 16 Over the Transcontinental Divide and into Butte, Diamond glittering on its hills in the dark, into Missoula, where there are trees and a university, with a mountain and everybody's backyard, through the Flathead agency, where scarlet-blanketed indians stalk out of tepees and the papoose rides on mother's back as in forgotten days, down to St. Ignatius, that Italian out-town with its old mission at the foot of mountains like the wall of heaven, Claire had driven west, then north. She was sailing past Flathead Lake, where 50 miles of mountain glory are reflected in bright waters. Everywhere were sections of flat wheat planes, stirring with threshing, with clattering machinery, and the flash of blown straw. But these miniature prairies were encircled by abrupt mountains. Mr. Boltwood remarked, I'd rather have one of those homesteads and look across my fields at those hills than be the king of England. Not that he made any effort to buy one of the homesteads. But then he made no appreciable effort to become king of England. Claire had not seen milk for a day and a half, not since the morning when both cars had left butte. She wandered and was peaked and slightly lonely. Toward evening, when she was speculating as to whether she would make callus fell, almost up to the Canadian border, she saw a woman run into the road from a house on the shore of Flathead Lake. The woman held out her hand and Claire pulled up. Are you Ms. Boltwood? It was as startling as the same question would have been in a Chinese village. Why yes. Somebody trying to get you on the long-distance phone. Me? Phone? She was trembling. Something's happened to Milt. He needs me. She could not manage her voice as she got the operator on the farmer's line wire and croaked. Was someone trying to get Ms. Boltwood? Yes, this Boltwood, Hotel and Callusville trying to locate you for two hours, been telephoning all along the line from Butte to Somers. Well, will you get them for me? It was not Milt's placid and slightly twangy voice, but one smoother, more decisive, perplexingly familiar that finally vibrated. Hello, Ms. Boltwood. Operator, I can't hear. Get me a better connection. Ms. Boltwood? Yes, yes, this is Ms. Boltwood. She kept to be seeking during a long and not unheated controversy between the unknown and the crisp operator who knew nothing of the English language beyond, here's your party. Why don't you talk? Speak louder. Then came clearly. Hear me now? Yes, yes. Ms. Boltwood? Yes. Oh, oh, hello, Claire. This is Jeff. Jess who? Not Jess. Jeff. Jeffrey. J-E-F-F. Jeff Saxton. Oh, it was like a sob. Why, why, but you're in New York. Not exactly, dear. I'm in Callusville, Montana. But that's right near here. So am I. But, but, out west to see copper interests, traced you from Yellowstone Park but missed you at Butte, thought I'd catch you on the road. You talking from Barmbury's? The woman who had hailed her was not missing a word of a telephone conversation which might be relative to death, fire, elopement, or any other dramatic event. Claire Begdiver. Where in the world am I talking from anyway? This is Barmbury's Inn. Yes, Claire answered on the telephone. I seem to be. Shall I start on and no, got ribbing planned. Stay right where you are. Got a fast car waiting. Be right down. We'll have dinner. Bye. A click. No answer to Claire's urgent hellos. She hung up the receiver very, very carefully. She hated to turn and face her audience of Mr. Henry B. Voltwood, Mr. James Barmbury, Mrs. James Barmbury, and four Barmbury buds averaging five and a quarter in age. She tried to ignore the Barmbury's but their silence was noisy and interested while she informed her father. It's Jeff Saxton out here to see copper mines. Telephoned along the road to catch us. Says we're to wait dinner till he comes. Yes, and Mrs. Barmbury contributed. He told me if I did catch you I was to have some new killed chickens ready to fry and some whipped cream. Jim Barmbury, you go right out and finish whipping that cream and don't stand there gawping and gooping and you children you scan. Claire seized the moment of Mr. Boltwood's lordly, though bewildered bow to their hostess and escaped outdoors. Round the original settlers' log cabin were nests of shacks and tents for bedrooms and on a screen porch looking on Flathead Lake was the dining room. The few other guests had finished supper and gone to their tents. She ambled to the lake shore, feeling feebler, more slapped, and sent back to be a good little girl than she had when Milt had hitched a forest to the back axle three days ago. A map of her thoughts about Jeff Saxton would have shown a labyrinth. Now she was muttering, dear Jeff, so thoughtful, clever of him to find me, so good to see him again. Now it's still distinctly understood that I'm not engaged to him and I'm not going to be surprised into kissing him when he comes down like a wolf on the fold. Now Jeff Saxton here makes me homesick for the heights and nice shops in Manhattan and a really good play, music just before the curtain goes up. Now, oh gee whiz, I wonder if he'll let us go any farther in the car. He's so managerial and dad is sure to take his side. He tried to scare us off by that telegram to Fargo. Now, he'd be horrified if he knew about that bomb break. Milt didn't mind. Milt likes his women folks to be daring. Jeff wants his harem admiring and very reliable. She crouched on the shore a rather forlorn figure. The peaks of the mission range across the violet shadowed mirror of Flathead Lake were a sudden pure rose in reflection of sunset, then stony forbidding. Across the road on the Barnbury porch, she could hear her father saying, and indeed to James' stories. Up the road a blaring horn, great lights growing momentarily more dazzling, a roar, a rush, the halting car, and out of its blurred bulk a trim-figured darting. Jeff Saxton, home and the people she loved and the ways and days she knew best of all. He had shouted only, is miss, before she had rushed to him into the comfort of his arms and kissed him. She backed off and tried to sound as if it hadn't happened, but she was quavery. I can't believe it. It's too ridiculously wonderful to see you. She retreated toward the Barnbury porch, Jeff following his two hands out. They came within the range of the house lights, and Mr. Boltwood hailed, odd Jeffery, never had such a surprise, nor a more delightful one. Mr. Boltwood, looking splendid, sir, new man. William Street better looked to its laurels when you come back and get into the game. Then, on the lamp-lighted porch, the two men shook hands and looked for some other cordial thing to do. They thought about giving each other cigars. They smiled and backed away and smiled in the foolish, indeterminate way males have, being unable to take it out in kissing. Mr. Boltwood solved the situation by hemming. Must trot in and wash. See you very soon. Mr. James Barnbury and the squad of lesser Barnberries regretfully followed. Claire was alone with Jeff, and she was frightened. Yet she was admitting that Jeff, in his English cap and flaring London topcoat, his keen smile and his extreme shaveness was more attractive than she had remembered. Glad to see me, he demanded. Oh, rather, you're looking, you're so nice-trip. You know you've sent me nothing but postcards with pretty town or something equally sentimental. Yes, it's really been bully. These mountains and big spaces simply inspire me, she said it rather defiantly. Of course they do. Trouble is, with you away, we've nothing to inspire us. Do you need anything with your office and your club? Why, Claire? I'm sorry, that was horrid of me. Yes, it was. Though I don't mind, I'm sure we've all become meek, missing you so. I'm quite willing to be bullied and reminded that I'm a mere TBM. She had got herself into it. She had to tell him that he wasn't just a businessman, that she had just meant he was so practical. But Jeff is no longer the practical one, he declared. Think of Claire driving over deserts and mountains. But oh, it's been so lonely for us. Can you guess how much? A dozen times every evening I've turned to the telephone to call you up and beg you to let me nip in and see you and then realized you weren't there. And I've just sat looking at the phone. Oh, other people are so dull. You really miss? I wish I were a poet so I could tell you adequately. But you haven't said you missed me, Claire. Didn't you? A teeny bit. Wouldn't it have been tolerable to have poor old Jeff along to drive down dangerous hills and fill grease cups, nasty and stick them on the fingers? Yes, I'd have done that too. And invented surprises along the way. I'm a fine suprizer. I've arranged for a motorboat so we can explore the lake here tomorrow. That's why I had you wait here instead of coming on to Kalispell. Tomorrow morning, unfortunately, I have to hustle back and catch a train, call to California and possibly a northern trip. But meantime, by now my driver must have sneaked my surprises into the kitchen. What are they? Gas? Food? Eats? Divine eats? Maybe? But what? Please, sir. Claire is so hungry. We shall see in time, my child. Uncle Jeff is not to be hurried. Let me see now. I'll kick and scream. From New York, Jeff had brought a mammoth picnic basket. To the fried chicken order for dinner, he added sealed jars of puree of wood pigeon, of stuffed artichokes prepared by his club chef, caviar and anchovies, a marvelous nightmare creating fruit cake to go with the whipped cream, two quarts of a famous sherry, candied fruits in a silver box. Dinner was served not on the dining room porch but before the fire in the varmbury's living room. Claire looked at the candied fruits, stared at Jeff rather clearly as though she was really thinking of someone else and mused. I didn't know I cared so much for these foolish luxuries. Tonight I'd like a bath, just a tiny bit scented and a real dressing table with a triple mirror and French talc and come down in a dinner gown. Oh, I have enjoyed the trip, Jeff. But my poor body does get so tired and dusty and then you treacherously come along with these things that you've magicked out of the mountains and I'm not a pioneer woman after all and Henry B is not a caveman. See him act idolatrously toward his soup. I feel idolatrous. I'd forgotten the supreme ethical importance of the soup. I'll never let myself forget it again, said Mr. Boltwood in the tone of one who has come home. Claire was grateful to Jeff that he did not let her go on being grateful. He turned the talk to Brooklyn. He was neat and explicit and almost funny in his description of an outdoor presentation of Midsummer Night's Dream in which a domestic and intellectual lady weighing 187 stage-side had an acted puck. As they sat after dinner, as Claire shivered, he produced a knitted robe and pulled it about her shoulders, smiling at her in a lonely, hungry way. She caught his hand. Nice, Jeff, she whispered. Oh, my dear, he implored. He shook his head in a wistful way that caught her heart and dutifully went back to informing Mr. Boltwood of the true state of the markets. Talked to Claire, too, she demanded. She stopped, stared. From outside she heard a nervous pit-pit-pit, a blurred dialogue between Mr. James Barnbury and another man. Into the room rambled milk-daggot, dusty of unpressed blue suit, tired of eyes, and not too well-shaved of chin, grumbling. Thought I'd never catch up with you, Claire. Why? Oh, oh, milk, Mr. Daggot. Oh, Jeff, this is our good friend, Milk Daggot, who has helped us along the road. Jeff's lucid, rimless spectacles stared at Milt, wind-red in eyes, his jaunty patch-pocket out in clothes sniffed at Milt's sweater. His even voice followed Milt's grunt of surprise with a curt, ah, Mr. Daggot. Pleased to meet you, faltered Milt. Jeff nodded, turned his shoulder on Milt, and went on. The fact is, Mr. Boltwood, the whole metal market, Milt was looking from one to another. Claire was now over her first shocked comparison of candied fruits with motor grease. She rose, moved toward Milt, murmuring, Have you had dinner? The door opened again. A pink-haired red-faced man in a preposterous green-belted suit lunged in, swept his broad-felt hat in greeting and boomed like a cheap actor. Friends of my friend Milt, we about to dine salute you. Let me introduce myself as Westlake Parrot, better known to the Volgar as Pinky Parrot, gentlemen adventurer born in the conjunction of Mars and Venus with Saturn ascendant. Jeff had ignored Milt, but at this absurd second intrusion on his decidedly private dinner party, he flipped to the center of the room and said, I beg your pardon, in such a head-office manner that the pink-locked mystery halted in his bombast. Claire felt wobbly. She had no theories as to where Milt had acquired a private jester, nor as to what was about to happen to Milt and possibly to her incautious self. Free Air