The Seattle Star Newspaper, October 12, 1921, Page 13

SDAY, OCTOBER 12, 1921. eecccccce »MAIN STREET The Story of Carol Kennicott BY SINCLAIR LEWIS Copyright, 1920, Harcourt, Brace & Howe, Ine. eeeeeeesecsecoresece (Continued From Page 6) narios, professional nursing, and parrying an unidentified hero Then she found a hobby in so slology. The sociology instructor was new, was married, and therefore, ta boo, but he had come from Boston, Ihe had lived among poets and so jadists and Jews and millionaire up Hifters at the university settlement New York, and he had a beauti- i white strong neck. He led a geting class thru the prisons, the arity bureaus, the employment cies of Minneapolis and St ut Trailing at the end of the line rol was indignant at the prodding losity of the others, their manner staring at the poor as at a 200. je felt herself a great liberator. put her hand to her mouth, her PerMhiser and thumb quite painfully Inching her lower lip, and frowned, Md enjoyed being aloof. A classmate named Stewart Sny @ competent bulky young man & gray flannel shirt, a rusty black tie, and the green-and-purple cap, grumbled to her as they ed behind the others in the luck of the South St. Paul stock ds, “These college chumps make tired, They're so toplofty. They ht to Of worked on the farm, the T have. These workmen put ft over them.” | “I just love common workmen, } d Carol. “Only you don't want to forget it common workmen don't think “re common.” | “You're right! I apologize.” Car. brows lifted in the astonishment emotion, in a glory of abasement eyes mothered the world. Stew- Snyder peered at her. He his large red fists into his he jerked them out, he res- got rid of them by clenching Hg hands behind him, and he stam “It know.. You get people. Most these darn co-eds——. Say, Carol, could do a lot for people.” “How?” “Oh—oh well-you know—sym- y and everything—if you were ‘¥ you were a lawyer's wife. ‘d understand his clienta I'm to be a lawyer. I admit a fall in sympathy sometimes. I 0 dog-gone impatient with peo- that can't stand the gaff. You'd 00d for a fellow that was too se- Make him more—more--you ympathetic!” His slightly pouting lps, his mas- a if eyes, were begging her to beg to go on. She fied from the prolier of his sentiment. She “Oh, see those poor sheep— and millions of them.” She on. Stewart was not tnteresting. He 't a shapely white neck, and he Rever lived among celebrated re- She want just now, to ve @ cell in a settiement-house, ce @ nun without the bother of @ horde of grateful poor. ‘The supplementary reading in so omy led her to a book on village- nent — ;. town girls’ clubs. It had pic of greens and garden-walls tn New England, Pennsylvania. had picked it up carelessty, with slight yawn which she patted with her finger-tips as deli- ly a5 2 cat. dipped Into the book, lounging her window-seat, with her stim, ockinged legw crossed, and her wp under her chin. She a mtin pillow while she read. ber was the clothy exuberance Blodgett college room: cretonne- window-seat, photographs \of a carbon print of the Coliseum, | chafingdish, and a dozen pillows oidered or beaded or pyro- d Shockinglty out of place @ miniature of the Dancing She sighed, “That's what Tn do! after college! I'll get my hands on one of these prairie towns and make it beautiful. Be an inspiration. 1} suppose I'd better become a teacher | jthen, but—I won’ be "that kind of a jteacher. I won't drona. Why should jthey have all the garden suburbs on | Long island? Nobody has done any thing with the ugly towns here in| the Northwest except hold revivals | and build Ubraries to contain the Elsie books, I'll make ‘em put in a village green, and darling cottages, and a quaint Main Streetr’ | Thus she triumphed thru the class, which was a typical Blodgett | leontest between a dreary teacher and unwilling children of 20, won by | the teacher because his opponents | had to answer his questions, while | thelr treacherous queries he could | cqgnter by demanding, “Have you jlocked that up in the library? Well | then, suppose you do!” The history instructor w |tired minister, day, | Mr. a re He was sarcastic to | He begged of sporting young Charley Holmberg, “Now) Charles, would It interrupt your un- doubtedly fascinating pursuit of that |malevolent fly if I were to ask you }to tell us that you do not know any- thing about King John?" He spent three delightful minutes in assuring himself of the fact that no one ex- actly remembered the date of Magna Charta. Carol did not heer him. She was jcompleting the roof of a halft-tim- bered town hall. She had found one man in the prairie village who did Jnot apprecitte her picture of wind ing streets and arcades, but she had |agsembled the town council and dra- matically defeated him. amp was