V
The crowds on the Avenue was something fierce, and the only ones which had the right of way, outside of officers and cops, was the motion-picture men. I seen Ted Bearson, my own camera man from the Goldringer Studios, and Rosco, my publicity man, and they was talking together. I stepped back in among the boys, because I wasn't looking for any personal publicity myself on this particular day, wishing to leave all that to the division and I knew that if Ted was to see me he would shoot me.
But ain't it the truth that the modester a public person like me is, the more attention they attract? My sweet, quiet voice, silent though snappy clothes, and retiring manner have been in Sunday spreads and motion-picture magazine articles practically all over the world and America, and my refinement is my best-known characteristic. Publicity is like men. Leave 'em alone and they simply chase you. Pretend you don't want them, and you can't lose them. And the more reluctant I am about being noticed, the wilder the papers get! Only, of course, without a good publicity man this wouldn't, perhaps, be a perfectly safe bet.
So this day, having got rid of all my leaflets, I was slowly working my way toward the Avenue, when publicity was thrust upon me.
You know this Bohemian part of New York is made up of old houses which is so picturesque through not having much plumbing and so forth and heat being furnished principally by the talk of the tenants on Bolshevism and etc. These inconveniences makes a atmosphere of freedom and all that and furnishes a district where the shoe-clerk can go and be his true self among the many wild, free spirits from Chicago and all points west. Well, this neighborhood could stand a lot of repairs, not alone in the personal sense, but in a good many of the buildings, but these are seldom made until interfered with by the police or building departments. And on the corner of the street which I was now at there was a big old house full of people who did something, I suppose, and these were mostly bursting out through the open windows or sitting on the little balconies which looked like they couldn't hold a flower pot and a pint of milk with any safety much less a human. But there they was, sitting, with all the indifference to fate, for which they are so well known. I couldn't but notice the risk they ran, but I should worry how many radicals are killed, and so I paid but little heed until I noticed that there was three little kids—all ragged children of the dear proletariat—which some of the Bohemians had hauled up on a balcony which was too frail for adults. The minute I see that balcony I was scared to death, although the short-haired girl and the long-haired man which was letting the kids out on it was laughing and care-free as you please. The kids got out all right, and then something awful happened.
Right below was a open space at the head of this particular column, where the officers and color-bearers and etc was. Rosco and Ted was getting a picture of them. But while I generally watch a camera, this time I didn't on account of watching the kids. And as I looked that rotten old balcony broke and one them, a little girl, fell through and hung there, caught by her skirt, and it a ragged one at that. Everybody screamed and yelled and sort of drew back, which is the first way people act at a horror before they begin to think. I yelled myself, but I started toward her, because the radicals couldn't reach her from above and from below the ground was fully twenty feet away and nothing but a fence with spikes and a dummy window-ledge way to one side. But I had a idea I might make it for what with two generations on the center trapeze and never a drop of liquor and not to mention what I done in pictures, I think quicker than some and act the same. But my new skirt prevented, and ahead of me dashed a soldier.
In a minute he had scaled the wall and worked his way along the spikes to that ledge, and then while the crowd watched breathlessly he had that kid under one arm and was back on the wall again. He held her close, turned around, crouched down and then jumped. And as he jumped I screamed and run forward, for Oh My Gawd, it was Jim!
I don't know how I got there, but when I come to I and that scared kid was all mixed up in his arms and the three of us crying to beat the band which had struck up and the crowd yelling like mad. And it was a peach of a stunt, believe you me.
"Didn't you get my cable?" Jim says. And I says no, and we clinched again. And then we heard a funny, purring sound right behind and broke loose and turned around and there was that devil of a Ted taking a close-up!
"Hold it! Damn you, hold it another ten feet!" yells Rosco, who was dancing around like a regulation director, just back of Ted. "Fine, Fine! Oh, boy, what a pair of smiles! Say, folks, we shot the whole scene—some News Weekly Feature. Oh say, can you see me, Rosco, the publicity man!"
