THE LIVE WIRE
"Who is this young gentleman or lady?" Dr. Clay asked of Pearlie Watson
one day when he met her wheeling a baby carriage with an abnormally fat
baby in it.
"This is the Czar of all the Rooshia," Pearl answered gravely, "and I'm
his body-guard."
The doctor's face showed no surprise as he stepped back to get a better
look at the czar, who began to squirm at the delay.
"See the green plush on his kerridge," Pearl said proudly, "and every
stitch he has on is hand-made, and was did for him, too, and he's fed
every three hours, rain or shine, hit or miss."
"Think of that!" the doctor exclaimed with emphasis, "and yet some
people tell us that the Czar has a hard time of it."
Pearl drew a step nearer, moving the carriage up and down rapidly to
appease the wrath of the czar, who was expressing his disapproval in a
very lumpy cry.
"I'm just 'tendin', you know, about him bein' the czar," she said
confidentially. "You see, I mind him every day, and that's the way I
play. Maudie Ducker said one day I never had no time to play cos we wuz
so pore, and that started me. It's a lovely game."
The doctor nodded. He knew something of "'tendin' games" too.
"I have to taste everything he eats, for fear of Paris green," Pearl
went on, speaking now in the loud official tone of the body-guard. "I
have to stand between him and the howlin' mob thirstin' for his gore."
"He seems to howl more than the mob," the doctor said smiling.
"He's afraid we're plottin'," Pearl whispered. "Can't trust no one. He
ain't howlin'. That's his natcheral voice when he's talkin' Rooshan. He
don't know one English word, only 'Goo!' But he'll say that every time.
See now. How is a precious luvvy-duvvy? See the pitty man, pull um baby
toofin!"
At which the czar, secure in his toothlessness, rippled his fat face
into dimples, and triumphantly brought forth a whole succession of
"goos."
"Ain't he a peach?" Pearlie said with pride. "Some kids won't show off
worth a cent when ye want them to, but he'll say 'goo' if you even
nudge him. His mother thinks 'goo' is awful childish, and she is at him
all the time to say 'Daddy-dinger,' but he never lets on he hears her.
Say, doctor"--Pearlie's face was troubled--"what do you think of his
looks? Just between ourselves. Hasn't he a fine little nub of a nose?
Do you see anything about him to make his mother cry?"
The doctor looked critically at the czar, who returned his gaze with
stolid indifference.
"I never saw a more perfect nub on any nose," he answered honestly.
"He's a fine big boy, and his mother should be proud of him."
"There now, what did I tell you!" Pearlie cried delightedly, nodding
her head at an imaginary audience.
"That's what I always say to his mother, but she's so tuk up with
pictures of pretty kids with big eyes and curly hair, she don't seem to
be able to get used to him. She never says his nose is a pug, but she
says it's 'different,' and his voice is not what she wanted. He cries
lumpy, I know, but his goos are all right. The kid in the book she is
readin' could say 'Daddy-dinger' before he was as old as the czar is,
and it's awful hard on her. You see, he can't pat-a-cake, or
this-little-pig-went-to-market, or wave a bye-bye or nothin'. I never
told her what Danny could do when he was this age. But I am workin'
hard to get him to say 'Daddy-dinger.' She has her heart set on that.
Well, I must go on now."
The doctor lifted his hat, and the imperial carriage moved on.
She had gone a short distance when she remembered something:
"I'll let you know when he says it, doc!" she shouted.
"All right, don't forget," he smiled back.
When Pearlie turned the next corner she met Maudie Ducker. Maudie
Ducker had on a new plaid dress with velvet trimming, and Maudie knew
it.
"Is that your Sunday dress," she asked Pearl, looking critically at
Pearlie's faded little brown winsey.
"My, no!" Pearlie answered cheerfully. "This is just my morning dress.
I wear my blue satting in the afternoon, and on Sundays, my purple
velvet with the watter-plait, and basque-yoke of tartaric plaid,
garnished with lace. Yours is a nice little plain dress. That stuff
fades though; ma lined a quilt for the boys' bed with it and it faded
gray."
