MRS. MACY AND THE CONVENTION
Mrs. Lathrop was out in the garden, pottering around in an aimless sort
of way which she herself designated as "looking after things," but which
her friend and neighbor called "wastin' time an' strength on nothin'."
Whenever Miss Clegg perceived Mrs. Lathrop thus engaged she always
interrupted her occupation as speedily as possible. On the occasion of
which I write, she emerged from her own kitchen door at once, and
called:
"Oh, Mrs. Lathrop, come here, I've got a surprise for you."
Mrs. Lathrop forthwith ceased to gaze fondly and absent-mindedly over
her half-acre of domain, and advanced to the fence. Miss Clegg also
advanced to the fence, and upon its opposite sides the following
conversation took place.
"I went to see Mrs. Macy yesterday afternoon," Miss Clegg began, "an' I
saw her an' that's what the surprise come from."
"She isn't--" asked Mrs. Lathrop anxiously.
"Oh, no, she's all right--that is, she's pretty nearly all right, but I
may remark as the sight an' hearin' of her this day is a everlastin'
lesson on lettin' women be women an' allowin' men to keep on bein' men
for some years to come yet. Mrs. Macy says for her part she's felt that
way all along but every one said it was her duty an' she says she always
makes a point of doin' her duty, an' this time it was goin' to give her
a free trip to town, too, so the hand of Providence seemed to her to be
even more'n unusually plainly stuck out at her."
"Oh," said Mrs. Lathrop--"you mean--"
"Of course I do," said Susan, "but wait till I tell you how it come out.
It's come out now, an' all different from how you know."
"I--" said Mrs. Lathrop.
"Well, you wait an' listen," said the friend,--"you wait an' listen an'
then you'll know, too."
"I--" said Mrs. Lathrop, submissively.
"She says," Miss Clegg went on, "that we all know (an' that's true, too,
'cause I told you that before) as she was never much took with the idea
even in the first of it. She says as she thinks as Elijah's ideas is
gettin' most too progressive an' if he ain't checked we'll very soon
find ourselves bein' run over by some of his ideas instead of pushed
forward. She says woman's clubs is very nice things an' Mrs. Lupey takes
a deal of pleasure with the one in Meadville (whenever they don't meet
at her house)--but Mrs. Macy says our sewin' society ain't no club an'
never was no club, an' she considers as it was overdrawin' on Elijah's
part to start the question of its sendin' a delegate to any federation
of any kind of woman's clubs. She says she can't see--an' she said at
the meetin' as elected her, that she couldn't see--what our sewin'
society could possibly get out of any convention, for you can buy all
the patterns by mail now just as well as if you have 'em all to look
over. An' then she says, too, as no one on the face of kingdom come
could ever be crazy enough to suppose as any convention could ever get
anythin' out of our delegates, so what was the use of us an' them ever
tryin' to get together a _tall_. I thought she was very sensible
yesterday, an' I thought she was very sensible at the meetin' as elected
her, an' I tried to talk to Elijah, but Elijah's so dead set on our
bein' up to time with every Tom, Dick an' Harry as comes along with any
kind of a new plan, that I can't seem to get him to understand as no one
in this town wants to be up to time--we're a great deal better suited
takin' our own time like we always did until he come among us. Mrs. Macy
says as we all know as no one wanted to be a delegate to the federation
to begin with, an' you know that yourself, Mrs. Lathrop, for I was there
an' Elijah's idea resulted in the first place in every one's stayin'
away from that meetin' for fear as they'd be asked to go. They had to
set another day for the sewin' society an' even then a good many cleaned
house instead for a excuse, an' Mrs. Sweet said right out as she did n't
believe as any of us knowed enough to go to a convention an' so we'd
better all stay home. I had to speak up at that an' say as Elijah had
told me as things was fixed now so folks as did n't know anythin' could
go to a convention just as well as any one else, but Mrs. Jilkins said
in that case she should feel as if she was wastin' her time along with a
lot of fools, an' what she said made such a impression that in the end
the only one as they could possibly get to go was Mrs. Macy, so they
elected her. Mrs. Macy was n't enthusiastic about bein' elected, a
_tall_, but Mrs. Lupey is her cousin an' Mrs. Lupey was the Meadville
delegate, an' she says she thought as they could sit together, an' Mrs.
