our--your house, but once money is paid out, I like to see the
goods--_all_ the goods, delivered," she says.
"What's this leading up to?" I asked.
"To the way that man Schultz cheats you!" says Ma. "He didn't send the
Old Home Rye!"
Believe you me, never have I been handed a meaner deal than that, no,
not even the night Goldringer first heard of me and came to see my
try-out for the big time and my pink tights didn't come.
"Ma!" says I. "Why don't you call him up and find out why didn't he?"
"I've done that!" she says. "And he claims on his oath it was sent with
the rest. I spoke to the boy which brought it and then to Schultz
himself. They both claim they give it to Rudie."
Rudie was the janitor but he had missed his profession. He had ought to
of been a sleight-of-hand man, for he could make things disappear in a
way which would of delighted a morning matinée audience, especially
those under twelve years of age. Believe you me, though, he was never
known to make anything grow where nothing had been before--not rabbits
or even silk handkerchiefs, but it's the truth that he had onct or twice
caused a vanished quart of cream to reappear if given a sufficiently
hard call quick enough after it was missed. And the minute I heard he
was cast for a part in my tragedy, I decided to hear him read his lines
right off without no delay, because it was practically impossible that
he could of got away with more than a quart yet and I was prepared to go
through the business of believing him when he come to the description of
how he had dropped it by accident and too bad but it broke.
Which was all right in theory, but Rudie did nothing of the kind.
Evidently so long as he was lying he had made up his mind it was as
well to be killed for a case as a quart, as the poet says, and when I
sent for him and he had kept me waiting while he sifted the ashes and
pounded on the steam pipes and talked to the garbage man and got a light
from the cop and chatted with the elevator-girl and a few little odds
and ends like that just to show me where I got off, he finally decided
to come up. Well, it was seven months to Xmas, so what could I expect?
Anyways, he finally made his entrance, down R. C. to footlights, in my
Louis-size drawing-room, leaving tracks behind him which Ma spotted with
a angry eye as fast as he laid them, and with all the well-known
courtesy of the proletariat he looked me in the eye.
"Well?" he says.
"Say, Trotsky!" I says, for I had never liked this bird, as he was on
one continued drunk. "Look here, Lenine," I says, glad of the chance to
insult him. "A case of fine whisky at sixty dollars net seems to of been
avoidably detained in your dug-out. I expect that with a little
searching you can stumble on it. And as for that bottle you broke by
accident, don't bother to mention it," I says, "because I am gladly
doing so for you," I says. "Only kindly find the rest and we will also
forget about this morning's cream."
Probably I hadn't ought to of been so generous, for Rudie sort of swayed
a little and give me a pleasant childlike smile out of his unshaved
doormat of a face.
"Dunno wash you mean!" he says, real pleasant.
"Jim is right about the kick in that stuff," I says, eyeing him
critically. "You certainly have a swell bun!"
"Why, Mish La Tour!" says Rudie. "Don't drink a dropsh! Never toush it."
And with that he give a sigh of disappointment in me which made the
place smell like a bar-room!
"But of coush I'll shee if itsh down stairsh!" he says.
Well, there was no use in arguing with him, I could see that all right,
all right, but I left him know I wasn't swallowing any such a poor alibi
as his own word.
"All right, you second-hand shock absorber!" I says. "Maybe I can't jolt
the truth out of you, but I will hand you one small piece of information
before you take your reluctant departure. You'll find that whiskey or
the cops will. And if they don't get me a judgment against you, one
will come from heaven, that's a cinch, for you not only got the stuff,
but you took it off a returning soldier which is a bigger crime than
mere patriotic stealing would be," I says. "You wait and see what'll
happen to you if you don't come across! We got a long score to settle,
we have, and right always wins out in the end, and that's my middle
name!"
Well, he went away very proud and hurt to think I would suspect him of
such a crime, he being that kind of a drunk. Do you get me? Of course!
Gosh! How I do hate to see a person in liquor; really, I think
prohibition will be a good thing for all of us, and was myself only
storing up a little, for exceptional reasons. And when a person begins
talking about federal prohibition and their constitutional rights I
can't help but wonder why they don't consider it in the physical as well
as the political sense.
