Chapter: CHAPTER VI


I

WHEN the first dubious November snow had filtered down, shading with
white the bare clods in the plowed fields, when the first small fire
had been started in the furnace, which is the shrine of a Gopher Prairie
home, Carol began to make the house her own. She dismissed the parlor
furniture--the golden oak table with brass knobs, the moldy brocade
chairs, the picture of "The Doctor." She went to Minneapolis, to scamper
through department stores and small Tenth Street shops devoted to
ceramics and high thought. She had to ship her treasures, but she wanted
to bring them back in her arms.

Carpenters had torn out the partition between front parlor and back
parlor, thrown it into a long room on which she lavished yellow and
deep blue; a Japanese obi with an intricacy of gold thread on stiff
ultramarine tissue, which she hung as a panel against the maize wall; a
couch with pillows of sapphire velvet and gold bands; chairs which, in
Gopher Prairie, seemed flippant. She hid the sacred family phonograph in
the dining-room, and replaced its stand with a square cabinet on which
was a squat blue jar between yellow candles.

Kennicott decided against a fireplace. "We'll have a new house in a
couple of years, anyway."

She decorated only one room. The rest, Kennicott hinted, she'd better
leave till he "made a ten-strike."

The brown cube of a house stirred and awakened; it seemed to be in
motion; it welcomed her back from shopping; it lost its mildewed
repression.

The supreme verdict was Kennicott's "Well, by golly, I was afraid the
new junk wouldn't be so comfortable, but I must say this divan, or
whatever you call it, is a lot better than that bumpy old sofa we had,
and when I look around----Well, it's worth all it cost, I guess."

Every one in town took an interest in the refurnishing. The carpenters
and painters who did not actually assist crossed the lawn to peer
through the windows and exclaim, "Fine! Looks swell!" Dave Dyer at
the drug store, Harry Haydock and Raymie Wutherspoon at the Bon Ton,
repeated daily, "How's the good work coming? I hear the house is getting
to be real classy."

Even Mrs. Bogart.

Mrs. Bogart lived across the alley from the rear of Carol's house. She
was a widow, and a Prominent Baptist, and a Good Influence. She had so
painfully reared three sons to be Christian gentlemen that one of them
had become an Omaha bartender, one a professor of Greek, and one, Cyrus
N. Bogart, a boy of fourteen who was still at home, the most brazen
member of the toughest gang in Boytown.

Mrs. Bogart was not the acid type of Good Influence. She was the soft,
damp, fat, sighing, indigestive, clinging, melancholy, depressingly
hopeful kind. There are in every large chicken-yard a number of old and
indignant hens who resemble Mrs. Bogart, and when they are served at
Sunday noon dinner, as fricasseed chicken with thick dumplings, they
keep up the resemblance.

Carol had noted that Mrs. Bogart from her side window kept an eye upon
the house. The Kennicotts and Mrs. Bogart did not move in the same
sets--which meant precisely the same in Gopher Prairie as it did on
Fifth Avenue or in Mayfair. But the good widow came calling.

She wheezed in, sighed, gave Carol a pulpy hand, sighed, glanced sharply
at the revelation of ankles as Carol crossed her legs, sighed, inspected
the new blue chairs, smiled with a coy sighing sound, and gave voice:

"I've wanted to call on you so long, dearie, you know we're neighbors,
but I thought I'd wait till you got settled, you must run in and see me,
how much did that big chair cost?"

"Seventy-seven dollars!"

"Sev----Sakes alive! Well, I suppose it's all right for them that can
afford it, though I do sometimes think----Of course as our pastor said
once, at Baptist Church----By the way, we haven't seen you there yet,
and of course your husband was raised up a Baptist, and I do hope
he won't drift away from the fold, of course we all know there isn't
anything, not cleverness or gifts of gold or anything, that can make
up for humility and the inward grace and they can say what they want to
about the P. E. church, but of course there's no church that has more
history or has stayed by the true principles of Christianity better
than the Baptist Church and----In what church were you raised, Mrs.
Kennicott?"

