Ma Pettengill

by Harry Leon Wilson

She was systematic, that woman. If she was in Seattle and heard about a new step in San Francisco, she'd be on the train with her instructor in one hour and come back with the new step down pat. She scandalized Red Gap the year she come to visit her married daughter, Lucille Stultz, by introducing many of these new grips and clinches; but of course that soon wore off. Seems like we get used to anything in this world after it's done by well-dressed people a few times.

Then, as I say, these kind-hearted, music-loving Germans, with their strong affection for home life and little ones, started in to shoot the rest of the world up to German standards, and they hadn't burned more than a dozen towns in Belgium, after shooting the oldest and youngest and sexecuting the women—I suppose sexecution is what you might call it—before Genevieve took up the war herself.

Yes, sir—took it right up; no sooner said than done with her. It was really all over right then. The Germans might just as well of begun four years ago to talk about the anarchistic blood-lust of Woodrow Wilson as to wait until they found out the Almighty knows other languages besides German.

I believe the Red Cross was the first handle by which Genevieve May took up the war. But that costume is too cheap for one that feels she's a born social leader if she could only get someone to follow. She found that young chits of no real social standing, but with a pleasing exterior, could get into a Red Cross uniform costing about two-eighty-five and sell objects of luxury at a bazaar twice as fast as a mature woman of sterling character in the same simple garb.

So Genevieve May saw it had got to be something costing more money and beyond the reach of an element you wouldn't care to entertain in your own drawing room. And next thing I was up to Spokane, and here she is, dashing round the corridors of the hotel in a uniform that never cost a penny under two hundred and fifty, what with its being made by a swell tailor and having shiny boots with silver spurs and a natty tucked cap and a shiny belt that went round the waist and also up over one shoulder, with metal trimming, and so on. She was awful busy, darting hither and yon at the lunch hour, looking prettily worried and like she would wish to avoid being so conspicuous, but was foiled by the stares of the crowd.

Something always seemed to be happening to make her stand out; like in the restaurant, where, no sooner did she pick out just the right table, after some hesitation, and get nicely seated, than she'd see someone across the room at a far table and have to run over and speak. She spoke to parties at five distant tables that day, getting a scratchy lunch, I should say. One of the tables was mine. We wasn't what you'd call close friends, but she cut a swath clean across a crowded dining room to tell me how well I was looking.

Of course I fell for the uniform and wanted to know what it meant. Well, it meant that she was organizing a corps of girl ambulance drivers from the city's beet families. She was a major herself already, and was being saluted by he-officers. She said it was a wonderful work, and how did I think she looked in this, because it was a time calling for everyone's best, and what had I taken up for my bit? I was only raising beef cattle, so I didn't have any answer to that. I felt quite shamed. And Genevieve went back to her own table for another bite of food, bowing tolerantly to most of the people in the room.

I don't know how far she ever got with this girl's ambulance corps beyond her own uniform. She certainly made an imposing ambulance driver herself on the streets of that town. You'd see her big, shiny, light-blue limousine drive up, with two men on the seat and Genevieve, in uniform, would be helped out by one of 'em, and you knew right off you'd love to be a wounded soldier and be drove over shell-torn roads by her own hands.

Anyway, she got mad and left the ambulance service flat, getting into some sort of brawl with an adjutant general or something through wanting to take a mere detail out of his hands that he felt should stay right where it was, he being one of these offensive martinets and a stickler for red tape, and swollen with petty power. So Genevieve May said.

So she looked round for another way to start a few home fires burning on the other side of the Rhine. I forget what her next strategy was, but you know it was something cute and busy in a well-fitting uniform, and calculated to shorten the conflict if Germany found it out. You know that much.