["[Event happened on 2024-01-01 The user is reading a book]\n<User> CHAPTER XXIV\n\n\nI\n\nALL that midsummer month Carol was sensitive to Kennicott. She recalled\na hundred grotesqueries: her comic dismay at his having chewed tobacco,\nthe evening when she had tried to read poetry to him; matters which had\nseemed to vanish with no trace or sequence. Always she repeated that\nhe had been heroically patient in his desire to join the army. She made\nmuch of her consoling affection for him in little things. She liked the\nhomeliness of his tinkering about the house; his strength and handiness\nas he tightened the hinges of a shutter; his boyishness when he ran\nto her to be comforted because he had found rust in the barrel of his\npump-gun. But at the highest he was to her another Hugh, without the\nglamor of Hugh's unknown future. There was, late in June, a day of heat-lightning. Because of the work imposed by the absence of the other doctors the\nKennicotts had not moved to the lake cottage but remained in town, dusty\nand irritable. In the afternoon, when she went to Oleson & McGuire's\n(formerly Dahl & Oleson's), Carol was vexed by the assumption of\nthe youthful clerk, recently come from the farm, that he had to be\nneighborly and rude. He was no more brusquely familiar than a dozen\nother clerks of the town, but her nerves were heat-scorched. When she asked for codfish, for supper, he grunted, \"What d'you want\nthat darned old dry stuff for?\" \"I like it!\" \"Punk! Guess the doc can afford something better than that. Try some of\nthe new wienies we got in. Swell. The Haydocks use 'em.\" She exploded. \"My dear young man, it is not your duty to instruct me in\nhousekeeping, and it doesn't particularly concern me what the Haydocks\ncondescend to approve!\" He was hurt. He hastily wrapped up the leprous fragment of fish; he\ngaped as she trailed out. She lamented, \"I shouldn't have spoken so. He\ndidn't mean anything. He doesn't know when he is being rude.\" Her repentance was not proof against Uncle Whittier when she stopped in\nat his grocery for salt and a package of safety matches. Uncle Whittier,\nin a shirt collarless and soaked with sweat in a brown streak down his\nback, was whining at a clerk, \"Come on now, get a hustle on and lug\nthat pound cake up to Mis' Cass's. Some folks in this town think a\nstorekeeper ain't got nothing to do but chase out 'phone-orders. . . . Hello, Carrie. That dress you got on looks kind of low in the neck to\nme. May be decent and modest--I suppose I'm old-fashioned--but I never\nthought much of showing the whole town a woman's bust! Hee, hee, hee! . . . Afternoon, Mrs. Hicks. Sage? Just out of it. Lemme sell you some\nother spices. Heh?\" Uncle Whittier was nasally indignant \"CERTAINLY! Got\nPLENTY other spices jus' good as sage for any purp'se whatever! What's\nthe matter with--well, with allspice?\" When Mrs. Hicks had gone, he\nraged, \"Some folks don't know what they want!\" \"Sweating sanctimonious bully--my husband's uncle!\" thought Carol. She crept into Dave Dyer's. Dave held up his arms with, \"Don't shoot! I surrender!\" She smiled, but it occurred to her that for nearly five\nyears Dave had kept up this game of pretending that she threatened his\nlife. As she went dragging through the prickly-hot street she reflected that a\ncitizen of Gopher Prairie does not have jests--he has a jest. Every\ncold morning for five winters Lyman Cass had remarked, \"Fair to middlin'\nchilly--get worse before it gets better.\" Fifty times had Ezra Stowbody\ninformed the public that Carol had once asked, \"Shall I indorse this\ncheck on the back?\" Fifty times had Sam Clark called to her, \"Where'd\nyou steal that hat?\" Fifty times had the mention of Barney Cahoon,\nthe town drayman, like a nickel in a slot produced from Kennicott the\napocryphal story of Barney's directing a minister, \"Come down to the\ndepot and get your case of religious books--they're leaking!\" She came home by the unvarying route. She knew every house-front, every\nstreet-crossing, every billboard, every tree, every dog. She knew every\nblackened banana-skin and empty cigarette-box in the gutters. She knew\nevery greeting. When Jim Howland stopped and gaped at her there was\nno possibility that he was about to confide anything but his grudging,\n\"Well, haryuh t'day?\" All her future life, this same red-labeled bread-crate in front of the\nbakery, this same thimble-shaped crack in the sidewalk a quarter of a\nblock beyond Stowbody's granite hitching-post----\n\nShe silently handed her purchases to the silent Oscarina. She sat on the\nporch, rocking, fanning, twitchy with Hugh's whining. Kennicott came home, grumbled, \"What the devil is the kid yapping\nabout?\" \"I guess you can stand it ten minutes if I can stand it all day!\" He came to supper in his shirt sleeves, his vest partly open, revealing\ndiscolored suspenders. \"Why don't you put on your nice Palm Beach suit, and take off that\nhideous vest?\" she complained. \"Too much trouble. Too hot to go up-stairs.\" She realized that for perhaps a year she had not definitely looked\nat her husband. She regarded his table-manners. He violently chased\nfragments of fish about his plate with a knife and licked the knife\nafter gobbling them. She was slightly sick. She asserted, \"I'm\nridiculous. What do these things matter! Don't be so simple!\" But she\nknew that to her they did matter, these solecisms and mixed tenses of\nthe table. She realized that they found little to say; that, incredibly, they were\nlike the talked-out couples whom she had pitied at restaurants. Bresnahan would have spouted in a lively, exciting, unreliable manner. She realized that Kennicott's clothes were seldom pressed. His coat was\nwrinkled; his trousers would flap at the knees when he arose. His shoes\nwere unblacked, and they were of an elderly shapelessness. He refused\nto wear soft hats; cleaved to a hard derby, as a symbol of virility and\nprosperity; and sometimes he forgot to take it off in the house. She\npeeped at his cuffs. They were frayed in prickles of starched linen. She had turned them once; she clipped them every week; but when she had\nbegged him to throw the shirt away, last Sunday morning at the crisis\nof the weekly bath, he had uneasily protested, \"Oh, it'll wear quite a\nwhile yet.\" He was shaved (by himself or more socially by Del Snafflin) only three\ntimes a week. This morning had not been one of the three times. Yet he was vain of his new turn-down collars and sleek ties; he often\nspoke of the \"sloppy dressing\" of Dr. McGanum; and he laughed at old men\nwho wore detachable cuffs or Gladstone collars. Carol did not care much for the creamed codfish that evening. She noted that his nails were jagged and ill-shaped from his habit of\ncutting them with a pocket-knife and despising a nail-file as effeminate\nand urban. That they were invariably clean, that his were the scoured\nfingers of the surgeon, made his stubborn untidiness the more jarring. They were wise hands, kind hands, but they were not the hands of love. She remembered him in the days of courtship. He had tried to please her,\nthen, had touched her by sheepishly wearing a colored band on his straw\nhat. Was it possible that those days of fumbling for each other were\ngone so completely? He had read books, to impress her; had said (she\nrecalled it ironically) that she was to point out his every fault; had\ninsisted once, as they sat in the secret place beneath the walls of Fort\nSnelling----\n\nShe shut the door on her thoughts. That was sacred ground. But it WAS a\nshame that----\n\nShe nervously pushed away her cake and stewed apricots. After supper, when they had been driven in from the porch by mosquitos,\nwhen Kennicott had for the two-hundredth time in five years commented,\n\"We must have a new screen on the porch--lets all the bugs in,\" they sat\nreading, and she noted, and detested herself for noting, and noted again\nhis habitual awkwardness.\n\n<System> Please remember what the user reads on 2024-01-01, save the details within the book, and retain a summary of the book the user has read so far.", "[Event happened on 2024-01-04 The user is reading a book]\n<User> He slumped down in one chair, his legs up on\nanother, and he explored the recesses of his left ear with the end of\nhis little finger--she could hear the faint smack--he kept it up--he\nkept it up----\n\nHe blurted, \"Oh. Forgot tell you. Some of the fellows coming in to play\npoker this evening. Suppose we could have some crackers and cheese and\nbeer?\" She nodded. \"He might have mentioned it before. Oh well, it's his house.\" The poker-party straggled in: Sam Clark, Jack Elder, Dave Dyer, Jim\nHowland. To her they mechanically said, \"'Devenin',\" but to Kennicott,\nin a heroic male manner, \"Well, well, shall we start playing? Got a\nhunch I'm going to lick somebody real bad.\" No one suggested that she\njoin them. She told herself that it was her own fault, because she was\nnot more friendly; but she remembered that they never asked Mrs. Sam\nClark to play. Bresnahan would have asked her. She sat in the living-room, glancing across the hall at the men as they\nhumped over the dining table. They were in shirt sleeves; smoking, chewing, spitting incessantly;\nlowering their voices for a moment so that she did not hear what they\nsaid and afterward giggling hoarsely; using over and over the canonical\nphrases: \"Three to dole,\" \"I raise you a finif,\" \"Come on now, ante up;\nwhat do you think this is, a pink tea?