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

AIN STR Tlie Story of Carol Kennicott EET RY SINCLAIR LEWIS Copyright, 1920, Harcourt, Brace & Howe, Inc. (Starts on Page Six) ether platter—stho medium.sixed kitehen. black ayellow iron sink, drainboard — with ‘of disc wood which Jong scrubbing were as softy thread, warped table m stove bravely blackened by but an abomination in its] doors and broken drafts and that never would keep an even damp 3 b itioned, iy this ‘stupid.’ had done her best by the ; painted ft white, put up replaced a six-year-old cal a color print. She had for tiling, and a kerosene for summer cooking, but nm! matt always postponed these ex was better acquainted with the in the kitchen than with Sherwin or Guy Pollock. The . whose soft gray metal was twisted from some nt effort to pry open a win jm, was more pertinent to her than the cathedrals in Europe; and fignificant than the futur of was the never-settied weekly as to whether the small knife with the Unpainted or the second-best buckhorn ife was better for cutting ‘wp cold chicken for Sunday supper. 1 was ignored by the males till } Her husband calied, “Sup- ‘we could have some eats, Car- As she passed through the the men smiled on her, les. None of them noticed while she was serving the crack and cheese and sardines and ‘They were determining the paychology of Dave Dyer in| pat, two hours before. You're mal woh with these ks and all avno' You've fussed so fool novels and| thie highbrow junk You like to argue!" | It ended, a quarter of an hour | later, in his calling her a “neurotic” | before he turned away and pretended | to sleep. j For the first time they had failed | to make peace | There are two races of people, | only two, and they live side by side. His calls mine ‘neurotic’; mine calle We'll never understand each other, never; and it's madness | for us to debate-—to lle together in a hot bed in a creepy room-—-enemies, | yoked." | be mt It clarified in her the longing for ja place of her own. | “While it's so hot, 1 thin? 10 sleep | the spare room,” she said next| | He was cheer in day. | “Not a bad idea,” ful and kindly. | The room was filled with a lum. | bering double bed and a cheap pine | bureau, She stored the bed in the attic; replaced it by a cot whic with a denim cover, made a couch | by day: put in @ dreswing-table, a rocker transformed by a cretonne cover; had Miles Bijornstam build book-shelves. Kennicott slowly understood that she meant to keep up her seclusion In his queries, “Changing the whole room?* “Putting your books in | there?" she caught his dismay, But |it was so easy, ones her door was losed, to shut out his worry, That! hurt—the ease of forgetting him. Aunt Bessie Smail sleuthed out | this anarchy. She yammered, “Why, | Carrie, you ain't going to sleep all| alone by yourself? 1 don't believe in that. Married folks should have the same room, of course! Don't go | getting silly notions. No telling what they were gone she said to . “Your friends have the) a thing like that might lead to. of a barroom, They expect | wait on them like a servan’ not so much interested in they would be in a waiter, be they don't have to tip me. ely! Well, good night.” rarely did she nag in this pett: ther fashion that he was a rather than angry. “He: it What's the idea? "t get you. there isn't a finer bunch of good fellows anywhere than the crowd that were here to- stood In the lower hall. sacl too shocked to go on with his of locking the front door and | ig his watch and the clock. an! I'm sick of him! She | nothing in particular. Carrie. he's one of the big- men In the country! Boston eats out of his hand wonder if it does? but that in Boston, people, he may, be regarded | pan absolute lout? The way he ‘women ‘Sister, and the way Wook here! That! do! Of tired, and try- your peeve on me. same, I won't stand jumping on Peree. You—— Just lik ‘war—so darn afraid that America ‘will become militaristic——” | \ “But you are the pure patriot?” “By God, I am!" a “Yes, I heard you talking to Sam tonight about ways of avoid-/ He had recoverea enough to lock _ the door; he clumped upstairs ahead | ot her growling. “You don't know | what you're talking about. I'm per- feetly willing to pay my full tax— fact, I'm in favor of the income tax | "seven tho I do think it's a pen- alty on frugality and enterprise— fact, it's an unjust, darn-fool tax. But just the same. I'll pay it. Only, I’m not idiot enough to pay more than the'government makes me pay. | Sam and I were just figuring | all automobile expenses to be