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chapter ii relieved of babbitt's bumbling and the softgrunts with which his wife expressed the sympathy she was too experienced to feeland much too experienced not to show, their bedroom settled instantly intoimpersonality. it gave on the sleeping-porch. it served both of them as dressing-room,and on the coldest nights babbitt luxuriously gave up the duty of being manlyand retreated to the bed inside, to curl his toes in the warmth and laugh at thejanuary gale. the room displayed a modest and pleasantcolor-scheme, after one of the best
standard designs of the decorator who "didthe interiors" for most of the speculative- builders' houses in zenith. the walls were gray, the woodwork white,the rug a serene blue; and very much like mahogany was the furniture--the bureau withits great clear mirror, mrs. babbitt's dressing-table with toilet-articles of almost solid silver, the plain twin beds,between them a small table holding a standard electric bedside lamp, a glass forwater, and a standard bedside book with colored illustrations--what particular book it was cannot be ascertained, since no onehad ever opened it.
the mattresses were firm but not hard,triumphant modern mattresses which had cost a great deal of money; the hot-waterradiator was of exactly the proper scientific surface for the cubic contentsof the room. the windows were large and easily opened,with the best catches and cords, and holland roller-shades guaranteed not tocrack. it was a masterpiece among bedrooms, rightout of cheerful modern houses for medium incomes.only it had nothing to do with the babbitts, nor with any one else. if people had ever lived and loved here,read thrillers at midnight and lain in
beautiful indolence on a sunday morning,there were no signs of it. it had the air of being a very good room ina very good hotel. one expected the chambermaid to come in andmake it ready for people who would stay but one night, go without looking back, andnever think of it again. every second house in floral heights had abedroom precisely like this. the babbitts' house was five years old.it was all as competent and glossy as this bedroom. it had the best of taste, the best ofinexpensive rugs, a simple and laudable architecture, and the latest conveniences.throughout, electricity took the place of
candles and slatternly hearth-fires. along the bedroom baseboard were threeplugs for electric lamps, concealed by little brass doors. in the halls were plugs for the vacuumcleaner, and in the living-room plugs for the piano lamp, for the electric fan. the trim dining-room (with its admirableoak buffet, its leaded-glass cupboard, its creamy plaster walls, its modest scene of asalmon expiring upon a pile of oysters) had plugs which supplied the electricpercolator and the electric toaster. in fact there was but one thing wrong withthe babbitt house: it was not a home.
iioften of a morning babbitt came bouncing and jesting in to breakfast.but things were mysteriously awry to-day. as he pontifically tread the upper hall helooked into verona's bedroom and protested, "what's the use of giving the family ahigh-class house when they don't appreciate it and tend to business and get down tobrass tacks?" he marched upon them: verona, a dumpybrown-haired girl of twenty-two, just out of bryn mawr, given to solicitudes aboutduty and sex and god and the unconquerable bagginess of the gray sports-suit she wasnow wearing. ted--theodore roosevelt babbitt--adecorative boy of seventeen.
tinka--katherine--still a baby at ten, withradiant red hair and a thin skin which hinted of too much candy and too many icecream sodas. babbitt did not show his vague irritationas he tramped in. he really disliked being a family tyrant,and his nagging was as meaningless as it was frequent. he shouted at tinka, "well, kittiedoolie!"it was the only pet name in his vocabulary, except the "dear" and "hon." with which herecognized his wife, and he flung it at tinka every morning. he gulped a cup of coffee in the hope ofpacifying his stomach and his soul.
his stomach ceased to feel as though it didnot belong to him, but verona began to be conscientious and annoying, and abruptlythere returned to babbitt the doubts regarding life and families and business which had clawed at him when his dream-lifeand the slim fairy girl had fled. verona had for six months been filing-clerkat the gruensberg leather company offices, with a prospect of becoming secretary tomr. gruensberg and thus, as babbitt defined it, "getting some good out of your expensive college education till you'reready to marry and settle down." but now said verona: "father!
