LETTER XVIII
IN WHICH I STICK TO THE JOB
Dear Mom:
I have got my first week’s salary as Emergency Field Grammarian and gee it is wonderful. All that I have to do is to go to the department and sign my name three times and I get what is called a warrant that anybody will give me the money for. And I felt so rich and fine with that $26 in my purse the first thing I did was to buy this money order to pay you back your two spots and three spots extra.
And then I remembered what Mr. Edgerton said that I must not lose touch with the plain people but remember how they feel so that I will be able to tell him so that he can tell the Spokesman up at the big white house what to say to all the newspaper reporters. So I decided that I would meet some plain people right away so what should I do but pay a call on the Elite Beauty Parlors? It is lovely warm spring weather and I have got on my fine new clothes and I walk in as cool as a pineapple sundae and look round and see that Floradumbelle has no customer so I walk to her table and sit myself down and I says, “Well good afternoon and how is things going in the old shop?”
Well there is the madame and she glares at me like the old she-devil that she is, and Floradumbelle she stares with her mouth open and all the other girls is stopping their work to stare and I am taking off my pearl grey gloves in no hurry and I says, “I would like to have a manicuring if this shop aint raised its prices too many times since I was here.”
So of course what can she do but start work and the madame what can she do but hold her mouth and me what am I there for but to talk? So I says in a good loud voice, “Oh Flora dear I am having such a wonderful time and rising so fast in the world I am an Emergency Field Grammarian to the Bureau of Indian Affairs of the Department of the Interior and it is a most responsible position and I do not have to do a thing except what I please and I can travel and have an allowance for expenses and I am going to Camden New Jersey the first time I can be spared from the government and see my Mom and my Pop and my fyansay. And hello Adair,” I says, “and hello Hotaire and hello Mary May Marie,” I says, “I thought I would drop in for the sake of old times because you see I have got to keep in touch with the plain people and not forget how it is that they feel and what they think about international affairs. And whatdo you say to this idea of the secretary of state that they call Scared Sally letting in this Bolshiviki count to be with his sick wife?” I says.
Well it costs me two-fifty to have that splurge but there is nothing that has made me feel so good since I come to Washington, D. C. And then I have a stroll down the street and look at all the pretty things in the shop windows and think that I am going to have seven-fifty more each week to spend like I want to only for what I send to you Mom and I sure do think this is a wonderful government and the greatest country in the whole world. And then I have got a date to have dinner with Mr. Edgerton in that same Imperial Cafay where you get the cocktails in a soup-tureen and I tell him about how I been to the Elite and show him what was the expression on Madame Lafferty’s face and he says, “Mame,” he says, “you might of been a great actress like your Mom.”
Well then I tell him what the girls is said about that there Bolshiviki count that is to be let into the country and what a mistake it is and he says, “You can see the mistake for already the news has been cabled to that there Hungry country and there is a lot of stuff cabled back about what it is that the count would of said if he had not of pledged that he would not say nothing.” And I says, “Yes I have read it and it is terrible stuff and I do not understand because it says this here Bolshiviki count is charging that the people that is opposing him is killing and shooting people and torturing them in dungeons and all that and all the time I have been told that it is the Bolshivikis that does that and here it seems to be the other side that is doing it.”
And he says, “So you see just how the propaganda works,” he says, “that is the whole purpose to get you to asking questions like that.”
But I says, “Is it true?”
And he says, “There it is,” he says, “you can see how he has sewed some doubts into a mind that had never before had none but had always believed the right thing.”
“Yes but look here Mr. Edgerton stop kidding me I want to know what is the truth.”
“Yes but my dear Mamie I want to show you how this poison spreads because here you are pushing me for an answer and if it had not of been for this here count you would never of thought about it at all.”
And then he stops kidding and explains how it is that on one side is ladies and gentlemen what is doing the killingand on the other side it is just common dirty workingmen and of course our country is got to see to it that the side of refinement is victorious and that the wives of the young sectaries in the state department is not stopped from being noble and rich. It would be breaking up the home he says if it was to be any other way for what would become of the foreign matrimonial market if our young men of fashion was to pay for a peach and find they have got a lemon?
Well I guess I am being a dumbell again but I do not know exactly whether he is joking but it seems that he is real angry because his advice is not took and the Spokesman is not got the sense to stay as the Strong Silent Man which is what Mr. Edgerton made Him and the only thing that any man can be when He does not know enough to be nothing else.
And by and by we got out of the restaurant and are walking in the park and it is moonlight and soft and sweet and romantic and Mr. Edgerton he says, “Well I have got some news for you my dear Mamie that I fear will make you very sad I am going to quit this job as the Spokesman’s Secretary.” And I says, “My God!” and my knees is like to give away.
“Yes,” he says, “what is happened is that some of the brass kings is come to me with a proposition it seems they are planning a great new brass trust that is to include all the brass mines and mills of the entire country and they are scared the public may not like it and may make a fuss and force the Spokesman to do something about it and so they have asked will I come and be their head press agent and fix the stories that they will tell to all the newspapers and they have offered me just about three times what I am getting now not only from the government but from the private funds of them that is put me here to manage the Spokesman for them. And so I am going to take this new job.”
Well I am so weak that I have to set on a bench and I says, “Oh Mr. Edgerton I will be so lonely!”
And he says, “That is just what I want to say that you are to come with me.”
“With you Mr. Edgerton but where?”
“To Chicago for that is where the brass trust is to have its offices.”
“But oh,” I says, “what would I do in Chicago?”
“You will be free,” he says, “and so will I because why,” he says, “when you are in private business you can havesome fun and you do not have to worry about a lot of meddlesome Matties and old women in pants that is watching everything you do. And you and me can have a little apartment and be as jolly as two turtle-doves.” And while he says that he is put his arm about me and he says, “Oh Mame I am sure fond of you for you are the gamest kid I ever got to know and wouldn’t you like to have a nice little love-nest and with nobody to look out for but just me?”
