Believe You Me! Part 20

"And so I'm to spend ten thousand of the hundred thousand iron-men raised by the Welcome Committee?" I says hastily. "How nice. What will it go for?"

"That is for you and your committee to decide," he says. "I'm sure you will think up something tasty," he says. "And go to the limit--we need ideas."

Well, anybody could see that. But I only says all right.

"I suppose you are familiar with committees?" says this human editorial-page-sketch.

"I'm never too familiar with anybody," I says stiffly. "But I have been acquainted with more than one committee."

"Well, here are the papers I promised you--the general scheme and so forth. The central committee will meet as is indicated here. See you at them. Pleased to of seen you off the screen! You certainly was fine in 'Shoulder Arms'!"

And before I could get my breath he had looked at a handsome watch no bigger than a orange, humped into his coat and was off in a shower of language that left me no come-back.

Believe you me, I was glad when he had squoze out through our typical apartment hall and the gilt elevator had snapped him up. For to hand me ten thousand to spend on welcoming a bunch of other women's husbands was, to soft pedal it, rubbing it in. I was only about as upset as that spilled milk that was cried over and no wonder at 18 cents a qt. Well, anyways, it was no light thing to face, going on with this work and Jim's letter scarcely dry from my tears. But having promised over the telephone and being given no chance to refuse in the parlour, I would keep my word if not my heart from breaking.

Because, anyways, if I was simply to do nothing to occupy myself except maybe a few thousand feet of fillum and rehearsing my special dance act for the Palatial and my morning exercises and walking my five miles a day and all that quiet home stuff which gives a person too much time to think, what would I think, except a lot of unprintable stuff about any administration which was keeping him in a town like Paris, France? And the only comfort I could see in sight was to work hard to give the boys that _was_ coming a real welcome and remember that Jim never was a skirt-hound--that I ever saw.

III

Having reached this resolve I decided to go on the walk I had mapped out anyways, because what is home with a disappeared snake in it? And so I started, and as I come past the door in the lower hall, which its marked "Superintendent," which is Riverside-Drivese for Janitor, what would I hear but Rudie singing to himself out of the fullness of his heart or something.

I went out in wrath and the spring sun and after a while I begun to feel less sore and miserable in my heart, partially because of the fresh air and partially through irritation at the stylish trouser-leg that both of mine was in. But the day was too sweet for a person to stay mad long. Ain't it remarkable the way spring can creep into even a city and somehow make it enchanted and your heart kind of perk up and take notice--do you get me? You do, or Gawd pity you! It's the light, I guess, just the same as the audience holds hands when they turn on the ambers with a circular drop for a sunset or something.

And by the time I had walked along the Avenue and seen all the decorations which was already put up for the first regiments home, I commenced getting real fired and excited with my new job. It looked like the powdered-sugar industry was going to suffer because about all the plaster in the country seemed to be being used on arches which looked like dago-wedding cakes and you actually missed the dolls dressed like brides and grooms off the top of them. And here and there was some funny looking columns of the same white stuff and on the Public Library steps a bunch of spears and s.h.i.+elds was thrown all over the place just as if a big Shakespearian production had suddenly give it up in despair and left their props and hoofed it back to Broadway. It certainly was imposing.

Up at 59th Street was a arch that looked like Coney Island frozen solid.

It was all of little pieces of gla.s.s:--heavy gla.s.s and millions of pieces. I don't know what good they did, but they shone something grand, and must of cost a terrible lot of money. I guessed the boys would certainly feel proud to march under it provided none of it fell on their heads.

Believe you me, by the time I got home my head was full of imaginary architecture like Luna Park and Atlantic City jumbled together with a set I seen in "The Fall of Rome" when we was shooting it at Yonkers. And after I had squirmed out of my walking suit and was a free woman once more, in a negligee, which is French for kimona which is j.a.panese for wrapper, well, anyways, I lay in it and opened up the evening paper because I am not one to let the news get ahead on me and have acquired the habit of reading it regular the same as my daily bath.

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 a.s.sociation 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 gla.s.s 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 n.o.body 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?

I put in another hard think and then I got it. The way to make that $31.25 a real present was to make it a payment on something and then with the other hand pa.s.s out a job at the same time, which would not alone keep the soldier but allow him to cover the difference.

