granite pillars above which hang frozen
cascades of brick. At one side of the house is a huge stained-glass
window in the shape of a keyhole.
But the house has an effect not at all humorous. It embodies the heavy
dignity of those Victorian financiers who ruled the generation between
the pioneers and the brisk “sales-engineers” and created a somber
oligarchy by gaining control of banks, mills, land, railroads, mines.
Out of the dozen contradictory Zeniths which together make up the true
and complete Zenith, none is so powerful and enduring yet none so
unfamiliar to the citizens as the small, still, dry, polite, cruel
Zenith of the William Eathornes; and for that tiny hierarchy the other
Zeniths unwittingly labor and insignificantly die.
red, green, and
dyspeptic yellow. There are two anemic towers, one roofed with copper,
the other crowned with castiron ferns. The porch is like an open tomb;
it is supported by squat granite pillars above which hang frozen
cascades of brick. At one side of the house is a huge stained-glass
window in the shape of a keyhole.
But the house has an effect not at all humorous. It embodies the heavy
dignity of those Victorian financiers who ruled the generation between
the pioneers and the brisk “sales-engineers” and created a somber
oligarchy by gaining control of banks, mills, land, railroads, mines.
Out of the dozen contradictory Zeniths which together make up the true
and complete Zenith, none is so powerful and enduring yet none so
unfamiliar to the citizens as the small, still, dry, polite, cruel
Zenith of the William Eathornes; and for that tiny hierarchy the other
Zeniths unwittingly labor and insignificantly die.
Most of the castles of the testy Victorian tetrarchs are gone now or
decayed into boarding-houses, but the Eathorne Mansion remains virtuous
and aloof, reminiscent of London, Back Bay, Rittenhouse Square. Its
marble steps are scrubbed daily, the brass plate is reverently polished,
and the lace curtains are as prim and superior as William Washington
Eathorne himself.
With a certain awe Babbitt and Chum Frink called on Eathorne for a
meeting of the Sunday School Advisory Committee; with uneasy stillness
they followed a uniformed maid through catacombs of reception-rooms to
the library. It was as unmistakably the library of a solid old banker as
Eathorne’s side-whiskers were the side-whiskers of a solid old banker.
The books were most of them Standard Sets, with the correct and
traditional touch of dim blue, dim gold, and glossy calf-skin. The fire
was exactly correct and traditional; a small, quiet, steady fire,
reflected by polished fire-irons. The oak desk was dark and old and
altogether perfect; the chairs were gently supercilious.
Eathorne’s inquiries as to the healths of Mrs. Babbitt, Miss Babbitt,
and the Other Children were softly paternal, but Babbitt had nothing
with which to answer him. It was indecent to think of using the “How’s
tricks, ole socks?” which gratified Vergil Gunch and Frink and Howard
Littlefield--men who till now had seemed successful and urbane. Babbitt
and Frink sat politely, and politely did Eathorne observe, opening his
thin lips just wide enough to dismiss the words, “Gentlemen, before we
begin our conference--you may have felt the cold in coming here--so good
of you to save an old man the journey--shall we perhaps have a whisky
toddy?”
So well trained was Babbitt in all the conversation that befits a Good
Fellow that he almost disgraced himself with “Rather than make trouble,
and always providin’ there ain’t any enforcement officers hiding in the
waste-basket--” The words died choking in his throat. He bowed in
flustered obedience. So did Chum Frink.
Eathorne rang for the maid.
The modern and luxurious Babbitt had never seen any one ring for a
servant in a private house, except during meals. Himself, in hotels, had
rung for bell-boys, but in the house you didn’t hurt Matilda’s
feelings; you went out in the hall and shouted for her. Nor had he,
since prohibition, known any one to be casual about drinking. It was
extraordinary merely to sip his toddy and not cry, “Oh, maaaaan, this
hits me right where I live!” And always, with the ecstasy of youth
meeting greatness, he marveled, “That little fuzzy-face there, why, he
could make me or break me! If he told my banker to call my loans--!
Gosh! That quarter-sized squirt! And looking like he hadn’t got a single
bit of hustle to him! I wonder-- Do we Boosters throw too many fits about
pep?”
From this thought he shuddered away, and listened devoutly to Eathorne’s
ideas on the advancement of the Sunday School, which were very clear and
very bad.
