Believe You Me!

by Nina Wilcox Putnam

II

Now as I looked at Ma it come over me that mabe she had the right dope. When people that live together, especially if not friends, but relations, commence to get a little on each others nerves, going away on a trip is good for what ails them. The only trouble is that in the case of females they generally go together. Still, with the whole bunch of new and different stuff it gives them to fight over—R.R. tickets, and who wired for these horrid rooms, and I told you to bring a heavier coat, and etc., they generally get straightened out quite a lot. Even the idea of going along with Maison didnt worry me then, I having been on tower many a time when the No. 1 Company went out and Ma the same for years, and we generally speak, even to the publicity man, no matter if we have made Rochester, Buffalo and Chicago in a quick jump playing matinées as well. So I am without the wholesome and well founded fear of taking a pleasure-trip with friends which is the bitter fruit of most persons experience of the same. Besides, I sort of like Maison, which of course her real name is Maisie Brady, and her funny little husband, which is also still in France, she not being dependant any more than myself nor would she hold him back from serving his country only I dont hardly believe she urged him to go for quite the patriotic reasons I did, he having been a traveling man and so when he retired on her income she didnt feel as natural and affectionate and homelike and all that as when he was away most of the time. But at any rate I and she were both war-widows and old friends from the time her mother was lady-lion tamer and mine on the trapeese, and so in spite of the bills she charges me she has more refinement than most people and so I says all right, we'll go to Atlantic City and we'll be on the one twenty train to-morrow.

"Thats sweet, dearie!" says Maison. "We'll get a swell rest!"

Then she set sail and was off with a Jewish gentleman friend, which had been waiting at the entrance all this time with a gardenia in his buttonhole. And Ma and me called for the check and dogs and limousine and hitched our way homeward through the traffic to our quiet little apartment with 7 windows with the beautiful outlook of the river and the R.R. tracks and etc.

Then while Musette packed only three trunks and my gold-fitted dressing case and a couple of hat boxes and my specially designed jewellery box and the travelling hamper for the dogs, we having decided to travel light and probably not stay over three or four days, Ma went into the all-tiled kitchen and commenced getting up a little smack of cold beef and potato salad and fried cheese sandwiches and coffee and a few hot biscuits and honey so's we wouldn't have to go out and eat, which Ma certainly loves to do and no cook ever stands it for more than a week and the current cook's week was up that morning before we went downtown.

Well anyway while she was doing this I went into the drawing-room which is all fitted up in handsome gold furniture—that the dealer said was one of the Louis periods. Louis Cohen I guess,—I never remember quite. And to put a record on the phonograph in the case I had especially built in the same style at fifty dollars extra and all the instalments paid, and streached out as good as I could manage to on the chaise loung, which is a sort of housebroken steamer-chair, and while John Macormik's own voice sang my little grey home in the west to me in the privacy of my own home, I thought dreamingly about Jim and how much I was missing him and how swell we danced together and how kind and loving and brave he was and how refined, and believe me he's about the only theatrical male that don't murder a dress suit, and how horrible it was to be seperated from him after being married only two weeks and what fools we was to have danced together in every first-class theatre in America and only got married so recent, for if only we'd been married sooner mabe the pain of seperation wouldnt of been so great by now. Who knows? And believe you me it was some pain, and I had myself crying before I knew it. For I sure am stuck on that poor simp and my only war-work aint been done on the screene, Gawd knows, when I give him up to whatever the Allies was fighting for, which if it dont turn out to be as represented, believe you me, myself and a whole lot of other girls is going to want to know why!!

Well anyways, before Ma had the biscuits baked and I had run jada jada and sing me to sleep, I was wild to get away to the pure country ocean air and some healthy outdoor exercise which would help me forget my loneliness. And a lot of quiet and rest and sleep, with the ocean pounding me to the pillow and all that.

I had only a sort of twenty minute small time sketch of a idea of what Atlantic City was like on account of me having been there for openings only and getting in at four forty five with the show beginning at eight fifteen and the washup you need after the trip and Ma always insisting on me doing a twenty minute practice in my room and underwear before every opening which is perfectly correct and one of the principal things which has made my handsprings what they are, and getting dinner far enough in advance to do the hand-springs in time. I knew little nor nothing of what Jim calls the Coney Island that went to finishing school except that there is swimming and horseback riding and a boardwalk that any one without French heels to catch in the cracks can have a elegant walk on. What little sniff of air I had outside the theatre and my bedroom at the hotel give me a appatite for more, which up to now I never had the opportunity to get because of always being with a high-class show that went right back to N.Y. Sunday to open on Broadway. But now I was going like a regular American lady citizen to rest and get full of health and do as the regular resorters did. And I was glad. I was so anxious to keep myself in a pure atmosphere for Jim's sake and the studio wasn't exactly the farm—do you get me? You do! And a rest in the country was the very thing. I got quite excited thinking about it; dried my tears, stopped the phonograph and made sure that Musette put in my riding suit, bathing ditto, and walking boots. And when this was done I felt better already as the saying is, and fully able to take some of the nourishment Ma had got up.

