demanded Gillespie with a burr of rising indignation in his voice.
Gillespie had been born in the land of cakes and haggis.
"Robert or John or Henry, what's the odds?" countered Mr. Liebermann,
and shrugged. "Are you, anyhow, so sure it was Robert? Seems to me--"
"Am I sure? Oh, Lord!" With an effort Mr. Gillespie regained control of
his feelings. "The poet I am thinking of was the American poet, Bret
Harte. And Harte wrote a poem about old John Burns of Gettysburg. I
don't believe that even you ever read that particular poem, Milt."
His elaborated sarcasm was lost, though, on Mr. Liebermann. "Anyhow,
I'm going to introduce the character of John Burns into the main
battle-shots. And this old-timer of mine is going to play him. We can
use extracts from the poem for the sub-titles. That's what I came
over to tell you, Lobel, not to discuss with our cultured friend here
whether the noblest poet that ever lived--a genius that every school
child in this country should be familiar with--was named Robert Burns
or Oscar Burns or Isadore Burns. By the way, have either of you seen
Herzog this morning? He hasn't been on the set, or if he has I missed
him. I want to send him in to Hollywood to the address where the old
boy's stopping."
* * * * *
Herzog may have been a capable assistant-director--the film world so
acclaimed him--but as an emissary his performances might be open to
criticism as lacking in some of the subtler shadings of diplomacy.
All went smoothly at the meeting in Mrs. H. Spicer's parlor until
after he delivered the purport of his superior's message, Captain Teal
harkening attentively.
"Very well, sir," said the Captain. "I am indebted to you, sir,
for bringing me this summons. Kindly present my compliments to Mr.
Gillespie and inform him that I shall report for duty tomorrow morning
promptly on the hour named."
"He ain't waiting for any compliments, I guess," said Herzog. "What he
wants is for you to be there on time so's we can give you the dope on
the bit you're going to play and get you measured for the clothes and
all. Did I mention to you that you're cast for a battle scene? Well,
you are. Possibly you seen some of this here war-stuff in your day, eh?"
"Sir," said the Captain stiffly, "I had four years of service in a
heroic struggle such as this world never before had seen. Permit me to
ask you a question: Possibly--I say possibly--you may have heard of the
War Between the Sections for the Southern Confederacy?"
"Well, if I did, it wasn't by that name," confessed the tactless Mr.
Herzog. "What's the diff', if I did or I didn't?"
"None whatsoever, sir, to you," stated Captain Teal. "The difference to
me is that I took part in that great conflict." But his irony was lost
and spent itself on the soft California air. By clamping his hat, which
he had worn throughout the interview, more firmly down upon his head,
Mr. Herzog, still all tolerant affability, now indicated that he was
about to take his departure.
"One moment, if you please," added Captain Teal. "There is another
matter which I desire may be brought to the attention of my worthy
friend, Mr. Gillespie." He spoke as one conferring favors rather than
as one who just had been made the recipient of a favor. "Stopping here
in this same establishment is a most gifted young Southern lady--a
Miss Blossom Lamar Clayton. She has had experience of the dramatic
profession; I would say she has undoubted gifts. But as yet she has
been unable, through lack of suitable opportunity, to demonstrate her
abilities in the local field. Personally, I am most deeply interested
in her future--"
"Why, Foxy Grandpa, you old son of a gun!" exclaimed the edified Mr.
Herzog. With a jovial thumb he harpooned the Captain in the ribs. "What
do you mean, you old rascal, hooking up with a skirt at your age?"
"Sir," said Captain Teal, in an awful, withering voice, "it pleases you
to be offensive. The young lady in question not only is my protégée,
in a way of speaking, but I have the very great honor to be distantly
related to her family. Do I make myself sufficiently plain to your
understanding? And kindly remember also that my name to you, sir, and
all your ilk is Teal, Captain Rodney Teal, sir."
But Mr. Herzog declined to wither.
"No offense," he said. "Just let me see if I get the big idea? I
suppose you want Gillespie to give the gal the once-over and see
whether he can use her?"
"In other words than those you use, that, sir, was the concern I had in
mind," said Captain Teal.