Honest to Gawd you would of thought he had gone crazy! And that bone-headed crowd couldn't make out was the whole thing staged or real. Believe you me, I had to pinch myself to know was it real or not, but thank Gawd it was, it was! And after nearly two years! Do you know how that feels? Give a guess! And then, just as I thought now this cruel war and everything is over, why that roughneck of a officer give the order to fall in and of course Jim had to and left me there with that kid in my arms for Ted to make a couple of stills for the papers.
Believe you me, I couldn't tell how many he took, or when, because seeing Jim so sudden and unexpected had pretty near killed me, and I couldn't say anything much about the parade either, because something kept me from seeing it and I guess it was my own glad tears. Anyways, I had three wet handkerchiefs in my bag when I got home and one of them a perfect stranger's.
Well, of course, I expected the parade would break up when it struck Harlem and the boys would hurry right home. And did they? They did not! I hurried right home, all right, all right, but not so Jim. And for a long while I was sitting there in one of my trousseau dresses and a fearful state of mind over what had he done to get killed since I last seen him. But hours went by and still he didn't come. And I didn't know his 'phone or where he was or anything. The only clue I had that the whole business was a fact and no dream was the cable, which had come after he did, saying he would be home as arranged after all.
Believe you me, I hope never to live through another twenty-four hours like them that followed, because I couldn't eat or sleep, not knowing where he was.
Next morning I wouldn't even look at the papers which was Sunday and full of our and the division's pictures. And Monday was worse, because even although Jim might be alive none of the hospitals nor yet the morgue had him, and so I commenced to think he had gone back on me. A telegram come from the coast saying "Great Sunday story bring Rosco contract follows," but what did I care for that stuff without Jim? Ma was very silent all this time, and kept in her room a lot, with the door shut. And then late Monday afternoon the door-bell rung, and my heart leaped to my feet like it had done at every tinkle for 48 hours, and I went myself, but it was only Ruby Roselle and Mr. Mulvaney of the Welcome Home Committee with her! The men that girl knows! Well, she sees them in another light than I and it's a good thing all tastes don't run the same. But this was such a surprise I asked them in before I thought and pretty near forgot my own troubles for a minute.
Ruby cuddled down into her kolinsky wrap and give me the fish-eye, as she addressed me in her own sweet way as a woman to her best enemy.
"Dearie," she says, tucking in a imaginary curl. "Dear, Johnnie here was over to my flat and we got speaking of you by accident, and he's anxious to know where's the money he gave you, and why no decorations as was intended?"
"Yes, Miss La Tour," says the old bird, which it was plain she had made a even more perfect fool of him than he had been before. "Yes, Miss La Tour, it's a serious thing," he says. "I understand you didn't really call even one meeting and as for decorations—!! Well, what can you tell us?"
Well, I told him how I come to think of what I thought of, and the jobs which I had 319 of and the notes and all, and while I talked I could see plain enough that I was getting in worse every minute, because they had come determined to find me guilty, and no matter what I said, it would of listened queer with them two pairs of glassy eyes on me.
"I had a hunch," I wound up, "that maybe something a little substantial would be welcome," I says, "because after all a person can't live on plaster arches and paper flowers, and three hundred and nineteen jobs ought to take care of a considerable percent of the ones that need it," I says. "And so while your arches are all right," I says, "you must admit they are principally for show."
When I got through Mr. Mulvaney cleared his throat and didn't seem to know just how to go on; but Ruby give him an eye, and so he cleared his throat again and changed back to her side.
"This is all most irregular," he says very dignified. "Most irregular. You will certainly have to appear before the general committee and give them an accounting. What you have done amounts to a misuse of public-funds!"
My Gawd, I nearly fainted at that! But before I could say a word a voice spoke up from the doorway.
"Like hell it does!" says Jim, which that dear kid had left himself in with his key and listened to the whole business. "Like hell it's a misuse!" he says, coming into the room and putting his arm around me. "You just let the public and the soldiers take their choice! Give all the facts to all the newspapers and we will furnish the photographs free! Go to it! Get busy! And—get out!"
