["[Event happened on 2024-01-01 The user is reading a book]\n<User> CHAPTER XXXVI\n\n\nKENNICOTT was not so inhumanly patient that he could continue to forgive\nCarol's heresies, to woo her as he had on the venture to California. She\ntried to be inconspicuous, but she was betrayed by her failure to glow\nover the boosting. Kennicott believed in it; demanded that she say\npatriotic things about the White Way and the new factory. He snorted,\n\"By golly, I've done all I could, and now I expect you to play the game. Here you been complaining for years about us being so poky, and now when\nBlausser comes along and does stir up excitement and beautify the town\nlike you've always wanted somebody to, why, you say he's a roughneck,\nand you won't jump on the band-wagon.\" Once, when Kennicott announced at noon-dinner, \"What do you know\nabout this! They say there's a chance we may get another\nfactory--cream-separator works!\" he added, \"You might try to look\ninterested, even if you ain't!\" The baby was frightened by the Jovian\nroar; ran wailing to hide his face in Carol's lap; and Kennicott had to\nmake himself humble and court both mother and child. The dim injustice\nof not being understood even by his son left him irritable. He felt\ninjured. An event which did not directly touch them brought down his wrath. In the early autumn, news came from Wakamin that the sheriff had\nforbidden an organizer for the National Nonpartisan League to speak\nanywhere in the county. The organizer had defied the sheriff, and\nannounced that in a few days he would address a farmers' political\nmeeting. That night, the news ran, a mob of a hundred business men\nled by the sheriff--the tame village street and the smug village faces\nruddled by the light of bobbing lanterns, the mob flowing between the\nsquatty rows of shops--had taken the organizer from his hotel, ridden\nhim on a fence-rail, put him on a freight train, and warned him not to\nreturn. The story was threshed out in Dave Dyer's drug store, with Sam Clark,\nKennicott, and Carol present. \"That's the way to treat those fellows--only they ought to have lynched\nhim!\" declared Sam, and Kennicott and Dave Dyer joined in a proud \"You\nbet!\" Carol walked out hastily, Kennicott observing her. Through supper-time she knew that he was bubbling and would soon boil\nover. When the baby was abed, and they sat composedly in canvas chairs\non the porch, he experimented; \"I had a hunch you thought Sam was kind\nof hard on that fellow they kicked out of Wakamin.\" \"Wasn't Sam rather needlessly heroic?\" \"All these organizers, yes, and a whole lot of the German and\nSquarehead farmers themselves, they're seditious as the devil--disloyal,\nnon-patriotic, pro-German pacifists, that's what they are!\" \"Did this organizer say anything pro-German?\" \"Not on your life! They didn't give him a chance!\" His laugh was stagey. \"So the whole thing was illegal--and led by the sheriff! Precisely how\ndo you expect these aliens to obey your law if the officer of the law\nteaches them to break it? Is it a new kind of logic?\" \"Maybe it wasn't exactly regular, but what's the odds? They knew this\nfellow would try to stir up trouble. Whenever it comes right down to a\nquestion of defending Americanism and our constitutional rights, it's\njustifiable to set aside ordinary procedure.\" \"What editorial did he get that from?\" she wondered, as she protested,\n\"See here, my beloved, why can't you Tories declare war honestly? You\ndon't oppose this organizer because you think he's seditious but\nbecause you're afraid that the farmers he is organizing will deprive you\ntownsmen of the money you make out of mortgages and wheat and shops. Of course, since we're at war with Germany, anything that any one of us\ndoesn't like is 'pro-German,' whether it's business competition or\nbad music. If we were fighting England, you'd call the radicals\n'pro-English.' When this war is over, I suppose you'll be calling them\n'red anarchists.' What an eternal art it is--such a glittery delightful\nart--finding hard names for our opponents! How we do sanctify our\nefforts to keep them from getting the holy dollars we want for\nourselves! The churches have always done it, and the political\norators--and I suppose I do it when I call Mrs. Bogart a 'Puritan' and\nMr. Stowbody a 'capitalist.' But you business men are going to beat all\nthe rest of us at it, with your simple-hearted, energetic, pompous----\"\n\nShe got so far only because Kennicott was slow in shaking off respect\nfor her. Now he bayed:\n\n\"That'll be about all from you! I've stood for your sneering at this\ntown, and saying how ugly and dull it is. I've stood for your refusing\nto appreciate good fellows like Sam. I've even stood for your ridiculing\nour Watch Gopher Prairie Grow campaign. But one thing I'm not going\nto stand: I'm not going to stand my own wife being seditious. You can\ncamouflage all you want to, but you know darn well that these radicals,\nas you call 'em, are opposed to the war, and let me tell you right here\nand now, and you and all these long-haired men and short-haired women\ncan beef all you want to, but we're going to take these fellows, and if\nthey ain't patriotic, we're going to make them be patriotic. And--Lord\nknows I never thought I'd have to say this to my own wife--but if you go\ndefending these fellows, then the same thing applies to you! Next thing,\nI suppose you'll be yapping about free speech. Free speech! There's too\nmuch free speech and free gas and free beer and free love and all the\nrest of your damned mouthy freedom, and if I had my way I'd make you\nfolks live up to the established rules of decency even if I had to take\nyou----\"\n\n\"Will!\" She was not timorous now. \"Am I pro-German if I fail to throb to\nHonest Jim Blausser, too? Let's have my whole duty as a wife!\" He was grumbling, \"The whole thing's right in line with the criticism\nyou've always been making. Might have known you'd oppose any decent\nconstructive work for the town or for----\"\n\n\"You're right. All I've done has been in line. I don't belong to Gopher\nPrairie. That isn't meant as a condemnation of Gopher Prairie, and it\nmay be a condemnation of me. All right! I don't care! I don't belong\nhere, and I'm going. I'm not asking permission any more. I'm simply\ngoing.\" He grunted. \"Do you mind telling me, if it isn't too much trouble, how\nlong you're going for?\" \"I don't know. Perhaps for a year. Perhaps for a lifetime.\" \"I see. Well, of course, I'll be tickled to death to sell out my\npractise and go anywhere you say. Would you like to have me go with you\nto Paris and study art, maybe, and wear velveteen pants and a woman's\nbonnet, and live on spaghetti?\" \"No, I think we can save you that trouble. You don't quite understand. I am going--I really am--and alone! I've got to find out what my work\nis----\"\n\n\"Work? Work? Sure! That's the whole trouble with you! You haven't got\nenough work to do. If you had five kids and no hired girl, and had to\nhelp with the chores and separate the cream, like these farmers' wives,\nthen you wouldn't be so discontented.\" \"I know. That's what most men--and women--like you WOULD say. That's how\nthey would explain all I am and all I want. And I shouldn't argue with\nthem. These business men, from their crushing labors of sitting in an\noffice seven hours a day, would calmly recommend that I have a dozen\nchildren. As it happens, I've done that sort of thing. There've been a\ngood many times when we hadn't a maid, and I did all the housework, and\ncared for Hugh, and went to Red Cross, and did it all very efficiently. I'm a good cook and a good sweeper, and you don't dare say I'm not!\" \"N-no, you're----\"\n\n\"But was I more happy when I was drudging? I was not. I was just\nbedraggled and unhappy. It's work--but not my work. I could run\nan office or a library, or nurse and teach children. But solitary\ndish-washing isn't enough to satisfy me--or many other women. We're\ngoing to chuck it.\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 2024-01-03 The user is reading a book]\n<User> We're going to wash 'em by machinery, and come out\nand play with you men in the offices and clubs and politics you've\ncleverly kept for yourselves! Oh, we're hopeless, we dissatisfied women! Then why do you want to have us about the place, to fret you? So it's\nfor your sake that I'm going!\" \"Of course a little thing like Hugh makes no difference!\" \"Yes, all the difference. That's why I'm going to take him with me.\" \"Suppose I refuse?\" \"You won't!\" Forlornly, \"Uh----Carrie, what the devil is it you want, anyway?