exemptions. I'll take off you, Carrie, but I don’t ose for one second to stand your 1 I'm not patriotic. You know Imighty well and good that I've tried 'to get away and join the army. And ‘at the beginning of the whole fracas 1 said—I've saéd right along—that ‘We ought to have entered the war he minute Germany invaded Bel- 4 You don’t get me at a’ can't appreciate a man’s be You work. IT must say | upstairs, and found the suave The boys—— Bar-| ‘? Why Perce Bresnahan was | How do we} ie your attitude toward) Suppose I up and tld your Unele Whit that I wanted a room-of my own!” Carol spoke of recipes for corn. pudding. But from Mrs. Dr. Westlake ehe! drew encouragement. She had made an afternoon call on Mra, Westlake. She was for the first time invited od woman sewing in a white and ma- hogany room with a small bed. “Oh, do you have your own royal | apartments, and the doctor his?” Carol hinted. “Indeed I do! The doctor enys it's bad enough to have to have to stand | my temper at meals, Do" Mra.| Westlake looked at her sharply. ‘Why don't you do the same thing?” “I've been thinking about it.*| | Carol laughed in an embarrassed | way, “Then you wouldn't regard me | 28 @ complete hussy if I wanted to he by myself now and then?” “Why, child. every woman ought to get off by herself and turn over her thoughis—about children. and God, and how bad her complexion is, and the way men don't really under. stand her, and how much she finds to do in the house, and how much patience it takes to endure some things in a man's love. “Yes? Carol said it in a gasp, her hands twisted together. She want to confess not only her hatred | the Aunt Bessies but her covert irrt j tation toward those she beat loved: her alienation from Kennicett, her disappointment in Guy Pollock, her uneasiness in the presence of Vida. She had enough self-control to con- fine herself to, “Ye Men! The dear blundering souls, we do have to get off and laugh at jhem.” “Of course we do, Not that you |have to laugh at Dr. Kennicott so much, but my man, heavens, now there's a rare old bird! Reading story-books when he ought to be tending to business! “Marcus West- lake,’ I say to him, ‘you're a roman- tle old fool,’ And does he get angry? | He does not! He chuckles and says, "Yes, my beloved, folks do say that married people grow to tesemble each other! Drat him!’ Mrs. Westlake laughed comfortably. | After such a disclowure what could | Carol do but return the courtesy by \remarking that as for Kennicott, he! | Wasn't romantic enough—the darling | Before she left she had babbied to | Mrs. Westlake her dislike for Aunt Bessie, the fact that Kennicott's in- come was now more than five thou | sand a year, her view of the reason |why Vida married Raymie (which }included some thoroughly insincere praise of Raymie'’s “kind heart”), her OFFICIAL. Scone > FouR Ty QUARTER FRECKLES FRENDS 28 ELM ST. N6ERS 28 optmon of, the lbrary-board, just | what Kennicott had said about Mrs. | Carthal’s diabetes, and what Kenni- | cott thought of the several surgeons | in the Cities j She went home soothed by con tension, inspired by finding a new | friend. a Iv ‘The tragicomedy of the “domestic | situation.” j Oxcarina went back home to help on the farm, and Carol had a @ucces- sion of maids, with gaps betwee The lack of servants was becoming one of the most cramping problems | of the prairie town. Increasingly the | farmers’ daughters rebelled against village dullness, and against the un: | changed attitude of the Juanitas toward “hired girls." They went off | t0 city kitchens, or to city shops and | factories, that they mifht be free and | even human after hours The Jolly Seventeen were delighted at Carol's desertion by the loyal O» carina, They reminded her that she had said, “I don’t have any trouble SIGNULS ! BIGNTYONE - FouR— XY Z = ZIDPO-NINE - EVERETT TRUE Final Score: HEY, CETS TAKE YouR Pa, ie with maids; see how’ Oscarina stays / on. Between incumbencles of Finn maids from the North Woods, Ger-| mana from the prairies, occasional | Swedes and Norwegians and Iceland. | ers, Carol did her own work—and/ endured Aunt Beasie’s skittering in to tell her how to dampen a broom for Qufty dust. how to sugar dough- nuts, how to stuff a goose, Carol was deft, and won shy praise from Kennicott, but a» her shoulder blades began to sting, she wondered how many millions of women had lied to themselves during the death-rimmed years through whichthey had pre tended to enjoy the puerile methods persisting in housework She doubted the conveniences and, as a natural