"W-why, I went to Congregational, as a girl in Mankato, but my college
was Universalist."

"Well----But of course as the Bible says, is it the Bible, at least I
know I have heard it in church and everybody admits it, it's proper for
the little bride to take her husband's vessel of faith, so we all hope
we shall see you at the Baptist Church and----As I was saying, of course
I agree with Reverend Zitterel in thinking that the great trouble with
this nation today is lack of spiritual faith--so few going to church,
and people automobiling on Sunday and heaven knows what all. But still
I do think that one trouble is this terrible waste of money, people
feeling that they've got to have bath-tubs and telephones in their
houses----I heard you were selling the old furniture cheap."

"Yes!"

"Well--of course you know your own mind, but I can't help thinking, when
Will's ma was down here keeping house for him--SHE used to run in to SEE
me, real OFTEN!--it was good enough furniture for her. But there, there,
I mustn't croak, I just wanted to let you know that when you find you
can't depend on a lot of these gadding young folks like the Haydocks and
the Dyers--and heaven only knows how much money Juanita Haydock blows in
in a year--why then you may be glad to know that slow old Aunty Bogart
is always right there, and heaven knows----" A portentous sigh. "--I
HOPE you and your husband won't have any of the troubles, with sickness
and quarreling and wasting money and all that so many of these young
couples do have and----But I must be running along now, dearie. It's
been such a pleasure and----Just run in and see me any time. I hope Will
is well? I thought he looked a wee mite peaked."

It was twenty minutes later when Mrs. Bogart finally oozed out of the
front door. Carol ran back into the living-room and jerked open the
windows. "That woman has left damp finger-prints in the air," she said.



II


Carol was extravagant, but at least she did not try to clear herself of
blame by going about whimpering, "I know I'm terribly extravagant but I
don't seem to be able to help it."

Kennicott had never thought of giving her an allowance. His mother had
never had one! As a wage-earning spinster Carol had asserted to her
fellow librarians that when she was married, she was going to have an
allowance and be business-like and modern. But it was too much trouble
to explain to Kennicott's kindly stubbornness that she was a practical
housekeeper as well as a flighty playmate. She bought a budget-plan
account book and made her budgets as exact as budgets are likely to be
when they lack budgets.

For the first month it was a honeymoon jest to beg prettily, to confess,
"I haven't a cent in the house, dear," and to be told, "You're an
extravagant little rabbit." But the budget book made her realize how
inexact were her finances. She became self-conscious; occasionally she
was indignant that she should always have to petition him for the money
with which to buy his food. She caught herself criticizing his belief
that, since his joke about trying to keep her out of the poorhouse had
once been accepted as admirable humor, it should continue to be his
daily bon mot. It was a nuisance to have to run down the street after
him because she had forgotten to ask him for money at breakfast.

But she couldn't "hurt his feelings," she reflected. He liked the
lordliness of giving largess.

She tried to reduce the frequency of begging by opening accounts and
having the bills sent to him. She had found that staple groceries,
sugar, flour, could be most cheaply purchased at Axel Egge's rustic
general store. She said sweetly to Axel:

"I think I'd better open a charge account here."

"I don't do no business except for cash," grunted Axel.

She flared, "Do you know who I am?"

"Yuh, sure, I know. The doc is good for it. But that's yoost a rule I
made. I make low prices. I do business for cash."

She stared at his red impassive face, and her fingers had the
undignified desire to slap him, but her reason agreed with him. "You're
quite right. You shouldn't break your rule for me."

Her rage had not been lost. It had been transferred to her husband. She
wanted ten pounds of sugar in a hurry, but she had no money. She ran up
the stairs to Kennicott's office. On the door was a sign advertising a
headache cure and stating, "The doctor is out, back at----" Naturally,
the blank space was not filled out. She stamped her foot. She ran down
to the drug store--the doctor's club.

As she entered she heard Mrs. Dyer demanding, "Dave, I've got to have
some money."