\" \"Oh, conversation! No, it's much more than that. I think it's a\ngreatness of life--a refusal to be content with even the healthiest\nmud.\" \"Don't you know that nobody ever solved a problem by running away from\nit?\" \"Perhaps. Only I choose to make my own definition of 'running away' I\ndon't call----Do you realize how big a world there is beyond this Gopher\nPrairie where you'd keep me all my life? It may be that some day I'll\ncome back, but not till I can bring something more than I have now. And\neven if I am cowardly and run away--all right, call it cowardly, call me\nanything you want to! I've been ruled too long by fear of being called\nthings. I'm going away to be quiet and think. I'm--I'm going! I have a\nright to my own life.\" \"So have I to mine!\" \"Well?\" \"I have a right to my life--and you're it, you're my life! You've made\nyourself so. I'm damned if I'll agree to all your freak notions, but I\nwill say I've got to depend on you. Never thought of that complication,\ndid you, in this 'off to Bohemia, and express yourself, and free love,\nand live your own life' stuff!\" \"You have a right to me if you can keep me. Can you?\" He moved uneasily. II\n\n\nFor a month they discussed it. They hurt each other very much, and\nsometimes they were close to weeping, and invariably he used banal\nphrases about her duties and she used phrases quite as banal about\nfreedom, and through it all, her discovery that she really could get\naway from Main Street was as sweet as the discovery of love. Kennicott\nnever consented definitely. At most he agreed to a public theory that\nshe was \"going to take a short trip and see what the East was like in\nwartime.\" She set out for Washington in October--just before the war ended. She had determined on Washington because it was less intimidating than\nthe obvious New York, because she hoped to find streets in which Hugh\ncould play, and because in the stress of war-work, with its demand for\nthousands of temporary clerks, she could be initiated into the world of\noffices. Hugh was to go with her, despite the wails and rather extensive comments\nof Aunt Bessie. She wondered if she might not encounter Erik in the East but it was a\nchance thought, soon forgotten. III\n\n\nThe last thing she saw on the station platform was Kennicott, faithfully\nwaving his hand, his face so full of uncomprehending loneliness that he\ncould not smile but only twitch up his lips. She waved to him as long\nas she could, and when he was lost she wanted to leap from the vestibule\nand run back to him. She thought of a hundred tendernesses she had\nneglected. She had her freedom, and it was empty. The moment was not the highest\nof her life, but the lowest and most desolate, which was altogether\nexcellent, for instead of slipping downward she began to climb. She sighed, \"I couldn't do this if it weren't for Will's kindness, his\ngiving me money.\" But a second after: \"I wonder how many women would\nalways stay home if they had the money?\" Hugh complained, \"Notice me, mummy!\" He was beside her on the red plush\nseat of the day-coach; a boy of three and a half. \"I'm tired of playing\ntrain. Let's play something else. Let's go see Auntie Bogart.\" \"Oh, NO! Do you really like Mrs. Bogart?\" \"Yes. She gives me cookies and she tells me about the Dear Lord. You\nnever tell me about the Dear Lord. Why don't you tell me about the\nDear Lord? Auntie Bogart says I'm going to be a preacher. Can I be a\npreacher? Can I preach about the Dear Lord?\" \"Oh, please wait till my generation has stopped rebelling before yours\nstarts in!\" \"What's a generation?\" \"It's a ray in the illumination of the spirit.\" \"That's foolish.\" He was a serious and literal person, and rather\nhumorless. She kissed his frown, and marveled:\n\n\"I am running away from my husband, after liking a Swedish ne'er-do-well\nand expressing immoral opinions, just as in a romantic story. And my own\nson reproves me because I haven't given him religious instruction. But\nthe story doesn't go right. I'm neither groaning nor being dramatically\nsaved. I keep on running away, and I enjoy it. I'm mad with joy over it. Gopher Prairie is lost back there in the dust and stubble, and I look\nforward----\"\n\nShe continued it to Hugh: \"Darling, do you know what mother and you are\ngoing to find beyond the blue horizon rim?\" \"What?\" flatly. \"We're going to find elephants with golden howdahs from which peep young\nmaharanees with necklaces of rubies, and a dawn sea colored like the\nbreast of a dove, and a white and green house filled with books and\nsilver tea-sets.\" \"And cookies?\" \"Cookies? Oh, most decidedly cookies. We've had enough of bread and\nporridge. We'd get sick on too many cookies, but ever so much sicker on\nno cookies at all.\" \"That's foolish.\" \"It is, O male Kennicott!\" \"Huh!\" said Kennicott II, and went to sleep on her shoulder. IV\n\nThe theory of the Dauntless regarding Carol's absence:\n\nMrs. Will Kennicott and son Hugh left on No. 24 on Saturday last for\na stay of some months in Minneapolis, Chicago, New York and Washington. Mrs. Kennicott confided to _Ye Scribe_ that she will be connected with one\nof the multifarious war activities now centering in the Nation's\nCapital for a brief period before returning. Her countless friends who\nappreciate her splendid labors with the local Red Cross realize how\nvaluable she will be to any war board with which she chooses to become\nconnected. Gopher Prairie thus adds another shining star to its service\nflag and without wishing to knock any neighboring communities, we would\nlike to know any town of anywheres near our size in the state that has\nsuch a sterling war record. Another reason why you'd better Watch Gopher\nPrairie Grow. * * *\n\nMr. and Mrs. David Dyer, Mrs. Dyer's sister, Mrs. Jennie Dayborn of\nJackrabbit, and Dr. Will Kennicott drove to Minniemashie on Tuesday for\na delightful picnic. CHAPTER XXXVII\n\n\nI\n\nSHE found employment in the Bureau of War Risk Insurance. Though the\narmistice with Germany was signed a few weeks after her coming to\nWashington, the work of the bureau continued. She filed correspondence\nall day; then she dictated answers to letters of inquiry. It was an\nendurance of monotonous details, yet she asserted that she had found\n\"real work.\" Disillusions she did have. She discovered that in the afternoon, office\nroutine stretches to the grave. She discovered that an office is as full\nof cliques and scandals as a Gopher Prairie. She discovered that most\nof the women in the government bureaus lived unhealthfully, dining\non snatches in their crammed apartments. But she also discovered that\nbusiness women may have friendships and enmities as frankly as men and\nmay revel in a bliss which no housewife attains--a free Sunday. It did\nnot appear that the Great World needed her inspiration, but she felt\nthat her letters, her contact with the anxieties of men and women all\nover the country, were a part of vast affairs, not confined to Main\nStreet and a kitchen but linked with Paris, Bangkok, Madrid. She perceived that she could do office work without losing any of the\nputative feminine virtue of domesticity; that cooking and cleaning, when\ndivested of the fussing of an Aunt Bessie, take but a tenth of the time\nwhich, in a Gopher Prairie, it is but decent to devote to them. Not to have to apologize for her thoughts to the Jolly Seventeen, not to\nhave to report to Kennicott at the end of the day all that she had done\nor might do, was a relief which made up for the office weariness. She\nfelt that she was no longer one-half of a marriage but the whole of a\nhuman being.