The Seattle Star Newspaper, October 15, 1921, Page 13

5 « AIN STREET The Story of Carol Kennicott BY SINCLAIR Lewis Copyright, 1920, (Continued From Page @ th the poster for Fluffed Oatst”) ap When Carol had walked for $2 inutes she had completely covered © TOWN, @ast and west, north and wath; and shi ood At the corner Main Street and Washington Ave- ue and despaired. Main Street with tts two-story ick shops, {ts story-and.a-half jooden residences, its muddy ox se from concrete walk to walk, buddle of Forts and tumber SONS, Was too small to absorb her. © broad, straight, unenticing Of the streets let in the ping prairie on every side. She lined the vastness and the empti- 0€ the land, The skeleton tron il om the farm a few blocks ar the north end of Main was lik: ¢ ribs of a dead She thought of the coming of hn winter, when the un houses would crouch to-| iM terror of storms gayloping that wild waste. They were | rs for sparrows, not homes for laughing people. She told herself that down the ve were a splendor. Orange; the oaks of raspberry. And the been nursed with love. would not hold. At} . & writing desk with adver. in mother-of-pearl letters the glasscovered back. The room beyond was a jungle of tablecloths and catsup bot- looked no more at the Minnie House. A man in cuffless shirt sleeves th pink arm garters, wearing a collar, But no tle, yawned his 'y from Dyer’s Drug Store across b the hotel. He leaned against the scratched a while, sighed, and &@ bored way gossiped with a man ited back in @ chair. A lumber pon, ite green box filled with spools barbed wire fencing, down the block. A Ford, tn sounded as tho it were shak- to pieces, then recovered and away. In the Greek candy whine of a peanut Oqzing out from Grab wall, ehe felt a forbid spirit which she could never er. ° {Bhe trailed down the street on one/ back on the other, glancing into cross streets. It was a private opium and alcohol, in the very to which her husband sent pa- ts for the filling of prescriptions. om a second-story window the “Ww. P. Kennicott, Phys. and o gilt on black sand. small whoden motion picture iD "2 + | dog toes. -| The first-story front of clear glass, service, Haydock & Simons. Hay- ‘urt, Brace & Hows, Ine eeecccccccccs | theatre called “The Rosebud Movi Palace.” Lithographs announcing film called “Fatty in Love.” Howland & Gov grocery. Ta} }the display window, dt overripe bananas and lettuce on which a cat was sleeping. Shelves lined with red, crepe paper which was now faded) and torn and conceptrically spotted. | | Flat against the wall of the second story the pigns of lodgts—the | Knights of Pythias, the Maccabees, | the Woodmen, the Masons. Dahl & Oleson'’s Meat Market— @ | reek of blood. | A Jowelry shop with tinny-looking | Wristwatches for women, Tn front of it, at the curb, a huge wooden clock which did not go. A fy-buzzing saloon with a bril- Mant gold and enamel whisky sign) across the front. Other saloons down the block, From them a stink of stale beer, and thick voloes bel jowing pidgin German or trolling out dirty songe—vice gone feeble and unenterprising and dull—the delicacy ef a mining camp minus tts vigor, In front of the saloons, farmwives sitting on the seats of wagons, wait: ing for their husbands to become drunk and ready to start home A tobaceo shop called “The Smoke House,” filled with young men shak- ing dice for cigarettes Racks of | Magazines, and pictures of coy fat | prostitutes In bathing suits, A clothing store with a display of “ox-blood je Oxfords with bull Sulte which looked worn and glossiess while they were still new, flabbily draped on dummies Uke corpses with painted cheeks. The Bon Ton Store—Haydock & Simon: the largest shop in town: the plates cleverly bound at the edges with brass. The secend, story of pleasant tapestry brick. One win. dow of excellent clothes for men, tn. terspersed with collars of floral pique which showed mauve daisies on a saffron ground. Newness and on obvious notion of neatness and dock. Sbe had met a Haydock at | the station; Harry Haydock; an ac- | tive person of 35. He seemed great | to ber, now, and very like a saint. His shop was clean. Axel Egge’s General Store, fre quented by Scandinavian farmers. In the shallow dark window space heaps of sleagy