Well, anyways, it was a blow to lose that Old Home, and awful irritating
on top of Maude. And then, while pulling myself into one of these new
accident-policy-destroying narrow skirts which belongs with what is
through courtesy called my new walking suit, the hall-girl brought the
mail and Musette give it to me in the midst of my negligee and struggles
and I stopped dead when I seen the first letter, for it was marked
"Soldier's Mail" and only one which has some one expected home and at
the same time welcome, can know how that particular mark thrills.
Musette observed me register joy so she registers it too, and I tore
open the envelope forgetting the skirt which had a death-grip on my
knees, and opened up the page in Jim's dear handwriting.
Did you ever come to a time in your life where you had one trouble on
top of another until it seemed like nothing more could possibly happen
except maybe the end of the world, and then something still worse was
pulled on you? You have! Well, this letter was pretty near the end of
the world to me--at least a distinct postponement of anything which
could with any truth be called living. For Jim wasn't coming back with
the 70th after all! As I read his words in that dear boyish handwriting
of his which he never had time to learn to write better, being like
myself quicker with his feet than hands, my eyes filled with tears and
I stumbled to the day-bed as good as I could with the skirt, and sat
down. It seemed he had been put in charge of some special work in Paris
and it might be six months before he'd get sent home! Six months! And me
getting all ready for a second honeymoon inside of six weeks! And
instead of being out in the wholesome country with me at Saratoga or
Long Beach or Niagara Falls or some place, he would be in Paris! That
was what I had to face and any woman will readily understand my
feelings.
Believe you me, I didn't care for Maude or the Old Home or the contract
or anything for over three-quarters of a hour. And I had to wash my face
and powder my nose three times after I was finally dressed on account of
breaking down again when just completed.
Whenever a person has a real sorrow come to them the best way to do is
control it quick before it controls you. So after I had indulged in the
womanly weep which certainly was coming to me, I braced up and got into
the new suit with the idea of taking as brisk a walk as it would allow
of. Then I put on a new hat which I had intended for my second
honeymoon but which would never see it or him, as it would undoubtedly
be out of style by the time Europe had made up its mind one way or
another, and I was just going to leave when the bell rung and Ma come in
to say it was a caller.
"It's that Mr. Mulvaney from the Welcome Home Committee, the one that
had you on the 'phone yesterday," says Ma. And after a minute I kind of
caught control of myself and says well, all right, I would see him and
went in.
Well, it sure is strange the birds they pick out for these deeds of
synthetic patriotism. This one come from the neighborhood of Fourteenth
Street and must of got his appointment of chief welcomer from the way he
give the glad hand. You would of thought he was cranking a flivver that
wouldn't crank the way he kept on shaking after any real need was past.
And if he was to of greeted each of the boys the way he done me, the
army wouldn't be demobilized in our generation! Also he had a suit on
him which spoke for itself and a watch-chain which must of posed for
them in the cartoons of Capital--do you get me? Sure! I and he had had a
long talk on the telephone as per above, and so as soon as he left go
his cinch on my hand, he got right down to business.
"Now, Miss La Tour--er--it--er--gives me great pleasure to think you
will take charge of the Theatrical Women's Division," he says. "Er--I am
a great admirer of yours--that picture you done, 'Cleopatria,'
now--great stuff!"
Well, I let that pass, because how would such a self important bird as
this know my art when he sees it, and if he enjoyed Theda, why not leave
him be? I changed the subject at once for fear he would be confusing me
with Caruso next.
"And so I'm to spend ten thousand of the hundred thousand iron-men
raised by the Welcome Committee?" I says hastily. "How nice. What will
it go for?"
"That is for you and your committee to decide," he says. "I'm sure you
will think up something tasty," he says. "And go to the limit--we need
ideas."
Well, anybody could see that. But I only says all right.
"I suppose you are familiar with committees?" says this human
editorial-page-sketch.
"I'm never too familiar with anybody," I says stiffly. "But I have been
acquainted with more than one committee."
"Well, here are the papers I promised you--the general scheme and so
forth. The central committee will meet as is indicated here. See you at
them. Pleased to of seen you off the screen! You certainly was fine in
'Shoulder Arms'!"