\n\n<System> Please remember what the user reads on 2024-01-03, 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> II\n\n\nWashington gave her all the graciousness in which she had had faith:\nwhite columns seen across leafy parks, spacious avenues, twisty alleys. Daily she passed a dark square house with a hint of magnolias and a\ncourtyard behind it, and a tall curtained second-story window through\nwhich a woman was always peering. The woman was mystery, romance, a\nstory which told itself differently every day; now she was a murderess,\nnow the neglected wife of an ambassador. It was mystery which Carol had\nmost lacked in Gopher Prairie, where every house was open to view, where\nevery person was but too easy to meet, where there were no secret gates\nopening upon moors over which one might walk by moss-deadened paths to\nstrange high adventures in an ancient garden. As she flitted up Sixteenth Street after a Kreisler recital, given late\nin the afternoon for the government clerks, as the lamps kindled in\nspheres of soft fire, as the breeze flowed into the street, fresh\nas prairie winds and kindlier, as she glanced up the elm alley of\nMassachusetts Avenue, as she was rested by the integrity of the Scottish\nRite Temple, she loved the city as she loved no one save Hugh. She\nencountered negro shanties turned into studios, with orange curtains and\npots of mignonette; marble houses on New Hampshire Avenue, with\nbutlers and limousines; and men who looked like fictional explorers and\naviators. Her days were swift, and she knew that in her folly of running\naway she had found the courage to be wise. She had a dispiriting first month of hunting lodgings in the crowded\ncity. She had to roost in a hall-room in a moldy mansion conducted by an\nindignant decayed gentlewoman, and leave Hugh to the care of a doubtful\nnurse. But later she made a home. III\n\n\nHer first acquaintances were the members of the Tincomb Methodist\nChurch, a vast red-brick tabernacle. Vida Sherwin had given her a letter\nto an earnest woman with eye-glasses, plaid silk waist, and a belief in\nBible Classes, who introduced her to the Pastor and the Nicer Members\nof Tincomb. Carol recognized in Washington as she had in California a\ntransplanted and guarded Main Street. Two-thirds of the church-members\nhad come from Gopher Prairies. The church was their society and\ntheir standard; they went to Sunday service, Sunday School, Christian\nEndeavor, missionary lectures, church suppers, precisely as they had at\nhome; they agreed that ambassadors and flippant newspapermen and infidel\nscientists of the bureaus were equally wicked and to be avoided; and\nby cleaving to Tincomb Church they kept their ideals from all\ncontamination. They welcomed Carol, asked about her husband, gave her advice regarding\ncolic in babies, passed her the gingerbread and scalloped potatoes at\nchurch suppers, and in general made her very unhappy and lonely, so\nthat she wondered if she might not enlist in the militant suffrage\norganization and be allowed to go to jail. Always she was to perceive in Washington (as doubtless she would have\nperceived in New York or London) a thick streak of Main Street. The\ncautious dullness of a Gopher Prairie appeared in boarding-houses where\nladylike bureau-clerks gossiped to polite young army officers about\nthe movies; a thousand Sam Clarks and a few Widow Bogarts were to be\nidentified in the Sunday motor procession, in theater parties, and\nat the dinners of State Societies, to which the emigres from Texas or\nMichigan surged that they might confirm themselves in the faith that\ntheir several Gopher Prairies were notoriously \"a whole lot peppier and\nchummier than this stuck-up East.\" But she found a Washington which did not cleave to Main Street. Guy Pollock wrote to a cousin, a temporary army captain, a confiding and\nbuoyant lad who took Carol to tea-dances, and laughed, as she had always\nwanted some one to laugh, about nothing in particular. The captain\nintroduced her to the secretary of a congressman, a cynical young widow\nwith many acquaintances in the navy. Through her Carol met commanders\nand majors, newspapermen, chemists and geographers and fiscal experts\nfrom the bureaus, and a teacher who was a familiar of the militant\nsuffrage headquarters. The teacher took her to headquarters. Carol never\nbecame a prominent suffragist. Indeed her only recognized position was\nas an able addresser of envelopes. But she was casually adopted by\nthis family of friendly women who, when they were not being mobbed or\narrested, took dancing lessons or went picnicking up the Chesapeake\nCanal or talked about the politics of the American Federation of Labor. With the congressman's secretary and the teacher Carol leased a small\nflat. Here she found home, her own place and her own people. She had,\nthough it absorbed most of her salary, an excellent nurse for Hugh. She\nherself put him to bed and played with him on holidays. There were\nwalks with him, there were motionless evenings of reading, but chiefly\nWashington was associated with people, scores of them, sitting about the\nflat, talking, talking, talking, not always wisely but always excitedly. It was not at all the \"artist's studio\" of which, because of its\npersistence in fiction, she had dreamed. Most of them were in offices\nall day, and thought more in card-catalogues or statistics than in mass\nand color. But they played, very simply, and they saw no reason why\nanything which exists cannot also be acknowledged. She was sometimes shocked quite as she had shocked Gopher Prairie by\nthese girls with their cigarettes and elfish knowledge. When they were\nmost eager about soviets or canoeing, she listened, longed to have\nsome special learning which would distinguish her, and sighed that her\nadventure had come so late. Kennicott and Main Street had drained\nher self-reliance; the presence of Hugh made her feel temporary. Some\nday--oh, she'd have to take him back to open fields and the right to\nclimb about hay-lofts. But the fact that she could never be eminent among these scoffing\nenthusiasts did not keep her from being proud of them, from defending\nthem in imaginary conversations with Kennicott, who grunted (she could\nhear his voice), \"They're simply a bunch of wild impractical theorists\nsittin' round chewing the rag,\" and \"I haven't got the time to chase\nafter a lot of these fool fads; I'm too busy putting aside a stake for\nour old age.\" Most of the men who came to the flat, whether they were army officers or\nradicals who hated the army, had the easy gentleness, the acceptance\nof women without embarrassed banter, for which she had longed in Gopher\nPrairie. Yet they seemed to be as efficient as the Sam Clarks. She\nconcluded that it was because they were of secure reputation, not hemmed\nin by the fire of provincial jealousies. Kennicott had asserted that the\nvillager's lack of courtesy is due to his poverty. \"We're no millionaire\ndudes,\" he boasted. Yet these army and navy men, these bureau experts,\nand organizers of multitudinous leagues, were cheerful on three or four\nthousand a year, while Kennicott had, outside of his land speculations,\nsix thousand or more, and Sam had eight. Nor could she upon inquiry learn that many of this reckless race died in\nthe poorhouse. That institution is reserved for men like Kennicott who,\nafter devoting fifty years to \"putting aside a stake,\" incontinently\ninvest the stake in spurious oil-stocks. IV\n\n\nShe was encouraged to believe that she had not been abnormal in viewing\nGopher Prairie as unduly tedious and slatternly. She found the same\nfaith not only in girls escaped from domesticity but also in demure\nold ladies who, tragically deprived of esteemed husbands and huge old\nhouses, yet managed to make a very comfortable thing of it by living in\nsmall flats and having time to read. But she also learned that by comparison Gopher Prairie was a model of\ndaring color, clever planning, and frenzied intellectuality. From her\nteacher-housemate she had a sardonic description of a Middlewestern\nrailroad-division town, of the same size as Gopher Prairie but devoid\nof lawns and trees, a town where the tracks sprawled along the\ncinder-scabbed Main Street, and the railroad shops, dripping soot from\neaves and doorway, rolled out smoke in greasy coils. Other towns she came to know by anecdote: a prairie village where the\nwind blew all day long, and the mud was two feet thick in spring, and in\nsummer the flying sand scarred new-painted houses and dust covered\nthe few flowers set out in pots. New England mill-towns with the hands\nliving in rows of cottages like blocks of lava. A rich farming-center\nin New Jersey, off the railroad, furiously pious, ruled by old men,\nunbelievably ignorant old men, sitting about the grocery talking of\nJames G. Blaine.