บทที่ บทที่ 34 · Chapter XXXIV

THEY journeyed for three and a half months. They saw the Grand Canyon,

the adobe walls of Sante Fe and, in a drive from El Paso into Mexico,

their first foreign land. They jogged from San Diego and La Jolla to Los

Angeles, Pasadena, Riverside, through towns with bell-towered missions

and orange-groves; they viewed Monterey and San Francisco and a forest

of sequoias. They bathed in the surf and climbed foothills and danced,

they saw a polo game and the making of motion-pictures, they sent one

hundred and seventeen souvenir post-cards to Gopher Prairie, and once,

on a dune by a foggy sea when she was walking alone, Carol found an

artist, and he looked up at her and said, “Too damned wet to paint; sit

down and talk,” and so for ten minutes she lived in a romantic novel.

Her only struggle was in coaxing Kennicott not to spend all his time

with the tourists from the ten thousand other Gopher Prairies. In

winter, California is full of people from Iowa and Nebraska, Ohio and

Oklahoma, who, having traveled thousands of miles from their familiar

villages, hasten to secure an illusion of not having left them. They

hunt for people from their own states to stand between them and the

shame of naked mountains; they talk steadily, in Pullmans, on hotel

porches, at cafeterias and motion-picture shows, about the motors and

crops and county politics back home. Kennicott discussed land-prices

with them, he went into the merits of the several sorts of motor cars

with them, he was intimate with train porters, and he insisted on seeing

the Luke Dawsons at their flimsy bungalow in Pasadena, where Luke sat

and yearned to go back and make some more money. But Kennicott gave

promise of learning to play. He shouted in the pool at the Coronado, and

he spoke of (though he did nothing more radical than speak of) buying

evening-clothes. Carol was touched by his efforts to enjoy picture

galleries, and the dogged way in which he accumulated dates and

dimensions when they followed monkish guides through missions.

She felt strong. Whenever she was restless she dodged her thoughts by

the familiar vagabond fallacy of running away from them, of moving on

to a new place, and thus she persuaded herself that she was tranquil. In

March she willingly agreed with Kennicott that it was time to go home.

She was longing for Hugh.

They left Monterey on April first, on a day of high blue skies and

poppies and a summer sea.

As the train struck in among the hills she resolved, “I'm going to love

the fine Will Kennicott quality that there is in Gopher Prairie. The

nobility of good sense. It will be sweet to see Vida and Guy and the

Clarks. And I'm going to see my baby! All the words he'll be able to say

now! It's a new start. Everything will be different!”

Thus on April first, among dappled hills and the bronze of scrub oaks,

while Kennicott seesawed on his toes and chuckled, “Wonder what Hugh'll

say when he sees us?”

Three days later they reached Gopher Prairie in a sleet storm.

II

No one knew that they were coming; no one met them; and because of the

icy roads, the only conveyance at the station was the hotel 'bus, which

they missed while Kennicott was giving his trunk-check to the station

agent--the only person to welcome them. Carol waited for him in the

station, among huddled German women with shawls and umbrellas, and

ragged-bearded farmers in corduroy coats; peasants mute as oxen, in a

room thick with the steam of wet coats, the reek of the red-hot stove,

the stench of sawdust boxes which served as cuspidors. The afternoon

light was as reluctant as a winter dawn.

“This is a useful market-center, an interesting pioneer post, but it is

not a home for me,” meditated the stranger Carol.

Kennicott suggested, “I'd 'phone for a flivver but it'd take quite a

while for it to get here. Let's walk.”

They stepped uncomfortably from the safety of the plank platform and,

balancing on their toes, taking cautious strides, ventured along the

road. The sleety rain was turning to snow. The air was stealthily cold.

Beneath an inch of water was a layer of ice, so that as they wavered

with their suit-cases they slid and almost fell. The wet snow drenched

their gloves; the water underfoot splashed their itching ankles. They

scuffled inch by inch for three blocks. In front of Harry Haydock's

Kennicott sighed:

“We better stop in here and 'phone for a machine.”

She followed him like a wet kitten.

The Haydocks saw them laboring up the slippery concrete walk, up the

perilous front steps, and came to the door chanting:

“Well, well, well, back again, eh? Say, this is fine! Have a fine trip?

My, you look like a rose, Carol. How did you like the coast, doc? Well,

well, well! Where-all did you go?”

But as Kennicott began to proclaim the list of places achieved, Harry

interrupted with an account of how much he himself had seen, two years

ago. When Kennicott boasted, “We went through the mission at Santa

Barbara,” Harry broke in, “Yeh, that's an interesting old mission. Say,

I'll never forget that hotel there, doc. It was swell. Why, the rooms

were made just like these old monasteries. Juanita and I went from Santa

Barbara to San Luis Obispo. You folks go to San Luis Obispo?”

