Chapter: I

THEY had four hours in New York between trains. The one thing Babbitt
wished to see was the Pennsylvania Hotel, which had been built since his
last visit. He stared up at it, muttering, "Twenty-two hundred rooms and
twenty-two hundred baths! That's got everything in the world beat. Lord,
their turnover must be--well, suppose price of rooms is four to eight
dollars a day, and I suppose maybe some ten and--four times twenty-two
hundred-say six times twenty-two hundred--well, anyway, with restaurants
and everything, say summers between eight and fifteen thousand a day.
Every day! I never thought I'd see a thing like that! Some town! Of
course the average fellow in Zenith has got more Individual Initiative
than the fourflushers here, but I got to hand it to New York. Yes, sir,
town, you're all right--some ways. Well, old Paulski, I guess we've
seen everything that's worth while. How'll we kill the rest of the time?
Movie?"

But Paul desired to see a liner. "Always wanted to go to Europe--and, by
thunder, I will, too, some day before I past out," he sighed.

From a rough wharf on the North River they stared at the stern of
the Aquitania and her stacks and wireless antenna lifted above the
dock-house which shut her in.

"By golly," Babbitt droned, "wouldn't be so bad to go over to the
Old Country and take a squint at all these ruins, and the place where
Shakespeare was born. And think of being able to order a drink whenever
you wanted one! Just range up to a bar and holler out loud, 'Gimme a
cocktail, and darn the police!' Not bad at all. What juh like to see,
over there, Paulibus?"

Paul did not answer. Babbitt turned. Paul was standing with clenched
fists, head drooping, staring at the liner as in terror. His thin body,
seen against the summer-glaring planks of the wharf, was childishly
meager.

Again, "What would you hit for on the other side, Paul?"

Scowling at the steamer, his breast heaving, Paul whispered, "Oh, my
God!" While Babbitt watched him anxiously he snapped, "Come on, let's
get out of this," and hastened down the wharf, not looking back.

"That's funny," considered Babbitt. "The boy didn't care for seeing the
ocean boats after all. I thought he'd be interested in 'em."


II

Though he exulted, and made sage speculations about locomotive
horse-power, as their train climbed the Maine mountain-ridge and from
the summit he looked down the shining way among the pines; though he
remarked, "Well, by golly!" when he discovered that the station at
Katadumcook, the end of the line, was an aged freight-car; Babbitt's
moment of impassioned release came when they sat on a tiny wharf on Lake
Sunasquam, awaiting the launch from the hotel. A raft had floated down
the lake; between the logs and the shore, the water was transparent,
thin-looking, flashing with minnows. A guide in black felt hat with
trout-flies in the band, and flannel shirt of a peculiarly daring blue,
sat on a log and whittled and was silent. A dog, a good country
dog, black and woolly gray, a dog rich in leisure and in meditation,
scratched and grunted and slept. The thick sunlight was lavish on the
bright water, on the rim of gold-green balsam boughs, the silver birches
and tropic ferns, and across the lake it burned on the sturdy shoulders
of the mountains. Over everything was a holy peace.

Silent, they loafed on the edge of the wharf, swinging their legs above
the water. The immense tenderness of the place sank into Babbitt, and
he murmured, "I'd just like to sit here--the rest of my life--and
whittle--and sit. And never hear a typewriter. Or Stan Graff fussing in
the 'phone. Or Rone and Ted scrapping. Just sit. Gosh!"

He patted Paul's shoulder. "How does it strike you, old snoozer?"

"Oh, it's darn good, Georgie. There's something sort of eternal about
it."

For once, Babbitt understood him.


III

Their launch rounded the bend; at the head of the lake, under a mountain
slope, they saw the little central dining-shack of their hotel and the
crescent of squat log cottages which served as bedrooms. They landed,
and endured the critical examination of the habitues who had been at the
hotel for a whole week. In their cottage, with its high stone fireplace,
they hastened, as Babbitt expressed it, to "get into some regular
he-togs." They came out; Paul in an old gray suit and soft white shirt;
Babbitt in khaki shirt and vast and flapping khaki trousers. It was
excessively new khaki; his rimless spectacles belonged to a city office;
and his face was not tanned but a city pink. He made a discordant noise
in the place. But with infinite satisfaction he slapped his legs and
crowed, "Say, this is getting back home, eh?"

They stood on the wharf before the hotel. He winked at Paul and drew
from his back pocket a plug of chewing-tobacco, a vulgarism forbidden
in the Babbitt home. He took a chew, beaming and wagging his head as
he tugged at it. "Um! Um! Maybe I haven't been hungry for a wad of
eating-tobacco! Have some?"

They looked at each other in a grin of understanding. Paul took the
plug, gnawed at it. They stood quiet, their jaws working. They solemnly
spat, one after the other, into the placid water. They stretched
voluptuously, with lifted arms and arched backs. From beyond the
mountains came the shuffling sound of a far-off train. A trout leaped,
and fell back in a silver circle. They sighed together.


IV

They had a week before their families came. Each evening they planned to
get up early and fish before breakfast. Each morning they lay abed till
the breakfast-bell, pleasantly conscious that there were no efficient
wives to rouse them. The mornings were cold; the fire was kindly as they
dressed.