by Sinclair Lewis Chapter 17 The Vagabond in Green As Milt had headed westward from Butte, as he rattled peacefully along the road, conscious of a golden haze over all the land, and the unexpectedness of prairie-threshing crews on the sloping fields of the mountainsides, a man had stepped out from bushes beside the road and pointed a forty-four navy revolver. The man was not a movie bandit. He wore a green imitation of a Norfolk jacket. He had a broad red smile, and as he flourished his hat in a bow, his hair was a bristly pompadour of grey-streaked red that was almost pink. He made oration. Pardon my eccentric breeding, brother of the open road, but I wanted you to give ear to my obsequious query as to how's chances on getting a lift. I have learned that obsequiousness is best appreciated when it is backed up by prayer and cartridges. What's the idea? I seem to gather you'd like a lift. Jump in. You do not advocate the Ciceronian style, I take it, chuckled the man as he climbed aboard. Milt was not impressed. Claire might have been, but Milt had heard politics and religion argued about the stove in Roscoekelstor too often to be startled by polycelebomania. He knew it was often the sign of a man who has read too loosely and too much by himself. He snorted, Huh, what are you, newspaper, politics, law, preacher, gambler? Well, a little of all those interesting occupations. And ten, twent, third, trooping, and county fair spilling, and selling Dr. Thunder Rapid's Choctaw herbal sensitizer. How far are you going? Seattle? Honest. Said kid, this is my boy, we shall have the rare privilege of pooling adventures as far as blew it past. Four to six days run from here. A day this side of Seattle. I'm going to my gold mine there. I'll split up on the grub. I note from your kit that you can't nights. Quite all right, my boy. Pinky paired is no man to fear night air. He patted Milt's shoulder with patronizing insolence. He filled a pipe, and though the car was making 25, he lighted the pipe with distinguished ease, then settled down to his steady stride. In the pride of youth, you feel that you have thoroughly categorized me, particularly since I am willing to admit that, though I shall have abundance of the clinking iron men to buy my share of our chow, I chance just for the leaden footed second to lack the wherewithal to pay my railroad fare back to blew it. And the bumpers and side door pullmen of the Argonauts like me not. Too damn dusty. But your analysis is unsynthetic, though you will scarce grasp my paradoxical metaphor. The hell I won't. I've taken both chemistry and rhetoric, growled Milt, strictly attending to driving and to the desire to get rid of his parasite. Oh, oh, I see. Well, anyway, I am no mere nimble knight of wits as you may take it. In fact, I am lord of fair acres in Arcady. Don't know the bird, Montana or Idaho. Neither in the valley of dream. Oh, that one. Huh. But I happen to back them up with a perfectly undream-like gold mine, prospected for it in a canyon near Blueet Pass and found it the gun. And my lady wife, erstwhile ferris among the society favorites of Northeacoma, now guards it against her consort's return. Straight goods. Got the stuff. Been to Butte to get a raise on it, but the fell codives of commerce are jealous. They would harken not. Gee, those birds certainly did pull the frigid mitt. So I went my way back to the demure Dolores, the hoary of my heart. And the next time I'll take a crack at the big guns in Seattle, and I'll sure reward you for your generosity and taking me to Blueet. All the long, long, languid, languorous way. Too bad I got to stop a couple of days at Spokane. Well then, you shall have the pleasure of taking me that far. And about a week in Kalispell. Twill, discommode me, but upon honor, I like your honest, simple face, and I won't desert you. Besides, I know a guy in Kalispell, and I can panhandle the sordid necessary chuck while I wait for you. Little you know, my cockerel, how facile a brain your bust so lightly bears. When I've cashed in on the mine, I'll take my rightful place among the motored gentry. Not merely as actor and speeler, promoter and inventor and soldier and daring journalist have I played my role, but also I am a mystic, an initiate, a clarodient, a psychometrist, a rosicrucian adept, and profoundly psychic. In fact, my guide is Hermes Trismegistus himself. I also hold a degree as doctor of mental practice and my studies in astrobiochemistry. I'm going to stop, all off, make a little coffee, said Milt. He did not desire coffee, and he did not desire to stop, but he did desperately desire not to inflict pinkie parrot upon the boltwoods. It was in his creed, as a lover of motors, never to refuse a ride to anyone when he had room. He hoped to get around his creed by the hint implied in stopping. Pinkie's reaction to the hint was not encouraging. Why you have a touch of the psychic's flair I can do with coffee myself, but don't trouble to make a fire, I'll do that. You drive. I do the camp work. Not but that I probably drive better than you, if you will permit me to say so. I used to do a bit of racing before I took up aviation. Aviation? What machine do you fly? Why a biplane? What kind of motor? A foreign one. It was a French motor. What track do you race on? Pardon me till I build a fire for our alfresco collation, and my driving history will unfold. But he didn't do either. After he had brought seven twigs, one piece of sage brush, and a six-inch board, Pinkie let Milt finish building the fire, while he told how much he knew about the mysteries of ancient Egyptian priests. Milt gave up hope that Pinkie would become bored by waiting and tramp on. After one hour of conversational deluge, he decided to let Pinkie drive, to make him admit that he couldn't. He was wrong. Pinkie could drive. He could not drive well. He wobbled in his steering and he killed the engine on a grade, but he showed something of the same dashing idiocy that characterized his talk. It was Milt, not Pinkie, who was afraid of their running off the road and suggested resuming the wheel. Seven times that day, Milt tried to lose him. Once he stopped without excuse and merely stared up at rocks overhanging the hollowed road. Pinkie was not embarrassed. He leaned back in the seat and sang two Spanish love songs. Once Milt deliberately took a wrong road up a mountainside. They were lost and took five hours getting back to the highway. Pinkie loved the thrill and, in a brief address lasting fifteen minutes, he said so. Milt tried to bore him by driving at seven miles an hour. Pinkie affectionately accepted this opportunity to study the strata of the hills. When they camped that night, Pinkie loved him like a brother and was considering not stopping at Bluette Pass to see his old gold mine and Dolores the lady wife, but going clear on to Seattle with his playmate. The drafted host lay awake. And when Pinkie awoke and delivered a few well-chosen words on the subject of bird song at dawn, Milt burst out. Pinkie, I don't like to do it, but I've never refused a fellow a lift. But I'm afraid you'll have to hike on by yourself the rest of the way. Pinkie sat up in his blankets. Afraid of me, you better be. I'm a bad actor. I killed Dolores's husband and took her along. See, I are you trying to scare me, you poor four flusher. Milt's right hand expanded, fingers arching with the joyous tension of a man stretching. No, I'm just reading your thoughts. I'm telling you, you're scared of me. You think that if I went on, I might steal your car. You're afraid because I'm so suave. You aren't used to smooth ducks. You don't dare to let me stick with you, even for today. You're afraid I'll have your miserable car by tonight. You don't dare. The hell I don't, Harold Milt. If you think I'm afraid, just to show you I'm not, I'll let you go on today. That's sense, my boy. It would be a shame for two such born companions of the road depart. Pinkie had soared up from his blankets, was lovingly shaking Milt's hand. Milt knew that he had been tricked, but he felt hopeless. Was it impossible to insult Pinkie? He tried again. I'll be frank with you, you're the worst wind-jamming liar I ever met. Now, don't reach for that gad of yours. I've got a hefty rock right here handy. But my dear, dear boy, I don't intend to reach for any crude, lethal smoke wagon. Besides, there isn't anything in it. I hawk the shells and beaut. I'm not angry, merely grieved. We'll argue this out as we have breakfast and drive on. I can prove to you that, though occasionally I let my fancy color mirror untutored fact with the pigments of a Robert J. Ingersoll. By the way, do you know his spiel on whiskey? Stick to the subject. We'll finish our argument right now, and I'll give you breakfast and we'll sadly part. Merely because I am lighter of spirits than this legubrious old world? No. I decline to be dropped. I'll forgive you and go on with you. Mind you, I am sensitive. I will not intrude where I am not welcome. Only you must give me a sounder reason than my diverting conversational powers for shucking me. My logic is even stronger than my hedonistic contempt for hitting the pike. Well, hang it if you must know. Hate to say it. But I do almost anything to get rid of you. Fact is, I've been sort of touring with a lady and her father and you would be in the way. Ah, you see, why my boy, I will not only stick, but for you I shall do the nimble John Alden and win the Lady Fair. I will so bedise in your virile, though somewhat crassly practical gifts. Why, women are my long suit. They fall for it. Tutt, tutt, tutt. You're a fool. She's no beannery mistress like you're used to. She is really a lady. How blind you are, cruel friend. You do not even see that whatever my vices may be. My social standing. Oh, shut up. Can't you see I'm trying to be kind to you? Have I simply got to beat you up before you begin to suspect you aren't welcome? Your social standing isn't even in the telephone book. In your vocabulary, you let too many kids slip in among the juicy words. Have I got to lick? Well, you're right. I'm a flip. Shake hands, my boy, at no hard feelings. Good. Then I can drive on nice and along without having to pound your ears off. Certainly. That is, we'll compromise. You'll take me on just a few miles into more settled country, and I'll leave you. So a chance that Milt was still inescapably accompanied by Mr. Pinky Parrot that evening when he saw Claire's Gomez standing in the yard at Barnbury's and pulled up. Pinky had voluntarily promised not to use his eloquence on Claire, nor to try to borrow money from Mr. Boltwood. Without ever having quite one permission to stay, he had stayed. He had also carried out his promise to buy his half of the provisions by adding a five cent bag of lemon drops to Milt's bacon and bread. When they had stopped, Milt warned, there's their machine now. Seems to be kind of a hotel here. I'm going in and say howdy. Goodbye, Pink. Glad to have met you, but I expect you to be gone when I come out here again. If you aren't, want granite or marble for the headstone. I mean it now. I quite understand, my lad. I admire your chivalric delicacy. Farewell, Old Compagnon de Voyage. Milt inquired of Mr. Barnbury whether the Boltwoods were within and burst into the Parlor Living Room Library. As he cried to Claire by the fire, thought I'd never catch up with you, he was conscious that standing up talking to Mr. Boltwood was an old young man, very suave, very unfriendly of eye. He had an Oxford gray suit, unwrinkled cordovan shoes, a pert, insultingly well-tied blue bow tie, and a superior narrow pink bald spot. As he heard Jeff Saxton murmur, Ah, Mr. Daggett. Milt felt the luxury in the room, the fleecy robe over Claire's shoulders, the silver box of candy by her elbow, the smell of expensive cigars, and the portly complacence of Mr. Boltwood. Have you had any dinner? Claire was asking when a voice boomed. Let me introduce myself as Westlake Parrot. Jeff abruptly took charge. He faced pinky and demanded, I beg pardon. Claire's eyebrows asked questions of Milt. This is a fellow I gave a lift to. Minor, I mean actor, well kind of spiritualistic medium. Mr. Boltwood with the geniality of dinner and cigar soothed. Jeff Daggett here has saved our lives two distinct times and given us a great deal of help. He is a motor expert. He has always refused to let us do anything in return, but I noticed there was almost a whole fried chicken left. I wonder if he wouldn't share it with with his acquaintance here before they make camp for the night. In civil and vicious tones, Jeff began, very glad to reward anyone who has been of service to. He was drowned out by pinkies effusive. True hospitality is a virtue as delicate as it is rare. We accept your invitation. In fact, I should be glad to have one of those cigar rows, elegantos that mine ol' factory. Milt