Maudie Ducker was a "perfect little lady." Her mother often said so;
Maudie could not bear to sit near a child in school who had on a dirty
pinafore or ragged clothes, and the number of days that she could wear
a pinafore without its showing one trace of stain was simply wonderful!
Maudie had two dolls which she never played with. They were propped up
against the legs of the parlour table. Maudie could play the "Java
March" and "Mary's Pet Waltz" on the piano. She always spoke in a
hushed vox tremulo, and never played any rough games. She could not
bear to touch a baby, because it might put a sticky little finger on
her pinafore. All of which goes to show what a perfect little lady she
was.
When Maudie made inquiries of Pearl Watson as to her Sabbath-day
attire, her motives were more kindly than Pearl thought. Maudie's
mother was giving her a party. Hitherto the guests upon such occasions
had been selected with great care, and with respect to social standing,
and blue china, and correct enunciation. This time they were selected
with greater care, but with respect to their fathers' politics. All
conservatives and undecided voters' children were included. The
fight-to-a-finish-for-the-grand-old-party Reformers were tabooed.
Algernon Evans, otherwise known as the Czar of all the Rooshias, only
son of J. H. Evans, editor of the Millford Mercury, could not be
overlooked. Hence the reason for asking Pearl Watson, his body-guard.
Millford had two weekly newspapers--one Conservative in its tendencies
and the other one Reform. Between them there existed a feud, long
standing, unquenchable, constant. It went with the printing press, the
subscription list and the good-will of the former owner, when the paper
changed hands.
The feud was discernible in the local news as well as in the
editorials. In the Reform paper, which was edited at the time of which
we write by a Tipperary man named McSorley, you might read of a
distressing accident which befell one Simon Henry (also a Reformer),
while that great and good man was abroad upon an errand of mercy,
trying to induce a drunken man to go quietly to his home and family.
Mr. Henry was eulogised for his kind act, and regret was expressed that
Mr. Henry should have met with such rough usage while endeavouring to
hold out a helping hand to one unfortunate enough to be held in the
demon chains of intemperance.
In the Conservative paper the following appeared:
We regret to hear that Simon Henry, secretary of the
Young Liberal Club, got mixed up in a drunken brawl
last evening and as a result will be confined to his
house for a few days. We trust his injuries are not
serious, as his services are indispensable to his
party in the coming campaign.
Reports of concerts, weddings, even deaths, were tinged with partyism.
When Daniel Grover, grand old Conservative war-horse, was gathered to
his fathers at the ripe age of eighty-seven years, the Reform paper
said that Mr. Grover's death was not entirely unexpected, as his health
had been failing for some time, the deceased having passed his
seventieth birthday.
McSorley, the Liberal editor, being an Irishman, was not without
humour, but Evans, the other one, revelled in it. He was like the
little boys who stick pins in frogs, not that they bear the frogs any
ill-will, but for the fun of seeing them jump. He would sit half the
night over his political editorials, smiling grimly to himself, and
when he threw himself back in his chair and laughed like a boy the
knife was turned in someone!
One day Mr. James Ducker, lately retired farmer, sometimes insurance
agent, read in the Winnipeg Telegram that his friend the Honourable
Thomas Snider had chaperoned an Elk party to St. Paul. Mr. Ducker had
but a hazy idea of the duties of a chaperon, but he liked the sound of
it, and it set him thinking. He remembered when Tom Snider had entered
politics with a decayed reputation, a large whiskey bill, and about
$2.20 in cash. Now he rode in a private car, and had a suite of rooms
at the Empire, and the papers often spoke of him as "mine host" Snider.
Mr. Ducker turned over the paper and read that the genial Thomas had
replied in a very happy manner to a toast at the Elks' banquet.
Whereupon Mr. Ducker became wrapped in deep thought, and during this
passive period he distinctly heard his country's call! The call came in
these words: "If Tom Snider can do it, why not me?"