Minnesota-born, | {Carol was not an intimat Prairie villages. Her father, the) smiling and shabby, the learned and teasingly kind, had come from Mas sachusetts, and thru all her child-| The she jhood he had been « judge in Manka | to, which is not a prairie téwn, but in its gardensheltered streets and) the family to Minneapolis died, two years after, of the /than herself, had become a stranger jsame housa |days and from her independence of THE SEATTLE STAR DUFFS ——— THAT BOY WILBUR CERTAINLY 1S THE PRIZE DUMBBELL~ THE MORE | THINK OF WHAT HAPPENED YESTERDAY | HAD A PERFECTLY GOoD BOTTLE OF SCOTCH GIVEN ‘TO HIM AND PASSES IT Our TO A JaANrroR! TOM, | CAME OVER TO SHOW ‘YoU HOW SORRY | AM THAT | GAVE THAT BOTTLE OF SCOTCH TO THE JANITOR YESTERDAY INSTEAD OF To You- WHEN HIS WIFE FOUND OUT ABoY'T IT, SHE CAME UP AND BEAT me uP! ) i din’ RECKLES AND HIS FRI t COMB NOW -TAKE IT UST FOR MY SAKE = YOu KNOW T WOULD DO ANYTHING COME TAGALONG, AND TAKE YouR MEDICINE. HAFTA TAKE THAT OLD MEDICINE ? CANT Le = There he Her sister, a older | EVERETT TRUE busy proper advisory soul, HERE'S A @VARTER, GVGRGTT, Go ANO SST A SHAVG ! ae I to her even when they lived in the From those earty brown and sfiver relatives Carol retained a willingness to be different from brisk, efficient book-ignoring ple; an instinct to jaisios. of elms ie white and green | observe and wonder at their bustle | New England reborn. Mankato lies | jbetween cliffs and the Minnesota | jtiver, hard by Traverse des Sioux, where the first settlers made treaties with the Indians, and the cattle- jrustiers once came galloping before | hell-for-leather posses. | As she climbed along the banks of the dark river Carol listened to fables about the wide land of Yellow waters and bleached buffalo West; the Southern and singing darkies and palm | trees toward which {t was forever! mysteriously gliding; and she heard | again the startled bells and thick | |Puffing of highwtacked river steam: | |ers wrecked on sand-reefs 60 years! ago. Along the decks she saw mis stonaries, gamblers in tall pot hata, jand Dakota chiefs with scarlet bian jketa ... Far off whistles at night, round the river bend piunking pad. dies reechoed by the pines, and a glow on biack sliding waters. Carol's family were. self-sufficient tn thelr inventive life, with Christ- mas & rite full of surprises and ten. derness, and “dressing-up parties” spontaneous and joyously absurd. The beasts of the Milford hearth- mythology were net the horrible Night Animals who jump out of jclosets and eat little girls, but jbeneficent/and brighteyed creatures | —the tam htab, who is woolly and| blue and lives in the bathroom, and |runs rapidly to warm small feet; the |ferruginous oil stove, who purrs and knows stories; and the skitamarigg. who will play with children before breakfast if they epring out of bed and close the window at the very first line of the song about puellas which father sings while shaving. Judge Milferd’s _ pedadogical scheme was to let the children read whatever they pleased, and in his|, |brown library Carol absorbed Balzac Main Street, she was homesick for it, she felt robbed of her work, of English which led her to study cago school. Her imagination carved and colored the new plan. She saw Herself persuading children to read charming fairy tales, helping young men to find books on mechanios, be ing ever so courteous to old men who were bunting for newspapers the light of the library, an authority on books, poets and explorers, reading a paper to an association of distingulehed scholars, commencement. would be in the cyclone of final ey aminations. béen massed with palms suggertive of polite undertaking par the brary, a 10-foot room with @ globe and the portraits of Whittier and Martha Washington, the student orchestra was playing “Carmen” even when she wae taking part in it, But, she felt approvingly, as she discovered her career of town-plan ning, she was now roused to being brisk and efficient herself, j avy In & month Carol's ambition had clouded. Her hesitancy about be |coming @ teacher had returned. She was not, she worried, strong enough | to endure the routine, and she could not picture herself standing before grinning children and pretending to) be wise and decisive. But the desire for the creation of a beautiful town | remained. When she encountered an} item about smalitown women's clubs! or a photograph of a straggling | oe You, PRON Son — YYou HAVS A LAVISH HAND Tt was the advice of the professor Professional Mbrary-work tn a Chi- invited to dinners with ” ‘The last faculty reception before! In five days they The house of the president had | and tn and | ‘Madame Butterfly.” Carol was) i i Wilbur Started Something WHY DIDN'T ‘You CALL TO THE JANITOR FOR HELP WHEN HIS WIFE