“Criticize you? Lord, I should say not.
They all keep telling me you’re the swellest
girl they ever saw.”
“Well, I’ve just fancied——The
merchants probably think I’m too fussy about
shopping. I’m afraid I bore Mr. Dashaway
and Mr. Howland and Mr. Ludelmeyer.”
“I can tell you how that is. I didn’t
want to speak of it but since you’ve brought
it up: Chet Dashaway probably resents the fact
that you got this new furniture down in the Cities
instead of here. I didn’t want to raise
any objection at the time but——After
all, I make my money here and they naturally expect
me to spend it here.”
“If Mr. Dashaway will kindly tell me how any
civilized person can furnish a room out of the mortuary
pieces that he calls——” She
remembered. She said meekly, “But I understand.”
“And Howland and Ludelmeyer——Oh,
you’ve probably handed ’em a few roasts
for the bum stocks they carry, when you just meant
to jolly ’em. But rats, what do we care!
This is an independent town, not like these Eastern
holes where you have to watch your step all the time,
and live up to fool demands and social customs, and
a lot of old tabbies always busy criticizing.
Everybody’s free here to do what he wants to.”
He said it with a flourish, and Carol perceived that
he believed it. She turned her breath of fury
into a yawn.
“By the way, Carrie, while we’re talking
of this: Of course I like to keep independent,
and I don’t believe in this business of binding
yourself to trade with the man that trades with you
unless you really want to, but same time: I’d
be just as glad if you dealt with Jenson or Ludelmeyer
as much as you ran, instead of Howland & Gould, who
go to Dr. Gould every last time, and the whole tribe
of ’em the same way. I don’t see
why I should be paying out my good money for groceries
and having them pass it on to Terry Gould!”
“I’ve gone to Howland & Gould because
they’re better, and cleaner.”
“I know. I don’t mean cut them out
entirely. Course Jenson is tricky—give
you short weight—and Ludelmeyer is a shiftless
old Dutch hog. But same time, I mean let’s
keep the trade in the family whenever it is convenient,
see how I mean?”
“I see.”
“Well, guess it’s about time to turn in.”
He yawned, went out to look at the thermometer, slammed
the door, patted her head, unbuttoned his waistcoat,
yawned, wound the clock, went down to look at the
furnace, yawned, and clumped up-stairs to bed, casually
scratching his thick woolen undershirt.
Till he bawled, “Aren’t you ever coming
up to bed?” she sat unmoving.
She had tripped into the meadow to teach the
lambs a pretty educational dance and found that the
lambs were wolves. There was no way out between
their pressing gray shoulders. She was surrounded
by fangs and sneering eyes.