Well, they got, and what happened then I will not go into because there are things even a self-centered woman won't put on paper! Poor Jim, and him back in camp to get deloused and demobilized and his tooth-brush, and a few parting words of appreciation and etc, these past 48 hours which it seems is the rule for all soldiers, and I suppose they did need the rest after that parade before taking up domestic life once more.
Well, anyways, that afternoon late, while him and me was thoroughly enjoying our joint contract and the Sunday spreads with our pictures and all, in walks Ma with her hat and dolman on and a suit-case in one hand, and 'Frisco, the he-snake in his box, in the other hand.
"For the love of Mike, Ma Gilligan, where are you going to?" I says, looking at her idly.
"I'm leaving you forever!" says Ma, in a deep voice.
"Leaving us? Whatter you mean, leaving us?" I says, taking notice and my head off Jim's shoulder.
"I'm going back to work," says Ma. "I'm not going to be dependent on you no longer," she says, "nor a burden in my old age," she says. "And now that you got Jim back I shall only be in the way, so good-by, Gawd bless you!"
"Why, Ma Gilligan!" I yells, jumping to my feet. "How you talk! Besides what on earth do you think you could do?"
"Oh, I got a job," she flashes, proudly. "I'm going back to the circus!"
Believe you me, that pretty near had me floored.
"The circus!" I says. "What nonsense! Why a trapezer has to be half your age to say nothing of weight!"
"I'm not going on no trapeze at my years!" says Ma. "I'm going back as Fat Lady. One hundred a week and expenses!"
All of a sudden I realized the full meaning of them doughnuts and cocoa and etc she had eat these past months. She had been deliberately training and as usual was successful. I sprung to my feet and hung around Ma's neck like a ten-year-old.
"Oh Ma!" I says. "Don't! Please don't go back! Whatever would we do without you?" I says. And Jim added his entreaties.
"Why, Ma Gilligan, what bally rot!" he says, which it's quite noticeable the amount of English he's picked up over there. "What a silly ass you are, old dear!" he says. "Here we are going to California and who would cook for us if not you?" he says, "with the cook-question like it is out there?"
Well, that weakened Ma considerable, for cooking is her middle name. So she set down the suit-case.
"Ma!" I begged her. "We couldn't have too much of you, and you would never be in the way or a burden no matter what the scales say. For heaven's sake take off that hat, it's too young for you, and burden us with the first home cooking Jim has had in two years!"
Well, she give in at that, and sat down the snake and her dolman and pocket-book.
"Well, all right then!" she says. "I'll stay!" Which is about all the emotion Ma ever shows. "Whew, but it's hot in here!" she says and turns to open the window and we left her do it, because we seen she didn't want us to notice her tears. And as she opened it she gives a shriek and leans way over, grabbing at something. And hardly had she yelled than from below come a holler and a flow of language the like of which I had never heard, no, not even at the studio when something went wrong! Then Ma commenced to laugh something hysterical and pulled herself back in through the window and leaned against the side of it, hollering her head off.
"What is it?" I says.
"It's Maude!" gasps Ma. "She was shut under the winder and when I opened it she fell out and lit on Rudie's head which was sitting right underneath."
Well, we could hardly hear her for the noise in the kitchen. The dumb-waiter was buzzing like all possessed. I and Jim rushed out and there, lickety-split, come the dumb-waiter only it was more inarticulate than dumb by then, and on it the case of Old Home lacking only three quarts.
"I find your whiskey, Miss La Tour!" says Rudie's voice, very weak and shagy from below. "I chust find him and send him right away, quick!"
"Thanks old dear!" chortled Jim. "Come up and have a drink on me!"
"No tanks!" yelled Rudie. "I'm leaving this blace right now foreffer!"
Well, we should worry! I turned to Jim, a big load off my mind.
"Jim," I says solemnly. "There is the three hundred and twentieth job!"
THE END
Transcriber's note:
Varied spelling, hyphenation and dialect is as in the original.