synthetic moth. Again for the fourth time I cast, more from habit than
hope. Then ensued that terrific rush from the pool's lucent depths--
"Yes, sir; you wouldn't need no two guesses for what she'd wear at a
grand costume ball of the Allied nations--not if you knew her like I do."
This was Ma Pettengill, who had stripped a Sunday paper from the great
city to its society page. She lifted this under the lamp and made strange
but eloquent noises of derision:
"You take Genevieve May now, of a morning, before that strong-arm
Japanese maid has got her face rubbed down and calked with paints,
oils, and putty, and you'd say to her, as a friend and well-wisher:
'Now look here, old girl, you might get by at that costume ball as
Stricken Serbia or Ravaged Belgium, but you better take a well-meant
hint and everlastingly do not try to get over as La Belle France. True,
France has had a lot of things done to her,' you'd say, 'and she may
show a blemish here and there; but still, don't try it unless you wish
to start something with a now friendly ally--even if it is in your own
house. That nation is already pushed to a desperate point, and any little
thing might prove too much--even if you are Mrs. Genevieve May Popper and
have took up the war in a hearty girlish manner.' Yes, sir!"
This, to be sure, was outrageous--that I should hear myself addressing a
strange lady in terms so gross. Besides, I wished again to be present at
the death of my favourite trout. I affected not to have heard. I affected
to be thinking deeply.
It worked, measurably. Once more I scanned the pool's gleaming surface
and felt the cold pricking of spray from the white water that tumbled
from a cleft in the rocks above. Once more I wondered if this, by chance,
might prove a sad but glorious day for a long-elusive trout. Once more I
looked to the fly. Once more I--
"What I never been able to figger out--how can a dame like that fool
herself beyond a certain age? Seams in her face! And not a soul but would
know she got her hair like the United States acquired Louisiana. That
lady's power of belief is enormous. And I bet she couldn't put two and
two together without making a total wreck of the problem. Like fair time
a year ago, when she was down to Red Gap taking up the war. She comes
along Fourth Street in her uniform one morning, fresh from the hands of
this hired accomplice of hers, and meets Cousin Egbert Floud and me where
we'd stopped to talk a minute. She is bubbling with war activity as
usual, but stopped and bubbled at us a bit--kind of hale and girlish, you
might say. We passed the time of day; and, being that I'm a first-class
society liar, I say how young and fresh she looks; and she gets the ball
and bats it right back to Cousin Egbert.
"'You'd never dream,' says she, 'what my funny little mite of a Japanese
maid calls me! You'd really never guess! She calls me Madam Peach
Blossom! Isn't that perfectly absurd, Mr. Floud?'
"And poor Cousin Egbert, instead of giggling in a hearty manner and
saying 'Oh, come now, Mrs. Popper! What's in the least absurd about
that?'--like he was meant to and like any gentleman would of--what does
the poor silly do but blink at her a couple of times like an old barn owl
that's been startled and say 'Yes, ma'am!'--flat and cold, just like
that!
"It almost made an awkward pause; but the lady pretended she had been
saying something to me, so she couldn't hear him. That Cousin Egbert! He
certainly wouldn't ever get very high in the diplomatic service of
anybody's country.
"And here's this grand ball of the Allied nations in costume, give in
Genevieve May's palatial residence. It must of throwed a new panic into
Berlin when they got the news off the wire. Matter of fact, I don't see
how them Germans held out long as they did, with Genevieve May Popper
putting crimps into 'em with her tireless war activities. That proves
itself they'd been long preparing for the fray. Of course, with Genevieve
May and this here new city marshal, Fotch, the French got, it was only a
question of time. Genevieve is sure one born taker-up! Now she's made a
complete circle of the useful arts and got round to dancing again. Yes,
sir!"
I affected to believe I was solitary in the room. This time it did not
work--even measurably. Almost at once came: "I said she was the darndest
woman in the world to take things up!" The tone compelled notice, so I
said "Indeed!" and "You don't say!" with a cautiously extended space
between them, and tried to go on thinking.
