And there sure enough was Ruby across the room with Goldringer, which he evidently had come down to wait for the answer to that cable in the fresh air, and I suppose Ruby was a accident, the same as Freddy, for goodness knows, I wouldnt say a thing against her even behind her back—and a good deal could be saidbehind what shows of it when in costume. But I wouldnt say it anyhow, because even if it was the truth that woman would sue a person for liabale if only to get her name in the paper. And if she happened to be taking dinner with Goldringer, Gawd knows, its a comparatively free country and he's her manager as well as mine and its a good thing to assume its only business whenever possible as thinking the best of people never hurt anybody yet.
Also across the room all by himself was that young Captain, and he looked over twice but of course I pretended it was the picture on the wall over his head which had took my eye. Altogether that strange dining room wasnt much more lonesome to us than the Ritz or Astor for tea would of been. But the most remarkable part of the meal was Ma. Because she didn't touch it! Actually, and it the American plan which would tempt one of these Asthetics if for no other reason but that you have to pay for it anyway. And all she took was a piece of meat about the size of a dime and a leaf of salad.
"I'm going to stick by what I said if only because you said I wouldnt!" she says, lookingme square in the eye. "Diet is my middle name."
Well, I mentally give her until to-morrow on that but said nothing at the time. And we went out into the lounge where Mr. Freddy and three friends was already lounging and after they had joined us, Goldringer and Ruby did the same, and the drinks commenced to flow with that frantic haste like into a river at the edge of the ocean as the poet says, meaning because its near its finish. While I, never using any alcohol myself except to remove my make up, sat there flushed with Bevo, and couldn't help noticing the way the Captain which he was still all alone, looked over at the menagerie, and it made me boil for how could I help that piker Freddy and his cheap friends and the rest, and believe you me there are many perfect ladies in pictures and on the stage, only the public dont often recognize them because they are swamped with a bunch of roughnecks which all are popularly supposed to be.
It was a big relief when the Captain got up and went away about nine, and left us to a endurance contest as to which could sit up the longest in that refreshing atmosphere of cigarette smoke and drinks and ten-dollar perfumewith the sad sea waves beating vainly outside the carefully glass enclosed verandah until one o'clock—when I personally went to bed leaving them to their fate.
I give the telephone operator a terrible shock by leaving a call for seven thirty, and when it come I put on my riding suit which I had left from a dance called "The Call to Hounds" which Jim and me done at the Palace just before he enlisted, and went out into the keen morning air. And it was some air! Then I commenced to look around for horses but had great difficulty in finding the same, for it seems the Atlantic City horses dont get up any earlier than most of the visitors, and believe you me I and a few coons which were picking up scraps and so forth off the boardwalk, was the only birds in sight at that hour. Well anyways I walked along breathing in that sweet air at about fifty cents per breath by the hotel rates, but feeling pretty good in spite of it, when I actually found a place where the horses was up—or mabe they had been all night. I got a horse which looked considerable like a moth-eaten property one but could go pretty good and commenced to ride gently along what seemed to be my private ocean,when all of a sudden who would I see but the young Captain riding very good indeed. He come up to me on high and then tried to put on the brakes when he seen who it was, but the horse had its mind on something else and wouldnt, so he got by me but not without a "Good morning!" Which I thought fairly safe to smile at seeing we was so rapidly going in opposite directions. But it seems he must of spoke roughly to his steed for he come up behind me and spoke with just that grand refined Big-Time drawing-room act accent I knew by his little moustache he would have.
"I say! What luck!" he says. "You are Miss Marie LaTour, are you not?"
Was I sore? I was. Any lady would be and of course after the company he seen me in at the hotel what could I expect but to be picked up? But more particularly as he had my name and it with a good reputation, and no one can say different with truth, I simply had to show him where he got off.
"Sir!" I says, just like a play. "Sir! I do not know you. Please beat it at once!"
"I know, but really!" he begged, flashing that white smile. "I'm not trying to be impertenant—let me explain...."
"Explain nothing!" I says very haughty. "I wont listen."
"But I'm not doing what you think!" he cries out. "Please wait until you hear...."
"I've heard that 'please listen' stuff before," I says. "Good-by!"
And then I done the bravest act of my life, not being really acquainted with horses, especially Atlantic City ones. I give the horse a lash and off we went, I trying hard to give the impression of a good rider and not looking back because I dasn't with that animal headed for the steel pier full clip. But I heard the Captain's remarks, just the same.
"By jove, I'llmakeyou listen to me—just for that!" he says. And I heard no more, for the bird which keeps the horses come out and rescued me just before we hit the pier and I got off and started for the hotel, boiling with rage. Me treated like a common chorus girl! Me, once the best known parlor dancing act in the world, and now even more so on the motion picture screen and a lady or dead! I wouldnt of looked at that guy again on a bet—I made up my mind right then and there to show him his mistake and that if my accent wasnt as good as his my morals was better andno attempt on his part could get me to speak to him again.
Well in this state of mind I run into Ma, just before we reached the hotel which she was hurrying to just ahead of me, and believe you me I was sure surprised because I never knew her out so early although she generally is up by seven, but with her curlpapers still on and a kimona and thats different from coming out in public.
"I've been taking my exercise!" she says before I could speak. "And I'm glad to see you do the same," she says.
And I certainly had to hand it to her strength of mind because after being out so early and all she eat was only tea and dry toast for breakfast.
After which we stopped by the office and just before we got there I see the Captain give a note to the clerk and walk away. When we asked for mail that note was the first thing the clerk handed me.
"Captain Raymond just left this for you Miss LaTour," he says.
I didnt even open it.
"Kindly return it," I says, very dignified, giving it back, and looked over my other mail.But no letter from my husband, which is always the way on a day a woman most needs one. So I went upstairs very low in my mind and sort of glad that even if Jim couldn't think to write there was others would be glad enough to if they was let. And then I went and got Maison out of bed which she was taking her breakfast in.
"You come down here for your health and look what you do to it!" I says, and made her go for a boardwalk which she held out for about half a hour and no wonder with the heels she wears, and then stopped me with a gasp.
"Dearie, you surely must be the one that put the hell in health," she says, "For heavens sakes leave us sit down."