\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 2024-01-08 The user is reading a book]\n<User> A Southern town, full of the magnolias and white\ncolumns which Carol had accepted as proof of romance, but hating the\nnegroes, obsequious to the Old Families. A Western mining-settlement\nlike a tumor. A booming semi-city with parks and clever architects,\nvisited by famous pianists and unctuous lecturers, but irritable from a\nstruggle between union labor and the manufacturers' association, so\nthat in even the gayest of the new houses there was a ceaseless and\nintimidating heresy-hunt. V\n\n\nThe chart which plots Carol's progress is not easy to read. The lines\nare broken and uncertain of direction; often instead of rising they sink\nin wavering scrawls; and the colors are watery blue and pink and the dim\ngray of rubbed pencil marks. A few lines are traceable. Unhappy women are given to protecting their sensitiveness by cynical\ngossip, by whining, by high-church and new-thought religions, or by\na fog of vagueness. Carol had hidden in none of these refuges from\nreality, but she, who was tender and merry, had been made timorous by\nGopher Prairie. Even her flight had been but the temporary courage of\npanic. The thing she gained in Washington was not information about\noffice-systems and labor unions but renewed courage, that amiable\ncontempt called poise. Her glimpse of tasks involving millions of people\nand a score of nations reduced Main Street from bloated importance to\nits actual pettiness. She could never again be quite so awed by the\npower with which she herself had endowed the Vidas and Blaussers and\nBogarts. From her work and from her association with women who had organized\nsuffrage associations in hostile cities, or had defended political\nprisoners, she caught something of an impersonal attitude; saw that she\nhad been as touchily personal as Maud Dyer. And why, she began to ask, did she rage at individuals? Not individuals\nbut institutions are the enemies, and they most afflict the disciples\nwho the most generously serve them. They insinuate their tyranny under\na hundred guises and pompous names, such as Polite Society, the Family,\nthe Church, Sound Business, the Party, the Country, the Superior White\nRace; and the only defense against them, Carol beheld, is unembittered\nlaughter. CHAPTER XXXVIII\n\n\nSHE had lived in Washington for a year. She was tired of the office. It was tolerable, far more tolerable than housework, but it was not\nadventurous. She was having tea and cinnamon toast, alone at a small round table on\nthe balcony of Rauscher's Confiserie. Four debutantes clattered in. She\nhad felt young and dissipated, had thought rather well of her black and\nleaf-green suit, but as she watched them, thin of ankle, soft under the\nchin, seventeen or eighteen at most, smoking cigarettes with the correct\nennui and talking of \"bedroom farces\" and their desire to \"run up to New\nYork and see something racy,\" she became old and rustic and plain, and\ndesirous of retreating from these hard brilliant children to a life\neasier and more sympathetic. When they flickered out and one child gave\norders to a chauffeur, Carol was not a defiant philosopher but a faded\ngovernment clerk from Gopher Prairie, Minnesota. She started dejectedly up Connecticut Avenue. She stopped, her heart\nstopped. Coming toward her were Harry and Juanita Haydock. She ran to\nthem, she kissed Juanita, while Harry confided, \"Hadn't expected to come\nto Washington--had to go to New York for some buying--didn't have your\naddress along--just got in this morning--wondered how in the world we\ncould get hold of you.\" She was definitely sorry to hear that they were to leave at nine that\nevening, and she clung to them as long as she could. She took them to\nSt. Mark's for dinner. Stooped, her elbows on the table, she heard\nwith excitement that \"Cy Bogart had the 'flu, but of course he was too\ngol-darn mean to die of it.\" \"Will wrote me that Mr. Blausser has gone away. How did he get on?\" \"Fine! Fine! Great loss to the town. There was a real public-spirited\nfellow, all right!\" She discovered that she now had no opinions whatever about Mr. Blausser,\nand she said sympathetically, \"Will you keep up the town-boosting\ncampaign?\" Harry fumbled, \"Well, we've dropped it just temporarily, but--sure you\nbet! Say, did the doc write you about the luck B. J. Gougerling had\nhunting ducks down in Texas?\" When the news had been told and their enthusiasm had slackened she\nlooked about and was proud to be able to point out a senator, to explain\nthe cleverness of the canopied garden. She fancied that a man with\ndinner-coat and waxed mustache glanced superciliously at Harry's highly\nform-fitting bright-brown suit and Juanita's tan silk frock, which was\ndoubtful at the seams. She glared back, defending her own, daring the\nworld not to appreciate them. Then, waving to them, she lost them down the long train shed. She stood\nreading the list of stations: Harrisburg, Pittsburg, Chicago. Beyond\nChicago----? She saw the lakes and stubble fields, heard the rhythm\nof insects and the creak of a buggy, was greeted by Sam Clark's \"Well,\nwell, how's the little lady?\" Nobody in Washington cared enough for her to fret about her sins as Sam\ndid. But that night they had at the flat a man just back from Finland. II\n\n\nShe was on the Powhatan roof with the captain. At a table, somewhat\nvociferously buying improbable \"soft drinks\" for two fluffy girls, was a\nman with a large familiar back. \"Oh! I think I know him,\" she murmured. \"Who? There? Oh, Bresnahan, Percy Bresnahan.\" \"Yes. You've met him? What sort of a man is he?\" \"He's a good-hearted idiot. I rather like him, and I believe that as a\nsalesman of motors he's a wonder. But he's a nuisance in the aeronautic\nsection. Tries so hard to be useful but he doesn't know anything--he\ndoesn't know anything. Rather pathetic: rich man poking around and\ntrying to be useful. Do you want to speak to him?\" \"No--no--I don't think so.\" III\n\n\nShe was at a motion-picture show. The film was a highly advertised\nand abysmal thing smacking of simpering hair-dressers, cheap perfume,\nred-plush suites on the back streets of tenderloins, and complacent fat\nwomen chewing gum. It pretended to deal with the life of studios. The\nleading man did a portrait which was a masterpiece. He also saw visions\nin pipe-smoke, and was very brave and poor and pure. He had ringlets,\nand his masterpiece was strangely like an enlarged photograph. Carol prepared to leave. On the screen, in the role of a composer, appeared an actor called Eric\nValour. She was startled, incredulous, then wretched. Looking straight out at\nher, wearing a beret and a velvet jacket, was Erik Valborg. He had a pale part, which he played neither well nor badly. She\nspeculated, \"I could have made so much of him----\" She did not finish\nher speculation. She went home and read Kennicott's letters. They had seemed stiff and\nundetailed, but now there strode from them a personality, a personality\nunlike that of the languishing young man in the velvet jacket playing a\ndummy piano in a canvas room. IV\n\n\nKennicott first came to see her in November, thirteen months after her\narrival in Washington. When he announced that he was coming she was not\nat all sure that she wished to see him. She was glad that he had made\nthe decision himself. She had leave from the office for two days. She watched him marching from the train, solid, assured, carrying his\nheavy suit-case, and she was diffident--he was such a bulky person to\nhandle. They kissed each other questioningly, and said at the same time,\n\"You're looking fine; how's the baby?\" and \"You're looking awfully well,\ndear; how is everything?\" He grumbled, \"I don't want to butt in on any plans you've made or your\nfriends or anything, but if you've got time for it, I'd like to chase\naround Washington, and take in some restaurants and shows and stuff, and\nforget work for a while.\" She realized, in the taxicab, that he was wearing a soft gray suit, a\nsoft easy hat, a flippant tie. \"Like the new outfit? Got 'em in Chicago. Gosh, I hope they're the kind\nyou like.\"\n\n<System> Please remember what the user reads on 2024-01-08, 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> They spent half an hour at the flat, with Hugh. She was flustered, but\nhe gave no sign of kissing her again. As he moved about the small rooms she realized that he had had his new\ntan shoes polished to a brassy luster. There was a recent cut on\nhis chin. He must have shaved on the train just before coming into\nWashington. It was pleasant to feel how important she was, how many people she\nrecognized, as she took him to the Capitol, as she told him (he asked\nand she obligingly guessed) how many feet it was to the top of the dome,\nas she pointed out Senator LaFollette and the vice-president, and\nat lunch-time showed herself an habitue by leading him through the\ncatacombs to the senate restaurant. She realized that he was slightly more bald. The familiar way in which\nhis hair was parted on the left side agitated her. She looked down\nat his hands, and the fact that his nails were as ill-treated as ever\ntouched her more than his pleading shoe-shine. \"You'd like to motor down to Mount Vernon this afternoon, wouldn't you?