American Adventures Part 53

"No, I won't say anything about it."

"But--" the secretary arose and looked wanly at the ill.u.s.trator--"but you haven't drawn any of our pretty homes! You didn't draw the golf clubs--not either one of them! You didn't draw the State House, or the Confederate Monument, or the Insane Asylum, or anything!"

"I haven't had time."

"Well, you have time now! I tell you what: We'll let this luncheon go.

I'll take you to the top of our tallest building, and you can draw a panoramic bird's-eye view of the entire city. That will be worth while."

My companion reached out, helped himself to a French roll, and put it in his pocket.

"No," he said. "I will not go to the top of a high building with you."

"But why not?"

"Because," he replied, "I am afraid you would try to push me off the roof to prevent my drawing the street fair."

I do not remember that the secretary denied having harbored such a plan.

At all events, he countermanded the remainder of the luncheon order and departed with us.

At the entrance of an office building he made one final desperate appeal: "Just come up to the top floor and see the view!"

But we stood firm, and he continued with us on our way.

The fair was strung along both sides of a wide, cobbled street. It was really a very jolly fair, with the usual lot of barkers and the usual gaping crowd, plus many negroes, who stood fascinated before the highly colored canvas signs outside the tents, with their bizarre pictures of wild animals, snake charmers, "Nemo, the Malay Prince," and "The Cigarette Fiend," pictured as a ghastly emaciated object with a blue complexion, and billed as "Endorsed by the Anti-Cigarette League of America." I wished to inquire why an anti-cigarette league should indorse a cigarette fiend, but lack of time compelled us to press on, leaving the apparent paradox unsolved.

As we progressed between the tents and the booths with their catchpenny "wheels of fortune," and ring-tossing enticements, the secretary maintained a protesting silence.

Near the end of the block we stopped to listen to a particularly vociferous barker. I saw my companion take his pad from his pocket and place it under his arm, while he sharpened a pencil.

"Come!" cried the secretary. "Come across the square and let me show you our beautiful bronze fountain. Draw that!"

But my companion was already beginning to sketch. He was drawing the barker and the crowd.

Meanwhile an expression of horror came into the secretary's face.

Looking at him, I became conscience-stricken.

"Come away," I said gently, taking him by the arm. "Don't watch him draw. He draws wonderfully, but Art for Art's sake doesn't appeal to you just now. The better he draws the worse it will make you feel. Let me get your mind off all this. Let me take you over to the autodrome, where we can see Mr. O.K. Hager and his beautiful sister, Miss Olive Hager, the 'Two Daredevil Motorcyclists, in the Thrilling Race against Death.' That will make you forget."

"No," said the secretary, shaking his head with a despondency the very sight of which made me sad; "I have letters to sign at the office."

"And we have taken up your whole day!"

"It has been a pleasure," he said kindly. "There is only one thing that worries me. Those drawings are not going to represent what is typical of Montgomery life. Not in the least!"

There arose in me a sudden desire to comfort him.

"How would it be," I suggested, "if I were to print that statement in my book?"

He looked at me in surprise.

"But you couldn't very well do that, could you?"

"Certainly," I replied.

His face brightened. It was delightful to see the change come over him.

"For that matter," I went on, "I might say even more. I could say that, while I admire my companion as a man, and as an artist, he lacks ingenuity in ordering breakfast. He always reads over the menu and then orders a baked apple and scrambled eggs and bacon. Would you like me to attack him on that line also?"

"Oh, no," said the secretary. "Nothing of that kind. It's just about these pictures. They aren't representative. If you'll say that, I'll be more than satisfied."

Presently we parted.

"Don't forget!" he said as we shook hands in farewell.

And I have not forgotten. Moreover, to give full measure, I am going to ask the printer to set the statement in italics:

_The drawings accompanying this chapter are not representative of what is typical of Montgomery life._

With this statement my companion is in full accord. He admits that he would have drawn the State House had there been no fair, to interfere.

But, as with certain items on the breakfast bill, street fairs are a pa.s.sion with him. And so they are with me.

CHAPTER LVI

THE CITY OF THE CREOLE

When a poet, a painter, or a sculptor wishes to personify a city, why does he invariably give it the feminine gender? Why is this so, even though the city be named for a man, or for a masculine saint? And why is it so in the case of commonplace cities, commercial cities, and ugly, sordid cities? It is not difficult to understand why a beautiful, sparkling city, like Washington or Paris, suggests a handsome woman, richly gowned and bedecked with jewels, but it is hard to understand why some other cities, far less pleasing, seem somehow to be stamped with the qualities of woman-nature rather than man-nature. Is it perhaps because the nature of all cities is so complicated? Is it because they are volatile, changeful, baffling? Or is it only that they are the mothers of great families of men?