Well we did, and in about five minutes along comes Mr. Freddy with a friend, Mr. Sternberg, and it was remarkable how quick Maison recovered her strength, with the result that we spent a quiet little morning and about fifty dollars of Mr. Sternberg's money on shooting-galleries and throwing rings and carousels and a Japanese auction and other restful seaside sports, and ended at a quiet little café simply done in paper roses and rubber palm trees where the drinks was only seventy-five centsper each and I had to sit and watch them again, Ma having gone off to exercise and not appearing to want me along with her.
Well anyways I was sort of relieved over not having to eat lunch with Captain Raymond looking on back at the hotel, and was just thinking of it when who would come into that café but the Captain himself, alone except for another officer, a Lieutenant with his arm in a sling and caught sight of me the very minute he sat down.
Well of course I didnt look over at him but I couldnt help noticing he called a waiter and wrote a note on a piece of paper and that the waiter brought it over to me.
And Maison seen it too, and her gentleman friends the same, and did they kid me? They did! But I kept the bird which had brought the note over while I tore it in two without reading it and sent it back again that way and believe you me that got over, because I could see Captain Raymond turn red all the way across the noisy room.
Well I thought that had settled it and spent a mournful if busy afternoon in another café where there was lots of smoke and a Jazz band and dancing and Maison was real happy becauseshe had finally got Mr. Freddy to spend a nickle and a half. But I was lower than ever in my mind thinking how much more often some soldiers seemed able to write than others.
Well, after we had taken a nice walk in the fresh air nearly three blocks long, I got back to the hotel to find that Goldringer was giving a party that night beginning with dinner and of course Ma and me was booked for it and no escape because of my contract with him. And it was some party and at twelve o'clock that night I dragged my weary bones down the corridor after the second day of my rest, feeling that I would pass out any minute. A person certainly does need their strength to enjoy a American health resort.
The next morning I didn't even attempt to get up for any wild west exhibit. I hadn't the pep for one thing and the Captain was another reason of course. And when I finally come down-stairs and see Ma eat practically nothing, I let her set off right away after breakfast without me for exercise was nothing in my life. I strolled around the lobby waiting for Maison Rosabelle according to her request and there I seen a big poster which I had noticed before, the one about the entertainment for the benefitof blind soldiers which the Captain had been sitting under the first time I—he saw me, and I went over and read it and the entertainment was to come off that very night. And while I was reading it the second time the way a person does in a hotel lobby, up comes Captain Raymond and actually speaks right there where a sceene would of proved me no lady.
"Please, Miss LaTour!" he says. "It's soimportant."
"Kindly do not force me to call for assistance," I says low and quiet. "You are a stranger to me."
"But you dont understand!" he says, flushing up red the attractive way he had for all he was so fresh.
"Indeed I do," I says. "I havent been in the theatrical world since three generations for nothing," I says. "Kindly goaway!"
"If you would only listen for five minutes, I'd prove how mistaken you are!" he says. "Won't you give me a chance?"
"No!" I says.
"By Heavens, I'll make you!" he says, half laughing. "I've never seen anything so absurd! Why my dear lady...."
Right then up comes Maison in a simple littleXmas tree of a dress in green and gold and red, and I broke away and took her arm, and hurried her out through the front door, leaving the Captain staring after us and rather against Maison's will.
"Why didn't you introduce me, dearie?" she says. "I kind a thought you'd pick up that bird!"
"I didn't pick him up. I turned him down!" I snapped. But Maison kidded me the whole three hours while we was in the beauty-parlours getting waived and manicured.
Then we had a nice wholesome little lunch lasting only three hours and comparatively quiet and by ourselves, seeing there was only Goldringer and Ruby Roselle and Maison and Freddy and O'Flarety, our leading juvenile who had turned up, and Mr. Sternberger and a friend of Ma's which used to be in the circus with her, and Ma and myself. And all the way through I watched Ma kind of anxiously, for she only toyed with a little salad and passed up everything else. I was by this time really scared she would be haggard or something, butshe looked fine, and not a word of complaint out of her, only toward four o'clock she got kind of restless, and so did I, so we excused ourselves, and walked to the door together.
"You needn't come along with me, Mary Gilligan," she says. "I want to walk real fast."
I looked at her sort of surprised at that, but at the time the queerness didn't really sink in. And I was so wore out I was actually glad to let her go alone and personally, myself, I took one of those overgrown baby-carriages or rolling chairs which I thought a healthy young person like myself would never come to, and sank into it like the poor weary soul I was, and let the coon tuck me in like a six-months-old, and off we went as fast as a snail.
Well it was pleasanter than I had thought it would be and I got kind of drowsy and dreamy and somehow I couldnt help but think of Captain Raymond and how refined and nice he was and how my fame and beauty had captured him to the extent that it had almost made him forget to act like a gentleman, and how he persisted like a regular story book hero. And I wondered if he would shoot himself on my account, and that threw a awful scare into me,for handsome women have a terrible responsibility in the way they treat men. And I wondered was I really doing the right thing, taking such a risk by treating him so sever and not speaking and here he was in the service of his country and all and Gawd knows I might be wrecking his whole life from then on. And furthermore I thought how hard it is to be refined and what a lot a person has to sacrifice to it, and that the roughnecks of this world seem to have most of the fun. And that it was certainly hard to be dignified but that my whole career was built on my refinement no less than my great talent, and I must respect my own position. Ah well, uneasy lies the tooth that wears a crown as the poet says, or something!
And by this time the coon had got tired pushing me and turning my face sea-ward had gone to take a rest and I took one too and actually fell asleep.
When I woke up I was moving again, going slow in the direction of the Inlet, and I felt quite refreshed and happy, and the whole of Atlantic City appeared to feel the same, for everybody I passed smiled and seemed to be enjoying theirselves. And they all seemed to smile at me in such a sweet, friendly way itmade my heart feel awful good. I was even quite surprised because although of course I am used to being recognized every place I go, but still, more people than ever was doing it this afternoon. I begun to think I must be looking pretty good and that my hat, about which I had had a few doubts, was a big success after all. It really was a sort of triumphal progress as the saying is, and I had half a mind to turn around when we passed the last pier; but the ocean looked so beautiful and pink in the sunset and going the other way it would of been in my eyes, so I just let myself be rolled on and on until we was almost to the Inlet and not a soul in sight. Then the chair stopped and was turned against the rail.