i was talking to a classmate of mine that'sworking for the associated charities--oh, dad, there's the sweetest little babiesthat come to the milk-station there!--and i feel as though i ought to be doingsomething worth while like that." "what do you mean 'worth while'? if you get to be gruensberg's secretary--and maybe you would, if you kept up your shorthand and didn't go sneaking off toconcerts and talkfests every evening--i guess you'll find thirty-five or fortybones a week worth while!" "i know, but--oh, i want to--contribute--iwish i were working in a settlement-house. i wonder if i could get one of thedepartment-stores to let me put in a
welfare-department with a nice rest-roomand chintzes and wicker chairs and so on and so forth. or i could--""now you look here! the first thing you got to understand isthat all this uplift and flipflop and settlement-work and recreation is nothingin god's world but the entering wedge for socialism. the sooner a man learns he isn't going tobe coddled, and he needn't expect a lot of free grub and, uh, all these free classesand flipflop and doodads for his kids unless he earns 'em, why, the sooner he'll
get on the job and produce--produce--produce! that's what the country needs, and not allthis fancy stuff that just enfeebles the will-power of the working man and gives hiskids a lot of notions above their class. and you--if you'd tend to business insteadof fooling and fussing--all the time! when i was a young man i made up my mindwhat i wanted to do, and stuck to it through thick and thin, and that's why i'mwhere i am to-day, and--myra! what do you let the girl chop the toast upinto these dinky little chunks for? can't get your fist onto 'em.half cold, anyway!" ted babbitt, junior in the great east sidehigh school, had been making hiccup-like
sounds of interruption.he blurted now, "say, rone, you going to--" verona whirled. "ted!will you kindly not interrupt us when we're talking about serious matters!""aw punk," said ted judicially. "ever since somebody slipped up and let youout of college, ammonia, you been pulling these nut conversations about what-nots andso-on-and-so-forths. are you going to--i want to use the cartonight." babbitt snorted, "oh, you do!may want it myself!" verona protested, "oh, you do, mr. smarty!
i'm going to take it myself!"tinka wailed, "oh, papa, you said maybe you'd drive us down to rosedale!" and mrs.babbitt, "careful, tinka, your sleeve is in the butter." they glared, and verona hurled, "ted,you're a perfect pig about the car!" "course you're not!not a-tall!" ted could be maddeningly bland. "you just want to grab it off, right afterdinner, and leave it in front of some skirt's house all evening while you sit andgas about lite'ature and the highbrows you're going to marry--if they onlypropose!"
"well, dad oughtn't to ever let you haveit! you and those beastly jones boys drive likemaniacs. the idea of your taking the turn onchautauqua place at forty miles an hour!" "aw, where do you get that stuff! you're so darn scared of the car that youdrive up-hill with the emergency brake on!" "i do not! and you--always talking about how much youknow about motors, and eunice littlefield told me you said the battery fed thegenerator!" "you--why, my good woman, you don't know agenerator from a differential."
not unreasonably was ted lofty with her. he was a natural mechanic, a maker andtinkerer of machines; he lisped in blueprints for the blueprints came."that'll do now!" babbitt flung in mechanically, as helighted the gloriously satisfying first cigar of the day and tasted theexhilarating drug of the advocate-times headlines. ted negotiated: "gee, honest, rone, i don'twant to take the old boat, but i promised couple o' girls in my class i'd drive 'emdown to the rehearsal of the school chorus, and, gee, i don't want to, but a
gentleman's got to keep his socialengagements." "well, upon my word!you and your social engagements! in high school!" "oh, ain't we select since we went to thathen college! let me tell you there isn't a privateschool in the state that's got as swell a bunch as we got in gamma digamma this year. there's two fellows that their dads aremillionaires. say, gee, i ought to have a car of my own,like lots of the fellows." babbitt almost rose.