Well Mom I am trembling all over because it is all so sudden and after all I do think that Mr. Edgerton is a mighty fine man and I have never had nothing so lovely as an apartment and he is holding me close and I can hardly think straight but I says, “Oh Mr. Edgerton do not tempt me,” I says, “for I have always been a good girl and always gone straight.”
“Yes,” he says, “but there is nothing wrong with this for we are real friends.”
“But you have got a wife!” I says.
“But she does not care for me she is interested in that syker now.”
“But that is only for a moment,” I says, “and she does love you I know for I have saw it in her face and what is more I know that you love her because else why should you of been jealous of the syker? And then too I have got a fyansay and you know he is a good boy—”
“But my God Mamie will you go and throw yourself away on a shipping-clerk what kind of a life is that for an intellectual girl like you that is learned to understand all about international affairs?” he says. “Why you will go and live in some hole with him and you will have eleven babies and spend your life over a washtub and it is a crime.”
“I know it is hard,” I says, “but you talk about the plain people and what they think—”
“Oh to hell with the plain people!” he says. “That is all bunk and you know it”—just like that he says it and of course I am shocked and I do not want him to keep his arm around me then.
I says, “Mr. Edgerton,” I says, “you are going now to be a shirt-stuffer or whatever you call it for the brass kings and so I suppose you have got to feel like that about the plain people and trample them beneath your heel,” I says, “but I am going to stay one of them like I have always been because there is my Mom and my Pop and my kid brothers and sisters and a good honest boy that I have promised to wait for. And I am very much obliged to you and I like youvery much as I have always done but it makes me sad to see that you are going to be cynical and lose all your ideals,” I says.
And so then he sees it is no use and he says, “Then you are going to stay a Field Grammarian Mame?”
I says, “About that I cannot tell,” I says. “Would it be right for me to keep the job if I am not doing no work for you and the Spokesman?”
“Oh Mame,” he says, “you are too fine a patriot to be living in these degenerate times. Of course you can keep the job for you have earned a hundred times the salary and if that poor little Shrimp in the big white house had the sense to of took your advice you would of saved Him for another term. But now I don’t know what will happen to Him.”
I says, “Is He going to have somebody to write His speeches for Him?”
“My God of course,” he says, “that poor Fish He could not write a speech for an Epsom Salts convention.”
“And then who is to do it?” I says and he tells me that Mr. Grandaddy Prows is got back from Europe and him and Senator Buttles is had a row as to which is to name the new Secretary and so they have left it to Mr. Edgerton as usual and he has picked out a newspaper friend of his and he says, “Mame you will have to stand by him and help him because when I look back on my past then I am sorry for this one’s future.”
And I says, “Let me meet him at once Mr. Edgerton,” and he says, “So that is all you care about me!” and I says, “I am thinking about my duty to the plain people of this great country,” and he says, “Mamie Riggs when they have the first Woman Spokesman of this great country you have got to be Her.”
So then we make a date to meet the new Secretary for lunch tomorrow and I come home and there Mom I get your letter telling me that you have saw Walter and he has agreed to believe that I am good and pure and that he still loves me and oh Mom I am so glad I did not yield to that fearful temptation out there on the park bench in the moonlight!
P. S. Well Mom I have just got back from having lunch with the new Secretary and gee it is so wonderful I am more happy than I know how to write. For he is a good man and very serious and I do not think he will ever be cynical like Ifear Mr. Edgerton is got to be. And he is very polite and respectful and says how he has heard what fine ideas I have give to Mr. Edgerton and he wants me to help him because he knows what a hard time he is going to have especially at the beginning.
And I says, “Yes Mr. Porkin,” for that is his name, “you will find it hard because there is many questions that people is trying to trap the Spokesman into talking about and He is not being able to keep so quiet as He used to, and it will mean His ruin because there is just nothing He can say and why does He not say it? For example,” I says, “there is this business about the Bolshiviki count when he comes here there will be no end of a row to know why he can’t talk what he wants to and then maybe when his wife gets well she will want to know if she can talk and you know how much harder it is to shut up a woman,” I says. “And then there is this business about the big banker that is in the cabinet Mr. Lemon or Melon or whatever fruit he is and why he does not stop the bootlegging business while he is making the whiskey and why he is got all the income taxes refunded for his companies and why he is allowed to charge as high as he wants for all the aluminum that us women is got to have in our kitchens. You can just see there is nothing the Spokesman can say about all that and you have got to see that He says it. And there is this business about our lending money to all these here Dago countries where the young secretaries of the state department is got noble wives,” I says, “and about the Spokesman having hid the reports of the commission or what ever it is called that wanted to have the price of sugar cut down and ruin all them sugar kings that is keeping up our prosperity. I tell you Mr. Porkin,” I says, “I have been studying hard and if there was time I could tell you a hundred different things that if anybody can ever get the Spokesman talking about then He is done for the rest of His life,” I says, “and your job is just one and that is to hammer into His Head day and night that when you have got nothing you can say then you must say it and nothing else.”
And he is listening to every word and it is plain he is impressed and right in the middle of it he reaches over the table and he says, “Miss Riggs, shake hands with me,” he says, “for in you I have a political counsellor and you must promise to stand by me and together we will save Him.”
Then I says, “Mr. Porkin, we will shake hands but what I am trying to do is not so much to save Him as to save theAmerican people from the great pain of finding out about Him.”
And so Mom we are friends even better than I have been with Mr. Edgerton and you need have no more worry about the future of
Your high-up daughter
Mame.
THE END