 CHAPTER 32 The Cornfield Aristocrat It was an innocent little note from Jeff Saxton. A polite, humble little note. It said that Jeff had a card to the Astoria Club and wouldn't Milt please have lunch with him. But Milt dropped it on the table and he walked around it as though it were a dictograph which he discovered in the table drawer after happy, happy, hidden hours at counterfeiting. It seemed more dangerous to refuse than to go. He browned the celebrated new shoes. He pressed the distinguished new trousers with a light and quite unsatisfactory flat iron. He re-re-retied his best spotted blue bow. It persisted in having the top flaps too short. But the re-tying gave him spiritual strength and he modestly clumped into the aloof brick portal of the Astoria Club on time. He had never been in a club before. He looked at the red-tiled floor of the entrance hall. He stared through the hall into an immense lounge with the largest and softest chairs in the world with oil portraits of distinguished old bucks and ninety percent of the wealth and power of Seattle pulling at several mustaches, reading the P.I. and ignoring the lone intruder out in the hall. A small zulu and blue tights and brass buttons glared at Milt, and a large, soft, suave, insulting young man demanded, Yes, sir? Mr. Jeffery Saxton ventured Milt. Not in, sir. The sir sounded like, and you know it. The flaming guardian retired behind a narrow section of a bookkeeper's desk and ignored him. I am to meet him for lunch, Milt forlornly persisted. The young man looked up, hurt and annoyed at finding that the person was still to be dealt with. If you will wait in there, he groaned. Milt sat in there, which was a small blue tapestry room with hard chairs intended to discourage bill collectors. He turned his hat round and round till he saw Jeff Saxton, slim and straight and hard as the stick hooked over his arms sailing into the hall. He plunged out after him, took refuge with him from the still unconvinced inspection of the hallman. For twenty seconds he loved Jeff Saxton. And Jeff seemed to adore him in turn. He solicitously led Milt to the hat-checking counter. He showed Milt the lounge and the billiard room through which Milt crept with erect shoulders and easy eyes and a heart simply paralyzed with fear that one of these grizzled club men with clipped mustaches would look at him. He coaxed Milt into a grill that was a cross between the Chinese throne room and a Viennese vine-stube. And he implored his friend Milt to do him the favour of trying the very fair English mutton chops and potatoes aggrotten. I did want to see you again before we go east, Daggett. He said pleasantly. The thanks. When do you go? I'm trying to get Miss Boltwood to start soon now. The season is opening in the east. She does like your fine, sturdy west, as I do. But still, when we think of the exciting new shows opening and the dances and the touch with the great world, oh, it does make one eager to get back. That's so, risk Milt. We, um, Daggett, in fact I'm going to call you Milt as Claire does. You don't know what a pleasure it has been to have encountered you. There's a fine, keen courage about you, Western chaps, that makes a cautious old fogey like me envious. I shall remember meeting you with a great deal of pleasure. Thanks. Been a pleasure to meet you. And I know Claire will too. Milt felt that he was being dealt with foully. He wanted to object to Saxton's acting as agent for Claire as incompetent, irrelevant, immaterial, and no foundation laid. But he could not see just where he was being led. And with Saxton glowing at him as warmly and greasily as the mutton chops, Milt could only smile wanly and reflectively feel the table-leg to see if it was loose enough to jerk out in case of need. Saxton was being optimistic. In fact Claire and I both hope that some day when you've finished your engineering course we'll see you in the East. I wonder, as I say, my dear fellow, I've taken the greatest fancy to you, and I do hope you won't think I'm too intimate if I say that I imagine that even in your charming friendship with Miss Boltwood you've probably never learned what important people the Boltwoods are. I thought I'd tell you so that you could realize the privilege both you and I have in knowing them. Henry B. is, while not a man of any enormous wealth, regarded as one of the keenest intellects in New York wholesale circles. But beyond that he is a scholar and a man of the broadest interests. Of course the Boltwoods are too modest to speak of it, but he was chiefly instrumental in the establishment of the famous Brooklyn Symphony Orchestra and his ancestors clear through. His father was a federal judge, his mother's brother was a general in the Civil War, and afterwards an ambassador. So you can guess something of the position Claire holds in the fine, quiet, solid, old Brooklyn set. Henry Ward Beecher himself was complimented at being asked to dine with the Boltwoods of his day. And, no, the table leg wouldn't come loose, so it was only verbally that the suddenly recovered milk attacked. Only is nice to have one of those old families. It's something like, as you say, you and I have gotten pretty well acquainted along the line, so I guess I can say it to you. My father and his folks came from that same kind of family. Father's dad was a judge, back in Maine, and in the war Granddad was quite friendly with Grant. This tribute of milk to his grand sire was loyal, but inaccurate. Judge Daggett, who wasn't a judge at all, but a JP, had seen General Grant only once, and at the time the judge had been in company with all the other privates in the 14th Maine. Dad was a pioneer. He was a doctor. He had to give up all this easygoing stuff in order to help open up the West to civilization. But I guess it was worth it. He used to do the hardest kind of operations on kitchen tables with his driver giving the chloroform. I'm mighty proud of him. As you say, it's kind of what you might call inspiring