Carol saw that her husband was there, and two other men, all listening
in amusement.

Dave Dyer snapped, "How much do you want? Dollar be enough?"

"No, it won't! I've got to get some underclothes for the kids."

"Why, good Lord, they got enough now to fill the closet so I couldn't
find my hunting boots, last time I wanted them."

"I don't care. They're all in rags. You got to give me ten dollars----"

Carol perceived that Mrs. Dyer was accustomed to this indignity. She
perceived that the men, particularly Dave, regarded it as an excellent
jest. She waited--she knew what would come--it did. Dave yelped,
"Where's that ten dollars I gave you last year?" and he looked to the
other men to laugh. They laughed.

Cold and still, Carol walked up to Kennicott and commanded, "I want to
see you upstairs."

"Why--something the matter?"

"Yes!"

He clumped after her, up the stairs, into his barren office. Before he
could get out a query she stated:

"Yesterday, in front of a saloon, I heard a German farm-wife beg her
husband for a quarter, to get a toy for the baby--and he refused. Just
now I've heard Mrs. Dyer going through the same humiliation. And I--I'm
in the same position! I have to beg you for money. Daily! I have just
been informed that I couldn't have any sugar because I hadn't the money
to pay for it!"

"Who said that? By God, I'll kill any----"

"Tut. It wasn't his fault. It was yours. And mine. I now humbly beg
you to give me the money with which to buy meals for you to eat. And
hereafter to remember it. The next time, I sha'n't beg. I shall simply
starve. Do you understand? I can't go on being a slave----"

Her defiance, her enjoyment of the role, ran out. She was sobbing
against his overcoat, "How can you shame me so?" and he was blubbering,
"Dog-gone it, I meant to give you some, and I forgot it. I swear I won't
again. By golly I won't!"

He pressed fifty dollars upon her, and after that he remembered to give
her money regularly . . . sometimes.

Daily she determined, "But I must have a stated amount--be
business-like. System. I must do something about it." And daily she
didn't do anything about it.



III


Mrs. Bogart had, by the simpering viciousness of her comments on the new
furniture, stirred Carol to economy. She spoke judiciously to Bea
about left-overs. She read the cookbook again and, like a child with
a picture-book, she studied the diagram of the beef which gallantly
continues to browse though it is divided into cuts.

But she was a deliberate and joyous spendthrift in her preparations for
her first party, the housewarming. She made lists on every envelope
and laundry-slip in her desk. She sent orders to Minneapolis "fancy
grocers." She pinned patterns and sewed. She was irritated when
Kennicott was jocular about "these frightful big doings that are going
on." She regarded the affair as an attack on Gopher Prairie's timidity
in pleasure. "I'll make 'em lively, if nothing else. I'll make 'em stop
regarding parties as committee-meetings."

Kennicott usually considered himself the master of the house. At his
desire, she went hunting, which was his symbol of happiness, and she
ordered porridge for breakfast, which was his symbol of morality. But
when he came home on the afternoon before the housewarming he found
himself a slave, an intruder, a blunderer. Carol wailed, "Fix the
furnace so you won't have to touch it after supper. And for heaven's
sake take that horrible old door-mat off the porch. And put on your nice
brown and white shirt. Why did you come home so late? Would you mind
hurrying? Here it is almost suppertime, and those fiends are just as
likely as not to come at seven instead of eight. PLEASE hurry!"

She was as unreasonable as an amateur leading woman on a first night,
and he was reduced to humility. When she came down to supper, when she
stood in the doorway, he gasped. She was in a silver sheath, the calyx
of a lily, her piled hair like black glass; she had the fragility and
costliness of a Viennese goblet; and her eyes were intense. He was
stirred to rise from the table and to hold the chair for her; and all
through supper he ate his bread dry because he felt that she would think
him common if he said "Will you hand me the butter?"