sateens, badly wo ven galateas, canvas shoes designed for women with bulging ankles, steel and red grass buttons upon cards with broken edges, a cottony bilan. | ket, a graniteware frying pan re | posing on a sun-faded crepe blouse. Sam Clark's Hardware Store. An alr of frankly metallic enterprise. Guns and churns and barrels of nails and beautiful shiny butcher | knives. Chester Dashaway’s House Fur- nishing Emportum. A vista of heavy oak rockers with leather sets, [asleep in a dismal row. Billy’s Lunch. Thick handieless cups on the wet oliclothcovered counter. An odor of onions and the smoke of hot lard In the doorway ® young "man audibly sucking « toothpick. | The warehouse of the buyer of | eream and potatoes. The sour smell of = dairy. The Ford Garage and the Buick Garage, competent one-story brick and cement buildings opposite each other, Old and new cars on grease. | blackened concrete floors. Tire ad .| Vertisements. The roaring of a test ed motor; a racket which beat at the |nerves. Surly young men in khaki | unton-overalls. The most energetic and vita] places in town. A large warehouse for agricultural | implements. impressive barri- cade of green gold wheels, of shafts and sulky seats, belonging to machinery of ich Garol knew Ye Art Shoppe, Prop. Mrs. Mary Ellen Witks, Christian Science Li- brary open dally free. A touching tumble at beauty. A one-room shan- | ty of boards recently covered with rough stucco. A show window deli. cately rich in error: vases starting out to imitate tree trunks but run ADVE Pa tong s oF EME Twin CRAWLY CRAB HELPS Crawly Crab waddled into view “When the silty old cottonspinner of the Wigglefin people, you coughed out his tummy right u his mouth, and the pink pearl pied out on the white sand at the wtom of the ocean, the Twins ed til their eyes nearly dropped But what could they do, when ir. Cotton-Spinner had them done like parcels, in his white wrap- ie string’ On, ho! Hat hat Hee, hee!” hed the thief. “Isn't that a fine ckethook to have, my dears! And ink how safe it is! You'd never pennies down the boardwalk if Biuld swallow ‘em and then them up when you wished to a lollg-pop. That's the way it with my pink pea Vl) always it safe and sound vith these words, Mr. Cotton: ner pulled in his ridiculous Ber-bag of a stomach and swallow .¢ pink pearl again for wafe keep a voice sald, “What's this I hear about swallowing pink pearls? Who aia?” § “I didf’ answered Cukie Cotton- Spinner with a bow. “I have it here in my tummy right now.” “I don’t believe yout’ declared the voice again and Crawly Crab wad- died into view, “What! You don’t! I'll show yout’ declared Cukie, blowing ou his tummy again, with the pink! pearl inside. But he was suspicious of Crawly and wouldn't let go. | “Here, you may feel it," he said. | ‘It's that hard place.” But now comes the amazing part, |my dears: Crawly took his «nippers land cut Mr. Cotton-Spinner’s stom lach off, before you could sneeze, |with one snip, Next he cut the |threads around the Twins and set them free. “Don't worry about Mr. Cukle’s stomach!’ Ke sald. “He'll grow a new one In three days. There's your pearl, children!’ (To Be Continued (Copyright, 1921, by Seattle Star) OLIVIA, WHERE ARE You GOING THAT YOU'RE OOLLIN’ UP SOP] FOR ALL RIGUT- BUT DONT Go FAR — SUPPER: WILL SOON ALL MY LESSONS ANT You SAIO T T FINISHED. ning off into blobs of giit—an alumi | num ash tray labeled “Greetings from Gofher Prairie’—a Christian Science magazine—a stamped sofa. cushion portraying a large ribbon tied to a «mal! poppy, the correct skeins of embroidery silk lying on the pillow. Inside the shop, a glimpse of bad carbon prints of bad and famous pictures, shelves of phonograph records and camera filma, wooden toys, and in the midst an anxious small woman sitting in @ padded rocking cha@, A barber shop and pool room. A man in shirt sleeves, presumably Del Snafflin, the proprietor, shaving a man who bad a large Adam's ap-| ple. i Nat Hick's Tailor Shop, on « side street off Main. A one-story build ing. A fashion plate showing buman pitehferks tn garments which looked aa bard as steel plate. i On another side street a raw red-| brick Catbolic church with @ var- nished yellow door. j The postoffice—merely @ partition of glass and brass shutting off the Tear of a mildewed room which must, once have been a shop. A tilted black and scattered with official ho- tices and army recruiting posters, | The damp, yellow-brick schoo! | bullding in tts cindery grounds. S. dioremire eaMRB SREY ‘The Parmers’ National Bank. An Tonic temple of marble, Pure, ex-/ quixite, solitary. A brass plate with YVE GOT ‘TO GO DOWN ‘TO “THE CORNER GROCERY THE SEATTLE STAR HELEN! A Gentle Hint ARE. THESE SWEET GRAPES, MR. BAKER? T FINISWED ALL MY LESSONS FOR TMORROW So Now T CAN PLAY LES EVERETT TRUE M NOT SMOKING! WHERe PO You cer i = ON GNoucH !