The minute we set down to the table I see that she had also been making good resolutions and waited till she got ready to confess. It come after the seventh tea-biscuit and honey. On her part I mean, I only taking coldmeat and salad and things I dont like much, for reasons before stated.

"Mary Gilligan!" she says. "I believe I'm getting heavier," she says, just as if it occurred to her for the first time. "And I have decided that while I am away to Atlantic City I wont eat to amount to anything and reduce in other ways the whole time I'm there!"

"You dont say," I says, without batting an eye. "Do you really think you need to?"

"I do!" she says. "This is my last real meal. And you needn't try to persuade me out of it."

I didn't. And next morning right after breakfast we caught the one twenty, hats, dogs, Musette, and all, and met up with Maison Rosabelle, which was dressed in a simple little trotters costume of chiffon and ermine which looked like it had been made in Babylon. I mean B.C. not L.I. And with her was a little surprise in the way of the same Jewish gentleman, Mr. Freddy Mayer, with another gardenia on him and a fine line of plausable explinations.

"Aint it a co-co-strange, Freddy just happens to be going our way!" cooed Maisie with all the innocence of a N.Y. livery-stable pidgeon.

"Yes, I'm taking a special offering of champagne to a special friend in the hotel business there," says Mr. Freddy. "And with three such beautiful lady companions its no hardship to leave Manhattan behind nor the Bronx," says he gaily. "Altho when we come back we may find the Aldermen has decided to change both names after July first," says the humorous dog.

"Will you please kindly open this window a little?" I intrupped him. "The air in here aint so good as it was."

I dont know did this get over, but believe you me I didn't care for that well washed young wine-seller at all, nor for his company. And it was a relief when he done as I asked and him and Maison found their seats was at the other end of the car. In a way I can understand her liking traveling-men but not up to the point of traveling with one, even by semi-accident. And so opening the Motion Picture Gazette to look at the double-page spread of myself "Who has at length been lured by the artistic possibilities of the picture world," and keeping a eye on Ma to see would she stop the candy-boy, settled down to the soothing sound of Maison's laugh, and begun my quiet little trip to Healthland.

There is a large variaty of ladies which have husbands still in the army, but believe you me they certainly got one thing in common, or else no looks at all. And that is, the temptation to take up with other company to some degree. Because of course while the war was holding the stage a husband's absence could be stood, but what with this peace-hyphen in the fighting and everything, you cant help but commence wondering what kind of a girl is detaining him over there and feel inclined to have a understudy kind of waiting off stage in self defence. For believe you me, there seems to be something sort of attractive about a war-widow and the ones which ignores the fact and minds their own affairs is the real patriotic women of America.

Not that I want to say a word about Maison, and what happened to me after the end of that train ride on which I was sitting so superior-minded, taught me a lesson; because its a cinch to be good when you want to be. A person which has suffered themselves is slow to bawl out the other fellow so quick next time. Do you get me? Not yet.

Well, after we had rolled by the lovely scenery and read the handsome ad. signs on either hand, not to mention the pipe-line, and got the invigorating smell of low tide in our eager nostrils, we come out on that quiet little country railroad station platform, our destination, to be greeted by only several hundred busses and a thousand or so taxi-cabs, each yelling at the top of their voices. As we got off the train Maison rushes up to us and pipes a cheering little question.

"Where are we going, dearie?" she said, blithly.

"Where are we going?" I says. "Maison Rosabelle, do you mean to say you didn't wire no place for rooms?"

"Why no!" says Maison. "Didn't you?"

"Certainly not!" I says. "I never wired for rooms in my whole life. The advance agent always done that for me."

"Well Mary Gilligan, I'm not your advance agent!" she snapped, and then she kind of looked at Mr. Freddy in a sweet, helpless womanly fashion expecting him to fork up a little help. But it seems Mr. Freddy was one of these birds that only think to take care of his own comfort. He had a room alright at the Traymore. And he meant to keep it!

"We'll take the bus to there," he suggested. "I'm sure there'll be lots of room."

But no bus for me on account of professional reasons. So we took one taxi for him and us and another for Musette and the dogs and the bags, and then commenced a round of seeking for shelter as the poet says, which had the "Two Orphans" skun a mile. We went to six hotels and not a room among them. Believe you me, there is just one person can make you feel cheaper than a Atlantic City hotel clerk when he says "No reservations?" and lifts his arched brows, and that is the head waiter when he says "nothing to drink?" and you say "yes, nothing!" Well, thank Gawd thats one thing prohibition will prohibit.

Well anyways, we tried six hotels until at last we come to a little place where the young feller at the desk give his reluctant consent to our admission. It was a simple little place done quitely in red plush and gold and marble columns, very restful with not over a hundred people sitting about in the lobby, listning not to the sad sea waves but to a jazz orchestra and inhaling the nice fresh tobacco smoke of which the air was full.

Well, Mr. Freddy give a gasp of relief and bid us good-by, after dating up Maisie for dinner, and a flock of bell-hops hopped upon our stuff and we commenced a walking tower to our rooms. As we started off down the Alleyway, Maison give me a nudge.