The idea took hold of him. He began to brush his hair artfully over the
bald spot. He made strange faces at his mirror, wondering which side of
his face would be the best to have photographed for his handbills. He
saw himself like Cincinnatus of old called from the plough to the
Senate, but he told himself there could not have been as good a thing
in it then as there is now, or Cincinnatus would not have come back to
the steers.
Mr. Ducker's social qualities developed amazingly. He courted his
neighbours assiduously, sending presents from his garden, stopping to
have protracted conversations with men whom he had known but slightly
before. Every man whose name was on the voters' list began to have a
new significance for him.
There was one man whom he feared--that was Evans, editor of the
Conservative paper. Sometimes when his fancy painted for him a gay and
alluring picture of carrying "the proud old Conservative banner that
has suffered defeat, but, thank God! never disgrace in the face of the
foe" (quotation from speech Mr. Ducker had prepared), sometimes he
would in the midst of the most glowing and glorious passages
inadvertently think of Evans, and it gave him goose-flesh. Mr. Ducker
had lived in and around Millford for some time. So had Evans, and Evans
had a most treacherous memory. You could not depend on him to forget
anything!
When Evans was friendly with him, Mr. Ducker's hopes ran high, but when
he caught Evans looking at him with that boyish smile of his twinkling
in his eyes, the vision of chaperoning an Elk party to St. Paul became
very shadowy indeed.
Mr. Ducker tried diplomacy. He withdrew his insurance advertisement
from McSorley's paper, and doubled his space in Evans's, paying in
advance. He watched the trains for visitors and reported them to Evans.
He wrote breezy little local briefs in his own light cow-like way for
Evans's paper.
But Mr. Ducker's journalistic fervour received a serious set back one
day. He rushed into the Mercury office just as the paper went to press
with the news that old Mrs. Williamson had at last winged her somewhat
delayed flight. Evans thanked him with some cordiality for letting him
know in time to make a note of it, and asked him to go around to Mrs.
Williamson's home and find out a few facts for the obituary.
Mr. Ducker did so with great cheerfulness, rather out of keeping with
the nature of his visit. He felt that his way was growing brighter.
When he reached the old lady's home he was received with all courtesy
by her slow-spoken son. Mr. Ducker bristled with importance as he made
known his errand, in a neat speech, in which official dignity and
sympathy were artistically blended. "The young may die, but the old
must die," he reminded Mr. Williamson as he produced his pencil and
tablet. Mr. Williamson gave a detailed account of his mother's early
life, marriages first and second, and located all her children with
painstaking accuracy. "Left to mourn her loss," Mr. Ducker wrote.
"And the cause of her death?" Mr. Ducker inquired gently, "general
breaking down of the system, I suppose?" with his pencil poised in the
air.
Mr. Williamson knit his shaggy brows.
"Well, I wouldn't say too much about mother's death if I were you.
Stick to her birth, and the date she joined the church, and her
marriages--they're sure. But mother's death is a little uncertain, just
yet."
A toothless chuckle came from the adjoining room. Mrs. Williamson had
been an interested listener to the conversation.
"Order my coffin, Ducker, on your way down, but never mind the flowers,
they might not keep," she shrilled after him as he beat a hasty retreat.
When Mr. Ducker, crestfallen and humiliated, re-entered the Mercury
office a few moments later, he was watched by two twinkling Irish eyes,
that danced with unholy merriment at that good man's discomfiture. They
belonged to Ignatius Benedicto McSorley, the editor of the other paper.
But Mrs. Ducker was hopeful. A friend of hers in Winnipeg had already a
house in view for them, and Mrs. Ducker had decided the church they
would attend when the session opened, and what day she would have, and
many other important things that it is well to have one's mind made up
on and not leave to the last. Maudie Ducker had been taken into the
secret, and began to feel sorry for the other little girls whose papas
were contented to let them live always in such a pokey little place as
Millford. Maudie also began to dream dreams of sweeping in upon the
Millford people in flowing robes and waving plumes and sparkling
diamonds, in a gorgeous red automobile. Wilford Ducker only of the
Ducker family was not taken into the secret. He was too young, his
mother said, to understand the change.