ATTACKED You ? Tag's Way Out of It! (Now WATCH= T PUT YOUR TWO-BIT PIECE IN 1pio! | BROUGHT HIM ALONG TO PROVE IT - “THE WINDOW, HE'S LOOK OUT WEN YOU TAKE ™ MEDICINE For Me! MY HAND, COVER IT WITH A HANDKERCHIEF, AND, ALLA-KAZAM! (TS GONE! PRETTY SLICK, EH WILKY 2 Wawa Cpe JACOBS, THE KIDDING MAKES A BORROWED COIN OF TIGHTWAD WILKYS VANISH == dizzy with music and the emotions of parting. She saw the palms as a jungle, the pinkshaded electric | slobes as an opaline haze, and the! eyeglassed faculty as Olympians. She was melancholy at sight of the} mousey girls with whom she had “always intended to get acquainted,” | and the half dozen young men who} te. It wag the only trace of |and Rabelais and Thoreau and Max in the room. She had inherit-|Muller. He gravely taught them rest from generations of girl|the letters on the backs of the en- cyclopedias, and when polite visitors as @ part of all this com- asked about the mental progress of that she Tegarded the |the “little ones,” they were horrified n village-improvement. But to hear the children earnestly re- nly stopped fidgeting. She peating. A-And, And-Aus, AusBis, ar. Qrallle _ « 4 By RUTH AGNES ABELING wv (Copyright 1921 by Seattle Star) CHAPTER LIX-+-I SPEND HOURS OF HORROR ito the book. She had fled thru it before the % o'clock her to the class in English “Oh!” cried-Nancy, pulling at the fine white thread that wrapped round and round her. “Ont” cried Nancy, pulling at the white thread that was wrapped ind and ‘round her. Nick, too, tugging with all his might, for was @ prisoner as well as Nancy. “Do you suppose we're caught in shrimp-net that the shrimps told about?" wondered Nancy in dis- ves will pickle us and put us into ns?” ick miffed. “If they do, we can Wish ourselves out with our Magic q Grean Bhoe “Then why can't we wish our- ren. out of this?” asked Nancy. ed and wished and nothing is is different,” said Nick. “We Yt wish things off of us.” Buddenly someone said, “Why "t you take off your hands like do? Then the cotton-spinners n't hurt you.” Goodness!’ exclaimed Nancy, ‘ing thru the water, “Who are ap? what do you mean by talk: dictary when she was 11, and took ‘Do you suppose the shrimp. | | Bis-Cal, Cal-Cha. Carol's mother died when she was 9. Her father retired from the ju- CEN ling of cotton-spinners and hands? | What sort of a creatufe are you? Your voice sounds familiar.” ¥ In a moment a green figure slid into view, @ creature with poppy eyes, long feelers, a fan tail and sharp claws as large as all the rest jot him, “Loppy Lobster!” eried both Twins at ones, “Did you get thru with growing, and put on a new shell?” “Yes,” nodded Loppy, looking around uneasily, “and to tell you the truth, this is no place for me after \all the pains I've taken to grow.” “Don't you mean all the pains you've had to grow?" asked Nick, “Oh, participles” always bothered me in grammar,” said Loppy impa- tiently. “The thing is—where are the cotton-spinners that tied you?” “My, but you are queer, Loppy!* declared Nancy. “Do tell us what you mean,” (To Be Continued) (Copyright, 1921, by Seatue Star) were ready to fall in love with her | she encouraged. He was 80 much maniier than the others; he was an even, ready-made sult with Its padded | shoulders. with two cups of coffee and a chick- en patty, upon a pile of presidential overshoes in the seeped in, Stewart whispered: after four years! The happiest years | of life.” think that in just a few days we'll | be parting, and we'll never see some of the bunch again!” You always duck when I try to talk seriously to you, but listen to me. you, and I'd protect you——" The insinuating music drained h, independence, She said mourntull “Would you take care of me She solide ton, where I'm going to settle— life.” comfy home and bringing up some | cute kids and knowing nice homey | people?” | to the restless woman, ‘Thus to the! young Sappho spake the melon-ven- | ders; thus the captains to Zendbia;| and in the damp cave over gnawed bones the hairy suitor thus protested to the woman advocate of matriar- chy. lege but with the voice of Sappho was Carol's answer: that's 90, dren, | asd that can do housework, but I—well, | if you have got a college education, | you ought to use it for the world.” well in the home. just think of a bunch of us going out on an auto plenic, some nice spring evening.” stor book: * + DEEDES OREREC RANE O Page 492 WHEN THE SALVATION ARMY STARTED IN SEATTLE “Thrrrum, thrrrum, thr-r) big working factor for 66 years. um, therum, thrr-um!* “It was started by a man in Down the street they came| East London who wanted to get marching. People turned to look | ‘the poor people, who never went and turned away again as they) to any church, to listen to him, saw the quaint blue bonnets of the| so he beat on a drum to make lassigs and the accustomed blue| them take notice, then he told uniforms of the men. them about Christ and about how “What is it, grandmother?’