THE UNCONVENTIONAL
Within a week it was necessary to appoint a commission to formulate an
elaborate code of laws regulating various nuisances which had
developed in the community.
A kitchen-boy insisted on playing a cornet in his room. He didn't know
a musical from a promissory note but he swore he'd become a musician
before he died. His efforts came near proving fatal to his neighbours
before he was suppressed.
Several women had pet parrots. The people who lived near by
strenuously objected. The parrots had to go.
A sailor had brought a monkey whose manners were not appreciated by
any one except his master. The monkey had to go. Cats were arraigned
for trial and a fierce battle raged over the question of allowing them
in the building. The question was finally put to the popular vote in
the assembly and the cats won by a good majority. But strict laws
regulating the kind of cats, their number, and their care, were put
into force.
Dogs won by a large majority when they were finally put on trial.
The commission on nuisances had finally to make a code of laws
regulating table manners and the conduct of all social gatherings.
The one question which all but precipitated a civil war was the
problem of dress. Inequality of wages meant, of necessity, inequality
of dress.
A desperate effort was made by a large number to force the community
to adopt a uniform for both men and women. It was fiercely opposed.
Every woman who believed herself good looking refused to listen to any
argument on the subject.
It was necessary at once, however, to formulate some sort of code. A
number of men had been coming into the dining-room in their shirt
sleeves. Some of them apparently never combed their hair or changed
their linen. A number of women had gotten into the habit of coming
into the dining-room in loose wrappers of variegated colors and
without corsets.
The Bard of Ramcat was particularly severe in his public criticism of
these women in the general assembly of the Brotherhood.
"In the name of beauty, I protest!" he cried. "Beauty is an attribute
of God. It is woman's first duty to be beautiful, and if she isn't, at
least to make man think she is. I insist that she shall have the
widest liberty in the choice of dress. Only let her be careful that
she is beautiful!"
The poet was heartily applauded, and a resolution was passed which
embodied his ideas, approving the widest freedom of choice in dress,
approving especially unconventional forms of dress, provided always
the ideal of beauty was held inviolate.
In his speech advocating the immediate passage of the resolution the
Bard urged every woman to outdo herself in the struggle for supreme
beauty of appearance at the weekly ball on Friday evening.
His resolutions and speech bore surprising fruit.
When the festivities were at their height a crowd of fifteen pretty
girls suddenly swept into the brilliantly lighted ball-room in tights!
The sensation was so instantaneous and overwhelming the music stopped
with a crash. The orchestra thought somebody had yelled fire.
The girls in their beautiful but unconventional dress tried to appear
unconcerned. But even the Bard was appalled at the results.
The pretty young chorus-girls had taken him at his word. They had
always cherished a secret desire to live in an unconventional real
world, where they could have a chance to be themselves, without the
hideous skirts of conventional society veiling their beauty. They had
brought these costumes with them and joined the new moral world in the
firm faith that their ideal would be realized. It had come very
slowly, but it had come at last.
They donned their beautiful costumes with hearts fluttering in
triumphant pride. But they had huddled into a corner of the ball-room
in a panic of fright at the insane commotion their honest efforts to
promote beauty had caused. One by one every woman in skirts save
Barbara and Catherine left the room. The married ones seized their
husbands and pushed them out ahead.
Norman, who was dancing with Barbara, broke down and burst into a
paroxysm of laughter.
Some of the girls began to cry, but others made a brave effort to face
the crowd of eager, giggling boys who pressed nearer.
The Bard approached with a serious look on his noble brow,
deliberately put on his glasses and surveyed the crowd.
"My dear girls," he began, "I thank you from the bottom of my heart
for the sincerity and honesty of your efforts to express beauty in
unconventional form, but really this is beyond my wildest
expectation."
Catherine drove the rude boys out of the room and closed the windows,
while Barbara kissed the tears away from the hysterical innovators and
led them back to their rooms.
The next morning the general assembly held an unusually solemn meeting
at which it was voted by a large majority to settle at once and
forever the question of dress by adopting a Socialist uniform of
scarlet and white for the women, and for the men a dull gray suit with
scarlet bands on the sleeve, a scarlet stripe and belt for the
trousers.
The discussion was brief and Roland Adair, the Bard of Ramcat,
protested in vain.