cut in abruptly. Pink, shut up. Thanks folks, but we'll go on. Just wanted to see if you had got in safe. See you tomorrow, some place. Claire was close to Milt, her fingers on his sleeve. Please, Milt. Father, you didn't make your introduction very complete. You failed to tell Mr. Daggett that this is Mr. Saxton, a friend of ours in Brooklyn. Please, Milt, do stay and have dinner. I won't let you go on hungry, and I want you to know Jeff, Mr. Saxton. Jeff, Mr. Daggett is an engineer. That is, in a way, he's going to take an engineering course in the University of Washington. Someday, I shall make you bloated copper magnets become interested in him. Mrs. Barnbury? Mrs. Barnbury? Oh, Mrs. Barnbury, won't you please warm up the other chicken for? Oh, now, that's too bad. Me and Jim have added all up, wept the landlady at the door. I'll go on, stammered Milt. Jeff looked at him expressionlessly. You will not go on, Claire was insisting. Mrs. Barnbury, won't you cook some eggs or steak or something for these boys? Perhaps, Jeff suggested, they'd rather make their own dinner by a campfire. Must be very jolly, that sort of thing. Jeff, if you don't mind, this is my party, just for the moment. Quite right, sorry. Milt, you sit here by the fire and get warm. I'm not going to be robbed of the egotistic pleasure of being hospitable. Everybody look happy now. She got them all seated, all but pinky. He had long since seated himself by the fire in Claire's chair, and he was smoking a cigar from the box which Jeff had brought for Mr. Boltwood. Milt sat farthest from the fire by the dining table. He was agonizing. This Jeff person is the real thing. He's no Percy in riding breeches. He's used to society and nastiness. If he looks at me once more, young garage man found froze stiff near Flat Hood Lake, scared look in eyes, believed to have met a grisly no signs of violence. And then I thought I could learn to mingle with Claire's own crowd. I wish I was out in the bug. I wonder if I can't escape. End of Chapter 17 Chapter 18 of Free Air This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Free Air by Sinclair Lewis Chapter 18 The Fallacy of Romance During dinner, Milt had watched Jeff Saxton's manner and manners. The hot day had turned into a cold night. Jeff tucked the knitted robe about Claire's shoulders when she returned to the fire. He moved quietly and easily. He kept poking up the fire, smiling at Claire as he did so. He seemed without difficulty to maintain two conversations. One with Mr. Boltwood about finances. One with Claire about mysterious persons called Fanny and Alden and Chubb and Bobby and Dot. The mention of whom made Milt realize how much a stranger he was. Once as he passed by Claire, Jeff said gently, You are lovely. Only that. And he did not look at her. But Milt saw that Claire flushed and her eyes dimmed. Pinky was silent till he had eaten about two-thirds of the total amount of fried eggs, cold lamb, and icebox curios. When Claire came over to see how they fared, Pinky removed himself with smirking humility and firmly joined himself to Jeff and Mr. Boltwood. He caught the subject of finance and, while Claire dropped down in the chair by Milt, Pinky was lecturing the two men from New York. Ah, finance. Queen of the sociological pantheon. I don't know how come I am so graced by a fortune as to have encountered in these wilds two gentlemen so obviously versed in the stratagems of the great golden game. But I will take the opportunity to give you gentlemen some statistics about gold deposits still existing in the Cascades and other ranges that may be of benefit and certainly will be a surprise to you. It happens that I have at the present time a mine. Claire was whispering to Milt, If we can get rid of your dreadful passenger, I do want you to meet Mr. Saxon. He may be of use to you someday. He's terribly capable and really quite nice. Think, he happened to be out here and he traced me by telephone. Oh, he treats long distance phoning as I do a hairpin. He brought down the duckiest presents, divertissement for dinner, and that knitted robe and some real reneblezo perfume. I was all out of it. And after the grime of the road, do you really care for things like that? All those awfully expensive luxuries begged Milt. Of course I do, especially after small hotels. Then you really don't like adventuring? Oh, yes, in its place. For one thing, it makes a clever dinner seem so good by contrast. Well, afraid I don't know much about clever dinners. Milt was sighing when he was aware of Jeff Saxon looming down on him demanding, Daggett, would you mind trying to inform your friend that neither Mr. Boltwood nor I care to invest in his gold mine? We can't seem to get that into his head. I don't mind being annoyed myself, but I really feel I must protect Mr. Boltwood. What can I do? My dear sir, since you brought him here, it was the potassium, cyanide, and cracked ice, and carpet tax, and TNT and castor oil in Jeff's, my dear sir, that did it. Milt discovered himself on his feet, bawling, I am not your dear sir. Pinky is my guest and gee. Sorry I lost my temper, Claire. Terribly sorry. See you along the road. Good night. Pink, you take your hat. Get. Milt followed Pinky out of the door, snarling. Get in the car and do it quick. I'll take you clear to blue at pass. We drive all night. Pinky was of great silence and tact. Milt lumped into the bug beside him, but he did not start the all-night drive. He wanted to crawl back on his knees to apologize to Claire and to be slapped by Jeff Saxon. He compromised by slowly driving a quarter of a mile up the road and camping there for the night. Pinky tried to speak words of philosophy and cheer. Just once, he tried it. For hours, by a small fire, Milt grieved that all his pride was gone in a week longing to see Claire again. In the morning he did see her, putting off on the lake in a motorboat with Jeff and Mr. Barnbury. He saw the boat return, saw Jeff get into the car which had brought him from Kalispell, saw the farewell, the long hand clasp, the stoop of Jeff's head, and Claire's quick step backward before Jeff could kiss her. But Claire waved to Jeff long after his car had started. When Claire and her father came along in the Gomez, Milt was standing by the road. She stopped. She smiled. Night of sadness and regrets. You were fairly rude, Milt. So was Mr. Saxon, but I've lectured him and he sends his apologies. I sent him mine. Did I do? said Milt gravely. Then everything's all right. I'm sure we were all tired. We'll just forget it. Morning, Daggett, Mr. Boltwood put in. Hope you lose that dreadful red-headed person. No, I can't, Mr. Boltwood. When Mr. Saxon turned on me, I swore I'd take Pinky clear through the blue at pass, though not to Seattle by golly. Foolish oath should be broken. Claire, platitude in eyes. Claire, look, you don't really care so terribly much about these little luxuries. Food and fixings and six dollar a day hotel junk, do you? Yes, stoutly. I do, but not compared with mountains and, oh, it's all very well to talk and be so superior about these dear old grandeurs of nature and the heroism of pioneers. And I do like a glimpse of them, but the niceties of life do mean something. And even if it is weak and dependent, I shall always simply adore them. All these things are kind of softening. And he meant that she was still soft. At least they're not rude. And she meant that he was rude. They're absolutely trivial. They shut off, they shut off rain and snow and dirt, and I still fail to see the picturesqueness of dirt. Goodbye. She had driven off without looking back. She was heading for Seattle and the Pacific Ocean at 40 miles an hour, and they had no engagement to meet either in Seattle or in the Pacific. Before Milt went on, he completed a task on which he had decided the night before while he had meditated on the tailored impertinence of Jeff Sexton's gray suit. The task was to give away the best suit. That stolid, very black covering which had Sean Strom had seemed suitable, either to a dance or to the YPSCE. The recipient was Mr. Pinkie Parrott, who gave in return a history of charity and high souls. Milt did not listen. He was wondering, now that they had started, where they had started for. Certainly not for Seattle. Why not stop and see Pinkie's goldmine? Maybe he did have one. Even Pinkie had to tell the truth sometimes. With a good popular goldmine in his possession, Milt could buy quantities of clothes like Jeff Sexton's and and he reflected, I can learn as good manners as his in one hour with a dancing lesson thrown in. If I didn't, I'd sue the professor. End of Chapter 18. Chapter 19 of Free Air. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Free Air by Sinclair Lewis. Chapter 19. The Night of Endless Pines. On the edge of Kudinai Canyon, feeling more like an aviator than like an automobile-ist, Claire had driven, and now, nearing Idaho, she had entered a national forest. She was delayed for hours while she tried to change a casing after a blowout when the spare tire was deflated. She wished for Milt. She would never see him again. She was sorry. He hadn't meant, but hang it, she panted. If he admired her at all, he'd be here now and get on this perfectly beastly casing over which she had been laboring for a dozen years. And she was simply too ridiculously tired and was there any respectful way of keeping Henry B. from beaming in that benevolent manner while she was killing herself. And look at those fingernails. And, oh, drop that casing. To make the next town after this delay, she had to drive for hours by night through the hulking pines of the national forest. It was her first long night drive. A few claims with log cabins of recent settlers, once or twice the shack of a forest ranger, a telephone in a box by the road or a rough RFD box nailed to a pine truck. These indicated that civilization still existed, but they were only melancholy blurs. She was in a cold enchantment. Oliver was dead, saved the ability to keep on driving, forever, with no hope of the tedium ending. She was bewildered. She passed six times what seemed to be precisely the same forest clearing, always with the road on a tiny ridge to the left of the clearing, always with a darkness-stilled house at one end, and always, in the pasture at the other end, a horse which nade. She was in a panorama stage scene. Things moved steadily by her. There was a sound of the engine and a sensation of steering. But she was forever in the same place, among the same pines with the same scowling blackness between their bare clean trunks. Only the road ahead was clear, a one-way track, the foot-high earthy bank and the pine roots beside it, two distinct ruts, and a roughening of strewn brown bark and pine needles, which, in the beating light of the car's lamps, made the sandy road scabrous with little incessant shadows. She had never known anything saved this strained driving on. Jeff and Milt were old tales and untrue. Was it ten hours before that she had cooked dinner beside the road? No matter. She wasn't hungry any longer. She would never reach the next town, and she didn't care. It wasn't she but a grim spirit which had entered her dead body that kept steering, feeding gas, watching the road. In the darkness outside the funnel of light from her lamps were shadows that leaped and gray hands hastily jerked back out of sight behind tree trunks as she came up. Things that followed her and hidden men waiting for her to stop. As drivers will, she tried to exorcise the creeping fear by singing. She made up what she called her driving song. It was intended to echo the hoofs of a fat old horse on a hard road. The old horse trots with a jog jog jog and a jog jog jog and a jog jog jog, and the old road makes a little jog jog jog to the west jog jog and the north jog jog. While the farmer drinks some cider from his jog jog jog, from his koi jog jog, from his joy jog jog, till he accumulates a little jag jag jag and he jig jig jigs with his jog jog jog. The song was a comfort at first, then a torment. She drove to it and she steered to it, and when she tried to forget it, it sang itself in her tired brain. Jog jog jog, oh damn. Her father had had a chill, miserable, weak as a small boy. He had curled up on the bottom of the car, his head on the seat, and gone to sleep. She was alone. The milepost went by slowly. The post said there was a town ahead called Pelago, but it never came. And when it did come, she was too tired to care. In a thick dream, she drove through midnight streets of the town. In stupid paralysis, she kicked at the door of a galvanized iron-covered garage. No answer. She gave it up. She drove down the street and into the yard of a hotel marked by a swing sign out over the plank sidewalk. She got out the traveling bags, awakened her father, led him up on the porch. The Pelago Tavern was