| they could live better, cleaner asked Peggy as she leaned far out | lives. |] of the car to watch them pass, “People Ustened to him and fol- “aw, Peg!’ cried David, his| lowed him and they got a whole band for music and so it grew voice full of disgust. “I thought) cia grew till it was a great army anybody would Anow who those| of workers all over the world. people are, That's the Salvation] wherever there were poor Army.” people or wicked people or people “What's thé Salvation Army| in trouble, the Salvation Army for?” Peay persisted, in spite of; Went, and organized what they David's scorn. call a post. . “Oh, it started in the real war,” “I remember very well, Indeed, David went on, 'N the girls when they first came to Seattle. made doughnuts for the soldiers “It was in 1881, I think; any- ‘n everything and the men helped | way, we had grown to be quite a out a lot, I guess, all during the] city. We had a population of a war, 'n now I reckon they are] little over 3,500, but in the East around to help the ex-soldiers and people were saying: people that are out of job: “ ‘Seattle is the wickedest town Grandmother waited tll David in Americg, except San Fran- was quite thru, then she said) cisco,’ quietly: “So the Salvation Army came “Are you quite sure, Davie-man, | and started their post in an old that the Salvation Army started| hasement near Ploneer square. during the war which you remem-| They gave an entertainment: to ber?” raise money and Guy Bates Post Didn't It? David and J. Lennox McPherson (little surprise, §-year-old chaps) sang and Judge Grandmother shook her head. nm presid | “It began, dear, not very long nd that | after the civil war; it has been a But it was Stewart Snyder whom warm brown, like his new She sat with him, and coat-closet under the stairs, and as the thin music| “I can't stand tt, this breaking up She believed it. “Oh, I know! To "Carol, you got to lsten to met! you got to. I'm going to be a big lawyer, maybe a judge, and I need His arm slid behind her’ shoulders. touched his hand. It was warm, “You bet I would! We'd have, | Lord, we'd have bully times in Yank: | “But I want to do something with “What's better than making a It was the immemorial male reply | asked in as the way it start- In the dialect of Blodgett col- ed in Seattle.” ake “Of course. I know. T rence! ” Bb pepe ie «| ij Honestly, I do love chil-| crashed into the “Soldiers' Chorus;* But there's lots of women! ang she was protesting, “No! No! You're a dear, but I want to do things, I don’t understand myself, but [ want everything in the world! Maybe 1 can't sing or write, but I know I can be an influence in library work Just euppose 1 wh encouraged some boy and he became| A year Carol spent in Chicago. a@ great artist! I will! I will do it!) Hler study of library-cataloguing, re Stewart dear, I can't settle down to| cording, books of Yeference, was nothing but dish.washing!" eaxy and not too somniferous, | She Two minutes later—~two heetic| reveled in the Art Institute, in sym- minutes—they were disturbed by an embarrassed couple also seeking the jdyllie seclusion of the overshoe closet After graduation she never saw Stewart Snyder again, She wrote to him once a week—for one month. “I know, but you can use it just as And gee, Carol, “Yen, “And sleigh-riding in winter, and going fishing” Blareerrvrreeh The orchestra haa] | fights of s | think, to try to unravel the future— {phonies and violin recitals" and |champer music, I staggered dizzily down the six irs leading from Tom's office to the street. 1 couldn't stand the thought of facing people in the elevator. My world had suddenly turned black, my dream had vanished, the roses had perished just as my fingers were about to grasp them, I walked, I wanted to get away from everyone. I didn’t want to for it seemed to me there could be | no future. Stumbling blindly along, it finally came to me that I was off of the city pavements and was well into} the outskirts, I sat down by the roadside to try to bring out of my chaos some sane thing. 