\" The cigar-smoke was acrid and\npervasive. The firmness with which the men mouthed their cigars made the\nlower part of their faces expressionless, heavy, unappealing. They were\nlike politicians cynically dividing appointments. How could they understand her world? Did that faint and delicate world exist? Was she a fool? She doubted her\nworld, doubted herself, and was sick in the acid, smoke-stained air. She slipped back into brooding upon the habituality of the house. Kennicott was as fixed in routine as an isolated old man. At first\nhe had amorously deceived himself into liking her experiments with\nfood--the one medium in which she could express imagination--but now\nhe wanted only his round of favorite dishes: steak, roast beef, boiled\npig's-feet, oatmeal, baked apples. Because at some more flexible period\nhe had advanced from oranges to grape-fruit he considered himself an\nepicure. During their first autumn she had smiled over his affection for his\nhunting-coat, but now that the leather had come unstitched in dribbles\nof pale yellow thread, and tatters of canvas, smeared with dirt of the\nfields and grease from gun-cleaning, hung in a border of rags, she hated\nthe thing. Wasn't her whole life like that hunting-coat? She knew every nick and brown spot on each piece of the set of china\npurchased by Kennicott's mother in 1895--discreet china with a pattern\nof washed-out forget-me-nots, rimmed with blurred gold: the gravy-boat,\nin a saucer which did not match, the solemn and evangelical covered\nvegetable-dishes, the two platters. Twenty times had Kennicott sighed over the fact that Bea had broken the\nother platter--the medium-sized one. The kitchen. Damp black iron sink, damp whitey-yellow drain-board with shreds of\ndiscolored wood which from long scrubbing were as soft as cotton thread,\nwarped table, alarm clock, stove bravely blackened by Oscarina but an\nabomination in its loose doors and broken drafts and oven that never\nwould keep an even heat. Carol had done her best by the kitchen: painted it white, put up\ncurtains, replaced a six-year-old calendar by a color print. She had\nhoped for tiling, and a kerosene range for summer cooking, but Kennicott\nalways postponed these expenses. She was better acquainted with the utensils in the kitchen than with\nVida Sherwin or Guy Pollock. The can-opener, whose soft gray metal\nhandle was twisted from some ancient effort to pry open a window,\nwas more pertinent to her than all the cathedrals in Europe; and\nmore significant than the future of Asia was the never-settled weekly\nquestion as to whether the small kitchen knife with the unpainted handle\nor the second-best buckhorn carving-knife was better for cutting up cold\nchicken for Sunday supper. II\n\n\nShe was ignored by the males till midnight. Her husband called, \"Suppose\nwe could have some eats, Carrie?\" As she passed through the dining-room\nthe men smiled on her, belly-smiles. None of them noticed her while she\nwas serving the crackers and cheese and sardines and beer. They were\ndetermining the exact psychology of Dave Dyer in standing pat, two hours\nbefore. When they were gone she said to Kennicott, \"Your friends have the\nmanners of a barroom. They expect me to wait on them like a servant. They're not so much interested in me as they would be in a waiter,\nbecause they don't have to tip me. Unfortunately! Well, good night.\" So rarely did she nag in this petty, hot-weather fashion that he was\nastonished rather than angry. \"Hey! Wait! What's the idea? I must say\nI don't get you. The boys----Barroom? Why, Perce Bresnahan was saying\nthere isn't a finer bunch of royal good fellows anywhere than just the\ncrowd that were here tonight!\" They stood in the lower hall. He was too shocked to go on with his\nduties of locking the front door and winding his watch and the clock. \"Bresnahan! I'm sick of him!\" She meant nothing in particular. \"Why, Carrie, he's one of the biggest men in the country! Boston just\neats out of his hand!\" \"I wonder if it does? How do we know but that in Boston, among well-bred\npeople, he may be regarded as an absolute lout? The way he calls women\n'Sister,' and the way----\"\n\n\"Now look here! That'll do! Of course I know you don't mean it--you're\nsimply hot and tired, and trying to work off your peeve on me. But just\nthe same, I won't stand your jumping on Perce. You----It's just like\nyour attitude toward the war--so darn afraid that America will become\nmilitaristic----\"\n\n\"But you are the pure patriot!\" \"By God, I am!\" \"Yes, I heard you talking to Sam Clark tonight about ways of avoiding\nthe income tax!\" He had recovered enough to lock the door; he clumped up-stairs ahead of\nher, growling, \"You don't know what you're talking about. I'm perfectly\nwilling to pay my full tax--fact, I'm in favor of the income tax--even\nthough I do think it's a penalty on frugality and enterprise--fact, it's\nan unjust, darn-fool tax. But just the same, I'll pay it. Only, I'm not\nidiot enough to pay more than the government makes me pay, and Sam and\nI were just figuring out whether all automobile expenses oughn't to be\nexemptions. I'll take a lot off you, Carrie, but I don't propose for one\nsecond to stand your saying I'm not patriotic. You know mighty well and\ngood that I've tried to get away and join the army. And at the beginning\nof the whole fracas I said--I've said right along--that we ought to have\nentered the war the minute Germany invaded Belgium. You don't get me at\nall. You can't appreciate a man's work. You're abnormal. You've\nfussed so much with these fool novels and books and all this highbrow\njunk----You like to argue!\" It ended, a quarter of an hour later, in his calling her a \"neurotic\"\nbefore he turned away and pretended to sleep. For the first time they had failed to make peace. \"There are two races of people, only two, and they live side by\nside. His calls mine 'neurotic'; mine calls his 'stupid.' We'll never\nunderstand each other, never; and it's madness for us to debate--to lie\ntogether in a hot bed in a creepy room--enemies, yoked.\" III\n\n\nIt clarified in her the longing for a place of her own. \"While it's so hot, I think I'll sleep in the spare room,\" she said next\nday. \"Not a bad idea.\" He was cheerful and kindly. The room was filled with a lumbering double bed and a cheap pine bureau. She stored the bed in the attic; replaced it by a cot which, with a\ndenim cover, made a couch by day; put in a dressing-table, a rocker\ntransformed by a cretonne cover; had Miles Bjornstam build book-shelves. Kennicott slowly understood that she meant to keep up her seclusion. In\nhis queries, \"Changing the whole room?\" \"Putting your books in there?\" she caught his dismay.\n\n<System> Please remember what the user reads on 2024-01-04, save the details within the book, and retain a summary of the book the user has read so far.", "[Event happened on 2024-01-05 The user is reading a book]\n<User> But it was so easy, once her door was closed, to\nshut out his worry. That hurt her--the ease of forgetting him. Aunt Bessie Smail sleuthed out this anarchy. She yammered, \"Why, Carrie,\nyou ain't going to sleep all alone by yourself? I don't believe in that. Married folks should have the same room, of course! Don't go getting\nsilly notions. No telling what a thing like that might lead to. Suppose\nI up and told your Uncle Whit that I wanted a room of my own!\" Carol spoke of recipes for corn-pudding. But from Mrs. Dr. Westlake she drew encouragement. She had made an\nafternoon call on Mrs. Westlake. She was for the first time invited\nup-stairs, and found the suave old woman sewing in a white and mahogany\nroom with a small bed. \"Oh, do you have your own royal apartments, and the doctor his?\" Carol\nhinted. \"Indeed I do! The doctor says it's bad enough to have to stand my temper\nat meals. Do----\" Mrs. Westlake looked at her sharply. \"Why, don't you\ndo the same thing?\" \"I've been thinking about it.\" Carol laughed in an embarrassed way. \"Then you wouldn't regard me as a complete hussy if I wanted to be by\nmyself now and then?\" \"Why, child, every woman ought to get off by herself and turn over her\nthoughts--about children, and God, and how bad her complexion is, and\nthe way men don't really understand her, and how much work she finds to\ndo in the house, and how much patience it takes to endure some things in\na man's love.\" \"Yes!\" Carol said it in a gasp, her hands twisted together. She wanted\nto confess not only her hatred for the Aunt Bessies but her covert\nirritation toward those she best loved: her alienation from Kennicott,\nher disappointment in Guy Pollock, her uneasiness in the presence of\nVida. She had enough self-control to confine herself to, \"Yes. Men! The\ndear blundering souls, we do have to get off and laugh at them.\" \"Of course we do. Not that you have to laugh at Dr. Kennicott so much,\nbut MY man, heavens, now there's a rare old bird! Reading story-books\nwhen he ought to be tending to business! 'Marcus Westlake,' I say to\nhim, 'you're a romantic old fool.' And does he get angry? He does not! He chuckles and says, 'Yes, my beloved, folks do say that married\npeople grow to resemble each other!' Drat him!\" Mrs. Westlake laughed\ncomfortably. After such a disclosure what could Carol do but return the courtesy by\nremarking that as for Kennicott, he wasn't romantic enough--the darling. Before she left she had babbled to Mrs. Westlake her dislike for Aunt\nBessie, the fact that Kennicott's income was now more than five thousand\na year, her view of the reason why Vida had married Raymie (which\nincluded some thoroughly insincere praise of Raymie's \"kind heart\"), her\nopinion of the library-board, just what Kennicott had said about Mrs.\nCarthal's diabetes, and what Kennicott thought of the several surgeons\nin the Cities. She went home soothed by confession, inspirited by finding a new friend. IV\n\n\nThe tragicomedy of the \"domestic situation.