"Now I've got you at last!" said a unexpected voice, and around from the back came, not the coon, but Captain Raymond.
"Where did you come from?" I asked, hardly able to speak.
"I have had the honor of pushing you into this secluded corner of—of the ocean!" he said, his blue eyes twinkling.
"But how—how . . ." I sputtered.
"I bought off the colored man while youwere sleeping," he said. "And have been your humble servant for almost an hour!"
Can you beat it? You cant!
"Well of all the nerve," I began, remembering how people had smiled, and no wonder!
"What are you going to do about it?" he asked.
"Walk home this minute!" I says, struggling with the rugs. But they had a will of their own and it was on his side and I just couldnt seem to get free of them.
"Oh I say, don't be so absurd!" he says smilingly.
"I'm not!" I says.
"Oh but you are!" he insisted. "Just sit still and let me show you something!"
Well, there was nothing for me but to give in or look a utter fool, and hewasso attractive! And, well anyways, I waited and he brought out a letter from his overcoat pocket and it was the very one he had wrote me first and I had returned it to the hotel clerk.
"Please just open it!" he begged, and I did and nearly fainted because inside was a letter in Jim's handwriting addressed to me and introducing Captain Charles Raymond who was with him in France, only being gassed was nowhome on leave and would I show him every courtesy as he had been good to my ever loving husband, Jim!
"And really and truly I wouldn't have been so persistant, Miss LaTour," Captain Raymond was saying as I looked up. "I had intended using it when I got to New York of course. But when they put me in charge of this entertainment for the benefit of the blind, and I discovered you were here, I was simply determined to get you to take part in it. Couldn't you do us just one little dance? It would be such a drawing-card, your name would. That was all I wanted, really!"
Believe you me I didn't know what to think or how I felt. Did I feel flat? I did! Did I feel relieved? I did!! So it wasnt a mash at all, and for a moment I felt a lonelier war-widow than ever. Then I remembered how Jim said in the note to be nice to this bird, and I could see, now that I looked at him good, that he was the sort which it is perfectly safe to be nice to. Not that he didnt admire me, either, but that he was just as refined as me and more so and was Jim's pal beside. So I says yes, of course I would dance, and we talked and talked and the sun went down, andgot to be real friends and was it good to hear about Jim, first hand?IT WAS! And after a while we commenced to walk back toward the hotel, pushing the chair, and the lights was all lit along the walk like Fairyland, and also in the shops so they was more like show-cases than ever. And then I got the second shock of the afternoon because at ten past six with dinner at seven, there was Ma in the Ocean Lunch eating griddle-cakes, fish-balls, Salsbury steake and coffee, with a little strained honey and apple-pie on the side! No wonder she could diet so good! And I take it to my credit that, since she did not notice me, I never let on that I seen her, not then nor afterward at dinner when she refused everything but two dill pickles!
But it wasn't until afterward when I was in the star dressing-room at the Apollo Theatre, putting on my make-up for the benefit that the real blow came. I was just about ready to go on when in rushed Goldringer, all breathless with a cablegram in his hand.
"Its all right about Olivette Twist!" he puffed at me. "We'll begin making that fillum Tuesday!" and he threw the messagedown on my dressing table. It was signed by our London manager and it read:—
"Present location of Charles Dickens uncertain but material is uncopyrighted, shoot."
And so immediately after the show, myself and Ma went back to New York to get a twenty-four hour rest before commencing work again.
Believeyou me, the world to-day is just about as settled as a green passenger on a trip to Bermuda. There is that same awful feeling of not knowing is something going to happen or not—do you get me? You do! And it can't help but strike even a mere womanly woman and lady like I, that unless the captain and officers keep a firm hand on the crew until we get a little ballast in the hold, we are likely to get in Dutch. Not meaning the Germans necessarily, but the Russians, or something just as bad. And perhaps it may seem strange for me to know about them nautchical terms, but anybody which has once been to Bermuda learns what ballast is on account of their not having hardly any on them boats because of the water not being deep enough, and believe you me, nothing I had to do in the fillum we madeafter what was left of us arrived there, and it was some fillum at that—$1000. for bathing costumes alone and me as "The Sea King's Conquest" in silver scales, although hardly knowing how to swim—was a patch on the treatment which that unballasted boat handed me on the trip down.
Well anyways, even when sitting in the security of my flat on the Drive, which Gawd knows it aught to be secure what with the salary I get and moving-pictures will be the last thing the common people will give up;—even with this security and the handsomest furniture any installment house could provide, and every other equipment which is necessary to one so prominent in my line as myself, still even in the scarcity of the home, as the poet says, I am conscious that the world is, or could quite easily be, on the blink.
And ain't it the truth? Even the simplest soul, buried in the wilds of Broadway and wholly absorbed in their own small life must feel the unrest. No use kidding ourselves about it. It's time for all good Americans to quit fighting among theirselves and come to the aid of the country. Regardless of race, creed or color, as the free hospital says, andGawd knows the hospital will be where they'll land if they don't. Do you get me? Probably not. What I mean is, it's time we quit talking anddidsomething. What? I dunno, quite, but it was this general line of thought, which come to me while listening to the director give me my instructions for the ball-room scene in "The Dove of Peace," where I catch the Russian Ambassador giving the nitro-glycerine or some other patent face-cleanser to the fake Senator, caused me to reform the White Kittens. That and Ma's peculiar behavior, plus the new cook.
You see it come over me all of a sudden that we ladies have now a vote and so forth, which unquestionably makes us more or less citizens the same as the men, and if the country went bluey, why wouldn't it be our fault as well? And I come to this partially through the sense of unrest and having eat something that didn't settle good and Ma's behavior. All coming at once they kind of got together and exploded into my idea.
Well anyways, I had just come to a place in my personal life where I seen a little peace and quiet ahead and nothing to do but go up in an aeroplane for the second reel of "The Dove."The war was over without Jim being killed in it and a new chance offered by a big picture contract the minute his uniform should be off him; I was going strong with nothing but Broadway releases and a salary which made Morgan jealous; my spring clothes hadn't a failure among them and only one of my hats was too tight in the head. The fool dogs was both healthy, the cook had stayed a month; the car had been in order for over three weeks, and I had successfully nursed Ma through the flu. And I thought fat could not harm me, as the poet says, for I had dieted to-day. When all of a sudden Ma, who had hardly got over the Influenza, come down with Bolshevism.