a transformed dwelling house. The pillars of the porch were a slant, and the rain-warped board snapped beneath her feet. She hesitatingly opened the door. The hallway was dark and musty. A sound like a moan filtered down the unlighted stairs. There seemed to be a light in the room on the right. Trying to assure herself that her father was a protection, she pushed open the door. She looked into an airless room, scattered with rubber boots, unsavory old corduroy caps, tattered magazines. By the stove nodded a rye-mouthed, squat old woman and a tall, cheaply handsome man of 40. Tobacco juice stained the front of his stiff, bosomed, collarless shirt. His hands were white but huge. The old woman started. Well, I want to get two rooms for the night, please. The man smirked at her. The woman creaked. Well, I don't know. Where'd you come from, eh? We're motoring through. Eh? Who's that man? He's my father, madam. Needn't be so hoity-toity about it. He's my father, madam. For that matter, that thing there is my husband. The man had been dusting his shabby coat, stroking his mustache, smiling with sickly gallantry. He burbled, shut up, teeny. This lady is all right. Give her a room. Number two is empty, and I guess number seven has been made up since Bill left. If taint, the sheets ain't been slept on to one night. Where'd you come? Now don't go shooting off a lot of questions at the lady, teeny. I'll show her the rooms. The woman turned on her husband. He was perhaps twenty-five years younger, a quarter-century less soaked in hideousness. Her yellow concave-sided teeth were buried at him. Her mouth drew up on one side above the gums. Pete, if I hear one more word out of you, out you go. Lady, huh? Where'd you come from, young woman? Claire was too weak to stagger away. She leaned against the door. Her father struggled to speak, but the woman hurled, Where'd you come from, I said? From New York. Is there another hotel? Nah, there ain't another hotel. Oh, so you come from New York, do you? Snobbs, that's what New Yorkers are. I'll show you some rooms. There'll be two dollars apiece and breakfast fifty cents extra. The woman led them upstairs. Claire wanted to flee, but oh, she couldn't drive any farther. She couldn't. The floor of her room was the more bare in contrast to a two-foot square splash of gritty ingrained carpet in front of the sway-backed bed. On the bed was a red comforter that was filthy beyond disguise. The yellow earthenware pitcher was cracked. The wall mirror was milky. Claire had been spoiled. She had found two excellent hotels since Yellowstone Park. She had forgotten how badly human beings can live. She protested. Seems to me like two dollars is a good deal to charge for this. I didn't say two dollars. I said three. Three each for you and your paw. If you don't like it, you can drive on to the next town. It's only 16 miles. Why the extra dollar or extra two dollars? Don't you see that carpet? These are our best rooms and three dollars. I know you New Yorkers. I heard of a gent once and they charged him five dollars. Five dollars for a room in New York and a boy grabbed his release from him and waited a short bit and, oh, all right. Can we get something to eat? Now? We haven't eaten since noon. That ain't my fault. Some folks can go gadding around in automobile and some folks have to stay at home. If you think I'm going to set up all night cooking for people that come chassin' in here, God knows what all hours of the day and night there's an all-night lunch down the street. When she was alone, Claire cried a good deal. Her father declined to go out to the lunchroom. The chill of the late ride was still on him. He croaked through his door. He was shivering. He was going right to bed. Yes, do, dear. I'll bring you back a sandwich. Safe to go out alone? Anything safe after facing that horrible? I do believe in witches now. Listen, dear, I'll bring you a hot water bag. She took the bag down to the office. The landlady was winding the clock while her husband yawned. She glared. I wonder if I may have some hot water for my father. He has a chill. Stoves out, no hot water in the house. Couldn't you heat some? I look here, miss. You come in here asking for meals and rooms at midnight, and you want a cut rate on everything, and I do what I can. But enough's enough. The woman stalked out. Her husband pumped up. Mustn't mind the old girl, lady. Got him grouch. Well, you can't blame her in a way. When Bill let out, he'd done her out of four bits. But I'll tell you, he leered. You leave me the hot water and bisnay, and I'll heat you some water myself. Thank you, but I won't trouble you. Good night. Claire was surprised to find a warm, rather comfortable, all-night lunchroom called the Alaska Cafe with a bright-eyed man of twenty-five in charge. He nodded in a friendly way and made haste with her order of two ham and egg sandwiches. She felt adventurous. She polished her knife and fork on a napkin, as she had seen people do in lunches along the way. A crowd of three rubbed their noses against the front window to stare at the strange girl in town, but she ignored them and they drifted away. The lunchman was cordial. Had a hotel man? Which one? Gee, not the tavern. Why, yes, is there another? Sure, a first-rate one, two blocks over, one up. The woman said the tavern was the only hotel. Oh, she's an old sour-face. Don't mind her. Just ball her out. What's she charging you for a room? Three dollars. Her each? Gee. Well, she sticks tourists anywhere from one buck to three. Natives get by for fifty cents. She's pretty fierce, but she ain't a patch on her husband. He comes from Spokane. Nobody knows why. I guess he was run out. He takes some kind of dope and he cheats at Rummy. But why does the town stand for either of them? Why do you let them torture innocent people? Why don't you put them in the insane hospital where they belong? That's a good one, her friend chuckled, but he saw it only as a joke. She thought of moving her father to the good hotel, but she hadn't the strength. Claire Boltwood of Brooklyn Heights went through the shanty streets of Pelago, Montana at one a.m., carrying a sandwich and a paper bag which had recently been used for salted peanuts, and a red rubber hot water bag filled with water at the Alaska cafe. At the tavern, she hastened past the office door. She made her father eat his sandwich. She teased him and laughed at him till the hot water bag had relieved his chill-pinched back. She kissed him boisterously and started for her own room at the far end of the hall. The lights were off. She had to feel her way, and she hesitated at the door of her room before she entered. She imagined voices, creeping footsteps, people watching her from a distance. She flung into the room, and when the kindled lamp showed her familiar traveling bag, she felt safer. But once she was in bed, with a sheet down as far as possible over the lovely red comforter, the quiet rustled and snapped about her, and she could not relax. Sinking into sleep seemed slipping into danger, and a dozen times she started away. But only slowly did she admit to herself that she actually did hear a fumbling, hear the knob of her door turning. Who's there? It's me, lady, the landlord. Brought you the hot water. Thanks so much, but I don't need it now. Got something else for you. Come to the door. Don't want to holler and wake everybody up. At the door, she said timorously, nothing else I want. Thank you. Don't bother me. Why I brought you up a sand was girly, all nice and hot, and a nip was something to take the chill off. I don't want it, I tell you. Be a sport now. You use Pete right and he'll use you right. Shame to see a lady like you not getting no service here. Open the door. Dandy sandwich. The knob rattled again. She said nothing. The heel of her palm pressed against the door till the molding ate into it. The man was snorting. I ain't going to all this trouble and then throw away a good sandwich. You ask me, must I shout? Shouts your fool head off. He kicked the door. Good friends of mine along this end of the hall. Ah, listen, just teasing. I'm not going to rob you a little honey bird. Laws, you could have a million dollars and old Pete wouldn't take two bits. I get so darn lonely in this hick town. Like to chat to live ones from the big bird. I'm a city fellow myself. Spokane and Cheyenne and everything. In her bare feet, Claire had run across the room, looked desperately out of the window. Could she climb out, reach her friend of the Alaska Cave? If she had to, then she grinned. The world was rose-colored and hung with tinkling bells. I love even that pinky person, she said. In the yard of the hotel, beside her Gomez, was a teal bug and two men were sleeping in blankets on the ground. She marched over to the door. She flung it open. The man started back. He was holding an electric torch. She could not see him, but to the hovering ball of light, she remarked. Two men, friends of mine are below by their car. You will go at once, or I'll call them. If you think I am bluffing, go down and look. Good night. End of Chapter 19 Chapter 20 of Free Air This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Free Air by Sinclair Lewis Chapter 20 The Free Woman Chapter 20 Before breakfast, Claire darted down to the hotel yard. She beamed at Milt, who was lacing a raw hide patch on a tire, before she remembered that they were not on speaking terms. They both looked extremely sheepish and young. It was Pinky Parrot, who was the social lubricant. Pinky was always on speaking terms with everybody. Ah, here she is, the little lady of the mutinous eyes, our Colonel of the Fliver Hussars. But he got no credit. Milt straightened up and lumbered, hello. She peaked at him and whispered, hello. Say, oh, please, Claire. I didn't mean, oh, I know. Let's go have breakfast. I was awfully afraid you'd think we were fresh, but when we came in last night and saw your car, didn't like the looks of the hotel much and thought we'd stick around. I'm so glad. Oh, Milt, yes, you and Mr. Parrot, were you quick, lick, beat up, however you want to say it, somebody for me? With one glad communal smile, Milt and Pinky curbed up their wrists and made motions as of pulling up their sleeves. But not unless I say so. I want to be a citizen that's fix it. I've been good for so long, but now, show him to me. And up lads and atom, responded her squad. Not till after breakfast. It was a sufficiently vile breakfast at the tavern. The feature was curious cakes, whose interior was raw, creepy dough. A dozen skilled workmen were at the same long table with Claire, Milt, Pinky and Mr. Boltwood, the last two of whom were polite and scenically descriptive to each other, but portentiously silent about goldmines. The landlady and a slavy waited on the table. The landlord could be seen loafing in the kitchen. Toward the end of the meal, Claire insultingly crooked her finger at the landlady and said, come here, woman. The landlady stared, then ignored her. Very well, then I'll say it publicly. Claire swept the workmen with an affectionate smile. Gentlemen of Pilago, I want you to know from one of the poor tourists who have been cheated at this nasty place that we depend on you to do something. This woman and her husband are criminals in the way they overcharge for hideous food, and the landlady had been petrified. Now she charged down. Behind her came her husband. Milt arose. The husband stopped. But it was Pinky who faced the landlady, tapped her shoulder and launched into. And what's more, you hag, if our new friends here have any sense, they'll run you out of town. That was only the beginning of Pinky's paper on corrections and charities. He enjoyed himself. Before he finished, the landlady was crying. She voluntarily promised to give her boarders waffles, some morning, just soon as she could find the waffle iron. With her guard about her at the office desk, Claire paid one dollar apiece for the rooms, and discussion was not. Before they started, Milt had the chance to say to her, I'm getting so I can handle Pinky now. Have to. Thinking of getting hold of his gold mine, I just give him the eye as your friend Mr. Saxton would, and he gets so meek. But don't. Please understand me, Milt. I do admire Mr. Saxton. He is fine and capable and really generous. Only, he may be just a bit snippish at times. While you, you're a playmate, fathers and mine, and I did face that landlady, didn't I? I'm not soft and trivial, am I? Praise! She had driven through the panhandle of Idaho into Washington, through Spokane, through the writhing, lava deposits of Moses Cooley, where fruit trees grow on volcanic ash. Beyond Wenatchee, with its rows of apple trees striping the climbing fields like corduroy infolds, she had come to the famous climb of Bluette Pass. Once over that pass, and Snoqualmie, she would romp into Seattle. She