"Well, then, why not bring her along with you in the morning?"
suggested Mr. Herzog, with a placating gesture, he being now vaguely
contrite over having in some utterly inexplicable way given offense to
this touchy old party, and somehow impressed by the other's tremendous
show of outraged dignity. "I suppose there's no harm in that. If
Gillespie likes her looks he might give her a show at some little thing
or other; you never can tell. And he's a great hand for making his own
finds. And if he don't fall for her you pass her along to me for a
screen test, and if she comes clean there I might work her in among the
extras and let her pick up a little money that way to carry her along.
Get me?"
Which generous avowal so mollified the old Captain that, in token of
his forgiveness and his gratitude, he bestowed upon Mr. Herzog a most
ceremonious handshake at parting.
As it turned out, here was one beginner who needed no rehearsals.
Noting how aptly the aged novice seemed to slip into the personality
of the part as soon as he had put on the costume, with its saffron
vest, its curl-brimmed, bell-crowned high hat, its blue coat that was
swallow-tailed and tall in the collar, "and large gilt buttons size of
a dollar"--see the poem for further details--Gillespie decided that a
rehearsal might be a mistake. It might make this eleventh hour addition
to the cast self-conscious, which of course was what Gillespie above
all things desired to avoid. He didn't want Captain Teal to try to act.
As he repeatedly emphasized, he just wanted him to be himself.
Nor did it occur to Gillespie, any more than it occurred to Herzog,
assisting him in the day's job, to take the old man into their
confidence touching on what of theme and development had gone before in
the making of this masterpiece of an historical production, or on what
would follow after. Players of character bits are not supposed to know
what the thing's about. Indeed, there are times when the patron of the
silent drama, going to his favorite theater and viewing the completed
work, is inclined to believe that some of the principal performers
could have had but a hazy conception of what it was all about. Nobody,
one figures, ever explained the whys and wherefores to them, either.
However, that is neither here nor there, this being no critique of the
technique of the motion-picture art but merely an attempt to describe
an incident in the filming of one particular scene in one particular
motion-picture, namely the epic entitled "Two Lovers of War-Time."
There should have been a broad sea of ripening wheat rolling upward
along a hillside slope to a broken stone wall. Gillespie, usually a
stickler for the lesser verities, was compelled to forego the ripening
wheat because, while outdoor stagecraft has gone far in these later
times and studio stagecraft has gone still farther, you cannot, in
California in the fall of the year, months after the standing crop has
been cut, artificially produce a plausible semblance of many acres of
nodding grain all ready for the reaper. So he contented himself with a
stubble field, and privately hoped no caption observer would record the
error. But the traditional stone fence, which is so famous in song and
story, was there. And thither the Captain was presently escorted.
"Now, here's the layout," specified Herzog, who actively was in charge
of this phase of the undertaking. "You're supposed to be the only
civilian"--Herzog pronounced it _civil-an_--"the only civilian in the
whole town that didn't beat it when the enemy came along. All the rest
of 'em took it on the run to the woods but you stuck because you ain't
scared of nobody. You're one of these game old patr'ots, see? So you
just loaded up your old rifle and you declared yourself in. So that
makes you the hero of the whole outfit, for the time being. Get me?...
Good! Well, then--now follow me clos't, because this is where the real
action starts--the very next morning you happen to be out here on the
edge of the town and right over yonder is where the big doings bust
out. The book that the chief got the notion for these shots out of
don't say how you got here in the first place but we're taking it for
granted, me and Gillespie are, that you're just fiddling around looking
for trouble on your own hook. The book does say, though--it's a poetry
book--that your gang get a slant at you when you show up and they start
in making funny cracks and asking you where you got them funny clothes
you got on and asking you what you think you're going to do anyhow with
that there big old musket you're lugging with you.
"But I figure that would kind of slow up the action, so I've changed it
around some from the way the book's got it. The way it's going to be is
the battle gets going good before you join in. One gang--one army, I
mean--is behind that fence and the other army comes running up towards
'em from down at the foot of that hill yonder, whooping and yelling and
shooting and all. And with that, you cut in right between 'em, all by
your lonesome, and take a hand. That brings you out prominent because
you're the only guy in sight that's dressed different from everybody
else. All the rest of these guys are in soldier's clothes. So this
gives you your chance to hog the picture for a w'ile. It's good and fat
for you along here.
