The Seattle Star Newspaper, October 24, 1921, Page 11

wer MAIN STREET The Story of Carol Kennicott BY SINCLA! im LEWIS Copyright, 1920, Harcourt, Brace & Howe, Inc. SYNOPSIS OF orm © She is determ’ th RNTA graduated from a nin tite ts position in NENG INSTA dt that t, 8h in the late thirtios Bnd 9 physictan ey ure married, and Kennicott taker When she seem the town, she ts terrified at the Care) finds SORENSON, the daughter of To her tt seems lively and th jeckdes to make the bes finds It Gull And hopeless according t Kennicott's home mid-Victorian and She explores Main street Att \ h farmer, Is exploring Main as ) Ata party at the home of / BAM CLARK, hardware dealer, Caro! meets tho amart set of Gopher 8 ihe i Bored by their dull conversation a! fhe pecurce & ma RA “ga admirer of poetry and 4 MYIDA SHERWIN, 2 teach tows, Vida ini tha Y POLLOCK, the portic @iscovers & personality From Saturday) roar the Prairie was digging in for Thru late November and it snowed daily; the © was at sero and might 20 below, or 30. Winter season in the North Middle is an industry. Storm sheds ‘erected at every door, In every the householders, Sam Clark, y Mr. Dawson, all save Bara Stowbody who ex- . argh YMIE WUTHERSPOON, shoe malcaman at the Bon Ton store, and rol must meet bachelor lawyer of the town. | had not only made More evident the nels party “stunte.’ @ thelr meals antil eo Carol finds a friend in. high school, They plan to beautify In Pollock of the Northern plains that they rediscovered with surprise and a feel: ing of heroism this armor of an) Artic explorer. Winter garments surpassed even waonal gossip as the tople at par. a It was good form to ask, “Put on your heavies yet?’ There were as many djstinctions in wraps as in motor cars. The lesser sort appeared in yellow and black dogskin coats, | but Kennicott is lordly in a long raccoon ulster and a new seal cap. When the snow was too deep for his motor he went off on country calla in a shiny, floral, steel-tipped | utter, only his ruddy nose and his cigar emerging from the fur. Carol herself stirred Main Street by @ loose coat of nutria. Her finger tipa loved the silken fur. Her liveliest activity now was or- Banizing outdoor sports in the mo tor-paralyzed town. ¢ The automobile and bridge whist social divisions in Gopher Prairie Pets cities gz i 3 3 5 . y e . rh a id) at i & 35 i i 5 3 4 -} E EI a *shet i | FHL i? i a | 5 | F i e ij 3] $ if g H F} i 1 | i “Some queer creat meio, Blowy Batloon-Fish?” call- gt the sea-gulis to the funny look- that the Twins were follow- or whatever they were. Out for an airing?’ and no,” answered Blowy, below, where two golden ‘Were gazing up at him from . “Some queer creatures me. Never saw anything before. Thought I knew people, but these ones. They've got arms Mefish and they’ve got bar- of their heads, yellow and ¥ can see for yourselves, Wo of their swimmers have Breen an Lop Lobater’s ” and Nick latighed at 78 description of themselves. Te trae! Poo- | THOUGHT II] THAT'S THE MosT WHAT DADDY BRoueHt | You MAD Save You - GUESS You CAN HAVE SOME. FUN WITH THAT TH buck saws wore cherry-red, tne] nd the fresh cut sticks—poplar, maple, | were marked with engraved rings of growth. The boys wore shoe packs, blue flanne! shirts with, enormous pearl ‘buttons, and} mackinaws of crimson, lemon.yellow, | , | and foxy brown. Carol cried “Fine day™ to the boys: she came in a glow to How: land & Gould's grocery, her collar CGE @ wk af Goldtone _jahe bought a can of tomatoes as tho it were Orient fruit; and re turned home planning to surprise Kennicott with an omelet for dinner. 