Part 18 (1/2)
It was delicate work, let me tell you, turning down folks that wanted to sing patriotic songs or recite war poetry that would be sure to start something, with Professor Gluckstein wis.h.i.+ng to get up and tell how the cowardly British had left the crew of a German submarine to perish after shooting it up when it was only trying to sink their cruiser by fair and lawful methods; and Henry Lehman wanting to read a piece from a German newspaper about how the United States was a nation of vile money-grubbers that would sell ammunition to the enemy just because they had the s.h.i.+ps to take it away, and wouldn't sell a dollar's worth to the Fatherland, showing we had been bought up by British gold--and so on.
But I kept neutral. I even turned down an Englishman named Ruggles, that keeps the U.S. Grill and is well thought of, though he swore that all he would do was to get off a few comical riddles, and such. He'd just got a new one that goes: ”Why is an elephant like a corkscrew? Because there's a 'b' in both.” I didn't see it at first, till he explained with hearty laughter--because there's a ”b” in both--the word ”both.” See? Of course there's no sense to it. He admitted there wasn't, but said it was a jolly wheeze just the same. I might have took a chance with him, but he went on to say that he'd sent this wheeze to the brave lads in the trenches, along with a lot of cigars and tobacco, and had got about fifty postcards from 'em saying it was the funniest thing they'd heard since the war begun. And in a minute more he was explaining, with much feeling, just what low-down nation it was that started the war--it not being England, by any means--and I saw he wasn't to be trusted on his feet.
So I smoothed him down till he promised to donate all the lemonade for Aggie Tuttle, who was to be Rebekkah at the Well; and I smoothed Henry Lehman till he said he'd let his folks come and buy chances on things, even if the country was getting overrun by foreigners, with an Italian barber shop just opened in the same block with his sanitary shaving parlour; though--thank goodness--the Italian hadn't had much to do yet but play on a mandolin. And I smoothed Professor Gluckstein down till he agreed to furnish the music for us and let the war take care of itself.
The Prof's a good old scout when he ain't got his war bonnet on. He was darned near crying into his meerschaum pipe with a carved fat lady on it when I got through telling him about the poor soldiers in the wet and cold without a thing to smoke. He says: ”You're right, madam; with Jake Frost in the trenches and no tobacco, all men should be brothers under their hides.” And I got that printed in the _Recorder_ for a slogan, and other foreigners come into line; and things looked pretty good.
Also, I got Doc Sulloway, who happened to be in town, to promise he'd come and tell some funny anecdotes. He ain't a regular doctor--he just took it up; a guy with long black curls and a big moustache and a big hat and diamond pin, that goes round selling Indian Snake Oil off a wagon. Doc said he'd have his musician, Ed Bemis, come, too. He said Ed was known far and wide as the world's challenge cornetist. I says all right, if he'll play something neutral; and Doc says he'll play ”Listen to the Mocking Bird,” with variations, and play it so swell you'll think you're perched right up in the treetops listening to Nature's own feathered songsters.
That about made up my show, including, of course, the Spanish dance by Beryl Mae Macomber. Red Gap always expects that and Beryl Mae never disappoints 'em--makes no difference what the occasion is. Mebbe it's an Evening with Shakespeare, or the Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers, or that Oratorio by Elijah somebody, but Beryl Mae is right there with her girlish young beauty and her tambourine. You see, I didn't want it a long show--just enough to make the two-bits admission seem a little short of robbery. Our real graft, of course, was to be where the young society debutantes and heiresses in charge of the booths would wheedle money out of the dazed throng for chances on the junk that would be donated.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”ALL SUNNED UP LIKE A MAN THAT KNOWS THE WORLD IS HIS OYSTER AND EVERY MONTH'S GOT AN 'R' IN IT”]
Well, about three days before the show I went up to Masonic Hall to see about the stage decorations, and I was waiting while some one went down to the Turf Exchange to get the key off Tim Mahoney, the janitor--Tim had lately had to do janitor work for a B'nai B'rith lodge that was holding meetings there, and it had made him gloomy and dissolute--and, while I was waiting, who should come tripping along but Egbert Floud, all sunned up like a man that knows the world is his oyster and every month's got an ”r” in it. Usually he's a kind of sad, meek coot, looking neglected and put upon; but now he was actually giggling to himself as he come up the stairs two at a time.
”Well, Old-Timer, what has took the droop out of your face?” I ask him.
”Why,” he says, twinkling all over the place, ”I'm aiming to keep it a secret, but I don't mind hinting to an old friend that my part of the evening's entertainment is going to be so good it'll make the whole show top-heavy. Them ladies said they'd rely on me to think up something novel, and I said I would if I could, and I did--that's all. I'd seen enough of these shows where you ladies pike along with pincus.h.i.+ons and fancy lemonade and infants' wear--and mebbe a red plush chair, with gold legs, that plays 'Alice, Where Art Thou?' when a person sets down on it--with little girls speaking a few pieces about the flowers and lambs, and so on, and cleaning up about eleven-twenty-nine on the evening's revel--or it would be that, only you find you forgot to pay the Golden Rule Cash Store for the red-and-blue bunting, and they're howling for their money like a wild-cat. Yes, sir; that's been the way of it with woman at the helium. I wouldn't wish to be a Belgian at all under present circ.u.mstances; but if I did have to be one I'd hate to think my regular meals was depending on any crooked work you ladies has done up to date.”
