Babbit (41 page)

  "Say, gee, do I! Say, listen, there's some of these
cigar-store sports that think because a girl's working in a barber
shop, they can get away with anything. The things they saaaaaay!
But, believe me, I know how to hop those birds! I just give um the
north and south and ask um, 'Say, who do you think you're talking
to?' and they fade away like love's young nightmare and oh, don't
you want a box of nail-paste? It will keep the nails as shiny as
when first manicured, harmless to apply and lasts for days."

  "Sure, I'll try some. Say - Say, it's funny; I've
been coming here ever since the shop opened and - " With arch
surprise. " - I don't believe I know your name!"

  "Don't you? My, that's funny! I don't know
yours!"

  "Now you quit kidding me! What's the nice little
name?"

  "Oh, it ain't so darn nice. I guess it's kind of
kike. But my folks ain't kikes. My papa's papa was a nobleman in
Poland, and there was a gentleman in here one day, he was kind of a
count or something - "

  "Kind of a no-account, I guess you mean!"

  "Who's telling this, smarty? And he said he knew my
papa's papa's folks in Poland and they had a dandy big house. Right
on a lake!" Doubtfully, "Maybe you don't believe it?"

  "Sure. No. Really. Sure I do. Why not? Don't think
I'm kidding you, honey, but every time I've noticed you I've said
to myself, 'That kid has Blue Blood in her veins!'"

  "Did you, honest?"

  "Honest I did. Well, well, come on - now we're
friends - what's the darling little name?"

  "Ida Putiak. It ain't so much-a-much of a name. I
always say to Ma, I say, 'Ma, why didn't you name me Doloress or
something with some class to it?'"

  "Well, now, I think it's a scrumptious name.
Ida!"

  "I bet I know your name!"

  "Well, now, not necessarily. Of course - Oh, it
isn't so specially well known."

  "Aren't you Mr. Sondheim that travels for the
Krackajack Kitchen Kutlery Ko.?"

  "I am not! I'm Mr. Babbitt, the real-estate
broker!"

  "Oh, excuse me! Oh, of course. You mean here in
Zenith."

  "Yep." With the briskness of one whose feelings have
been hurt.

  "Oh, sure. I've read your ads. They're swell."

  "Um, well - You might have read about my
speeches."

  "Course I have! I don't get much time to read but -
I guess you think I'm an awfully silly little nit!"

  "I think you're a little darling!"

  "Well - There's one nice thing about this job. It
gives a girl a chance to meet some awfully nice gentlemen and
improve her mind with conversation, and you get so you can read a
guy's character at the first glance."

  "Look here, Ida; please don't think I'm getting
fresh - " He was hotly reflecting that it would be humiliating to
be rejected by this child, and dangerous to be accepted. If he took
her to dinner, if he were seen by censorious friends - But he went
on ardently: "Don't think I'm getting fresh if I suggest it would
be nice for us to go out and have a little dinner together some
evening."

  "I don't know as I ought to but - My
gentleman-friend's always wanting to take me out. But maybe I could
to-night."

  IV

  There was no reason, he assured himself, why he
shouldn't have a quiet dinner with a poor girl who would benefit by
association with an educated and mature person like himself. But,
lest some one see them and not understand, he would take her to
Biddlemeier's Inn, on the outskirts of the city. They would have a
pleasant drive, this hot lonely evening, and he might hold her hand
- no, he wouldn't even do that. Ida was complaisant; her bare
shoulders showed it only too clearly; but he'd be hanged if he'd
make love to her merely because she expected it.

  Then his car broke down; something had happened to
the ignition. And he HAD to have the car this evening! Furiously he
tested the spark-plugs, stared at the commutator. His angriest
glower did not seem to stir the sulky car, and in disgrace it was
hauled off to a garage. With a renewed thrill he thought of a
taxicab. There was something at once wealthy and interestingly
wicked about a taxicab.

  But when he met her, on a corner two blocks from the
Hotel Thornleigh, she said, "A taxi? Why, I thought you owned a
car!"

  "I do. Of course I do! But it's out of commission
to-night."

  "Oh," she remarked, as one who had heard that tale
before.

  All the way out to Biddlemeier's Inn he tried to
talk as an old friend, but he could not pierce the wall of her
words. With interminable indignation she narrated her retorts to
"that fresh head-barber" and the drastic things she would do to him
if he persisted in saying that she was "better at gassing than at
hoof-paring."

  At Biddlemeier's Inn they were unable to get
anything to drink. The head-waiter refused to understand who George
F. Babbitt was. They sat steaming before a vast mixed grill, and
made conversation about baseball. When he tried to hold Ida's hand
she said with bright friendliness, "Careful! That fresh waiter is
rubbering." But they came out into a treacherous summer night, the
air lazy and a little moon above transfigured maples.

  "Let's drive some other place, where we can get a
drink and dance!" he demanded.

  "Sure, some other night. But I promised Ma I'd be
home early to-night."

  "Rats! It's too nice to go home."

  "I'd just love to, but Ma would give me fits."

  He was trembling. She was everything that was young
and exquisite. He put his arm about her. She snuggled against his
shoulder, unafraid, and he was triumphant. Then she ran down the
steps of the Inn, singing, "Come on, Georgie, we'll have a nice
drive and get cool."

  It was a night of lovers. All along the highway into
Zenith, under the low and gentle moon, motors were parked and dim
figures were clasped in revery. He held out hungry hands to Ida,
and when she patted them he was grateful. There was no sense of
struggle and transition; he kissed her and simply she responded to
his kiss, they two behind the stolid back of the chauffeur.