\" Oscarina went back home to help on the farm, and Carol had a succession\nof maids, with gaps between. The lack of servants was becoming one\nof the most cramping problems of the prairie town. Increasingly the\nfarmers' daughters rebelled against village dullness, and against the\nunchanged attitude of the Juanitas toward \"hired girls.\" They went off\nto city kitchens, or to city shops and factories, that they might be\nfree and even human after hours. The Jolly Seventeen were delighted at Carol's desertion by the loyal\nOscarina. They reminded her that she had said, \"I don't have any trouble\nwith maids; see how Oscarina stays on.\" Between incumbencies of Finn maids from the North Woods, Germans from\nthe prairies, occasional Swedes and Norwegians and Icelanders, Carol did\nher own work--and endured Aunt Bessie's skittering in to tell her how to\ndampen a broom for fluffy dust, how to sugar doughnuts, how to stuff\na goose. Carol was deft, and won shy praise from Kennicott, but as her\nshoulder blades began to sting, she wondered how many millions of women\nhad lied to themselves during the death-rimmed years through which they\nhad pretended to enjoy the puerile methods persisting in housework. She doubted the convenience and, as a natural sequent, the sanctity of\nthe monogamous and separate home which she had regarded as the basis of\nall decent life. She considered her doubts vicious. She refused to remember how many of\nthe women of the Jolly Seventeen nagged their husbands and were nagged\nby them. She energetically did not whine to Kennicott. But her eyes ached; she\nwas not the girl in breeches and a flannel shirt who had cooked over a\ncamp-fire in the Colorado mountains five years ago. Her ambition was to\nget to bed at nine; her strongest emotion was resentment over rising at\nhalf-past six to care for Hugh. The back of her neck ached as she got\nout of bed. She was cynical about the joys of a simple laborious life. She understood why workmen and workmen's wives are not grateful to their\nkind employers. At mid-morning, when she was momentarily free from the ache in her neck\nand back, she was glad of the reality of work. The hours were living\nand nimble. But she had no desire to read the eloquent little newspaper\nessays in praise of labor which are daily written by the white-browed\njournalistic prophets. She felt independent and (though she hid it) a\nbit surly. In cleaning the house she pondered upon the maid's-room. It was a\nslant-roofed, small-windowed hole above the kitchen, oppressive in\nsummer, frigid in winter. She saw that while she had been considering\nherself an unusually good mistress, she had been permitting her friends\nBea and Oscarina to live in a sty. She complained to Kennicott. \"What's\nthe matter with it?\" he growled, as they stood on the perilous stairs\ndodging up from the kitchen. She commented upon the sloping roof of\nunplastered boards stained in brown rings by the rain, the uneven floor,\nthe cot and its tumbled discouraged-looking quilts, the broken rocker,\nthe distorting mirror. \"Maybe it ain't any Hotel Radisson parlor, but still, it's so much\nbetter than anything these hired girls are accustomed to at home that\nthey think it's fine. Seems foolish to spend money when they wouldn't\nappreciate it.\" But that night he drawled, with the casualness of a man who wishes to be\nsurprising and delightful, \"Carrie, don't know but what we might begin\nto think about building a new house, one of these days. How'd you like\nthat?\" \"W-why----\"\n\n\"I'm getting to the point now where I feel we can afford one--and a\ncorker! I'll show this burg something like a real house! We'll put one\nover on Sam and Harry! Make folks sit up an' take notice!\" \"Yes,\" she said. He did not go on. Daily he returned to the subject of the new house, but as to time and\nmode he was indefinite. At first she believed. She babbled of a low\nstone house with lattice windows and tulip-beds, of colonial brick, of\na white frame cottage with green shutters and dormer windows. To her\nenthusiasms he answered, \"Well, ye-es, might be worth thinking about. Remember where I put my pipe?\" When she pressed him he fidgeted, \"I\ndon't know; seems to me those kind of houses you speak of have been\noverdone.\" It proved that what he wanted was a house exactly like Sam Clark's,\nwhich was exactly like every third new house in every town in the\ncountry: a square, yellow stolidity with immaculate clapboards, a broad\nscreened porch, tidy grass-plots, and concrete walks; a house resembling\nthe mind of a merchant who votes the party ticket straight and goes to\nchurch once a month and owns a good car. He admitted, \"Well, yes, maybe it isn't so darn artistic but----Matter\nof fact, though, I don't want a place just like Sam's. Maybe I would cut\noff that fool tower he's got, and I think probably it would look better\npainted a nice cream color. That yellow on Sam's house is too kind\nof flashy.\n\n<System> Please remember what the user reads on 2024-01-05, save the details within the book, and retain a summary of the book the user has read so far.", "[Event happened on 2024-01-07 The user is reading a book]\n<User> Then there's another kind of house that's mighty nice and\nsubstantial-looking, with shingles, in a nice brown stain, instead of\nclapboards--seen some in Minneapolis. You're way off your base when you\nsay I only like one kind of house!\" Uncle Whittier and Aunt Bessie came in one evening when Carol was\nsleepily advocating a rose-garden cottage. \"You've had a lot of experience with housekeeping, aunty, and don't you\nthink,\" Kennicott appealed, \"that it would be sensible to have a nice\nsquare house, and pay more attention to getting a crackajack furnace\nthan to all this architecture and doodads?\" Aunt Bessie worked her lips as though they were an elastic band. \"Why\nof course! I know how it is with young folks like you, Carrie; you want\ntowers and bay-windows and pianos and heaven knows what all, but the\nthing to get is closets and a good furnace and a handy place to hang out\nthe washing, and the rest don't matter.\" Uncle Whittier dribbled a little, put his face near to Carol's, and\nsputtered, \"Course it don't! What d'you care what folks think about\nthe outside of your house? It's the inside you're living in. None of my\nbusiness, but I must say you young folks that'd rather have cakes than\npotatoes get me riled.\" She reached her room before she became savage. Below, dreadfully\nnear, she could hear the broom-swish of Aunt Bessie's voice, and the\nmop-pounding of Uncle Whittier's grumble. She had a reasonless dread\nthat they would intrude on her, then a fear that she would yield\nto Gopher Prairie's conception of duty toward an Aunt Bessie and go\ndown-stairs to be \"nice.\" She felt the demand for standardized behavior\ncoming in waves from all the citizens who sat in their sitting-rooms\nwatching her with respectable eyes, waiting, demanding, unyielding. She\nsnarled, \"Oh, all right, I'll go!\" She powdered her nose, straightened\nher collar, and coldly marched down-stairs. The three elders ignored\nher. They had advanced from the new house to agreeable general fussing. Aunt Bessie was saying, in a tone like the munching of dry toast:\n\n\"I do think Mr. Stowbody ought to have had the rain-pipe fixed at our\nstore right away. I went to see him on Tuesday morning before ten, no,\nit was couple minutes after ten, but anyway, it was long before noon--I\nknow because I went right from the bank to the meat market to get some\nsteak--my! I think it's outrageous, the prices Oleson & McGuire charge\nfor their meat, and it isn't as if they gave you a good cut either but\njust any old thing, and I had time to get it, and I stopped in at Mrs.\nBogart's to ask about her rheumatism----\"\n\nCarol was watching Uncle Whittier. She knew from his taut expression\nthat he was not listening to Aunt Bessie but herding his own thoughts,\nand that he would interrupt her bluntly. He did:\n\n\"Will, where c'n I get an extra pair of pants for this coat and vest? D'\nwant to pay too much.\" \"Well, guess Nat Hicks could make you up a pair. But if I were you, I'd\ndrop into Ike Rifkin's--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----\"\n\n\"Well, y' ought get 't in. Don't do to put off getting a stove all\nsummer, and then have it come cold on you in the fall.\" Carol smiled upon them ingratiatingly. \"Do you dears mind if I slip up\nto bed? I'm rather tired--cleaned the upstairs today.\" She retreated. She was certain that they were discussing her, and foully\nforgiving her. She lay awake till she heard the distant creak of a bed\nwhich indicated that Kennicott had retired. Then she felt safe. It was Kennicott who brought up the matter of the Smails at breakfast. With no visible connection he said, \"Uncle Whit is kind of clumsy, but\njust the same, he's a pretty wise old coot. He's certainly making good\nwith the store.\" Carol smiled, and Kennicott was pleased that she had come to her senses. \"As Whit says, after all the first thing is to have the inside of a\nhouse right, and darn the people on the outside looking in!\" It seemed settled that the house was to be a sound example of the Sam\nClark school. Kennicott made much of erecting it entirely for her and the baby. He\nspoke of closets for her frocks, and \"a comfy sewing-room.