"Well, then, that other army that I've just been telling you about
comes charging on right up to the wall and there's close-in fighting
back and forth--hand-to-hand stuff, what I mean--for two or three
minutes before the break comes and the gang that is due to be licked
decide they've had enough and start retreating. And all this time
you're right in the thick of it, shooting first, and then when your
gun's empty you club it by the barrel and fight with it that way. Don't
be afraid of being too rough, neither. These extras are under orders
to go at one another raw, so it'll be more like a battle ought to be.
Them that puts the most steam into it will get a finnuf slipped to 'em.
They know that, and I wouldn't be surprised but what probably a couple
of dozen of 'em should get laid out in earnest; so you needn't feel
backward about wading in and doing your share. Just put yourself right
into it, that's the idea, and cut loose regardless. I'll be off to one
side cueing you through my megaphone which way to go when they first
pick you up for the long shots, but after that it's all up to you.
Don't think about the camera nor nothing else. Don't look at a camera.
Don't look around, even to see where any of the cameras are. But then,
seeing you told me yourself only last week about having fought in one
of them regular wars, I guess I don't need to tell you how to go to it.
It'll all come back to you in less than a minute, I'll bet you.... Now
then, come on over here and let me get you set."
Herzog's optimistic prediction was justified. In less than a minute
it did come back to Captain Teal. The first preliminary crackle of
musketry fire brought it back to him with a mighty surge of clamoring,
swirling memories. The first whiff of acrid powder smoke in his
nostrils, the first sight of those ragged gray uniforms, those dusty
blue uniforms, changed the memories into actualities. The weight of
sixty years slipped off his shoulders; the rich saps of youth mounted
for a little passing time into his pithy marrows, giving swiftness to
his rickety legs and strength to his withered arms. It was proof of
what an imagination fired by vivid reminders of clanging bygone things
could do for an ancient's body.
Headlong once more into battle went Captain Teal, and as he did he
uttered sundry long-drawn wolfish yells, one yell right behind another,
until you would have thought, had you been there to listen, that his
throat surely must split itself wide open.
In he went, and he took sides. He took the wrong side. That is to
say, and speaking from strictly a technical standpoint, he took the
wrong side. But from Captain Teal's standpoint he took the right side
and the only side which with honor he might take. To be sure, no one
beforehand had advised him specifically in this matter of taking
sides. It had been Herzog's oversight that he had not dwelt more
clearly upon this highly important point, which he had assumed his
venerable pupil would understand. And now it was Herzog's handicap, as
the Captain's intention became plain, that Herzog's hoarsely bellowed
commands--commands at the outset but merging swiftly into harsh and
agonized outcries--should fall upon that ear of Captain Teal which was
his deafer ear.
Not that it would have made any difference to Captain Teal had he been
able to hear. With his head back and his parted white whiskers flowing
rearward over his shoulders, with the Rebel yell still shrilly and
constantly issuing from him, he went in and he took command of those
onrushing supernumeraries who wore the gray, and he bade them go with
him and give the Yankees hell, and he led them on up the hill to where
the blue-clad forces held its crest. Theirs not to question why, theirs
but to do or die; which, as may be recalled, was once upon a time
precisely and identically the case with other doughty warriors taking
part in an earlier onslaught upon the serried field of battle. If, at
the last moment their overlords chose to amend the preordained course
of events, so be it. Since confusion and chaos were to rule the hour,
why then in that case might the best man win. Behold, now, how all
drilled plans had suddenly been tossed aside; but at least they had a
fit commander to follow after. And at least they knew the purport of
that most dwelt-upon and salient order--to smite and spare not. They
were lusty lads, these extras, no lustier perhaps than the Unionists
yonder awaiting the clash and grapple, but better captained.
And so, while the obedient camera-men kept on grinding, and while
Herzog shrieked and impotently danced and finally, casting his
megaphone from him, stood and profaned his Maker's name, Long John
Burns led Pickett's charge, and Gettysburg, after sanguinary losses
on both sides, was a Confederate victory, and American history most
wondrously was remade.
