Arrowsmith - Sinclair Lewis [104]
“In fact,” said Dr. Pickerbaugh, “WE think they’re a very striking brood of chickabiddies.”
“They certainly are!” quivered Martin.
“But best of all, they are able to help me put over the doctrine of the Mens Sana in the Corpus Sano. Mrs. Pickerbaugh and I have trained them to sing together, both in the home and publicly, and as an organization we call them the Healthette Octette.”
“Really?” said Leora, when it was apparent that Martin had passed beyond speech.
“Yes, and before I get through with it I hope to popularize the name Healthette from end to end of this old nation, and you’re going to see bands of happy young women going around spreading their winged message into every dark corner. Healthette Bands! Beautiful and pure-minded and enthusiastic and good basket-ball players! I tell you, THEY’LL make the lazy and willful stir their stumps! They’ll shame the filthy livers and filthy talkers into decency! I’ve already worked out a poem-slogan for the Healthette Bands. Would you like to hear it?”
Winsome young womanhood wins with a smile Boozers, spitters, and gamblers from things that are vile. Our parents and teachers have explained the cause of life, So against the evil-minded we’ll also make strife. We’ll shame them, reclaim them, from bad habits, you bet! Better watch out, Mr. Loafer, I am a Healthette!
“But of course an even more important Cause is — and I was one of the first to advocate it — having a Secretary of Health and Eugenics in the cabinet at Washington —”
On the tide of this dissertation they were swept through a stupendous dinner. With a hearty “Nonsense, nonsense, man, of course you want a second helping — this is Hospitality Hall!” Pickerbaugh so stuffed Martin and Leora with roast duck, candied sweet potatoes, and mince pie that they became dangerously ill and sat glassy-eyed. But Pickerbaugh himself did not seem to be affected. While he carved and gobbled, he went on discoursing till the dining-room, with its old walnut buffet, its Hoffmann pictures of Christ, and its Remington pictures of cowpunchers, seemed to vanish, leaving him on a platform beside a pitcher of ice-water.
Not always was he merely fantastic. “Dr. Arrowsmith, I tell you we’re lucky men to be able to get a living out of doing our honest best to make the people in a he-town like this well and vital. I could be pulling down eight or ten thousand a year in private practice, and I’ve been told I could make more than that in the art of advertising, yet I’m glad, and my dear ones are glad with me, to take a salary of four thousand. Think of our having a job where we’ve got nothing to sell but honesty and decency and the brotherhood o’ man!”
Martin perceived that Pickerbaugh meant it, and the shame of the realization kept him from leaping up, seizing Leora, and catching the first freight train out of Nautilus.
After dinner the younger daughters desired to love Leora, in swarms. Martin had to take the twins on his knees and tell them a story. They were remarkably heavy twins, but no heavier than the labor of inventing a plot. Before they went to bed, the entire Healthette Octette sang the famous Health Hymn (written by Dr. Almus Pickerbaugh) which Martin was to hear on so many bright and active public occasions in Nautilus. It was set to the tune of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” but as the twins’ voices were energetic and extraordinarily shrill, it had an effect all its own:
Oh, are you out for happiness or are you out for pelf? You owe it to the grand old flag to cultivate yourself, To train the mind, keep clean the streets, and ever guard your health.
Then we’ll all go marching on.
A healthy mind in A clean body, A healthy mind in A clean body, A healthy mind in A clean body, The slogan for one and all.
As a bedtime farewell, the twins then recited, as they had recently at the Congregational Festival, one of their father’s minor lyrics:
What does