The nomination day was drawing near, which had something to do with the
date of Maudie Ducker's party. Mrs. Ducker told Maudie they must invite
the czar and Pearl Watson, though, of course, she did not say the czar.
She said Algernon Evans and that little Watson girl. Maudie, being a
perfect little lady objected to Pearl Watson on account of her scanty
wardrobe, and to the czar's moist little hands; but Mrs. Ducker,
knowing that the czar's father was their long suit, stood firm.
Mr. Ducker had said to her that very morning, rubbing his hands, and
speaking in the conspirator's voice: "We must leave no stone unturned.
This is the time of seed-sowing, my dear. We must pull every wire."
The czar was a wire, therefore they proceeded to pull him. They did not
know he was a live wire until later.
Pearl Watson's delight at being asked to a real party knew no bounds.
Maudie need not have worried about Pearl's appearing at the feast
without the festal robe. The dress that Camilla had made for her was
just waiting for such an occasion to air its loveliness. Anything that
was needed to complete her toilet was supplied by her kind-hearted
mistress, the czar's mother.
But Mrs. Evans stood looking wistfully after her only son as Pearl
wheeled him gaily down the walk. He was beautifully dressed in the
finest of mull and valenciennes; his carriage was the loveliest they
could buy; Pearl in her neat hat and dress was a little nurse girl to
be proud of. But Mrs. Evans's pretty face was troubled. She was
thinking of the pretty baby pictures in the magazines, and Algernon was
so--different! And his nose was--strange, too, and she had massaged it
so carefully, too, and when, oh when, would he say "Daddy-dinger!"
But Algeron was not envious of any other baby's beauty that afternoon,
nor worried about his nose either as he bumped up and down in his
carriage in glad good humour, and delivered full-sized gurgling "goos"
at every person he met, even throwing them along the street in the
prodigality of his heart, as he waved his fat hands and thumped his
heavy little heels.
Pearl held her head high and was very much the body-guard as she lifted
the weighty ruler to the ground. Mrs. Ducker ran down the steps and
kissed the czar ostentatiously, pouring out such a volume of admiring
and endearing epithets that Pearl stood in bewilderment, wondering why
she had never heard of this before. Mrs. Ducker carried the czar into
the house, Pearl following with one eye shut, which was her way of
expressing perplexity.
Two little girls in very fluffy short skirts, sat demurely in the
hammock, keeping their dresses clean and wondering if there would be
ice-cream. Within doors Maudie worried out the "Java March" on the
piano, to a dozen or more patient little listeners. On the lawn several
little girls played croquet. There were no boys at the party. Wilford
was going to have the boys--that is, the Conservative boys the next
day. Mrs. Ducker did not believe in co-education. Boys are so rough,
except Wilford. He had been so carefully brought up, he was not rough
at all. He stood awkwardly by the gate watching the girls play croquet.
He had been left without a station at his own request. Patsey Watson
rode by on a dray wagon, dirty and jolly. Wilford called to him
furtively, but Patsey was busy holding on and did not hear him. Wilford
sighed heavily. Down at the tracks a freight train shunted and
shuddered. Not a boy was in sight. He knew why. The farmers were
loading cattle cars.
Pearl went around to the side lawn where the girls were playing
croquet, holding the czar's hand tightly.
"What are you playin'?" she asked.
They told her.
"Can you play it?" Mildred Bates asked.
"I guess I can," Pearl said modestly. "But I'm always too busy for
games like that!"
"Maudie Ducker says you never play," Mildred Bates said with pity in
her voice.
"Maudie Ducker is away off there," Pearl answered with dignity. "I have
more fun in one day than Maudie Ducker'll ever have if she lives to be
as old as Melchesidick, and it's not this frowsy
standin'-round-doin'-nothin' that you kids call fun either."
