“No,” I says, “but women have had to get what they have got from men and they have had to learn how. But maybe these is things that it is not right for women to tell to men so if you do not mind I will talk to you about the Spokesman and what He thinks about my idea that He should have a lot of pictures took showing Himself as a farmer’s Boy back on the old homestead.”
Well he tells me that he has talked about the idea with the Spokesman who is very much enthused about it and thinks it will be a great publicity stunt. And He is going to send up word for them to water the hay on the old place and grow it just as quick as they can and when it is high enough He will take His private train with about a hundred newspaper reporters up there and they can take pictures of the great Man riding a hayrake and that will surely be better than riding a camelephant. And Mr. Edgerton says he has spoke to the reporters also and they are keen about it and one of them has got the promise of a picture of the Spokesman with His arm about His favorite cow that He milked when He was a boy and when the general manager of the Amalgamated Press Association or something like that got wind about what they was planning he telegraphed for a life-size picture of the Spokesman leading old Dobbin home from the pasture.
Mr. Edgerton says it is a shame that hay grows so late in them artic regions and there is no way you can imitate it in a motion picture studio. And then I says, “Look-a-here Mr. Edgerton,” I says, “I have got a crow to pick with you and now is the time.”
“Did you get it out of the chop-guey?” he says because of course he is feeling jolly over that idea I have give him and what a blow it will be to Senator Buttles that grew up in a town and went to a college and is no good at all for the old homestead stuff.
“But this is no joke,” I says. “I have had it in mind ever since you sent out that story about the Spokesman buying a dozen spring suits to help the wholesale clothing trade. What I want to know is has He honestly bought them?”
“Well Miss Riggs,” he says, “I think we can feel reasonably certain that He has because he is fifty-three years old and He surely must of bought a spring suit every four years of His life.”
“That may be,” I says, kind of shocked, “but that is not what anybody is going to make out of that story Mr. Edgerton it was meant to be took that He had bought all them suits this year. And what I have got to say to you is I have always been brought up to tell the truth and I thought that I was helping to get the truth told to the plain people and if them that is in charge is all cynical about it then I could not be happy and I would rather have nothing to do with it.”
Well Mom he sees that I am serious and he says again that I am just like the Spokesman I have a natural deep reverence for great ideals and that is why I am able to understand Him so good. I says, “Yes but then why does He let you give out stories about Him that is not true?”
He thinks for a while and then he says, “Miss Riggs I am going to explain something to you that at first you may find hard to understand. There is a difference between public life and other life and there is a kind of truth for each. I think maybe it will be easier for you to understand because you tell me that your mother was once an actress.”
“Yes,” I says, “she was a great actress she played Eliza in Uncle Tom’s Cabin for many years.”