to belong to the old pilgrim-ever-stocracy. Never before had Milt claimed relation to a group regarding which his only knowledge was the information derived from the red school history to the effect that they all carried blunderbuses, put people in the stocks for whistling, and frequently said, Why don't you speak for yourself, John? But he had made his boast with a clear eye and a pleasant, superior, calm smile. Oh, very interesting, grunted Saxon. Would you like to see Grandfather's daguerreotype? Oh, yes, yes, thanks. That would be very interesting. Do let me see it when, as I was saying, Clare Doubtless has a tremendous social career before her. So many people expecting her to marry well. Of course, she has a rather unusual combination of charm and intelligence, and, in fact, I think we may both be glad that. Yes, that's right. And the best thing about her is the way she can shake off all that social stuff and go camping and be a regular human being, Milt caressed. No doubt, no doubt, though, of course, though that isn't an inherent part of her, I fancy she's been rather tired by this long trip, poor child. Of course, she isn't very strong. That's right, real pluck. And of course, she'll get stronger by hiking. You've never seen her bucking a dangerous hill. I kind of feel that a person who hasn't seen her in the wilds doesn't know her. I don't want to be a contradictory old man, but I feel on the other hand that no one who has failed to see her at the Junior League dances in a poire frock can know her. Come, come. Don't know how we drifted into this chorus of praise of Clare. What I wanted to ask was your opinion of the Pierce arrow. I'm thinking of buying one. Do you think that, all the way home, Milt exalted? I put it all over him. I wasn't scared by the don't butt into the aristocracy, my young friend stuff. I lied handsome. But darn it, now I'll have to live up to my New England Air aristocracy. Wonder if my granddad's dad was a hired man or a wood sawyer? Never mind. I'm Daggett of Daggett from now on. He bounded up to his room, vain gloriously remarking, I'm there with the ancestors. I was brought up in the handsome city of Schoenstrom, which was founded by a colony of Vermont Yankees, headed by Herman Schumauts. I was never allowed to play with the Dutch kids, and he opened the door. The Schoenstrom minister taught me Greek and was my bosom friend. He stopped with his heart in his ankles. Lawling on the bed, grinning, waving a cigarette, was Bill McAulay, proprietor of the old home lunch of Schoenstrom, Minnesota. Where the heck did you come from? stammered the deposed aristocrat to his bosom friend, Bill. The old lemon pie-faced, lollic-agon flap-footed crap-nose son of misery. Gee, but it's good to see you, Milt. Bill was off the bed, wringing Milt's hand with simple joy, with perfect faith that in finding his friend all the troubles of life were over, and Milt was gloomily discovering the art of diplomacy. Bill was his friend, yes, but it was hard enough to carry his own self. He pictured Jeff Saxton leering at the door, and while he pounded Bill's shoulder and called him the name which, west of Chicago, is the token of hatred and of extreme gladness and hating, he discovered that someone had stolen his stomach and left a piece of ice in its place. They settled down on bed and chair. Bill's ears red with joy, while Milt demanded, How the deuce did you get here? Well, tell you old horse, Schoenstrom got so darn lonely after you left, and when Ben and Heine got your address and bought the garage, thinks I, let's go off on a little bum. Milt was realizing, and hating himself for realizing, that Bill's face was dirty, his hair linty, the bottom of his trousers frayed masses of mud, while Bill chuckled. I figured out maybe I could get a job here in a restaurant and you and me could room together. I sold out my goodwill in the old home lunch for a hundred bucks. I was going to travel swell, riding the cushions, but Pete Swanson wanted me to go down to the city's first, and we run into some pretty swift travelers in Minneapolis and a couple of girls, say, kid, some class. Bill winked and Milt. Milt was rather sick. He knew Bill's conception of class in young women. Was this the fellow he had liked so well? These the ideas, which a few months ago he had taken as natural and extremely amusing. And I got held up in an alley off Washington Avenue, and they got the last twenty bones off me, and I was flattered in a pancake. So I says, Ishka the Bibble, and I sneaks on to the blind luggage, and bums my way west. You'd have died laughing to see me throwing my feet for grub. Oh, I'm some panhandler. There was one frow-sicter dog on to me, and I kicked him in the jaw, and oh, it was one swell hike. Milt was trying to ignore the voice that was raging, and now he expects to live on me, after throwing his own money away, the caster, the hobo. He'll expect to meet Claire. I'll kill him before I let him soil her by looking at her. Him and his classy girls. Milt tried to hear only the other inner voice which informed him. He looks at you so trustingly. He'd give you his shirt if you needed it, and he wouldn't make you ask for it. Milt tried to be hearty. What are you going to do, old kid? Well, the first thing I'm going to do is borrow ten iron men and a pair of pants. You bet. Here she is. Haven't got any extra pants, tell you. Here's another five. You can get the pants at the store in the next block, this side of the street. Hustle along now and get them. He chuckled at Bill. He patted his arm. He sought to hurry him out. He had to be alone, to think. But Bill kissed the fifteen dollars, carelessly rammed it into his pocket, crawled back on the bed, and yawned. Watch the rush. Gosh, I'm sleepy. Say, Milt, what do you think of me and you starting a lunch room here together? You got enough money out of the garage. Oh, no, no, gee, I'd like to, Bill, but you see, well, I've got to hold on to what little I've got so I can get