"Tell us about it, Pearl," they shouted eagerly. Pearl's stories had a
charm.
"Well," Pearl began, "ye know I wash Mrs. Evans's dishes every day, and
lovely ones they are, too, all pink and gold with dinky little ivy
leaves crawlin' out over the edges of the cups. I play I am at the
seashore and the tide is comin' in o'er and o'er the sand and 'round
and 'round the land, far as eye can see--that's out of a book. I put
all the dishes into the big dish pan, and I pertend the tide is risin'
on them, though it's just me pourin' on the water. The cups are the
boys and the saucers are the girls, the plates are the fathers and
mothers and the butter chips are the babies. Then I rush in to save
them, but not until they cry 'Lord save us, we perish!' Of course, I
yell it for them, good and loud too--people don't just squawk at a time
like that--it often scares Mrs. Evans even yet. I save the babies
first, I slush them around to clean them, but they never notice that,
and I stand them up high and dry in the drip-pan. Then I go in after
the girls, and they quiet down the babies in the drip-pan; and then the
mothers I bring out, and the boys and the fathers. Sometimes some of
the men make a dash out before the women, but you bet I lay them back
in a hurry. Then I set the ocean back on the stove, and I rub the
babies to get their blood circlin' again, and I get them all put to bed
on the second shelf and they soon forget they were so near death's
door."
Mary Ducker had finished the "Java March" and "Mary's Pet Waltz," and
had joined the interested group on the lawn and now stood listening in
dull wonder.
"I rub them all and shine them well," Pearl went on, "and get them all
packed off home into the china cupboard, every man jack o' them singin'
'Are we yet alive and see each other's face,' Mrs. Evans sings it for
them when she's there.
"Then I get the vegetable dishes and bowls and silverware and all that,
and that's an excursion, and they're all drunk, not a sober man on
board. They sing 'Sooper up old boys,' 'We won't go home till mornin'
and all that, and crash! a cry bursts from every soul on board. They
have struck upon a rock and are going down! Water pours in at the
gunnel (that's just me with more water and soap, you know), but I ain't
sorry for them, for they're all old enough to know that 'wine is a
mocker, strong drink is ragin', and whosoever is deceived thereby is
not wise.' But when the crash comes and the swellin' waters burst in
they get sober pret' quick and come rushin' up on deck with pale faces
to see what's wrong, and I've often seen a big bowl whirl 'round and
'round kind o' dizzy and say 'woe is me!' and sink to the bottom. Mrs.
Evans told me that. Anyway I do save them at last, when they see what
whiskey is doin' for them. I rub them all up and send them home. The
steel knives--they're the worst of all. But though they're black and
stained with sin, they're still our brothers, and so we give them the
gold cure--that's the bath-brick, and they make a fresh start.
"When I sweep the floor I pertend I'm the army of the Lord that comes
to clear the way from dust and sin, let the King of Glory in. Under the
stove the hordes of sin are awful thick, they love darkness rather than
light, because their deeds are evil! But I say the 'sword of the Lord
and of Gideon!' and let them have it! Sometimes I pertend I'm the woman
that lost the piece of silver and I sweep the house diligently till I
find it, and once Mrs. Evans did put ten cents in a corner just for fun
for me, and I never know when she's goin' to do something like that."
Here Maudie Ducker, who had been listening with growing wonder
interrupted Pearl with the cry of "Oh, here's pa and Mr. Evans. They're
going to take our pictures!"
The little girls were immediately roused out of the spell that
Pearlie's story had put upon them, and began to group themselves under
the trees, arranging their little skirts and frills.
The czar had toddled on his uncertain little fat legs around to the
back door, for he had caught sight of a red head which he knew and
liked very much. It belonged to Mary McSorley, the eldest of the
McSorley family, who had brought over to Mrs. Ducker the extra two
quarts of milk which Mrs. Ducker had ordered for the occasion.
