But it was hard to keep my attention on it because Maude was still missing and also I kept thinking, when not of her, of the lovely arches and so forth my ten thousand would build. I had about settled on pink-stucco, with real American beauties strung on it and a pair of white kittens in plaster—symbol of the best known Theatrical Ladies Association in Broadway, and I expect the world—at the top, when I opened the paper again and I see something which set my mind thinking.
"70th will add thousands to ranks of unemployed."
Yes, that's just what it said. And I went on and read the piece where it said how enough men to start a real live city was being fed at soup-kitchens and bread lines, not in Russia or Berlin, but right in N. Y. C., N. Y., U. S. A.! Somehow, coming right on top of all their arches and so forth, it sort of struck me in the pit of my stomach and give me the same sinking sensation like a second helping of griddle-cakes a hour later—you know! The thought of all that money going on arches that after they was once marched under was no good to anybody but the ones which built them and the ones which carted them away, had me worried. Think of all the soup that glass and plaster would of made! Do you get me? You do or you're a simp! And it also besides struck me that while the incoming boys would undoubtedly enjoy them city frostings, them which had already marched under them and was now in the bread-line must be kind of fed up with it. Then I thought of the ten thousand intrusted to me to spend which had been gladly given in small sections by willing citizens who wanted to do some little thing to show appreciation to the boys which had went over there, and I begun to realize I had been told I could spend it anyways I wanted to.
And when I thought of that pink arch and roses I blushed, although nobody had, fortunately, heard me mention it, except the two fool dogs, aloud.
Believe you me, I then see like a bolt from the blue, as the poet says, that arches was all right in their way but they was in the traffic's way at best and made mighty poor eating. And so naturally with Ma having it continually before me, I thought of ten thousand dollars worth of eats, because while there is quite a lot of red X canteens for men in uniform, how about the poor birds which had just got out of a uniform and not yet got into a job? Besides there is something kind of un-permanent about food unless a salary to get more with follows it as a chaser.
And so I lay there in comfort all but for the thought of Maude, and figured and figured what would I do. It seemed it was a cinch to get money from people to give the boys a welcome but what to spend it on was certainly a stiff one. But after a while I commenced to get a idea. Which it's a fact I am seldom long without one when needed which together with my great natural talent is what has made me the big success I am.
Work! That was the welcome the boys needed. Work and a little something substantial to start on. So this is what I figured. Suppose we was to divide up that ten thousand, how many boys would it take care of, and how?
Say we had ten men. A thousand each. Too much, of course. Twenty men. Five hundred per ea. Still too much. Well, then forty men. Two fifty. Well, they could use it of course, but it was not a constructive idea. It was too much for a present and not enough to invest. So how about 80. Well, that was $125. per man. This was doing something pretty good by eighty men that would very likely need it, but it seemed sort of unfair not to take in more of the boys. So I split it again and had one hundred and sixty boys with $62.50 in their pockets.
Well, I felt kind of good over this idea and there was only two real troubles with it which is to say that $31.25 for three hundred and twenty boys looked nicer if there was only some way to handle it right. But how?