And before I could get my breath he had looked at a handsome watch no
bigger than a orange, humped into his coat and was off in a shower of
language that left me no come-back.
Believe you me, I was glad when he had squoze out through our typical
apartment hall and the gilt elevator had snapped him up. For to hand me
ten thousand to spend on welcoming a bunch of other women's husbands
was, to soft pedal it, rubbing it in. I was only about as upset as that
spilled milk that was cried over and no wonder at 18 cents a qt. Well,
anyways, it was no light thing to face, going on with this work and
Jim's letter scarcely dry from my tears. But having promised over the
telephone and being given no chance to refuse in the parlour, I would
keep my word if not my heart from breaking.
Because, anyways, if I was simply to do nothing to occupy myself except
maybe a few thousand feet of fillum and rehearsing my special dance act
for the Palatial and my morning exercises and walking my five miles a
day and all that quiet home stuff which gives a person too much time to
think, what would I think, except a lot of unprintable stuff about any
administration which was keeping him in a town like Paris, France? And
the only comfort I could see in sight was to work hard to give the boys
that _was_ coming a real welcome and remember that Jim never was a
skirt-hound--that I ever saw.
III
Having reached this resolve I decided to go on the walk I had mapped out
anyways, because what is home with a disappeared snake in it? And so I
started, and as I come past the door in the lower hall, which its marked
"Superintendent," which is Riverside-Drivese for Janitor, what would I
hear but Rudie singing to himself out of the fullness of his heart or
something.
I went out in wrath and the spring sun and after a while I begun to
feel less sore and miserable in my heart, partially because of the fresh
air and partially through irritation at the stylish trouser-leg that
both of mine was in. But the day was too sweet for a person to stay mad
long. Ain't it remarkable the way spring can creep into even a city and
somehow make it enchanted and your heart kind of perk up and take
notice--do you get me? You do, or Gawd pity you! It's the light, I
guess, just the same as the audience holds hands when they turn on the
ambers with a circular drop for a sunset or something.
And by the time I had walked along the Avenue and seen all the
decorations which was already put up for the first regiments home, I
commenced getting real fired and excited with my new job. It looked like
the powdered-sugar industry was going to suffer because about all the
plaster in the country seemed to be being used on arches which looked
like dago-wedding cakes and you actually missed the dolls dressed like
brides and grooms off the top of them. And here and there was some funny
looking columns of the same white stuff and on the Public Library steps
a bunch of spears and shields was thrown all over the place just as if
a big Shakespearian production had suddenly give it up in despair and
left their props and hoofed it back to Broadway. It certainly was
imposing.
Up at 59th Street was a arch that looked like Coney Island frozen solid.
It was all of little pieces of glass:--heavy glass and millions of
pieces. I don't know what good they did, but they shone something grand,
and must of cost a terrible lot of money. I guessed the boys would
certainly feel proud to march under it provided none of it fell on their
heads.
Believe you me, by the time I got home my head was full of imaginary
architecture like Luna Park and Atlantic City jumbled together with a
set I seen in "The Fall of Rome" when we was shooting it at Yonkers. And
after I had squirmed out of my walking suit and was a free woman once
more, in a negligee, which is French for kimona which is Japanese for
wrapper, well, anyways, I lay in it and opened up the evening paper
because I am not one to let the news get ahead on me and have acquired
the habit of reading it regular the same as my daily bath.
But it was hard to keep my attention on it because Maude was still
missing and also I kept thinking, when not of her, of the lovely arches
and so forth my ten thousand would build. I had about settled on
pink-stucco, with real American beauties strung on it and a pair of
white kittens in plaster--symbol of the best known Theatrical Ladies
Association in Broadway, and I expect the world--at the top, when I
opened the paper again and I see something which set my mind thinking.
"70th will add thousands to ranks of unemployed."
Yes, that's just what it said. And I went on and read the piece where it
said how enough men to start a real live city was being fed at
soup-kitchens and bread lines, not in Russia or Berlin, but right in N.