} T Get (t FRom PLENTY OF (rv! DO SmoKe, THOUGH, THE AROMA FROM You —« NANI Ni NWA YOU, SIR, WHEN You BREATH AND CCOTHOS WOULD Gac A SKUNK If MY SPHOoRE oF INFLVENCS Itt “Ezra Stowbody, Pres't.” if A score of similar shops and estab | Ushmenta. Behind them and mixed with them, | 7 the houses, meek cottages or large, comfortable, soundly uninteresting symbols of prosperity. In all the town not one building save the Ionic bank which gave) pleasure to Carol's eyes; not a dozen | buildings which suggested that, in the 50 years of Gopher Prairte's ex istence, the citizens had realized that it was either desirable or possible to make is, their common home, amusing or attractive. It was not only the aneparing un- apologetic ugliness and the rigid) straightness which overwhelmed her. It was the planiessness, the flirdsy temporariness of the buildings, their faded unpleasant colors. The street was cluttered with electric Baht poles, gasoline pumps for motor cars, boxes of goods, Each man had built with the most valiant disregard of all the other. Between a large new “block” of two-story brick shops | on one side, and the fire-brick Over-| land garage on the other side, was & one-story cottage turned into a millinery shop. The white temple of the Farmers’ Bank was elbowed back by a grocery of glaring yellow brick. One store building had a patchy galvanized iron cornice; the, building beside it was crowned with | battlements and pyramids of brick capped with blocks of red sandstone. She escaped from Main Street, fled home. She wouldnt have cared, she tn- sisted, if the people had been comely. She had noted a young man loafing before a shop, one unwashed hand holding the cord of an awning: a middle-aged man who had a way of staring at women as tho he had been marrted too long and too prosaically: an old farmer, solid, wholesome, but not clean—his face like a potato fresh from the earth, None of them had shaved for three days. | “If they can’t build shrines, out here on the prairie, surely there's) nothing to prevent thelr buying safety razors!” she raged. | She fought herself: “I must be! wrong. People do live here. It| can't be as ugly as—as I know It is}| I must be wrong. But I can’t do it. I can’t go thru with it.” She came home too seriously wor- ried for hysteria; and when she found Kennicott waiting for her, and ex- ulting, “Have a walk? Well, tke the town? Great lawns and trees, eh?” she was able to aay, with a self-protective maturity new to her, “It's very interesting.” «ain ‘The train which brought Carol to Gopher Prairie also brought Miss Bea Sorenson. Miss Bea was a stalwart, corn- colored, laughing young woman, and she was bored by farm work. She! desired the exeitements oi city life, and the way to enjoy city life was, she had decided to “go get a yob as! hired girl in Gopher Prairie.” She contentedly lugged her pasteboard telescope from the station to her cousin, Tina Malmquist, maid of all work in the residence of Mrs, Luke Dawson, “Vell, #0 you come to town,” said Tina. Ay get a you~,” said Bea, jell . » « You got a fella now’ “Ya. “Vell. Yim Yacobson.” I'm glat to see you. How “I maw,” continued the first policeman, “that he thought that shot had been a sort of good luck shot, so I sald: “‘All right, str, pick one out.” “He pointed to one right near where the first one had been, and said, ‘Get that one’ “ ‘In the head,’ I sald, and nick ed off the top of the head of the second prairie chicken. “Mr, Raines looked at me for 4 full minute and said, ‘Can you al- ways shoot like that? “ ‘Every time,’ I told him, “‘T've got a big family,’ he sald, ‘and 500 head of loose cat- tle. I need a young man just about like you for this trip. I'll