“No, but----”

“Well you ought to gone to San Luis Obispo. And then we went from there

to a ranch, least they called it a ranch----”

Kennicott got in only one considerable narrative, which began:

“Say, I never knew--did you, Harry?--that in the Chicago district the

Kutz Kar sells as well as the Overland? I never thought much of the

Kutz. But I met a gentleman on the train--it was when we were pulling

out of Albuquerque, and I was sitting on the back platform of the

observation car, and this man was next to me and he asked me for a

light, and we got to talking, and come to find out, he came from Aurora,

and when he found out I came from Minnesota he asked me if I knew Dr.

Clemworth of Red Wing, and of course, while I've never met him, I've

heard of Clemworth lots of times, and seems he's this man's brother!

Quite a coincidence! Well, we got to talking, and we called the

porter--that was a pretty good porter on that car--and we had a couple

bottles of ginger ale, and I happened to mention the Kutz Kar, and this

man--seems he's driven a lot of different kinds of cars--he's got

a Franklin now--and he said that he'd tried the Kutz and liked it

first-rate. Well, when we got into a station--I don't remember the name

of it--Carrie, what the deuce was the name of that first stop we made

the other side of Albuquerque?--well, anyway, I guess we must have

stopped there to take on water, and this man and I got out to stretch

our legs, and darned if there wasn't a Kutz drawn right up at the depot

platform, and he pointed out something I'd never noticed, and I was

glad to learn about it: seems that the gear lever in the Kutz is an inch

longer----”

Even this chronicle of voyages Harry interrupted, with remarks on the

advantages of the ball-gear-shift.

Kennicott gave up hope of adequate credit for being a traveled man, and

telephoned to a garage for a Ford taxicab, while Juanita kissed Carol

and made sure of being the first to tell the latest, which included

seven distinct and proven scandals about Mrs. Swiftwaite, and one

considerable doubt as to the chastity of Cy Bogart.

They saw the Ford sedan making its way over the water-lined ice, through

the snow-storm, like a tug-boat in a fog. The driver stopped at a

corner. The car skidded, it turned about with comic reluctance, crashed

into a tree, and stood tilted on a broken wheel.

The Kennicotts refused Harry Haydock's not too urgent offer to take them

home in his car “if I can manage to get it out of the garage--terrible

day--stayed home from the store--but if you say so, I'll take a shot at

it.” Carol gurgled, “No, I think we'd better walk; probably make better

time, and I'm just crazy to see my baby.” With their suit-cases they

waddled on. Their coats were soaked through.

Carol had forgotten her facile hopes. She looked about with impersonal

eyes. But Kennicott, through rain-blurred lashes, caught the glory that

was Back Home.

She noted bare tree-trunks, black branches, the spongy brown earth

between patches of decayed snow on the lawns. The vacant lots were

full of tall dead weeds. Stripped of summer leaves the houses were

hopeless--temporary shelters.

Kennicott chuckled, “By golly, look down there! Jack Elder must have

painted his garage. And look! Martin Mahoney has put up a new fence

around his chicken yard. Say, that's a good fence, eh? Chicken-tight

and dog-tight. That's certainly a dandy fence. Wonder how much it cost a

yard? Yes, sir, they been building right along, even in winter. Got more

enterprise than these Californians. Pretty good to be home, eh?”

She noted that all winter long the citizens had been throwing garbage

into their back yards, to be cleaned up in spring. The recent thaw had

disclosed heaps of ashes, dog-bones, torn bedding, clotted paint-cans,

all half covered by the icy pools which filled the hollows of the yards.

The refuse had stained the water to vile colors of waste: thin red, sour

yellow, streaky brown.

Kennicott chuckled, “Look over there on Main Street! They got the

feed store all fixed up, and a new sign on it, black and gold. That'll

improve the appearance of the block a lot.”

She noted that the few people whom they passed wore their raggedest

coats for the evil day. They were scarecrows in a shanty town. . . . “To

think,” she marveled, “of coming two thousand miles, past mountains

and cities, to get off here, and to plan to stay here! What conceivable

reason for choosing this particular place?”

She noted a figure in a rusty coat and a cloth cap.

Kennicott chuckled, “Look who's coming! It's Sam Clark! Gosh, all rigged

out for the weather.”

The two men shook hands a dozen times and, in the Western fashion,

bumbled, “Well, well, well, well, you old hell-hound, you old devil,

how are you, anyway? You old horse-thief, maybe it ain't good to see

you again!” While Sam nodded at her over Kennicott's shoulder, she was

embarrassed.