Y. C., N. Y., U. S. A.! Somehow, coming right on top of all their arches
and so forth, it sort of struck me in the pit of my stomach and give me
the same sinking sensation like a second helping of griddle-cakes a hour
later--you know! The thought of all that money going on arches that
after they was once marched under was no good to anybody but the ones
which built them and the ones which carted them away, had me worried.
Think of all the soup that glass and plaster would of made! Do you get
me? You do or you're a simp! And it also besides struck me that while
the incoming boys would undoubtedly enjoy them city frostings, them
which had already marched under them and was now in the bread-line must
be kind of fed up with it. Then I thought of the ten thousand intrusted
to me to spend which had been gladly given in small sections by willing
citizens who wanted to do some little thing to show appreciation to the
boys which had went over there, and I begun to realize I had been told I
could spend it anyways I wanted to.
And when I thought of that pink arch and roses I blushed, although
nobody had, fortunately, heard me mention it, except the two fool dogs,
aloud.
Believe you me, I then see like a bolt from the blue, as the poet says,
that arches was all right in their way but they was in the traffic's way
at best and made mighty poor eating. And so naturally with Ma having it
continually before me, I thought of ten thousand dollars worth of eats,
because while there is quite a lot of red X canteens for men in uniform,
how about the poor birds which had just got out of a uniform and not yet
got into a job? Besides there is something kind of un-permanent about
food unless a salary to get more with follows it as a chaser.
And so I lay there in comfort all but for the thought of Maude, and
figured and figured what would I do. It seemed it was a cinch to get
money from people to give the boys a welcome but what to spend it on was
certainly a stiff one. But after a while I commenced to get a idea.
Which it's a fact I am seldom long without one when needed which
together with my great natural talent is what has made me the big
success I am.
Work! That was the welcome the boys needed. Work and a little something
substantial to start on. So this is what I figured. Suppose we was to
divide up that ten thousand, how many boys would it take care of, and
how?
Say we had ten men. A thousand each. Too much, of course. Twenty men.
Five hundred per ea. Still too much. Well, then forty men. Two fifty.
Well, they could use it of course, but it was not a constructive idea.
It was too much for a present and not enough to invest. So how about 80.
Well, that was $125. per man. This was doing something pretty good by
eighty men that would very likely need it, but it seemed sort of unfair
not to take in more of the boys. So I split it again and had one hundred
and sixty boys with $62.50 in their pockets.
Well, I felt kind of good over this idea and there was only two real
troubles with it which is to say that $31.25 for three hundred and
twenty boys looked nicer if there was only some way to handle it right.
But how?
I put in another hard think and then I got it. The way to make that
$31.25 a real present was to make it a payment on something and then
with the other hand pass out a job at the same time, which would not
alone keep the soldier but allow him to cover the difference.
And to get away with this all I needed now was a popular investment and
320 perfectly good steady jobs.
Well, with the Victory Loan the first part was easy enough, and I
concluded to pay twenty-five dollars on each of three hundred and twenty
one hundred dollar victory notes, making myself responsible for the lot
the same as if I was a bank and getting a job for each note and having
the giver of the job hold the note on the soldier and pay me the
instalments and I would pay myself back, or if not nobody would be stung
outside of me, supposing any one of them failed to come across. I was
going to take a big lot for myself and another ten didn't much matter.
And then with the remaining $6.25 each, well, I would pool that for
leaflets enough to go around the whole division and on the leaflet I
would have printed the facts and a list of the jobs and just what they
was, with how much kale per week went with them, and see that the boys
got them while the parade was forming and then it would be up to them,
because the home folks can only do so much and then it's up to the army
their own selves just as with munitions and sugar and red X work while
the big show was on. They did the work but we gave them the job--we and
the Germans. And now all we could do again was to give them a job--and
it's enough, judging from how they went after the first one.
And then, just as I come smack up against the awful fact of where would
I get them jobs Ma come in and says the hot-dogs and liberty-cabbage
which it's the truth we always translate them into American at our
table, was getting cold and as long as I was paying for them I'd better
eat them while they was fit. So I says all right and we went in and did
so.