"a car of your own!don't you want a yacht, and a house and lot?that pretty nearly takes the cake! a boy that can't pass his latinexaminations, like any other boy ought to, and he expects me to give him a motor-car,and i suppose a chauffeur, and an areoplane maybe, as a reward for the hard work he puts in going to the movies with eunicelittlefield! well, when you see me giving you--" somewhat later, after diplomacies, tedpersuaded verona to admit that she was merely going to the armory, that evening,to see the dog and cat show.
she was then, ted planned, to park the carin front of the candy-store across from the armory and he would pick it up. there were masterly arrangements regardingleaving the key, and having the gasoline tank filled; and passionately, devotees ofthe great god motor, they hymned the patch on the spare inner-tube, and the lost jack-handle. their truce dissolving, ted observed thather friends were "a scream of a bunch- stuck-up gabby four-flushers." his friends, she indicated, were"disgusting imitation sports, and horrid little shrieking ignorant girls."
further: "it's disgusting of you to smokecigarettes, and so on and so forth, and those clothes you've got on this morning,they're too utterly ridiculous--honestly, simply disgusting." ted balanced over to the low beveled mirrorin the buffet, regarded his charms, and smirked. his suit, the latest thing in old eli togs,was skin-tight, with skimpy trousers to the tops of his glaring tan boots, a chorus-manwaistline, pattern of an agitated check, and across the back a belt which beltednothing. his scarf was an enormous black silk wad.his flaxen hair was ice-smooth, pasted back
without parting. when he went to school he would add a capwith a long vizor like a shovel-blade. proudest of all was his waistcoat, savedfor, begged for, plotted for; a real fancy vest of fawn with polka dots of a decayedred, the points astoundingly long. on the lower edge of it he wore a high-school button, a class button, and a fraternity pin.and none of it mattered. he was supple and swift and flushed; hiseyes (which he believed to be cynical) were candidly eager.but he was not over-gentle. he waved his hand at poor dumpy verona anddrawled: "yes, i guess we're pretty
ridiculous and disgusticulus, and i ratherguess our new necktie is some smear!" babbitt barked: "it is! and while you're admiring yourself, let metell you it might add to your manly beauty if you wiped some of that egg off yourmouth!" verona giggled, momentary victor in thegreatest of great wars, which is the family war. ted looked at her hopelessly, then shriekedat tinka: "for the love o' pete, quit pouring the whole sugar bowl on your cornflakes!" when verona and ted were gone and tinkaupstairs, babbitt groaned to his wife:
"nice family, i must say! i don't pretend to be any baa-lamb, andmaybe i'm a little cross-grained at breakfast sometimes, but the way they go onjab-jab-jabbering, i simply can't stand it. i swear, i feel like going off some placewhere i can get a little peace. i do think after a man's spent his lifetimetrying to give his kids a chance and a decent education, it's pretty discouragingto hear them all the time scrapping like a bunch of hyenas and never--and never-- curious; here in the paper it says--neversilent for one mom--seen the morning paper yet?""no, dear."
in twenty-three years of married life, mrs.babbitt had seen the paper before her husband just sixty-seven times."lots of news. terrible big tornado in the south. hard luck, all right.but this, say, this is corking! beginning of the end for those fellows! new york assembly has passed some billsthat ought to completely outlaw the socialists! and there's an elevator-runners' strike innew york and a lot of college boys are taking their places.that's the stuff!
and a mass-meeting in birmingham's demandedthat this mick agitator, this fellow de valera, be deported.dead right, by golly! all these agitators paid with german goldanyway. and we got no business interfering with theirish or any other foreign government. keep our hands strictly off. and there's another well-authenticatedrumor from russia that lenin is dead. that's fine.it's beyond me why we don't just step in there and kick those bolshevik cusses out." "that's so," said mrs. babbitt."and it says here a fellow was inaugurated
mayor in overalls--a preacher, too!what do you think of that!" "humph! well!" he searched for an attitude, but neither asa republican, a presbyterian, an elk, nor a real-estate broker did he have any doctrineabout preacher-mayors laid down for him, so he grunted and went on. she looked sympathetic and did not hear aword. later she would read the headlines, thesociety columns, and the department-store advertisements.