Now the trouble with these new diseases is that the doctors don't seem to know anything about them nor what makes them catching. At least that is the line of talk they pull, but I got a hunch myself, that if the flu had been quarantined right in the first place it could of been stopped. Do you get me? You do! And I will say one more word in favor of Influenza. You was obliged to report it, if only to the Board of Health. But Bolshevism seems to be like a cold in the head. If you catch it, that evidently is nobody's business but yourown; if you spread it—the same. Then again folks are kind of proud of having had the flu. It makes conversation and everything, and one which has escaped feels a little mortified like admitting they had never seen Charlie Chaplin. Indeed, people certainly do get a lot of pleasure out of illness and etc. And so long as it is under control, all right, leave them enjoy theirselves. They had to suffer first and mabe a little talk is coming to them.
But with this Bolshevism it's the other way around. The talk comes first, but believe you me, the suffering will come afterwards. And if they could only be made to realise this ere too late, a whole lot of patients would be cured before they got it. A ounce of Americanism is worth a pound of red propaganda, as the poet says, or would of had he written to-day.
Things started with Ma as per usual upsetting the cook which has come to be a habit with her, for cooking is to Ma what his art is to Caruso—naught but death could tear her from it permanent. And while I give her credit for trying in every way to be an idle rich, the kitchen might as well be furnished with magnets and she a nail for all she can keep out of it with the natural result that keeping out ofit is the best thing the cooks we hire do. And I can't say with any truth that I have made as much effort to break her of that as of some other lack of refinements, such as remembering that toothpicks ain't a public utility and never to say "excuse my back," or keep her knife and fork for the next course at the Ritz. Because believe you me, Ma is some cook and a real authograph dinner by her is something to bring tears of sweet memory to the eyes of the older generation and leave us young things in sympathetic wonder about them dear dead days when first class home-cooking was a custom, not a curiosity. And so while the material side of life don't interest me much, what with my work and etc. to take my mind off it, still even a artist must eat or Gawd knows where the strength to act in the "Dove of Peace" or any other six-reeler would come from if I didn't, and Ma's is that simple nourishing kind, but with quality, the same as the sort of dresses I wear—made out of two dollars worth of material and a thousand dollar idea.
Well anyways, our latest cook which had a husband in the service and had took up her work again so's to release him for the front at Camp Mills, for he got no further, heard hewas coming back home, having got his discharge and it upset her so but whether from joy or rage, I don't know which, that there was nothing to eat in the kitchen but a little liquor she had left at seven-thirty, when we went in to see what was the cause of delay, and me with Maison Rosabelle and a friend to dinner. So Ma woke her up out of her emotions which she claimed had overcome her, and give her a honorable discharge of her own and then turned up the ends of her sleeves, and only a little hampered by the narrow skirt to the green satin evening gown she had on her, give us a meal as per above described. And no one would of cared how long it was before the intelligence office—I mean domestic, not U.S. Army—sent us a cook but that in trying to save her dress Ma got hot grease on her right hand and that changed the situation because we had to call up next day and take anything they had—and they sent us up a German woman.
Well, believe you me, that was a shock because I had an idea that all the Germans in the country was either interned or incognito, but this one wasn't even disguised, which isn't so remarkable on account of her being pretty near as big as Ma and a voice on her like a fog-hornwith a strong accent on the fog. I never in my life see so many bags and bundles and ecteras as that female had with her, for she was undoubtedly one, although she had a sort of moustache beside the voice. But what she had in voice she certainly lacked in words. When Ma set out to ask her the usual questions which everybody does, although their heart is trembling with fear, she won't take the job, this lady Hun didn't divulge no more information about herself than we asked. She was as stingy with her language as if it had been hard liquor. Ma asked her to come in, and she did, and sat without being asked upon one of the gold chairs in the parlor which I certainly never expected it would survive the test, they being made for parlor rather than sitting room.
Well anyways, it's a fact she certainly was a mountain and if she were a fair specimen, all this about the Germans starving to death is the bunk. Only her being over here may of made a difference. Well, after she had set down a bundle done up in black oil-cloth, a cute little hand-bag about a yard long made out of somebody's old stair-carpet, a shoe-box with a heel of bread sticking out at one end, an umbrella which looked like a sea-side one, a pot ofwhite hyacinths in full bloom and a net-bag full of little odds and ends, she still had an old black pocket-book and a big bulky bundle done up in a shawl lying idly in her lap. After I had taken all this in, I gave her personally the once-over and was surprised to see she wasn't so old as her figure, or anything like it. For by the size of her she might of been the Pyramids, but her face was quite young and if she had been a boy I would of said the moustache was the first cherished down.
"What's your name, dearie?" says Ma, which I simply can't learn her not to be familiar with servants.
"Anna," says the lump.
"And where do you come from?" says Ma, giving a poor imitation of a detective.
"Old Country," says Anna. Well, Ma and me at once exchanged glances, putting name and place together.
"German?" says Ma. "Of course!"
"Swedish," says Anna, more lumpishly than ever.
And just at that moment the air was filled with a big laugh that none of us there had give voice to. It wassomeshock, that laugh, and Ma and me looked around expecting to seewho had come into the room, but it was nobody. Anna was the only one who didn't seem disturbed. She just went on sitting.
"Who was that?" says Ma.
"It must of been outside," I says, for it was warm and we had the windows open so's to let in the gasoline and railroad smoke and a little fresh air.
"I guess so," says Ma. Then she went back to her third-degree.
"So you're Swedish!" says Ma. "Can you cook?"
"Good!" says Anna. "Svell cook!"
"Well, dearie!" says Ma, "why was it you left your last place?"
"Too hot!" says Anna. And again me and Ma exchanged glances.
"Are you a good American?" says Ma.
"Good American-Swedish," says Anna. And immediately that awful laugh was repeated. This time it was in the room, no doubt about it. And yet no one was there outside ourselfs.
"My Gawd!" says Ma. "What was it?"
"Somebody is hid some place!" I says. "And I'd like to know who is it with the cheap sense of humor?"
"It bane Frits," says Anna. "Na, na, Frits!"