Diffidently Babbitt outlined his own suggestions:
“I think if you analyze the needs of the school, in fact, going right at
it as if it was a merchandizing problem, of course the one basic and
fundamental need is growth. I presume we’re all agreed we won’t be
satisfied till we build up the biggest darn Sunday School in the whole
state, so the Chatham Road Presbyterian won’t have to take anything off
anybody. Now about jazzing up the campaign for prospects: they’ve
already used contesting teams, and given prizes to the kids that bring
in the most members. And they made a mistake there: the prizes were a
lot of folderols and doodads like poetry books and illustrated
Testaments, instead of something a real live kid would want to work for,
like real cash or a speedometer for his motor cycle. Course I suppose
it’s all fine and dandy to illustrate the lessons with these decorated
book-marks and blackboard drawings and so on, but when it comes down to
real he-hustling, getting out and drumming up customers--or members, I
mean, why, you got to make it worth a fellow’s while.
“Now, I want to propose two stunts: First, divide the Sunday School into
four armies, depending on age. Everybody gets a military rank in his own
army according to how many members he brings in, and the duffers that
lie down on us and don’t bring in any, they remain privates. The pastor
and superintendent rank as generals. And everybody has got to give
salutes and all the rest of that junk, just like a regular army, to make
’em feel it’s worth while to get rank.
“Then, second: Course the school has its advertising committee, but,
Lord, nobody ever really works good--nobody works well just for the love
of it. The thing to do is to be practical and up-to-date, and hire a
real paid press-agent for the Sunday School--some newspaper fellow who
can give part of his time.”
“Sure, you bet!” said Chum Frink.
“Think of the nice juicy bits he could get in!” Babbitt crowed. “Not
only the big, salient, vital facts, about how fast the Sunday
School--and the collection--is growing, but a lot of humorous gossip and
kidding: about how some blowhard fell down on his pledge to get new
members, or the good time the Sacred Trinity class of girls had at their
wieniewurst party. And on the side, if he had time, the press-agent
might even boost the lessons themselves--do a little advertising for all
the Sunday Schools in town, in fact. No use being hoggish toward the
rest of ’em, providing we can keep the bulge on ’em in membership.
Frinstance, he might get the papers to-- Course I haven’t got a literary
training like Frink here, and I’m just guessing how the pieces ought to
be written, but take frinstance, suppose the week’s lesson is about
Jacob; well, the press-agent might get in something that would have a
fine moral, and yet with a trick headline that’d get folks to read
it--say like: _Jake Fools the Old Man; Makes Getaway with Girl and
Bankroll_. See how I mean? That’d get their interest! Now, course, Mr.
Eathorne, you’re conservative, and maybe you feel these stunts would be
undignified, but honestly, I believe they’d bring home the bacon.”
Eathorne folded his hands on his comfortable little belly and purred
like an aged pussy:
“May I say, first, that I have been very much pleased by your analysis
of the situation, Mr. Babbitt. As you surmise, it’s necessary in My
Position to be conservative, and perhaps endeavor to maintain a certain
standard of dignity. Yet I think you’ll find me somewhat progressive. In
our bank, for example, I hope I may say that we have as modern a method
of publicity and advertising as any in the city. Yes, I fancy you’ll
find us oldsters quite cognizant of the shifting spiritual values of the
age. Yes, oh yes. And so, in fact, it pleases me to be able to say that
though personally I might prefer the sterner Presbyterianism of an
earlier era--”
Babbitt finally gathered that Eathorne was willing.
Chum Frink suggested as part-time press-agent one Kenneth Escott,
reporter on the _Advocate-Times_.
They parted on a high plane of amity and Christian helpfulness.
Babbitt did not drive home, but toward the center of the city. He wished
to be by himself and exult over the beauty of intimacy with William
Washington Eathorne.
II
A snow-blanched evening of ringing pavements and eager lights.
Great golden lights of trolley-cars sliding along the packed snow of the
roadway. Demure lights of little houses. The belching glare of a distant
foundry, wiping out the sharp-edged stars. Lights of neighborhood drug
stores where friends gossiped, well pleased, after the day’s work.
The green light of a police-station, and greener radiance on the snow;
the drama of a patrol-wagon--gong beating like a terrified heart,
headlights scorching the crystal-sparkling street, driver not a
chauffeur but a policeman proud in uniform, another policeman perilously
dangling on the step at the back, and a glimpse of the prisoner. A
murderer, a burglar, a coiner cleverly trapped?