through engineering school. Sure, but you could cash in on a restaurant. You could work evenings in the dump, and there would be a lot of city sports hanging around, and we'd have the time of our lives. No, I study evenings, and the fact is, Bill, I've met a lot of nice fellows at the university, and I kind of go around with them. Oh, how do you get that way, rats? You don't want to go tagging after them willy boys, damn dirty snobs, and the girls are worse. I tell you, Milt, these hooptie-tootled society-janes may look all right to hicks like us, but on the side they raise more hell than any millner's trimmer from shy that ever vamped a rubberg. What do you know about them? I don't get sore. I'm telling you, I don't like to see any friend of mine make a fool of himself hanging around with a bunch that despises him because he ain't rich. That's all. Men any of the high-toned skirts? Yes, I have. Trot him up, and let me give him the once-over. We'll see about it. Now, I gotta go to a mathematics recitation, Bill. You make yourself comfortable. I'll be back at five. Milt did not have to go to a recitation. He marched out with bristness in his step and a book under his arm. But when he reached the corner, the bristness proved to be spurious in the mathematics book, proved to be William Rose Benet's Merchants of Cathay, which Killare had given him in the Yellowstone and which he had rescued from the wrecked bug. He stood staring at it. He opened it with unhappy tenderness. He had been snatched from the world of beautiful words and serene dignity, of soaring mountains and companionship with Claire in the radiant morning, back to the mud and dust of show and strong, from the opera to city sports in a lunch room. He hated Bill McAulay and his sneering assumption that Milt belonged in the filth with him, and he hated himself for not being enough of a genius to combine Bill McAulay and Claire Boltwood. But not once in his maelstrom of worry on that street corner did he expect Claire to like Bill. Through all his youthful agonizing, he had enough common sense to know that though Claire might conquer a mountain pass, she could never be equal to the social demands of show and strong and Bill McAulay. He wandered for an hour and came back to find that in a dry city which he had never seen before, the crafty Bill had obtained a quart of bourbon and was in a state of unsteady beatitude. He wanted, he announced, to dance. Milt got him into the community bathtub and sourced him under, but Bill's wet body was slippery and Bill's merry soul was all for frolicsome gambling, and he slid out of Milt's grasp. He sloshed around in the tub, he sprinkled Milt's sacred good suit with soapy water and escaped, and in the costume of Adam he danced orientally in Milt's room till he was seized with sleepiness and cosmic grief and retired to Milt's bed in tears and nothing else. The room dimmed, grew dark. The street lamps outside sent a wan, wavering gleam into the room. Evening crowds went by, and in a motion picture theater a banging piano struck up. Bill breathed in choking snorts. Milt sat unmoving, feeling very old, very tired, too dumbly unhappy to be frightened of the dreadful coming hour when Claire and Jeff should hear of Bill and discover Milt's real world. He was not so romantically loyal, not so inhumanely heroic, that it can truthfully be reported that he never thought of getting rid of Bill. He did think of it, again and again. But always he was touched by Bill's unsuspecting trust and shook his head and sank again into the fog. What was the use of trying to go ahead? Wasn't he, after all, merely a Bill McAulay himself? If he was he wouldn't inflict himself on Claire. For several minutes he gave up forever the possessed of climbing. When Bill awoke, brightly solicitous about the rest of the court of bourbon and bouncingly ready to go out and have a time, Milt loafed about the streets with him, showing him the city. He'd dolly cut his glasses next morning and took Bill to the warbs. It was late in the afternoon when they were lounging in the room and Bill was admiring his new pants. He boasted of having bought them for three dollars, and pointed out that Milt had been a galoot to spend ten dollars for shoes that someone knocked at the door. Sleepily, expectant of his landlady, Milt opened it on Miss Claire Boltwood, Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Gilson, and Mr. Jeffrey Saxton. Saxton calmly looked past him at Bill, smiled slightly and condescended. I thought we ought to call on you so we've dropped in to beg for tea. Bill had stopped midway in scratching his head to gape at Claire. Claire returned the look. Stared at Bill's frowsy hair, his red wrist, his wrinkled, grease-stained coat, his expression of impertinent stupidity. Then she glanced, questionily at Milt, who choked, Oh, yes, yes, sure. Glad to see you. Come in, get some tea. So glad to see you. Come in. End of Chapter 32 Chapter 33 of Free Air This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Free Air by Sinclair Lewis Chapter 33 Tooth Mug Tea My friend Mr. Bill McGowley. I knew him in Schoenstrom. Come on to Seattle for a while. Bill, these are some people I met along the road. Milt grumbled. Glad to meet him. Have a chair. Have two chairs. Say, Milt, you ought to have more chairs if you're going to have a bunch of swells coming to call on you. Ha, ha, ha! Say! I guess I better pike out and give the folks a chance to chin with you. Bill fondly offered. Oh, sit down. Milt snapped at him. They all sat down. Four on the bed. And Milt's inner ear heard a mute snicker from the gilsons and sacked him. He tried to talk. He couldn't. Bill looked at him and, perceiving the dumbness, gallantly helped out. So you met the kid on the road, eh? Good scout, Milt is. We always used to say at Schoenstrom that he was the best darned hand at fixing a fliver and seven town-chips. So you knew Mr. Daggett at home. Now isn't that nice? said Mrs. Gilson. Knew him? Say, Milt