Babbit (4 page)

  Timidly from Mrs. Babbitt: "I would like to see the
inside of their house though. It must be lovely. I've never been
inside."

  "Well, I have! Lots of - couple of times. To see
Chaz about business deals, in the evening. It's not so much. I
wouldn't WANT to go there to dinner with that gang of, of
high-binders. And I'll bet I make a whole lot more money than some
of those tin-horns that spend all they got on dress-suits and
haven't got a decent suit of underwear to their name! Hey! What do
you think of this!"

  Mrs. Babbitt was strangely unmoved by the tidings
from the Real Estate and Building column of the Advocate-Times:

  Ashtabula Street, 496 - J. K. Dawson to Thomas
Mullally, April 17, 15.7 X 112.2, mtg. $4000 . . . . . . . . . . .
. . Nom

  And this morning Babbitt was too disquieted to
entertain her with items from Mechanics' Liens, Mortgages Recorded,
and Contracts Awarded. He rose. As he looked at her his eyebrows
seemed shaggier than usual. Suddenly:

  "Yes, maybe - Kind of shame to not keep in touch
with folks like the McKelveys. We might try inviting them to
dinner, some evening. Oh, thunder, let's not waste our good time
thinking about 'em! Our little bunch has a lot liver times than all
those plutes. Just compare a real human like you with these
neurotic birds like Lucile McKelvey - all highbrow talk and dressed
up like a plush horse! You're a great old girl, hon.!"

  He covered his betrayal of softness with a
complaining: "Say, don't let Tinka go and eat any more of that
poison nutfudge. For Heaven's sake, try to keep her from ruining
her digestion. I tell you, most folks don't appreciate how
important it is to have a good digestion and regular habits. Be
back 'bout usual time, I guess."

  He kissed her - he didn't quite kiss her - he laid
unmoving lips against her unflushing cheek. He hurried out to the
garage, muttering: "Lord, what a family! And now Myra is going to
get pathetic on me because we don't train with this millionaire
outfit. Oh, Lord, sometimes I'd like to quit the whole game. And
the office worry and detail just as bad. And I act cranky and - I
don't mean to, but I get - So darn tired!"

  
T
o George F.
Babbitt, as to most prosperous citizens of Zenith, his motor car
was poetry and tragedy, love and heroism. The office was his pirate
ship but the car his perilous excursion ashore.

  Among the tremendous crises of each day none was
more dramatic than starting the engine. It was slow on cold
mornings; there was the long, anxious whirr of the starter; and
sometimes he had to drip ether into the cocks of the cylinders,
which was so very interesting that at lunch he would chronicle it
drop by drop, and orally calculate how much each drop had cost
him.

  This morning he was darkly prepared to find
something wrong, and he felt belittled when the mixture exploded
sweet and strong, and the car didn't even brush the door-jamb,
gouged and splintery with many bruisings by fenders, as he backed
out of the garage. He was confused. He shouted "Morning!" to Sam
Doppelbrau with more cordiality than he had intended.

  Babbitt's green and white Dutch Colonial house was
one of three in that block on Chatham Road. To the left of it was
the residence of Mr. Samuel Doppelbrau, secretary of an excellent
firm of bathroom-fixture jobbers. His was a comfortable house with
no architectural manners whatever; a large wooden box with a squat
tower, a broad porch, and glossy paint yellow as a yolk. Babbitt
disapproved of Mr. and Mrs. Doppelbrau as "Bohemian." From their
house came midnight music and obscene laughter; there were
neighborhood rumors of bootlegged whisky and fast motor rides. They
furnished Babbitt with many happy evenings of discussion, during
which he announced firmly, "I'm not strait-laced, and I don't mind
seeing a fellow throw in a drink once in a while, but when it comes
to deliberately trying to get away with a lot of hell-raising all
the while like the Doppelbraus do, it's too rich for my blood!"

  On the other side of Babbitt lived Howard
Littlefield, Ph.D., in a strictly modern house whereof the lower
part was dark red tapestry brick, with a leaded oriel, the upper
part of pale stucco like spattered clay, and the roof red-tiled.
Littlefield was the Great Scholar of the neighborhood; the
authority on everything in the world except babies, cooking, and
motors. He was a Bachelor of Arts of Blodgett College, and a Doctor
of Philosophy in economics of Yale. He was the employment-manager
and publicity-counsel of the Zenith Street Traction Company. He
could, on ten hours' notice, appear before the board of aldermen or
the state legislature and prove, absolutely, with figures all in
rows and with precedents from Poland and New Zealand, that the
street-car company loved the Public and yearned over its employees;
that all its stock was owned by Widows and Orphans; and that
whatever it desired to do would benefit property-owners by
increasing rental values, and help the poor by lowering rents. All
his acquaintances turned to Littlefield when they desired to know
the date of the battle of Saragossa, the definition of the word
"sabotage," the future of the German mark, the translation of "hinc
illae lachrimae," or the number of products of coal tar. He awed
Babbitt by confessing that he often sat up till midnight reading
the figures and footnotes in Government reports, or skimming (with
amusement at the author's mistakes) the latest volumes of
chemistry, archeology, and ichthyology.

  But Littlefield's great value was as a spiritual
example. Despite his strange learnings he was as strict a
Presbyterian and as firm a Republican as George F. Babbitt. He
confirmed the business men in the faith. Where they knew only by
passionate instinct that their system of industry and manners was
perfect, Dr. Howard Littlefield proved it to them, out of history,
economics, and the confessions of reformed radicals.

