Part 72 (1/2)
”Your hair is mostly false,” said pretty Poll. ”And your teeth--and your outlines. You eat too much. You are lazy. You ought to exercise, and don't know enough. Better apologize to this lady for backbiting!
You've got to listen.”
The trade in parrots fell off from that day; they say there is no call for them. But the people who kept parrots, keep them yet--parrots live a long time.
Bores were a cla.s.s of offenders against whom I had long borne undying enmity. Now I rubbed my hands and began on them, with this simple wish: That every person whom they bored should tell them the plain truth.
There is one man whom I have specially in mind. He was blackballed at a pleasant club, but continues to go there. He isn't a member--he just goes; and no one does anything to him.
It was very funny after this. He appeared that very night at a meeting, and almost every person present asked him how he came there. ”You're not a member, you know,” they said. ”Why do you b.u.t.t in? n.o.body likes you.”
Some were more lenient with him. ”Why don't you learn to be more considerate of others, and make some real friends?” they said. ”To have a few friends who do enjoy your visits ought to be pleasanter than being a public nuisance.”
He disappeared from that club, anyway.
I began to feel very c.o.c.ky indeed.
In the food business there was already a marked improvement; and in transportation. The hubbub of reformation waxed louder daily, urged on by the unknown sufferings of all the profiters by iniquity.
The papers thrived on all this; and as I watched the loud-voiced protestations of my pet abomination in journalism, I had a brilliant idea, literally.
Next morning I was down town early, watching the men open their papers.
My abomination was shamefully popular, and never more so than this morning. Across the top was printing in gold letters:
All intentional lies, in adv., editorial, news, or any other column. .
.Scarlet All malicious matter. . .Crimson All careless or ignorant mistakes. . .Pink All for direct self-interest of owner. . .Dark green All mere bait--to sell the paper. . .Bright green All advertising, primary or secondary. . .Brown All sensational and salacious matter. . .Yellow All hired hypocrisy. . .Purple Good fun, instruction and entertainment. . .Blue True and necessary news and honest editorials. . .Ordinary print
You never saw such a crazy quilt of a paper. They were bought like hot cakes for some days; but the real business fell off very soon. They'd have stopped it all if they could; but the papers looked all right when they came off the press. The color scheme flamed out only to the bona-fide reader.
I let this work for about a week, to the immense joy of all the other papers; and then turned it on to them, all at once. Newspaper reading became very exciting for a little, but the trade fell off. Even newspaper editors could not keep on feeding a market like that. The blue printed and ordinary printed matter grew from column to column and page to page. Some papers--small, to be sure, but refres.h.i.+ng--began to appear in blue and black alone.
This kept me interested and happy for quite a while; so much so that I quite forgot to be angry at other things. There was _such_ a change in all kinds of business, following the mere printing of truth in the newspapers. It began to appear as if we had lived in a sort of delirium--not really knowing the facts about anything. As soon as we really knew the facts, we began to behave very differently, of course.
What really brought all my enjoyment to an end was women. Being a woman, I was naturally interested in them, and could see some things more clearly than men could. I saw their real power, their real dignity, their real responsibility in the world; and then the way they dress and behave used to make me fairly frantic. 'Twas like seeing archangels playing jackstraws--or real horses only used as rocking-horses. So I determined to get after them.
How to manage it! What to hit first! Their hats, their ugly, inane, outrageous hats--that is what one thinks of first. Their silly, expensive clothes--their diddling beads and jewelry--their greedy childishness--mostly of the women provided for by rich men.
Then I thought of all the other women, the real ones, the vast majority, patiently doing the work of servants without even a servant's pay--and neglecting the n.o.blest duties of motherhood in favor of house-service; the greatest power on earth, blind, chained, untaught, in a treadmill.
I thought of what they might do, compared to what they did do, and my heart swelled with something that was far from anger.
Then I wished--with all my strength--that women, all women, might realize Womanhood at last; its power and pride and place in life; that they might see their duty as mothers of the world--to love and care for everyone alive; that they might see their dirty to men--to choose only the best, and then to bear and rear better ones; that they might see their duty as human beings, and come right out into full life and work and happiness!
I stopped, breathless, with s.h.i.+ning eyes. I waited, trembling, for things to happen.
Nothing happened.