IV


She had reached the calmness of not caring whether her guests liked
the party or not, and a state of satisfied suspense in regard to Bea's
technique in serving, before Kennicott cried from the bay-window in
the living-room, "Here comes somebody!" and Mr. and Mrs. Luke Dawson
faltered in, at a quarter to eight. Then in a shy avalanche arrived
the entire aristocracy of Gopher Prairie: all persons engaged in a
profession, or earning more than twenty-five hundred dollars a year, or
possessed of grandparents born in America.

Even while they were removing their overshoes they were peeping at the
new decorations. Carol saw Dave Dyer secretively turn over the gold
pillows to find a price-tag, and heard Mr. Julius Flickerbaugh, the
attorney, gasp, "Well, I'll be switched," as he viewed the vermilion
print hanging against the Japanese obi. She was amused. But her high
spirits slackened as she beheld them form in dress parade, in a long,
silent, uneasy circle clear round the living-room. She felt that she had
been magically whisked back to her first party, at Sam Clark's.

"Have I got to lift them, like so many pigs of iron? I don't know that I
can make them happy, but I'll make them hectic."

A silver flame in the darkling circle, she whirled around, drew them
with her smile, and sang, "I want my party to be noisy and undignified!
This is the christening of my house, and I want you to help me have a
bad influence on it, so that it will be a giddy house. For me, won't you
all join in an old-fashioned square dance? And Mr. Dyer will call."

She had a record on the phonograph; Dave Dyer was capering in the center
of the floor, loose-jointed, lean, small, rusty headed, pointed of nose,
clapping his hands and shouting, "Swing y' pardners--alamun lef!"

Even the millionaire Dawsons and Ezra Stowbody and "Professor" George
Edwin Mott danced, looking only slightly foolish; and by rushing about
the room and being coy and coaxing to all persons over forty-five, Carol
got them into a waltz and a Virginia Reel. But when she left them to
disenjoy themselves in their own way Harry Haydock put a one-step record
on the phonograph, the younger people took the floor, and all the elders
sneaked back to their chairs, with crystallized smiles which meant,
"Don't believe I'll try this one myself, but I do enjoy watching the
youngsters dance."

Half of them were silent; half resumed the discussions of that afternoon
in the store. Ezra Stowbody hunted for something to say, hid a yawn, and
offered to Lyman Cass, the owner of the flour-mill, "How d' you folks
like the new furnace, Lym? Huh? So."

"Oh, let them alone. Don't pester them. They must like it, or they
wouldn't do it." Carol warned herself. But they gazed at her so
expectantly when she flickered past that she was reconvinced that in
their debauches of respectability they had lost the power of play as
well as the power of impersonal thought. Even the dancers were gradually
crushed by the invisible force of fifty perfectly pure and well-behaved
and negative minds; and they sat down, two by two. In twenty minutes the
party was again elevated to the decorum of a prayer-meeting.

"We're going to do something exciting," Carol exclaimed to her new
confidante, Vida Sherwin. She saw that in the growing quiet her voice
had carried across the room. Nat Hicks, Ella Stowbody, and Dave Dyer
were abstracted, fingers and lips slightly moving. She knew with a
cold certainty that Dave was rehearsing his "stunt" about the Norwegian
catching the hen, Ella running over the first lines of "An Old
Sweetheart of Mine," and Nat thinking of his popular parody on Mark
Antony's oration.

"But I will not have anybody use the word 'stunt' in my house," she
whispered to Miss Sherwin.

"That's good. I tell you: why not have Raymond Wutherspoon sing?"

"Raymie? Why, my dear, he's the most sentimental yearner in town!"

"See here, child! Your opinions on house-decorating are sound, but your
opinions of people are rotten! Raymie does wag his tail. But the poor
dear----Longing for what he calls 'self-expression' and no training in
anything except selling shoes. But he can sing. And some day when
he gets away from Harry Haydock's patronage and ridicule, he'll do
something fine."

Carol apologized for her superciliousness. She urged Raymie, and warned
the planners of "stunts," "We all want you to sing, Mr. Wutherspoon.
You're the only famous actor I'm going to let appear on the stage
tonight."