sequest, the sanctity of | the monogamous and separate home which she had regarded as the basis of all decent lite. She considered her doubts vicious. She refused to remember how nmany of the women of the Jolly Seventeen nagged their husbands and were! nagged by them. She energetically did not whine to! Kennicott. But her eyes ached: she was not the girl in breeches and a/ annel shirt who had cooked over a camp-fire in the Colorado moun- tains five years ago. Her ambition was to get to bed at nine: her strong: est emotion was resentment over | rising at half-past six to care for Hugh. The back of her neck ached ap she got out of bed. She was cyni- a) about the joys of a simple labor ious life. She understood why work- men and workmen's wives are not! grateful to their kind employers, At mid-morning, when she was mo mentarily free from the ache in her neck and back, she was glad of the reality of work. The hours were living and nimble. But she had no desire to read the eloquent little) newspaper essays in praise of labor | ADVENTURES OF THE. TWINS THE “That's where the entrance is” "Yes," said the kind old Magical ihroom, “the ‘Land of Under- ith’ where we are going is to be id under the dogwood tree. Thats re the entrance is. I'll take you Mr. Pim Pim, ebildren, and then I i have to leave you for I have iil sorts of work to do for the Fairy fen im her Nine Hundred and ety-Nine Kingdoms,” “Under the doz-wood tree!’ cried t "Oh, we've been there be- Don't you remember when you us to the Brownies’ ball? Kip there. 1 thought that Kip was King of the Brownies. “Yes,” nodded the mushroom goher- “That's the very same place 4 Kip was there! The trouble is it Kip may still be there. You see p has always been jealous of Mr. Pim, because Kip was King of Brownies until Pim Pirn came. Kip was always getting the ies into trouble and making so tricky that, my goodness; (Copyright, 1921, by Seattle Star) |member where L put my pipe? Lot fact, though, 1 don’t want @ place|you think,” START f ;Sracious alive, they got to be almost as bad as the gnomes! So the Fairy (Queen sent Pim Pim to govern the Brownies and to keep Kip in order as well, just like our president sends | |@ governor to rule over people who can’t take care of themselves.” The Twins were listening care-| fully. ‘Chen I suppose that every |thing Mr. Pim Pim does, Kip tries to keep him from doing. Is that it?” asked Nancy. “Exactly,” said the Mushroom. “That's just it, my dear. And when |the message came from the Fairy |Queen about getting the shiny dyes |for the Christmas things, didn't Kip | go and tattle it to the gnomes right away, Now there's a fine song and | dance | “We'll have to go at once,” said Nick, starting off toward the dog- wood tree, “Mr. Pim Pim may be [needing help right at this minute™ (To Be Continued) | distorting mirror. which are daily written by the white- browed journalistic prophets. She felt independent and (though she hid it) @ bit surly. In cleaning the house she dered upon the maid's room. It was a Slant-roofed, smali-windowed hole above the kitchen, oppressive in sum: | mer, frigid in winter, She saw that while she had been considering her self an unusually good mistress, she had been permitting her friends Bea and Oscarina to live in a sty. She complained to Kennicott, “What's the matter with it?" he growled, as they etood on the perilous stairs! dodging up from the kitchen. She commented upon the sloping roof of unplastered boards stained in brown rings by the rain, the uneven floor, the cot and its tumbled, discouraged looking quilts, the broken rocker, the | pon- “Maybe it ain't any Hotel Radis- son parlor, but still, it’s 60 much better than anything these hired girls are accustomed to at | home that they think It’s fine, Seems fool- ish to spend money when they wouldn't appreciate it.” But that night he drawled, with the casualness of a man who wishes to be surprising and delightful, “Car- rie, don't know but what we might begin to think about building a new house, one of these days. How'd you like that?” “W-why— / “I'm getting to the point now where I feel we can afford one—and a corker! I'll show thi# burg some- thing like a real house! We'll p one over on Sam and Harry! Make folks sit up an’ take notice’ “Yes,” she said. He did not go on. Daily he returned to the subject of the new house, but as to time and mode he was indefinite, At first she believed. She babbled of a low stone house with lattice windows and tulip- beds, of colonial brick, of a white frame cottage with green shutters and dormer