“You have a good home on the ranche for her, but she won’t stay put. She follows you around, and the only thing that keeps her quiet is mopping, so you humour her; you let her mop. It’s the only way. But of course it makes you sad. You look at her now, then go up and hug her the way you did yesterday; you try to get her to give up mopping, but she won’t, so you let her go on. Try it.”
Merton went forward to embrace his old mother. Here was tragedy indeed, a bit of biting pathos from a humble life. He gave the best that was in him as he enfolded the feeble old woman and strained her to his breast, murmuring to her that she must give it up-give it up.
The old lady wept, but was stubborn. She tore herself from his arms and knelt on the floor. “I just got to mop, I just got to mop,” she was repeating in a cracked voice. “If I ain’t let to mop I git rough till I’m simply a scandal.”
It was an affecting scene, marred only by one explosive bit of coarse laughter from an observing cowboy at the close of the old mother’s speech. Merton Gill glanced up in sharp annoyance at this offender. Baird was quick in rebuke.
“The next guy that laughs at this pathos can get off the set,” he announced, glaring at the assemblage. There was no further outbreak and the scene was filmed.
There followed a dramatic bit that again involved the demented mother. “This ought to be good if you can do it the right way,” began Baird. “Mother’s mopping along there and slashes some water on this Mexican’s boot-where are you, Pedro? Come here and get this. The old lady sloshes water on you while you’re playing monte here, so you yell Carramba or something, and kick at her. You don’t land on her, of course, but her son rushes up and grabs your arm—here, do it this way.” Baird demonstrated. “Grab his wrist with one hand and his elbow with the other and make as if you broke his arm across your knee-you know, like you were doing joojitsey. He slinks off with his broken arm, and you just dust your hands off and embrace your mother again.
“Then you go back to the bar, not looking at Pedro at all. See? He’s insulted your mother, and you’ve resented it in a nice, dignified, gentlemanly way. Try it.”
Pedro sat at the table and picked up his cards. He was a foul-looking Mexican and seemed capable even of the enormity he was about to commit. The scene was rehearsed to Baird’s satisfaction, then shot. The weeping old lady, blinded by her tears, awkward with her mop, the brutal Mexican, his prompt punishment.
The old lady was especially pathetic as she glared at her insulter from where she lay sprawled on the floor, and muttered, “Carramba, huh? I dare you to come outside and say that to me!”
“Good work,” applauded Baird when the scene was finished. “Now we’re getting into the swing of it. In about three days here we’ll have something that exhibitors can clean up on, see if we don’t.”