Believe you me, it certainly is a remarkable thing the way you start on
a afternoon's work like I done, all full of vigor and strength and how
your ideas and courage and everything will sort of leak away toward the
time to put on the feed-bag at Evensong. And how again the ideas and pep
comes back in the evening once you have eaten. There was almost perfect
silence the first few minutes we sat down or would of been except for Ma
taking her tea out of the saucer, which I can't learn her not to do and
the only way I keep her from disgracing me at the Ritz and etc., is to
make sure she don't order it. But when the first pangs was attended to I
commenced to feel more conversational.
"Work," I says, thinking of what I had been thinking of. "Work is the
one thing that stands by a person. Everything else in life can go bluey
and their work will see them through. That's why it's been so popular
all these years, and where these Bolsheviks make their big mistake.
Because they don't work and not working they get bored to death and so
they commence rioting. Do you remember that quotation from that
well-known cowboy poet, Omaha Kiyim, "Satan will find business still for
idle hands to do?" How good that applies to strikes--idle hands--ain't
that perfect? And it written so long ago!"
"How long?" says Ma.
"Oh, I dunno. Maybe three hundred years," I says.
Ma laid down her knife and spoon, she being quite entirely through, and
looked me in the eye.
"I will remember them words, daughter," she says very solemn.
And it's the truth I never noticed how serious she was about it until I
come to look back on it nearly three weeks later.
IV
And during that time which has been so immortally fixed in writing by
the grandest book with the same name, I was as busy as the great
American cootie is supposed to be on his native hearth--only it ain't
that piece of furniture but another, of course. Do you get me? I'm
afraid so! Well, I was as busy as what you think. To begin with I called
a committee-meeting in the privacy of my grey French enamel boudoir
where I wear my boudoir cap and have the day-bed hitched and this
committee meeting consisted entirely of myself and the two fool dogs.
And after I had gone through all the motions, I appointed myself a
sub-committee of one to carry out the meeting's resolutions and do all
the work.
This is about what would of happened if I had done it the regular way
and asked Ruby Roselle and Maison Rosabelle and the other girls. We
would of had a mahogany table and a gavel and a pitcher of ice-water and
a lot of hot-air and a wasted morning and in the end I would of been the
goat anyways, so I thought why not do it single-handed in the first
place and be done? I could print all their names on the leaflets and
they would be perfectly satisfied.
So having got over the necessary formalities as you might say, I
accepted the nomination and got to work. Fortunately I wasn't doing
anything except a solo dance at the Palatial at supper-time and one
picture. And so I had most of my days to myself. The Fixings on the
Avenue grew and blossomed and so did my contribution to the Welcome Home
Committee. I didn't get to go to any of their meetings but I don't
imagine they even missed me at the time. And while the arches and other
motion-picture scenery was being as completed as they ever would be, so
was my list. My monument took up less space, but when you gave it the
once-over it seemed maybe a little more rain-proof than the others.
Apparently all there was to it was slips of paper six by eight with this
printed on them. At the top it says:
"WELCOME HOME"
"HOWDY BOYS, AND OUR HEARTFELT THANKS!
DO YOU NEED A JOB? HERE ARE THREE HUNDRED AND TWENTY AND A VICTORY NOTE
GOES WITH EVERY ONE!"
Then come the list. I will put down a part of it so you can realize what
a assortment of things has to be done to keep the seive in civilization.
4 handsome juveniles for motion-picture work--stage experience
unnecessary.
2 experienced camera men.
2 marcel-wavers.
6 chemists, Marie La Tour Complexion Powder Co.
2 salesmen, Marie La Tour Turkish Cigarette Co.
16 waiters, Palatial Hotel.
1 traveling man, Marie La Tour Silk Underwear Co.
2 experienced lineotypers, Motion Picture Gazette.
2 experienced pressmen, Motion Picture Gazette.
1 publicity man, experienced, Motion Picture Gazette.
3 fillum cutters.
1 stylish floorman. Must be handsome and refined, not over 30.
Apply Maison Rosabelle, Hats and Gowns.
1 orchestra complete, with leader. Apply "Chez La Tour" (my old
joint of parlour-dancing days).
30 chorus men.
2 sparring partners for Madame Griselda, the famous lady-boxer.