1 began to feel bitter over the thing, for in spite of all that Grace had told me I had believed in Tom's honorable intent toward me. 1 hadn't believed that he could say to me even what he had said on the day before at his office, unless his | heart was back of it. How I wished that I had never given this thing the chance to hap- pen, that I had never gone out to try my own wings, but bad let him battle, for me right from the begin- ning and had taken my chances on finding myself in my love for him. 1 blamed myself bitterly for hav- ing given him up. I was learning what it meant to despair. Finally it came to me that dark- ness was near and with that came the thought of Lila Ames—another disillusioned woman, alone, trying to work out her problem, I recognized the spot to which I had wandered. It was the river road out which Philip Ames and I had driven on the day of the begin- ning of my adventure. I had stumbled past the wonderful little log houses which he scoffed at that day, and had not seen them. Huge |trees on either side of the road in- lereased the dusk. Finally I came to my feet and tried to walk, My weary body re fused to do the bidding of my racing brain, I couldn't go back, I sat down again on the little bank of sand in the theatre and classic dancing. She almost gave up Mbrary work to become one of the young women who dance in cheese. cloth in the moonlight. She was taken to a certified Studio Party, with beer, cigarettes, bobbed hair, and a Russian Jewess who sang the} Internationale, It cannot be re} ported that Carol had anything sig- nificant to say to the Bohemians. She as awkward with them, and felt ignorant, and she was shocked by the free manners which she had for years desired, But she heard and remembered discussions of Freud, Romain Rolland, syndicalism, the Confederation Generale du Travail, feminism vs, haremism, Chinese lyr- jes, nationalization of mines, Chris- tan Science, and fishing In Ontario, She went hame, and that was the beginning and end of her Bohemian life. The second cousin of Carol's sit ter’s husband lived in Winnetka, and once invited her out to Sunday dinner. She walked back thru Wil mette and Evanston, discovered new forms of suburban architecture, and remembered her desire to recreate! give up library work and, by a mira- cle whose nature was not very clearly revealed to her, turn a prai- rie town into Georgian houses and Japanese bungalows. * The next day in library class had to read a theme on the us the Cumulative Index, and she taken so seriously in the discussi that she put off her career of to planning—and in the autumn she was in the public library of St, Paul, (vip : Carol was not unbappy and she was not exhilarated, in the St. Paul library. She slowly confessed that she was not visibly affecting lives. She did, at first, put into her con: tact with the patrons a willingness which should have moved worlds. But so few of these stolid worlds wanted to be moved, When she in charge of the magazine room the renders did not ask for suggestions about elevated essays. They grunted, “Wanta find the Leather Goods Ga- zetto for last February.” When she was giving out books the principal query was, “Can you tell me of a good, light, exciting love story to read? My husband's going away for a week." villages, She decided that she would] She, was fond of the other libra: and tried to look Into the fast creasing blackness, I was begit to be a little afraid. My nerves on edge. I wondered vaguely no automobiles passed. I could the lights of the city—they 50 near, surely I could walk back, just that far. ‘ I tried it again. It required, seemed, a super-human effort, but I kept my feet moving over the road toward the lights which my gaze. IT had come to a saner view of the afternoon's events. I felt that just then, if Tom came along, I would be ready to listen to his explanar tion. I found myself assuring my- seif that’ he must have an tion, that he couldn't have really in the wrong. Like a child I wanted to turn to him in hour of my mental and physical ex+ haustion and luxuriate in his sym» pathy—his comfort. Suddenly I was sense of something pending, I want+ ed to scream. And then I crumpled _ in the dust. 4 (To Be Continued) * AR rians; proud of their aspirations, And by the chance of propinquity” she read scores of books Hyper in to her gay white littleness: of anthropology with ditches of foot. notes filled with heaps of small. fi type, Parisian imagistes, Hin " u recipes for curry, voyages to thé jolamon Isles, theosophy with mod+ ern American improvements, treat- lises upon success in the real-estate _ business. She took walks, and was sensible about shoes and diet. And never did she feel that she was live | ing. - She went to dances and suppers at the houses of college acquaint ances, Sometimes she one-stepped demurely; sometimes, in dread of life's slipping past, she turned into a bacchanal, her tender eyes ex cited, her throat temse, as she slid — down the room, toa During her three years of Mbrary work several men showed: diligent interest in her—the treasurer of a fur-manufacturing firm, a teacher, @ newspaper reporter, and a petty rail © road official, None of them made — her more than pause in thought Vor months no male emerged from the mass. Then, at the Marbury’ she met Dr. Will Kennieott, 7 (Continued Tomorrow) ote