Arrowsmith - Sinclair Lewis [113]
“He wasted time at Hunziker’s nostrum factory all right, and his title is ‘Doctor,’ not ‘Professor,’ if you MUST give him a —”
“If he went to Hunziker’s he had some good reason. He’s a genius; he couldn’t be wrong. Or could he, even he? But ANYWAY: you, Sandy, you have to stumble every so often; have to learn by making mistakes. I will say one thing: you learn from your crazy mistakes. But I get a little tired, sometimes, watching you rush up and put your neck in every noose — like being a blinking orator or yearning over your Orchid.”
“Well, by golly! After I come in here trying to make peace! It’s a good thing YOU never make any mistakes! But one perfect person in a household is enough!”
He banged into bed. Silence. Soft sounds of “Mart — SANDY!” He ignored her, proud that he could be hard with her, and so fell asleep. At breakfast, when he was ashamed and eager, she was curt.
“I don’t care to discuss it,” she said.
In that wry mood they went on Saturday afternoon to the Pickerbaughs’ snow picnic.
IV
Dr. Pickerbaugh owned a small log cabin in a scanty grove of oaks among the hillocks north of Nautilus. A dozen of them drove out in a bob-sled filled with straw and blue woolly robes. The sleigh bells were exciting and the children leaped out to run beside the sled.
The school physician, a bachelor, was attentive to Leora; twice he tucked her in, and that, for Nautilus, was almost compromising. In jealousy Martin turned openly and completely to Orchid.
He grew interested in her not for the sake of disciplining Leora but for her own rosy sweetness. She was wearing a tweed jacket, with a tam, a flamboyant scarf, and the first breeches any girl had dared to display in Nautilus. She patted Martin’s knee, and when they rode behind the sled on a perilous toboggan, she held his waist, resolutely.
She was calling him “Dr. Martin” now, and he had come to a warm “Orchid.”
At the cabin there was a clamor of disembarkation. Together Martin and Orchid carried in the hamper of food; together they slid down the hillocks on skiis. When their skiis were entangled, they rolled into a drift, and as she clung to him, unafraid and unembarrassed, it seemed to him that in the roughness of tweeds she was but the softer and more wonderful — eyes fearless, cheeks brilliant as she brushed the coating of wet snow from them, flying legs of a slim boy, shoulders adorable in their pretense of sturdy boyishness —
But “I’m a sentimental fool! Leora was right!” he snarled at himself. “I thought you had some originality! And poor little Orchid — she’d be shocked if she knew how sneak-minded you are!”
But poor little Orchid was coaxing, “Come on, Dr. Martin, let’s shoot off that high bluff. We’re the only ones that have any pep.”
“That’s because we’re the only young ones.”
“It’s because you’re so young. I’m dreadfully old. I just sit and moon when you rave about your epidemics and things.”
He saw that, with her infernal school physician, Leora was sliding on a distant slope. It may have been pique and it may have been relief that he was licensed to be alone with Orchid, but he ceased to speak to her as though she were a child and he a person laden with wisdom; ceased to speak to her as though he were looking over his shoulder. They raced to the high bluff. They skied down it and fell; they had one glorious swooping slide, and wrestled in the snow.
They returned to the cabin together, to find the others away. She stripped off her wet sweater and patted her soft blouse. They ferreted out a thermos of hot coffee, and he looked at her as though he was going to kiss her, and she looked back at him as though she did not mind.