want to tell you which commenced really when we come to that old barn.
Only I had to explain how we come to be there or you wouldnt get the
idea of what I am driving at for you to make your Ma understand.
Ever since I fell out of my airplane and was in the hospital and
reenlisted the only place they'd take me back was in the infantry, I
done a lot of thinking--and some of it stuff which might mebbe sound
awful queer coming from me, especially after some of the language I have
been known to use in my day, and while I hope I aint become mushy, I
certainly do believe there is more to religion and such things than we
have thought. Take it or leave it, mighty few fellows have lived through
this war, far less fought through it, without getting religion of some
kind out of it. I wonder can you get me? And make Ma get it too. So I'll
tell what happened and you see if miricles is over yet or not for this
is a true fact and not a story somebody told me.
Well, after we cleaned up that machine gun nest and had a cute little
live German prisoner of our very own, we took him down the hill with us
the best way we could in the dark and it full of holes and what not.
There wasn't a bit of light--no moon nor stars nor nothing, and a wet
sort of smell that made us wish for a smoke the way hardly nothing else
is ever wished for, except mebbe a motion-picture salary or a drink of
water after a big night--not on the desert.
Well we got on pretty good because we was nearly sober now and Ceasare
he knew where we was going, and this time he really did, and so we kept
up pretty good. It commenced to rain a little and the big drops felt
awful nice against my cheeks which was burning hot. Made me think of
when I was a kid back in Topeka and digging out to school and a pair of
red mittens I had which my mother had made them--good knitting and well
made like the sweater I had on that very minute which she also knit. And
I thought of me and you and our snow-scene when we done that dance on
the Small Time with the sleighbells on our heels--remember dear? Before
we had really made good except with each other? And I thought about love
too and a lot of fool stuff like that. And then I heard a funny sound
for thereabouts. It was a woman moaning and crying.
Well, at first I thought mebbe I was crazy or imagined it, but Mac who
was walking in front with our own little Fritz stopped short and so did
Fritz and listened. It come again--the most dismal thing you ever want
to hear. I turned to Ceasare and he had heard it.
"Say drool," he says, which means "Its funny" only it wasnt and he didnt
mean it that way, but the other way. You know.
"It sure is!" I says. "There she goes again!"
"I think theers a wee bit housie over theere!" says Mac.
"It is the barn of my cousin's uncle," says Ceasare. "We better go
look."
So with that we started across the road to where sure enough was a funny
little barn--stone with a grass roof--peculiar to these parts, I guess.
The nearer we got the louder the noise was, but no words to it, only
sobbing very low and despairing and sort of sick--and a female--no doubt
of it. There wasn't any light nor anybody moving about as far as we
could tell.
"Gee! What'll we do?" I says in a whisper. "We can't pass it up!"
"Naw--we mun tak' a look inside!" whispers Mac.
"Certinmount," says Ceasare; "Mais--be careful! We put the Boch in first
and see if some trick is up!"
It being Ceasare's cousin's uncle's barn he knew where the door was,
and the three of us shoved Fritz up to it and made him understand he was
to open it and go in ahead of the crew. We finally got it over with
signs and shoves, because the bird didnt speak nothing but German and we
hadnt a word of it among us. But still we made him do it and he did, and
we pulled our guns and stood close behind and I stood closest and pulled
not alone my gun but the little electric flashlight you sent me which I
flashed in as quick as the door was opened.
IV
AND take it or leave it--there was a woman with a baby in her arms! She
was rather a young round-faced woman and that kid was awfully little and
held close under a big dark cloak the woman wore. The poor soul looked
tired out and she had no hat and her hair was all down. The inside of
the barn was a wreck and the rain was coming in through a big shellhole
in the roof. She was all alone, we at once got that, and at sight of the
German uniform which was all she seen at first, she give a shriek of joy
and got up onto her feet.
"Got si danke!" she cried. "Ich habe----"
Then she seen the rest of us and shrunk back, covering the kid with her
cloak. Fritz said something to her--quite a lot in a hurry, and
evidently told her he was a prisoner, and now that she had spilled the
beans, so was she. And of course even under the circumstances, she was.
But take it or leave it, I certainly did feel queer when I went up to
that lady with the little baby in that barn. For German or no German the
situation was--well--it certainly got my goat. I took off my hat and
made a bow.
