Babbit (30 page)

  Less annoying but also much duller were the minor
classes which were being instructed in philosophy and Oriental
ethnology by earnest spinsters. Most of them met in the highly
varnished Sunday School room, but there was an overflow to the
basement, which was decorated with varicose water-pipes and lighted
by small windows high up in the oozing wall. What Babbitt saw,
however, was the First Congregational Church of Catawba. He was
back in the Sunday School of his boyhood. He smelled again that
polite stuffiness to be found only in church parlors; he recalled
the case of drab Sunday School books: "Hetty, a Humble Heroine" and
"Josephus, a Lad of Palestine;" he thumbed once more the
high-colored text-cards which no boy wanted but no boy liked to
throw away, because they were somehow sacred; he was tortured by
the stumbling rote of thirty-five years ago, as in the vast Zenith
church he listened to:

  "Now, Edgar, you read the next verse. What does it
mean when it says it's easier for a camel to go through a needle's
eye? What does this teach us? Clarence! Please don't wiggle so! If
you had studied your lesson you wouldn't be so fidgety. Now, Earl,
what is the lesson Jesus was trying to teach his disciples? The one
thing I want you to especially remember, boys, is the words, 'With
God all things are possible.' Just think of that always - Clarence,
PLEASE pay attention - just say 'With God all things are possible'
whenever you feel discouraged, and, Alec, will you read the next
verse; if you'd pay attention you wouldn't lose your place!"

  Drone - drone - drone - gigantic bees that boomed in
a cavern of drowsiness -

  Babbitt started from his open-eyed nap, thanked the
teacher for "the privilege of listening to her splendid teaching,"
and staggered on to the next circle.

  After two weeks of this he had no suggestions
whatever for the Reverend Dr. Drew.

  Then he discovered a world of Sunday School
journals, an enormous and busy domain of weeklies and monthlies
which were as technical, as practical and forward-looking, as the
real-estate columns or the shoe-trade magazines. He bought half a
dozen of them at a religious book-shop and till after midnight he
read them and admired.

  He found many lucrative tips on "Focusing Appeals,"
"Scouting for New Members," and "Getting Prospects to Sign up with
the Sunday School." He particularly liked the word "prospects," and
he was moved by the rubric:

  "The moral springs of the community's life lie deep
in its Sunday Schools - its schools of religious instruction and
inspiration. Neglect now means loss of spiritual vigor and moral
power in years to come.... Facts like the above, followed by a
straight-arm appeal, will reach folks who can never be laughed or
jollied into doing their part."

  Babbitt admitted, "That's so. I used to skin out of
the ole Sunday School at Catawba every chance I got, but same time,
I wouldn't be where I am to-day, maybe, if it hadn't been for its
training in - in moral power. And all about the Bible. (Great
literature. Have to read some of it again, one of these days."

  How scientifically the Sunday School could be
organized he learned from an article in the Westminster Adult Bible
Class:

  "The second vice-president looks after the
fellowship of the class. She chooses a group to help her. These
become ushers. Every one who comes gets a glad hand. No one goes
away a stranger. One member of the group stands on the doorstep and
invites passers-by to come in."

  Perhaps most of all Babbitt appreciated the remarks
by William H. Ridgway in the Sunday School Times:

  "If you have a Sunday School class without any pep
and get-up-and-go in it, that is, without interest, that is
uncertain in attendance, that acts like a fellow with the spring
fever, let old Dr. Ridgway write you a prescription. Rx. Invite the
Bunch for Supper."

  The Sunday School journals were as well rounded as
they were practical. They neglected none of the arts. As to music
the Sunday School Times advertised that C. Harold Lowden, "known to
thousands through his sacred compositions," had written a new
masterpiece, "entitled 'Yearning for You.' The poem, by Harry D.
Kerr, is one of the daintiest you could imagine and the music is
indescribably beautiful. Critics are agreed that it will sweep the
country. May be made into a charming sacred song by substituting
the hymn words, 'I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say.' "

  Even manual training was adequately considered.
Babbitt noted an ingenious way of illustrating the resurrection of
Jesus Christ:

  "Model for Pupils to Make. Tomb with Rolling Door. -
Use a square covered box turned upside down. Pull the cover forward
a little to form a groove at the bottom. Cut a square door, also
cut a circle of cardboard to more than cover the door. Cover the
circular door and the tomb thickly with stiff mixture of sand,
flour and water and let it dry. It was the heavy circular stone
over the door the women found 'rolled away' on Easter morning. This
is the story we are to 'Go-tell.'"

  In their advertisements the Sunday School journals
were thoroughly efficient. Babbitt was interested in a preparation
which "takes the place of exercise for sedentary men by building up
depleted nerve tissue, nourishing the brain and the digestive
system." He was edified to learn that the selling of Bibles was a
hustling and strictly competitive industry, and as an expert on
hygiene he was pleased by the Sanitary Communion Outfit Company's
announcement of "an improved and satisfactory outfit throughout,
including highly polished beautiful mahogany tray. This tray
eliminates all noise, is lighter and more easily handled than
others and is more in keeping with the furniture of the church than
a tray of any other material." IV

  He dropped the pile of Sunday School journals.

  He pondered, "Now, there's a real he-world.
Corking!

  "Ashamed I haven't sat in more. Fellow that's an
influence in the community - shame if he doesn't take part in a
real virile hustling religion. Sort of Christianity Incorporated,
you might say.

  "But with all reverence.