  Her hat fell off, and she broke from his embrace to
reach for it.

  "Oh, let it be!" he implored.

  "Huh? My hat? Not a chance!"

  He waited till she had pinned it on, then his arm
sank about her. She drew away from it, and said with maternal
soothing, "Now, don't be a silly boy! Mustn't make Ittle Mama
scold! Just sit back, dearie, and see what a swell night it is. If
you're a good boy, maybe I'll kiss you when we say nighty-night.
Now give me a cigarette."

  He was solicitous about lighting her cigarette and
inquiring as to her comfort. Then he sat as far from her as
possible. He was cold with failure. No one could have told Babbitt
that he was a fool with more vigor, precision, and intelligence
than he himself displayed. He reflected that from the standpoint of
the Rev. Dr. John Jennison Drew he was a wicked man, and from the
standpoint of Miss Ida Putiak, an old bore who had to be endured as
the penalty attached to eating a large dinner.

  "Dearie, you aren't going to go and get peevish, are
you?"

  She spoke pertly. He wanted to spank her. He
brooded, "I don't have to take anything off this gutter-pup! Darn
immigrant! Well, let's get it over as quick as we can, and sneak
home and kick ourselves for the rest of the night."

  He snorted, "Huh? Me peevish? Why, you baby, why
should I be peevish? Now, listen, Ida; listen to Uncle George. I
want to put you wise about this scrapping with your head-barber all
the time. I've had a lot of experience with employees, and let me
tell you it doesn't pay to antagonize - "

  At the drab wooden house in which she lived he said
good-night briefly and amiably, but as the taxicab drove off he was
praying "Oh, my God!"

  I

  
H
E awoke to
stretch cheerfully as he listened to the sparrows, then to remember
that everything was wrong; that he was determined to go astray, and
not in the least enjoying the process. Why, he wondered, should he
be in rebellion? What was it all about? "Why not be sensible; stop
all this idiotic running around, and enjoy himself with his family,
his business, the fellows at the club?" What was he getting out of
rebellion? Misery and shame - the shame of being treated as an
offensive small boy by a ragamuffin like Ida Putiak! And yet -
Always he came back to "And yet." Whatever the misery, he could not
regain contentment with a world which, once doubted, became
absurd.

  Only, he assured himself, he was "through with this
chasing after girls."

  By noontime he was not so sure even of that. If in
Miss McGoun, Louetta Swanson, and Ida he had failed to find the
lady kind and lovely, it did not prove that she did not exist. He
was hunted by the ancient thought that somewhere must exist the not
impossible she who would understand him, value him, and make him
happy.

  II

  Mrs. Babbitt returned in August.

  On her previous absences he had missed her
reassuring buzz and of her arrival he had made a fete. Now, though
he dared not hurt her by letting a hint of it appear in his
letters, he was sorry that she was coming before he had found
himself, and he was embarrassed by the need of meeting her and
looking joyful.

  He loitered down to the station; he studied the
summer-resort posters, lest he have to speak to acquaintances and
expose his uneasiness. But he was well trained. When the train
clanked in he was out on the cement platform, peering into the
chair-cars, and as he saw her in the line of passengers moving
toward the vestibule he waved his hat. At the door he embraced her,
and announced, "Well, well, well, well, by golly, you look fine,
you look fine." Then he was aware of Tinka. Here was something,
this child with her absurd little nose and lively eyes, that loved
him, believed him great, and as he clasped her, lifted and held her
till she squealed, he was for the moment come back to his old
steady self.

  Tinka sat beside him in the car, with one hand on
the steering-wheel, pretending to help him drive, and he shouted
back to his wife, "I'll bet the kid will be the best chuffer in the
family! She holds the wheel like an old professional!"

  All the while he was dreading the moment when he
would be alone with his wife and she would patiently expect him to
be ardent.

  III

  There was about the house an unofficial theory that
he was to take his vacation alone, to spend a week or ten days in
Catawba, but he was nagged by the memory that a year ago he had
been with Paul in Maine. He saw himself returning; finding peace
there, and the presence of Paul, in a life primitive and heroic.
Like a shock came the thought that he actually could go. Only, he
couldn't, really; he couldn't leave his business, and "Myra would
think it sort of funny, his going way off there alone. Course he'd
decided to do whatever he darned pleased, from now on, but still -
to go way off to Maine!"

  He went, after lengthy meditations.

  With his wife, since it was inconceivable to explain
that he was going to seek Paul's spirit in the wilderness, he
frugally employed the lie prepared over a year ago and scarcely
used at all. He said that he had to see a man in New York on
business. He could not have explained even to himself why he drew
from the bank several hundred dollars more than he needed, nor why
he kissed Tinka so tenderly, and cried, "God bless you, baby!" From
the train he waved to her till she was but a scarlet spot beside
the brown bulkier presence of Mrs. Babbitt, at the end of a steel
and cement aisle ending in vast barred gates. With melancholy he
looked back at the last suburb of Zenith.

  All the way north he pictured the Maine guides:
simple and strong and daring, jolly as they played stud-poker in
their unceiled shack, wise in woodcraft as they tramped the forest
and shot the rapids. He particularly remembered Joe Paradise, half
Yankee, half Indian. If he could but take up a backwoods claim with
a man like Joe, work hard with his hands, be free and noisy in a
flannel shirt, and never come back to this dull decency!