IN WHICH I BECOME A SYKER
Dear Mom:
I have your letter in which you send me two dollars and it is sure good of you and Pop to think of me with all the troubles of your own you have got. It come at just the right moment for I had got down to only nine cents, and I did not dare to buy the morning paper to see what the Spokesman has been saying. Mr. Edgerton has got it fixed that I have been appointed Emergency Field Grammarian but I do not get the salary until Saturday and these two dollars will save my life.
And oh Mom I am glad that you will talk to Walter for me. I know that you and Pop are not keen about having me in love with a poor shipping-clerk but all the same that is what is kept me good through all the temptations of a great city and so you must help me and make Walter understand that I really am helping Mr. Edgerton like I say and telling him what he is to tell the Spokesman to tell to the American people.
Well Mr. Edgerton is been so good I have saw him again and he seen that I had on that poor old shirtwaist and he says, “Why where is your fine good clothes?” he says. And so I have to tell him that it is got so hot that I cannot wear a winter suit no more and he says, “Come along now you have got to be dressed like a Grammarian,” he says and so he takes me into a department store and buys me everything all new a pearl grey suit with a hat and shoes and all and so I can be a summer lady as well as a winter one.
But he tells me some very bad news that the secretary of state that they call Scared Sally has decided that he will let that Bolshiviki count come into the country provided that he does not do no propaganda about politics while he is here but will only see his wife that is sick. And I says, “My God Mr. Edgerton that is a mistake because them fellers is not to be trusted and anybody can see that it is propaganda for a feller like that just to be alive.”
And he says, “That is exactly right Miss Riggs it is what I have said to them.”
And I says, “But why does the Spokesman allow such things?” and he says that He is leaving it all to that Scared Sally.
And I says, “But Mr. Edgerton they have already give out a statement that he will not be let to come in. The Spokesman has said it Himself.”
“Yes,” he says, “but the Spokesman can always take back what He has said.”