\" But when\nhe drew on a leaf from an old account-book (he was a paper-saver and a\nstring-picker) the plans for the garage, he gave much more attention\nto a cement floor and a work-bench and a gasoline-tank than he had to\nsewing-rooms. She sat back and was afraid. In the present rookery there were odd things--a step up from the hall\nto the dining-room, a picturesqueness in the shed and bedraggled lilac\nbush. But the new place would be smooth, standardized, fixed. It was\nprobable, now that Kennicott was past forty, and settled, that this\nwould be the last venture he would ever make in building. So long as she\nstayed in this ark, she would always have a possibility of change, but\nonce she was in the new house, there she would sit for all the rest of\nher life--there she would die. Desperately she wanted to put it off,\nagainst the chance of miracles. While Kennicott was chattering about a\npatent swing-door for the garage she saw the swing-doors of a prison. She never voluntarily returned to the project. Aggrieved, Kennicott\nstopped drawing plans, and in ten days the new house was forgotten. V\n\n\nEvery year since their marriage Carol had longed for a trip through the\nEast. Every year Kennicott had talked of attending the American Medical\nAssociation convention, \"and then afterwards we could do the East\nup brown. I know New York clean through--spent pretty near a week\nthere--but I would like to see New England and all these historic places\nand have some sea-food.\" He talked of it from February to May, and in\nMay he invariably decided that coming confinement-cases or land-deals\nwould prevent his \"getting away from home-base for very long THIS\nyear--and no sense going till we can do it right.\" The weariness of dish-washing had increased her desire to go. She\npictured herself looking at Emerson's manse, bathing in a surf of jade\nand ivory, wearing a trottoir and a summer fur, meeting an aristocratic\nStranger. In the spring Kennicott had pathetically volunteered, \"S'pose\nyou'd like to get in a good long tour this summer, but with Gould and\nMac away and so many patients depending on me, don't see how I can make\nit. By golly, I feel like a tightwad though, not taking you.\" Through\nall this restless July after she had tasted Bresnahan's disturbing\nflavor of travel and gaiety, she wanted to go, but she said nothing. They spoke of and postponed a trip to the Twin Cities. When she\nsuggested, as though it were a tremendous joke, \"I think baby and I\nmight up and leave you, and run off to Cape Cod by ourselves!\" his only\nreaction was \"Golly, don't know but what you may almost have to do that,\nif we don't get in a trip next year.\" Toward the end of July he proposed, \"Say, the Beavers are holding a\nconvention in Joralemon, street fair and everything. We might go down\ntomorrow. And I'd like to see Dr. Calibree about some business. Put in\nthe whole day. Might help some to make up for our trip. Fine fellow, Dr. Calibree.\" Joralemon was a prairie town of the size of Gopher Prairie. Their motor was out of order, and there was no passenger-train at an\nearly hour. They went down by freight-train, after the weighty and\nconversational business of leaving Hugh with Aunt Bessie. Carol was\nexultant over this irregular jaunting. It was the first unusual thing,\nexcept the glance of Bresnahan, that had happened since the weaning of\nHugh. They rode in the caboose, the small red cupola-topped car jerked\nalong at the end of the train. It was a roving shanty, the cabin of a\nland schooner, with black oilcloth seats along the side, and for desk, a\npine board to be let down on hinges. Kennicott played seven-up with the\nconductor and two brakemen.\n\n<System> Please remember what the user reads on 2024-01-07, save the details within the book, and retain a summary of the book the user has read so far.", "[Event happened on 2024-01-10 The user is reading a book]\n<User> Carol liked the blue silk kerchiefs about\nthe brakemen's throats; she liked their welcome to her, and their air of\nfriendly independence. Since there were no sweating passengers crammed\nin beside her, she reveled in the train's slowness. She was part of\nthese lakes and tawny wheat-fields. She liked the smell of hot earth and\nclean grease; and the leisurely chug-a-chug, chug-a-chug of the trucks\nwas a song of contentment in the sun. She pretended that she was going to the Rockies. When they reached\nJoralemon she was radiant with holiday-making. Her eagerness began to lessen the moment they stopped at a red frame\nstation exactly like the one they had just left at Gopher Prairie,\nand Kennicott yawned, \"Right on time. Just in time for dinner at the\nCalibrees'. I 'phoned the doctor from G. P. that we'd be here. 'We'll\ncatch the freight that gets in before twelve,' I told him. He said\nhe'd meet us at the depot and take us right up to the house for dinner. Calibree is a good man, and you'll find his wife is a mighty brainy\nlittle woman, bright as a dollar. By golly, there he is.\" Dr. Calibree was a squat, clean-shaven, conscientious-looking man of\nforty. He was curiously like his own brown-painted motor car, with\neye-glasses for windshield. \"Want you to meet my wife, doctor--Carrie,\nmake you 'quainted with Dr. Calibree,\" said Kennicott. Calibree bowed\nquietly and shook her hand, but before he had finished shaking it he was\nconcentrating upon Kennicott with, \"Nice to see you, doctor. Say, don't\nlet me forget to ask you about what you did in that exopthalmic goiter\ncase--that Bohemian woman at Wahkeenyan.\" The two men, on the front seat of the car, chanted goiters and ignored\nher. She did not know it. She was trying to feed her illusion of\nadventure by staring at unfamiliar houses . . . drab cottages, artificial\nstone bungalows, square painty stolidities with immaculate clapboards\nand broad screened porches and tidy grass-plots. Calibree handed her over to his wife, a thick woman who called\nher \"dearie,\" and asked if she was hot and, visibly searching for\nconversation, produced, \"Let's see, you and the doctor have a Little\nOne, haven't you?\" At dinner Mrs. Calibree served the corned beef and\ncabbage and looked steamy, looked like the steamy leaves of cabbage. The\nmen were oblivious of their wives as they gave the social passwords of\nMain Street, the orthodox opinions on weather, crops, and motor cars,\nthen flung away restraint and gyrated in the debauch of shop-talk. Stroking his chin, drawling in the ecstasy of being erudite, Kennicott\ninquired, \"Say, doctor, what success have you had with thyroid for\ntreatment of pains in the legs before child-birth?\" Carol did not resent their assumption that she was too ignorant to be\nadmitted to masculine mysteries. She was used to it. But the cabbage and\nMrs. Calibree's monotonous \"I don't know what we're coming to with\nall this difficulty getting hired girls\" were gumming her eyes with\ndrowsiness. She sought to clear them by appealing to Calibree, in a\nmanner of exaggerated liveliness, \"Doctor, have the medical societies\nin Minnesota ever advocated legislation for help to nursing mothers?\" Calibree slowly revolved toward her. \"Uh--I've never--uh--never looked\ninto it. I don't believe much in getting mixed up in politics.\" He\nturned squarely from her and, peering earnestly at Kennicott, resumed,\n\"Doctor, what's been your experience with unilateral pyelonephritis? Buckburn of Baltimore advocates decapsulation and nephrotomy, but seems\nto me----\"\n\nNot till after two did they rise. In the lee of the stonily mature trio\nCarol proceeded to the street fair which added mundane gaiety to the\nannual rites of the United and Fraternal Order of Beavers. Beavers,\nhuman Beavers, were everywhere: thirty-second degree Beavers in gray\nsack suits and decent derbies, more flippant Beavers in crash summer\ncoats and straw hats, rustic Beavers in shirt sleeves and frayed\nsuspenders; but whatever his caste-symbols, every Beaver was\ndistinguished by an enormous shrimp-colored ribbon lettered in silver,\n\"Sir Knight and Brother, U. F. O. B., Annual State Convention.\" On the\nmotherly shirtwaist of each of their wives was a badge \"Sir Knight's\nLady.\" The Duluth delegation had brought their famous Beaver amateur\nband, in Zouave costumes of green velvet jacket, blue trousers, and\nscarlet fez. The strange thing was that beneath their scarlet pride the\nZouaves' faces remained those of American business-men, pink, smooth,\neye-glassed; and as they stood playing in a circle, at the corner of\nMain Street and Second, as they tootled on fifes or with swelling cheeks\nblew into cornets, their eyes remained as owlish as though they were\nsitting at desks under the sign \"This Is My Busy Day.\" Carol had supposed that the Beavers were average citizens organized for\nthe purposes of getting cheap life-insurance and playing poker at the\nlodge-rooms every second Wednesday, but she saw a large poster which\nproclaimed:\n\n     BEAVERS\n     U. F. O. B. The greatest influence for good citizenship in the\n     country. The jolliest aggregation of red-blooded,\n     open-handed, hustle-em-up good fellows in the world. Joralemon welcomes you to her hospitable city. Kennicott read the poster and to Calibree admired, \"Strong lodge, the\nBeavers. Never joined. Don't know but what I will.\" Calibree adumbrated, \"They're a good bunch. Good strong lodge. See that\nfellow there that's playing the snare drum? He's the smartest wholesale\ngrocer in Duluth, they say. Guess it would be worth joining. Oh say, are\nyou doing much insurance examining?\" They went on to the street fair. Lining one block of Main Street were the \"attractions\"--two hot-dog\nstands, a lemonade and pop-corn stand, a merry-go-round, and booths in\nwhich balls might be thrown at rag dolls, if one wished to throw balls\nat rag dolls. The dignified delegates were shy of the booths, but\ncountry boys with brickred necks and pale-blue ties and bright-yellow\nshoes, who had brought sweethearts into town in somewhat dusty and\nlisted Fords, were wolfing sandwiches, drinking strawberry pop out of\nbottles, and riding the revolving crimson and gold horses. They shrieked\nand giggled; peanut-roasters whistled; the merry-go-round pounded out\nmonotonous music; the barkers bawled, \"Here's your chance--here's\nyour chance--come on here, boy--come on here--give that girl a good\ntime--give her a swell time--here's your chance to win a genuwine gold\nwatch for five cents, half a dime, the twentieth part of a dollah!