"But where on earth . . ." I was commencing, when I noticed Anna was unwinding the shawl off the package in her lap. And then in another moment we seen Frits for our own selves, for there he was, a big moth-eaten parrot, interned in a cage, making wicked eyes at us and giving us the ha-ha like the true Hun he was!
"Frits and me, we stay!" announced Anna comfortably. "We stay!"
"But look here," says I, "we didn't start out to hire any parrots."
"Why Mary Gilligan!" says Ma, and I could see she was scared that if Frits went Anna would certainly go, too. "Why Mary Gilligan, I thought you was fond of dumb animals!" she says.
"And so I am," I says. "The dumber the better. But this one is evidently far from it! How am I going to figure out my income tax with this bird hanging around?"
"Hang in den Kitchen!" says Anna firmly, and at that we gave in, because cooks is cooks, and what's a bird more or less after all? Still I didn't like him on account of suspecting hewasn't a neutral any more than Anna was for all she claimed to be a Swede. I had read a piece in the paper about where the Germans was pretending to be Swede or Spanish or anything they could get away with so's to remain free to spread Bolshevism and influenza and bombs and send up the price of dry and fancy goods and put through the Prohibition amendment and all them other gentle little activities for which they are so well and justly known.
But I thought knowledge is power as the guy which wrote the copy-book says, and I had the drop on Anna through being on to her disguise and beside which I could see Ma was going to be miserable if she had to eat out while her hand was in the sling, and so we took the viper to our bosom, or in other words, we hired her, and anyways, she had already accepted the job and it would of been a lot of trouble to get her out by force. Which, believe you me, a person seldom has to do with servants now-a-days, and confirmed me about her being German because naturally people don't hire them, if acknowledging to themselves that theyareGermans any more than they would now deliberately import sauerkraut or anyother German industry. Do you get me? You'd better!
But in this case there was a reasonable doubt together with a real necessity, although from what come of it, I feel, looking backwards, it would of been better to eat out and suffer than to of compromised with our patriotic consciences like we done at that time. Because there isnoreasonable doubt but that Anna's coming into the house was greatly responsible for Ma's catching Bolshevism.
Not that she caught it off Anna directly, because for once we had a cook which couldn't talk or understand American and so there was no use in Ma's hanging around the kitchen worrying the life out of her. And so the very first morning Anna was on the premises, Ma commenced hanging around and worrying the life out of me.
It happened we was waiting for the aeroplane I was to go up in to arrive at the studio, and so for once having my morning for myself, I thought I would just dash off my income tax return, and be done with it.
But it seems that this is one of the things which is easier said than done, the same as signing the peace-treaty, and believe you me, the last ain't got a thing on the former and I don't know did Pres. Wilson make out his own income tax return or not. But if he did and the collector of Internal Revenue left him get by with it as he must of or why would the Pres. be in Paris, which is out of the country, well anyways, if the Pres. did it alone, believe you me, he will get away with the treaty all right, and probably even write in this here Leg of Nations under table 13, page 1, of return and instructions page 2 under K (b) without having to ask anybody how to do it, he having undoubtedly shown the power to think.
Well anyways, I had taken all the poker-chips, silk-sale samples, old theatre programs and etc., out of my desk, found my fountain pen and a bottle of ink, and was turning that cute little literacy test around and over to see where would I commence and had got no further than the realization that most of my brains is in my feet instead of behind my face, when Ma comes in and commences worrying me because she could not cook nor yet crochet like the lillies of the field, or whatever that well-knownidle flower was. I tried to listen at least as politely as is ever required of a daughter to her mother, but when I was trying to figure out my answer to question No. 5 and getting real mad over its personalness, I couldn't stand to hear her complain over not being able to crochet them terrible mats she makes which are not fit for anything except Xmas presents, anyways.
"The trouble with you, Ma," I snapped at last, "is that you aught to get a live-wire outside interest. You're getting out of date. Ladies don't crochet no more and even knitting has been dished by the armistice. You never read a newspaper or a book. You should go in for something snappy and up to the moment like literature or jobs for soldiers, or business, or something."
This got Ma's goat right off, like I hoped it would.
"Oh, so I'm on the shelf, am I?" she says, "well, leave me tell you Mary Gilligan, if it wasn't for us back numbers you new numbers wouldn't evenbehere, don't forget that! And after having been the first American lady to do the double backward leap on the two center trapeses, I can hardly be called a dead one,even if a little heavier than I was. And from that time on I have never ceased to be forward."
"You'd have to show me," I says, grimly.
"All right, I will," she says.
And believe you me, she did. She went and got on her dolman and her spring hat and left me in wrath and the midst of that income tax with that "I'll never come back" air so familiar to all well-regulated families.
Well, as I sat there struggling over where to put the × and = marks, and how much exemption could I get away with and still be on speaking terms with myself, and wondering whether the two fool dogs was dependents or not—which they aught to be, seeing how helpless they are and a big expense and Gawd knows I keep them only for appearances and they aught to come under the head of professional expenditures, because no well-known actress but has them to help out the scenery—well anyways, I was deep in this highly high-brow occupation in the comparatively perfect silence of my exclusive flat where ordinarily we don't hear a thing but the neighbors' pianola and the dumb-waiter and the auto horns on the drive and the train just beyond—well, thiscomparatively for New York, perfect silence was broke by an awful yell in the apartment itself.
"Anarchy!" a terrible voice hollered. And then again "Anarchy! Anarchy!"
Believe you me, my blood turned to lemon soda for a moment and the boys in the trenches never had worse crawling down the back than me at that minute, coming as it did right on top of me, writing in opposite to B. income from salaries—you know—$60,000.00. The silence which followed was even worse. And I sat there sort of frozen while expecting a bomb would go off any minute, and Gawd knows sixty thousand is a lot of money, but any one which investigated the true facts could quickly see that I earn every cent of it and anyways brains has a right to the bigger share, not to mention ability, and if the way I worked myself up from the lower classes ain't proof of what can be done single-handed in America, I don't know what is, and anybody which works as hard and lives as decent as I done can do the same, not that I want to hand myself anything extra, only speaking personally, I am in a position to know.
But just the same I wasn't reasoning at theminute and the justice, as you might say, of my case didn't occur to me until later. As I sat there trying to remember to think, the voice yells it again, only this time with additions.
"Anarchy! Love Anarchy! Pretzel!"