Paul was distressingly clean, but Babbitt reveled in a good sound
dirtiness, in not having to shave till his spirit was moved to it. He
treasured every grease spot and fish-scale on his new khaki trousers.

All morning they fished unenergetically, or tramped the dim and
aqueous-lighted trails among rank ferns and moss sprinkled with crimson
bells. They slept all afternoon, and till midnight played stud-poker
with the guides. Poker was a serious business to the guides. They did
not gossip; they shuffled the thick greasy cards with a deft ferocity
menacing to the "sports;" and Joe Paradise, king of guides, was
sarcastic to loiterers who halted the game even to scratch.

At midnight, as Paul and he blundered to their cottage over the pungent
wet grass, and pine-roots confusing in the darkness, Babbitt rejoiced
that he did not have to explain to his wife where he had been all
evening.

They did not talk much. The nervous loquacity and opinionation of the
Zenith Athletic Club dropped from them. But when they did talk they
slipped into the naive intimacy of college days. Once they drew their
canoe up to the bank of Sunasquam Water, a stream walled in by the dense
green of the hardhack. The sun roared on the green jungle but in the
shade was sleepy peace, and the water was golden and rippling. Babbitt
drew his hand through the cool flood, and mused:

"We never thought we'd come to Maine together!"

"No. We've never done anything the way we thought we would. I expected
to live in Germany with my granddad's people, and study the fiddle."

"That's so. And remember how I wanted to be a lawyer and go into
politics? I still think I might have made a go of it. I've kind of got
the gift of the gab--anyway, I can think on my feet, and make some kind
of a spiel on most anything, and of course that's the thing you need in
politics. By golly, Ted's going to law-school, even if I didn't! Well--I
guess it's worked out all right. Myra's been a fine wife. And Zilla
means well, Paulibus."

"Yes. Up here, I figure out all sorts of plans to keep her amused. I
kind of feel life is going to be different, now that we're getting a
good rest and can go back and start over again."

"I hope so, old boy." Shyly: "Say, gosh, it's been awful nice to sit
around and loaf and gamble and act regular, with you along, you old
horse-thief!"

"Well, you know what it means to me, Georgie. Saved my life."

The shame of emotion overpowered them; they cursed a little, to prove
they were good rough fellows; and in a mellow silence, Babbitt whistling
while Paul hummed, they paddled back to the hotel.


V

Though it was Paul who had seemed overwrought, Babbitt who had been the
protecting big brother, Paul became clear-eyed and merry, while Babbitt
sank into irritability. He uncovered layer on layer of hidden weariness.
At first he had played nimble jester to Paul and for him sought
amusements; by the end of the week Paul was nurse, and Babbitt accepted
favors with the condescension one always shows a patient nurse.

The day before their families arrived, the women guests at the
hotel bubbled, "Oh, isn't it nice! You must be so excited;" and the
proprieties compelled Babbitt and Paul to look excited. But they went to
bed early and grumpy.

When Myra appeared she said at once, "Now, we want you boys to go on
playing around just as if we weren't here."

The first evening, he stayed out for poker with the guides, and she said
in placid merriment, "My! You're a regular bad one!" The second evening,
she groaned sleepily, "Good heavens, are you going to be out every
single night?" The third evening, he didn't play poker.

He was tired now in every cell. "Funny! Vacation doesn't seem to have
done me a bit of good," he lamented. "Paul's frisky as a colt, but I
swear, I'm crankier and nervouser than when I came up here."

He had three weeks of Maine. At the end of the second week he began to
feel calm, and interested in life. He planned an expedition to climb
Sachem Mountain, and wanted to camp overnight at Box Car Pond. He was
curiously weak, yet cheerful, as though he had cleansed his veins of
poisonous energy and was filling them with wholesome blood.

He ceased to be irritated by Ted's infatuation with a waitress (his
seventh tragic affair this year); he played catch with Ted, and with
pride taught him to cast a fly in the pine-shadowed silence of Skowtuit
Pond.

At the end he sighed, "Hang it, I'm just beginning to enjoy my vacation.
But, well, I feel a lot better. And it's going to be one great year!
Maybe the Real Estate Board will elect me president, instead of some
fuzzy old-fashioned faker like Chan Mott."

On the way home, whenever he went into the smoking-compartment he felt
guilty at deserting his wife and angry at being expected to feel guilty,
but each time he triumphed, "Oh, this is going to be a great year, a
great old year!"

 During their layover in New York, Paul wants to see the Aquitania, declaring that he "Always wanted to go to Europe". As they stare at the line, Paul becomes so tense and agitated that they have to leave. In Maine, George and Paul spend their time relaxing and sitting at the edge of a wharf. For the week before their families arrive, the men indulge themselves by sleeping late, chewing tobacco, playing poker late into the night, and not bathing every day. They view the vacation as a chance to get "a good rest. and start over again". Over the course of the week, Paul becomes increasingly relaxed and cheerful, whereas George becomes increasingly weary and overwrought. When his family arrives, he is agitated again and reminded of his troublesome sense of obligation, though he is able to enjoy spending time with Ted and feels somewhat rejuvenated