windows. To her en thusiasms he answered, “Well, yees, might be worth thinking about, { A_MINUTG, EveRaTT, X WANT To SaG CET ME Save You THe TRouBce of READ- ina tr! MANNERS rT SANS * * ar By Ma Page FORTY YE. If you have never been inside | the County-City building, you have no idea what an awesome place it ts. Daddy walked along, clicking his heels on the marble floor ex actly as if he were on a common sidewalk, and David walked be side him, apparently not even noticing how loud a noise the steel things on the heels of his school shoes made. But Pegesy was tripping as lightly as she could, even tho one could scarcely hear her soft litle skuffer soles, but Peggy's heart was beating «a loud tattoo and) Peggy was scared. Up in the elevator they went! and Peggy didn’t know there were so many men in the world as| smarmed in and out of the doors | of thove elevators. | Then all at once daddy was | saying, “Mr. Jones is looking for | them, I will be back for them | after a bit,” and they were going | down more clickity corridors till | they found themselves at last | shut in all safe and cosy with | their very own Mr, Hilman Jones | whom they had known for years | and years at pioneer meetings. | tt ,) When she preswed him he fidgeted, “I don’t know; seems to me thowe kind | of houses you speak of have been overdone.” | It proved that what he wanted was | a’ house exactly lke Sam Clark's, | which was exactly like every third new house in every town in the country; a square, yellow stolidity | with immaculate clapboards, a broad | wereened porch, tidy grass-plots, and | concrete walks; a house resembling the mind of a merchant who votes the party ticket straight and goes to church once a month and owns a good car. He admitted, “Well, yes, maybe it | be ;7 “IF You HAVG ANY yPON'T UGAvG THOM Avr Grate * * Sd 1 Cleland» = 529 BS AGO And Mr. Jones, who was always kindly and gentle, was smiling down at them across a desk all covered with pioneer pictures and manuscripts, and was saying: “A story about Thanksgiving in the early days in Seattle? Why, I haven't a really honest-to-good- ness turkeyandeverything panksgiving story. Nothing special, I mean, We celebrated all the holidays in pioneer times and we had such plenty of every- thing that—I don't recall any special day. “Yes, I do, too, recall a trip just before Thanksgiving day, just 40 years ago this fall, “Bob Russell, Crow and I start- ed out in our boat on a hunting trip four or five days before Thanksgiving. We were going around Alki Point to Salmon Creek, a favorite spot of ours for deer hunting. We had three dogs with us, hounds, ‘and we expected to bring home a nice lot of game for Thanksgiving. “As we got out of the bay, a cold wind sprang up and by the time we rounded Alki Point it looked as if winter had gumped at us full grown, Sleet and snow and the strong, bitter, cold wind, waves dashing and the sea roar. ing—it was all we could do to keep our little craft right side up and headed straight.” (To Be Continued) just like Sam's. Maybe I would cut off that fool tower he's got, and I think probably It would look better painted a nice cream color, ‘That yellow on Sam's house is» too kind of flashy. Ther there's another kind of house that's mighty nice and sub- stantiablooking, with shingles, in a nice brown stain, instead of clap. boards—seen some in Minneapolis, You're way off your base when you say 1 only like one kind of house!" Uncle Whittler and Aunt Begsie came in one evening when Carol was sleepily advocating a rose-garden cet- tage. “You've had a lot of experience Re. | isn't so darn artistic but-——- Matter | with housekeeping, aunty, and don’t tt appealed, { it be that I was the girl who had) 34 to 28 IMPATIENT = MRS. HOOPLE SAYS DINNER NTH OVEN SINCE TEN > TLL BET IT WAS HATCHED IN AN EGG LEATHER WITH A SHELL! PAGE 11 BY ALLMAN 7 If seucupown “HAT MEANS Rs} | WELL Be EAT LEFT OVERS FoR A WEEK! “Tender little hands! Cissy mur- mured as I placed wet cotton on his [bruised forehead, “May, I've never |had much tenderness from a) woman,” “Your mother? I reminded him. | “There are mothers—and moth- ers! Cissy sighed, “Mine wasn't much like your Motherdear. Mine wasn’t especiaily fond of her chil- dren.”