Mary sat on the back step until Mrs. Ducker should find time to empty
her pitcher. Mary was strictly an outsider. Mary's father was a
Reformer. He ran the opposition paper to dear Mr. Evans. Mary was never
well dressed, partly accounted for by the fact that the angels had
visited the McSorley home so often. Therefore, for these reasons, Mary
sat on the back step, a rank outsider.
The czar, who knew nothing of these things, began to "goo" as soon as
he saw her. Mary reached out her arms. The czar stumbled into them and
Mary fell to kissing his bald head. She felt more at home with a baby
in her arms.
It was at this unfortunate moment that Mr. Ducker and Mr. Evans came
around to the rear of the house. Mr. Evans was beginning to think
rather more favourably of Mr. Ducker, as the prospective Conservative
member. He might do all right--there are plenty worse--he has no
brains--but that does not matter. What need has a man of brains when he
goes into politics? Brainy men make the trouble. The Grits made that
mistake once, elected a brainy man, and they have had no peace since.
Mr. Ducker had adroitly drawn the conversation to a general discussion
of children. He knew that Mr. Evans's weak point was his little son
Algernon.
"That's a clever looking little chap of yours, Evans," he had remarked
carelessly as they came up the street. (Mr. Ducker had never seen the
czar closely.) "My wife was just saying the other day that he has a
wonderful forehead for a little fellow."
"He has," the other man said smiling, not at all displeased. "It runs
clear down to his neck!"
"He can hardly help being clever if there's anything in heredity," Mr.
Ducker went on with infinite tact, feeling his rainbow dreams of
responding to toasts at Elk banquets drawing nearer and nearer.
Then the Evil Genius of the House of Ducker awoke from his slumber, sat
up and took notice! The house that the friend in Winnipeg had selected
for them fell into irreparable ruins! Poor Maudie's automobile vanished
at a touch. The rosy dreams of Cincinnatus, and of carrying the grand
old Conservative banner in the face of the foe turned to clay and ashes!
They turned the corner, and came upon Mary McSorley who sat on the back
step with the czar in her arms. Mary's head was hidden as she kissed
the czar's fat neck, and in the general babel of voices, within and
without, she did not hear them coming.
"Speaking about heredity," Mr. Ducker said suavely, speaking in a low
voice, and looking at whom he supposed to be the latest McSorley, "it
looks as if there must be something in it over there. Isn't that
McSorley over again? Low forehead, pug nose, bulldog tendencies." Mr.
Ducker was something of a phrenologist, and went blithely on to his own
destruction.
"Now the girl is rather pleasant looking, and some of the others are
not bad at all. But this one is surely a regular little Mickey. I
believe a person would be safe in saying that he would not grow up a
Presbyterian."--Mr. Evans was the worshipful Grand Master of the Loyal
Orange Lodge, and well up in the Black, and this remark Mr. Ducker
thought he would appreciate.
"McSorley will never be dead while this little fellow lives," Mr.
Ducker laughed merrily, rubbing his hands.
The czar looked up and saw his father. Perhaps he understood what had
been said, and saw the hurt in his father's face and longed to heal him
of it; perhaps the time had come when he should forever break the
goo-goo bonds that had lain upon his speech. He wriggled off Mary's
knee, and toddling uncertainly across the grass with a mighty mental
conflict in his pudgy little face, held out his dimpled arms with a
glad cry of "Daddy-dinger!"
That evening while Mrs. Ducker and Maudie were busy fanning Mr. Ducker
and putting wet towels on his head, Mr. Evans sat down to write.
"Some more of that tiresome election stuff, John," his pretty little
wife said in disappointment, as she proudly rocked the emancipated czar
to sleep.
"Yes, dear, it is election stuff, but it is not a bit tiresome," he
answered smiling, as he kissed her tenderly. Several times during the
evening, and into the night, she heard him laugh his happy boyish laugh.
James Ducker did not get the nomination.