While Raymie blushed and admitted, "Oh, they don't want to hear me," he
was clearing his throat, pulling his clean handkerchief farther out of
his breast pocket, and thrusting his fingers between the buttons of his
vest.

In her affection for Raymie's defender, in her desire to "discover
artistic talent," Carol prepared to be delighted by the recital.

Raymie sang "Fly as a Bird," "Thou Art My Dove," and "When the Little
Swallow Leaves Its Tiny Nest," all in a reasonably bad offertory tenor.

Carol was shuddering with the vicarious shame which sensitive people
feel when they listen to an "elocutionist" being humorous, or to a
precocious child publicly doing badly what no child should do at all.
She wanted to laugh at the gratified importance in Raymie's half-shut
eyes; she wanted to weep over the meek ambitiousness which clouded like
an aura his pale face, flap ears, and sandy pompadour. She tried to look
admiring, for the benefit of Miss Sherwin, that trusting admirer of all
that was or conceivably could be the good, the true, and the beautiful.

At the end of the third ornithological lyric Miss Sherwin roused from
her attitude of inspired vision and breathed to Carol, "My! That was
sweet! Of course Raymond hasn't an unusually good voice, but don't you
think he puts such a lot of feeling into it?"

Carol lied blackly and magnificently, but without originality: "Oh yes,
I do think he has so much FEELING!"

She saw that after the strain of listening in a cultured manner the
audience had collapsed; had given up their last hope of being amused.
She cried, "Now we're going to play an idiotic game which I learned in
Chicago. You will have to take off your shoes, for a starter! After that
you will probably break your knees and shoulder-blades."

Much attention and incredulity. A few eyebrows indicating a verdict that
Doc Kennicott's bride was noisy and improper.

"I shall choose the most vicious, like Juanita Haydock and myself, as
the shepherds. The rest of you are wolves. Your shoes are the sheep.
The wolves go out into the hall. The shepherds scatter the sheep through
this room, then turn off all the lights, and the wolves crawl in from
the hall and in the darkness they try to get the shoes away from
the shepherds--who are permitted to do anything except bite and use
black-jacks. The wolves chuck the captured shoes out into the hall. No
one excused! Come on! Shoes off!"

Every one looked at every one else and waited for every one else to
begin.

Carol kicked off her silver slippers, and ignored the universal glance
at her arches. The embarrassed but loyal Vida Sherwin unbuttoned her
high black shoes. Ezra Stowbody cackled, "Well, you're a terror to old
folks. You're like the gals I used to go horseback-riding with, back in
the sixties. Ain't much accustomed to attending parties barefoot,
but here goes!" With a whoop and a gallant jerk Ezra snatched off his
elastic-sided Congress shoes.

The others giggled and followed.

When the sheep had been penned up, in the darkness the timorous wolves
crept into the living-room, squealing, halting, thrown out of their
habit of stolidity by the strangeness of advancing through nothingness
toward a waiting foe, a mysterious foe which expanded and grew more
menacing. The wolves peered to make out landmarks, they touched gliding
arms which did not seem to be attached to a body, they quivered with a
rapture of fear. Reality had vanished. A yelping squabble suddenly rose,
then Juanita Haydock's high titter, and Guy Pollock's astonished, "Ouch!
Quit! You're scalping me!"

Mrs. Luke Dawson galloped backward on stiff hands and knees into the
safety of the lighted hallway, moaning, "I declare, I nev' was so
upset in my life!" But the propriety was shaken out of her, and she
delightedly continued to ejaculate "Nev' in my LIFE" as she saw the
living-room door opened by invisible hands and shoes hurling through it,
as she heard from the darkness beyond the door a squawling, a bumping,
a resolute "Here's a lot of shoes. Come on, you wolves. Ow! Y' would,
would you!"