and I was brung up together. Why, him and I have bummed around together and worked on farm summers and fished for bullheads. Ever catch a bullhead? Damn'd a slippery as fish you ever saw and got horns that sting the stuffens out of you. And, say, I wonder if Milt's told you about the time we had at a barn dance once. There was a bunch of hicks there, and I says, say, kid, let's puncture their tires and hide back at the manure pile and watch the fun when they come out. I guess maybe I was kind of stewed a little to tell the truth, but of course, Milt, he don't drink much. Hardly at all. Nice straight kid if I do say so. Bill, Milt ordered. We must have some tea. Here's six bits. You run down to the corner of the grocery and get some tea and a little cream. Oh, you better buy three, four cups, too. Hustle now, son. Add a boy yours to command, ladies and gents, like the fellow says. Bill boomed delightedly. He winked at Jeff Saxton, airily spun his broken hat on his dirty forefinger and sauntered out. Charming fellow, a real original, crooned Mrs. Gilson. Did he know your friend Mr. Pinky? asked Saxton. Before Milt could answer, Claire rose from the bed, inspected the Gilson's and Jeff with cold dislike, and said quietly to Milt, the poor dear thing, he was dreadfully embarrassed. It's so good of you to be nice to him. I believe in being loyal to your old friends. Oh, so do I, babbled Mrs. Gilson. It's just too splendid, and we must do something for him. I'm going to invite Mr. Daggett and Mr. Magollops, was it, to dinner this evening. I do want to hear him tell about your boyhood. It must have been so interesting. It was, mused Milt. It was poor and miserable. We had to work hard. We had to fight for whatever education we got. We had no one to teach us courtesy. Oh, now, with your fine old doctor father, surely he was an inspiration. Jeff didn't. This time, trouble to hide the sneer. Yes, he was. He gave up the chance to be a rich loafer in order to save farmers' babies for fees that he never got. I'm sure he did. I wish I'd known him. We need to know men like that in this pink frosting playing at living we have in cities, Claire said sweetly. Not to Milt, but to Jeff. Mrs. Gilson had ignored them, waiting with the patience of a cat at a mouse-hole, and she went on. But you haven't said you'd come this evening. Do say you will. I don't suppose Mr. Magollops will care to dress for dinner. With saccharine devotion, Milt yearned back. No, Mrs. Gilson, no. Mr. Magolloway won't care to dress. He's eccentric. But you'll make him come. Milt was tactfully beginning to refuse when Jean Gilson at last exploded, turned purple, covered his dripping two red lips with his handkerchief. Then, abruptly, Milt hurled at Mrs. Gilson. All right. We'll come. Bill will be awfully funny. He's never been out of a jerkwater burg in his life, hardly. He's an amusing cuss. He thinks I'm smart. He loves me like a dog. Oh, he's rich. Ha-ha-ha! Milt might have gone on. If he had, Mr. and Mrs. Gilson would have gone away, much displeased. But Bill arrived with some of the worst tea in the world and four cups tastefully done in Cupid's heads and much guilt. Milt made tea, ignoring them, while Bill entertained the Gilson's and Saxon's with Rabilasian stories of threshing time when shirts prickly with shaft and gritty with dust stuck to sweat dripping backs of the funny thing of Milt and Bill being hired to move a garbage pile and swiping their employer's mushmelons of knotting shirts at the swimming-holes so that the balling youngsters had the chewed beef, of drinking beer in the livery stable at Melrose, of dropping the water pitcher from a st. Kloppstock hotel window up on the head of the constabule and escaping from him across the lean-to roof. Mrs. Gilson encouraged him. Bill sat with almost closed eyes, glorying in the saga of small-town life. Saxon and Gilson did not conceal their contemptuous grins. But Claire, after nervously rubbing the tips of her thumbs with flickering agitated fingers, she had paid no attention to Bill and the revelation of Milt's rustic life. She had quietly gone to Milt to help him prepare the scanty tea. She whispered, Never mind, dear. I don't care. It was all twice as much fun as being wheeled in lacy prams by cranky nurses as Jeff and I were. But I know how you feel. Are you ashamed of having been a prairie pirate? No, I'm not. We were wild kids. We raised a lot of cane, but I'm glad we did. So am I. I couldn't stand it if you were ashamed. Listen to me and remember little Claire's words of wisdom. These fools are trying. Oh, they're so obvious. They're trying to make me feel that the prim-miss-bolt foot of Brooklyn Heights is a stranger to you. Well, they're succeeding in making me a stranger. To them. Claire, dear, you don't mind, Bill? Yes, I do. And so do you. You've grown away from him. I know, but today has been quite a test. Yes, it has, because if I can stand your friend Mr. McGallaway, then you do care. Perhaps. And if I think that he's, oh, not much good, and I remember that for a long time you just had him to play with, then I'm all the more anxious to make it up to you. Don't be sorry for me. I can't stand that. After all, it was a good town, and good folks. No, no, I'm not sorry for you. I just mean you couldn't have had some terribly much fun after you were eighteen or so. Shown strong must have been a little dull after very many years there. This stuff about the charm of Backwood's villages, the people that write it seem to take jolly good care to stay in Long Island suburbs. Claire, he was whispering desperately. The tea's most done. Oh, my dear, I'm crazy with this puttering around, trying to woo you and having to woo the entire Gilson tribe. Let's run away. No, first I'm going to convince them that you are what I know you are. But you can't. Huh, you wait. I've thought of the most beautiful, beastly, cruel plan for the reduction of social obesity. Then she was jauntily announcing, Tea, my dears. Jeff, you