\" The prairie sun jabbed the unshaded street with shafts that were like\npoisonous thorns the tinny cornices above the brick stores were glaring;\nthe dull breeze scattered dust on sweaty Beavers who crawled along in\ntight scorching new shoes, up two blocks and back, up two blocks and\nback, wondering what to do next, working at having a good time. Carol's head ached as she trailed behind the unsmiling Calibrees along\nthe block of booths. She chirruped at Kennicott, \"Let's be wild! Let's\nride on the merry-go-round and grab a gold ring!\" Kennicott considered it, and mumbled to Calibree, \"Think you folks would\nlike to stop and try a ride on the merry-go-round?\" Calibree considered it, and mumbled to his wife, \"Think you'd like to\nstop and try a ride on the merry-go-round?\" Mrs. Calibree smiled in a washed-out manner, and sighed, \"Oh no, I don't\nbelieve I care to much, but you folks go ahead and try it.\" Calibree stated to Kennicott, \"No, I don't believe we care to a whole\nlot, but you folks go ahead and try it.\" Kennicott summarized the whole case against wildness: \"Let's try it some\nother time, Carrie.\" She gave it up. She looked at the town. She saw that in adventuring\nfrom Main Street, Gopher Prairie, to Main Street, Joralemon, she had not\nstirred.\n\n<System> Please remember what the user reads on 2024-01-10, save the details within the book, and retain a summary of the book the user has read so far.", "[Event happened on 2024-01-12 The user is reading a book]\n<User> There were the same two-story brick groceries with lodge-signs\nabove the awnings; the same one-story wooden millinery shop; the same\nfire-brick garages; the same prairie at the open end of the wide\nstreet; the same people wondering whether the levity of eating a hot-dog\nsandwich would break their taboos. They reached Gopher Prairie at nine in the evening. \"You look kind of hot,\" said Kennicott. \"Yes.\" \"Joralemon is an enterprising town, don't you think so?\" She broke. \"No! I think it's an ash-heap.\" \"Why, Carrie!\" He worried over it for a week. While he ground his plate with his knife\nas he energetically pursued fragments of bacon, he peeped at her. CHAPTER XXV\n\n\n\"CARRIE'S all right. She's finicky, but she'll get over it. But I wish\nshe'd hurry up about it! What she can't understand is that a fellow\npractising medicine in a small town like this has got to cut out the\nhighbrow stuff, and not spend all his time going to concerts and\nshining his shoes. (Not but what he might be just as good at all these\nintellectual and art things as some other folks, if he had the time\nfor it!)\" Dr. Will Kennicott was brooding in his office, during a free\nmoment toward the end of the summer afternoon. He hunched down in his\ntilted desk-chair, undid a button of his shirt, glanced at the state\nnews in the back of the Journal of the American Medical Association,\ndropped the magazine, leaned back with his right thumb hooked in the\narm-hole of his vest and his left thumb stroking the back of his hair. \"By golly, she's taking an awful big chance, though. You'd expect her\nto learn by and by that I won't be a parlor lizard. She says we try\nto 'make her over.' Well, she's always trying to make me over, from a\nperfectly good M. D. into a damn poet with a socialist necktie! She'd\nhave a fit if she knew how many women would be willing to cuddle up to\nFriend Will and comfort him, if he'd give 'em the chance! There's still\na few dames that think the old man isn't so darn unattractive! I'm\nglad I've ducked all that woman-game since I've been married but----Be\nswitched if sometimes I don't feel tempted to shine up to some girl that\nhas sense enough to take life as it is; some frau that doesn't want to\ntalk Longfellow all the time, but just hold my hand and say, 'You look\nall in, honey. Take it easy, and don't try to talk.' \"Carrie thinks she's such a whale at analyzing folks. Giving the town\nthe once-over. Telling us where we get off. Why, she'd simply turn up\nher toes and croak if she found out how much she doesn't know about the\nhigh old times a wise guy could have in this burg on the Q.T., if he\nwasn't faithful to his wife. But I am. At that, no matter what faults\nshe's got, there's nobody here, no, nor in Minn'aplus either, that's as\nnice-looking and square and bright as Carrie. She ought to of been an\nartist or a writer or one of those things. But once she took a shot at\nliving here, she ought to stick by it. Pretty----Lord yes. But cold. She\nsimply doesn't know what passion is. She simply hasn't got an i-dea how\nhard it is for a full-blooded man to go on pretending to be satisfied\nwith just being endured. It gets awful tiresome, having to feel like a\ncriminal just because I'm normal. She's getting so she doesn't even care\nfor my kissing her. Well----\n\n\"I guess I can weather it, same as I did earning my way through school\nand getting started in practise. But I wonder how long I can stand being\nan outsider in my own home?\" He sat up at the entrance of Mrs. Dave Dyer. She slumped into a chair\nand gasped with the heat. He chuckled, \"Well, well, Maud, this is fine. Where's the subscription-list? What cause do I get robbed for, this\ntrip?\" \"I haven't any subscription-list, Will. I want to see you\nprofessionally.\" \"And you a Christian Scientist? Have you given that up? What next? New\nThought or Spiritualism?\" \"No, I have not given it up!\" \"Strikes me it's kind of a knock on the sisterhood, your coming to see a\ndoctor!\" \"No, it isn't. It's just that my faith isn't strong enough yet. So there\nnow! And besides, you ARE kind of consoling, Will. I mean as a man, not\njust as a doctor. You're so strong and placid.\" He sat on the edge of his desk, coatless, his vest swinging open with\nthe thick gold line of his watch-chain across the gap, his hands in his\ntrousers pockets, his big arms bent and easy. As she purred he cocked\nan interested eye. Maud Dyer was neurotic, religiocentric, faded; her\nemotions were moist, and her figure was unsystematic--splendid thighs\nand arms, with thick ankles, and a body that was bulgy in the wrong\nplaces. But her milky skin was delicious, her eyes were alive, her\nchestnut hair shone, and there was a tender slope from her ears to the\nshadowy place below her jaw. With unusual solicitude he uttered his stock phrase, \"Well, what seems\nto be the matter, Maud?\" \"I've got such a backache all the time. I'm afraid the organic trouble\nthat you treated me for is coming back.\" \"Any definite signs of it?\" \"N-no, but I think you'd better examine me.\" \"Nope. Don't believe it's necessary, Maud. To be honest, between old\nfriends, I think your troubles are mostly imaginary. I can't really\nadvise you to have an examination.\" She flushed, looked out of the window. He was conscious that his voice\nwas not impersonal and even. She turned quickly. \"Will, you always say my troubles are imaginary. Why\ncan't you be scientific? I've been reading an article about these new\nnerve-specialists, and they claim that lots of 'imaginary' ailments,\nyes, and lots of real pain, too, are what they call psychoses, and they\norder a change in a woman's way of living so she can get on a higher\nplane----\"\n\n\"Wait! Wait! Whoa-up! Wait now! Don't mix up your Christian Science and\nyour psychology! They're two entirely different fads! You'll be mixing\nin socialism next! You're as bad as Carrie, with your 'psychoses.' Why, Good Lord, Maud, I could talk about neuroses and psychoses and\ninhibitions and repressions and complexes just as well as any damn\nspecialist, if I got paid for it, if I was in the city and had the nerve\nto charge the fees that those fellows do. If a specialist stung you for\na hundred-dollar consultation-fee and told you to go to New York to duck\nDave's nagging, you'd do it, to save the hundred dollars! But you know\nme--I'm your neighbor--you see me mowing the lawn--you figure I'm just\na plug general practitioner. If I said, 'Go to New York,' Dave and you\nwould laugh your heads off and say, 'Look at the airs Will is putting\non. What does he think he is?' \"As a matter of fact, you're right. You have a perfectly well-developed\ncase of repression of sex instinct, and it raises the old Ned with your\nbody. What you need is to get away from Dave and travel, yes, and go to\nevery dog-gone kind of New Thought and Bahai and Swami and Hooptedoodle\nmeeting you can find. I know it, well 's you do. But how can I advise\nit? Dave would be up here taking my hide off. I'm willing to be family\nphysician and priest and lawyer and plumber and wet-nurse, but I draw\nthe line at making Dave loosen up on money. Too hard a job in weather\nlike this! So, savvy, my dear? Believe it will rain if this heat\nkeeps----\"\n\n\"But, Will, he'd never give it to me on my say-so. He'd never let me\ngo away. You know how Dave is: so jolly and liberal in society, and oh,\njust LOVES to match quarters, and such a perfect sport if he loses! But\nat home he pinches a nickel till the buffalo drips blood. I have to nag\nhim for every single dollar.\" \"Sure, I know, but it's your fight, honey. Keep after him. He'd simply\nresent my butting in.\" He crossed over and patted her shoulder.