was sorry that she hadn't come to know Milt better, but perhaps she would see him in Seattle. Not adventure alone was she finding, but high intellectual benefit in studying the names of towns in the state of Washington. Not Kankakee, nor Kalamazoo, nor Oshkosh, can rival the picturesque fancy of Washington, and Claire combined the town names in a lyric so emotion-stirring that it ought, perhaps, to be the national anthem. It ran. Hump Tulips Tum Tum, Moe Clips Yelme, Satsapucota, Omak Unimclaw, Tillicum, Bosburg, Chetlow, Chatteroy, Zilla, Sela, Kawachi, Keechalus, Bluestem, Blulight, Onion Creek, Sakai, Antwine, Chapatka, Stardip, Kappaswim, Skamokawa, Sixprong, Pished, Plikitat, Kittitas, Spangle, Sidonia, Pei, Elz, Clay, Elm, Salal, Chickacum, Index, Tahola, Sinarep, Pluyola, Walula, Wawai, Wakanda, Washugal, Wala Wala, Washtunka, Waluka, Sokolk, Nukakum, Nuwakum, Wakiapis, Penawa, Ohap, Lad, Harah, Olala, Umantum, Shuckanut, Soap Lake, Loon Lake, Addie, Ace, Usk, Chilawis, Moxie City, Yeliput, Kayshup, Munax, Mabdum, Talt, Mukilteo, Pulsbo, Tapanish, Whetstone, Inchelium, Fishtrap, Carnation, Shine, Monte Cristo, Kokonelli, Rosa, Maud, China Bend, Zumwalt, Sapolil, Rifle, Tushet, Cheesaw, Chew, Clone, Bly, Humorous, Hammer, Nukzak, Osso, Samamish, Dusty, Tiger, Turk, Dot, Sini, Tekoa, Nalita, Talia, Stealacum, Tweedle, Ruff, Lizabula, Lata, Piola, Toa, El-Topia, Steptoe, Pluvius, Soledug, Twisp. And then, complained Claire, They talk about Amy Lowell. I leave it to you, Henry B., if any union poet has ever written as gay a refrain as Ohop lad. She was not merely playing mental wist, she was trying to keep from worry. All the way, she had heard a bluit pass, its fourteen miles of climbing in the last half mile of stern pitch. On this eastern side of the pass, the new road was not open. There was a tortuous flint-scattered trail, too narrow in most places, for the passing of other cars. Claire was glad that Milton Pinky were near her. If so many of the race-of-kind advisors of tourists had not warned her about it, doubtless she would have gone over the pass without difficulty. But their voluntary croaking sapped her nerve and her father's. He kept worrying. Do you think we'd better try it? She stopped at a ranch house at the foot of the climb for the night. He seemed unusually tired. He complained of chill. He did not eat breakfast. They started out silent, depressed. He crouched in the corner of the seat. She looked at him and was anxious. She stopped on the first-level space on the pass, crying, You are perfectly miserable. I'm afraid I think we ought to see a doctor. Oh, I'll be all right. But she waited till milk came pit-pattering up the slope. Father feels rather sick. What shall I do? Turn round and drive to the nearest doctor at Kashmir, I suppose. There's a magnolilius medicoa here ahead on the pass. Pinky Parrot interrupted. A young thing, but they say he's a graduate of Harvard. He's out here because he has some timber claims. Look, Milton the Daggett. Why don't you drive Miss Boltwood's bus, make better time, and hustle the old gent up to the dock, and I'll come on behind with your machine. Why, Claire, I hate a new melt the boss abrupt, almost bullying, snapped out of his bug. Good idea. Jump in, Claire, I'll take your father up. Hey, was that pink? Yes, I get it. The second turn beyond the grocery, right? On we go, huh? Oh, we'll think about the gold mine later, pink. With all three of them wedged into the seat of the Gomez and Pinky recklessly skittering after them in the bug, they climbed again, and low. There was no climb. Unconsciously, Claire had hesitated before dashing at each sharp upsloping bend, had lost headway while she was wandering. Suppose the car went off this curve. Milton never sped up, but he never slackened. His driving was as rhythmical as music. They were so packed in that he could scarcely reach gear, lever, and handbrake. He halted on a level and curtly asked. That trapped door in the back of the car, convertible extra seat? Yes, but we almost never used it, and it stuck. Can't get it open. I'll open it all right. Got a big screwdriver? Want you to sit back there? Need elbow room? Perhaps I'd better drive with Mr. Pinky. Nope, don't think better. With one yank, he opened the trapped door, revealing a folding seat which she meekly took. Back there, she reflected. How strong his back looks. Funny how the little silvery hairs grow at the back of his neck. They came to a settlement in the red-seater below of Dr. Hooker Beach. The moment Claire saw the doctor's thin, demanding face, she trusted him. He spoke to Mr. Boltwood with assurance. All you need is some rest, and your digestion is a little shaky. Been eating some pork? Might stay here a day or two. We're glad to have a glimpse of Easterners. Mr. Boltwood went to bed in the beach's guest room. Mrs. Beach gave Claire and Milt lunch with thin toast and thin china on a porch from which an arroyo dropped down for 100 feet. Fur trees scented the air and a talking machine played the same Russian music that was popular that same moment in New York. And the beaches knew people who knew Claire. Claire was thinking. These people were genuine aristocrats while Jeff Saxton, for all his family and his assumptions about life, was the eternal climber. Milt, who had been uncomfortable with Jeff, was serene and unselfconscious with the beaches and the doctor gratefully took his advice about his stationary gas engine. He's rather like the beaches in his simplicity. Yes, and his ability to do anything if he considers it worthwhile, she decided. After lunch, when the doctor and his wife had to trot off to a patient, Claire proposed, let's walk up to that ledge of rock and see the view. Shall we, Milt? Yes, and keep an eye on the road for Pinky, the poor nut he hasn't showed up. The reckless hope he hasn't driven the teal off the road. She crouched at the edge of a rock where she would have been frightened a month before and looked across the main road to a creek in a pine-laced gully. He sat beside her, elbows on knees. Those beaches, their kin are judges and senators and college presidents all over New England, she said. This doctor must be the grandson of the ambassador, I fancy. Honest. I thought they were just regular folks. Was I nice? Of course you were. Did I wash my paws and sit up and beg? No, you aren't a little dog, I'm that. You're the big mastiff that guards the house while I run and yip. She was turned toward him, smiling. Her hand was beside him. He touched the back of it with his forefinger, as though he was afraid he might soil it. There seemed to be no reason, but he was trembling as he stammered. I'm damn glad I didn't know they were anybody, or I'd have been as bad as a fliver-driver the first time he tries a 12-cylinder machine. Gee, your hand is little. She took it back and inspected it. I suppose it is and pretty useless. And no it isn't, but your shoes are. Why don't you wear boots when you're out like this? A flicker of his earlier peremptoriness came into his voice. She resented it. My shoes are perfectly sensible. I will not wear those horrible vegetarian uplift sacks on my feet. Your shoes may be all right for New York, but you're not going to New York for a while. You've simply got to see some of this country while you're out here. British Columbia and Alaska would be nice, but I've had enough roughing. Chance to see the grandest mountains in the world almost, and then you want to go back to tea and all that junk. You've been dictatorial ever since we started up. Have I? Didn't mean to be, but I suppose I usually am bullying. At least I run things. There's two kinds of people, those that give orders and those that naturally take them. And I belong to the first one. And, but my dear milk, so do I. And really and mostly I'd take them from you. But hanging, Seattle is just a day away and you'll forget me. Wish I could kidnap you. Have half a mind to. Take you way up into the mountains and when you got used to roughing it in sure enough wilderness, say you'd helped me haul timber for a flume, then we'd be real pals. You'd have the stuff in you, but you still need toughening before. Listen to me, Milton. You've been reading fiction about this man. Sometimes he's a lumberjack and sometimes a trapper or a minor, but always he's frightfully hairy and he sees a charming woman in the city and kidnaps her and shuts her up in some unspeakable shanty and makes her eat nice cold-boiled potatoes. And so naturally she simply adores him. A hundred men have written that story and it's an example of their insane masculine conceit which I, as a woman, resent. Shakespeare may have started it with this silly taming of the shrew. Shakespeare's men may have been real, but his women were dolls designed to please some majesty. You may not know it, but there are women today who don't live just to please majesty's fancies. If a woman like me were kidnapped, she would go on hating the brute. Or if she did give in, then the man would lose anyway because she would have degenerated. She had turned into a slave and lost exactly the things he'd liked in her. Oh, you cavemen, with your belief that you can force women to like you, I have more courage than any of you. I meant you have courage, but you'd have still more if you bucked the wiles. Nonsense. In New York City, I face every day a hundred complicated problems you don't know I ever heard of. Let me remind you that Brer Julius Caesar said he'd rather be mayor in a little Spanish town than police commissioner in Rome. I'm king in Schoenstrom, while you're just one of a couple hundred thousand bright people in New York. Really? Oh, at least a million. Thanks. Oh, gee, Claire, I didn't mean to be personal in getting a row and all, but can't you see? Kind of desperate. Seattle so soon. Her face was turned from him. Its thin profile was firm as silver wire. He blundered off into silence and they were at it again. I didn't mean to make you angry. He gulped. Well, you did. Bullying. You and your men of granite in Mackinac's in a much needed way. Trying to make a well-bred woman satisfied with a view consisting of rocks and stumps and socks on the line. Let me tell you that compared with a street canyon, a mountain canyon is simply dead, and yet these unlettered wild men see here. I don't know if you're firing these adjectives at me, but I don't know that I'm so much more unlettered. You talked about taking French in your finishing school. Well, they taught American in mine. They would. Then it was angry. Yes, in chemistry and physics and Greek and Latin and history and mathematics and economics, and I took more or less of a whirl at all of them while you were fiddling with ribbons and then I had to buck mechanics and business methods. I also fiddled with manners and unfortunate omission in your curriculum, I take it. You have been reasonably rude. So have you. I had to be, but I trust you begin to see that even your strong hand couldn't control a woman's taste. Kidnapping. As intelligent a boy as you wanting to imitate these boorish movie, not a darn bit more boorish than your smart set with its champagne and those orgies at country clubs. You know so much about country clubs, don't you? The worst orgy I ever saw at one was the golf champion reading the beauty department in Boudoir. Would you mind backing up your statements about the vices of myself and my friends? Oh, you. Oh, I didn't mean. Well, then why did you? Now you're bullying me and you know that if the smart set isn't vicious, at least it's so snobbish that they can't see any. Then it's wise to be snobbish because if it did condescend, I won't stand people talking about condescending. Would you mind not shouting so? Very well, I'll keep still. Silence again, while both of them looked unhappy and tried to remember just what they had been fighting about. They did not at first notice a small red car la-rupping gaily over the road beneath the ledge, though the driver was a pink-haired man in a green coat. He was almost gone before milk choked. It's pinky! Pink! Pinky, he bellowed. Pinky looked back, but instead of stopping, he sped up and kept going. End of Chapter 20 Chapter 21 of Free Air This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Free Air by Sinclair Lewis. Chapter 21 The Mine of Lost Souls That couldn't have been pinky. Why, why the car he had was red, cried Clair. Sure, the idiots got hold of some barn paint somewhere and tried to dob it over. He's trying to make a getaway with it. We'll chase him in my car. Don't you mind? Of course not. I do not give up my objections to the roughing philosophy. But you were right about these shoes. Oh, don't leave me behind. Want to go along. These sentences she broke, scattered, and totally lost as she scrambled after him down the rocks. He halted. His lips trembled. He picked her up, carried her down, hesitated