get the tooth-mug. Isn't this jolly? Yes, oh yes, very jolly. Jeff was thoroughly patronizing, but she didn't look offended. She made them drink the acid tea and taste the chalk-like bread-and-butter sandwiches. She coaxed Bill to go on with his stories, and when the persistent Mrs. Gilson again asked the pariahs to come to dinner, Claire astonished Milt and still more astonished Mrs. Gilson by begging, oh yes, please do come, Milt. He consented savagely. But first, Claire added to Mrs. Gilson, I want us to take the boys to—oh, I have the bulliest idea. Come, everybody, we're going riding. Uh, whirr, hinted Mr. Gilson. That's my secret. Come! Claire pranced to the door, heard it all of them down to the limousine, whispered an address to the chauffeur. Milt didn't much care for that ride. Bill was somewhat too evidently not accustomed to limousines. He wiped his shoes, caked with red mud upon the seat cushions, and apologized perspiringly. He said, gee, willikens, that's a dandy ID, telephoned the ball the chauffeur out with. And are them flowers real, the bokeh in the vase? But the Gilson's and Jeff Saxton were happy about it all, till the car turned from a main thoroughfare upon a muddy street of shacks that clung like goats to the side of a hot cut, a street unchanged from the pioneer days of Seattle. Good heavens, Claire, you aren't taking us to see Aunt Hattie, are you? Wailed Mrs. Gilson. Oh, yes indeed, I knew the boys would like to meet her. No, really, I don't think—eva my soul. Jeff and you planned our tea-party today, and assured me I'd be so interested in Milt's bachelor apartment. By the way, I'd been up there already, so it wasn't entirely a surprise. It's my turn to lead. She confided to Milt. Dear old Aunt Hattie is related to all of us. She's Jean's aunt and my fourth cousin, and I think she's distantly related to Jeff. She came west early and had a hard time, but she's real Brooklyn Heights, and she belongs to Gramercy Park and North Washington Square and Rittenhouse Square and Back Bay, too, though she has got out of touch a little, so I wanted you to meet her. Milt wondered what unperceived bag of cement had hardened the faces of Saxton and the Gilson's. Silent, save for polite observations of Claire-upon's tight skirts and lumbering, the merry company reached the foot of a lurching flight of steps that scrambled up a clay bank to a cottage like a hen that is set too long. Milt noticed that Mrs. Gilson made efforts to remain in the limousine when it stopped, and he caught Gilson's mutter to his wife. No, it's Claire's turn. Be a sport, Eva. Claire led them up the badly listed steps to an unpainted porch on which sat a little old lady, very neat, very respectable, very interested, and reflectively holding in one ivory hand a dainty hangar-chief and a black clay pipe. Hello, Claire, my dear. You've broken the relative's record. Use it called twice in less than a year, said the little old lady. How do you do, Aunt Harriet? remarked Mrs. Gilson with great lack of warmth. Hello, Eva. Sit down on the edge of the porch. Those chickens have made it awful dirty, though, haven't they? Bring out some chairs. There's two chairs that don't go down under you, often. Aunt Harriet was very cheerful. The group legubriously settled in a circle upon an assemblage of wind-broken red velvet chairs and wooden stools. They resembled the aftermath of a funeral on a damp day. Claire was the cheerful undertaker. Mrs. Gilson the grief-stricken widow. Claire waved at Milt and conversed with Aunt Hattie in a high brisk voice. This is the nice boy I met on the road that I think I told you about, cousin Hattie. The little old lady screwed up the delicate skin about her eyes, examined Milt and cackled, Boy, there's something wrong here. You don't belong with my family while you look like an American. You haven't got an imitation monocle, and I bet you can't talk with a New York London accent. While Claire I'm ashamed of you for bringing a human being into the boltwood, Gilson-saxed-and-tomb and expecting, then was the smile of Mrs. Gilson lost forever. It was simultaneously torpedoed, mined, scuttled, and bombed. It went to the bottom without a ripple while Mrs. Gilson snapped. Aunt Hattie, please don't be vulgar. Me? croaked the little old lady. She puffed at her pipe and dropped her elbows on her knees. My ain't it hard to please some folks? Cousin Hattie, I want Milt to know about our families. I love the dear old stories, Claire begged prettily. Mrs. Gilson snarled. Claire, really? Oh, do shut up, Eve, and don't be so bossy. Yelp the dear little old lady, and sudden and dismaying rage. I'll talk if I want to. Have they been bullying you, Claire, or your boy? I tell you, boy, these families are fierce. I was brought up in Brooklyn, went through all the schools, used to be able to misplay the piano and mispronounce French with the best of them. Then Jeans-Paw and I came west together. He had an idea he'd get rich robbing the engines of their land, and we went broke. I took in washing. I learned a lot. I learned that Gilson was just the same common stuff as a red shirt miner when he was up against it. But Jeans-Paw succeeded. There was something about practically stealing a first gunner, but I never was one to tattle on my kin. Anyway, by the time Jeans come along, his paw was rich, and that means aristocratic. This aristocracy west of Pittsburgh is just twice as bad as the snobbery in Boston or New York, because back there the families have had their wealth long enough, some of them got it by stealing real estate in 1820, and some by selling Jamaica rum and niggers way back before the Revolutionary War. They've been respectable so long that they know mighty well and good that nobody except a Britisher is going to question their blue blood. And oh my, what good bluing third generation money does make. But out here in God's country, the marquises of milling and the barons of beef are still uneasy. Even their pretty women, after going