\" she said. It was the one thing he had planned. He was delighted that it seemed to\nbe a perfectly well bred and Washingtonian thing to do. He shyly held her hand on the way, and told her the news: they were\nexcavating the basement for the new schoolbuilding, Vida \"made him tired\nthe way she always looked at the Maje,\" poor Chet Dashaway had been\nkilled in a motor accident out on the Coast. He did not coax her to like\nhim. At Mount Vernon he admired the paneled library and Washington's\ndental tools. She knew that he would want oysters, that he would have heard of\nHarvey's apropos of Grant and Blaine, and she took him there. At dinner\nhis hearty voice, his holiday enjoyment of everything, turned into\nnervousness in his desire to know a number of interesting matters, such\nas whether they still were married. But he did not ask questions, and\nhe said nothing about her returning. He cleared his throat and observed,\n\"Oh say, been trying out the old camera. Don't you think these are\npretty good?\" He tossed over to her thirty prints of Gopher Prairie and the country\nabout. Without defense, she was thrown into it. She remembered that he\nhad lured her with photographs in courtship days; she made a note of\nhis sameness, his satisfaction with the tactics which had proved good\nbefore; but she forgot it in the familiar places. She was seeing\nthe sun-speckled ferns among birches on the shore of Minniemashie,\nwind-rippled miles of wheat, the porch of their own house where Hugh had\nplayed, Main Street where she knew every window and every face. She handed them back, with praise for his photography, and he talked of\nlenses and time-exposures. Dinner was over and they were gossiping of her friends at the flat, but\nan intruder was with them, sitting back, persistent, inescapable. She\ncould not endure it. She stammered:\n\n\"I had you check your bag at the station because I wasn't quite sure\nwhere you'd stay. I'm dreadfully sorry we haven't room to put you up at\nthe flat. We ought to have seen about a room for you before. Don't you\nthink you better call up the Willard or the Washington now?\" He peered at her cloudily. Without words he asked, without speech she\nanswered, whether she was also going to the Willard or the Washington. But she tried to look as though she did not know that they were debating\nanything of the sort. She would have hated him had he been meek about\nit. But he was neither meek nor angry. However impatient he may have\nbeen with her blandness he said readily:\n\n\"Yes, guess I better do that. Excuse me a second. Then how about\ngrabbing a taxi (Gosh, isn't it the limit the way these taxi shuffers\nskin around a corner? Got more nerve driving than I have!) and going\nup to your flat for a while? Like to meet your friends--must be fine\nwomen--and I might take a look and see how Hugh sleeps. Like to know how\nhe breathes. Don't think he has adenoids, but I better make sure, eh?\" He patted her shoulder. At the flat they found her two housemates and a girl who had been to\njail for suffrage. Kennicott fitted in surprisingly. He laughed at the\ngirl's story of the humors of a hunger-strike; he told the secretary\nwhat to do when her eyes were tired from typing; and the teacher asked\nhim--not as the husband of a friend but as a physician--whether there\nwas \"anything to this inoculation for colds.\" His colloquialisms seemed to Carol no more lax than their habitual\nslang. Like an older brother he kissed her good-night in the midst of the\ncompany. \"He's terribly nice,\" said her housemates, and waited for confidences. They got none, nor did her own heart. She could find nothing definite to\nagonize about. She felt that she was no longer analyzing and controlling\nforces, but swept on by them. He came to the flat for breakfast, and washed the dishes. That was her\nonly occasion for spite. Back home he never thought of washing dishes! She took him to the obvious \"sights\"--the Treasury, the Monument, the\nCorcoran Gallery, the Pan-American Building, the Lincoln Memorial, with\nthe Potomac beyond it and the Arlington hills and the columns of the Lee\nMansion. For all his willingness to play there was over him a melancholy\nwhich piqued her. His normally expressionless eyes had depths to them\nnow, and strangeness. As they walked through Lafayette Square, looking\npast the Jackson statue at the lovely tranquil facade of the White\nHouse, he sighed, \"I wish I'd had a shot at places like this. When I was\nin the U., I had to earn part of my way, and when I wasn't doing that\nor studying, I guess I was roughhousing. My gang were a great bunch for\nbumming around and raising Cain. Maybe if I'd been caught early and\nsent to concerts and all that----Would I have been what you call\nintelligent?\" \"Oh, my dear, don't be humble! You are intelligent! For instance, you're\nthe most thorough doctor----\"\n\nHe was edging about something he wished to say. He pounced on it:\n\n\"You did like those pictures of G. P. pretty well, after all, didn't\nyou!\" \"Yes, of course.\" \"Wouldn't be so bad to have a glimpse of the old town, would it!\" \"No, it wouldn't. Just as I was terribly glad to see the Haydocks. But please understand me! That doesn't mean that I withdraw all my\ncriticisms. The fact that I might like a glimpse of old friends hasn't\nany particular relation to the question of whether Gopher Prairie\noughtn't to have festivals and lamb chops.\" Hastily, \"No, no! Sure not. I und'stand.\" \"But I know it must have been pretty tiresome to have to live with\nanybody as perfect as I was.\" He grinned. She liked his grin. V\n\n\nHe was thrilled by old negro coachmen, admirals, aeroplanes, the\nbuilding to which his income tax would eventually go, a Rolls-Royce,\nLynnhaven oysters, the Supreme Court Room, a New York theatrical manager\ndown for the try-out of a play, the house where Lincoln died, the cloaks\nof Italian officers, the barrows at which clerks buy their box-lunches\nat noon, the barges on the Chesapeake Canal, and the fact that District\nof Columbia cars had both District and Maryland licenses. She resolutely took him to her favorite white and green cottages and\nGeorgian houses. He admitted that fanlights, and white shutters against\nrosy brick, were more homelike than a painty wooden box. He volunteered,\n\"I see how you mean. They make me think of these pictures of an\nold-fashioned Christmas. Oh, if you keep at it long enough you'll have\nSam and me reading poetry and everything. Oh say, d' I tell you about\nthis fierce green Jack Elder's had his machine painted?\" VI\n\n\nThey were at dinner. He hinted, \"Before you showed me those places today, I'd already made up\nmy mind that when I built the new house we used to talk about, I'd fix\nit the way you wanted it. I'm pretty practical about foundations and\nradiation and stuff like that, but I guess I don't know a whole lot\nabout architecture.\" \"My dear, it occurs to me with a sudden shock that I don't either!\" \"Well--anyway--you let me plan the garage and the plumbing, and you do\nthe rest, if you ever--I mean--if you ever want to.\" Doubtfully, \"That's sweet of you.\" \"Look here, Carrie; you think I'm going to ask you to love me.\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> I'm not. And I'm not going to ask you to come back to Gopher Prairie!\" She gaped. \"It's been a whale of a fight. But I guess I've got myself to see that\nyou won't ever stand G. P. unless you WANT to come back to it. I needn't\nsay I'm crazy to have you. But I won't ask you. I just want you to know\nhow I wait for you. Every mail I look for a letter, and when I get one\nI'm kind of scared to open it, I'm hoping so much that you're coming\nback. Evenings----You know I didn't open the cottage down at the lake at\nall, this past summer. Simply couldn't stand all the others laughing and\nswimming, and you not there. I used to sit on the porch, in town, and\nI--I couldn't get over the feeling that you'd simply run up to the drug\nstore and would be right back, and till after it got dark I'd catch\nmyself watching, looking up the street, and you never came, and the\nhouse was so empty and still that I didn't like to go in. And sometimes\nI fell asleep there, in my chair, and didn't wake up till after\nmidnight, and the house----Oh, the devil! Please get me, Carrie. I just\nwant you to know how welcome you'll be if you ever do come. But I'm not\nasking you to.\" \"You're----It's awfully----\"\n\n\"'Nother thing. I'm going to be frank. I haven't always been absolutely,\nuh, absolutely, proper. I've always loved you more than anything else in\nthe world, you and the kid. But sometimes when you were chilly to me I'd\nget lonely and sore, and pike out and----Never intended----\"\n\nShe rescued him with a pitying, \"It's all right. Let's forget it.\" \"But before we were married you said if your husband ever did anything\nwrong, you'd want him to tell you.