Sinclair Lewis - The Collected Works of Sinclair Lewis

IV

Joe reported at Babbitt's cabin at nine the next morning. Babbitt greeted him as a fellow caveman:

“Well, Joe, how d' you feel about hitting the trail, and getting away from these darn soft summerites and these women and all?”

“All right, Mr. Babbitt.”

“What do you say we go over to Box Car Pond — they tell me the shack there isn't being used — and camp out?”

“Well, all right, Mr. Babbitt, but it's nearer to Skowtuit Pond, and you can get just about as good fishing there.”

“No, I want to get into the real wilds.”

“Well, all right.”

“We'll put the old packs on our backs and get into the woods and really hike.”

“I think maybe it would be easier to go by water, through Lake Chogue. We can go all the way by motor boat — flat-bottom boat with an Evinrude.”

“No, sir! Bust up the quiet with a chugging motor? Not on your life! You just throw a pair of socks in the old pack, and tell 'em what you want for eats. I'll be ready soon 's you are.”

“Most of the sports go by boat, Mr. Babbitt. It's a long walk.

“Look here, Joe: are you objecting to walking?”

“Oh, no, I guess I can do it. But I haven't tramped that far for sixteen years. Most of the sports go by boat. But I can do it if you say so — I guess.” Joe walked away in sadness.

Babbitt had recovered from his touchy wrath before Joe returned. He pictured him as warming up and telling the most entertaining stories. But Joe had not yet warmed up when they took the trail. He persistently kept behind Babbitt, and however much his shoulders ached from the pack, however sorely he panted, Babbitt could hear his guide panting equally. But the trail was satisfying: a path brown with pine-needles and rough with roots, among the balsams, the ferns, the sudden groves of white birch. He became credulous again, and rejoiced in sweating. When he stopped to rest he chuckled, “Guess we're hitting it up pretty good for a couple o' old birds, eh?”

“Uh-huh,” admitted Joe.

“This is a mighty pretty place. Look, you can see the lake down through the trees. I tell you, Joe, you don't appreciate how lucky you are to live in woods like this, instead of a city with trolleys grinding and typewriters clacking and people bothering the life out of you all the time! I wish I knew the woods like you do. Say, what's the name of that little red flower?”

Rubbing his back, Joe regarded the flower resentfully “Well, some folks call it one thing and some calls it another I always just call it Pink Flower.”

Babbitt blessedly ceased thinking as tramping turned into blind plodding. He was submerged in weariness. His plump legs seemed to go on by themselves, without guidance, and he mechanically wiped away the sweat which stung his eyes. He was too tired to be consciously glad as, after a sun-scourged mile of corduroy tote-road through a swamp where flies hovered over a hot waste of brush, they reached the cool shore of Box Car Pond. When he lifted the pack from his back he staggered from the change in balance, and for a moment could not stand erect. He lay beneath an ample-bosomed maple tree near the guest-shack, and joyously felt sleep running through his veins.

He awoke toward dusk, to find Joe efficiently cooking bacon and eggs and flapjacks for supper, and his admiration of the woodsman returned. He sat on a stump and felt virile.

“Joe, what would you do if you had a lot of money? Would you stick to guiding, or would you take a claim 'way back in the woods and be independent of people?”

For the first time Joe brightened. He chewed his cud a second, and bubbled, “I've often thought of that! If I had the money, I'd go down to Tinker's Falls and open a swell shoe store.”

After supper Joe proposed a game of stud-poker but Babbitt refused with brevity, and Joe contentedly went to bed at eight. Babbitt sat on the stump, facing the dark pond, slapping mosquitos. Save the snoring guide, there was no other human being within ten miles. He was lonelier than he had ever been in his life. Then he was in Zenith.

He was worrying as to whether Miss McGoun wasn't paying too much for carbon paper. He was at once resenting and missing the persistent teasing at the Roughnecks' Table. He was wondering what Zilla Riesling was doing now. He was wondering whether, after the summer's maturity of being a garageman, Ted would “get busy” in the university. He was thinking of his wife. “If she would only — if she wouldn't be so darn satisfied with just settling down — No! I won't! I won't go back! I'll be fifty in three years. Sixty in thirteen years. I'm going to have some fun before it's too late. I don't care! I will!”

He thought of Ida Putiak, of Louetta Swanson, of that nice widow — what was her name? — Tanis Judique? — the one for whom he'd found the flat. He was enmeshed in imaginary conversations. Then:

“Gee, I can't seem to get away from thinking about folks!”

Thus it came to him merely to run away was folly, because he could never run away from himself.

That moment he started for Zenith. In his journey there was no appearance of flight, but he was fleeing, and four days afterward he was on the Zenith train. He knew that he was slinking back not because it was what he longed to do but because it was all he could do. He scanned again his discovery that he could never run away from Zenith and family and office, because in his own brain he bore the office and the family and every street and disquiet and illusion of Zenith.

“But I'm going to — oh, I'm going to start something!” he vowed, and he tried to make it valiant.

Table of Contents

I

As he walked through the train, looking for familiar faces, he saw only one person whom he knew, and that was Seneca Doane, the lawyer who, after the blessings of being in Babbitt's own class at college and of becoming a corporation-counsel, had turned crank, had headed farmer-labor tickets and fraternized with admitted socialists. Though he was in rebellion, naturally Babbitt did not care to be seen talking with such a fanatic, but in all the Pullmans he could find no other acquaintance, and reluctantly he halted. Seneca Doane was a slight, thin-haired man, rather like Chum Frink except that he hadn't Frink's grin. He was reading a book called “The Way of All Flesh.” It looked religious to Babbitt, and he wondered if Doane could possibly have been converted and turned decent and patriotic.

“Why, hello, Doane,” he said.

Doane looked up. His voice was curiously kind. “Oh! How do, Babbitt.”

“Been away, eh?”

“Yes, I've been in Washington.”

“Washington, eh? How's the old Government making out?”

“It's — Won't you sit down?”

“Thanks. Don't care if I do. Well, well! Been quite a while since I've had a good chance to talk to you, Doane. I was, uh — Sorry you didn't turn up at the last class-dinner.”

“Oh — thanks.”

“How's the unions coming? Going to run for mayor again?” Doane seemed restless. He was fingering the pages of his book. He said “I might” as though it didn't mean anything in particular, and he smiled.

Babbitt liked that smile, and hunted for conversation: “Saw a bang-up cabaret in New York: the 'Good-Morning Cutie' bunch at the Hotel Minton.”

“Yes, they're pretty girls. I danced there one evening.”

“Oh. Like dancing?”

“Naturally. I like dancing and pretty women and good food better than anything else in the world. Most men do.”

“But gosh, Doane, I thought you fellows wanted to take all the good eats and everything away from us.”

“No. Not at all. What I'd like to see is the meetings of the Garment Workers held at the Ritz, with a dance afterward. Isn't that reasonable?”