"Lady," I commenced, "have no fear. Don't let us throw no scare into
you. We ain't Huns--that is, I beg your pardon, but what I mean is you
are perfectly safe and we will take care of you."
Well, the way she looked at me would of wrung a heart of stone. Her eyes
was blue and she just stared at me as if I had hurt her--which of
course was far from any mind there.
"Don't be scared," I says again. "You and the baby will get good care.
Just come with us if you are able!"
When I spoke of the kid she give the poor little smothered thing a quick
look and drew her cloak around it closer. Gee! but she looked fierce!
She had quit crying but not a word out of her!
"You try!" I says to Ceasare. "The poor thing mebbe understands French."
So Ceasare, who was as much shot to pieces at the sight as I was, come
forward.
"Madame!" says he, bowing with his cap in his hand. Then he shoots a lot
of French about restes, au succuoor, and stuff I know meant "cut the
worry." But she didnt get it any better than she had my line of talk,
and only kept on looking scared.
Well by this time Mac come out of his stupor; but there was no use
trying Scotch on her, that was plain. So there was nothing to it except
forward march. For one thing my torch wouldnt of lasted much longer and
for another it sure was getting late.
"Does your cousin's uncle which owns the barn have a house anywheres
near, where we could leave her?" I asked Ceasare.
"All dead in this town!" he says cheerfully. "And this is the only
building left I think it!"
"Then there's nothing to do but take her along to headquarters," I says,
and off we started, she not saying a word.
That was some trip! I want to tell you sweetie it was the worst part of
the whole war to me. You know I got a heart and I felt just fierce for
that poor little German mother. All the way in, while we was helping her
along I kept wishing I knew how on earth she come to get in that place.
She seemed real feeble at times and we lifted her across the worst
places. I tried to get her to let me carry the baby, but she held on to
it like grim death and wouldnt leave any of us touch it--and it was so
quiet I commenced to get scared.
"More than likely its dead!" I whispered to Ceasare and he thought so
too.
Before we got in, we had carried her almost a mile, taking turns with
her on our crossed hands, and the odd feller guarding our Hun. And then
we came to the end of about the very worst and longest hike I ever took
including the time the Queen of the Island Company got stranded in New
Rochelle. The sentry across that mud hole of a slushy road was the
welcomest sight in the world.
"Wot the 'ell yer got?" he says when he recognized us.
"One Gentleman Hun prisoner and one lady ditto in very bad shape!" I
says.
"Wot the 'ell!" he says again. And then he passed us and we reported.
Say sweetie, take it or leave it, but I had honest clean forgot all
about that wine which we had been sent for in the first place. I tell
you I was so worried about that poor woman! And it was not until the
five of us was standing in Capt. Haskell's quarters with the light from
his ceiling glaring at us and him also glaring from behind his mustache,
that I even commenced to remember it. But I had to report so I reported
for the bunch of us and in strict detail as good as I could remember.
All this while the woman sat in a chair, her face like a stone, and my
heart just aching for her.
Well, when I got through taking the most nervous curtin-call of my
life--and take it or leave it, if the German army would ever of been as
nervous as I was then, the war would of ended that minute. Capt. Haskell
beckoned to the lady.
"Come here, please!" he says very kind. "And let me see the baby!"
She got up and went over very softly. Then she stood in front of him and
commenced to laugh and laugh.
"Pigs of Americans!" she said. "Fools to carry me! That's not a
baby--its twenty cartons of cigarettes!"
Then she threw back her cloak and under it there she was dressed in Red
Cross uniform.
"I disguised myself and went to the village!" she went on in perfectly
good English. "And I bought all the tobacco there.
"On my way back to my own lines I was fool enough to lose my way and to
cry over it! That is all!"
And its enough, aint it dear? For you do get me, dont you? Them twenty
cartons of cigarettes was a miricle to us and the one we needed the most
of any right at that moment. Eh, what? as the English say. And her
taking such a chance to get them for Fritz shows how bad off the German
army must be, don't it? And so tell this to your Ma and get her to quit
that foolish anti-smoke society she's forming--because its the bunk--and
I am ever your loving life and dancing partner, JIM.