Lupey wanted to go to the city anyway about reducin' her flesh, an' Mrs.
Macy said that was sure to be interestin' for the one as Mrs. Lupey
likes best is the one as you run chains of marbles up an' down your back
alone by yourself, an' Mrs. Macy wanted to see them givin' Mrs. Lupey
full directions for nothin'--she thought it would be so amusin'--an' so
in the end she said she'd go.
"Well, she says foreign folks before they come to this country is wise
compared to her! She was tellin' me all about it this afternoon. I never
hear such a tale--not even from Gran'ma Mullins. She says Elijah sent in
her name an' they filed her next day an' she says they've never quit
sendin' her the filin's ever since. I told you as I heard in the square
she was gettin' a good deal of mail but I never mistrusted how much
until she showed me her box for kindlin' fires next winter. Why, she
says it's beyond all belief! The right end of the box has got the papers
as was n't worth nothin' an' the left end has got them as is really
valuable. Well, after I'd looked at the box we set down an' she told me
the hide an' hair of the whole thing. She says at first she got letters
from everybody under the sun askin' her her opinions an' views, some
about things as she never heard of before an' others as to things as she
considers a downright insult to consider as she might know about. But
she says views an' insults don't really matter much, after you reach her
age, so she let those all go into the box together an' thought she'd
think no more about it. She says there was only just one as she really
minded an' that was the one about her switch. Seems she was n't decided
about even wearin' her switch to the convention, for she says it's very
hard to get both ends of a switch fastened in at the same do-up an' one
end looks about as funny as the other, stickin' out, but she says you
can maybe imagine her feelin's when a man as she would n't know from
Adam wrote her a letter beginnin', 'Hello, hello, why don't you have
that dyed?' an' a picture of him lookin' at a picture of her very own
switch with a microscope! She says she never was so took aback in all
her life. There was another picture on the envelope of the man at a
telephone an' he'd got all the other delegates' switches done an'
hangin' up to dry for 'em an' she says she will say as the law against
sendin' such things through the mail had certainly ought to be applied
to that man right then an' there. She says it's years since she's got
red from anythin' but bein' mad, but she was red from both kinds of
woman's feelin's then an' don't you forget it. But laws, she says
switches is child's play to what another man wrote her about his
garters. Not her garters but his garters, mind you, Mrs. Lathrop. Would
you believe that that other man had the face to ask her point-blank if,
while she was in town, she'd be so kind as to give five minutes to
comin' an' lookin' at his garters!--at _his garters_! He said they
hooked onto his shoulders an' he just wanted a chance to tell her how
comfortable they was. Well, she says the idea of any man's garters bein'
of any interest to a widow was surely most new to her, an' it was all
she could do to keep from writin' an' tellin' him so. She says she never
hear the beat of such impertinence in all her life. Why, she says when
she had a husband she never took no special interest in his garters as
she recollects. She says she remembers as he used to pull up when he
first got up in the mornin' an' then calmly wrinkle down all day, but
she says if her lawful husband's garters' wrinkles did n't interest her,
it ain't in reason as any other man's not wrinklin' is goin' to. But
she says that ain't all whatever I may think (or you either, Mrs.
Lathrop), for although the rest ain't maybe so bad, still it's bad
enough an' you 'll both agree to that when you hear it, I know. She says
more men wrote her, an' more, an' more, an' the things they said was
about all she could stand, so help her Heaven! One asked her if she
knowed she needed a new carpet an' he happened to keep carpets, an'
another told her her house needed paintin' an' he happened to keep
paint, an' another just come out flat as a flounder an' said if she
knowed how old her stove was, she'd come straight to him the first
thing, an' he happened to keep stoves. An' she says they need n't
suppose as she was n't sharp enough to see as every last one of them
letters was really writ to sound unselfish, but with the meanin'
underneath of maybe gettin' her to buy somethin'.