a second while his face, curiously foreshortened as she looked up at it from his big arms, twisted with emotion. He set her down gently and she climbed into the Gomez. It seemed to her that he drove rather too carefully, too slowly. He took curves and corners evenly. His face was as empty of expression as unmelodramatic as that of a Jitney driver. Then she looked at the speedometer. He was making 48 miles an hour downhill and 40 to 30 on upgrades. They were inside of the fleeing pinky in two miles. Pinky looked back. He was seen to be pulling his hat low, stooping over the demon driver. Milt merely sat more wrecked, looked more bland and white-browed and steady. The bug fled before them on a winding shelf road. It popped up a curve then slowed down. He took it too fast, poor Pink, said Milt. They gained on that upslope, but as the road dropped, the bug started forward desperately. Another car was headed toward them, was drawn to the side of the road in one of the occasional widenings. Pinky passed it so carelessly that, with crawling spine, Claire saw the outer wheels of the bug on the very edge of the road, the edge of a 50-foot drop. Milt went easily past the halted car, even waved his hand to the waiting driver. This did not seem to Claire at all like the chase of a thief. She looked casually ahead at Pinky as he whirled at S-shaped curve on the downslope. Then, it was too quick to see what happened. The bug headed directly toward the edge of the road, shot out, went down the embankment over and over. It lay absurdly upside down, its muffler and brake rods showing in place of the seat and hood. Milt quite carefully stopped the Gomez. The day was still. Just a breathing of running water in the deep gully. The topsy-turvyed car below them was equally still. No sight of Pinky, no sound. The gauche boy gone from him. Milt took her hand, pressed it to his cheek. Claire, you're here. You might have gone with him to make room. Oh, I was bullying you because I was bullying myself. Trying to make myself tell you. But oh, you know, you know. Can you stand going down there? I hate to have you, but you may be needed. Yes, I'll come. She whispered. Their crawl down the rock rolling embankment seemed desperately slow. Wait here, Bade Milt at the bottom. She looked away from the grotesque car. She had seen that one side of it was crumpled like paper in an impatient hand. Milt was stooping, looking under. Seemed to be saying something. When he came back, he did not speak. He wiped his forehead. Come, we'll climb back up. Nothing to do now. Yes, you better not try to help anyway. You might not sleep well. He gave her his hand up the embankment, drove to the nearest house, telephoned to Dr. Beach. Later, she waited while Milt and the doctor with two other men were raising the car. As she waited, she thought of the teal bug as a human thing, as her old friend to which she had often turned in need. Milt returned to her. There's one thing for you to do. Before he died, Pinkie asked me to go get his wife. Dolores, I think it is. She's up in a side canyon a few miles away. She may want a woman around. Beach will take care of him. Can you come? Of course. Oh, Milt, I didn't. I didn't. Me, you were a caveman. You're my big brother. Me, you were a snob. They drove five miles along the highway, then up a trail where the Gomez brushed the undergrowth on each side as it desperately dug into moss, rain-gutted ruts, loose ruts, all on a vicious slant which seemed to push the car down again. Beside them, the mountain woods were sacredly quiet with fern and lily and green-lit spaces. They came out in a clearing before dusk. Beside the clearing was a brook with a crude cradle, a successful gold miter. Before a log cabin in a sway-sided rocker creaked a tall, white, flabby woman once nearly beautiful, now rubbed at the edges. She rose, huddling her wrapper about her bosom as they drove into the clearing and picked their way through stumps and briars. Where do you folks think you're going? She whimpered. I'm certainly glad to see somebody. I've been most scared to death. I've got a shot down, but if anybody come, I guess they'd take it away from me. I was brought up nice, no rough house, or, say, did you folks come to see the gold mine? The mine? The beveled milk, of course not. Pinky said I was to show it, but I'm so sore on that low-life hound now I swear I won't even take the trouble and lie about it. No more gold in that creek than there is in my eye, or then there's flour or pork in the house. The voice was rising. Her gestures were furious. Claire and Milt stood close, their hands slipping together. What do you think of a man that'd go off and leave a lady without half enough to eat while he gallivanted around trying to raise money by gambling when he was offered a good job up here? He's a gambler. Told me that he was a rich mine owner but never touched a mine in his life. Lying hound, worse talker in 10 counties. Got a gambler's hand on him, too. Told him just wait. Claire thought of the still hand, so still that she had seen under the edge of the upturned car. She tried to speak while the woman raved on, wrath-feeding wrath. Thank God I ain't really his wife. My husband is a fine man, Mr. Clough. Delores Clough, my name is. Mr. Clough's got a fine job with the mill at North Yakima. Oh, I was a fool. This gambler, Pinky Parrot, is in the house and he hands me out a swell line of gab. And I ups and leaves poor Clough and the kid and the nicest kid say, please, could you folks take me wherever you're going? Maybe I could get a job again. Used to be a good waitress. And I ain't going to wait here any longer for that lying, cheating, mean talking. Oh, Ms. Clough, please don't. He's dead, wailed Claire. Dead? Pinky? And he was so funny and she threw herself on the ground. She kicked her heels. She tore, had her loosely caught tarnished blonde hair. Claire knelt by her. You mustn't, you mustn't. Wheel. Damn you with your smug-faced husband there and your fine auto and all butting into poor folks' troubles, shrieked Delores. Claire stumbled to her feet, stood with her clenched, dried hand her shoulders were dejected, milk pleaded. Let's hike out, I don't mind decent honest grease, but this place look in at table, dirty dishes and gin bottles on the floor. Dessert her when she needs me so? Claire started forward but milk caught her sleeve and admired. You were right. You've got more nerve than I have. No, I wouldn't dare it. I'm glad you're here with me. Claire calmed the woman, bound up her hair, washed her face, which needed it and sat on the log doorstep holding Delores' head in her lap while Delores sobbed, pinkie dead, him that was so lively and he was so sweet a lover. Oh, so sweet. He was a swell fellow. My, he could just make you laugh and cry the way he talked and he was so educated and he played the villain. He could do anything and athletic, he would have made me rich. Oh, let me alone. And think of him. I was so bored with clothe and no nice dresses or nothing and I did love kid but he squalled so. Just all the time and pinkie calm and he was so funny. Oh, let me alone. Claire shivered then and the strength seemed to go from the steady arms that had supported Delores' head. Dusk had sneaked up on them. The clearing was full of swimming grayness and between the woman's screams the woods crackled. Delores spoke, her screech was like that of an animal in the woods and round about them crept such sinister echoes that Milt kept wanting to look back over his shoulder. Yes, sighed Claire at last. Perhaps we'd better go. If you go I'll kill myself. Take me to Mr. Clough. Oh, he was. My husband, Mr. Clough. Oh, so good. Only he didn't understand the lady has to have her good times and pink danced so well. Delores sprang up, hung into the cabin, stood in the dimness of the doorway holding a butcher knife and clamoring. I will. I'll kill myself if you leave me. Take me down to Mr. Clough at North Yakima tonight. Milt sauntered toward her. Don't you get flipped, young man? I mean it and I'll kill you. Most unshivalorously. Quite out of the picture of gray grief. Milt snapped. That'll be about enough of you. Here, give me that knife. She dropped the knife, sniveling. God, somebody's always bullying me and all I've learned was a good time. Clare herded her into the cabin. We'll take you to your husband tonight. Come, let's wash up and I'll help you put on your prettiest dress. Honest, will you? Cried the woman in high spirits all grief put aside. I got a dandy china silk dress and some new white kid shoes. My Mr. Clough, he won't hardly know me. He'll take me back. I know how to handle him. That'll be swell going back in an automobile. And I got a new hair comb with genuine Peruvian diamonds. Say, you aren't kidding me alone. In the light of the lantern, Milt had kindled. Clare looked questioningly at him. Both of them shrugged. Clare promised, yes, tonight if we can make it. And will you jolly Mr. Clough for me? Gee, I'll be awfully scared of him. I swear I'll wash his dishes and everything. He's a good man. Say, he ain't seen my new purse. I'll eat it. End of Chapter 21. Chapter 22 Of Free Air This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Free Air by Sinclair Lewis Chapter 22 Across the Roof of the World Clare dressed Dolores cooked a dinner of beet greens, potatoes, and trout. And by bullying and great sweetness kept Dolores many trips to the gin bottle. Milt caught the trout, cut wood, locked in a log shed, pinkies forlorn mining tools. They started for North Yakima at eight o' the evening with Dolores back in the spare seat, alternately sobbing and to inattentive ears announcing what she'd say to the old hens. Milt was devoted to persuading the huge cat of a car to tiptoe down the slippery gouged ruts of the road and Clare's friend was driving with him. Every time he'd touch the foot brake she could feel the strain in the tendons of her own ankle. A mile down the main road they stopped at a store post office to telephone back to Mr. Boltwood and Dr. Beach. On the porch was a man in overalls and laced boots. He was lean and quick moving. As he raised his head and his spectacles flashed, Clare caught Milt's arm and gasped. Oh my dear, I'm in a beautiful state of nerves. It was Jeff Saxton. I bet it is his astral body. And you thought he was going to forbid your running away on this fool expedition and you were scared, chuckled Milt as they sat in the car. Of course I was, and I still am. I know what he'll say afterward. He is here reasoning with me. Aught and I to be sensible. Aught and I to have you leave me at the beaches before you start jolly jaunt to take a strange woman to a homicidal husband. Why am I totally lacking in sense? Just listen to what Jeff is saying. Of course you ought to go back and let me drive alone. Absolutely insane you're, but you would like me to go along wouldn't you? Like you do. It's our last ride together. And that bloomin' old browning never thought of a ride together by midnight over the roof of the world. No, it's really our first ride together and tomorrow you're gone. No, I shan't let. Addressing herself to the astounded overall man on the porch she declared. You're quite right Jeff, and Milt is wrong. Insane adventure. Only it's wonderful to be young enough to do insane adventures. Falling down abyssey places is so much more interesting than bridge. I'm going, going, going. Milt, you telephone. Don't you think you'd better? No sir, re, father would forbid me. Try not to get him. Just tell Dr. Beach where we're going and hang up and scoot. All night they drove down the pacific side of Bluette Pass down the sweeping spirals to a valley. Dolores drowsed in the extra seat. Claire's sleepy head was fantastically swaying. She was awakened by an approaching roar and as though she sat at a play she watched a big racing machine coming toward them passing them with two wheels in the ditch. She had only a thunderous glimpse of the solid driver, a dark, hooded, romantic figure, like a sailor at the helm in a storm. Milt cried, golly, may be a transcontinental racer. Be in New York in five days going day and night. Take mud at 50 an hour. Crack mechanic right from the factory. Change tires in three minutes. People waiting up all night to give him gasoline in a sandwich. That's my idea of fun. Studying Milt's shadowed face Claire considered. He could too. Sitting there at the wheel taking danger and good road with the same steadiness. Oh, he's well, anyway, he's a dear boy. But what she said was less dramatic things for you now, Milt. Trigonometry is going to be your idea of fun. Blueprints and engineering books. Yes, I know I'm going to do it. Do four years working three or two. I'll tack pages of formulas on the wall in my bum hall room and study them while I'm shaving. Oh, I'll get the grind but learn to dance the