And to get away with this all I needed now was a popular investment and 320 perfectly good steady jobs.

Well, with the Victory Loan the first part was easy enough, and I concluded to pay twenty-five dollars on each of three hundred and twenty one hundred dollar victory notes, making myself responsible for the lot the same as if I was a bank and getting a job for each note and having the giver of the job hold the note on the soldier and pay me the instalments and I would pay myself back, or if not n.o.body would be stung outside of me, supposing any one of them failed to come across. I was going to take a big lot for myself and another ten didn't much matter.

And then with the remaining $6.25 each, well, I would pool that for leaflets enough to go around the whole division and on the leaflet I would have printed the facts and a list of the jobs and just what they was, with how much kale per week went with them, and see that the boys got them while the parade was forming and then it would be up to them, because the home folks can only do so much and then it's up to the army their own selves just as with munitions and sugar and red X work while the big show was on. They did the work but we gave them the job--we and the Germans. And now all we could do again was to give them a job--and it's enough, judging from how they went after the first one.

And then, just as I come smack up against the awful fact of where would I get them jobs Ma come in and says the hot-dogs and liberty-cabbage which it's the truth we always translate them into American at our table, was getting cold and as long as I was paying for them I'd better eat them while they was fit. So I says all right and we went in and did so.

Believe you me, it certainly is a remarkable thing the way you start on a afternoon's work like I done, all full of vigor and strength and how your ideas and courage and everything will sort of leak away toward the time to put on the feed-bag at Evensong. And how again the ideas and pep comes back in the evening once you have eaten. There was almost perfect silence the first few minutes we sat down or would of been except for Ma taking her tea out of the saucer, which I can't learn her not to do and the only way I keep her from disgracing me at the Ritz and etc., is to make sure she don't order it. But when the first pangs was attended to I commenced to feel more conversational.

"Work," I says, thinking of what I had been thinking of. "Work is the one thing that stands by a person. Everything else in life can go bluey and their work will see them through. That's why it's been so popular all these years, and where these Bolsheviks make their big mistake.

Because they don't work and not working they get bored to death and so they commence rioting. Do you remember that quotation from that well-known cowboy poet, Omaha Kiyim, "Satan will find business still for idle hands to do?" How good that applies to strikes--idle hands--ain't that perfect? And it written so long ago!"

"How long?" says Ma.

"Oh, I dunno. Maybe three hundred years," I says.

Ma laid down her knife and spoon, she being quite entirely through, and looked me in the eye.

"I will remember them words, daughter," she says very solemn.

And it's the truth I never noticed how serious she was about it until I come to look back on it nearly three weeks later.

IV

And during that time which has been so immortally fixed in writing by the grandest book with the same name, I was as busy as the great American cootie is supposed to be on his native hearth--only it ain't that piece of furniture but another, of course. Do you get me? I'm afraid so! Well, I was as busy as what you think. To begin with I called a committee-meeting in the privacy of my grey French enamel boudoir where I wear my boudoir cap and have the day-bed hitched and this committee meeting consisted entirely of myself and the two fool dogs.

And after I had gone through all the motions, I appointed myself a sub-committee of one to carry out the meeting's resolutions and do all the work.

This is about what would of happened if I had done it the regular way and asked Ruby Roselle and Maison Rosabelle and the other girls. We would of had a mahogany table and a gavel and a pitcher of ice-water and a lot of hot-air and a wasted morning and in the end I would of been the goat anyways, so I thought why not do it single-handed in the first place and be done? I could print all their names on the leaflets and they would be perfectly satisfied.

So having got over the necessary formalities as you might say, I accepted the nomination and got to work. Fortunately I wasn't doing anything except a solo dance at the Palatial at supper-time and one picture. And so I had most of my days to myself. The Fixings on the Avenue grew and blossomed and so did my contribution to the Welcome Home Committee. I didn't get to go to any of their meetings but I don't imagine they even missed me at the time. And while the arches and other motion-picture scenery was being as completed as they ever would be, so was my list. My monument took up less s.p.a.ce, but when you gave it the once-over it seemed maybe a little more rain-proof than the others.

Apparently all there was to it was slips of paper six by eight with this printed on them. At the top it says:

"WELCOME HOME"

"HOWDY BOYS, AND OUR HEARTFELT THANKS!