to the best hairdressers and patronizing the best charities, sometimes get scared lest somebody think they have an either brains or a breeding. So they're nasty to all low pussins like you and me, to make sure we understand how important they are. But lans, I know them, boy. I'm kept pinching up here out of the way, but I read the social notes in the papers and I chuckle. When there's a big reception and I read about Mrs. Voglund's pearls and her beautiful daughter-in-law, I remember how she used to run a boarding house for minors. Well, I guess it's just as shoddy in the east if you go far enough back. Claire, you're a nice comforting body and I hate to say it, but the truth is your great grandfather was a hustler, and he made his first money bed-a-gone horses. Now, my I oughtn't to tell that. Do you mind, dearie? Not a bit. Isn't it delightful that this is such a democratic country with no castes, said Claire? At this, the first break in the little old lady's undamminable flood, Mrs. Gilson sprang up yammering. The rest of you may stay as long as you like, but if I'm to be home in time to dress for dinner, yes, and I must be going, babbled Sackston. Milt noted that his lower lip showed white tooth marks. It must be admitted that all of them rather ignored the little old lady for a moment. Milt was apologetically hinting, I don't really think Bill and I better come to dinner this evening, Mrs. Gilson. Thanks a lot, but it's kind of sudden. Claire again took charge. Not at all, Milt. Of course you're coming. It was Eva herself who invited you. I'm sure she'll be delighted. Charmed, said Mrs. Gilson, with the expression of one who has swallowed castor oil and doubts the unity of the universe. There was a lack of ease about the farewells to Aunt Harriet. As they all turned away, she beckoned Milt and murmured, Did I raise the dickens? I tried to. It's the only solace besides smoking that a moral old lady can allow herself after she gets to be 82 and begins to doubt everything they used to teach her. Come and see me, boy. Now get out, and, boy, beat up Jean Gilson. Don't be scared of his wife's hoity-toity ways. Just sail in. I will, said Milt. He had one more surprise before he reached the limousine. Bill McGallway, who had sat listening to everything and scratching his cheek in a puzzled way, seized Milt's sleeve and rumbled, Goodbye, old horse, I'm not going to butt in on your game and get you in Dutch. Gosh, I never supposed you had enough class to mingle with elities like this gang. But I know when I'm in wrong. You were too darn decent to kick me out. Do it myself. You're the best friend I ever had in. Good luck, old man. God bless you. Bill was gone, running, stumbling, fleeing past and Harriet's college off into a sandy hilltop vacancy. The last Milt saw of him was when, on the skyline, Bill stopped for a glance back and seemed to be digging his knuckles into his eyes. Then Milt turned and, resolutely, marched down the stairs, said to his host with a curious quietness, Thank you for asking me to dinner, but I'm afraid I can't come. Claire, will you walk a few blocks with me? During the half-minute it had taken to descend the steps Milt had reflected with an intensity which forgot Bill that he had been selfish, that he had thought only of the opinion of these nice people regarding himself, instead of understanding that it was his duty to save Claire from their innervating niceness. Not that he phrased it quite in that way. What he had been muttering was, Rotten shame, me so scared of folks' clothes that I don't stand up to him and keep him from smothering Claire. Lord, it would be awful if she settled down to being a Mrs. Jeff Saxton. Got to save her, not for myself, for her. It may have been Aunt Harriet, it may have been Milt's resolution, but Mrs. Gilson answered almost meekly. Well, if you think, would you like to walk Claire? As he tramped off with Claire, Milt demanded, glad to escape. Yes, and I'm glad you refused dinner. It really has been wearing this trial by food. This is the last time I'll dare meet the gilsons, and I'll have to be going back east. I hope the gilsons will forgive me someday. I'm afraid you didn't win them over by Aunt Hattie. No, they're probably off me for life. O, these horrid social complications. Worse than any real danger, fire or earthquake. Oh, these complications, they don't exist. We just make them like we make rules for a card game. What the deuce do we care about the opinions of people we don't like? And who appointed these people to a fixed social position? Did the president make Saxton high cock-a-lorum of dress suits or something? Why, these are just folks, the same as kings and coal heavers. There's no army we've got to fight. There's just you and me, you and I. And if we stick together, then we have all society. We ARE all society. Yes, but, Milt, dear, I don't want to be an outcast. You won't be. In the long run, if you don't take these aristocrats seriously, they'll be all the more impressed by you. No, that sounds cheering in stories and in these optimistic editorials in the magazines, but it isn't true. And you don't know how pleasant it is to be in. I've always been, more or less, on the inside and thought outsiders dreadful, but oh, I don't care. I don't care. With you, I'm happy. That's all I know and all I want to know. I've just grown up. I've just learned the greatest wisdom to know when I'm happy. But, Milt, dear, I say this because I love you. Yes, I do love you. No, don't kiss me. This is too, it's far too, public. And I want to talk seriously. You can't have any idea how strong social distinctions are. Don't despise them just because you don't know them. No, I won't. I'll learn. Probably America will get into the war. I'll be an engineering officer. I'll learn this social dope from the college boy officers. And I'll come to Brooklyn with shoulder straps and bells on, and will you be waiting? Oh yes. But, Milt, if the war comes, you must be very careful not to