give you a good horse to ride and I want you to take my daughter Mary and teach her to shoot.’” “Tell us about Mary,” Pegsy begged. “Was she a very litle girl?” “Not too little,” the first police- man answered, “I guess I was a fairly lucky man, Sho was a mighty pretty young girl about 19 IF You RID|E IN THIS writing shelf against a wall rubdded | YOU'CL STAY CUTSIOE CAR MARY years old, bad ark curling hair and big dark eyes and she was a good rider, too, “When we started off, T'd give her my hand and she'd barely step her little foot in {ft and spring up on her saddle and be off.” f “Did she earn to shoot, though?” David put in, unwilling to believe a girl really could learn to use a gun. “I'll tell you about that,” the first policeman safd, “We two would ride way ahead of the rest and I'd sight a deer and show her how to hold her gun and she'd sit there on her horse or kneel in the grass and before long she was as pretty a shot as you'd wish to see. “We had all the fresh meat we wanted—buffalo and deer and antelope. “Woe worked & trick on the an- telope, Mary found out they liked red. “So she'd sit on her horse, tie a red cloth to her gun and wave it back and forth and out of the woods the antelope would leap and I'd have all the fresh meat we needed to keep the party going for days.” (To Be Continued) Td much you vant a veek?" “Sex dollar.” “There ain't nobody pay dat. Vatt! Dr, Kennjcott, I t'ink he marry a girl from de Cities. dat. Vell, You go take a valk.” “Ya,” said Rea. So it chanced that Carol Kennicott and ea Sorenson were viewing Main Street at the same time. Fea had never before been in a town larger than Scandia Crossing, which has 67 inhabitants. As she marched up the street she 4 ‘as meditating that it didn’t hardly seem like it was possible there could be #0 many folks oll in one place at the same time, My! It would take Maybe she pay|years to get acquainted with them all. And swell people, too! A fine big gentleman in a new pink shirt with a diamond, and not no washed out blue denim working shirt. A lovely Indy in @ longery dress (but it must be an awful hard dress to wash), And the stores! Not just three of them, like there were at Scandia Crossing, but more 1S THIS THE ONLY BASKET OF GRAPES You Ue EASY = THREE WUNDRED AN’ SIXTY FIVE AN’ A FouRr™. rf ANT PORCH. AW, THEY | YES, THAT'S WE ONLY ONE NO FRACTIONS OF A DAY-WHERE DYA 6ET TH’ Tom—how did he happen to see me? It was like so many of the| other things he had done. He al ways seemed to know just what I was doing and just where he could find me. I thought for a second of the events of the afternoon before, There | was a tinge of bitterness and then it was gone. I was too tired to care. | Nothing mattered very much, it seemed. All I wanted was to rest. I tried to sink more deeply into the pillows and go to sleep. +As the day wore on and I awak- ened again, I found myself wanting to talk, Tila had come and was standing looking out of my window. I/spoke to her. “What happened while I was away?" I asked, remembering Lila’s trouble and hoping it had been brought to a happy solution. “Nothing,” she said. And as she came toward me I could see tears glistening in her eyes. ve done nothing but hope, dear —I'm trying to believe that he’ come back and I'll have my. chance —but I'm afraid I won't.” She sat down on the bed. “I wonder sometimes what has happened to the house of Ames, It used to be a place of happiness, but now it geems nothing but tragedy comes to it." “It's Just what we've brought on ourselves——we've each been #80 thoughtless,” I said. And then I asked the thing which had been in my mind since I first jawakenedy ud Tom called to ask about me?" “Certainly—he almost got me out of bed! Lila laughed. “Why didn’t you tell me that Tom is your—side kick!” she finished with a word she had picked up somewhere on the street. “But he tsn't,” I managed to say. And then turned my*face to the wall. T had a fateful feeling that Tom was mine, afterall, but I couldn't ac- count for the circumstances which had come recently. They confused me and made me feel uncertain, “I wouldn't fight it, Melga—and don’t throw your happiness away as I have done!’ Mrs. Ames was very gengle. 