P. S. Just got your letter. That certainly is a good one on Ma. Smoking
a pipe! And if you hadnt opened the door so sudden you'd never in this
world of caught her. And if she does claim her grandmother did it too,
all you got to say is so did many a soldier's grandmother.
P. S. No. 2. I forgot to say that a French General has given us a kiss
on both cheeks and a medel for that job. And its the first time I ever
got anything but a headache by going on a party.
IV
ANYTHING ONCE
I
AINT it funny the things that comes into a person's head when they are
rubbing cold cream onto their nose? All sorts of stuff, some of it good
sense and some of it the bunk. But most of it pretty near O.K. If some
one was to take down the ideas I get at such a sacred hour, I'd be out
of the dancing game and into the highbrow class just as quick as the
printer got through his job.
It sure is a time when a woman's true thoughts come to the surface along
with the dust and last night's make-up, and many a big resolve has been
made owing to that cleanly habit. Wasn't there some wise bird made up a
quotation about cleanliness being next to God knows what? Well, believe
you me, its the truth, for once a woman starts in with the cold cream
all alone,--and she sure does it at no other time--there is no telling
what will come of it beside a clean pink face.
With me personally myself, thats where most of my ideas about life come
from--right out of the cold cream tube! And while indulging in this well
known womanly occupation the other evening I commenced thinking about
rest and how important it is for us Americans--and of the way we go
after it--like it was something we had to catch and catch quick or it
would get away from us. Do you get me? If not, leave me tell you what a
friend of mine, which has just been mustard out of the service says to
me, when I was checking up his experiences abroad while he was checking
up what the waiter had put down.
"My idea of rest?" he says. "Why taking Belleau Woods after three
restless weeks in the trenches," he says.
Which sort of puts the nut in the shell, as the saying is. And also at
the same time reminds me of the rest I just recently took.
Not that I generally need one any more than any other thoroughly
successful star, for heavens knows the best known parlor dancing act in
the world and Broadway, which mine undoubtedly is, dont need to rest
because the managers theirselves always come after me and resting I
leave to the booking-agency hounds. But this time it was bonea fido, and
come about in a sort of odd way.
To commence at the start it begun with me falling for the movies, which
Gawd knows I only done it for the money, their being no art in it, and
they having hounded me into them for a special fillum. And of course
many well known girls like Mary Garden and Nazimova go into pictures and
even myself, but its simply because of being hounded, as I say. But once
in you earn your money, believe you me, and I have stood around waiting
for the sun like Moses, or whoever it was, until my feet nearly froze to
the pallasades before jumping off, only of course it was a dummy they
threw after I had made the original motions of the leap to death. And
the worst part is once you are signed up on one of these "payment to be
made wheather the party of the first part (thats me) is working or not"
you got to do like they say, and a whole lot of the "not working" means
plain standing around waiting for the director or the camera-man or the
rain to quit, and what us public favorites suffers when on the job is
enough to make the photographor's Favorite of Grainger, Wyo., abandon
the career she might of had in favour of domestic service or something
like that where she'd get a little time to herself.
Well anyways my judgment having slipped to the extent of having signed
my sense of humor away for six months at twenty-two hundred a week, I
was in the very middle of a fillum called the Bridge to Berlin when one
day, just as a big brute of a German officer by the name of O'Flarety
had me by the throat in a French chateau, the studio manager comes in
and says the armistice is signed and the war is over, and we was to quit
as who would release a war fillum now and we was to start on something
entirely different, only he didn't know what the hell it was to be and
here was eight thousand feet wasted--and believe you me I was sore
myself for we had shot that strangling sceene six times by then and my
marcelle wave was completely ruined by it, and I would of liked to of
had something to show for it.
But anyways, orders was to quit and so me and Ma and the two fool dogs
and Musette left the wilds of Jersey and after a stormy voyage across
the Hudson come safely home to our modest little apartment on the drive,
there to not work at 22 hundred a week until Goldringer got the studio
manager to get the scenario editor to get me a new story, which at the
price was not of long duration for while Gawd knows they dont care how
long a person stands around waiting to be shot, they just naturally hate
to pay you for doing the same thing at home in comfort.