get shot. All right, if you insist. Good Lord, Claire, I don't know what put it into my head, but do you realize that a miracle has happened? We're no longer Ms. Boltwood and a fellow named Daggett. We have been, even when we've liked each other up to today. Always there's been a kind of fence between us. We had to explain and defend ourselves and scrap, but now we're us. And the rest of the world has disappeared, and nothing else matters, said Claire. End of Chapter 33 Chapter 34 of Free Air It was the farewell to Claire and Jeff Soxton, a picnic in the Cascades near Snoqualmie Falls, a decent and decidedly Miltless fiesta. Mrs. Gilson was going to show Claire that they were just as hardy adventurers as that horrid Daggett person. So she didn't take the limousine, but merely the seven-passengered locomobile with the special body. They were ever so rough and wild, they had no maid. The chauffeur was absolutely the only help to the Gilson, Claire, Jeff, and the temporarily and ejaculatorily nature-loving Mrs. Betts in the daring task of setting out two folding camp tables, covering them with a linen cloth, and opening the picnic basket. Claire had to admit that she wished that she could steal the picnic basket from Milt. There were vacuum bottles of hot coffee, there were sandwiches of anchovy and pate de foie gras, there were cream cakes with almonds hidden in the suave cream, and there was a chicken salad with huge chunks of pure white meat wallowing in a sea of mayonnaise. When the gorging was done and the cigarettes brought out, the chauffeur passed a spirit lamp. They stretched on rubber blankets and groaned a little, and spoke well of nature and the delights of roughing it. What is it? What's wrong? They're so oh so polite. They don't mean what they say, and they don't dare to say what they mean. Is that it? Worried, Claire. She started. She discovered that she was looking at a bristle of rope-colored hair and a grin projected from the shelter of a Manzanita bush. For the—she gasped. She was too startled to be able to decide what was for the. She spoke judiciously to Jeff Saxton about Upper Montclair, the subway, and tennis. She rose to examine the mountains, strolled away, darted down a gully, and pounced on Milt bag it with, how, in heaven's name, found out where you all were going. Look, got a bug, rented it. Come on, let's duck. Drive back with me. At the end of the gully was a new teal bug, shinier than the ancient lost chariot, but equally gay and uncomfortable. Can't. Like to, but be awfully rude to them. Won't do that. Not more than is good for their souls, even for you. Now don't be sulky. I won't. Never be sulky again, because you're crazy about me and I don't have to be sulky. Oh, I am, am I. Good heavens, the inconceivable conceit of the child. She turned her back. He darted to her, caught her hands behind her, kissed her hair, and whispered, You are. I am not. Well, then you're not. Lord, you're sweet. Your hair smells like cinnamon and clean kittens. You'd rather go bumping off in my fliver than sailing in that big loco they've got there. Yes, defiantly. I would. And I'm ashamed of myself. I'm a throwback to my horrid ancestor, the betting-hostler. Probably. I'm a throwback to my ancestor, the judge. I'll train you to meet my fine friends. Well, upon my word, I—oh, do stop being idiotic. We talk like children. You reduce me to the rank of a gibbering schoolgirl, and I like it. It's so—oh, I don't know. So darn human, I suppose. Now, hurry. Kiss me and get out before they suspect. Listen. Yes. I'll accidentally meet your car along the road. Invite you to ride. All right? Yes, do. Oh, we are two forlorn babes in the woods. Goodbye. She sauntered back to the picnic and observed, What is that purple flower up on the mountainside? The big car was sedately purring back when it was insulted by an intermediate host of a machine that came jumping out of a side road. The vulgar driver hailed them with uncouth howling. The gilsons show first stopped, annoyed. Why, hello, folks. Bald the social bandit. Oh, how do you do? refuted Mrs. Gilson. Jeff Saxton turned a ripe purple. How do you like my new bug, Claire? Off a little object, but I can make fifty miles an hour. Come and try it, Claire, can't you? Why, Claire was obviously shocked by the impropriety of the suggestion. She looked at Mrs. Gilson, who was breathing as though she was just going under the ether. Claire said doubtfully, Well, if you can get me right back to the house. Sure, agreed Milt. When the loco was gone, Milt drove the bug to the side of the road, yanked up the emergency brake, and carefully kissed the girl who was snuggled down into the absurd, low, tin-sided seat. Do we have to get back soon? He begged. Oh, I don't care if we never get back. Let's shoot up into the mountain, side road. Let's pretend we're driving across the continent again. Furs dashing by, rocks in the sunshine, clouds jaunty beyond the inviting mouth of the mountain pass, even the ruts and bumps and culverts. She seemed a part of them all. In the gilsons' huge cars she had been shut off from the road, but in this tiny bug, so close to earth, she recovered the feeling of struggle, of triumph over difficulties, of freedom unbounded. And she could be herself, good or bad, ignorant or wise, with this boy beside her, all of which she expressed in the most eloquent speech she had ever uttered, namely, Oh, Milt, and to herself, golly, it's such a relief not to have to try to be gracious and aphoristic and repartistic and everything with Jeb. But I wonder if I'm aphoristic and subtle. I wonder if when she gets the rice powder off, Claire isn't a lot more like Milt than she thought. And aloud again, Oh, this is— Yep, it sure is, Milt agreed. They had turned from a side road into a side side road. They crossed an upland valley. The fall rains had flooded a creek till it had cut across the road and washed through the thin gravel, left across the road a shallow, violent stream. Milt