An enormous graystone church with a rigid spire; dim light in the
Parlors, and cheerful droning of choir-practise. The quivering green
mercury-vapor light of a photo-engraver’s loft. Then the storming lights
of down-town; parked cars with ruby tail-lights; white arched entrances
to movie theaters, like frosty mouths of winter caves; electric
signs--serpents and little dancing men of fire; pink-shaded globes and
scarlet jazz music in a cheap up-stairs dance-hall; lights of Chinese
restaurants, lanterns painted with cherry-blossoms and with pagodas,
hung against lattices of lustrous gold and black. Small dirty lamps in
small stinking lunchrooms. The smart shopping-district, with rich and
quiet light on crystal pendants and furs and suave surfaces of polished
wood in velvet-hung reticent windows. High above the street, an
unexpected square hanging in the darkness, the window of an office where
some one was working late, for a reason unknown and stimulating. A man
meshed in bankruptcy, an ambitious boy, an oil-man suddenly become rich?
The air was shrewd, the snow was deep in uncleared alleys, and beyond
the city, Babbitt knew, were hillsides of snow-drift among wintry oaks,
and the curving ice-enchanted river.
He loved his city with passionate wonder. He lost the accumulated
weariness of business-worry and expansive oratory; he felt young and
potential. He was ambitious. It was not enough to be a Vergil Gunch, an
Orville Jones. No. “They’re bully fellows, simply lovely, but they
haven’t got any finesse.” No. He was going to be an Eathorne; delicately
rigorous, coldly powerful.
“That’s the stuff. The wallop in the velvet mitt. Not let anybody get
fresh with you. Been getting careless about my diction. Slang.
Colloquial. Cut it out. I was first-rate at rhetoric in college. Themes
on-- Anyway, not bad. Had too much of this hooptedoodle and good-fellow
stuff. I-- Why couldn’t I organize a bank of my own some day? And Ted
succeed me!”
He drove happily home, and to Mrs. Babbitt he was a William Washington
Eathorne, but she did not notice it.
III
Young Kenneth Escott, reporter on the _Advocate-Times_, was appointed
press-agent of the Chatham Road Presbyterian Sunday School. He gave six
hours a week to it. At least he was paid for giving six hours a week. He
had friends on the _Press_ and the _Gazette_ and he was not (officially)
known as a press-agent. He procured a trickle of insinuating items about
neighborliness and the Bible, about class-suppers, jolly but
educational, and the value of the Prayer-life in attaining financial
success.
The Sunday School adopted Babbitt’s system of military ranks. Quickened
by this spiritual refreshment, it had a boom. It did not become the
largest school in Zenith--the Central Methodist Church kept ahead of it
by methods which Dr. Drew scored as “unfair, undignified, un-American,
ungentlemanly, and unchristian”--but it climbed from fourth place to
second, and there was rejoicing in heaven, or at least in that portion
of heaven included in the parsonage of Dr. Drew, while Babbitt had much
praise and good repute.
He had received the rank of colonel on the general staff of the school.
He was plumply pleased by salutes on the street from unknown small boys;
his ears were tickled to ruddy ecstasy by hearing himself called
“Colonel;” and if he did not attend Sunday School merely to be thus
exalted, certainly he thought about it all the way there.
He was particularly pleasant to the press-agent, Kenneth Escott; he took
him to lunch at the Athletic Club and had him at the house for dinner.
Like many of the cocksure young men who forage about cities in apparent
contentment and who express their cynicism in supercilious slang, Escott
was shy and lonely. His shrewd starveling face broadened with joy at
dinner, and he blurted, “Gee whillikins, Mrs. Babbitt, if you knew how
good it is to have home eats again!”
Escott and Verona liked each other. All evening they “talked about
ideas.” They discovered that they were Radicals. True, they were
sensible about it. They agreed that all communists were criminals; that
this _vers libre_ was tommyrot; and that while there ought to be
universal disarmament, of course Great Britain and the United States
must, on behalf of oppressed small nations, keep a navy equal to the
tonnage of all the rest of the world. But they were so revolutionary
that they predicted (to Babbitt’s irritation) that there would some day
be a Third Party which would give trouble to the Republicans and
Democrats.
Escott shook hands with Babbitt three times, at parting.
Babbitt mentioned his extreme fondness for Eathorne.
Within a week three newspapers presented accounts of Babbitt’s sterling
labors for religion, and all of them tactfully mentioned William
Washington Eathorne as his collaborator.