\" \"Did I? I can't remember. And I can't seem to think. Oh, my dear, I\ndo know how generously you're trying to make me happy. The only thing\nis----I can't think. I don't know what I think.\" \"Then listen! Don't think! Here's what I want you to do! Get a two-weeks\nleave from your office. Weather's beginning to get chilly here. Let's\nrun down to Charleston and Savannah and maybe Florida. \"A second honeymoon?\" indecisively. \"No. Don't even call it that. Call it a second wooing. I won't ask\nanything. I just want the chance to chase around with you. I guess I\nnever appreciated how lucky I was to have a girl with imagination and\nlively feet to play with. So----Could you maybe run away and see the\nSouth with me? If you wanted to, you could just--you could just pretend\nyou were my sister and----I'll get an extra nurse for Hugh! I'll get the\nbest dog-gone nurse in Washington!\" VII\n\n\nIt was in the Villa Margherita, by the palms of the Charleston Battery\nand the metallic harbor, that her aloofness melted. When they sat on the upper balcony, enchanted by the moon glitter, she\ncried, \"Shall I go back to Gopher Prairie with you? Decide for me. I'm\ntired of deciding and undeciding.\" \"No. You've got to do your own deciding. As a matter of fact, in spite\nof this honeymoon, I don't think I want you to come home. Not yet.\" She could only stare. \"I want you to be satisfied when you get there. I'll do everything I can\nto keep you happy, but I'll make lots of breaks, so I want you to take\ntime and think it over.\" She was relieved. She still had a chance to seize splendid indefinite\nfreedoms. She might go--oh, she'd see Europe, somehow, before she was\nrecaptured. But she also had a firmer respect for Kennicott. She had\nfancied that her life might make a story. She knew that there was\nnothing heroic or obviously dramatic in it, no magic of rare hours,\nnor valiant challenge, but it seemed to her that she was of some\nsignificance because she was commonplaceness, the ordinary life of the\nage, made articulate and protesting. It had not occurred to her that\nthere was also a story of Will Kennicott, into which she entered only so\nmuch as he entered into hers; that he had bewilderments and concealments\nas intricate as her own, and soft treacherous desires for sympathy. Thus she brooded, looking at the amazing sea, holding his hand. VIII\n\n\nShe was in Washington; Kennicott was in Gopher Prairie, writing as dryly\nas ever about water-pipes and goose-hunting and Mrs. Fageros's mastoid. She was talking at dinner to a generalissima of suffrage. Should she\nreturn? The leader spoke wearily:\n\n\"My dear, I'm perfectly selfish. I can't quite visualize the needs of\nyour husband, and it seems to me that your baby will do quite as well in\nthe schools here as in your barracks at home.\" \"Then you think I'd better not go back?\" Carol sounded disappointed. \"It's more difficult than that. When I say that I'm selfish I mean that\nthe only thing I consider about women is whether they're likely to prove\nuseful in building up real political power for women. And you? Shall I\nbe frank? Remember when I say 'you' I don't mean you alone. I'm thinking\nof thousands of women who come to Washington and New York and\nChicago every year, dissatisfied at home and seeking a sign in the\nheavens--women of all sorts, from timid mothers of fifty in cotton\ngloves, to girls just out of Vassar who organize strikes in their own\nfathers' factories! All of you are more or less useful to me, but only\na few of you can take my place, because I have one virtue (only one): I\nhave given up father and mother and children for the love of God. \"Here's the test for you: Do you come to 'conquer the East,' as people\nsay, or do you come to conquer yourself? \"It's so much more complicated than any of you know--so much more\ncomplicated than I knew when I put on Ground Grippers and started out to\nreform the world. The final complication in 'conquering Washington' or\n'conquering New York' is that the conquerors must beyond all things not\nconquer! It must have been so easy in the good old days when authors\ndreamed only of selling a hundred thousand volumes, and sculptors\nof being feted in big houses, and even the Uplifters like me had a\nsimple-hearted ambition to be elected to important offices and invited\nto go round lecturing. But we meddlers have upset everything. Now the\none thing that is disgraceful to any of us is obvious success. The\nUplifter who is very popular with wealthy patrons can be pretty sure\nthat he has softened his philosophy to please them, and the author who\nis making lots of money--poor things, I've heard 'em apologizing for it\nto the shabby bitter-enders; I've seen 'em ashamed of the sleek luggage\nthey got from movie rights. \"Do you want to sacrifice yourself in such a topsy-turvy world, where\npopularity makes you unpopular with the people you love, and the only\nfailure is cheap success, and the only individualist is the person who\ngives up all his individualism to serve a jolly ungrateful proletariat\nwhich thumbs its nose at him?\" Carol smiled ingratiatingly, to indicate that she was indeed one who\ndesired to sacrifice, but she sighed, \"I don't know; I'm afraid I'm not\nheroic. I certainly wasn't out home. Why didn't I do big effective----\"\n\n\"Not a matter of heroism. Matter of endurance. Your Middlewest is\ndouble-Puritan--prairie Puritan on top of New England Puritan; bluff\nfrontiersman on the surface, but in its heart it still has the ideal of\nPlymouth Rock in a sleet-storm. There's one attack you can make on it,\nperhaps the only kind that accomplishes much anywhere: you can keep on\nlooking at one thing after another in your home and church and bank, and\nask why it is, and who first laid down the law that it had to be that\nway. If enough of us do this impolitely enough, then we'll become\ncivilized in merely twenty thousand years or so, instead of having\nto wait the two hundred thousand years that my cynical anthropologist\nfriends allow. . . . Easy, pleasant, lucrative home-work for wives:\nasking people to define their jobs. That's the most dangerous doctrine I\nknow!\" Carol was mediating, \"I will go back! I will go on asking questions. I've always done it, and always failed at it, and it's all I can do.\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 2024-01-15 The user is reading a book]\n<User> I'm\ngoing to ask Ezra Stowbody why he's opposed to the nationalization of\nrailroads, and ask Dave Dyer why a druggist always is pleased when he's\ncalled 'doctor,' and maybe ask Mrs. Bogart why she wears a widow's veil\nthat looks like a dead crow.\" The woman leader straightened. \"And you have one thing. You have a baby\nto hug. That's my temptation. I dream of babies--of a baby--and I sneak\naround parks to see them playing. (The children in Dupont Circle are\nlike a poppy-garden.) And the antis call me 'unsexed'!\" Carol was thinking, in panic, \"Oughtn't Hugh to have country air? I\nwon't let him become a yokel. I can guide him away from street-corner\nloafing. . . . I think I can.\" On her way home: \"Now that I've made a precedent, joined the union and\ngone out on one strike and learned personal solidarity, I won't be\nso afraid. Will won't always be resisting my running away. Some day I\nreally will go to Europe with him . . . or without him. \"I've lived with people who are not afraid to go to jail. I could invite\na Miles Bjornstam to dinner without being afraid of the Haydocks . . . I\nthink I could. \"I'll take back the sound of Yvette Guilbert's songs and Elman's violin. They'll be only the lovelier against the thrumming of crickets in the\nstubble on an autumn day. \"I can laugh now and be serene . . . I think I can.\" Though she should return, she said, she would not be utterly defeated. She was glad of her rebellion. The prairie was no longer empty land in\nthe sun-glare; it was the living tawny beast which she had fought and\nmade beautiful by fighting; and in the village streets were shadows of\nher desires and the sound of her marching and the seeds of mystery and\ngreatness. IX\n\n\nHer active hatred of Gopher Prairie had run out. She saw it now as a\ntoiling new settlement. With sympathy she remembered Kennicott's defense\nof its citizens as \"a lot of pretty good folks, working hard and trying\nto bring up their families the best they can.\" She recalled tenderly the\nyoung awkwardness of Main Street and the makeshifts of the little brown\ncottages; she pitied their shabbiness and isolation; had compassion for\ntheir assertion of culture, even as expressed in Thanatopsis papers, for\ntheir pretense of greatness, even as trumpeted in \"boosting.