And then I realised it was that parrot belonging to the new cook.
Can you imagine my feelings on top of my suspicions of her? You can! I got up and went into the kitchen to see if a bomb was may be being prepared for our dinner, but not at all. The kitchen was scrubbed to the last tile, something that smelled simply grand was baking, the white hyacinths was in the sun on the window-sill, and Anna was humming under her breath while she rolled out biscuit-dough. The radical parrot was shut up, but only as to mouth, he being loose and walking about the top of the clothes-wringer, making himself very much at home, and giving mesomeevil look as I come in.
"Aren't you afraid he'll get away?" I says.
"Huh?" says Anna, stopping rolling, and blinking at me.
"Lose him—parrot——!" I says, pointing to him and flapping my arms like wings.
"Frits?" she said. "Na—Frits like liberty!"
And that was all I could get out of her. I stuck around for a few minutes more, until Anna commenced to give me the cook's-eye, that bird backing her up and sneering at me while dancing slowly on the wringer, but not moving a step. So I got out and back to the parlor but not to my work which Gawd knows I had to take it over to the bank and leave them do it for me after all—but sat down instead to consider them two suspicious birds in the back part of the flat. I personally myself was convinced that there was something very wrong about Anna. But so far she had said nothing under the espionage law exactly and I didn't know could you arrest a bird for too much liberty of speech even though it loved anarchy, and liberty and everything and was undoubtedly capable of spreading propaganda what with the voice it had.
Well anyways, as I was holding my marcelle wave with both hands and racking what little was underneath it over the situation, I heard the key in the lock and in come Ma all flushed and cheerful and pleased with herself and handed me another jolt.
"I had a real sweet, pleasant morning," she says, taking off her gloves and hat and wipingher face with one of them big handkerchiefs like she used to carry in the circus and will not give up. "A real nice time," she says, egging me on to question her.
"Where have you been?" I says, like she wanted me to.
"Oh, just to a little Bolsheviki meeting," she says, casual. And picking up her things she started for her room.
"Hold on, Ma!" I says, having managed to get my breath before she reached the door. "Say that again, will you?"
She turned and come back at that, still keeping up the careless stuff.
"Certainly," she says, "Bolsheviki meeting. Are you interested in this up-to-date stuff?"
"Interested!" I says. "Of course I am. I'm against it. Why Ma Gilligan!" I says. "Do you know what Bolshevismis?"
"Do you?" says Ma, sweetly.
"No!" says I. "And neither do they. But I am sure it's the bunk, and I feel it's wrong, and I am ashamed of you going!"
"How old-fashioned of you, dearie," says Ma. "Have you ever heard a speaker or been to a meeting?"
"I don't need to!" I says short, being kind of at a loss.
"Well, I have!" says Ma, triumphant.
"Where was it at?" I demanded.
"Down to the circus," says Ma. "In the Bear-wrestler's dressing room. I went to call on some of the folks and get the news and Madame Jones, the new automobile act—very distinguished lady—got me to it. A most exclusive affair, with only the highest priced acts invited!"
"And who spoke?" I says.
"Kiskoff, the bear-wrestler," says Ma. "It certainly was interesting."
"What did he say?" I says, it getting harder and harder to remember I was a lady and she my only mother. "What did he say?"
"I dunno!" says Ma.
"You don't know!" I fairly yells. "And why don't you know?"
"Because he only talks Russian!" says Ma, and walked out, leaving me flat.
Well, believe you me, I was that upset I scarcely took any notice of my lunch, although it was a real nice meal, commencing with some juicy kind of fish and eggs and ending up withpancakes rolled up and filled with cream curds and powdered sugar.
Ma took to these eats immensely, and she and Anna exchanged a couple of smiles, which made me feel like the only living American. And when later in the day Ma told me she thought she'd join the Bolshevists if she didn't have to be immersed, and that this Kiskoff's life was in danger for his beliefs just like the early Romans and nobody knew where he lived, but was a man of mystery, I couldn't stand it another moment, but beat it for a long walk by myself because my nerves was sure on edge and that aeroplane stunt facing me next week.
But the walk wasn't altogether pleasant, at least not at the start or at the finish, because when I come out of our palatial near-marble front stoop, there was a guy standing which might just as well of had on the brass-buttons and all because you could tell at once by the disguise that he was a plain-clothes cop. Not that I am so familiar with them, but their clothes is generally so plain any one could tell them. Do you get me? You do!
Well anyways, this bird was standing opposite our door, and at the second glance I had him spotted or nearly so, and when I comeback from walking fast and wishing to Gawd Jim was back to advise me and occupying our flat instead of Germany, the fly-cop was still there by which I became certain he was one; the more so as I watched him from a window once I was in, and the way he kept camouflaging himself as a casual passer-by, ended my doubts.
Well, was that some situation? It was! Here was myself, a good American though but an ignorant woman, surrounded by all the terrible and disturbing elements of the day; with everything which aught to be kept out of every U. S. A. home creeping into mine, and all so sudden that I hadn't got my breath yet much less any action. In fact, I was sort of dizzy with what was happening, and my head didn't quiet down any when, after dinner that night, I heard deep voices out in back.
"Anna has company!" says Ma in explanation. "Two of them, and I think they are talking Russian. At any rate one has a beard almost as handsome as Mr. Kiskoff's."
This got my angora, and while no lady would ever spy on her cook, this was surely a exception and so I took a quiet peek in through the pantry slide and there was Anna and two bighe-men all talking at once. The window was open a little ways from the top and on it was Frits, also talking in Russian or something, and no earthly reason why he couldn't take his liberty and go right out if he had really wanted it. And still another jolt was handed me when I realised one of the men was our very own ice-man!
Believe you me, when I went to bed that night in my grey French enameled Empire style I was wore out with the series of jolts which the day has handed me. But it is not my custom to sit back and talk things over too long. I have ever noticed that the person which talks too much seldom does a whole lot, and that a quick decision if wrong, at least learns you something, and you can start again on the right track. And no later than the next day after a funny, though good breakfast, of coffee and new bread with cinnamon and sugar baked into it and herrings in cream, I commenced to act.
"Ma, are you going to keep up this Bolshevist bull?" I says.
"I am!" she says. "You told me to do something modern and I'm doing the very modernest thing there is!"