stopped abruptly at its margin. Here's where we turn back, I guess, he sighed. Oh, no, can't we get across? It's only a couple of feet deep, and gravel-bottom insisted the restored adventurer. Yes, but look at the steep bank, never get up it. I don't care, let's try it. We can woggle around and dig it out somehow. I bet you two bits we can, said the delicate young woman who Mrs. Gilson was protecting. All right, and she goes. The bug went in, shot over the bank, dipped down till the little hood sloped below them as though they were looping the loop, struck the rushing water with a splash which hurled yellow drops over Claire's rose jersey suit, lumbered ahead, struck the farther back, pawed at it feebly, rose two inches, slipped back, and sat there with the gurgling water all around it, turned into a motorboat. No can do, grunted milk. Scared? No, love it. This is a real camp, the brush on the bank and the stream, listen to it chuckle under the running board. Do you like to camp with me? Love it! Say, gee, never thought. Claire, got your transportation back east. My ticket? Yes, why? Well, I'm sure you can turn it in and get a refund, so that's all right. Are you going to let me in on a secret? Oh yes, might as well. I was just wondering. I don't think much of wasting all our youth waiting, two, three years in engineering school and maybe going to war, and starting in on an engineering job and me lonely as a turkey in a chicken yard and you doing the faithful young lady in Brooklyn. I think perhaps we might get married tomorrow. And, good heavens, what do you want to go back to Brooklyn Gilson says? No, but, dear, can't we be crazy once while we're youngsters? Don't bombard me so, let me think. One must be practical, even in craziness. I am. I have over a thousand dollars from the garage and I can work evenings, as dear Jeff suggested. We'll have a two by four flat. Claire, oh, let me think. I suppose I could go to the university, too, and learn a little bit about food and babies and building houses and government. I need to go to school a lot more than you do. Besides auction and the piano, which I play very badly, and clothes and how to get hold of tickets for successful plays, I don't know one single thing. Will you marry me tomorrow? Well, uh, think of Mrs. Gilson's face when she learns it, and Saxton, and that Mrs. Betts. It was to no spoken sentence but to her kiss that she added, providing we ever get the car out of this river that is. Oh, my dear, my dear, and all the romantic ways I was going to propose. I had the best line about roses and stars and angels and everything. They always used those, but nobody ever proposed to me in a bug and a flood before. Oh, Milt, life is fun. I never knew it till you kidnapped me. If you kiss me again like that, we'll both topple overboard. By the way, can we get the car out? I think so if we put on the chains. We'll have to take off our shoes and stockings. Shiley, turning from him a little, she stripped off her stockings and pumps while he changed from a fliver driver into a young viking. With bare white neck, pale hair ruffled up out his head, trousers rolled up above his straight knees, a young semen of the crew of Eric the Red. They swung out on the running board, now awash. With slight squeals, they dropped into the cold stream, dripping, laughing, his clothes clinging to him. He ducked down behind the car to get the jack under the back axle, and with the water gurgling about her and splashing its exhilarating coldness into her face, she stooped beside him to yank the stiff new chains over the rear wheels. They climbed back into the car, joyously raffish as a pair of gypsies. She wiped a dab of mud from her cheek and remarked with an earnestness and a naturalness which that Jeff Saxton, who knew her so well, would never have recognized as hers. Gee, I hope the old bird crawls out now. Milt let in the reverse, raced the engine, started backward with a burst of muddy water churned up by the whirling wheels. They struck the bank, sickeningly hung there for two seconds, began to crawl up, up, with a feeling that at any second they would drop back again. Then instantly they were out on the shore and it was absurd to think that they had ever been boating down there in the stream. They washed each other's muddy faces and laughed a great deal and rubbed their legs with their stockings and resumed something of a dull and civilized aspect, and, singing sentimental ballads, turned back, found another road and started toward a peak. I wonder what lies beyond the top of this climb, said Claire. More mountains and more and more and we're going to keep on climbing them forever. At dawn we'll still be going on and that's our life. Yes, providing we can buy gas. Lord, that's so. Speaking of which, did you know that I have a tiny bit of money? It's about five thousand dollars, of my own. But that makes it impossible. Young tramp marrying lady of huge wealth. No, you don't. I've accepted you. Do you think I'm going to lose the one real playmate I've ever had? It was so lonely on the boltwoods brown stoop till milk came along and whistled impertinently and made the solemn little girl in frills play marbles and watch out for that term. Heavens! How I have to look after you. Is there class in cooking at your university? No, do not kiss me on a turn. This is the beginning of the story of Milt and Claire Daggett. The prelude over and the curtain risen on the actual play, they face the anxieties and glories of a changing world, not without quarrels and barren hours, not free from ignorance and the discomfort of finding that between the mountain peaks they must for long gray periods dwell in the dusty valleys. They yet start their drama with the distinction of being able to laugh together with the advantage of having discovered that neither Schoenstrom nor Brooklyn Heights is quite all of life, with the cosmic importance to the tedious world of believing in the romance that makes youth unquenchable.