* * * * *
"Ow!" Mr. Lobel heaved the sorrowful expletive up from his lower
stomach spaces. "All them extras to pay for all over again! All them
re-takes to be retook. All that money wasted because a crazy old loafer
must run--must run--" He grasped for the proper word.
"Run amuck," supplied Liebermann, proud of his erudition.
"--Must run a regular muck. Yes, if you should ask me, one of the worst
mucks ever I have seen in my whole life," continued Mr. Lobel. "And
you it was, Gillespie, that stood right here in this office only last
Toosday of this week and promised me you should keep down expensives.
Who's a man going to believe in this picture business? I ask you!"
"What of it?" said Gillespie. "It was worth a little money to let the
old laddy-boy get the smoke of battle in his nose once more before
he dies and have a thrill. I didn't think so awhile ago when he was
rampaging through that flock of extras, but I'm beginning to think so
now. We'll tell him he's just a trifle too notionate for this game and
pay him off--with a wee something on the side for a bonus. If you won't
do it I'll do it myself out of my own pocket. And then we'll ship him
back to that sleepy little town where he came from. Anyhow, it's not a
total loss, Lobel, remember that. We're going to salvage something out
of the wreck. And we owe the old boy for that."
"What do you mean, salve something out of it?" inquired Mr. Lobel.
"We grab off that little Clayton girl--the one I tried out in those
interior shots yesterday. She's got it in her, that kid has. I don't
mean brains, although at that I guess she's about as smart as the
average fluffy-head that's doing ingénues along this coast. But she's
got the stuff in her to put it over. Tell her a thing once and she's
got it. And she screens well. And she's naturally camera-wise. She'll
go a good way, I predict. And if it hadn't been for the old man we
wouldn't have her. He practically rammed her down my throat. It seems
she's his cousin, eight or ten times removed, and nothing would do him
but that I must hitch her onto the payroll. To get him in the proper
humor I had to take her on. But now I'm glad of it. I'll be wanting a
little contract soon for this Clayton, Lobel, so we'll have her tied
up before somebody else begins to want her. Because, sooner or later,
somebody else will."
* * * * *
Traffic swirled past the two Southerners where they stood in a side
eddy in the train shed. They were saying good-by, and now all at once
the girl felt a curious weakness in her knees as though she were losing
a dependable prop.
"I must get aboard," he said, looking down at her from his greater
height. "We'll be leaving in a minute or so. You need not distress
yourself about me, my dear. I could never have been happy for very long
in this place--it's not like our country. These Northern people mean
well no doubt; but after all they're not our people, are they? And this
avocation was not suited for one of my years and--and antecedents; that
I also realize. I have no regrets. In fact"--a flare lit in his faded
old eyes--"in fact, I greatly enjoyed the momentary excitement of once
more facing the enemies of our beloved land--even in make-believe.
Indeed, I enjoyed it more than I can tell. I shall have that to look
back on always--that and the very great pleasure of having known you,
my dear."
He lifted her hand and kissed it and started away, and she saw him
going--a picture out of a picture book--through a sudden mist of tears.
But he came back for one more farewell passage:
"Remember, my dear," he said, "that we--you and I--are of the Old
South--the land of real gentlemen and real ladies. You'll remember that
always, won't you?"
And now, with both her arms around him and her lips pressed hard
against his ruddy old cheek, she promised him she would.
She meant it, too, at the moment. And perhaps she did and then again
perhaps she didn't. The world she lived in is so full of Tobe Dalys.
As the brethren of the leathern pants and the silken neckerchiefs of
Hollywood are so fond of saying--those mail-order movie cow-punchers
who provide living backgrounds for the Westerns--"_Quien sabe?_"
KILLED WITH KINDNESS
[Decoration]
Needles and pins, needles and pins, when a man's married his trouble
begins. That's the way the old application goes. But in the case of
Jerome Bracken it didn't go. After he married, life ran for him on
very smooth rollers and there were neither needles nor pins to prick
him. Possibly that was because he chose for his wife a virtuous and
well-meaning woman, one a bit narrow in her views perhaps and rather
stiffly opinionated, as a good many good women are who protect their
own tepid moralities behind a quill-work of sharp-pointed prejudices.