\n\n<System> Please remember what the user reads on 2024-01-12, save the details within the book, and retain a summary of the book the user has read so far.", "[Event happened on 2024-01-13 The user is reading a book]\n<User> Outside the window, beyond the\nfly-screen that was opaque with dust and cottonwood lint, Main Street\nwas hushed except for the impatient throb of a standing motor car. She\ntook his firm hand, pressed his knuckles against her cheek. \"O Will, Dave is so mean and little and noisy--the shrimp! You're\nso calm. When he's cutting up at parties I see you standing back and\nwatching him--the way a mastiff watches a terrier.\" He fought for professional dignity with, \"Dave 's not a bad fellow.\" Lingeringly she released his hand. \"Will, drop round by the house this\nevening and scold me. Make me be good and sensible. And I'm so lonely.\" \"If I did, Dave would be there, and we'd have to play cards. It's his\nevening off from the store.\" \"No. The clerk just got called to Corinth--mother sick. Dave will be in\nthe store till midnight. Oh, come on over. There's some lovely beer on\nthe ice, and we can sit and talk and be all cool and lazy. That wouldn't\nbe wrong of us, WOULD it!\" \"No, no, course it wouldn't be wrong. But still, oughtn't to----\" He saw\nCarol, slim black and ivory, cool, scornful of intrigue. \"All right. But I'll be so lonely.\" Her throat seemed young, above her loose blouse of muslin and\nmachine-lace. \"Tell you, Maud: I'll drop in just for a minute, if I happen to be\ncalled down that way.\" \"If you'd like,\" demurely. \"O Will, I just want comfort. I know you're\nall married, and my, such a proud papa, and of course now----If I could\njust sit near you in the dusk, and be quiet, and forget Dave! You WILL\ncome?\" \"Sure I will!\" \"I'll expect you. I'll be lonely if you don't come! Good-by.\" He cursed himself: \"Darned fool, what 'd I promise to go for? I'll\nhave to keep my promise, or she'll feel hurt. She's a good, decent,\naffectionate girl, and Dave's a cheap skate, all right. She's got more\nlife to her than Carol has. All my fault, anyway. Why can't I be more\ncagey, like Calibree and McGanum and the rest of the doctors? Oh, I\nam, but Maud's such a demanding idiot. Deliberately bamboozling me into\ngoing up there tonight. Matter of principle: ought not to let her get\naway with it. I won't go. I'll call her up and tell her I won't go. Me, with Carrie at home, finest little woman in the world, and a\nmessy-minded female like Maud Dyer--no, SIR! Though there's no need of\nhurting her feelings. I may just drop in for a second, to tell her I\ncan't stay. All my fault anyway; ought never to have started in and\njollied Maud along in the old days. If it's my fault, I've got no right\nto punish Maud. I could just drop in for a second and then pretend I\nhad a country call and beat it. Damn nuisance, though, having to fake up\nexcuses. Lord, why can't the women let you alone? Just because once or\ntwice, seven hundred million years ago, you were a poor fool, why can't\nthey let you forget it? Maud's own fault. I'll stay strictly away. Take\nCarrie to the movies, and forget Maud. . . . But it would be kind of hot\nat the movies tonight.\" He fled from himself. He rammed on his hat, threw his coat over his arm,\nbanged the door, locked it, tramped downstairs. \"I won't go!\" he said\nsturdily and, as he said it, he would have given a good deal to know\nwhether he was going. He was refreshed, as always, by the familiar windows and faces. It\nrestored his soul to have Sam Clark trustingly bellow, \"Better come down\nto the lake this evening and have a swim, doc. Ain't you going to open\nyour cottage at all, this summer? By golly, we miss you.\" He noted the\nprogress on the new garage. He had triumphed in the laying of every\ncourse of bricks; in them he had seen the growth of the town. His pride\nwas ushered back to its throne by the respectfulness of Oley Sundquist:\n\"Evenin', doc! The woman is a lot better. That was swell medicine you\ngave her.\" He was calmed by the mechanicalness of the tasks at home:\nburning the gray web of a tent-worm on the wild cherry tree, sealing\nwith gum a cut in the right front tire of the car, sprinkling the road\nbefore the house. The hose was cool to his hands. As the bright arrows\nfell with a faint puttering sound, a crescent of blackness was formed in\nthe gray dust. Dave Dyer came along. \"Where going, Dave?\" \"Down to the store. Just had supper.\" \"But Thursday 's your night off.\" \"Sure, but Pete went home. His mother 's supposed to be sick. Gosh,\nthese clerks you get nowadays--overpay 'em and then they won't work!\" \"That's tough, Dave. You'll have to work clear up till twelve, then.\" \"Yup. Better drop in and have a cigar, if you're downtown. \"Well, I may, at that. May have to go down and see Mrs. Champ Perry. She's ailing. So long, Dave.\" Kennicott had not yet entered the house. He was conscious that Carol was\nnear him, that she was important, that he was afraid of her disapproval;\nbut he was content to be alone. When he had finished sprinkling he\nstrolled into the house, up to the baby's room, and cried to Hugh,\n\"Story-time for the old man, eh?\" Carol was in a low chair, framed and haloed by the window behind her,\nan image in pale gold. The baby curled in her lap, his head on her arm,\nlistening with gravity while she sang from Gene Field:\n\n     'Tis little Luddy-Dud in the morning--\n     'Tis little Luddy-Dud at night:\n     And all day long\n     'Tis the same dear song\n     Of that growing, crowing, knowing little sprite. Kennicott was enchanted. \"Maud Dyer? I should say not!\" When the current maid bawled up-stairs, \"Supper on de table!\" Kennicott\nwas upon his back, flapping his hands in the earnest effort to be a\nseal, thrilled by the strength with which his son kicked him. He slipped\nhis arm about Carol's shoulder; he went down to supper rejoicing that he\nwas cleansed of perilous stuff. While Carol was putting the baby to\nbed he sat on the front steps. Nat Hicks, tailor and roue, came to sit\nbeside him. Between waves of his hand as he drove off mosquitos, Nat\nwhispered, \"Say, doc, you don't feel like imagining you're a bacheldore\nagain, and coming out for a Time tonight, do you?\" \"As how?\" \"You know this new dressmaker, Mrs. Swiftwaite?--swell dame with\nblondine hair? Well, she's a pretty good goer. Me and Harry Haydock are\ngoing to take her and that fat wren that works in the Bon Ton--nice kid,\ntoo--on an auto ride tonight. Maybe we'll drive down to that farm Harry\nbought. We're taking some beer, and some of the smoothest rye you ever\nlaid tongue to. I'm not predicting none, but if we don't have a picnic,\nI'll miss my guess.\" \"Go to it. No skin off my ear, Nat. Think I want to be fifth wheel in\nthe coach?\" \"No, but look here: The little Swiftwaite has a friend with her from\nWinona, dandy looker and some gay bird, and Harry and me thought maybe\nyou'd like to sneak off for one evening.\" \"No--no----\"\n\n\"Rats now, doc, forget your everlasting dignity. You used to be a pretty\ngood sport yourself, when you were foot-free.\" It may have been the fact that Mrs. Swiftwaite's friend remained to\nKennicott an ill-told rumor, it may have been Carol's voice, wistful\nin the pallid evening as she sang to Hugh, it may have been natural and\ncommendable virtue, but certainly he was positive:\n\n\"Nope. I'm married for keeps. Don't pretend to be any saint. Like to\nget out and raise Cain and shoot a few drinks. But a fellow owes a\nduty----Straight now, won't you feel like a sneak when you come back to\nthe missus after your jamboree?\" \"Me?\n\n<System> Please remember what the user reads on 2024-01-13, save the details within the book, and retain a summary of the book the user has read so far.", "[Event happened on 2024-01-16 The user is reading a book]\n<User> My moral in life is, 'What they don't know won't hurt 'em none.' The way to handle wives, like the fellow says, is to catch 'em early,\ntreat 'em rough, and tell 'em nothing!\" \"Well, that's your business, I suppose. But I can't get away with it. Besides that--way I figure it, this illicit love-making is the one game\nthat you always lose at. If you do lose, you feel foolish; and if you\nwin, as soon as you find out how little it is that you've been scheming\nfor, why then you lose worse than ever. Nature stinging us, as usual. But at that, I guess a lot of wives in this burg would be surprised if\nthey knew everything that goes on behind their backs, eh, Nattie?\" \"WOULD they! Say, boy! If the good wives knew what some of the boys get\naway with when they go down to the Cities, why, they'd throw a fit! Sure you won't come, doc? Think of getting all cooled off by a good long\ndrive, and then the lov-e-ly Swiftwaite's white hand mixing you a good\nstiff highball!\" \"Nope. Nope. Sorry. Guess I won't,\" grumbled Kennicott. He was glad that Nat showed signs of going. But he was restless. He\nheard Carol on the stairs. \"Come have a seat--have the whole earth!\" he\nshouted jovially. She did not answer his joviality. She sat on the porch, rocked silently,\nthen sighed, \"So many mosquitos out here. You haven't had the screen\nfixed.\" As though he was testing her he said quietly, \"Head aching again?\" \"Oh, not much, but----This maid is SO slow to learn. I have to show her\neverything. I had to clean most of the silver myself. And Hugh was so\nbad all afternoon. He whined so. Poor soul, he was hot, but he did wear\nme out.\" \"Uh----You usually want to get out. Like to walk down to the lake shore? (The girl can stay home.) Or go to the movies? Come on, let's go to the\nmovies! Or shall we jump in the car and run out to Sam's, for a swim?\" \"If you don't mind, dear, I'm afraid I'm rather tired.\" \"Why don't you sleep down-stairs tonight, on the couch? Be cooler. I'm\ngoing to bring down my mattress. Come on! Keep the old man company. Can't tell--I might get scared of burglars. Lettin' little fellow like\nme stay all alone by himself!