\" She saw\nMain Street in the dusty prairie sunset, a line of frontier shanties\nwith solemn lonely people waiting for her, solemn and lonely as an old\nman who has outlived his friends. She remembered that Kennicott and Sam\nClark had listened to her songs, and she wanted to run to them and sing. \"At last,\" she rejoiced, \"I've come to a fairer attitude toward the\ntown. I can love it, now.\" She was, perhaps, rather proud of herself for having acquired so much\ntolerance. She awoke at three in the morning, after a dream of being tortured by\nElla Stowbody and the Widow Bogart. \"I've been making the town a myth. This is how people keep up the\ntradition of the perfect home-town, the happy boyhood, the brilliant\ncollege friends. We forget so. I've been forgetting that Main Street\ndoesn't think it's in the least lonely and pitiful. It thinks it's God's\nOwn Country. It isn't waiting for me. It doesn't care.\" But the next evening she again saw Gopher Prairie as her home, waiting\nfor her in the sunset, rimmed round with splendor. She did not return for five months more; five months crammed with greedy\naccumulation of sounds and colors to take back for the long still days. She had spent nearly two years in Washington. When she departed for Gopher Prairie, in June, her second baby was\nstirring within her. CHAPTER XXXIX\n\n\nSHE wondered all the way home what her sensations would be. She wondered\nabout it so much that she had every sensation she had imagined. She was\nexcited by each familiar porch, each hearty \"Well, well!\" and flattered\nto be, for a day, the most important news of the community. She bustled\nabout, making calls. Juanita Haydock bubbled over their Washington\nencounter, and took Carol to her social bosom. This ancient opponent\nseemed likely to be her most intimate friend, for Vida Sherwin, though\nshe was cordial, stood back and watched for imported heresies. In the evening Carol went to the mill. The mystical Om-Om-Om of the\ndynamos in the electric-light plant behind the mill was louder in the\ndarkness. Outside sat the night watchman, Champ Perry. He held up his\nstringy hands and squeaked, \"We've all missed you terrible.\" Who in Washington would miss her? Who in Washington could be depended upon like Guy Pollock? When she saw\nhim on the street, smiling as always, he seemed an eternal thing, a part\nof her own self. After a week she decided that she was neither glad nor sorry to be back. She entered each day with the matter-of-fact attitude with which she\nhad gone to her office in Washington. It was her task; there would be\nmechanical details and meaningless talk; what of it? The only problem which she had approached with emotion proved\ninsignificant. She had, on the train, worked herself up to such devotion\nthat she was willing to give up her own room, to try to share all of her\nlife with Kennicott. He mumbled, ten minutes after she had entered the house, \"Say, I've kept\nyour room for you like it was. I've kind of come round to your way of\nthinking. Don't see why folks need to get on each other's nerves just\nbecause they're friendly. Darned if I haven't got so I like a little\nprivacy and mulling things over by myself.\" II\n\n\nShe had left a city which sat up nights to talk of universal transition;\nof European revolution, guild socialism, free verse. She had fancied\nthat all the world was changing. She found that it was not. In Gopher Prairie the only ardent new topics were prohibition, the place\nin Minneapolis where you could get whisky at thirteen dollars a quart,\nrecipes for home-made beer, the \"high cost of living,\" the presidential\nelection, Clark's new car, and not very novel foibles of Cy Bogart. Their problems were exactly what they had been two years ago, what they\nhad been twenty years ago, and what they would be for twenty years to\ncome. With the world a possible volcano, the husbandmen were plowing at\nthe base of the mountain. A volcano does occasionally drop a river\nof lava on even the best of agriculturists, to their astonishment and\nconsiderable injury, but their cousins inherit the farms and a year or\ntwo later go back to the plowing. She was unable to rhapsodize much over the seven new bungalows and the\ntwo garages which Kennicott had made to seem so important. Her intensest\nthought about them was, \"Oh yes, they're all right I suppose.\" The\nchange which she did heed was the erection of the schoolbuilding, with\nits cheerful brick walls, broad windows, gymnasium, classrooms for\nagriculture and cooking. It indicated Vida's triumph, and it stirred her\nto activity--any activity. She went to Vida with a jaunty, \"I think I\nshall work for you. And I'll begin at the bottom.\" She did. She relieved the attendant at the rest-room for an hour a\nday. Her only innovation was painting the pine table a black and orange\nrather shocking to the Thanatopsis. She talked to the farmwives and\nsoothed their babies and was happy. Thinking of them she did not think of the ugliness of Main Street as she\nhurried along it to the chatter of the Jolly Seventeen. She wore her eye-glasses on the street now. She was beginning to ask\nKennicott and Juanita if she didn't look young, much younger than\nthirty-three. The eye-glasses pinched her nose. She considered\nspectacles. They would make her seem older, and hopelessly settled. No! She would not wear spectacles yet. But she tried on a pair at\nKennicott's office. They really were much more comfortable. III\n\n\nDr. Westlake, Sam Clark, Nat Hicks, and Del Snafflin were talking in\nDel's barber shop. \"Well, I see Kennicott's wife is taking a whirl at the rest-room, now,\"\nsaid Dr. Westlake. He emphasized the \"now.\" Del interrupted the shaving of Sam and, with his brush dripping lather,\nhe observed jocularly:\n\n\"What'll she be up to next?\n\n<System> Please remember what the user reads on 2024-01-15, save the details within the book, and retain a summary of the book the user has read so far.", "[Event happened on 2024-01-18 The user is reading a book]\n<User> They say she used to claim this burg wasn't\nswell enough for a city girl like her, and would we please tax ourselves\nabout thirty-seven point nine and fix it all up pretty, with tidies on\nthe hydrants and statoos on the lawns----\"\n\nSam irritably blew the lather from his lips, with milky small bubbles,\nand snorted, \"Be a good thing for most of us roughnecks if we did have\na smart woman to tell us how to fix up the town. Just as much to her\nkicking as there was to Jim Blausser's gassing about factories. And you\ncan bet Mrs. Kennicott is smart, even if she is skittish. Glad to see\nher back.\" Dr. Westlake hastened to play safe. \"So was I! So was I! She's got a\nnice way about her, and she knows a good deal about books, or fiction\nanyway. Of course she's like all the rest of these women--not\nsolidly founded--not scholarly--doesn't know anything about political\neconomy--falls for every new idea that some windjamming crank puts out. But she's a nice woman. She'll probably fix up the rest-room, and the\nrest-room is a fine thing, brings a lot of business to town. And now\nthat Mrs. Kennicott's been away, maybe she's got over some of her fool\nideas. Maybe she realizes that folks simply laugh at her when she tries\nto tell us how to run everything.\" \"Sure. She'll take a tumble to herself,\" said Nat Hicks, sucking in\nhis lips judicially. \"As far as I'm concerned, I'll say she's as nice a\nlooking skirt as there is in town. But yow!\" His tone electrified them. \"Guess she'll miss that Swede Valborg that used to work for me! They was\na pair! Talking poetry and moonshine! If they could of got away with it,\nthey'd of been so darn lovey-dovey----\"\n\nSam Clark interrupted, \"Rats, they never even thought about making love,\nJust talking books and all that junk. I tell you, Carrie Kennicott's\na smart woman, and these smart educated women all get funny ideas, but\nthey get over 'em after they've had three or four kids. You'll see her\nsettled down one of these days, and teaching Sunday School and helping\nat sociables and behaving herself, and not trying to butt into business\nand politics. Sure!\" After only fifteen minutes of conference on her stockings, her son, her\nseparate bedroom, her music, her ancient interest in Guy Pollock, her\nprobable salary in Washington, and every remark which she was known to\nhave made since her return, the supreme council decided that they would\npermit Carol Kennicott to live, and they passed on to a consideration of\nNat Hicks's New One about the traveling salesman and the old maid. IV\n\n\nFor some reason which was totally mysterious to Carol, Maud Dyer seemed\nto resent her return. At the Jolly Seventeen Maud giggled nervously,\n\"Well, I suppose you found war-work a good excuse to stay away and have\na swell time. Juanita! Don't you think we ought to make Carrie tell us\nabout the officers she met in Washington?