They are the female porcupines of the human race, being colorless and
lethargic in their mentalities but acute and eager when they take a
dislike. Still, the porcupine rates high among the animals. While
generally not beloved, it generally is respected. And undoubtedly this
lady who became Mrs. Jerome Bracken was well-meaning and remained
straitly so until the end of all regulated things.
Or then on the other hand, possibly Jerome Bracken's marriage was a
success because he picked precisely the sort of woman who had the
qualifications for being a suitable wife to an up-and-coming man, a
man who kept on up and kept on coming until he had arrived, with both
feet planted on how firm a foundation! But then Jerome always had
been, as the phrase is, a clever picker. He proved that when as a very
young man he moved to Dyketon and picked Queen Sears for his girl. He
kept on proving it--by picking the right business, the right code of
deportment before the eyes of mankind, the right church to belong to,
and precisely the right father-in-law.
This Queenie Sears, now; she was not the one he married, naturally not.
Queenie Sears was not the sort any man in his sane senses would marry,
she being what used to be called a fancy woman. She was an inmate of
Madam Carrie Rupert's house when he first met her and it was there,
under that hospitable but disreputable roof, down on Front Street in
Dyketon's red-light district, that the meeting took place.
About this first meeting there was nothing significant. He called, a
stranger, and she entertained him, it being her business to entertain
callers. He at this time was a shrewd but countrified youth of
twenty or thereabouts. She was a little older than that, blonde,
simple-minded, easy-going, rather pretty in an insipid way, with a
weak, self-indulgent mouth. Already she was plump, with the certainty
before her that, barring ill health to pull her down, the succeeding
years would enhance her plumpness into rolls and cushions of fat.
Probably, if the truth were known, she deliberately elected to take on
this life she was leading. However, and be that as it may, she had the
customary story to account for her present vocation when somebody who
was maudlin with a sympathy based on alcohol asked her how she came to
be what she was.
Hers was a stock story lacking novelty as well as sincerity--a
sentimental fiction dealing with a trusting and ignorant maiden's
downfall in an orange grove vaguely described as being "away down
South," and then discovery and disgrace and a traditional proud father
whose heart could be flinty and yet broken, and a shamed girl's flight
in the night and all the rest of the stage props. But sometimes it was
a plantation instead of an orange grove; or if the inquirer happened
to be a Southerner, it might be a ranch in the far West. Queenie was
taking no chances on getting herself checked up.
As for Jerome, his tale was a short one, not particularly interesting
but having the merit, as hers did not, of a background of fact. Raised
on a farm in the central part of the state; poor parents; common school
education; lately landed in Dyketon; stopping now at a second-rate
boarding-house out on Ninth Street; working for eighteen a week as
a bookkeeper at Stout & Furst's clothing store; ambitious to better
himself in both these latter regards--that, brought up to date, was
young Bracken.
Nor was there any special significance in the intimacy which
followed between these two. He visited her at more or less regular
intervals. Thus early he was shaping his days into a calculated and
orderly routine which remained a part of him forever after. She liked
him, being at heart kindly and, considering her trade, susceptible
to affectionate impulses; he liked her, being lonely, and that
substantially was all there was to it.
At the end of a year he began his journey up in the world. Mr. Gus
Ralph, president of the Ralph State Bank, took him on as an assistant
receiving teller at a hundred a month and prospects. Unknown to the
newcomer, Mr. Ralph had had his eye on him for some time--a young man
of good manners and presumably of good habits, bright, dignified,
industrious, discreet, honest--in short, a hustler. Mr. Ralph was on
the lookout for that kind. He made a place for the young man, and from
the hour when he walked into the counting-house and hung up his hat
Jerome was justifying the confidence Mr. Ralph put in him. If he was
continuing to sow his wild oats--and privately he was--at least he
sowed none during banking hours, nor did any part of his harvesting in
public, which was sufficient for his new boss. Mr. Ralph often said
he had been a youngster once himself, saying it with an air which
indicated that he had been very much of a youngster indeed.
At the end of six months more, which would make it about eighteen
months in all, young Jerome ceased his sowing operations altogether.
He didn't fray the rope; he cut it clean through at a single decisive
stroke.