6o brilliant was the snow-glare "| that when she entered the house she saw the door knobs, the newspaper “jon the table, every white surface as < i | i ul Af rH ae i i fi : He \ ip i Hy] He] i eF iter § : F $2F HTS het ot | Hi Beg: Hb; i He “i ‘ures are after me” flew right thru the air after Mr. Blowy Balloon-Fish, gossiping high above the water with his friends the eee gulls. “Look! Look? cried Blowy when he saw them coming. “Didn't I tell you they were queer! Whoever saw Wigglefin people flying?” “But you're flying, aren't you?" called Nick. “And aren't you a Wig- giefin person?” “I'm sort of half ‘n’ half,” sald Blowy proudly. “You might say fifty-fifty.. But there aren't many like me, The. flying-fish are my cousins and we're the only ones who can swim fly, too. And now will you tell me why you are following me?" “We thought you were the Fairy Queen's bag of gold,” answered Nancy. “Please, sir, what are you filled with?” “Wind!” answered Blowy, getting on, Nick,” whispered Nancy, Ourselves after him and suddenly thinner and sinking toward the waves, And suddenly flattening, he disappeared from view, (To Be Cotinued) In the mid-afternoon of thts same @ay Kennicott was called into the country. It was Bea's evening out— her evening for the Latheran love stories In the magnzines mt by « radiator, beginning to Thus she chanced to discover that she had nothing to do, an She had, she meditated, passed thru the novelty of seeing the town and meeting people, of skating and sliding and hunting. Bea was com- petent; there was no household laber except sewing and darning and gos sipy assistance to Bea in bed mak- “jing. She couldn't satisfy her in- genuity In planning meals. At Dah! & Oleson’s meat market you didn't give orders. You wofully inquired whether there was anything today besides steak and pork and ham. cuts of beef were not cuts. They we hacks. Lamb chops were as exotic as sharks’ fins. The meat Gealers shipped their best t@ the city, with ite higher prices. In all the shops there was the same lack of choice. She could not find a giaseheaded picture nail ‘in town; she did not hunt for the sort of veiling she wanted—«he took what she could get; and only at Howland & Gould's was there such ® luxury 94 canned Asparagus, Rou- tine care was all she could devote to the house. Only by such fussing as the Widow Bogurt’s could she make it fill her time. She could not outside em ployment. To the village doctor's ‘wife it was taboo, She was a woman with a working brain and no work. ‘There was only three things which whe could do; Have children; start her career of reforming; or be- come so definitely a part of the town that she would be fulfilled by the activities of church and study club and bridge parties. Children, yes she wanted them, but— She wae not quite ready. She had been embarrassed by Kenni- cott’s frankness, but she agreed with him that in the insane condition of ctvilization which made the rearing of children more costly and perilous than any other crime, ft waa in- advisable to have children till he had made more money. She was sorry— Perhaps he had made all the mystery of love a mechanical cautiounness but— She fled from the thought with a dubious, “Some day.” Her “reforms,” her impulses to- ward beauty In raw Main Street, they had become indistinct. But she would set them golne now. She wonld! fhe swore It with soft fist beating the edres of the radiator, And at the end of all her vows she had no notion as to when and where the crusade was to berin. Become an authentic part of the town? She began to think with un- pleasant lucidity. She reflected that she did not know whether the people ikea her, She had gone to the wom- en at afternoon coffees, to the mer chants in their stores, with so many outpouring comments and whimsies that she hadn’t given them a chance to betray their opinions of her, The men smiled—but did they like her? She was lively among the women— but was she one of them? She could not recall many times when she had been admitted to the whispering of seande! which is the secret chamber of Gopher Prairie conversation. She was poisoned with doubt, as she drooped up to hed. Next day, thru her shopping, her mind sat back and observed. Dave Dyer and Sam Clark were as cordial ag she had been fancying: but wasn’t there an impersonal abruptness in the “H’ are yuh?" of Chet Dash. EVERETT TRUE HEADLIGHTS RIDICULOUS THING | EVER HEARD oF! THAT me tou STOPPED ne Por t “A POCKETFULL OF ROCKS”’ “Daddy,” sajd David one day when he had been with his father to the bank, “in the very, very early days out here when there weren't any stores, there weren't any banks either, were there? I don't see where men deposited their money or got checks cashed or anything.” David knew a great deal abo banks since he started