Well anyways the bunk that scenario editor picked out was something
fierce. I wouldn't of been screened dead in it. But it just happened I
had a idea for a scenario myself, which come about through somebody
having give me a book for Christmas and one night, the boy having forgot
to bring the papers, I read it. And was it a cute book? It was! I had a
real good cry over it, and while it wasn't exactly a book for a dancer,
I could see that there was good stuff in it. So finally me and Ma
stopped into Goldringer's office after he had twice telephoned for me
and handed him a little surprise along with the volume.
"I got a idea for a picture, Al," I says, "and here's the book of it."
"Well Miss La Tour, what's the name of it and idea?" says he, chewing
on his cigar strong and not even looking at the book but throwing it to
the stenographer, which is a general rule always in the picture game and
one reason we don't see such a crowd of swell fillums.
"The name is Oliver Twist," I says. "It's a juvinile lead the way it
stands, but I want it fixed up a little, with me as Olivette Twist--the
editor can fix it so's that will be all right. It's really a swell part.
I could wear boy's clothes some of the time."
"Huh! Olivette Twist," says Goldringer, taking back the book and looking
at the cover of it. "Always thought it was a breakfast food! But if you
say its O.K. we'd better get it. Where is this feller Dickens? We'll
wire him for the rights. Friend of yours?"
You see, if anybody brings scenarios personally, a star in particular,
it's generally a friends.
"No," I says. "It was sent me by Jim along with a letter which shows the
bird is well known," I says. "And is in Westminister Abby, London,
England, which Jim says proves his class.
"Must be a swell apartment," says Goldringer. "All right we'll send a
cable to him and see if the picture rights is gone or not. If the boy
is so well known he may stick out for a big price. This is Thursday. We
may hear from him by Monday or Tuesday, and we'll get a scenario ready
anyways so's we can begin to shoot not later than a week from to-day.
Until then," he says, "run along and amuse yourself and dont do anything
I wouldnt."
Well, me and Ma was shown out then and down on Broadway Ma see some
salt-water taffy in a drug-store and wanted to go in and by it which I
had to prevent because outside of Ma being in no need of nourishment,
she weighing considerable over the heavy-weight requirements already and
Gawd knows if she was to have went back into the circus it would no
longer be on the trapeese and a certain party in the side-show would
have a strong competitor for her job and it wouldn't be the human
skeleton either. But leaving off the consideration how would it look for
us to go up the Ave. in my new wine-colored limousine which I earned
myself and no one can say different with truth--and eating stuff like
that out of a folded paper box? Ma certainly has my health well in hand
and heart and its seldom we quarrel over any little thing, but she
certainly has no class instinct, or instinct for class--do you get me?
And when I try to make her see that them little refinements is what
makes me the big success I am, she sometimes kicks and if its hunger,
its got to be met immediately if not one way, why then another. So in
lieu, as the poet says, of the taffy I had to take her to the Ritz and
watch her put away 6 vanillia eclairs at two bits each and a quart of
cocoa, not that I begrudge the money, only believe you me the way all
hotels charge nowadays is rapidly making Bolshivik out of even we
capatalists. Do you get me? You do! But of course in my line you got to
keep before the public in the right way.
Well anyways Ma complained over the loss of that taffy the whole way
through the six eclairs, which it was certainly a little hard on me to
have to sit there and watch her while for professional reasons eating
only one of these tomato surprises which never surprise but the once, on
my figures account, and certainly its a fact that the two of us was
doing the next best thing to what we wanted instead of the thing itself
which is one of the prices of success. So, as is also often the case at
such times, I was a little mean to Ma on account of having been mean
already--do you get me?
"Mamma," I says. "You certainly are getting heavier. It's a crime for you
to wear these narrow skirts!"
Ma give me a searching look the same as used to lead up to caster oil
when I was a kid, and then took the half of a eclair at one bit before
replying.
"Now Mary Gilligan you needn't take out your artistic temperament or any
other ailment on me!" she says as firmly as the eclair would permit.
"Just because Jim is in France yet, and your moleskin dolman was a
failure and you aint been occupied daily for a week or more, and slipped
up on doing your setting up exercises this morning which I wouldnt of
mentioned only you started it," she says. "Its no excuse for picking on
me," she says. "What if I am a little plump? My Gawd aint I earned the
right to be? What with three kids and your Pa to bring up and the center
trapeese in the circus right through it all except when absolutely
necessary? You dont know what a woman _can_ go through!"
