"Didn't you think it was splendid?" _Mere_ demanded.
"Uh-huh!" said Pop.
"What didn't you like about it?"
"I liked it all first-rate. Julie is a smart girl, I tell you."
_Mere_ scented his evasion, and she would never tolerate evasions. She
repeated:
"What didn't you like about it?"
"I liked all I could understand."
"Understand!" snapped _Mere_, who rarely wasted her culture on Pop.
"What didn't you understand? Could anything be clearer than this?
Listen!" She read in an oratorical voice:
"'Woman has been for ages man's mere beast of burden, his household
drudge. Being a wife has meant being a slave--the only servant without
wages or holiday. But the woman of to-day at last demands that the
shackles be stricken off; she demands freedom to live her life her own
way--to express her selfhood without the hampering restrictions imposed
on her by the barbaric customs inherited from the time of the
cave-man.'"
_Mere_ folded up the clipping and glared defiance at the cave-man
slumped in the uneasy chair.
"What's clearer than that?" she reiterated.
Pop was at bay. He was like a desperate rabbit. He answered:
"It's clear enough, I guess; but it's more than I can take in. Seems to
me the women folks are hollering at the men folks to give 'em what the
men folks have never been able to get for themselves."
It was peevish. Coming from Pop, it amounted to an outburst, a riot, a
mutiny. Such a tendency was dangerous. He must be sharply repressed at
once--as a new servant must be taught her place. _Mere_ administered the
necessary rebuke, aided and abetted by the daughters. The sons did not
rally to their father's defense. He was soon reduced to submission, but
his apology was further irritation:
"I'm kind of rattled like. I ain't feeling as chipper as usual."
"Chipper" was bad enough, but "ain't" was unendurable! They rebuked him
for that and he put in another irrelevant plea: "I had a kind of sick
spell at the store. I had to lay down."
"Lie down!" Beatrice corrected.
"Lie down," he accepted. "But as soon as I laid down--"
"Lay down!"
"Lay down--I had chills and shootin' pains; and I--"
"It's the weather," _Mere_ interrupted, impatiently. "I've had a
headache all day--such a headache as never was known! It seemed as if
hammers were beating upon my very brain. It was--"
"I'm not feeling at all well myself," said Consuelo.
There was almost a tournament of rivalry in describing sufferings.
Pop felt as if he had wakened a sleeping hospital. He sank back ashamed
of his own outburst. He rarely spoke of the few ailments he could
afford. When he did it was like one of his new clerks pulling a bolt of
goods from the shelf and bringing down a silken avalanche.
The clinic was interrupted by the crisp voice of Nora: "Dinner is
served!"
Everybody rose and moved to the door with quiet determination. Pop alone
failed to rise. _Mere_ glowered at him. He pleaded: "I don't feel very
good. I guess I'd better leave my stummick rest."
The children protested politely, but he refused to be moved and _Mere_
decided to humor him.
"Let him alone, children. It won't hurt him to skip a meal."
They said: "Too bad, Pop!"--"You'll be all right soon," and went out and
forgot him.
Pop heard them chattering briskly. It was polite talk. If slang were
used it was the very newest. He gleaned that Pen and Gerald were
opposing Julie's mission to San Francisco on the ground of the expense.
He smiled bitterly to hear that word from them. He heard Julie's retort:
"I suppose you boys want the money yourselves! Well, I've got first
havers at Pop. I saw him first!"
At about this point the conversation lost its coherence in Pop's ears.
It was mingled with a curious buzzing and a dizziness that made him grip
his chair lest it pitch him to the floor. Chills, in which his bones
were a mere rattlebox, alternated with little rushes of prairie fire
across his skin. Throes of pain wrung him.
Also, he was a little afraid--he was afraid he might not be able to get
to the store in the morning. And important people were coming! He had to
make the first payment on the invoice of that bankrupt stock. A
semiannual premium was overdue on his life insurance. The month of grace
had nearly expired, and if he failed to pay the policy would lapse--now
of all times! He had kept it up all these years; it must not lapse now,
for he was going to be right sick. He wanted somebody to nurse him: his
mother--or that long-lost girl he had married in the far past.
His shoes irked him; his vest--what they wanted called his
waistcoat--was as tight as a corset. He felt that he would be safer in
bed. He'd better go up to his own room and stretch out. He rose with
extraordinary difficulty and negotiated a swimming floor on swaying
legs.
The laughter from the dining-room irritated him. He would be better off
up-stairs, where he could not hear it. The noise in his ears was all he
could stand. He attained the foot of the stairs and the flight of steps
seemed as long and as misty as Jacob's Ladder. And he was no angel!
The Grouts lingered at dinner and over their black coffee and tobacco
until it was time to dress for the reception at Mrs. Alvin Mitnick's, at
which Waupoos society would pass itself in review. The later you got
there the smarter you were, and most people put off dressing until the
last possible minute in order to keep themselves from falling asleep
before it was time to start.
The Grouts, however, were eager to go early and get it over with. They
loved to trample on Waupoos traditions. As they drifted into the hall
they found it dark. They shook their heads in dismal recognition of a
familiar phenomenon, and Ethelwolf groaned:
"Pop has gone up-stairs. You can always trace Pop. Wherever he has
passed by the lights are out."
"He has figured out that by darkening the halls while we are at dinner
he saves nearly a cent a day," _Mere_ groaned.
"If Pop were dying he'd turn out a light somewhere because he wouldn't
need it." And Ethelwolf laughed.
But _Mere_ groaned again: "Can you wonder that I get depressed? Now,
children, I ask you--"
"Poor old Mere! It's awful!"--"Ghastly!"--"Maddening!"
They gathered round her lovingly, echoing her moans. They started up the
dark stairway, Consuelo first and turning back to say to Beatrice:
"Pop can cut a penny into more slices than--" Then she screamed and
started back.
Her agitation went down the stairway through the climbing Grouts like a
cold breeze. What was it? She looked close. A hand was just visible on
the floor at the head of the stairs. She had stepped on it.