  Babbitt had a good deal of honest pride in being the
neighbor of such a savant, and in Ted's intimacy with Eunice
Littlefield. At sixteen Eunice was interested in no statistics save
those regarding the ages and salaries of motion-picture stars, but
- as Babbitt definitively put it - "she was her father's
daughter."

  The difference between a light man like Sam
Doppelbrau and a really fine character like Littlefield was
revealed in their appearances. Doppelbrau was disturbingly young
for a man of forty-eight. He wore his derby on the back of his
head, and his red face was wrinkled with meaningless laughter. But
Littlefield was old for a man of forty-two. He was tall, broad,
thick; his gold-rimmed spectacles were engulfed in the folds of his
long face; his hair was a tossed mass of greasy blackness; he
puffed and rumbled as he talked; his Phi Beta Kappa key shone
against a spotty black vest; he smelled of old pipes; he was
altogether funereal and archidiaconal; and to real-estate brokerage
and the jobbing of bathroom-fixtures he added an aroma of
sanctity.

  This morning he was in front of his house,
inspecting the grass parking between the curb and the broad cement
sidewalk. Babbitt stopped his car and leaned out to shout
"Mornin'!" Littlefield lumbered over and stood with one foot up on
the running-board.

  "Fine morning," said Babbitt, lighting - illegally
early - his second cigar of the day.

  "Yes, it's a mighty fine morning," said
Littlefield.

  "Spring coming along fast now."

  "Yes, it's real spring now, all right," said
Littlefield.

  "Still cold nights, though. Had to have a couple
blankets, on the sleeping-porch last night."

  "Yes, it wasn't any too warm last night," said
Littlefield.

  "But I don't anticipate we'll have any more real
cold weather now."

  "No, but still, there was snow at Tiflis, Montana,
yesterday," said the Scholar, "and you remember the blizzard they
had out West three days ago - thirty inches of snow at Greeley,
Colorado - and two years ago we had a snow-squall right here in
Zenith on the twenty-fifth of April."

  "Is that a fact! Say, old man, what do you think
about the Republican candidate? Who'll they nominate for president?
Don't you think it's about time we had a real business
administration?"

  "In my opinion, what the country needs, first and
foremost, is a good, sound, business-like conduct of its affairs.
What we need is - a business administration!" said Littlefield.

  "I'm glad to hear you say that! I certainly am glad
to hear you say that! I didn't know how you'd feel about it, with
all your associations with colleges and so on, and I'm glad you
feel that way. What the country needs - just at this present
juncture - is neither a college president nor a lot of monkeying
with foreign affairs, but a good - sound economical - business -
administration, that will give us a chance to have something like a
decent turnover."

  "Yes. It isn't generally realized that even in China
the schoolmen are giving way to more practical men, and of course
you can see what that implies."

  "Is that a fact! Well, well!" breathed Babbitt,
feeling much calmer, and much happier about the way things were
going in the world. "Well, it's been nice to stop and parleyvoo a
second. Guess I'll have to get down to the office now and sting a
few clients. Well, so long, old man. See you tonight. So long."

  II

  They had labored, these solid citizens. Twenty years
before, the hill on which Floral Heights was spread, with its
bright roofs and immaculate turf and amazing comfort, had been a
wilderness of rank second-growth elms and oaks and maples. Along
the precise streets were still a few wooded vacant lots, and the
fragment of an old orchard. It was brilliant to-day; the apple
boughs were lit with fresh leaves like torches of green fire. The
first white of cherry blossoms flickered down a gully, and robins
clamored.

  Babbitt sniffed the earth, chuckled at the hysteric
robins as he would have chuckled at kittens or at a comic movie. He
was, to the eye, the perfect office-going executive - a well-fed
man in a correct brown soft hat and frameless spectacles, smoking a
large cigar, driving a good motor along a semi-suburban parkway.
But in him was some genius of authentic love for his neighborhood,
his city, his clan. The winter was over; the time was come for the
building, the visible growth, which to him was glory. He lost his
dawn depression; he was ruddily cheerful when he stopped on Smith
Street to leave the brown trousers, and to have the gasoline-tank
filled.

  The familiarity of the rite fortified him: the sight
of the tall red iron gasoline-pump, the hollow-tile and terra-cotta
garage, the window full of the most agreeable accessories - shiny
casings, spark-plugs with immaculate porcelain jackets tire-chains
of gold and silver. He was flattered by the friendliness with which
Sylvester Moon, dirtiest and most skilled of motor mechanics, came
out to serve him. "Mornin', Mr. Babbitt!" said Moon, and Babbitt
felt himself a person of importance, one whose name even busy
garagemen remembered - not one of these cheap-sports flying around
in flivvers. He admired the ingenuity of the automatic dial,
clicking off gallon by gallon; admired the smartness of the sign:
"A fill in time saves getting stuck - gas to-day 31 cents"; admired
the rhythmic gurgle of the gasoline as it flowed into the tank, and
the mechanical regularity with which Moon turned the handle.

  "How much we takin' to-day?" asked Moon, in a manner
which combined the independence of the great specialist, the
friendliness of a familiar gossip, and respect for a man of weight
in the community, like George F. Babbitt.

  "Fill 'er up."

  "Who you rootin' for for Republican candidate, Mr.
Babbitt?"

  "It's too early to make any predictions yet. After
all, there's still a good month and two weeks - no, three weeks -
must be almost three weeks - well, there's more than six weeks in
all before the Republican convention, and I feel a fellow ought to
keep an open mind and give all the candidates a show - look 'em all
over and size 'em up, and then decide carefully."