"Dont I, just!" I snapped for my Gawd aint it the truth every woman has
the very worst troubles that any woman ever had? And she sure gets sore
when another woman sets up to go them one better!
"No you don't!" retorts Ma with that maddening air of being older than
me which she uses to squelch me every time she cant get me any other
way. "No you dont!" she says. "You never brought up three kids without a
nurse girl while on the trapeese--you never brought up a thing but two
fool dogs and you even leave them to the carelessness of a personal
maid," she says. "Poor dears, Gawd knows what will become of their
little canine minds and morals!"
"Now Ma!" I begged, because she aughter know that is a sore point with
me and not intention, and she had me on the raw.
"Well then!" she says. "You got a swell job and no troubles only mabe a
sluggish liver and you aint the only woman in America which Gen.
Pershing cant yet spare the husband of," she says. "And mabe I do need
to reduce a little," which was her way of apologizing. And just as this
lull occurred who should come into sight but Maison Rosabelle, her which
runs the shop where myself and all the most chic professionals gets
their clothes. She was all dressed up like a plush horse with real
sables, part of which must of come off them simple refined little gowns
I had made for the Bridge to Berlin that was ruined by the armistice.
Her hair had just been rehennered and her face was as fresh as a
tea-rose straight from the fragrent facial massage. She smiled and
sailed down on the two of us which we welcomed with the usual relief of
a family quarreling when neither sees the way to win out and have got to
go on living together. In other words she automatically buried the
hatchet for us, as the school books say.
"So pleased to of run into you, dearies!" she says. "For I'm goin' to
Atlantic City to-morrow for a little rest."
No sooner was them words out from between her lip-rouge than I see a
vision of salt-water taffy arising in Ma's eyes. Believe you me Ma is
certainly hard to pry loose from anything she has once set her mind on!
And Maison had to continue in that cordial manner.
"Why dont you run down for a few days?" she says. "It'll do you good.
You're looking kinda pulled down Mrs. Gilligan!" she says--and of course
Ma fell for that.
"I do feel a little low!" she says, finishing off her cocoa. "And
Mary--Marie here is waiting until they get a answer to a cable which
was sent to England by the studio. I understand we may have quite a
wait, so I really believe we might go along."
II
NOW as I looked at Ma it come over me that mabe she had the right dope.
When people that live together, especially if not friends, but
relations, commence to get a little on each others nerves, going away on
a trip is good for what ails them. The only trouble is that in the case
of females they generally go together. Still, with the whole bunch of
new and different stuff it gives them to fight over--R.R. tickets, and
who wired for these horrid rooms, and I told you to bring a heavier
coat, and etc., they generally get straightened out quite a lot. Even
the idea of going along with Maison didnt worry me then, I having been
on tower many a time when the No. 1 Company went out and Ma the same for
years, and we generally speak, even to the publicity man, no matter if
we have made Rochester, Buffalo and Chicago in a quick jump playing
matinées as well. So I am without the wholesome and well founded fear
of taking a pleasure-trip with friends which is the bitter fruit of most
persons experience of the same. Besides, I sort of like Maison, which of
course her real name is Maisie Brady, and her funny little husband,
which is also still in France, she not being dependant any more than
myself nor would she hold him back from serving his country only I dont
hardly believe she urged him to go for quite the patriotic reasons I
did, he having been a traveling man and so when he retired on her income
she didnt feel as natural and affectionate and homelike and all that as
when he was away most of the time. But at any rate I and she were both
war-widows and old friends from the time her mother was lady-lion tamer
and mine on the trapeese, and so in spite of the bills she charges me
she has more refinement than most people and so I says all right, we'll
go to Atlantic City and we'll be on the one twenty train to-morrow.
"Thats sweet, dearie!" says Maison. "We'll get a swell rest!"
Then she set sail and was off with a Jewish gentleman friend, which had
been waiting at the entrance all this time with a gardenia in his
buttonhole. And Ma and me called for the check and dogs and limousine
and hitched our way homeward through the traffic to our quiet little
apartment with 7 windows with the beautiful outlook of the river and the
R.R. tracks and etc.