Then I knew the woman's full habit of speech was strong upon her and
that one might no longer muse upon a caught trout--even one to weigh
well up toward four pounds. So I remembered that I was supposed to be
a gentleman.
"Go right ahead and talk," I murmured.
"Sure!" said the lady, not murmuring. "What in time did you think I was
going to do?"
Yes, sir; I bet she's the greatest taker-up--bar none--the war has yet
produced. She's took up France the latest. I understand they got a
society of real workers somewhere that's trying to house and feed and
give medicine and crutches to them poor unfortunates that got in the way
of the dear old Fatherland when it took the lid off its Culture and tried
to make the world safe--even for Germans; but I guess this here society
gets things over to devastated France without much music or flourishes or
uniforms that would interest Genevieve May.
But if that country is to be saved by costume balls of the Allied
nations, with Genevieve May being La Belle France in a dress hardly long
enough to show three colours, then it needn't have another uneasy moment.
Genevieve stands ready to do all if she can wear a costume and dance the
steps it cost her eight dollars a lesson to learn from one of these slim
professionals that looks like a rich college boy.
It was this reckless dancing she'd took up when I first knew her, though
she probably goes back far enough to of took up roller skating when that
was sprung on an eager world; and I know she got herself talked about in
1892 for wearing bloomers on a bicycle. But we wasn't really acquainted
till folks begun to act too familiar in public, and call it dancing, and
pay eight dollars a lesson to learn something any of 'em that was healthy
would of known by instinct at a proper time and place. Having lots of
money, Genevieve May travelled round to the big towns, learning new steps
and always taking with her one of these eight-dollar boys, with his hair
done like a seal, to make sure she'd learn every step she saw.
She was systematic, that woman. If she was in Seattle and heard about a
new step in San Francisco, she'd be on the train with her instructor in
one hour and come back with the new step down pat. She scandalized Red
Gap the year she come to visit her married daughter, Lucille Stultz, by
introducing many of these new grips and clinches; but of course that soon
wore off. Seems like we get used to anything in this world after it's
done by well-dressed people a few times.
Then, as I say, these kind-hearted, music-loving Germans, with their
strong affection for home life and little ones, started in to shoot the
rest of the world up to German standards, and they hadn't burned more
than a dozen towns in Belgium, after shooting the oldest and youngest
and sexecuting the women--I suppose sexecution is what you might call
it--before Genevieve took up the war herself.
Yes, sir--took it right up; no sooner said than done with her. It was
really all over right then. The Germans might just as well of begun four
years ago to talk about the anarchistic blood-lust of Woodrow Wilson as
to wait until they found out the Almighty knows other languages besides
German.
I believe the Red Cross was the first handle by which Genevieve May took
up the war. But that costume is too cheap for one that feels she's a born
social leader if she could only get someone to follow. She found that
young chits of no real social standing, but with a pleasing exterior,
could get into a Red Cross uniform costing about two-eighty-five and sell
objects of luxury at a bazaar twice as fast as a mature woman of sterling
character in the same simple garb.
So Genevieve May saw it had got to be something costing more money and
beyond the reach of an element you wouldn't care to entertain in your
own drawing room. And next thing I was up to Spokane, and here she is,
dashing round the corridors of the hotel in a uniform that never cost a
penny under two hundred and fifty, what with its being made by a swell
tailor and having shiny boots with silver spurs and a natty tucked
cap and a shiny belt that went round the waist and also up over one
shoulder, with metal trimming, and so on. She was awful busy, darting
hither and yon at the lunch hour, looking prettily worried and like she
would wish to avoid being so conspicuous, but was foiled by the stares
of the crowd.
Something always seemed to be happening to make her stand out; like in
the restaurant, where, no sooner did she pick out just the right table,
after some hesitation, and get nicely seated, than she'd see someone
across the room at a far table and have to run over and speak. She spoke
to parties at five distant tables that day, getting a scratchy lunch, I
should say. One of the tables was mine. We wasn't what you'd call close
friends, but she cut a swath clean across a crowded dining room to tell
me how well I was looking.
Of course I fell for the uniform and wanted to know what it meant. Well,
it meant that she was organizing a corps of girl ambulance drivers from
the city's beet families. She was a major herself already, and was being
saluted by he-officers. She said it was a wonderful work, and how did I
think she looked in this, because it was a time calling for everyone's
best, and what had I taken up for my bit? I was only raising beef cattle,
so I didn't have any answer to that. I felt quite shamed. And Genevieve
went back to her own table for another bite of food, bowing tolerantly to
most of the people in the room.
I don't know how far she ever got with this girl's ambulance corps
beyond her own uniform. She certainly made an imposing ambulance driver
herself on the streets of that town. You'd see her big, shiny, light-blue
limousine drive up, with two men on the seat and Genevieve, in uniform,
would be helped out by one of 'em, and you knew right off you'd love to
be a wounded soldier and be drove over shell-torn roads by her own hands.
Anyway, she got mad and left the ambulance service flat, getting into
some sort of brawl with an adjutant general or something through wanting
to take a mere detail out of his hands that he felt should stay right
where it was, he being one of these offensive martinets and a stickler
for red tape, and swollen with petty power. So Genevieve May said.
So she looked round for another way to start a few home fires burning
on the other side of the Rhine. I forget what her next strategy was, but
you know it was something cute and busy in a well-fitting uniform, and
calculated to shorten the conflict if Germany found it out. You know
that much.
I remember at one time she was riding in parades when the boys would
march down to the station to go off and settle things in their own crude
way. I lost track of what she was taking up for a while, but I know
she kept on getting new uniforms till she must of had quite a time every
morning deciding what she was going to be that day, like the father of
the German Crown Prince.
Finally, last spring, it got to be the simple uniform of a waitress. She
had figgered out that all the girls then taking the places of men waiters
would get called for nurses sooner or later; so why shouldn't prominent
society matrons like herself learn how to wait on table, so as to take
the girl waiters' places when they went across? Not exactly that; they
wouldn't keep on lugging trays forever in this emergency--only till they
could teach new girls the trade, when some new ones come along to take
the places of them that had met the call of duty.
So Genievieve agitated and wrote letters from the heart out to about two
dozen society buds; and then she terrified the owner of the biggest hotel
in her home town till he agreed to let 'em come and wait on table every
day at lunch.
Genevieve May's uniform of a poor working girl was a simple black dress,
with white apron, cuffs, and cap, the whole, as was right, not costing
over six or seven dollars, though her string of matched pearls that cost
two hundred thousand sort of raised the average. The other society buds
was arrayed similar and looked like so many waitresses. Not in a hotel,
mebbe, but in one of these musical shows where no money has been
spared.
The lady had a glorious two days ordering these girls round as head
waiter and seeing that everybody got a good square look at her, and so
on. But the other girls got tired the second day. It was jolly and all
tips went to the Red Cross, and the tips was big; but it was just as hard
work as if they had really been poor working girls, with not enough
recreation about it. So the third day they rebelled at the head waiter
and made Genevieve herself jump in and carry out trays full of dishes
that had served their purpose.
This annoyed Genevieve May very much. It not only upset discipline but
made the arms and back ache. So she now went into the kitchen to show the
cook how to cook in a more saving manner. Her intentions were beautiful;
but the head cook was a sensitive foreigner, and fifteen minutes after
she went into his kitchen he had to be arrested for threatening to harm
the well-known society matron with a common meat saw.
The new one they got in his place next day let her mess round all she
wanted to, knowing his job depended on it, though it was told that he got
a heartless devil-may-care look in his eyes the minute he saw her making
a cheap fish sauce. But he said nothing.
That hotel does a big business, but it fell off surprising the day after
this, twenty-three people having been took bad with poison from something
they'd et there at lunch. True, none of these got as fur as the coroner,
so it never was known exactly what they'd took in; but the thing made a
lot of talk at stricken bedsides and Genevieve spent a dull day denying
that her cooking had done this outrage. Then, her dignity being much
hurt, she wrote a letter to the papers saying this hotel man was giving
his guests cheap canned goods that had done the trick.
Next morning this brought the hotel man and one of the best lawyers
in the state of Washington up to the palatial Popper residence, making
threats after they got in that no lady taking up war activities should be
obliged to listen to. She got rattled, I guess, or had been dreaming or
something. She told the hotel man and lawyer to Ssh! Ssh!--because that
new cook had put ground glass in the lemon pie and she had a right to
lull his suspicions with this letter to the papers, because she was
connected with the Secret Service Department. She would now go back to
the hotel and detect this spy committing sabotage on the mashed potatoes,
or something, and arrest him--just like that! I don't know whatever put
the idea into her head. I believe she had tried to join the Secret
Service Department till she found they didn't have uniforms.
Anyway, this hotel man, like the cowardly dog he was, went straight off
to some low sneak in the district attorney's office; and he went like a
snake in the grass and found out it wasn't so; and a real officer come
down on Genevieve May to know what she meant by impersonating a Secret
Service agent. This brutal thug talked in a cold but rough way, and I
know perfectly well this minute that he wasn't among those invited to
the Popper costume ball of the Allied nations. He threw a fine scare into
Genevieve May. For about a week she didn't know but she'd be railroaded
to Walla Walla. She wore mere civilian creations and acted like a
slacker.
But finally she saw the Government was going to live and let live; so she
took up something new. It was still On to Berlin! with Genevieve May.
She wasn't quite up to pulling anything new in her home town; so she went
into the outlying districts to teach her grandmother something. I didn't
think up the term for it. That was thought up by G.H. Stultz who is her
son-in-law and president of the Red Gap Canning Factory. This here new
war activity she'd took up consisted of going rough to different places
and teaching housewives how to practice economy in putting up preserves,
and so on.
It ain't on record that she ever taught one single woman anything
about economy, their hard-won knowledge beginning about where hers left
off--which wasn't fur from where it started; but she did bring a lot of
wholesome pleasure into their simple, hard-working lives.
In this new war activity it wasn't so much how you canned a thing as
what you canned. Genevieve May showed 'em how to make mincemeat out of
tomatoes and beets; how to make marmalade out of turnips and orange peel;
how to make preserves out of apple peelings and carrots; and guava jelly
out of mushmelon rinds, or some such thing. She'd go into towns and rent
a storeroom and put up her canning outfit, hiring a couple of the lower
classes to do the actual work, and invite women to bring in their truck
of this kind and learn regular old rock-bottom economy. They'd come, with
their stuff that should of been fattening shotes, and Genevieve May would
lecture on how to can it. It looked through the glass like sure-enough
human food.
Then, after she'd got 'em all taught, she'd say wouldn't it be nice
of these ladies to let her sell all this canned stuff and give the
proceeds to the different war charities! And there wasn't a woman that
didn't consent readily, having tasted it in the cooking. Not a one of
'em wanted to take home these delicacies. It was right noble or cautious,
or something. And after visiting six or eight of these communities
Genevieve May had quite a stock of these magic delicacies on sale in
different stores and was looking forward to putting the war firmly on
its feet--only she couldn't get many reports of sales from this stock.
Then she got a dandy idea. She would come to the Kulanche County
Fair at Red Gap, assemble all her stock there, give one of these
here demonstrations in economic canning, and auction off the whole
lot with a glad hurrah. She thought mebbe, with her influence, she
might get Secretary Baker, or someone like that, to come out and do
the auctioning--all under the auspices of Mrs. Genevieve May Popper,
whose tireless efforts had done so much to teach the dear old Fatherland
its lesson, and so on. She now had about three hundred jars and bottles
of this stuff after her summer's work, and it looked important.
I got down to the county fair myself last year, having some sure-fire
blue-ribbon stock there, and it was then that I hear G.H. Stultz talking
about this here mother-in-law of his, he taking me aside at their home
one night, so his wife, Lucille, wouldn't hear.
"This respected lady is trying to teach her grandmother how to suck
eggs--no more, no less," he says. "Now she's coming here to pull
something off. You watch her--that's all I ask. Everything that woman
touches goes funny. Look how she poisoned those innocent people up at
that hotel. And I'll bet this canned stuff she's going to sell off will
kill even mere tasters. If she only hadn't come to my town! That woman
don't seem to realize that I'm cursed with a German name and have to be
miles above suspicion.
