Sinclair Lewis: Main Street

11. CHAPTER XI (continued)

He cocked his head, and purred, "Well, I guess if I cashed in on all my securities and farm-holdings and my interests in iron on the Mesaba and in Northern timber and cut-over lands, I could push two million dollars pretty close, and I've made every cent of it by hard work and having the sense to not go out and spend every----"

"I think I want most of it from you!"

The Dawsons glanced at each other in appreciation of the jest; and he chirped, "You're worse than Reverend Benlick! He don't hardly ever strike me for more than ten dollars-- at a time!"

"I'm not joking. I mean it! Your children in the Cities are grown-up and well-to-do. You don't want to die and leave your name unknown. Why not do a big, original thing? Why not rebuild the whole town? Get a great architect, and have him plan a town that would be suitable to the prairie. Perhaps he'd create some entirely new form of architecture. Then tear down all these shambling buildings----"

Mr. Dawson had decided that she really did mean it. He wailed, "Why, that would cost at least three or four million dollars!"

"But you alone, just one man, have two of those millions!"

"Me? Spend all my hard-earned cash on building houses for a lot of shiftless beggars that never had the sense to save their money? Not that I've ever been mean. Mama could always have a hired girl to do the work--when we could find one. But her and I have worked our fingers to the bone and-- spend it on a lot of these rascals----?"

"Please! Don't be angry! I just mean--I mean---- Oh, not spend all of it, of course, but if you led off the list, and the others came in, and if they heard you talk about a more attractive town----"