CHAPTER FIVE
"Kill the prodigal, the calf has returned!" cried Sabrina the Show Girl, as her taxicab drew up to where we were standing.
"Thought you were in Emporia!" we exclaimed in surprise.
"I was. I came; I saw; I conquered. Or whatever whoever said it, did. Jump in and I'll tell you all about it. Fine business. I had more exciting events than ever appeared before under one canvas. But never again. You know when I started about ten days ago? Trouble? Why, I had more trouble than a manager with nine stars and one good dressing room. And I had to leave Estelle, my maid, here at that. I tried to get a stateroom, but nothing doing, so me for a berth with the common herd. Train going along fine, about 3 in the morning me pounding my fair young ear in lower six, when all of a sudden. Biff! Mr. Engine slaps a cow in the back and the whole works deserts the track and the caboose I'm in slides over the bank, turns over on her side and dies, lower six at the bottom. I get handed the following—one suitcase, two pairs of shoes and a fat hardware salesman from upper five. Not forgetting my womanly rights I turn loose a rebel yell and start to climb out of the opposite window with the kind assistance of the arm of the berth, the face of the fat salesman and a broken window, appearing as the Pink Pajama Girl on the side of the car that was at that time understudying the roof.
"When I got out I turned loose a couple more whoops on the clear morning air just to let them know that I was still on the job, and took a casual survey of the disaster. Naturally our car was the goat and the only one that had gone wrong. The fat salesman does the appearing act next, dragging his suitcase; waived formality and asked me if I would have a drink. Me for the drink, and then I got him to climb back down and rescue the rest of my apparel, and I dressed standing up there on the side of the car, much to the edification of the train crew that were not busily engaged in assuring the other dames in the car that they were not dead. By and by along comes another train, and they load us all in and we get to Chicago only about four hours late. Me being that fatigued I rushed right up to the Sherman House, but there wasn't a room vacant on the top floor, so I knew I would not feel at home there, so I go capering over to the Annex.
"Gee, but that Chicago is a bum town, and yet in Emporia they look upon it as a Mecca of pleasure. The only pleasure I ever got there was trying to analyze the smells from the stock yards. They don't eat anything in Chicago but chop suey. Did you ever shoot any of that junk into your system? Them can have it that likes it; but never again for muh. You get it in a little dish, and the blooming stuff smells as if it was some relation to a poultice; you eat it and then go home and chew all the enamel off the bed. No, I don't know what it is made of; if I did I wouldn't eat it. That's the only thing Chicago is good for, chop suey and smells. When they get through talking about the World's Fair perhaps they will think up some new form of amusement. I met a wop in Chicago, one of these real romantic kind that only grow there. I was seated in a secluded corner of the ladies' waiting room of the Annex, and he came up and asked me if I didn't want to step in the Pompeian room and hear the waters of the fountain lapping up against the marble. I told him I much preferred to be up against a bottle of wine and do the lapping myself. He, with that true Chicago gallantry, said, 'Excuse me first, I want to 'phone a friend.'
"I'm glad I didn't hold my breath while he was gone. I think he must have taken a surface car for Oak Park. Those Chicago rum-dums are the true sports, all right, all right. If necessity compels them to buy anything stronger than beer they commence to look sassy at the waiter and talk loud. Chicago is sure rightly named when they call it the Windy City. You just ought to have heard the line of jolly some of those boys tried to hand out to me. To me, mind you, to me! They must have thought that I was some unsophisticated young ingenue that never had been further away from State street than an occasional excursion across the lake to St. Joe.
"I sloshed around town for a couple of days just to give those people a change from the usual run of Randolph street romps, then I hit the hummer for bleeding Kansas and Emporia.
"Say, I had a great first entrance into that burg and nothing else; but a crate of lemons got off to crab the act. When I climb down off the hurdle, behold, the village choir right there on the job to see the train come in. The arrival of the train—notice the train—is what you might call the main event of the day. As soon as the village yokels saw my trunks being unloaded they all did the grand duck for the theatre to strike the house manager, thinking it was a show. I hadn't tipped my mitt to the folks, so they were not at the tank to give me the parental embrace, but after giving the necessary instructions to the baggage man I climbed into the Palace Hotel bus and romped up to my ancestors' abode.
"Business of weeping on neck. Mother wigwags father, who comes over from the grocery store, where he is electing the President of the United States. Business of rejoicing ad. lib. Sister comes in from the village school; neighbors kick in to see what's coming off. Entrance of trunks, gasps of surprise by populace. Distribution of presents by muh.
"That night there was a young people's meeting at the church. A young people's meeting is a signal for every old dame in the township that's not married to iron out her white silk waist and take it on the run for the tabernacle. After the usual prelude the minister got up and said, 'We would like a few words from Sabrina, who has lately returned to our little flock from the busy scenes of the great and wicked metropolis.' I had to get up and hand out the usual stereotyped and mimeographed stuff about being glad to be in their midst once again and it did my heart good to see so many bright and shining faces, etc., etc. I had on a modest little frock that had only lanced me about three hundred and made the aurora borallis look like a dark night. So that the admiring public wouldn't overlook any bets in the costume line I enlivened my discourse with these illustrated song gestures, every move a picture.
"After the olio the Busy Brigade of the Ladies' Auxiliary took the napkin off a group of sandwiches and a bath tub of lemonade and we all had an awful time with ourselves cracking rare quips. Me the center of an admiring throng. They all knew I was an actress and they asked me to act. You know the extent of my acting, a champagne dance and a burlesque on the 'Merry Widow' waltz, and my lines are limited to, 'Oh! girls, here comes the prince, now, hurrah, hurrah, hurrah.' Therefore I ducked the request to exhibit my art. I was going home after the show—I mean entertainment—and Waldo, the fellow I went with before I got sense enough to blow the burg with a musical comedy—Waldo started to walk home with me. I will say this much for Waldo before I go any further, he has a good eye for the future, even though he is working in a grocery store.
"Waldo and I were walking down the quiet country lane, he telling me all the news that had been pulled off while I had been away. When we got down to the garden gate what do you think came off? Waldo proposed. Honest, he proposed, just like that. Waldo's intentions were sincere, but his work was lumpy and he went up in his lines a couple of times. He didn't pass it out half as strong as these city chaps do when they don't mean it. I instructed Waldo to can his chatter and forget it. Waldo got real indignant because I wouldn't fly with him and tried to grab me. Now I hadn't been prowling about New York alone without learning how to take care of myself, so I gave him the heel and the way he went to the mat was a caution for further orders. Waldo was a nice boy, but he was rough, so after the jolt he got he had sense enough to beat it.
"Say, I had an awful time for the next two or three days. But never again. I'll never go any further out in the country than Claremont. These rural districts are for those that like them, but if I can have Broadway for a country lane you won't hear a peep out of me. Honest, when I see a car with 'Forty-second street, crosstown,' on it I wanted to gallup up and kiss the motorman.
"Well, I've got to leave you here. Will tell you how I happened to leave Emporia the next time I see you. Take it from me, I had rather be a shine on Broadway than a glare anywhere else. So long."
In which Sabrina chronicles some more of the adventures that happened to her while visiting her parents and details how she stood the town on edge, was ejected therefrom, and the remarks she made on the subject.