* "I soe,” said I, but I really did} not understand how any woman with children could be unlike my own sympathetic and self-sacrificing | Motherdear. } Very suddenly Cissy grew. senti- mental: “I'm not fit to make love to you, | May! But girl, how I need you!) Can't you see for yourself how I've come slong since I've been acting! with you?" My heart stopped beating! Could | reformed Cissy Sheldon? “I'm so glad if I've helped, Cyrus?” | The boy never liked to have me use his nickname. “Then keep en | Marry me!" 1 didn’t reply. helpfhg me! I seemed to be act- (Copyright, 1921, Seattle Star) ing a part. I stood outside the frame and saw Cissy proposing ta me in, a picture. J did not forget myself for one second. And I felt affected and unreal, But Cissy was serious enough to be convineing. “They say, in the company, that you don't know what love is, May. 1 wouldn't demand what you couldn't give, litte girl, That sounds queer, 1 know. But I'd like the chance of taking care of you, May! You ought to have a husband, I've been think- ing about ft ever since that night you went off to dinner with Rose.” “Cissy, what's a frame-up?" I asked impulsively, forgetting that the poor boy was laying his heart at my feet “Nothing I could make you under- stand. ‘What you've asked simply proves you ought to marry me. Now —are you going to listen to me? Marry me. Give me the tenderness I need and I.won't ask more. I need you—and you certainly need me or a man as strong as I, Nobody —no man—is fit for you, dear!’ “But Cissy! I'm taking care of you now! Why can't I again, with- out marrying you?" Confessions of a Movie Star . CHAPTER XIX—CISSY SHELDON PROPOSES TO ME “May Scott! Have you heard what lrve been saying? Oh—oh—HECK! The studio crowd ts right—you do_ NOT know anything about love! I'm — sorry I annoyed you, dear, But the words just came. I knew I hadn't - a chance!” : His smile registered hopelessness, — I felt awfully sorry. If loving hurts people so, why are they so anxious to fall in love? So I wondered. As soon as T reached home, I told Motherdear what Cissy had said, “I'm ashamed, Motherdear! I'm ashamed to confess that I almost giggled! And Cissy was so much in fflicts many a girl when first a man makes loye.”* “It seemed to me that we were acting,” I continued. “I saw myselt, and Cissy, working on a set, all the time he talked. But I learned—from the experience.” “what?” “I think T never, never can fall In love with any man!’ I announced positively to a very astonished Motherdear. (To Be Continued) “that it would be sensible to have a nice square house, and pay more at- tention to getting a crackajack fur nace than to all this architecture and doodads?”" Hi Aunt Bessie worked her lips as/| though they were an elastic band. “Why of course! I know how it-is with young folks like you, Carrie; you want towers and bay-windows and pianos and heaven knows what all, but the thing to get is closets jand a good furnace and a handy | place to hang out the washing, and the rest don’t matter.” Uncle Whittier dribbled a little, put his face near to Carol’e and sput- tered, “Course it don’t! What 4 care what folks think about the out: side of your house? It’s the inside you're living in, None of my busi- negs, but T must say you young folks that'd rather have cakes than pota- toes get me riled.” She reached her room before she became savage: Below, dreadfully near, she could hear the broom-swish of Aunt Bessic’s voice, and the mop- pounding of Uncle Whittier's grum- bie; She had a reasontess dread that they would intrude on her, then | a fear that she would yielfl to Gopher | Prairie’s conception of duty toward | an Aunt Bessie and go down-stairs | to be “nice.” She felt the demand} for standardized behavior coming in waves from the citixens who sat in | their sittingrooms watching her with respectable eyes, waiting, de- manding, unyielding. She ‘snarled, “Oh, all right, I'll go!” She pow- dered her rose, straightened ‘her col- lar, and coldly marched dowWh-stairs The three elders ignored her. They had advanced from the new house to agreeable general fussing. Aunt Bessie was saying, in a tone like the munching of dry toast: “1 do think Mr, Stowbody ought to have had the rain-pipe fixed at our store right away. I went to see him jon Tuesday morning about ten, no, jit was couple minutes after ten, but anyway, it was long before noon — |I know because I went right from lthe bank to the meat market to get |some steak—my! I think it’s out. |rageous, the prices Oleson & Mo- | Guire charge for their meat, and it |isn't as if they gave you a good cut leither, but just any old thing, and T had time to get it, and I stopped in at Mrs, Bogart’s to ask about her rheumatism——" (Continued Tomorrow) } | Whichever you choose it will be the BEST you ever tasted. "SALAD A” BLACK TEA Rich, Sat Flavense Fron the finest GREEN TEA A Revelation ta Groce Tea. aad ee