"You are going to be wrong on that by this P. M.," I says, "or to-morrow at latest," I says, "because there is or aught to be something moderner, and that is United Americanism!" I says. "And since the only way to fight fire is with it, I am going to start a rival organization and start it quick!" I says, "and I'm going to do it on a sounder basis than your people ever dreamed of because we'll all talk English so's we'll each of us know what the organization is about!"
"Why Marie La Tour!" says Ma, which it's a fact she only calls me that when she's sore at me. "Why, Marie La Tour, what is your organization going to do?"
"I don't know yet beyond one thing," I says, "we are going toget togetherand keep together!"
And so, without waiting for a come-back or any embarrassing questions, I hustled into a simple little grey satin Trotteur costume which is French for pony-clothes and left that homefull of heavy-weight traitors where a radical parrot yelled "Anarchy" from morning till night, and even the steam radiators had commenced to smell like dynimite. And having shut the door after me with quite some explosionmyself, I had the limousine headed to the White Kittens Annual Ball Assn., which I was due at it on account of all the most prominent ladies in picture and theatrical circles being on the committee and I naturally being indespensible if only for the value of my name. So I started off but not before I noticed that the same plain-clothes John was again perched opposite my front door.
All the way to the Palatial Hotel which the meeting is always held in the grand ballroom of, I kept getting more and more worked up. Things had certainly gone too far when Bolshevism had spread from the parlor to the kitchen or visa-versa, I didn't know which, and my own Ma being undoubtedly watched by the more or less Secret Service, all because of her having taken a fancy to them whiskers of this Kiskoff cockoo, which is the only explanation I could make of it, and after being a widow twenty years she aught to of been ashamed of herself. Still, it was a better explanation for her to of lost her head than her patriotism, and I tried to think this the case. And my ownposition was something to bring tears to a glass eye, what with my well-known war-work and a perfectly good husband still in the service. And I had made a threat to take action, and had no idea what it would be, only that now I certainly had to deliver the goods.
Well anyways, in despair and the limousine, I finally arrived at the Palatial and there in the lobby was several other White Kittens which were also late, so we give each other's clothes the once-over and asked after our healths and etc., and then hurried up in the elevator to where the meeting had already commenced.
Believe you me, my mind stuck to that meeting about as good as a W.S.S. which has been in your purse a month does when you find your card. The room was as full as could be with the biggest crowd I ever knew to turn out for it. But somehow while I am generally pretty well interested in any crowd, this time nothing seemed to register except my own thoughts. Even the chairlady couldn't hold my attention partially because she was Ruby Roselle, and what they wanted to elect that woman for I don't know because her head is certainly not the part of her which earned her theatricalreputation and a handsome back is no disgrace and if that and a handful of costume is art far be it from me to say anything: but it is neither refinement nor does it make a good executor for a live organization like the Kittens. And what is more, any woman which had her nose changed from Jewish to Greek right in the middle of a big feature fillum can't run any society to suit me, not to mention the fact that as I sat there watching her talk I come slowly to realize that she had several jewels and a couple of friends which was found to be pro-Germans and been interned, although nothing was ever proved onto Ruby herself.
Still, coming on top of what I had been going through the last couple of days, I took a sudden suspicion of her being lady-chairman to one of America's oldest organizations of the female gender, it having been formed 'way back in 1911. And what is furthermore, as I sat there hating her with her synthetic Christian nose and her genuine Jewish diamonds, the big idea come at last—a way to at once get something started before she did, because how did I know but she'd have the orchestra play "die Watch on Rinewine," and feed us on weenies and pumpernickle for supper at theball if something radical wasn't done at once? That is, I mean radical in the right sense, of course. So when she says "Any other remarks?" I jumped to my feet quick before she could say "the meeting is injoined."
"Yes, Miss Ruby Schwartz Roselle, there is," I said. "I will be obliged to have the floor a minute."
"You can have it for all of me, dearie," says Ruby, sweetly, as she recognized her enemy. "Miss Marie La Tour has the floor."
And then without hardly knowing what I was doing and forgetting even to feel did my nose need powder before I commenced, I began talking with something fluttering inside me like a bird's wing. You know—a feeling like a try-out before a big-time manager. But behind the scare, the strength of knowing you can deliver the goods.
"Ladies and fellow or, I should say, sister-Kittens!" I commenced. "There was a time when the well-known words 'Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party' so thrilled America that it has become not alone printed in all copy books, but is the first sentence which is learned by every typewriter. But since then times have changeduntil, believe you me, now is the time for all good parties to come to the aid of the nation in order to show all which are not Americans first just where they get off, and ladies, we here assembled are a party not to be scorned, what with a sustaining membership of over five hundred, and more than a thousand one-dollar members. And what is more, though admittedly mere females we have a vote in most places now, including this state, and while I have no doubt you have always intended to be good citizens, having the vote you are now obliged to be so."
There was quite a little clapping at this, so I was encouraged to go on, although Ruby's voice says "Out of Order!" twice. Well, I couldn't see anybody that was behaving disorderly, so I just went ahead with my idea.
"And so my idea is this," I says. "That all Americans, whether lady or gentleman citizens, should get together in one big association for U. S. A. Actually get together instead of leaving things be. An association is, as I understand it, intended for purposes of association. And why not simply associate each association with every other, canning all small private schemes and party interests on the onegrand common interest of Bolsheviking the Bolsheviks? I'm sure that if all parties concerned will forget they are Democrats or Republicans or Methodists or Suffragists—even whether they are ladies or gentlemen, and remember they are Americans, nothing can ever rough-house this country like Europe has been in several places, for in Union is Strength, in God we Trust, but He helps those who helps themselves, and if we'll only drop our self-interests and make the union our first idea, God help the foreigners which tries to help themselves to our dear country!"
By this time the girls was giving me a hand the like of which I never had before on stage or screen, because their hearts were in them. Do you get me? You do! And it was quite a spell before Ruby could get order, although she kept pounding with the silver cat's-paw of her office. Finally, when she could make herself heard, she says very sarcastic,
"And how does Miss La Tour suggest we commence?" she says.
"By unanimously voting ourselfs 'The White Kittens Patriotic Association of America,'" I says at once. "Call a extra meeting to change the constitution temporarily fromannual Balls and festivals for the benefit of indignant members, to a association for associating with other associations as before suggested. Use part of the money from the ball just arranged for, to advertise our idea in newspapers and billboards, and believe you me, by the time we ladies get that far, some gentleman's association will be on the job to show us a practical way to use ourselves!"