"Suppose she sells off this stuff! I give you my word she puts things in
it that even a professional canning factory wouldn't dare to. And suppose
it poisons off a lot of our best patriots! Do you think a mob will be
very long blaming me for a hand in it? Why, it'll have me, in no time at
all, reaching my feet down for something solid that has been carefully
removed."
I tried to cheer the man up, but he was scared stiff.
"Mark my words," he says. "She'll pull a bloomer! If that woman could go
into an innocent hotel kitchen, where every care is taken to keep things
right, and poison off twenty-three people till they picked at the covers
and had relatives wondering what might be in their safe-deposit boxes,
think what she'd do in the great unsanitary outside, where she can use
her imagination!
"There's but one salvation for me; I must have trusted agents in the
crowd when that stuff is auctioned off, and they got to collar every last
bottle of it, no matter what the cost. I have to lay down like a pup
on the next bond drive, but this is my only hope. For the Lord's sake,
don't you go there and start bidding things up, no matter who she gets
for auctioneer! Don't you bid--even if Woodrow Wilson himself comes
out."
That's the impression Genevieve May had made on her own daughter's
husband, who is a clear-seeing man and a good citizen. And it looked
like he must secretly buy up her output. She not only come to town with
her canning outfit and her summer's stock of strange preserves, all
beauteous in their jars, but she brought with her to auction off this
stuff a regular French flying man with an honourable record.
She'd met this French officer in the city and entertained him at the
palatial Popper home; and mebbe she'd hypnotized him. He wasn't in good
shape, anyway. First place, he'd been fighting in the air for three
years and had been wounded in five places--including the Balkans. Then,
like that wasn't enough for one man, he'd been sent over here to teach
our men to fly when they got a machine; and over here he'd fell out of a
cloud one day when his brake or something went wrong, and this had give
him a nice pleasant vacation on crutches.
Genevieve had fastened on him at a time when he probably hadn't the
steely resistance Frenchmen been showing on the West Front. Or, being in
a strange country, mebbe he didn't know when politeness to Genevieve May
Popper would become mere cowardice. Anyway, he could talk English well
enough; and Genevieve May brought him to town and made a big hit.
First thing she done was to set up her stock of canned goods in a
section they give her in Horticultural Hall. Them three hundred bottles
took up a lot of room and showed up grand between the fancy-work section,
consisting of embroideries, sofa cushions, and silk patch quilts, and the
art section, consisting of hand paintings of interesting objects by
bright pupils in the public school. Then she put in her canning outfit,
with a couple of hired natives to do the work while she lectured on the
science of it and tried to get weak-minded patriots to taste things.
Genevieve May had a good time at these demonstrations, speaking in tones
of oratory and persuasion and encouraging the tasters to take a chance.
She certainly had discovered some entirely new flavours that the best
chemists hadn't stumbled on. She was proud of this, but a heap prouder
of her French flying man. When she wasn't thinking up new infamies with
rutabagas and watermelon rinds, she'd be showing him off to the fair
crowds. She give the impression when she paraded him that the French Army
would of had few flyers if she hadn't stepped into the breach.
And mebbe she wasn't desperate with fear that some of the Red Gap society
buds and matrons would want to stick in with nursing and attentions for
the interesting invalid! Nothing like that with Genevieve May! She kept
closer guard on that man than he would of got in the worst German prison
camp. About the only other person in town she'd trust him to was Cousin
Egbert Floud.
Cousin Egbert liked the Frenchman a lot at first, and rode him round town
to see the canning factory and the new waterworks and the Chamber of
Commerce, and Price's Addition to Red Gap, and so on. Also, he'd drag him
all over the fair grounds to look at prize bulls and windmills and patent
silos.
Cousin Egbert had refused from the first to taste any of Genevieve May's
deviltry with the vegetable kingdom. He swore he was on a diet and the
doctor wouldn't answer for his life if he even tasted anything outside.
He was telling me that last day of the fair that the woman ought to be
arrested for carrying on so, Genevieve May being now busy with some
highly artificial ketchup made of carrots, and something else
unimportant, with pure vegetable dyes.