"An' then she says there come a new kind as really frightened her by
gettin' most too intimate on postal cards."
"On postal--" said Mrs. Lathrop.
"Yes--on postal cards. One wrote as she could get her husband back if
she'd only follow his direction, an' she says the last thing she wants
is to get her husband back, even if he is only just simply dead; an'
another told her if she'd go through his exercises she could get fat or
thin just as she pleased, an' the exercises was done in black without no
clothes on around the edge of the card, an' Mrs. Macy says when Johnny
handed her the card at the post office she like to of died then an'
there. Why, she says they was too bad to put in a book, even--they was
too bad to even send Mrs. Lupey!"
"Wh--" asked Mrs. Lathrop.
"Then on Monday last still another new kind begin an' they've been
comin' more an' more each mail. They was the convention itself beginnin'
on her. An' she says she don't know whether they was a improvement or
worse to come. One wrote an' told her if she was temperance to report
to them the first thing, an' then stand shoulder to shoulder from then
on straight through the whole week. Well, Mrs. Macy says she could n't
consider goin' anywhere an' standin' up through a whole week so she
wrote 'em she was for the Family Entrance, where everybody can sit down,
an' she feels bad because she's a great believer in temperance, but she
says she can't help it, she's got to have a chair anywhere where she's
to stay for a week. So temperance loses Mrs. Macy. Then woman's
sufferige did n't wait to ask her what she was, but sent her a button
an' told her to sew it right on right then an' there. She says she was
feelin' so bad over the temperance that she was only too glad to be
agreeable about the button so she done it, but it's hard to button over
on a'count of bein' a star with the usual spikes an' the only place
where she needed a button was on her placket hole, an' a spiked button
in the back of your petticoat is far from bein' amusin' although she
says she can't but think as it's a very good badge for sufferige
whenever she steps on it in steppin' out of her clothes at night. Then
next she got a letter askin' her if she'd join the grand battalion to
rally around the flag, an' she says it was right then an' there as she
begin to fill the kindlin' box.
"Well, she says she'd got the box half full when to-day she got the
final slam in her face!
"There came this mornin' her directions for goin' an' she says when she
see for the first time just the whole width of what she was let in to
she most fell over backward then an' there.
"First was a badge with a very good safety pin as she can always use;
she says she did n't mind the badge. Then there was paper tellin' her as
she was M. 1206 an' not to let it slip her mind an' to mark everythin'
she owned with it an' sew it in her hat an' umbrella. Then there was a
map of the city with blue lines an' pink squares an' a sun without any
sense shinin' square in the middle. Then there was a paper as she must
fill out an' return by the next mail if she was meanin' to eat or sleep
durin' the week. Then there was four labels all to be writ with her name
an' her number an' one was for her trunk if it weighed over a hundred
pounds, an' one was for her trunk if it weighed under a hundred pounds,
an' one was for her trunk if it was a suit case, an' one was for her
trunk if it was n't.
"Well, Mrs. Macy says you can maybe imagine how her head was swimmin' by
this time an' the more she read how she was to be looked out for, the
more scared she got over what might possibly happen to her. She says it
was just shock after shock. There was a letter offerin' to pray with her
any time she'd telephone first, an' a letter tellin' her not to overpay
the hack, an' a letter sayin' as it's always darkest afore dawn, an' if
she'd got any money saved up to bring it along with her an' invest it
by the careful advice of him as had the letter printed at his own
expense. Why, she says she didn't know which way to turn or what to do
next she was that mixed up.
"An' then yesterday mornin' come the final bang as bu'sted Mrs. Macy!
She got a letter from a man as said he'd meet her in the station an'
tattoo her name right on her in the ladies' waitin'-room, so as her
friends could easy find her an' know her body at the morgue. Well, she
said that ended her. She says she never was one to take to bein' stuck
an' so she just up an' wrote to Mrs. Lupey as she would n't go for love
or money--"
"Why," cried Mrs. Lathrop, "then she isn't--"
"No," said Susan, "she isn't goin'. She ain't got the courage an' it's
cruel to force her. I told her to give me the ticket an' I'd go in her
place."