1 had been warned so much about Tom and so many people had insist- than four whole blocks! The Bon Ton Store—big as four barns—my! it would scare a person to go in there, with seven or eight clerks all looking at you. And the men’s suits, on figures just like hu- man, And Axel B like home, lots of Swedes and Norskes in there, and a card of dandy buttons, lke rubles. A drug store with a soda fountain that was just huge, awful long, and| lovely marble; and on it there hs a great big lamp with the big rest shade you ever saw—all differ. ent kinds colored glass stuck togeth- er; and the soda spouts, they were silver; and they came right out of the bottom of the lamp stand! Be- hind the fountain there were glass shelves, and bottles of new kinds of soft drinks, that nobody ever heard of. Suppose a fella took you there! A hotel, awful’high, higher than Oscar Tollefson’s new red barn; three stories, one right on top of another; you had to etick your head back to look clear up to the top, There was « swell traveling man in there—probably been in Chicago, lots of times. Oh, the dandiest people to know here! There was a lady: going by, you wouldn't hardly say she was any older than Bea herself; she wore a dandy new gray suit and black pumps. But, you couldn’t tell what she thought. Bea would like to be that way—kind of quiet, ao nobody would get fresh, Kind of—oh, ele gant. A Lutheran Church. Here tn the city there'd be lovely sermons, and chureh twice on Sunday, every Sun- day! And a movie show! A regular theatre, just for movies. With the sign “Change of bill every evening.” Pictures every evening. There were movies in Scandia Crossing, but only once every two weeks, and it took the Sorensons an hour to drive in—papa was such a tightwad he wouldn't get a Ford, But here she could put on her hi any evening, and in three minutes’ walk be to the movies, and see lovely fellows in dress suits and Bill Hart and everything! How could they have so many stores? Why! There was one just for tobacco alone, and one (a lovely one-—-the Art. Shoppy, it was) for pic: tures and vases and stuff, with ol, WHY, “’ FOURTH OF JULY, BY ALLMAN ITLL SOON BE EMPTY IF You KEEP On TesTING “THEM! BY BLOSSER Wl Ee LAST NIGHT SOME YOUNG SCAMPS THREW A LOT, - OF DECAYED VEGETABLES ON PROF TWITCHELLS FRONT WHEN A WOMAN TELLS | By RUTH AGNES ABELING CHAPTER LXII—TOM COMES TO VISIT ME ed that I marry him that I began to feel superstitious about him. Perm |haps it all meant that I should net — have him after all. 3 The telephone rang. : Mrs. Ames hurried to the extem sion in her room. I heard her talking excitedly. Somthing had happened or was about to happen, and I knew from the tone of her voice that it could be nothing which would bring um happiness. “Come just as soon as you can,” I | heard her say and then the recelyer clicked into place, “It was Tom,” she announced, coming back to my room. “He is coming right oyt, and think of i, Helga—he saya*he has good news! Something about John!” I should have to face Tom now Probably—Tom in the role of rescuer and with the thought of that other thing in the back of my brain, I wanted to believe in him, but I couldn't as things stood. Should I tell him what I heard Grace say be hind the closed door of his private office, or should I let the thing drag on? (To Be Continued) the dandiest vase made so it looked Just like a tree trunk! Ben stood on the corner of Main Street and Washington Avenue. The roar of the city began to frighten her, There were five automobiles on the street all at the same time— and one of ‘em was a great big car that must of cost two thousand dol- lare—and the ‘bus was starting for a train with five elegant-dressed fel- lows, and a man’ was pasting up red bills with lovely pictures of washing machines on them, and the jeweler was laying out bracelets and wrist watches and everything on real veh vet. . ‘What did she care if she got six six dollars a Week? Or two! It was worth while working for noth= ing, to be allowed to stay here. And think how it would be in the even- ing, all lighted up—and not with no lamps, but with electrics! And may- be a gentleman friend taking you to the movies and buying you a straw. berry tee cream soda! Bea trudged back. i “Vell? You lak it? saff Tina” “Ya. Ay lak it, Ay tink maybe, Ay stay here,” said Bea, ‘ (Continued Mond Roy: