Main Street - Sinclair Lewis (little red riding hood ebook .txt) 📗

was stealthily cold. Beneath an inch of water was a layer of ice, so that as they wavered with their suitcases they slid and almost fell. The wet snow drenched their gloves; the water underfoot splashed their itching ankles. They scuffled inch by inch for three blocks. In front of Harry Haydock’s Kennicott sighed:

“We better stop in here and phone for a machine.”

She followed him like a wet kitten.

The Haydocks saw them laboring up the slippery concrete walk, up the perilous front steps, and came to the door chanting:

“Well, well, well, back again, eh? Say, this is fine! Have a fine trip? My, you look like a rose, Carol. How did you like the coast, doc? Well, well, well! Where-all did you go?”

But as Kennicott began to proclaim the list of places achieved, Harry interrupted with an account of how much he himself had seen, two years ago. When Kennicott boasted, “We went through the mission at Santa Barbara,” Harry broke in, “Yeh, that’s an interesting old mission. Say, I’ll never forget that hotel there, doc. It was swell. Why, the rooms were made just like these old monasteries. Juanita and I went from Santa Barbara to San Luis Obispo. You folks go to San Luis Obispo?”

“No, but⁠—”

“Well you ought to gone to San Luis Obispo. And then we went from there to a ranch, least they called it a ranch⁠—”

Kennicott got in only one considerable narrative, which began:

“Say, I never knew⁠—did you, Harry?⁠—that in the Chicago district the Kutz Kar sells as well as the Overland? I never thought much of the Kutz. But I met a gentleman on the train⁠—it was when we were pulling out of Albuquerque, and I was sitting on the back platform of the observation car, and this man was next to me and he asked me for a light, and we got to talking, and come to find out, he came from Aurora, and when he found out I came from Minnesota he asked me if I knew Dr. Clemworth of Red Wing, and of course, while I’ve never met him, I’ve heard of Clemworth lots of times, and seems he’s this man’s brother! Quite a coincidence! Well, we got to talking, and we called the porter⁠—that was a pretty good porter on that car⁠—and we had a couple bottles of ginger ale, and I happened to mention the Kutz Kar, and this man⁠—seems he’s driven a lot of different kinds of cars⁠—he’s got a Franklin now⁠—and he said that he’d tried the Kutz and liked it first-rate. Well, when we got into a station⁠—I don’t remember the name of it⁠—Carrie, what the deuce was the name of that first stop we made the other side of Albuquerque?⁠—well, anyway, I guess we must have stopped there to take on water, and this man and I got out to stretch our legs, and darned if there wasn’t a Kutz drawn right up at the depot platform, and he pointed out something I’d never noticed, and I was glad to learn about it: seems that the gear lever in the Kutz is an inch longer⁠—”

Even this chronicle of voyages Harry interrupted, with remarks on the advantages of the ball-gear-shift.

Kennicott gave up hope of adequate credit for being a traveled man, and telephoned to a garage for a Ford taxicab, while Juanita kissed Carol and made sure of being the first to tell the latest, which included seven distinct and proven scandals about Mrs. Swiftwaite, and one considerable doubt as to the chastity of Cy Bogart.

They saw the Ford sedan making its way over the water-lined ice, through the snowstorm, like a tugboat in a fog. The driver stopped at a corner. The car skidded, it turned about with comic reluctance, crashed into a tree, and stood tilted on a broken wheel.

The Kennicotts refused Harry Haydock’s not too urgent offer to take them home in his car “if I can manage to get it out of the garage⁠—terrible day⁠—stayed home from the store⁠—but if you say so, I’ll take a shot at it.” Carol gurgled, “No, I think we’d better walk; probably make better time, and I’m just crazy to see my baby.” With their suitcases they waddled on. Their coats were soaked through.

Carol had forgotten her facile hopes. She looked about with impersonal eyes. But Kennicott, through rain-blurred lashes, caught the glory that was Back Home.

She noted bare tree-trunks, black branches, the spongy brown earth between patches of decayed snow on the lawns. The vacant lots were full of tall dead weeds. Stripped of summer leaves the houses were hopeless⁠—temporary shelters.

Kennicott chuckled, “By golly, look down there! Jack Elder must have painted his garage. And look! Martin Mahoney has put up a new fence around his chicken yard. Say, that’s a good fence, eh? Chicken-tight and dog-tight. That’s certainly a dandy fence. Wonder how much it cost a yard? Yes, sir, they been building right along, even in winter. Got more enterprise than these Californians. Pretty good to be home, eh?”

She noted that all winter long the citizens had been throwing garbage into their back yards, to be cleaned up in spring. The recent thaw had disclosed heaps of ashes, dog-bones, torn bedding, clotted paint-cans, all half covered by the icy pools which filled the hollows of the yards. The refuse had stained the water to vile colors of waste: thin red, sour yellow, streaky brown.

Kennicott chuckled, “Look over there on Main Street! They got the feed store all fixed up, and a new sign on it, black and gold. That’ll improve the appearance of the block a lot.”

She noted that the few people whom they passed wore their raggedest coats for the evil day. They were scarecrows in a shanty town.⁠ ⁠… “To think,” she marveled, “of coming two thousand miles, past mountains and cities, to get off here, and to plan to stay here! What conceivable reason for choosing this particular place?”

She noted a figure in a rusty coat and a cloth cap.

Kennicott chuckled, “Look who’s