When Carol abruptly turned on the lights in the embattled living-room,
half of the company were sitting back against the walls, where they had
craftily remained throughout the engagement, but in the middle of the
floor Kennicott was wrestling with Harry Haydock--their collars torn
off, their hair in their eyes; and the owlish Mr. Julius Flickerbaugh
was retreating from Juanita Haydock, and gulping with unaccustomed
laughter. Guy Pollock's discreet brown scarf hung down his back. Young
Rita Simons's net blouse had lost two buttons, and betrayed more of her
delicious plump shoulder than was regarded as pure in Gopher Prairie.
Whether by shock, disgust, joy of combat, or physical activity, all the
party were freed from their years of social decorum. George Edwin Mott
giggled; Luke Dawson twisted his beard; Mrs. Clark insisted, "I did too,
Sam--I got a shoe--I never knew I could fight so terrible!"

Carol was certain that she was a great reformer.

She mercifully had combs, mirrors, brushes, needle and thread ready. She
permitted them to restore the divine decency of buttons.

The grinning Bea brought down-stairs a pile of soft thick sheets of
paper with designs of lotos blossoms, dragons, apes, in cobalt and
crimson and gray, and patterns of purple birds flying among sea-green
trees in the valleys of Nowhere.

"These," Carol announced, "are real Chinese masquerade costumes. I got
them from an importing shop in Minneapolis. You are to put them on over
your clothes, and please forget that you are Minnesotans, and turn into
mandarins and coolies and--and samurai (isn't it?), and anything else
you can think of."

While they were shyly rustling the paper costumes she disappeared. Ten
minutes after she gazed down from the stairs upon grotesquely ruddy
Yankee heads above Oriental robes, and cried to them, "The Princess
Winky Poo salutes her court!"

As they looked up she caught their suspense of admiration. They saw an
airy figure in trousers and coat of green brocade edged with gold; a
high gold collar under a proud chin; black hair pierced with jade pins;
a languid peacock fan in an out-stretched hand; eyes uplifted to a
vision of pagoda towers. When she dropped her pose and smiled down
she discovered Kennicott apoplectic with domestic pride--and gray Guy
Pollock staring beseechingly. For a second she saw nothing in all the
pink and brown mass of their faces save the hunger of the two men.

She shook off the spell and ran down. "We're going to have a real
Chinese concert. Messrs. Pollock, Kennicott, and, well, Stowbody are
drummers; the rest of us sing and play the fife."

The fifes were combs with tissue paper; the drums were tabourets and the
sewing-table. Loren Wheeler, editor of the Dauntless, led the orchestra,
with a ruler and a totally inaccurate sense of rhythm. The music was a
reminiscence of tom-toms heard at circus fortune-telling tents or at
the Minnesota State Fair, but the whole company pounded and puffed and
whined in a sing-song, and looked rapturous.

Before they were quite tired of the concert Carol led them in a dancing
procession to the dining-room, to blue bowls of chow mein, with Lichee
nuts and ginger preserved in syrup.

None of them save that city-rounder Harry Haydock had heard of any
Chinese dish except chop sooey. With agreeable doubt they ventured
through the bamboo shoots into the golden fried noodles of the chow
mein; and Dave Dyer did a not very humorous Chinese dance with Nat
Hicks; and there was hubbub and contentment.

Carol relaxed, and found that she was shockingly tired. She had carried
them on her thin shoulders. She could not keep it up. She longed for
her father, that artist at creating hysterical parties. She thought of
smoking a cigarette, to shock them, and dismissed the obscene thought
before it was quite formed. She wondered whether they could for five
minutes be coaxed to talk about something besides the winter top
of Knute Stamquist's Ford, and what Al Tingley had said about his
mother-in-law. She sighed, "Oh, let 'em alone. I've done enough." She
crossed her trousered legs, and snuggled luxuriously above her saucer
of ginger; she caught Pollock's congratulatory still smile, and thought
well of herself for having thrown a rose light on the pallid lawyer;
repented the heretical supposition that any male save her husband
existed; jumped up to find Kennicott and whisper, "Happy, my lord? . . .
No, it didn't cost much!"

