The invited and distinguished guests began departing. The oldest G.A.R. had hobbled away, and the representatives of the Chamber of Commerce had left the platform in a body, giving Mrs. Benton magnanimous congratulations which she had received but impatiently for the dancing crowd kept still increasing, and the committee in charge of the refreshments had summoned her to a conference. They said cars were parked one against the other right down to Main Street, and were still arriving by dozens. All the ice cream in the town had been eaten, and a dozen freezers were on their way from the nearest source of relief. And as they spoke, all the women breathed their success in deeply, wallowing in their sense of victory. They consulted, and they gloated. They stood looking down over the work of their hands, eying one another significantly. They said to one another, "I told you so!" They added, "But I never told you so much!" Mrs. Benton and Emily were standing together when Johnnie made his way to the platform. Presently Emily was standing between mother and son.
She had been standing between mother and son intermittently for years.
People who said that Mrs. Benton was queenly belittled her. She was kingly. She was nearly six feet tall—Johnnie was an inch or two taller. She had the neck and head of a Roman Emperor—imperial, magnificent. She was wearing that night a smart black net frock, girded about and corseted as regally as usual. She had artificial pearls about her thick neck. She wore, moreover, a crown. It was largely that coronation of great black braids round her head that made the bobbed-hair femininity near her seem to be bowing their insignificant heads, their thin and modish shoulders before her like groveling subjects. She had a habit of pulling one of those braids up to a sort of point exactly above the middle of her forehead, because it became her—that is—it suggested more vividly a crown.
Seen from behind, the mother and the son were not unlike. Johnnie had the same beautifully shaped head—and no line of his was hidden beneath the billows of hair—beautifully set on broad, thin shoulders. Seen from the side, he had the advantage of her. He had a good chin. If Mrs. Benton's chin had matched her crowned forehead, democracy probably would not have tolerated her. Fortunately, it fell away and folded into her neck—somewhat fatly. But a clever observer, studying mother and son from the front, might have guessed the sorrow of the mother. There was a gentleness, a sort of ease, about the son's mouth, though a woman who had "inside information" later called it the sweetest mouth in the world. She said, in fact, that it was so sweet that his false teeth looked beautiful even in a glass of water. He was certainly not effeminate. How could a lad born of two male parents manage to be girlish! He lacked what is called "push" perhaps. The engine of his life had not been started. Hers was never turned off. One could see it pounding impatiently away as she stood there. Her eyes, as they looked, lorded it over the scene; when they roved about, they reigned. They were even now seizing upon the scene to command it. Johnnie looked at it and grinned, hoping to see another pretty girl come dancing into his ken. He was shockingly content with the world as he found it. Nature had given him dancing feet, and "the dames" had made a perfect floor for him. The tailor made him pockets and the banker gave him check books. His mother had been sore with him ever since he got home from college. And now he had squared himself with her by getting such a crowd to come to the opening of the hall. He reminded her and Emily that he deserved credit for the multitude as he stood with them, a manicured sum of frustration to maternal ambition.
"You mustn't ask me to do anything for you if you don't want it well done," he said to them.
For Johnnie had posted announcements of this great opening dance on the telephone poles of six counties, rising early and coming home from his work late practically every day for two weeks. This unusual industry was prompted by the most noble filial reason possible. He wanted to please his mother. And he had good reason for wanting to please her. Emily realized that keenly, for not more than half an hour ago she had thought she heard some wag in the crowd around the hall whistling one of those absurd tunes. She wasn't sure it was one of those tunes of Johnnie's "opera." All tunes sound so much alike, nowadays. But she feared it, uneasily, right in the midst of their triumph. For this Johnnie Benton had inadvertently brought half their club committee, as well as his mother, into humming derision. He had held up their past to jazzy scorn. Doggedly he insisted that it was an accident. He had never intended writing a comic opera for his college class. It had just happened. It never entered his head that if he wrote up one of his mother's activities, away down East, the news of it would ever get back home. He acknowledged to Emily he had known that the editor of the town daily "had it in" for the club women; that he had been biding his time ever since they had bought the vacant lots next to his dwelling for a parking place for the cars of the dancers who came to their hall. The committee had openly regretted the necessity of doing anything to spoil the peace of his home. But as towns grow, apparently some provision for cars must be made. They had not wanted to antagonize the press. But they had been forced to. They had regretted it at the time, but they had regretted it more two weeks ago. For then, one day—Martha had just got home from college and Johnnie Benton was to arrive the following morning—the town had been startled at the horrid, leering headlines:
SCHOLASTIC HONORS OF OUR TOWNSMAN
And beneath it, in smaller letters:
VERSE ON FAMILIAR TOPICS
Each verse was commented upon, with a sort of mock literary criticism.