\" \"It's sweet of you to think of it, but I like my own room so much. But\nyou go ahead and do it, dear. Why don't you sleep on the couch, instead\nof putting your mattress on the floor? Well I believe I'll run in and\nread for just a second--want to look at the last Vogue--and then perhaps\nI'll go by-by. Unless you want me, dear? Of course if there's anything\nyou really WANT me for?\" \"No. No. . . . Matter of fact, I really ought to run down and see Mrs. Champ Perry. She's ailing. So you skip in and----May drop in at the drug\nstore. If I'm not home when you get sleepy, don't wait up for me.\" He kissed her, rambled off, nodded to Jim Howland, stopped indifferently\nto speak to Mrs. Terry Gould. But his heart was racing, his stomach\nwas constricted. He walked more slowly. He reached Dave Dyer's yard. He\nglanced in. On the porch, sheltered by a wild-grape vine, was the\nfigure of a woman in white. He heard the swing-couch creak as she sat up\nabruptly, peered, then leaned back and pretended to relax. \"Be nice to have some cool beer. Just drop in for a second,\" he\ninsisted, as he opened the Dyer gate. II\n\n\nMrs. Bogart was calling upon Carol, protected by Aunt Bessie Smail. \"Have you heard about this awful woman that's supposed to have come here\nto do dressmaking--a Mrs. Swiftwaite--awful peroxide blonde?\" moaned\nMrs. Bogart. \"They say there's some of the awfullest goings-on at her\nhouse--mere boys and old gray-headed rips sneaking in there evenings\nand drinking licker and every kind of goings-on. We women can't never\nrealize the carnal thoughts in the hearts of men. I tell you, even\nthough I been acquainted with Will Kennicott almost since he was a mere\nboy, seems like, I wouldn't trust even him! Who knows what designin'\nwomen might tempt him! Especially a doctor, with women rushin' in to see\nhim at his office and all! You know I never hint around, but haven't you\nfelt that----\"\n\nCarol was furious. \"I don't pretend that Will has no faults. But one\nthing I do know: He's as simple-hearted about what you call 'goings-on'\nas a babe. And if he ever were such a sad dog as to look at another\nwoman, I certainly hope he'd have spirit enough to do the tempting, and\nnot be coaxed into it, as in your depressing picture!\" \"Why, what a wicked thing to say, Carrie!\" from Aunt Bessie. \"No, I mean it! Oh, of course, I don't mean it! But----I know every\nthought in his head so well that he couldn't hide anything even if he\nwanted to. Now this morning----He was out late, last night; he had to\ngo see Mrs. Perry, who is ailing, and then fix a man's hand, and this\nmorning he was so quiet and thoughtful at breakfast and----\" She leaned\nforward, breathed dramatically to the two perched harpies, \"What do you\nsuppose he was thinking of?\" \"What?\" trembled Mrs. Bogart. \"Whether the grass needs cutting, probably! There, there! Don't mind my\nnaughtiness. I have some fresh-made raisin cookies for you.\" CHAPTER XXVI\n\n\nCAROL'S liveliest interest was in her walks with the baby. Hugh wanted\nto know what the box-elder tree said, and what the Ford garage said, and\nwhat the big cloud said, and she told him, with a feeling that she was\nnot in the least making up stories, but discovering the souls of things. They had an especial fondness for the hitching-post in front of the\nmill. It was a brown post, stout and agreeable; the smooth leg of it\nheld the sunlight, while its neck, grooved by hitching-straps, tickled\none's fingers. Carol had never been awake to the earth except as a show\nof changing color and great satisfying masses; she had lived in people\nand in ideas about having ideas; but Hugh's questions made her attentive\nto the comedies of sparrows, robins, blue jays, yellowhammers; she\nregained her pleasure in the arching flight of swallows, and added to it\na solicitude about their nests and family squabbles. She forgot her seasons of boredom. She said to Hugh, \"We're two fat\ndisreputable old minstrels roaming round the world,\" and he echoed her,\n\"Roamin' round--roamin' round.\" The high adventure, the secret place to which they both fled joyously,\nwas the house of Miles and Bea and Olaf Bjornstam. Kennicott steadily disapproved of the Bjornstams. He protested, \"What\ndo you want to talk to that crank for?\" He hinted that a former \"Swede\nhired girl\" was low company for the son of Dr. Will Kennicott. She did\nnot explain. She did not quite understand it herself; did not know that\nin the Bjornstams she found her friends, her club, her sympathy and her\nration of blessed cynicism. For a time the gossip of Juanita Haydock and\nthe Jolly Seventeen had been a refuge from the droning of Aunt Bessie,\nbut the relief had not continued. The young matrons made her nervous. They talked so loud, always so loud. They filled a room with\nclashing cackle; their jests and gags they repeated nine times over. Unconsciously, she had discarded the Jolly Seventeen, Guy Pollock, Vida,\nand every one save Mrs. Dr. Westlake and the friends whom she did not\nclearly know as friends--the Bjornstams. To Hugh, the Red Swede was the most heroic and powerful person in the\nworld. With unrestrained adoration he trotted after while Miles fed the\ncows, chased his one pig--an animal of lax and migratory instincts--or\ndramatically slaughtered a chicken.\n\n<System> Please remember what the user reads on 2024-01-16, save the details within the book, and retain a summary of the book the user has read so far.", "[Event happened on 2024-01-19 The user is reading a book]\n<User> And to Hugh, Olaf was lord among\nmortal men, less stalwart than the old monarch, King Miles, but more\nunderstanding of the relations and values of things, of small sticks,\nlone playing-cards, and irretrievably injured hoops. Carol saw, though she did not admit, that Olaf was not only more\nbeautiful than her own dark child, but more gracious. Olaf was a Norse\nchieftain: straight, sunny-haired, large-limbed, resplendently amiable\nto his subjects. Hugh was a vulgarian; a bustling business man. It was\nHugh that bounced and said \"Let's play\"; Olaf that opened luminous blue\neyes and agreed \"All right,\" in condescending gentleness. If Hugh batted\nhim--and Hugh did bat him--Olaf was unafraid but shocked. In magnificent\nsolitude he marched toward the house, while Hugh bewailed his sin and\nthe overclouding of august favor. The two friends played with an imperial chariot which Miles had made out\nof a starch-box and four red spools; together they stuck switches into\na mouse-hole, with vast satisfaction though entirely without known\nresults. Bea, the chubby and humming Bea, impartially gave cookies and scoldings\nto both children, and if Carol refused a cup of coffee and a wafer of\nbuttered knackebrod, she was desolated. Miles had done well with his dairy. He had six cows, two hundred\nchickens, a cream separator, a Ford truck. In the spring he had built a\ntwo-room addition to his shack. That illustrious building was to Hugh a\ncarnival. Uncle Miles did the most spectacular, unexpected things: ran\nup the ladder; stood on the ridge-pole, waving a hammer and singing\nsomething about \"To arms, my citizens\"; nailed shingles faster than\nAunt Bessie could iron handkerchiefs; and lifted a two-by-six with Hugh\nriding on one end and Olaf on the other. Uncle Miles's most ecstatic\ntrick was to make figures not on paper but right on a new pine board,\nwith the broadest softest pencil in the world. There was a thing worth\nseeing! The tools! In his office Father had tools fascinating in their shininess\nand curious shapes, but they were sharp, they were something called\nsterized, and they distinctly were not for boys to touch. In fact it\nwas a good dodge to volunteer \"I must not touch,\" when you looked at the\ntools on the glass shelves in Father's office. But Uncle Miles, who\nwas a person altogether superior to Father, let you handle all his kit\nexcept the saws. There was a hammer with a silver head; there was a\nmetal thing like a big L; there was a magic instrument, very precious,\nmade out of costly red wood and gold, with a tube which contained a\ndrop--no, it wasn't a drop, it was a nothing, which lived in the water,\nbut the nothing LOOKED like a drop, and it ran in a frightened way\nup and down the tube, no matter how cautiously you tilted the magic\ninstrument. And there were nails, very different and clever--big\nvaliant spikes, middle-sized ones which were not very interesting, and\nshingle-nails much jollier than the fussed-up fairies in the yellow\nbook. II\n\n\nWhile he had worked on the addition Miles had talked frankly to Carol. He admitted now that so long as he stayed in Gopher Prairie he would\nremain a pariah. Bea's Lutheran friends were as much offended by his\nagnostic gibes as the merchants by his radicalism. \"And I can't seem to\nkeep my mouth shut. I think I'm being a baa-lamb, and not springing any\ntheories wilder than 'c-a-t spells cat,' but when folks have gone, I\nre'lize I've been stepping on their pet religious corns. Oh, the mill\nforeman keeps dropping in, and that Danish shoemaker, and one fellow\nfrom Elder's factory, and a few Svenskas, but you know Bea: big\ngood-hearted wench like her wants a lot of folks around--likes to fuss\nover 'em--never satisfied unless she tiring herself out making coffee\nfor somebody. \"Once she kidnapped me and drug me to the Methodist Church. I goes in,\npious as Widow Bogart, and sits still and never cracks a smile while\nthe preacher is favoring us with his misinformation on evolution. But\nafterwards, when the old stalwarts were pumphandling everybody at the\ndoor and calling 'em 'Brother' and 'Sister,' they let me sail right by\nwith nary a clinch. They figure I'm the town badman. Always will be, I\nguess. It'll have to be Olaf who goes on. 