"Look it, that sweet young officer! Aint he handsome?" she whispers only just loud enough for him to hear. And before I thought I turned my head and he certainly was easy to look at. He looked, in fact like a cross between a clothing ad. and a leading juvinille with a touch of bear-cat in him to make a regular he-man out of him. He was a captain, although so young, and had a cute little moustache and had that blue-blooded air—you know—like a Boston accent even without hearing him speak. And he was sitting all alone under a big poster advertising a entertainment for the benefit of blind soldiers or something. Of course I didn't notice him at all, because I being a perfect lady I dont do them things. But I couldnt help seeing that he didn't blush at what Maisie said, although I knew he heard it, but a sort of crinkly expression come up round his nice blue eyes as if he thought us comic or something. It made me just boil because my clothes is nothing if not refined and I never wear anything but a little powder on my nose when off the stage, and if its one thing gets my goat it is to be taken for a show-girl which undoubtedly he thought the two of us was and they not in his class, for even with the passing glance I had taken I could see he was used to the Vanderbilts and all that set and had never had to be taught to take his daily tub. Do you get me?

So I walked like I hadnt looked, and of course I really hadnt, and proceeded to the before the war section of the hotel and the handsome suite all fitted in real varnished pine and carpets just like a Rochester boarding house when I was on the small time before I made my big success, and it made me feel quite at home or would of only for what I knew the difference in price was going to be. I guessed it just as soon as I heard Ma gasping over the hotel rules which she was reading. I went over and looked at them too, and at first I couldn't see nothing unusual about them. There was the usual bunk about the management not being responsible for the guest in any way, and Gawd knows how could they be and I dont blame them. And then, a little ways down I see what had got Ma stirred up. It seems dogs was ten dollars a week per each, and of course we had two of them and Ma never has cared for my two, anyways.

"Well, I hope the sea air will be good for the poor little lambs," she says very sarcastic. "Mebbe it'll make 'em grow—into police-dogs or something useful!"

Well I see by this that the salt air had not yet got to Ma, although the troublesome journey had. And so I put on a simple little suit of English tweed and low heeled shoes and a walking hat, which seemed to me the right thing for the country, and went out to pry off a little health before dinner.

The outdoors was something grand. The air was as good a cocktail as a person would want, and the lights along the boardwalk was coming out like dandelion blossoms. There was hardly anybody around—just a few here and there and the surf of that wide and cruel ocean which Jim was the other side of, was breaking close to the rail in big white ostrich plumes. Overhead the sky was as clear and high as a circular drop with the violet lights on it, and a few clean stars was coming out. It was just cold enough to make a person want to walk fast until the blood got singing through you and you wanted to shout and run, only of course no lady would. But just the same, I commenced to feel glad I hadnt died when I had the measles, and I loved everybody and had a great career before me and—and—oh that grand yearning happy feeling which comes out of being young and full of strength and a good bank-account. Do you get me? You do!

Well anyways, here I was walking like I had money on it and huming a tune to myself, when along comes a man the other way, walking two to my one, and huming the same tune, "How I hate to get up in the morning," it was. When he heard me and I heard him we both sort of half stopped out of surprise, and I got a good look at him. It was the young Captain from the hotel.

He also give a start of surprise when he seen me, showing he recognized me just as good as I did him. Only it was a real, genuine start, as if he realized something more than the fact he had seen me at the hotel. Then he smiled—a smile which would of done any dental ad. proud, and passed along, looking back over his shoulder—once. While I went along minding my own business and only know he looked back on account of my happening to look back to see how far I had gone. I went a mile further and somehow that smile of his stuck in my mind and made me sort of happy for no reason, and at the same time awful extra lonesome for Jim. I made up my mind I would get Jim a new car for a surprise when he come home and I would send him a extra box of eats this week and some of them cigarettes he likes so well, and a whole lot of stuff like that, the way a woman does at such a time. Do you get me? Probably.

Well anyways, I walked myself into a terrible enthusiasm over Jim, and then come back to the hotel. Which, by the way, its a strange thing how much further it is coming back to a Atlantic City hotel than walking away from it. And there at the door was Ma with the two dogs. A real strange sight for I never knew her to take them out before, and it looked like a guilty conscience, for she give me a peek out of the corner of her eye for some reason and then hastily explained how she had thought she'd take them herself this time instead of Musette. Well, we got rid of the dogs and then come down to dinner where Maison sailed down upon us all dressed up and no place to go, for it seems this Mr. Freddy had stood her up on the dinner, having telephoned he'd be over later with a friend or two but business prevented him paying for her meal, or at least thats what I expect he meant. And Maison was wild. But she had to eat dinner with us, and register a bunch of complaints between bowing to friends and so forth.

"The luck I have!" she says. "That guy Freddy doesn't think any more of a nickle than he does of his right arm! And with all the conventions which is held at this town of course we would have to pick on the date the Baptist ministers was here! Its a fact! The clerk told me. And what is more if there ain't Ruby Roselle and Goldringer and will you look at that wine and it twelve a quart without the tax! Well, of all things!"