Well, the Kittens seemed to think this all right, too, and in spite of Ruby, the next meeting was called and we broke up in high excitement, and I was surrounded by admiring friends all anxious to tell me they felt the same as me, and so forth and etc. And finally, after I had been treated to lunch by several of them, not including Ruby, I collapsed into my limousine, and said home James, and set my face flat-ward with a brave heart which knew no fear on account of having accomplished something worth while. Even the sight of the obtrusively unobtrusive bull still waiting like the wolf at the door, didn't dampen my spirit.
And it was not until I got upstairs that I commenced realizing that my own home would be the first place to set in order, and how could I be a great American female leader with aBolshevist mother and a German cook, and how could I preach a thing with one hand and not practice it with the other? Of course, I could fire the cook, but how about Ma? It was she herself settled that part of it the moment I stepped into the parlor, for there she was all alone except for the two dogs, and what was more, all of a heap, beside.
"Well, thank goodness, you decided to come home, Mary Gilligan!" she says. "Something awful has happened!"
"Not Jim?" I gasps, my heart nearly stopping, for he is always the first thing I think of.
"Jim, nothing!" says Ma. "It's poor Kiskoff!"
"Oh, him!" I says, relieved. "What of it?"
"They arrested him this morning!" says Ma, all broken up, the poor fish! "Arrested him just before the meeting!"
"Good!" I says. "I knew they would. The hound, he couldn't go around forever talking Bolshevism!"
"It wasn't for that," says Ma.
"Then for what?" I says, blankly.
"For back alimony!" says Ma, almost in tears. "It seems he married a girl out in Kansas several years ago, and they parted when the circus left, and it wasn't Russian he was talking, but Yiddish! He speaks English as well as me."
"And I suppose you'll tell me next that he wasn't talking Bolshevism," says I.
"He wasn't—he was only asking them to join the circus-workers' union Local 21—" says Ma. "He explained it all to the cops!"
"Ma!" I demanded solemnly, a light coming over me. "Ma, have you honestly got any idea what this Bolshevismis?Come on, own up!"
"Certainly!" she says. "It's something like Spiritualism or devil-worship, ain't it? A sort of fancy religion!"
"Nothing so respectable!" I says very sharp, yet awful relieved that I had guessed the truth. "No such thing. Bolshevism is Russian for sore-head. Religion my eye! It's about as much a religion as small-pox is!"
Oh! the handicap of having no education! I certainly felt sorry for Ma. But I needn't of because she give me one of them looks of hers which always turns my dress to plaid calico and pulls my hair down my back again.
"Well, daughter, why didn't you say so in the first place?" she says, just as if she'd caughtmein a lie. But I let it pass and apologized, I was so glad to find she was a fake. And Ma promised to leave them low circus people alone for a spell and come back to the White Kittens again. I then announced I was going out and fire Anna. At that a look of terror came over Ma's face, and she restrained me by the sleeve.
"Be careful how you go near that kitchen!" she says warningly.
"For heaven's sakes, Ma!" I says. "What's wronger than usual out there?"
"I dunno, but I think something is!" she says. "I believe it's a bomb!"
"A bomb!" I says. "Whatter you mean?"
"Anna is out to market," says Ma, "and the one with the black beard like poor Kiskoff's brought it. 'For Anna,' says he, and shoved it at me, and snook off down the stairs like a murderer."
"Broughtwhat?"I says.
"The bomb, of course!" says Ma, impatient herself.
"How do you know it's one?" I says, a little uneasy and wishing I had fired Anna before she got this swell chance of firing us.
"Well, it looks just like the one in the picturewhere them three Germans blew theirselves up in the newspaper!" says she. "And it ticks."
"My Gawd!" I says. "Where is the thing?"
"On the kitchen-table," says Ma.
"Well," I says, bravely. "I think I aught to take a look at it anyways."
"I wished you wouldn't," says she. But she came down the hall after me like the loyal mother she is, and the two of us stopped at the threshhold as the poet says.
And there, sure enough, in the middle of the spotless oilcloth on the kitchen table lay a mighty funny looking package, about the size of a dish-pan and done up in that black oil-cloth them foreigners seem so fond of. And between yells from that radical parrot, who commenced his "I love Anarchy!" the moment he set eyes on us, we could hear that evil-looking package tick as plain as day.
Well, what with a mother and a father both practically born on the centre trapese and used myself to taking chances since early childhood, I don't believe I'm more of a coward than most. But I will admit my heart commenced going too quick at that sight and the radical bird was as usual loose in the place, and didn't makemy nerves any easier. But a stitch in time often saves a whole pair of silk ones, and remembering this, I took some quick action. I turned up my georgette crepe sleeves, and the front of my skirt so's not to splash it, and made straight for the sink, keeping my eye on the centre-table all the while.
"Look out!" screams Ma. "What are you going to do?"
"Throw cold water on it!" I says. And filling the dish-pan I took a long sling with it, and pretty near drowned the kitchen table, to say nothing of the scare I threw into Frits. As soon as he quit, we listened again, but my efforts had been in vain, for the thing was still ticking—slow, loud ticks, and very alarming.
"No good!" I says, sadly. "We'll have to take severer measures!"
"Well, what'll they be?" says Ma.
"There's a plain-clothes cop outside looking for trouble," says I grimly, "and here is where I hand him a little," says I.
And then, without waiting even to roll down the georgettes, I hurried to the window and looked out. Like most cops, he couldn't be seen at first when wanted, but finally he cameinto view and I tried to catch his attention, but was unable to at first. But finally he heard me and looked up, and I beckoned.
"Bomb!" I says. "Hurry up!"
And did he hurry? He did! I would not of believed a man his size could do it, but he must of beat the elevator, for it never brought me up that fast. When I let him in, his lack of surprise was the most alarming thing which had yet been pulled. He evidentlyexpecteda bomb to be here.
"By golly, we'll get them now!" he says triumphantly. "We been watching this place for two months on account of having it straight that there is a bunch of Bolshevist bomb makers in this building or the next one, and this is the first time anything has stirred! Where is your bomb? Lead me to it!"