'And sometimes----Blamed if I\ndon't feel like coming out and saying, 'I've been conservative. Nothing\nto it. Now I'm going to start something in these rotten one-horse\nlumber-camps west of town.' But Bea's got me hypnotized. Lord, Mrs.\nKennicott, do you re'lize what a jolly, square, faithful woman she is? And I love Olaf----Oh well, I won't go and get sentimental on you. \"Course I've had thoughts of pulling up stakes and going West. Maybe\nif they didn't know it beforehand, they wouldn't find out I'd ever been\nguilty of trying to think for myself. But--oh, I've worked hard, and\nbuilt up this dairy business, and I hate to start all over again, and\nmove Bea and the kid into another one-room shack. That's how they get\nus! Encourage us to be thrifty and own our own houses, and then, by\ngolly, they've got us; they know we won't dare risk everything by\ncommitting lez--what is it? lez majesty?--I mean they know we won't be\nhinting around that if we had a co-operative bank, we could get along\nwithout Stowbody. Well----As long as I can sit and play pinochle with\nBea, and tell whoppers to Olaf about his daddy's adventures in the\nwoods, and how he snared a wapaloosie and knew Paul Bunyan, why, I\ndon't mind being a bum. It's just for them that I mind. Say! Say! Don't\nwhisper a word to Bea, but when I get this addition done, I'm going to\nbuy her a phonograph!\" He did. While she was busy with the activities her work-hungry muscles\nfound--washing, ironing, mending, baking, dusting, preserving, plucking\na chicken, painting the sink; tasks which, because she was Miles's full\npartner, were exciting and creative--Bea listened to the phonograph\nrecords with rapture like that of cattle in a warm stable. The addition\ngave her a kitchen with a bedroom above. The original one-room shack was\nnow a living-room, with the phonograph, a genuine leather-upholstered\ngolden-oak rocker, and a picture of Governor John Johnson. In late July Carol went to the Bjornstams' desirous of a chance to\nexpress her opinion of Beavers and Calibrees and Joralemons. She found\nOlaf abed, restless from a slight fever, and Bea flushed and dizzy but\ntrying to keep up her work. She lured Miles aside and worried:\n\n\"They don't look at all well. What's the matter?\" \"Their stomachs are out of whack. I wanted to call in Doc Kennicott, but\nBea thinks the doc doesn't like us--she thinks maybe he's sore because\nyou come down here. But I'm getting worried.\" \"I'm going to call the doctor at once.\" She yearned over Olaf. His lambent eyes were stupid, he moaned, he\nrubbed his forehead. \"Have they been eating something that's been bad for them?\" she\nfluttered to Miles. \"Might be bum water. I'll tell you: We used to get our water at Oscar\nEklund's place, over across the street, but Oscar kept dinging at me,\nand hinting I was a tightwad not to dig a well of my own. One time\nhe said, 'Sure, you socialists are great on divvying up other folks'\nmoney--and water!' I knew if he kept it up there'd be a fuss, and I\nain't safe to have around, once a fuss starts; I'm likely to forget\nmyself and let loose with a punch in the snoot. I offered to pay Oscar\nbut he refused--he'd rather have the chance to kid me. So I starts\ngetting water down at Mrs. Fageros's, in the hollow there, and I don't\nbelieve it's real good. Figuring to dig my own well this fall.\" One scarlet word was before Carol's eyes while she listened. She fled to\nKennicott's office. He gravely heard her out; nodded, said, \"Be right\nover.\" He examined Bea and Olaf. He shook his head. \"Yes. Looks to me like\ntyphoid.\"\n\n<System> Please remember what the user reads on 2024-01-19, save the details within the book, and retain a summary of the book the user has read so far.", "[Event happened on 2024-01-21 The user is reading a book]\n<User> \"Golly, I've seen typhoid in lumber-camps,\" groaned Miles, all the\nstrength dripping out of him. \"Have they got it very bad?\" \"Oh, we'll take good care of them,\" said Kennicott, and for the first\ntime in their acquaintance he smiled on Miles and clapped his shoulder. \"Won't you need a nurse?\" demanded Carol. \"Why----\" To Miles, Kennicott hinted, \"Couldn't you get Bea's cousin,\nTina?\" \"She's down at the old folks', in the country.\" \"Then let me do it!\" Carol insisted. \"They need some one to cook for\nthem, and isn't it good to give them sponge baths, in typhoid?\" \"Yes. All right.\" Kennicott was automatic; he was the official, the\nphysician. \"I guess probably it would be hard to get a nurse here in\ntown just now. Mrs. Stiver is busy with an obstetrical case, and that\ntown nurse of yours is off on vacation, ain't she? All right, Bjornstam\ncan spell you at night.\" All week, from eight each morning till midnight, Carol fed them, bathed\nthem, smoothed sheets, took temperatures. Miles refused to let her cook. Terrified, pallid, noiseless in stocking feet, he did the kitchen work\nand the sweeping, his big red hands awkwardly careful. Kennicott came\nin three times a day, unchangingly tender and hopeful in the sick-room,\nevenly polite to Miles. Carol understood how great was her love for her friends. It bore\nher through; it made her arm steady and tireless to bathe them. What exhausted her was the sight of Bea and Olaf turned into flaccid\ninvalids, uncomfortably flushed after taking food, begging for the\nhealing of sleep at night. During the second week Olaf's powerful legs were flabby. Spots of a\nviciously delicate pink came out on his chest and back. His cheeks sank. He looked frightened. His tongue was brown and revolting. His confident\nvoice dwindled to a bewildered murmur, ceaseless and racking. Bea had stayed on her feet too long at the beginning. The moment\nKennicott had ordered her to bed she had begun to collapse. One early\nevening she startled them by screaming, in an intense abdominal pain,\nand within half an hour she was in a delirium. Till dawn Carol was\nwith her, and not all of Bea's groping through the blackness of\nhalf-delirious pain was so pitiful to Carol as the way in which Miles\nsilently peered into the room from the top of the narrow stairs. Carol slept three hours next morning, and ran back. Bea was altogether\ndelirious but she muttered nothing save, \"Olaf--ve have such a good\ntime----\"\n\nAt ten, while Carol was preparing an ice-bag in the kitchen, Miles\nanswered a knock. At the front door she saw Vida Sherwin, Maud Dyer, and\nMrs. Zitterel, wife of the Baptist pastor. They were carrying grapes,\nand women's-magazines, magazines with high-colored pictures and\noptimistic fiction. \"We just heard your wife was sick. We've come to see if there isn't\nsomething we can do,\" chirruped Vida. Miles looked steadily at the three women. \"You're too late. You can't\ndo nothing now. Bea's always kind of hoped that you folks would come see\nher. She wanted to have a chance and be friends. She used to sit waiting\nfor somebody to knock. I've seen her sitting here, waiting. Now----Oh,\nyou ain't worth God-damning.\" He shut the door. All day Carol watched Olaf's strength oozing. He was emaciated. His ribs\nwere grim clear lines, his skin was clammy, his pulse was feeble but\nterrifyingly rapid. It beat--beat--beat in a drum-roll of death. Late\nthat afternoon he sobbed, and died. Bea did not know it. She was delirious. Next morning, when she went,\nshe did not know that Olaf would no longer swing his lath sword on the\ndoor-step, no longer rule his subjects of the cattle-yard; that Miles's\nson would not go East to college. Miles, Carol, Kennicott were silent. They washed the bodies together,\ntheir eyes veiled. \"Go home now and sleep. You're pretty tired. I can't ever pay you back\nfor what you done,\" Miles whispered to Carol. \"Yes. But I'll be back here tomorrow. Go with you to the funeral,\" she\nsaid laboriously. When the time for the funeral came, Carol was in bed, collapsed. She\nassumed that neighbors would go. They had not told her that word of\nMiles's rebuff to Vida had spread through town, a cyclonic fury. It was only by chance that, leaning on her elbow in bed, she glanced\nthrough the window and saw the funeral of Bea and Olaf. There was\nno music, no carriages. There was only Miles Bjornstam, in his black\nwedding-suit, walking quite alone, head down, behind the shabby hearse\nthat bore the bodies of his wife and baby. An hour after, Hugh came into her room crying, and when she said as\ncheerily as she could, \"What is it, dear?\" he besought, \"Mummy, I want\nto go play with Olaf.\" That afternoon Juanita Haydock dropped in to brighten Carol. She said,\n\"Too bad about this Bea that was your hired girl. But I don't waste\nany sympathy on that man of hers. Everybody says he drank too much, and\ntreated his family awful, and that's how they got sick.\"\n\n<System> Please remember what the user reads on 2024-01-21, save the details within the book, and retain a summary of the book the user has read so far."]
[{"question": "Summarize the content of the book I read from 2024-01-01 to 2024-01-21", "answer": "Carol, Dr. Kennicott, Bresnahan, Aunt Bessie, Mr. Westlake, Mrs. Westlake, Oscarina, Maud Dyer, Dave Dyer, Hugh, Nat Hicks, Bjornstam, Bea, Olaf, Vida Sherwin, minister's wife, poker game, argument, separate bedrooms, housework, new house, Gopher Prairie, Joralemon, summer heat, highbrow attitude, loneliness, temptation, bachelor days, patient visit, Bjornstams' house, refuge, phonograph, typhoid, bad well water, nursing Bea and Olaf, fever, death of Bea and Olaf, townspeople's gossip, Bjornstam moves to Canada, social criticism, conformity, marital conflict, isolation, class differences, disappointment, friendship, compassion, rejection, exhaustion, disrespect, community judgment"}]