his own account in the savings bank. “That is one of the troublesome things to manage in a new coun- try, son,” he said. “You know, whenever a group of human beings get together there has to be some sort of leader, nome sort of organization. Schools hay principals with teachers under them, nations have kings and presidents and emperors, states have governors, and even baseball nines and foot- ball elevens have captains. If men do things they have to get together and select a leader and decide what they want to do. “You remémber how things were in old Oregon when the first settlers came, Dr. McLoughlin was chief factor at Fort Vancou- ver, and was managing every- thing wonderfully for the big Hudson's Bay fur trading post. “He whs just and kind to the settlers from the Eastern and Middle Western part of the United States when they came, but by the timé 75 or 100 Americans had taken up claims, they began to feel the. need of American gov- ernment out on this West coast. “Bo they all got together in 1843 and made @ ‘provisional gov- ernment,’ eo that there could be fome sort of law and order in the Rew country, and so that the Americans would be able to stand together as Americans and not under the rule of even so kind an Englishman as Dr. McLoughlin. Now, every country has its own coin, you know, son.” “Yes, daddy,” David hastened to display his knowledge, “I have Canadian coins and Chinese and one Greek one, and—"* “All right, son; you see found that trading furs for gins, and powder and bullets for food, and things like that wouldn't do, and still there was no mint to make money ‘and no suitable metal for smal coins, so they were having quite a lot of trouble about it when an idea oc- curred to the man who was made first governor for the ‘provisional government.’ ” (To Be Continued) caenk panenssecennssnnenenereneanmenareneananennnsesene tos ols Saeed awayt Howland the grocer was curt, Was that merely his usta) manner? “It’s infuriating to have to pay. attention to what people think. In St. Paul I didn’t care, But here I'm spied on, They're watching me. I mustn't let it make me self-con- scious,” she coaxed herself—over stimulated by the drug of thought, and offensively on the defensive, ™) * A thaw which stripped the snow from the sidewalks: a ringing iron 7 night when the lakes could be heard booming; a clear roistering morning. In tam o’shanter and tweed skirt Carol felt herself a college junior going out to play hockey. Bhe wanted to whoop, her legs ached to run, On the way home from shop- ping she yielded, as a pup would have yielded, She galloped down a block and as she jumped from a curb across a welter of slush, she gave a student “Yippee!” She saw that in a window three old women were gaspings Their WHEN A WOMAN’ TELLS By RUTH AGNES ABELING PAGE 11 BY ALLMAN TAKE YouR OLD HOT STUFF AND PUT IT AWAY ~ THIS CHILD WET AND IS 1S SOAKING LIABLE TO BE SICK ON MY HANDS! WELL, CADDY THAT ONG You WERE WHISTLING OUT INTHE BACK YARD SASS EFFIE CHURCH AND MISS HERZOG . DISCUSS THE MODERN FLAPPER === (Copyright 1921 by Seattle Star) CHAPTER LXIX—PHILIP AMES KILLS HIMSELF When I opened my eyes in the robbed of its romance, shorn of its Mrs. Ames didn't send for me at all in the morning. She was giving all her attention to Mr. Ames. As I went to her half-open door to in- quire about him, I heard her talking to him, telling him the thousand and’! |one things he had so needed to hear jin the weeks before. Late that afternoon I went out to the little summer house and there, sitting on the bench, I tried to come to a sane point of view, I struggied vainly with myself, telling myself that the loss of one man could not shadow my life for jong, and that there were dozens of things, besides marriage, in which ‘women found happiness. But always I came back to the same old thing-I loved Tom and I triple glare was paralyzing. Across the street, at another window, the curtain: had pecretively moved, She stopped, walked on sédately, changed from the girl Carol into Mra. Dr. Kennicott, She never again felt quite young enough and defiant enough and free enough to run and halloo in the pub- Uc streets; and it was as a Nice Mar- ried Woman that she attended