\" They rustled and stared. Carol looked at them. Their curiosity seemed\nnatural and unimportant. \"Oh yes, yes indeed, have to do that some day,\" she yawned. She no longer took Aunt Bessie Smail seriously enough to struggle for\nindependence. She saw that Aunt Bessie did not mean to intrude; that\nshe wanted to do things for all the Kennicotts. Thus Carol hit upon the\ntragedy of old age, which is not that it is less vigorous than youth,\nbut that it is not needed by youth; that its love and prosy sageness,\nso important a few years ago, so gladly offered now, are rejected\nwith laughter. She divined that when Aunt Bessie came in with a jar of\nwild-grape jelly she was waiting in hope of being asked for the recipe. After that she could be irritated but she could not be depressed by Aunt\nBessie's simoom of questioning. She wasn't depressed even when she heard Mrs. Bogart observe, \"Now we've\ngot prohibition it seems to me that the next problem of the country\nain't so much abolishing cigarettes as it is to make folks observe the\nSabbath and arrest these law-breakers that play baseball and go to the\nmovies and all on the Lord's Day.\" Only one thing bruised Carol's vanity. Few people asked her about\nWashington. They who had most admiringly begged Percy Bresnahan for his\nopinions were least interested in her facts. She laughed at herself when\nshe saw that she had expected to be at once a heretic and a returned\nhero; she was very reasonable and merry about it; and it hurt just as\nmuch as ever. Her baby, born in August, was a girl. Carol could not decide whether she\nwas to become a feminist leader or marry a scientist or both, but did\nsettle on Vassar and a tricolette suit with a small black hat for her\nFreshman year. VI\n\n\nHugh was loquacious at breakfast. He desired to give his impressions of\nowls and F Street. \"Don't make so much noise. You talk too much,\" growled Kennicott. Carol flared. \"Don't speak to him that way! Why don't you listen to him? He has some very interesting things to tell.\" \"What's the idea? Mean to say you expect me to spend all my time\nlistening to his chatter?\" \"Why not?\" \"For one thing, he's got to learn a little discipline. Time for him to\nstart getting educated.\" \"I've learned much more discipline, I've had much more education, from\nhim than he has from me.\" \"What's this? Some new-fangled idea of raising kids you got in\nWashington?\" \"Perhaps. Did you ever realize that children are people?\" \"That's all right. I'm not going to have him monopolizing the\nconversation.\" \"No, of course. We have our rights, too. But I'm going to bring him up\nas a human being. He has just as many thoughts as we have, and I want\nhim to develop them, not take Gopher Prairie's version of them. That's\nmy biggest work now--keeping myself, keeping you, from 'educating' him.\" \"Well, let's not scrap about it. But I'm not going to have him spoiled.\" Kennicott had forgotten it in ten minutes; and she forgot it--this time. VII\n\n\nThe Kennicotts and the Sam Clarks had driven north to a duck-pass\nbetween two lakes, on an autumn day of blue and copper. Kennicott had given her a light twenty-gauge shotgun. She had a first\nlesson in shooting, in keeping her eyes open, not wincing, understanding\nthat the bead at the end of the barrel really had something to do with\npointing the gun. She was radiant; she almost believed Sam when he\ninsisted that it was she who had shot the mallard at which they had\nfired together. She sat on the bank of the reedy lake and found rest in Mrs. Clark's\ndrawling comments on nothing. The brown dusk was still. Behind them were\ndark marshes. The plowed acres smelled fresh. The lake was garnet and\nsilver. The voices of the men, waiting for the last flight, were clear\nin the cool air. \"Mark left!\" sang Kennicott, in a long-drawn call. Three ducks were swooping down in a swift line. The guns banged, and\na duck fluttered. The men pushed their light boat out on the burnished\nlake, disappeared beyond the reeds. Their cheerful voices and the slow\nsplash and clank of oars came back to Carol from the dimness. In the sky\na fiery plain sloped down to a serene harbor. It dissolved; the lake\nwas white marble; and Kennicott was crying, \"Well, old lady, how about\nhiking out for home? Supper taste pretty good, eh?\" \"I'll sit back with Ethel,\" she said, at the car. It was the first time she had called Mrs. Clark by her given name; the\nfirst time she had willingly sat back, a woman of Main Street. \"I'm hungry. It's good to be hungry,\" she reflected, as they drove away. She looked across the silent fields to the west. She was conscious of an\nunbroken sweep of land to the Rockies, to Alaska, a dominion which\nwill rise to unexampled greatness when other empires have grown senile. Before that time, she knew, a hundred generations of Carols will aspire\nand go down in tragedy devoid of palls and solemn chanting, the humdrum\ninevitable tragedy of struggle against inertia. \"Let's all go to the movies tomorrow night. Awfully exciting film,\" said\nEthel Clark. \"Well, I was going to read a new book but----All right, let's go,\" said\nCarol.\n\n<System> Please remember what the user reads on 2024-01-18, 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> VIII\n\n\n\"They're too much for me,\" Carol sighed to Kennicott. \"I've been\nthinking about getting up an annual Community Day, when the whole town\nwould forget feuds and go out and have sports and a picnic and a dance. But Bert Tybee (why did you ever elect him mayor?) --he's kidnapped my\nidea. He wants the Community Day, but he wants to have some politician\n'give an address.' That's just the stilted sort of thing I've tried to\navoid. He asked Vida, and of course she agreed with him.\" Kennicott considered the matter while he wound the clock and they\ntramped up-stairs. \"Yes, it would jar you to have Bert butting in,\" he said amiably. \"Are\nyou going to do much fussing over this Community stunt? Don't you ever\nget tired of fretting and stewing and experimenting?\" \"I haven't even started. Look!\" She led him to the nursery door, pointed\nat the fuzzy brown head of her daughter. \"Do you see that object on the\npillow? Do you know what it is? It's a bomb to blow up smugness. If you\nTories were wise, you wouldn't arrest anarchists; you'd arrest all these\nchildren while they're asleep in their cribs. Think what that baby will\nsee and meddle with before she dies in the year 2000! She may see an\nindustrial union of the whole world, she may see aeroplanes going to\nMars.\" \"Yump, probably be changes all right,\" yawned Kennicott. She sat on the edge of his bed while he hunted through his bureau for a\ncollar which ought to be there and persistently wasn't. \"I'll go on, always. And I am happy. But this Community Day makes me see\nhow thoroughly I'm beaten.\" \"That darn collar certainly is gone for keeps,\" muttered Kennicott and,\nlouder, \"Yes, I guess you----I didn't quite catch what you said, dear.\" She patted his pillows, turned down his sheets, as she reflected:\n\n\"But I have won in this: I've never excused my failures by sneering at\nmy aspirations, by pretending to have gone beyond them. I do not admit\nthat Main Street is as beautiful as it should be! I do not admit that\nGopher Prairie is greater or more generous than Europe! I do not admit\nthat dish-washing is enough to satisfy all women! I may not have fought\nthe good fight, but I have kept the faith.\" \"Sure. You bet you have,\" said Kennicott. \"Well, good night. Sort of\nfeels to me like it might snow tomorrow. Have to be thinking about\nputting up the storm-windows pretty soon. Say, did you notice whether\nthe girl put that screwdriver back?\"\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."]
[{"question": "Summarize the content of the book I read from 2024-01-01 to 2024-01-19", "answer": "Carol Kennicott, Dr. Kennicott, Hugh, Gopher Prairie, Washington D.C., Bureau of War Risk Insurance, suffrage movement, Percy Bresnahan, Erik Valborg, Maud Dyer, town boosting campaign, rebellion, train journey, war activities, cultural attractions, politics, social issues, small towns, church, institutions, office work, army friend, movies, sightseeing, photographs, second wooing, affair, pregnancy, daughter, Community Day, barbershop, building projects, new school, acceptance, sympathy, understanding, criticism, fighting for change, storm windows, weather"}]