"Best party this town ever saw. Only----Don't cross your legs in that
costume. Shows your knees too plain."

She was vexed. She resented his clumsiness. She returned to Guy Pollock
and talked of Chinese religions--not that she knew anything whatever
about Chinese religions, but he had read a book on the subject as, on
lonely evenings in his office, he had read at least one book on every
subject in the world. Guy's thin maturity was changing in her vision
to flushed youth and they were roaming an island in the yellow sea of
chatter when she realized that the guests were beginning that cough
which indicated, in the universal instinctive language, that they
desired to go home and go to bed.

While they asserted that it had been "the nicest party they'd ever
seen--my! so clever and original," she smiled tremendously, shook hands,
and cried many suitable things regarding children, and being sure to
wrap up warmly, and Raymie's singing and Juanita Haydock's prowess at
games. Then she turned wearily to Kennicott in a house filled with quiet
and crumbs and shreds of Chinese costumes.

He was gurgling, "I tell you, Carrie, you certainly are a wonder, and
guess you're right about waking folks up. Now you've showed 'em how,
they won't go on having the same old kind of parties and stunts and
everything. Here! Don't touch a thing! Done enough. Pop up to bed, and
I'll clear up."

His wise surgeon's-hands stroked her shoulder, and her irritation at his
clumsiness was lost in his strength.



V

From the Weekly Dauntless:


One of the most delightful social events of recent months was held
Wednesday evening in the housewarming of Dr. and Mrs. Kennicott, who
have completely redecorated their charming home on Poplar Street, and
is now extremely nifty in modern color scheme. The doctor and his bride
were at home to their numerous friends and a number of novelties in
diversions were held, including a Chinese orchestra in original and
genuine Oriental costumes, of which Ye Editor was leader. Dainty
refreshments were served in true Oriental style, and one and all voted a
delightful time.



VI


The week after, the Chet Dashaways gave a party. The circle of mourners
kept its place all evening, and Dave Dyer did the "stunt" of the
Norwegian and the hen.

 Carol vents her boredom by completely redecorating Will's home and giving it an edgy Japanese vibe. Once she's done, Will admits that it's nicer than it was before. Everyone in the town snoops around the redecorating and gossips about it. A neighbor named Mrs. Bogart is especially nosy: she comes over to visit and says some passive-aggressive, judgmental things about Carol's morals, and Carol is glad when she leaves. As time goes by, Carol quickly learns that she hates asking her husband for money. She especially hates the way the men of the town make fun of women for always spending so much. Carol quickly decides that she needs a set allowance in order to make budgets and control her spending. Meanwhile, Mrs. Bogart's sniping comments about the price of Carol's new furniture has made Carol self-consciously cheap. She does everything she can to save money around her house. When it comes to her first housewarming party, though, Carol goes all out with the expenses. Meanwhile, Will starts to feel like a stranger in his own house. Whenever he gets home from work, he feels like Carol is nagging him. At first, Carol's party is lively, but soon the gravitational pull of Gopher Prairie takes over, and the party becomes boring. Vida whispers to Carol that she should ask Raymie Wutherspoon to sing because he has a beautiful voice. Carol gives the go-ahead only to find that Raymie's voice is awful. It's just good enough for people in Gopher Prairie to think it's good. Carol gets everyone to play a scandalous game in the dark where people try to steal each other's shoes. When the lights come back on, people are freed from their usual reserve and everyone starts giggling. Carol is optimistic that she can get these people to loosen up. Next, Carol asks everyone to put on some Asian-inspired outfits and to pretend that they are from Asia instead of Minnesota. Her good time is ruined when her husband Will tells her not to cross her legs, because her costume shows too much of her knees. When the party is over, Will congratulates Carol on having a party that got people out of their shells. He's hopeful that she'll be able to change the attitudes of the whole town. But after a week, Carol's party is forgotten. The next party at another person's house is just as boring as any party before Carol arrived in Gopher Prairie.