the next weekly bridge of the Jolly Sev- enteen. av) e ‘The Jolly Seventeen (the member. ship of which ranged from 14 to 26) was the social cornice of Gopher Prairie, It was the country club, the diplomatic set, the St. Cecilia, the Ritz oval room, the Club de Vingt. To belong to it was to be “in.” Tho its membership partly co- incided with that of the Thanatopsis study club, the Jolly Seventeen as a separate entity guffawed at the ‘Thanatopsis, and considered it mid- die-class and even “highbrow.” Most of the Jolly Seventeen were young married women, with their husbands as associate . members. Once a week they had a women’ afternoon bridge; once a month the husbands joined them for supper and evening bridge: twice a year they had dances at I. O. O. F, Hall, Then the town exploded. Only at the annual balls of the Firemen and of the Eastern Star was there such prodigality pf chiffon scarfs and tangoing heart burnings, and ‘ ‘didn’t want to go on without him. I had no family, few friends—and something had strangely come’ be tween me and love. I was almost} desperate. T looked down into tho cool, black Gepthe of the well. 1 thought of a ‘woman who had walked off of a bridge to death—and J understood! As the sun lowered and the air began to cool I started back toward the house. wasn't quite myself, 1 was chilled, for I still As I walked up the path I looked up toward’s Lila’s room. Light was slowing in the windows. I tried to imagine the difference between this these rival institutions were not ee- lect—hired girls attended the Fire- men’s Ball, witls section hands and laborers. Ella Stowbody had once gone to a Jolly Seventeen Soiree in the village hack, hitherto confined to chief mourners at funerals; and Harry Haydock and:Dr. Terry Gould always appeared in the town’s only specimens of evening clothes. The afternoon bridge of the Jolly Seventeen which followed Carol's lonely doubting was held at Juanita Haydock’s new concrete bungalow, with its door of polished oak and beveled plate glass, jar of ferns in the plastered hall, and in the living room, a fumed oak Morris chair, 16 color prints, and a aquare varnished table with a mat made of cigar: rib- bons on which was one Illustrated Gift Edition and one pack of cards in a burnt-leather case, Carol atepped into a sirocco of fur- nace heat. They were already play- ing. Despite her flabby resolves she had ‘not yet learned bridge, She was winningly apologetic about it to Juanita, and ashamed that she should have to go on being apolo- getic. ; Mrs. Dave Dyer, a sallow woman with a thin prettiness, devoted to experimenta in religious cults, _fil- nesses, and scandal-bearing, shook her finger at Carol and trilied, “You're a naughty one! .I don’t be- Neve you appreciate the honor when bsg into the Jolly Seventeen so easy’ I was a little need there was of Hfe just then. I her happiness, but in all the world wi most of needed. a1 i en eee ee ee As I stepped into the hall the tele- phone rang. . I picked up the receiver and a ‘Mrs. Chet Dashaway nudged her neighbor at the second table. But Carol kept up the appealing bridal manner so far as possible. She twit- tered, “You're perfectly right. I'm @ lazy thing. I'l! make Will start teaching me this very evening.” Her supplication had all the sound. of Dirdies in the nest, and Raster church bells, and frosted cards, In- ternally she snarled, “That ought to be saccharine enough.” She sat in the smallest rocking chair, a model of Victorian modesty. But she saw or she imagined that the women who had gurgled at her so welcomingly when she had first come to Gopher Prairie were nodding at her brusque ly. During the pause after the first game she-petitioned Mrs. VYackson Elder, “Don’t you tnmk we cught to get up another bob-sled party soon?” “It's so cold when you get dumped in the snow,” said Mrs, Hider, in- differently. ‘ “I hate snow down my neck,” vol- unteered Mrs. Dave Dyer, with an unpleasant took at Carol and, tutn- ing her back, she bubbled at Rita Simons, “Dearie, won't you run in this evening? I've got the loveliest new Butterick pattern I want to show you.” (Continued Tomorrow) Dance “Get Acquainted Night,” Tues, at Bright's, 1604 4th—{Adv.) »