Part 72 (1/2)
The abandoned world abandoned all its G.o.ds, and men fought men in the name of mankind.
Even against the plague the churchfolk were refused permission to pray together. Christian Scientists published full pages of advertising protesting against the horrid situation, but n.o.body heeded.
The s.h.i.+p of state lurched along through the mingled storms, mastless, rudderless, pilotless, priestless, and everybody wondered which would live the longer, the s.h.i.+p or the storm.
And then Mamise sneezed. And the tiny at-choo! frightened her to the soul of her soul. It frightened the riveting-crew as well. The plague had come among them.
”Drop them tongs and go home!” said Sutton.
”I've got to help finish my s.h.i.+p,” Mamise pleaded.
”Go home, I tell you.”
”But she's to be launched day after to-morrow and I've got to christen her.”
”Go home or I'll carry you,” said Sutton, and he advanced on her. She dropped her tongs and ran through the gusty rain, across the yard, out of the gate, and down the muddy paths as if a wolf pursued.
She flung into her cottage, lighted the fires, heated water, drank a quart of it, took quinine, and crept into her bed. Her tremors shook the covers off. Sweat rained out of her pores and turned to ice-water with the following ague.
The doctor came. Sutton had gone for him and threatened to beat him up if he delayed. The doctor had nothing to give her but orders to stay in bed and wait. Davidge came, and Abbie, and they tried to pretend that they were not in a worse panic than Mamise.
There were no nurses to be spared and Abbie was installed. In spite of her malministrations or because of them, Mamise grew better. She stayed in bed all that day and the next, and when the morning of the launching dawned, she felt so well that Abbie could not prevent her from getting up and putting on her clothes.
She was to be woman again to-day and to wear the most fas.h.i.+onable gown in her wardrobe and the least masculine hat.
She felt a trifle giddy as she dressed, but she told Abbie that she never felt better. Her only alarm was the difficulty in hooking her frock at the waist. Abbie fought them together with all her might and main.
”If being a workman is going to take away my waistline, here's where I quit work,” said Mamise. ”As Mr. Dooley says, I'm a pathrite, but I'm no bigot.”
Davidge had told her to keep to her room. He had telephoned to Polly Widdicombe to come down and christen the s.h.i.+p. Polly was delayed and Davidge was frantic. In fact, the Widdicombe motor ran off the road into a slough of despond, and Polly did not arrive until after the s.h.i.+p was launched from the ways and the foolhardy Mamise was in the hospital.
When Davidge saw Mamise climbing the steps to the launching-platform he did not recognize her under her big hat till she paused for breath and looked up, counting the remaining steep steps and wondering if her tottering legs would negotiate the height.
He ran down and haled her up, scolding her with fury. He had been on the go all night, and he was raw with uneasiness.
”I'm all right,” Mamise pleaded. ”I got caught in the jam at the gate and was nearly crushed. That's all. It's glorious up here and I'd rather die than miss it.”
It was a sight to see. The s.h.i.+pyard was ma.s.sed with workmen and their families, and every roof was crowded. On a higher platform in the rear the reporters of the moving-picture newspapers were waiting with their cameras. On the roof of a low shed a military band was tootling merrily.
And the sky had relented of its rain. The day was a masterpiece of good weather. A brilliant throng mounted to the platform, an admiral, sea-captains and lieutenants, officers of the army, a Senator, Congressmen, judges, capitalists, the jubilant officers of the s.h.i.+p-building corporation. And Mamise was the queen of the day. She was the ”sponsor” for the s.h.i.+p and her name stood out on both sides of the prow, high overhead where the launching-crew grinned down on her and called her by her _nom de guerre_, ”Moll.”
The moving-picture men yelled at her and asked her to pose. She went to the rail and tried to smile, feeling as silly as a Sunday-school girl repeating a golden text, and looking it.
Once more she would appear in the Sunday supplements, and her childish confusion would make throngs in moving-picture theaters laugh with pleasant amus.e.m.e.nt. Mamise was news to-day.
The air was full of the hubbub of preparation. Underneath the upreared belly of the s.h.i.+p gnomes crouched, pounding the wedges in to lift the hull so that other gnomes could knock the shoring out.
There was a strange fascination in the racket of the sh.o.r.es falling over, the dull clatter of a vast bowling-alley after a ten-strike.
Painters were at work brus.h.i.+ng over the spots where the sh.o.r.es had rested.