“Perhaps I should never have gone away. I'm out of practise in lying. I

wish they would get it over! Just a block more and--my baby!”

They were home. She brushed past the welcoming Aunt Bessie and knelt

by Hugh. As he stammered, “O mummy, mummy, don't go away! Stay with me,

mummy!” she cried, “No, I'll never leave you again!”

He volunteered, “That's daddy.”

“By golly, he knows us just as if we'd never been away!” said Kennicott.

“You don't find any of these California kids as bright as he is, at his

age!”

When the trunk came they piled about Hugh the bewhiskered little wooden

men fitting one inside another, the miniature junk, and the Oriental

drum, from San Francisco Chinatown; the blocks carved by the old

Frenchman in San Diego; the lariat from San Antonio.

“Will you forgive mummy for going away? Will you?” she whispered.

Absorbed in Hugh, asking a hundred questions about him--had he had any

colds? did he still dawdle over his oatmeal? what about unfortunate

morning incidents? she viewed Aunt Bessie only as a source of

information, and was able to ignore her hint, pointed by a coyly shaken

finger, “Now that you've had such a fine long trip and spent so much

money and all, I hope you're going to settle down and be satisfied and

not----”

“Does he like carrots yet?” replied Carol.

She was cheerful as the snow began to conceal the slatternly yards. She

assured herself that the streets of New York and Chicago were as ugly as

Gopher Prairie in such weather; she dismissed the thought, “But they

do have charming interiors for refuge.” She sang as she energetically

looked over Hugh's clothes.

The afternoon grew old and dark. Aunt Bessie went home. Carol took the

baby into her own room. The maid came in complaining, “I can't get no

extra milk to make chipped beef for supper.” Hugh was sleepy, and he had

been spoiled by Aunt Bessie. Even to a returned mother, his whining and

his trick of seven times snatching her silver brush were fatiguing. As a

background, behind the noises of Hugh and the kitchen, the house reeked

with a colorless stillness.

From the window she heard Kennicott greeting the Widow Bogart as he had

always done, always, every snowy evening: “Guess this 'll keep up all

night.” She waited. There they were, the furnace sounds, unalterable,

eternal: removing ashes, shoveling coal.

Yes. She was back home! Nothing had changed. She had never been away.

California? Had she seen it? Had she for one minute left this scraping

sound of the small shovel in the ash-pit of the furnace? But Kennicott

preposterously supposed that she had. Never had she been quite so far

from going away as now when he believed she had just come back. She

felt oozing through the walls the spirit of small houses and righteous

people. At that instant she knew that in running away she had merely

hidden her doubts behind the officious stir of travel.

“Dear God, don't let me begin agonizing again!” she sobbed. Hugh wept

with her.

“Wait for mummy a second!” She hastened down to the cellar, to

Kennicott.

He was standing before the furnace. However inadequate the rest of the

house, he had seen to it that the fundamental cellar should be large

and clean, the square pillars whitewashed, and the bins for coal and

potatoes and trunks convenient. A glow from the drafts fell on the

smooth gray cement floor at his feet. He was whistling tenderly, staring

at the furnace with eyes which saw the black-domed monster as a symbol

of home and of the beloved routine to which he had returned--his

gipsying decently accomplished, his duty of viewing “sights” and

“curios” performed with thoroughness. Unconscious of her, he stooped

and peered in at the blue flames among the coals. He closed the door

briskly, and made a whirling gesture with his right hand, out of pure

bliss.

He saw her. “Why, hello, old lady! Pretty darn good to be back, eh?”

“Yes,” she lied, while she quaked, “Not now. I can't face the job of

explaining now. He's been so good. He trusts me. And I'm going to break

his heart!”

She smiled at him. She tidied his sacred cellar by throwing an empty

bluing bottle into the trash bin. She mourned, “It's only the baby that

holds me. If Hugh died----” She fled upstairs in panic and made sure

that nothing had happened to Hugh in these four minutes.

She saw a pencil-mark on a window-sill. She had made it on a September

day when she had been planning a picnic for Fern Mullins and Erik. Fern

and she had been hysterical with nonsense, had invented mad parties for

all the coming winter. She glanced across the alley at the room which

Fern had occupied. A rag of a gray curtain masked the still window.

She tried to think of some one to whom she wanted to telephone. There

was no one.

The Sam Clarks called that evening and encouraged her to describe the

missions. A dozen times they told her how glad they were to have her

back.

“It is good to be wanted,” she thought. “It will drug me. But----Oh, is

all life, always, an unresolved But?”