The two Mes-dames agreed to this, knowing from their menfolk that tobacco is one of the great human needs, both in war and in peace, and knowing that Cousin Egbert will be sure to donate handsomely himself, he always having been the easiest mark in town; so they said they was much obliged for his timely suggestion and would he think up some novel feature for the bazaar; and he said he would if he could, and they went on to other men of influence.
Henrietta's husband, when he heard the money wouldn't all be spent for mere food, said he'd put up a choice lot in Price's Addition to be raffled off—a lot that would at some future date be worth five thousand dollars of anybody's money, and that was all right; and some of the merchants come through liberal with articles of use and adornment to be took chances on.
Even old Proctor Knapp, the richest man in town, actually give up something after they pestered him for an hour. He owns the People's Traction Company and he turned over a dollar's worth of street-car tickets to be raffled for, though saying he regarded gambling as a very objectionable and uncertain vice, and a person shouldn't go into anything without being sure they was dead certain to make something out of it, war or no war, he knowing all about it. Why wouldn't he, having started life as a poor, ragged boy and working his way up to where parties that know him is always very careful indeed when they do any business with him?
Some of the ladies they consulted was hostile about the tobacco end of it. Mrs. Tracy Bangs said that no victim of the weed could keep up his mentality, and that she, for one, would rather see her Tracy lying in his casket than smoking vile tobacco that would destroy his intellect and make him a loathsome object in the home. She said she knew perfectly well that if the countries at war had picked their soldiers from non-smokers it would have been all over in just a few days—and didn't that show you that the tobacco demon was as bad as the rum demon?
Mrs. Leonard Wales was not only bitter about tobacco but about any help at all. She said our hard storms of that winter had been caused by the general hatred in Europe which created evil waves of malignity; so let 'em shoot each other till they got sense enough to dwell together in love and amity—only we shouldn't prolong the war by sending 'em soup and cigarettes, and so on. Her idea seemed to be that if Red Gap would just stand firm in the matter the war would die a natural death. Still, if a bazaar was really going to be held, she would consent to pose in a tableau if they insisted on it, and mebbe she could thus inject into the evil atmosphere of Europe some of the peace and good will that sets the United States apart from other nations.
Trust Cora Wales not to overlook a bet like that. She's a tall, sandy-haired party, with very extravagant contours, and the thing she loves best on earth is to get under a pasteboard crown, with gilt stars on it, and drape herself in the flag of her country, with one fat arm bare, while Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, and the rest is gathered about and looking up to her for protection. Mebbe she don't look so bad as the Goddess of Liberty on a float in the middle of one of our wide streets when the Chamber of Commerce is giving a Greater Red Gap pageant; but take her in a hall, where you set close up to the platform, and she looks more like our boasted liberty has degenerated into license, or something like that. Anyway, the committee had to promise her she could do something in her flag and crown and talcum powder, because they knew she'd knock the show if they didn't.
This reminded 'em they had to have a program of entertainment; so they got me on the committee with the other Mes-dames to think up things, me always being an easy mark. I find out right off that we're a lot of foreigners and you got to be darned careful not to hurt anybody's feelings. Little Bertha Lehman's pa would let her be a state—Colorado or Nebraska, or something—but he wouldn't let her sing unless it would be a German song in the original; and Hobbs, the English baker, said his Tillie would have to sing "Britannia Rules the Waves," or nothing; and two or three others said what they would and wouldn't do, and it looked like Red Gap itself was going to be dug up into trenches. I had to get little Magnesia Waterman, daughter of the coons that work in the U.S. Grill, to do the main singing. She seemed to be about the only American child soprano we had. She sings right well for a kid, mostly these sad songs about heaven; but we picked out a good live one for her that seemed to be neutral.
It was delicate work, let me tell you, turning down folks that wanted to sing patriotic songs or recite war poetry that would be sure to start something, with Professor Gluckstein wishing to get up and tell how the cowardly British had left the crew of a German submarine to perish after shooting it up when it was only trying to sink their cruiser by fair and lawful methods; and Henry Lehman wanting to read a piece from a German newspaper about how the United States was a nation of vile money-grubbers that would sell ammunition to the enemy just because they had the ships to take it away, and wouldn't sell a dollar's worth to the Fatherland, showing we had been bought up by British gold—and so on.
But I kept neutral. I even turned down an Englishman named Ruggles, that keeps the U.S. Grill and is well thought of, though he swore that all he would do was to get off a few comical riddles, and such. He'd just got a new one that goes: "Why is an elephant like a corkscrew? Because there's a 'b' in both." I didn't see it at first, till he explained with hearty laughter—because there's a "b" in both—the word "both." See? Of course there's no sense to it. He admitted there wasn't, but said it was a jolly wheeze just the same. I might have took a chance with him, but he went on to say that he'd sent this wheeze to the brave lads in the trenches, along with a lot of cigars and tobacco, and had got about fifty postcards from 'em saying it was the funniest thing they'd heard since the war begun. And in a minute more he was explaining, with much feeling, just what low-down nation it was that started the war—it not being England, by any means—and I saw he wasn't to be trusted on his feet.
So I smoothed him down till he promised to donate all the lemonade for Aggie Tuttle, who was to be Rebekkah at the Well; and I smoothed Henry Lehman till he said he'd let his folks come and buy chances on things, even if the country was getting overrun by foreigners, with an Italian barber shop just opened in the same block with his sanitary shaving parlour; though—thank goodness—the Italian hadn't had much to do yet but play on a mandolin. And I smoothed Professor Gluckstein down till he agreed to furnish the music for us and let the war take care of itself.