"what do you know about this!charley mckelvey still doing the sassiety stunt as heavy as ever.here's what that gushy woman reporter says about last night:" never is society with the big, big s moreflattered than when they are bidden to partake of good cheer at the distinguishedand hospitable residence of mr. and mrs. charles l. mckelvey as they were last night. set in its spacious lawns and landscaping,one of the notable sights crowning royal ridge, but merry and homelike despite itsmighty stone walls and its vast rooms famed
for their decoration, their home was thrown open last night for a dance in honor ofmrs. mckelvey's notable guest, miss j. sneeth of washington. the wide hall is so generous in itsproportions that it made a perfect ballroom, its hardwood floor reflecting thecharming pageant above its polished surface. even the delights of dancing paled beforethe alluring opportunities for tete-a-tetes that invited the soul to loaf in the longlibrary before the baronial fireplace, or in the drawing-room with its deep comfy
armchairs, its shaded lamps just made for asly whisper of pretty nothings all a deux; or even in the billiard room where onecould take a cue and show a prowess at still another game than that sponsored bycupid and terpsichore. there was more, a great deal more, in thebest urban journalistic style of miss elnora pearl bates, the popular societyeditor of the advocate-times. but babbitt could not abide it. he grunted.he wrinkled the newspaper. he protested: "can you beat it!i'm willing to hand a lot of credit to charley mckelvey.
when we were in college together, he wasjust as hard up as any of us, and he's made a million good bucks out of contracting andhasn't been any dishonester or bought any more city councils than was necessary. and that's a good house of his--though itain't any 'mighty stone walls' and it ain't worth the ninety thousand it cost him. but when it comes to talking as thoughcharley mckelvey and all that booze- hoisting set of his are any blooming bunchof of, of vanderbilts, why, it makes me tired!" timidly from mrs. babbitt: "i would like tosee the inside of their house though.
it must be lovely.i've never been inside." "well, i have! lots of--couple of times.to see chaz about business deals, in the evening.it's not so much. i wouldn't want to go there to dinner withthat gang of, of high-binders. and i'll bet i make a whole lot more moneythan some of those tin-horns that spend all they got on dress-suits and haven't got adecent suit of underwear to their name! hey! what do you think of this!"mrs. babbitt was strangely unmoved by the
tidings from the real estate and buildingcolumn of the advocate-times: ashtabula street, 496--j. k. dawson tothomas mullally, april 17, 15.7 x 112.2, mtg.$4000............ . nom and this morning babbitt was too disquietedto entertain her with items from mechanics' liens, mortgages recorded, and contractsawarded. he rose. as he looked at her his eyebrows seemedshaggier than usual.
suddenly:"yes, maybe--kind of shame to not keep in touch with folks like the mckelveys. we might try inviting them to dinner, someevening. oh, thunder, let's not waste our good timethinking about 'em! our little bunch has a lot liver times thanall those plutes. just compare a real human like you withthese neurotic birds like lucile mckelvey-- all highbrow talk and dressed up like aplush horse! you're a great old girl, hon.!" he covered his betrayal of softness with acomplaining: "say, don't let tinka go and
eat any more of that poison nutfudge.for heaven's sake, try to keep her from ruining her digestion. i tell you, most folks don't appreciate howimportant it is to have a good digestion and regular habits.be back 'bout usual time, i guess." he kissed her--he didn't quite kiss her--helaid unmoving lips against her unflushing cheek.he hurried out to the garage, muttering: "lord, what a family! and now myra is going to get pathetic on mebecause we don't train with this millionaire outfit.oh, lord, sometimes i'd like to quit the
whole game. and the office worry and detail just asbad. and i act cranky and--i don't mean to, buti get--so darn tired!"