Nothing had brought Babbitt quite so much credit at the Elks, the
Athletic Club, and the Boosters’. His friends had always congratulated
him on his oratory, but in their praise was doubt, for even in speeches
advertising the city there was something highbrow and degenerate, like
writing poetry. But now Orville Jones shouted across the Athletic
dining-room, “Here’s the new director of the First State Bank!” Grover
Butterbaugh, the eminent wholesaler of plumbers’ supplies, chuckled,
“Wonder you mix with common folks, after holding Eathorne’s hand!” And
Emil Wengert, the jeweler, was at last willing to discuss buying a house
in Dorchester.
IV
When the Sunday School campaign was finished, Babbitt suggested to
Kenneth Escott, “Say, how about doing a little boosting for Doc Drew
personally?”
Escott grinned. “You trust the doc to do a little boosting for himself,
Mr. Babbitt! There’s hardly a week goes by without his ringing up the
paper to say if we’ll chase a reporter up to his Study, he’ll let us in
on the story about the swell sermon he’s going to preach on the
wickedness of short skirts, or the authorship of the Pentateuch. Don’t
you worry about him. There’s just one better publicity-grabber in town,
and that’s this Dora Gibson Tucker that runs the Child Welfare and the
Americanization League, and the only reason she’s got Drew beaten is
because she has got _some_ brains!”
“Well, now Kenneth, I don’t think you ought to talk that way about the
doctor. A preacher has to watch his interests, hasn’t he? You remember
that in the Bible about--about being diligent in the Lord’s business, or
something?”
“All right, I’ll get something in if you want me to, Mr. Babbitt, but
I’ll have to wait till the managing editor is out of town, and then
blackjack the city editor.”
Thus it came to pass that in the Sunday _Advocate-Times_, under a
picture of Dr. Drew at his earnestest, with eyes alert, jaw as granite,
and rustic lock flamboyant, appeared an inscription--a wood-pulp tablet
conferring twenty-four hours’ immortality:
The Rev. Dr. John Jennison Drew, M.A., pastor of the beautiful
Chatham Road Presbyterian Church in lovely Floral Heights, is a
wizard soul-winner. He holds the local record for conversions.
During his shepherdhood an average of almost a hundred sin-weary
persons per year have declared their resolve to lead a new life and
have found a harbor of refuge and peace.
Everything zips at the Chatham Road Church. The subsidiary
organizations are keyed to the top-notch of efficiency. Dr. Drew is
especially keen on good congregational singing. Bright cheerful
hymns are used at every meeting, and the special Sing Services
attract lovers of music and professionals from all parts of the
city.
On the popular lecture platform as well as in the pulpit Dr. Drew
is a renowned word-painter, and during the course of the year he
receives literally scores of invitations to speak at varied
functions both here and elsewhere.
V
Babbitt let Dr. Drew know that he was responsible for this tribute. Dr.
Drew called him “brother,” and shook his hand a great many times.
During the meetings of the Advisory Committee, Babbitt had hinted that
he would be charmed to invite Eathorne to dinner, but Eathorne had
murmured, “So nice of you--old man, now--almost never go out.” Surely
Eathorne would not refuse his own pastor. Babbitt said boyishly to Drew:
“Say, doctor, now we’ve put this thing over, strikes me it’s up to the
dominie to blow the three of us to a dinner!”
“Bully! You bet! Delighted!” cried Dr. Drew, in his manliest way. (Some
one had once told him that he talked like the late President Roosevelt.)
“And, uh, say, doctor, be sure and get Mr. Eathorne to come. Insist on
it. It’s, uh-- I think he sticks around home too much for his own
health.”
Eathorne came.
It was a friendly dinner. Babbitt spoke gracefully of the stabilizing
and educational value of bankers to the community. They were, he said,
the pastors of the fold of commerce. For the first time Eathorne
departed from the topic of Sunday Schools, and asked Babbitt about the
progress of his business. Babbitt answered modestly, almost filially.
A few months later, when he had a chance to take part in the Street
Traction Company’s terminal deal, Babbitt did not care to go to his own
bank for a loan. It was rather a quiet sort of deal and, if it had come
out, the Public might not have understood. He went to his friend Mr.
Eathorne; he was welcomed, and received the loan as a private venture;
and they both profited in their pleasant new association.
After that, Babbitt went to church regularly, except on spring Sunday
mornings which were obviously meant for motoring. He announced to Ted,
“I tell you, boy, there’s no stronger bulwark of sound conservatism than
the evangelical church, and no better place to make friends who’ll help
you to gain your rightful place in the community than in your own
church-home!”