That evening Guy Pollock came in and, though Kennicott
instantly impressed him into a cribbage game, Carol
was happy again.
She did not, in recovering something of her buoyancy,
forget her determination to begin the liberalizing
of Gopher Prairie by the easy and agreeable propaganda
of teaching Kennicott to enjoy reading poetry in the
lamplight. The campaign was delayed. Twice
he suggested that they call on neighbors; once he
was in the country. The fourth evening he yawned
pleasantly, stretched, and inquired, “Well, what’ll
we do tonight? Shall we go to the movies?”
“I know exactly what we’re going to do.
Now don’t ask questions! Come and sit down
by the table. There, are you comfy? Lean
back and forget you’re a practical man, and
listen to me.”
It may be that she had been influenced by the managerial
Vida Sherwin; certainly she sounded as though she
was selling culture. But she dropped it when
she sat on the couch, her chin in her hands, a volume
of Yeats on her knees, and read aloud.
Instantly she was released from the homely comfort
of a prairie town. She was in the world of lonely
things—the flutter of twilight linnets,
the aching call of gulls along a shore to which the
netted foam crept out of darkness, the island of Aengus
and the elder gods and the eternal glories that never
were, tall kings and women girdled with crusted gold,
the woful incessant chanting and the——
“Heh-cha-cha!” coughed Dr. Kennicott.
She stopped. She remembered that he was the sort
of person who chewed tobacco. She glared, while
he uneasily petitioned, “That’s great
stuff. Study it in college? I like poetry
fine—James Whitcomb Riley and some of Longfellow—this
‘Hiawatha.’ Gosh, I wish I could appreciate
that highbrow art stuff. But I guess I’m
too old a dog to learn new tricks.”
With pity for his bewilderment, and a certain desire
to giggle, she consoled him, “Then let’s
try some Tennyson. You’ve read him?”
“Tennyson? You bet. Read him in school.
There’s that:
And let there be no
(what is it?) of farewell
When I put out to sea,
But let the——
Well, I don’t remember all of it but——Oh,
sure! And there’s that ’I met a little
country boy who——’ I don’t
remember exactly how it goes, but the chorus ends
up, ‘We are seven.’”
“Yes. Well——Shall we
try ‘The Idylls of the King?’ They’re
so full of color.”
“Go to it. Shoot.” But he hastened
to shelter himself behind a cigar.
She was not transported to Camelot. She read
with an eye cocked on him, and when she saw how much
he was suffering she ran to him, kissed his forehead,
cried, “You poor forced tube-rose that wants
to be a decent turnip!”
“Look here now, that ain’t——”
“Anyway, I sha’n’t torture you any
longer.”
She could not quite give up. She read Kipling,
with a great deal of emphasis:
