Main Street & Babbitt. Sinclair Lewis

he puffed and rumbled as he talked; his Phi Beta Kappa key shone against a spotty black vest; he smelled of old pipes; he was altogether funereal and archidiaconal; and to real-estate brokerage and the jobbing of bathroom-fixtures he added an aroma of sanctity.

      This morning he was in front of his house, inspecting the grass parking between the curb and the broad cement sidewalk. Babbitt stopped his car and leaned out to shout “Mornin'!” Littlefield lumbered over and stood with one foot up on the running-board.

      “Fine morning,” said Babbitt, lighting — illegally early — his second cigar of the day.

      “Yes, it's a mighty fine morning,” said Littlefield.

      “Spring coming along fast now.”

      “Yes, it's real spring now, all right,” said Littlefield.

      “Still cold nights, though. Had to have a couple blankets, on the sleeping-porch last night.”

      “Yes, it wasn't any too warm last night,” said Littlefield.

      “But I don't anticipate we'll have any more real cold weather now.”

      “No, but still, there was snow at Tiflis, Montana, yesterday,” said the Scholar, “and you remember the blizzard they had out West three days ago — thirty inches of snow at Greeley, Colorado — and two years ago we had a snow-squall right here in Zenith on the twenty-fifth of April.”

      “Is that a fact! Say, old man, what do you think about the Republican candidate? Who'll they nominate for president? Don't you think it's about time we had a real business administration?”

      “In my opinion, what the country needs, first and foremost, is a good, sound, business-like conduct of its affairs. What we need is — a business administration!” said Littlefield.

      “I'm glad to hear you say that! I certainly am glad to hear you say that! I didn't know how you'd feel about it, with all your associations with colleges and so on, and I'm glad you feel that way. What the country needs — just at this present juncture — is neither a college president nor a lot of monkeying with foreign affairs, but a good — sound economical — business — administration, that will give us a chance to have something like a decent turnover.”

      “Yes. It isn't generally realized that even in China the schoolmen are giving way to more practical men, and of course you can see what that implies.”

      “Is that a fact! Well, well!” breathed Babbitt, feeling much calmer, and much happier about the way things were going in the world. “Well, it's been nice to stop and parleyvoo a second. Guess I'll have to get down to the office now and sting a few clients. Well, so long, old man. See you tonight. So long.”

      II

      They had labored, these solid citizens. Twenty years before, the hill on which Floral Heights was spread, with its bright roofs and immaculate turf and amazing comfort, had been a wilderness of rank second-growth elms and oaks and maples. Along the precise streets were still a few wooded vacant lots, and the fragment of an old orchard. It was brilliant to-day; the apple boughs were lit with fresh leaves like torches of green fire. The first white of cherry blossoms flickered down a gully, and robins clamored.

      Babbitt sniffed the earth, chuckled at the hysteric robins as he would have chuckled at kittens or at a comic movie. He was, to the eye, the perfect office-going executive — a well-fed man in a correct brown soft hat and frameless spectacles, smoking a large cigar, driving a good motor along a semi-suburban parkway. But in him was some genius of authentic love for his neighborhood, his city, his clan. The winter was over; the time was come for the building, the visible growth, which to him was glory. He lost his dawn depression; he was ruddily cheerful when he stopped on Smith Street to leave the brown trousers, and to have the gasoline-tank filled.

      The familiarity of the rite fortified him: the sight of the tall red iron gasoline-pump, the hollow-tile and terra-cotta garage, the window full of the most agreeable accessories — shiny casings, spark-plugs with immaculate porcelain jackets tire-chains of gold and silver. He was flattered by the friendliness with which Sylvester Moon, dirtiest and most skilled of motor mechanics, came out to serve him. “Mornin', Mr. Babbitt!” said Moon, and Babbitt felt himself a person of importance, one whose name even busy garagemen remembered — not one of these cheap-sports flying around in flivvers. He admired the ingenuity of the automatic dial, clicking off gallon by gallon; admired the smartness of the sign: “A fill in time saves getting stuck — gas to-day 31 cents”; admired the rhythmic gurgle of the gasoline as it flowed into the tank, and the mechanical regularity with which Moon turned the handle.

      “How much we takin' to-day?” asked Moon, in a manner which combined the independence of the great specialist, the friendliness of a familiar gossip, and respect for a man of weight in the community, like George F. Babbitt.

      “Fill 'er up.”

      “Who you rootin' for for Republican candidate, Mr. Babbitt?”

      “It's too early to make any predictions yet. After all, there's still a good month and two weeks — no, three weeks — must be almost three weeks — well, there's more than six weeks in all before the Republican convention, and I feel a fellow ought to keep an open mind and give all the candidates a show — look 'em all over and size 'em up, and then decide carefully.”

      “That's a fact, Mr. Babbitt.”

      “But I'll tell you — and my stand on this is just the same as it was four years ago, and eight years ago, and it'll be my stand four years from now — yes, and eight years from now! What I tell everybody, and it can't be too generally understood, is that what we need first, last, and all the time is a good, sound business administration!”

      “By golly, that's right!”

      “How do those front tires look to you?”

      “Fine! Fine! Wouldn't be much work for garages if everybody looked after their car the way you do.”

      “Well, I do try and have some sense about it.” Babbitt paid his bill, said adequately, “Oh, keep the change,” and drove off in an ecstasy of honest self-appreciation. It was with the manner of a Good Samaritan that he shouted at a respectable-looking man who was waiting for a trolley car, “Have a lift?” As the man climbed in Babbitt condescended, “Going clear down-town? Whenever I see a fellow waiting for a trolley, I always make it a practice to give him a lift — unless, of course, he looks like a bum.”

      “Wish there were more folks that were so generous with their machines,” dutifully said the victim of benevolence. “Oh, no, 'tain't a question of generosity, hardly. Fact, I always feel — I was saying to my son just the other night — it's a fellow's duty to share the good things of this world with his neighbors, and it gets my goat when a fellow gets stuck on himself and goes around tooting his horn merely because he's charitable.”

      The victim seemed unable to find the right answer. Babbitt boomed on:

      “Pretty punk service the Company giving us on these car-lines. Nonsense to only run the Portland Road cars once every seven minutes. Fellow gets mighty cold on a winter morning, waiting on a street corner with the wind nipping at his ankles.”

      “That's right. The Street Car Company don't care a damn what kind of a deal they give us. Something ought to happen to 'em.”

      Babbitt was alarmed. “But still, of course it won't do to just keep knocking the Traction Company and not realize the difficulties they're operating under, like these cranks that want municipal ownership. The way these workmen hold up the Company for high wages is simply a crime, and of course the burden falls on you and me that have to pay a seven-cent fare! Fact, there's remarkable service on all their lines — considering.”

      “Well — ” uneasily.

      “Darn fine morning,” Babbitt explained. “Spring coming along fast.”

      “Yes, it's real spring now.”

      The victim had no originality, no wit, and Babbitt fell into a great silence and devoted