Main Street Sinclair Lewis (books to read romance TXT) đ
- Author: Sinclair Lewis
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Mrs. Bogart went thoroughly into the rumor that the girl waiter at Billyâs Lunch was not all she might beâ âor, rather, was quite all she might be.
âMy lands, what can you expect when everybody knows what her mother was? And if these traveling salesmen would let her alone she would be all right, though I certainly donât believe she ought to be allowed to think she can pull the wool over our eyes. The sooner sheâs sent to the school for incorrigible girls down at Sauk Centre, the better for all andâ âWonât you just have a cup of coffee, Carol dearie, Iâm sure you wonât mind old Aunty Bogart calling you by your first name when you think how long Iâve known Will, and I was such a friend of his dear lovely mother when she lived here andâ âwas that fur cap expensive? Butâ âDonât you think itâs awful, the way folks talk in this town?â
Mrs. Bogart hitched her chair nearer. Her large face, with its disturbing collection of moles and lone black hairs, wrinkled cunningly. She showed her decayed teeth in a reproving smile, and in the confidential voice of one who scents stale bedroom scandal she breathed:
âI just donât see how folks can talk and act like they do. You donât know the things that go on under cover. This townâ âwhy itâs only the religious training Iâve given Cy thatâs kept him so innocent ofâ âthings. Just the other dayâ âI never pay no attention to stories, but I heard it mighty good and straight that Harry Haydock is carrying on with a girl that clerks in a store down in Minneapolis, and poor Juanita not knowing anything about itâ âthough maybe itâs the judgment of God, because before she married Harry she acted up with more than one boyâ âWell, I donât like to say it, and maybe I ainât up-to-date, like Cy says, but I always believed a lady shouldnât even give names to all sorts of dreadful things, but just the same I know there was at least one case where Juanita and a boyâ âwell, they were just dreadful. Andâ âandâ âThen thereâs that Ole Jenson the grocer, that thinks heâs so plaguey smart, and I know he made up to a farmerâs wife andâ âAnd this awful man Bjornstam that does chores, and Nat Hicks andâ ââ
There was, it seemed, no person in town who was not living a life of shame except Mrs. Bogart, and naturally she resented it.
She knew. She had always happened to be there. Once, she whispered, she was going by when an indiscreet window-shade had been left up a couple of inches. Once she had noticed a man and woman holding hands, and right at a Methodist sociable!
âAnother thingâ âHeaven knows I never want to start trouble, but I canât help what I see from my back steps, and I notice your hired girl Bea carrying on with the grocery boys and allâ ââ
âMrs. Bogart! Iâd trust Bea as I would myself!â
âOh, dearie, you donât understand me! Iâm sure sheâs a good girl. I mean sheâs green, and I hope that none of these horrid young men that there are around town will get her into trouble! Itâs their parentsâ fault, letting them run wild and hear evil things. If I had my way there wouldnât be none of them, not boys nor girls neither, allowed to know anything aboutâ âabout things till they was married. Itâs terrible the bald way that some folks talk. It just shows and gives away what awful thoughts they got inside them, and thereâs nothing can cure them except coming right to God and kneeling down like I do at prayer-meeting every Wednesday evening, and saying, âO God, I would be a miserable sinner except for thy grace.â
âIâd make every last one of these brats go to Sunday School and learn to think about nice things âstead of about cigarettes and goings-onâ âand these dances they have at the lodges are the worst thing that ever happened to this town, lot of young men squeezing girls and finding outâ âOh, itâs dreadful. Iâve told the mayor he ought to put a stop to them andâ âThere was one boy in this town, I donât want to be suspicious or uncharitable butâ ââ
It was half an hour before Carol escaped.
She stopped on her own porch and thought viciously:
âIf that woman is on the side of the angels, then I have no choice; I must be on the side of the devil. Butâ âisnât she like me? She too wants to âreform the townâ! She too criticizes everybody! She too thinks the men are vulgar and limited! Am I like her? This is ghastly!â
That evening she did not merely consent to play cribbage with Kennicott; she urged him to play; and she worked up a hectic interest in land-deals and Sam Clark.
VIIIIn courtship days Kennicott had shown her a photograph of Nels Erdstromâs baby and log cabin, but she had never seen the Erdstroms. They had become merely âpatients of the doctor.â Kennicott telephoned her on a mid-December afternoon, âWant to throw your coat on and drive out to Erdstromâs with me? Fairly warm. Nels got the jaundice.â
âOh yes!â She hastened to put on woolen stockings, high boots, sweater, muffler, cap, mittens.
The snow was too thick and the ruts frozen too hard for the motor. They drove out in a clumsy high carriage. Tucked over them was a blue woolen cover, prickly to her wrists, and outside of it a buffalo robe, humble and moth-eaten now, used ever since the bison herds had streaked the prairie a few miles to the west.
The scattered houses between which they passed in town were small and desolate in contrast to the expanse of huge snowy yards and wide street. They crossed the railroad tracks, and instantly were in the farm country. The big piebald horses snorted clouds of steam, and started to trot. The carriage squeaked in rhythm. Kennicott drove with clucks of âThere boy,
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