  "Some folks might claim these Sunday School fans are
undignified and unspiritual and so on. Sure! Always some skunk to
spring things like that! Knocking and sneering and tearing-down -
so much easier than building up. But me, I certainly hand it to
these magazines. They've brought ole George F. Babbitt into camp,
and that's the answer to the critics!

  "The more manly and practical a fellow is, the more
he ought to lead the enterprising Christian life. Me for it! Cut
out this carelessness and boozing and - Rone! Where the devil you
been? This is a fine time o' night to be coming in!"

  I

  
T
HERE are but
three or four old houses in Floral Heights, and in Floral Heights
an old house is one which was built before 1880. The largest of
these is the residence of William Washington Eathorne, president of
the First State Bank.

  The Eathorne Mansion preserves the memory of the
"nice parts" of Zenith as they appeared from 1860 to 1900. It is a
red brick immensity with gray sandstone lintels and a roof of slate
in courses of red, green, and dyspeptic yellow. There are two
anemic towers, one roofed with copper, the other crowned with
castiron ferns. The porch is like an open tomb; it is supported by
squat granite pillars above which hang frozen cascades of brick. At
one side of the house is a huge stained-glass window in the shape
of a keyhole.

  But the house has an effect not at all humorous. It
embodies the heavy dignity of those Victorian financiers who ruled
the generation between the pioneers and the brisk "sales-engineers"
and created a somber oligarchy by gaining control of banks, mills,
land, railroads, mines. Out of the dozen contradictory Zeniths
which together make up the true and complete Zenith, none is so
powerful and enduring yet none so unfamiliar to the citizens as the
small, still, dry, polite, cruel Zenith of the William Eathornes;
and for that tiny hierarchy the other Zeniths unwittingly labor and
insignificantly die.

  Most of the castles of the testy Victorian tetrarchs
are gone now or decayed into boarding-houses, but the Eathorne
Mansion remains virtuous and aloof, reminiscent of London, Back
Bay, Rittenhouse Square. Its marble steps are scrubbed daily, the
brass plate is reverently polished, and the lace curtains are as
prim and superior as William Washington Eathorne himself.

  With a certain awe Babbitt and Chum Frink called on
Eathorne for a meeting of the Sunday School Advisory Committee;
with uneasy stillness they followed a uniformed maid through
catacombs of reception-rooms to the library. It was as unmistakably
the library of a solid old banker as Eathorne's side-whiskers were
the side-whiskers of a solid old banker. The books were most of
them Standard Sets, with the correct and traditional touch of dim
blue, dim gold, and glossy calf-skin. The fire was exactly correct
and traditional; a small, quiet, steady fire, reflected by polished
fire-irons. The oak desk was dark and old and altogether perfect;
the chairs were gently supercilious.

  Eathorne's inquiries as to the healths of Mrs.
Babbitt, Miss Babbitt, and the Other Children were softly paternal,
but Babbitt had nothing with which to answer him. It was indecent
to think of using the "How's tricks, ole socks?" which gratified
Vergil Gunch and Frink and Howard Littlefield - men who till now
had seemed successful and urbane. Babbitt and Frink sat politely,
and politely did Eathorne observe, opening his thin lips just wide
enough to dismiss the words, "Gentlemen, before we begin our
conference - you may have felt the cold in coming here - so good of
you to save an old man the journey - shall we perhaps have a whisky
toddy?"

  So well trained was Babbitt in all the conversation
that befits a Good Fellow that he almost disgraced himself with
"Rather than make trouble, and always providin' there ain't any
enforcement officers hiding in the waste-basket - " The words died
choking in his throat. He bowed in flustered obedience. So did Chum
Frink.

  Eathorne rang for the maid.

  The modern and luxurious Babbitt had never seen any
one ring for a servant in a private house, except during meals.
Himself, in hotels, had rung for bell-boys, but in the house you
didn't hurt Matilda's feelings; you went out in the hall and
shouted for her. Nor had he, since prohibition, known any one to be
casual about drinking. It was extraordinary merely to sip his toddy
and not cry, "Oh, maaaaan, this hits me right where I live!" And
always, with the ecstasy of youth meeting greatness, he marveled,
"That little fuzzy-face there, why, he could make me or break me!
If he told my banker to call my loans - ! Gosh! That quarter-sized
squirt! And looking like he hadn't got a single bit of hustle to
him! I wonder - Do we Boosters throw too many fits about pep?"

  From this thought he shuddered away, and listened
devoutly to Eathorne's ideas on the advancement of the Sunday
School, which were very clear and very bad.

  Diffidently Babbitt outlined his own
suggestions:

  "I think if you analyze the needs of the school, in
fact, going right at it as if it was a merchandizing problem, of
course the one basic and fundamental need is growth. I presume
we're all agreed we won't be satisfied till we build up the biggest
darn Sunday School in the whole state, so the Chatham Road
Presbyterian won't have to take anything off anybody. Now about
jazzing up the campaign for prospects: they've already used
contesting teams, and given prizes to the kids that bring in the
most members. And they made a mistake there: the prizes were a lot
of folderols and doodads like poetry books and illustrated
Testaments, instead of something a real live kid would want to work
for, like real cash or a speedometer for his motor cycle. Course I
suppose it's all fine and dandy to illustrate the lessons with
these decorated book-marks and blackboard drawings and so on, but
when it comes down to real he-hustling, getting out and drumming up
customers - or members, I mean, why, you got to make it worth a
fellow's while.