”You'd cheer me strangely,” I says, ”only I been a diligent reader of history, and somehow I can't just recall your name being connected up with any cataclysms of finance. I don't remember you ever starting one of these here panics--or stopping one, for that matter. I did hear that you'd had your pocket picked down to the San Francisco Fair.”
I was prodding him along, understand, so he'd flare up and tell me what his secret enterprise was that would make women's operations look silly and feminine. I seen his eyes kind of glisten when I said this about him being touched.
”That's right,” he says. ”Some lad nicked me for my roll and my return ticket, and my gold watch and chain, and my horseshoe scarfpin with the diamonds in it.”
”You stood a lot of pawing over,” I says, ”for a man that's the keen financial genius you tell about being. This lad must of been a new hand at it. Likely he'd took lessons from a correspondence school. At least, with you standing tied and blinded that way, a good professional one would have tried for your gold tooth--or, anyway, your collar b.u.t.ton. I see your secret though,” I go on as sarcastically as possible: ”You got the lad's address and you're going to have him here Sat.u.r.day night to glide among the throng and ply his evil trade. Am I right or wrong?”
”You are not,” he says. ”I never thought of that. But I won't say you ain't warm in your guess. Yes, you certainly are warm, because what I'm going to do is just as dastardly, without being so darned illegal, except to an extent.”
Well, it was very exasperating, but that was all I could get out of him. When I ask for details he just clams up.
”But, mark my words,” says the old smarty, ”I'll show you it takes brains in addition to woman's wiles and artwork to make a decent clean-up in this little one-cylinder town.”
”If you just had a little more self-confidence,” I says, ”you might of gone to the top; lack of faith in yourself is all that's kept you back.
Too bad!”
”All right for you to kid me,” he says; ”but I'd be almost willing to give you two dollars for every dollar that goes out of this hall Sat.u.r.day night.”
Well, it was kind of pathetic and disgusting the way this poor old dub was leaning on his certainty; so I let him alone and went on about my work, thinking mebbe he really had framed up something crooked that would bring at least a few dollars to the cause.
Every time I met him for the next three days after that he'd be so puffed up, like a toad, with importance and low remarks about woman that, at last, I just ignored him, pretending I hadn't the least curiosity about his evil secret. It hurt his feelings when I quit pestering him about it, but he'd been outraging mine right along; so we split even.
He'd had a good-sized room just down the hall turned over to him, and a lot of stuff of some kind carried in there in the night, and men working, with the door locked all the time; so I and the other ladies went calmly on about our own business, decorating the main hall with the flags of all nations, fixing up the platform and the booths very pretty, and giving Mr. Smarty Egbert Floud nothing but haughty glances about his hidden novelty. Even when his men was hammering away in there at their work he'd have something hung over the keyhole--as insulting to us as only a man can be.
Sat.u.r.day night come and we had a good crowd. Cousin Egbert was after me the minute I got my things off to come and see his dastardly secret; but I had my revenge. I told him I had no curiosity about it and was going to be awful busy with my show, but I'd try as a personal favour to give him a look over before I went home. Yes, sir; I just turned him down with one superior look, and got my curtains slid back on Mrs. Leonard Wales, dressed up like a superdreadnought in a naval parade and surrounded by every little girl in town that had a white dress. They wasn't states this time, but Columbia's Choicest Heritage, with a second line on the program saying, ”Future Buds and Debutantes From Society's Home Galleries.” It was a line we found under some babies' photos on the society page of a great newspaper printed in New York City. Professor Gluckstein and his son Rudolph played the ”Star-Spangled Banner” on the piano and fiddle during this feature.
Then little Magnesia Waterman, dressed to represent the Queen of Sheba, come forward and sung the song we'd picked out for her, with the people joining in the chorus:
We're for you, Woodrow Wilson, One Hundred Million Strong!
We put you in the White House And we know you can't do wrong.
It was very successful, barring hisses from all the Germans and English present; but they was soon hushed up. Then Doc Sulloway come out and told some funny anecdotes about two Irishmen named Pat and Mike, lately landed in this country and looking for work, and imitated two cats in a backyard, and drawing a gla.s.s of soda water, and sawing a plank in two; and winding up with the announcement that he had donated a dozen bottles of the great Indian Snake Oil Remedy for man and beast that had been imparted to him in secret by old Rumpatunk, the celebrated medicine man, who is supposed to have had it from the Great Spirit; and Ed Bemis, the World's Challenge Cornetist, entertained one and all; and Beryl Mae done her Spanish dance that I'd last seen her give at the Queen Esther Cantata in the M.E. Church. And that was the end of the show; just enough to start 'em buying things at the booths.