Main Street (Barnes & Noble Classics Ser - Sinclair Lewis [166]
He admitted, “Well, yes, maybe it isn’t so darn artistic but—Matter of fact, though, I don’t want a place just like Sam’s. Maybe I would cut off that fool tower he’s got, and I think probably it would look better painted a nice cream color. That yellow on Sam’s house is too kind of flashy. Then there’s another kind of house that’s mighty nice and substantial-looking, with shingles, in a nice brown stain, instead of clapboards—seen some in Minneapolis. You’re way off your base when you say I only like one kind of house!”
Uncle Whittier and Aunt Bessie came in one evening when Carol was sleepily advocating a rose-garden cottage.
“You’ve had a lot of experience with housekeeping, aunty, and don’t you think,” Kennicott appealed, “that it would be sensible to have a nice square house, and pay more attention to getting a crackajack furnace than to all this architecture and doodads?”
Aunt Bessie worked her lips as though they were an elastic band. “Why of course! I know how it is with young folks like you, Carrie; you want towers and bay-windows and pianos and heaven knows what all, but the thing to get is closets and a good furnace and a handy place to hang out the washing, and the rest don’t matter.”
Uncle Whittier dribbled a little, put his face near to Carol‘s, and sputtered, “Course it don’t! What d’you care what folks think about the outside of your house? It’s the inside you’re living in. None of my business, but I must say you young folks that’d rather have cakes than potatoes get me riled.”
She reached her room before she became savage. Below, dreadfully near, she could hear the broom-swish of Aunt Bessie’s voice, and the mop-pounding of Uncle Whittier’s grumble. She had a reasonless dread that they would intrude on her, then a fear that she would yield to Gopher Prairie’s conception of duty toward an Aunt Bessie and go down-stairs to be “nice.” She felt the demand for standardized behavior coming in waves from all the citizens who sat in their sitting-rooms watching her with respectable eyes, waiting, demanding, unyielding. She snarled, “Oh, all right, I’ll go!” She powdered her nose, straightened her collar, and coldly marched down-stairs. The three elders ignored her. They had advanced from the new house to agreeable general fussing. Aunt Bessie was saying, in a tone like the munching of dry toast:
“I do think Mr. Stowbody ought to have had the rain-pipe fixed at our store right away. I went to see him on Tuesday morning before ten, no, it was couple minutes after ten, but anyway, it was long before noon—I know because I went right from the bank to the meat market to get some steak—my! I think it’s outrageous, the prices Oleson & McGuire charge for their meat, and it isn’t as if they gave you a good cut either, but just any old thing, and I had time to get it, and I stopped in at Mrs. Bogart’s to ask about her rheumatism—”
Carol was watching Uncle Whittier. She knew from his taut expression that he was not listening to Aunt Bessie but herding his own thoughts, and that he would interrupt her bluntly. He did:
“Will, where c’n I get an extra pair of pants for this coat and vest? D’ want to pay too much.”
“Well, guess Nat Hicks could make you up a pair. But if I were you, I’d drop into Ike Rifkins—his prices are lower than the Bon Ton’s.”
“Humph. Got the new stove in your office yet?”
“No, been looking at some at Sam Clark’s but—”
“Well y’ ought get ’t in. Don’t do to put off getting a stove all summer, and then have it come cold on you in the fall.”
Carol smiled upon them ingratiatingly. “Do you dears mind if I slip up to bed? I’m rather tired—cleaned the up-stairs today.”
She retreated. She was certain that they were discussing her, and foully forgiving her. She lay awake till she heard the distant creak of a bed which indicated that