foxtrot, though. If America gets into the war, I'll get into the engineering core and come back to school afterward. Well, the finances, I'll sell my garage by mail. Ross Google will take it. He won't rob me of more than $1,000 on price. Not much more. You're going to love Seattle and we'll have some good tramps while I'm there, you and I. Honestly, do you suppose for one second I'd give up my feeling of free air? If you don't come and get me, I'll call on you and make you come. Warn you I'll probably be living over some beanery. Probably with dirty steps leading up to it. I'll sweep the steps. I'll cook supper for you. I can do things, can't I? I did manage Dolores, didn't I? He was murmuring, Claire, dear, when she changed her tone to the echo of Brooklyn Heights and hurried on, you do understand, don't you? We'd be good friends. Yes, he drove with much speed and silence. Though they were devouring the dark road, though the roadside rocks caught by the headlight seemed to fly up at them, though they went on forever chased by a nightmare, Claire snuggled down in security. Her head drooped against his shoulder. He put his arm about her, his hand about her waist. She sleepily thought to let him. She heard herself muttering, Sorry I was so rude to you when you were so rude. And her chilly cheek discovered that the smooth, worn shoulder of his old blue coat was warm, and she wondered some more about the questions of wastes and hands, and she was asleep. She awoke and bewildered to find that Dawn was slipping into the air. While she had slept, Milt had taken his arm from the laprobe for her. Behind them, Dolores was slumbering with her soft mouth wide open. Claire felt the luxury of the pocket of warmth under the laprobe. She comfortably stretched her legs while she pictured Milt driving on all night, rigid, tireless, impersonal as the engineer of a night express. They came into North Yakima at breakfast time and found the house of Mr. Klo, a neat, bare, drab frame box with tight small front boards. Dolores was awake, and when she wasn't yawning, she was enjoying being hysterical. Ms. Boltwood, she whined, you go in and jolly him up. Milt begged, better let me do it, Claire. They looked squarely at each other. No, I think I'd better, she decided. Right, Claire, but I wish I could do more things for you. I know. He lifted her stiff, cold little body from the car, his hands under her he held her on the running board an instant, her eyes leveled with his. Little sister, plucky little sister, he sighed, he lowered her to the ground. Claire knocked at the back door. To it came a bald, tired man in an apron wet at the knees. The kitchen floor was soaked and a scrubbing brush rode amid the seas. A rather dirty child clung to his hand. Trying to clean up, ma'am, not very good at it. I hope you see. Well, he looks must, but fact is, I just can't get time to wash the clothes. But he means a terrible lot to me. What was it? Will you step in? Claire buttoned the child's rompers before she spoke. Then, Mr. Clough, I want to be perfectly honest with you. I've had word from your wife. She's unhappy and she loves and admires you more than any other man in the world. And I think she would come back. I don't know. I don't wish her no harm. Trouble was, I'm kind of pokey. I guess I couldn't give her any good times. I used to try to go to dances with her, but when I'd work late, I'd get sleepy and she's a beautiful woman, smart as a whip, and I guess I was too slow for her. Now, she would never come back to me. She's out in front of the house now, waiting. Great Caesar's ghost in the floor not scrubbed, where the squawk of anxiety he leaped on with a rubbing brush, and when Milt and Flores appeared at the door, Mr. Clough and Ms. Claire Boltwood were wiping up the kitchen floor. Flores looked at them, arms of Kimbo inside. Hello, Johnny. My ain't it nice to be back. Oh, you had the sink painted. Oh, forgive me, Johnny. I was a bad, ungrateful woman. I don't care if you don't never take me to no more dances. Hardly any. Will it come here, dear? Oh, he is such a sweet child, you will forgive me. Johnny is my overcoat in the mothballs. When Mr. Clough had gone off to the mill, Thrice returning from the gate to kiss Dolores and to thank her rescuers, Claire sat down and yawningly lashed off every inch of Dolores fair white skin. You're at it already taking advantage of that good man's forgiveness and getting lofty with him and rather admiring yourself as a spectacular sinner. You are a lazy, ignorant, not very clean woman, and if you succeed in making Mr. Clough and Willie happy, it will be almost too big a job for you. Now, if I come back from Seattle and find you misbehaving again, Dolores broke down. You won't miss, and I will raise chickens like he wanted. Honest, I will. Then you may let me have a room to take a nap in, and perhaps Mr. Dagget could sleep in there on the sofa and we'll get rested before we start back. Both Milt and Dolores meekly followed the boss. It was noon before Milt and Claire woke and discovered that Dolores had prepared for them scrambled eggs and store celery served on an almost clean tablecloth. Mr. Clough came home for lunch, and while Dolores sat on his lap in the living room and repeated that she had been a bad, naughty little girl, what did the fellow say at the mill? Milt and Claire sat dumpily on the back porch, regarding scenery which featured of seven tin cans, a broken cane, and a rheumatic pear tree. I suppose we ought to start, grown Clare. I have about as much nerve as a rabbit and as much punch as a bale of hay, Milt admitted. We're like two children that have been playing too long, but don't want to go home. Quite, though I don't think much of your idea of a playhouse, those tin cans, but it's better than having to be grown up. In the midst of which chatter they realized that Mr. Henry B. Goldwood and Dr. Hooker Beach had come round the corner of the house and were gaping at them. End of Chapter 22 Chapter 23 of Free Air This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Free Air by Sinclair Lewis Chapter 23 The Grail in a Backyard in Yakima I must say that you too have chosen pastoral scene, observed Mr. Goldwood. How did you get here, gasped Clare? Autobus over blue at pass, trained here from Ellensburg. That woman, everything all right? Yes, everything's fine. We were just starting back, sir, implored Milt. Huh, awfully sorry, sir, to take Clare on such a hike. I don't blame you particularly when that young woman gets an idea into her head. The rest of us are pawns. Why, even me, she's dragged me all over the Rocky Mountains and I will admit, Clare, that it's been good for me. But I begin to feel human again and I think it's about time I took charge. We'll catch the afternoon train for Seattle, Clare. The trip has been extremely interesting, but I think perhaps we'll call it enough. Daggett, want to get you to drive Gomez on to Seattle. Beach tells me your car is completely wrecked. Lose any money in it? No, sir, had my role in the bug I'll have to go back to it and get some clothes out of it, though. Well then, will you drive my car in? Charge me anywhere up to $50 if you want to. I'd rather not. It's a perfectly honest job. I'd do it too quick. Or if your confounded pride won't let you charge anything, bring the car on anyway. Come, Dolly, I have a jitney here. Please observe my graceful use of jitney and I have the bags. We'll go to the station now. No, no arguments, Chick. On the station platform, Clare and Milt were under the surveillance of Mr. Boltwood, who was extremely irritable as every two minutes the train was reported to beat two minutes later. They tramped up and down, speaking in lowered voices, very meek, but in their joint naughtiness very intimate. That was a nice place to end a transcontinental drive in the backyard of Mr. Boltwood with an unrestricted view of tin cans, lamented Clare. Still, your drive didn't end a close. It ended way up in the mountains. Mr. Boltwood bummed down on them. Another minute late, liked to know what the matter is. Yes, Father. When Mr. Boltwood's impatiently waiting back was turned, Clare gripped Milt's hand and whispered to him, You see, I'm captured. I thought I was Father's Lord and chauffeur, but he sniffs the liquor. In his mind, he's already back in the office running things. He'll probably turn me over to Jeff for disciplining. You won't let them change me back into a pink face, will you? Come to tea at the gilsons, just as soon as you reach Seattle. Tea. Now we're so near your gilsons I begin to get scared. Wouldn't know what to do. Gee, I've heard you have to balance a tea cup and a sandwich and a hunk of cake and a lot of conversation all at once. I'd spill the tea and drop crumbs and probably have the butler set on me. You will not. And if you did, can't you see it wouldn't matter. It just wouldn't matter. Honestly, Clare dared you know why I came on this trip. In show and strong I heard you say you were going to Seattle. That moment I decided I would too and get acquainted with you if murder would do it. But oh, I'm clumsy. You've seen me clumsy and driving. You taught me to get over it. Perhaps I can teach you some things and we'll study together evenings. I'm a thoroughly ignorant parasite woman. Make me become real. A real woman. Dear, dear. Mr. Boltwood loomed on them. The train's coming at last. We'll have a decent sleep for once at the gilsons. I've wired them to meet us. He departed. Terribly glad your father keeps coming down on us because it scares me so I get desperate. Said you. Golly, I think I can hear the train. Clare, Clare, dear. Milt, are you proposing to me? Please hurry because that is the train. Isn't it absurd? Someday you'll have to propose all over again formally for the benefit of people like father when you and I already know we're partners. We've done things together, not just dance together. When you're an engineer you'll call me and I'll come running up to Alaska. And sometimes you'll come with me to Brooklyn. There'll be a couple of bombs. There's the train. Oh, playmate, hurry with your engineering course. Hurry, hurry, hurry. Because when it's done, then whether thou goest, there I go also. And you did bully me. You did. You did. And I like it. And yes, father, the bags are right here. Telephone me minute after you reach Seattle, dear. And we'll have a private lesson in balancing teacups. Yes, father, I have the tickets. Oh, glad dear. The trip smashed up like this, shocked me into reality. Made me realize that I've been with you every hour since I dismissed you back in Dakota. And you looked at me, big hurt eyes like a child. And yes, father, Pullman's at the back. Yes, I'm coming. Oh, wait. Did you know I was going to propose? Yes, ever since the Yellowstone I've been trying to think of a nice way to refuse you. But there isn't any. You're like Pinky. Can't get rid of you. I have to adopt you. Besides, I found out you love me. I don't know. How can I tell? But I do like to drive with my head on your shoulder and yes, father, coming. End of Chapter 23 Chapter 24 of Free Air. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Free Air by Sinclair Lewis. Chapter 24 Mr. Henry B. Boltwood was decorously asleep in a chair in the observation car and Claire on the wide back platform sat unmoving, apparently devoted to agriculture and mountain scenery. But it might have been noted that her hand clenched one of the wooden supports of her camp stool and that her hunched back did not move. When she had turned to follow her father into the train, Milt had caught her shoulders and kissed her. For half an hour that kiss had remained, a perceptible warm pressure on her lips and for half an hour she had felt the relief of gliding through the mountains without the strain of piloting, the comfort of having the unseen mysterious engineer up ahead automatically drive for her. She had carrelled her father about nearing the Pacific. Her nervousness had expressed itself in jerky gaiety. But when he had sneaked away for a nap and Claire could no longer hide from herself by a veil of chatter the big decision she had made on the station platform, then she was lonely and frightened and very anxious to undecide the decision. She could not think clearly. She could see Milt Daggett only as a solemn young man in an inferior sweater standing by the track in a melancholy autumnal light, waving to her as the train pulled out disappearing in a done obscurity less significant than the station, the receding ties or the porter who was, in places known only to his secretive self concealing her baggage. She could only mutter in growing panic I'm crazy, insane pledging myself to this boy before I know how he will turn out will he learn anything besides engineering? I know it I do want to stroke his cheek and his kiss frightened me but will I hate him when I see him with nice people? Can I introduce him to the gilsons? Oh, I was mad so wrought up by that idiotic chase with Dolores and so sure I was a romantic heroine and I'm simply an indecisive girl in a realistic muddle threatened by darkness and the sinister evening chill of the mountains with the train no longer cheerfully climbing the rocky ridge but rumbling and snorting in the defiles and startling her agitating forward leaps as though the brakes had let go. She could not endure the bleak platform and even less could she endure sitting in the chair car, eyed by the smug tourists, people as empty of her romance as they were incapable of her sharp tragedy. She balanced forward to the vestibule she stood in that cold swaying, darkling place that was filled with the smell of rubber and metal and grease and the thunderous clash of steel on steel she tried to look out into the fleeing darkness she tried to imagine that the train was carrying her away from the pursuing enemy from her own weak self her father came puffing and lip pursing and jolly to take her to dinner Mr. Boltwood had no tearing meditations he had a healthy interest in soup but he glanced at her across the bright sleek dining table he seemed to study her and suddenly Claire saw that he was a very wise man. His look hinted you're worried my dear but his voice ventured nothing beyond comfortable drawing stories to which she had only, from the depth of her gloomy brooding, to nod mechanically. She got a great deal of satisfaction and horror out of watching two traveling men after dinner. Milt had praised the race and one of the two traveling men, a slender, clear-faced young sturt was rather like Milt despite plastered hair, a watched chain slung diagonally across his waistcoat maroon silk socks and shoes of pearl buttons, gray tops and patent leather bottoms. The other man was a butterball. Both of them had harshly pompous voices the proudly unlettered voices of the smoking compartment the slender man was roaring yes sir he's got a great proposition there believe me he's got a great proposition he's got one great little factor there take it from me he could turn out toothpicks to compete with Michigan. He's simply piling up the shekels while I say he's got a house with 18 rooms every room done different. Claire wondered whether Milt, when the sting and the faith of romance were blunted would engage in great propositions and fight for the recognition of his toothpicks would his creations be favorites in the best lunchrooms? Would he pile up shekels? Then her fretting was lost in the excitement of approaching Seattle and their host Claire's cousin Eugene Wilson an outrageously prosperous owner of shingle mills he came from an old Brooklyn Heights family he had married Eva Gantz of Englewood he liked music and wrote jokie little letters and knew the addresses of all the best New York shops he was of her own people and she was near now to the security of his friendship the long journey done lights thicker and thicker a factory illuminated by arc lamps the porter the eager trail of people in the aisle climbing down to the platform red caps passing the puffing engine which had brought them in the procession to the gate faces behind the grill Eugene Gilson and Eva waving kisses cries of how was the trip and oh had a wonderful drive the huge station and curious waiting passengers jab Cooley's in a gang lumbermen in corks the Gilson's quiet car and baggage stowed away by the chauffeur instead of by their own tired hands streets strangely silent after the tumult of the train Seattle and the sunset coast had last attained Claire had forgotten how many charming most desirable things there were in the world the gilson's drove up Queen Anne Hill to a bay fronting house on a breezy knob a Georgian house of holly hedge French windows a terrace that suggested tea and a great hall of mahogany and white enamel with the hint of roses somewhere and a fire kindled in the panel drawing room to be seen beyond the hall warmth and softness and the gilson's confident affection wrapped her around and in contented weariness she mounted to a bedroom of back sketches a four poster and a bedside table with a black and orange electric lamp and a collection of Arthur Simon's essays she sank by the bed with her cheek against the soap comforter that was primely awaiting her commands at the foot of the bed and cried oh four posters are necessary I can't give them up I won't they no one has a right to ask me she mentally stamped her foot I simply won't live in a shack and take in washing it isn't worth it a bath faintly scented in a built-in tub in her own marble bathroom a preposterously enormous Turkish towel one of Eva Gilson's foamy negligee's slow exquisite dressing not the scratchy hopping over ingrown dirt among ingrown smells of a filthy small hotel bedroom but luxurious wandering over rugs velvety to her bare feet a languid inspection of the frivolous colors and curves in the drawings by Baxter and George Plom and Helen Dryden a glance at the richness of the toilet table at the toilet curtains that shut out the common world expanding to the comfort as an orchid to cloying tropic airs she drew on her sheerst chemise her most frivolous silk stockings in a dreaming, innervated joy she saw how smooth were her arms and legs she sleepily resented the redness of her wrists and the calluses of the texture of corduroy that scored her palms from holding the steering wheel yes she was glad that she had made gladder that she was safely in from the long dust whitened way back in her own world of beauty and she couldn't imagine ever trying it again to think of clumping out into that world of deliberate and brawling crudeness of one milled dagget she didn't think at all gorgeously sleepy and gorgeously certain that by and by she would go not to a stingy hotel bed with hound dog ribs to cut into her tired back but to featherly softness of slumber she wavered down the drawing room and on the Davenport by the fire with pictoria chocolates by her elbow and pillows behind her shoulders she gossiped of her adventure and asked for news of friends and kin back east Eugene and Eva Gilson asked with pyrotechnic mariness about the funny people she must have met along the road with a subdued, hidden unhappiness Claire found that she could not mention that she was afraid her father would mention milk to these people who took it for granted that all persons who did not live in large houses and play good games of bridge were either queer or common who believed that their west was desirable in proportion as it became like the east and that they, though westerners, were as superior to workmen with hard hands as was Brooklyn Heights itself Claire tried to wriggle out from under the thought of milk while with the gilsons as the perfect audience she improvised on the theme of wandering with certain unintended exaggerations and certain not quite accurate groupings of events she described the farmers and cow punchers the incredible hotels and garages indeed they had become incredible to her own self obviously the silken girl couldn't possibly take seriously at Dolores Clough or a young garage man who said ain't Eva Gilson had been in Brooklyn for a month and in a passion of remembrance of home Claire cried oh do tell me about everybody I had such a good time with Amy Dorans said Mrs. Gilson of course Amy is a little dull but she's such an awful good sort and we did have the jolliest party one afternoon we went to lunch at the Ritz and to matinee and we saw such an interesting man Jean is frightfully jealous when I rave about him I'm sure he was a violinist simply an interesting thing he was I wanted to kiss him Jean will now say why didn't you and Jean said well why didn't you and Claire laughed and her toes felt warm and pink and good and she was perfectly happy and she murmured it would be good to hear a decent violinist again oh what has George Warlech been doing when were you home don't you think Georgie is wonderful fluttered Mrs. Gilson I think I'll adopt him you know he almost won the tennis cup at Long Branch Georgie had a little mustache and an income just enough income to support the little mustache and he sang inoffensively and was always winning tennis cups almost and he always said at least once at every party the basis of Savoie fair is knowing how to be rude to the right people fire enamored and gliding into a perfumed haze Clare saw Georgie as heroic and wise but the firelight got into her eyes and her lids wouldn't stay open and in her ears was a soft humming as of a million bees in a distant meadow gold spangled and Jean was helping her upstairs sleepiness submerged her like bathing in sweet waters she fumbled at buttons and hooks and stays let things lie where they fell nothing was more pleasant than the knowledge that she did not have to take precautions against the rats, mice, cockroaches and all their obscene little brothers which on some far off fantastic voyaging when she had been young and foolish she seemed to remember having found in her own room then she was sinking into a bed like a tide of rainbow colored foam sinking deep, deep, deep and it was morning and she perceived that the purpose of morning light was to pick out surfaces of mahogany and orange velvet and glass and that only an idiot would ever leave this place and go about begging dirty garage men to fill her car with stinking gasoline and oil. The children were at breakfast children surely not of the same species as the smeary cheeked rats she had seen tumbling by road sides along the way sturdy mason with his cap of curls and Virginia with bobbed ash blonde hair prim about her delicate face they curtsied and in voices that actually had intonations they besought her. Oh cousin Claire would you please tell us about the drive to the coast after breakfast she went out on the terrace for the view. In Seattle even millionaires and the IWW and men with red garters on their exposed shirtsleeves who want to give you real estate all talk about the view is to Seattle what the car service the auditorium the fliver factory or the price of coal is to other cities at parties in Seattle you discuss the question of whether the view of Lake Union or the view of the Olympics is the better and polite office managers say to their stenographers as they enter how's your view this morning all real estate needs include a patent on the view and every native son has it as his soundest belief that no one in Tacoma gets a view of Mount Rainier Mrs. Gilson informed Claire that they had the finest view in Seattle below Claire was the harbor with docks thrust far out into the water and steamers alive with smoke Mrs. Gilson said they were blue funnel liners loading for Vladivostok and Japan the names just the names shot into Claire's heart a wistful unexpressed desire that was somehow vaguely connected to the Milt Daggett who back in the middle western mud and rain had longed for purple mountains and cherry blossoms and the sea but she cast out the wish and lifted her eyes to mountains across the sound not purple mountains but sheer silver streaked with black like frozen surf on a desolate northern shore the Olympics two score miles away up there one could camp with a boy in a deteriorated sweater singing watch the coffee hastily she looked to the left across the city with its bright new skyscrapers its shining cornices and masses of ranked windows and the exclamation point of the tallest building outside of New York far livelier than her own rusty Brooklyn beyond the city was a done cloud but as she stared far up in the cloud something crept out of the vapor and hung there like a dull full moon aloof majestic and she realized that she was beholding the peak of Mount Rainier with the city at its foot like white quartz pebbles at the base of a tower a landing stage for angels she reflected it did seem larger than dressing tables and velvet hangings and sinned baths but she dragged herself from the enticing path of that thought and sighed wretchedly oh yes he would appreciate Rainier but how how would he manage a grapefruit fool I mustn't she saw that Mrs. Gilson was peeping at her and she made herself say adequate things about the view before she fled inside fled from her sputtering inquiring self in the afternoon they drove to Capitol Hill they dropped in at various pretty houses and met the sort of people Claire knew back home between people they had views and the sensible Miss Boltwood making a philosophic discovery announced to herself after all I've seen just as much from this limousine as I would from a bone breaking teal bug silly to make yourself miserable to see things oh yes I will go wandering some more but not like a hobo but what can I say to him good heavens he may be here any time now with our car oh why why why was I insane on that station platform end of chapter 24