Main Street (Barnes & Noble Classics Ser - Sinclair Lewis [236]
“I’ll sit back with Ethel,” she said, at the car.
It was the first time she had called Mrs. Clark by her given name; the first time she had willingly sat back, a woman of Main Street.
“I’m hungry. It’s good to be hungry,” she reflected, as they drove away.
She looked across the silent fields to the west. She was conscious of an unbroken sweep of land to the Rockies, to Alaska; a dominion which will rise to unexampled greatness when other empires have grown senile. Before that time, she knew, a hundred generations of Carols will aspire and go down in tragedy devoid of palls and solemn chanting, the humdrum inevitable tragedy of struggle against inertia.
“Let’s all go to the movies tomorrow night. Awfully exciting film,” said Ethel Clark.
“Well, I was going to read a new book but All right, let’s go,” said Carol.
VIII
“They’re too much for me,” Carol sighed to Kennicott. “I’ve been thinking about getting up an annual Community Day, when the whole town would forget feuds and go out and have sports and a picnic and a dance. But Bert Tybee (why did you ever elect him mayor?)—he’s kidnapped my idea. He wants the Community Day, but he wants to have some politician ‘give an address.’ That’s just the stilted sort of thing I’ve tried to avoid. He asked Vida, and of course she agreed with him.”
Kennicott considered the matter while he wound the clock and they tramped up-stairs.
“Yes, it would jar you to have Bert butting in,” he said amiably. “Are you going to do much fussing over this Community stunt? Don’t you ever get tired of fretting and stewing and experimenting?”
“I haven’t even started. Look!” She led him to the nursery door, pointed at the fuzzy brown head of her daughter. “Do you see that object on the pillow? Do you know what it is? It’s a bomb to blow up smugness. If you Tories were wise, you wouldn’t arrest anarchists; you’d arrest all these children while they’re asleep in their cribs. Think what that baby will see and meddle with before she dies in the year 2000! She may see an industrial union of the whole world, she may see aeroplanes going to Mars.”
“Yump, probably be changes all right,” yawned Kennicott.
She sat on the edge of his bed while he hunted through his bureau for a collar which ought to be there and persistently wasn’t.
“I’ll go on, always. And I am happy. But this Community Day makes me see how thoroughly I’m beaten.”
“That darn collar certainly is gone for keeps,” muttered Kennicott and, louder, “Yes, I guess you———I didn’t quite catch what you said, dear.”
She patted his pillows, turned down his sheets, as she reflected:
“But I have won in this: I’ve never excused my failures by sneering at my aspirations, by pretending to have gone beyond them. I do not admit that Main Street is as beautiful as it should be! I do not admit that Gopher Prairie is greater or more generous than Europe! I do not admit that dish-washing is enough to satisfy all women! I may not have fought the good fight, but I have kept the faith.”
“Sure. You bet you have,” said Kennicott. “Well, good night. Sort of feels to me like it might snow tomorrow. Have to be thinking about putting up the storm-windows pretty soon. Say, did you notice whether the girl put that screwdriver back?”
ENDNOTES
1 (p. 6) the University Settlement: The first settlement house in America, the University Settlement was established in 1886 by Stanton Coit and originally named the Neighborhood Guild. The settlement movement was at the cutting edge of social reform for decades, and it continues, in a modified form, today. Its purpose was to improve living conditions in city slums and help the “settlement” of new immigrants through various services, including adult education and Americanization classes, trade and vocational training, provisions for the schooling of children, and public health programs.
2 (p. 71) Sir Thomas Browne, Thoreau, Agnes Repplier, Arthur Symons, Claude Wasbburn, Charles Flandrau: Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682) was an English physician, scholar, and writer, and author of Religio Medici (1643) and Vulgar Errors (1646). Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) was an American writer, mystic, and transcendentalist, and author of Walden, or Life in the Woods (1854). Agnes Repplier (1858-1950) was a Philadelphia author and essayist. Arthur Symons (1865-1945) was an English poet and influential critic, and author of The Symbolist Movement in Literature (1899). Claude Washburn (1883-1926) was a Minnesota writer and friend of Sinclair Lewis, and author of the novel Gerald Northrop (1914). Charles Flandrau (1871-1938) was a witty Minnesota author and journalist, and author of The Diary of a Freshman (1901) and Viva Mexico (1908).