When I arrive in a strange city I feel as though I were making the acquaintance of a woman of whom I have often heard. I am curious about her. I am alert. I gaze at her eagerly, wondering if she is as I have imagined her. I try to read her expression while listening to her voice.

I consider her raiment, noticing whether it is fine, whether it is good only in spots, and whether it is well put together. I inspect the important buildings, boulevards, parks, and monuments with which she is jeweled, and judge by them not only of her prosperity, but of her sense of beauty. Before long I have a distinct impression of her. Sometimes, as with a woman, this first impression has to be revised; sometimes not.

Sometimes, on acquaintance, a single feature, or trait, becomes so important in my eyes that all else seems inconsequential. A n.o.ble spirit may cover physical defects; beauty may seem to compensate for weaknesses of character. The spell of a beautiful city which is bad resembles the spell of such a city's prototype among women.

Some young growing cities are like young growing women of whom we think: "She is as yet unformed, but she will fill out and become more charming as she grows older." Or again we think: "She is somewhat dowdy and run down at the heels but she is ambitious, and is replenishing her wardrobe as she can afford it." One expects such failings in young cities, and readily forgives them where there is wholesome promise for the future.

But where old cities become slovenly, the affair is different, for then it means physical decay, and physical decay should never come to a city--for a city is not only feminine, but should be immortal. The symbol for every city should be a G.o.ddess, forever in her prime.

Among southern cities Richmond is the _grande dame_; she is gray and distinguished, and wears handsome old brocades and brooches. Richmond is aquiline and crisp and has much "manner." But though Charleston is actually the older, the wonderful beauty of the place, the softness of the ancient architectural lines, the sweet scents wafting from walled gardens, the warmth of color everywhere, gives the place that very quality of immortal youth and loveliness which is so rare in cities, and is so much to be desired. Charleston I might allegorize in the person of a young woman I met there. I was in the drawing-room of a fine old house; a beautifully proportioned room, paneled to the ceiling, hung with family portraits and other old paintings, and furnished with mahogany masterpieces a century and a half old. The girl lived in this house. She was not exactly pretty, nor was her figure beautiful in the usual sense; yet it was beautiful, all the same, with a sort of long-limbed, supple, aristocratic aliveness. Most of all there was about her a great fineness--the kind of fineness which seems to be the expression of generations of fineness. She was the granddaughter of a general in the Civil War, the great-granddaughter of an amba.s.sador, the great-great-granddaughter of a Revolutionary hero, and though one could not but be thankful that she failed of striking resemblance to the portraits of these admirable ancestors, nevertheless it seemed to me that, had I not known definitely of their place in her family history, I might almost have sensed them hovering behind her: a background, nebulous and shadowy, out of which she had emerged.

Memphis, upon the other hand, will always be to me a lively modern debutante. I vision her as dancing--dancing to Handy's ragtime music--all shoulders, neck, and arms, and tulle, and twenty-dollar satin slippers. Atlanta, too, is young, vivid, affluent, altogether modern; while as for Birmingham, she is pretty, but a little strident, a little overdressed; touched a little with the amiability, and the other qualities, of the _nouveau riche_.

The beauty of New Orleans is of a different kind. She is a full-blown, black-eyed, dreamy, drawly creature, opulent of figure, white of skin, and red of lip. Like San Francisco she has Latin blood which makes her love and preserve the carnival spirit; but she is more voluptuous than San Francisco, for not only is she touched with the languor and the fire of her climate, but she is without the virile blood of the forty-niner, or the invigorating contact of the fresh Pacific wind. In my imaginary picture I see her yawning at eleven in the morning, when her negro maid brings black coffee to her bedside--such wonderful black coffee!--whereas, at that hour, I conceive San Francisco as having long been up and about her affairs. Even in the afternoon I fancy my New Orleans beauty as a little bit relaxed. But at dinner she becomes alive, and after dinner more alive, and by midnight she is like a flame.

I must admit, however, that of late years New Orleans has developed a perfect case of dual personality, and that, as often happens where there is dual personality, one side of her nature seems altogether incompatible with the other. The very new New Orleans has no resemblance to the picture I have drawn; moreover, my picture is not her favorite likeness of herself. She prefers more recent ones--pictures showing the lines of determination which, within the last ten years have stamped themselves upon her features, as she has fought and overcome the defects of character which logically accompanied her peculiar, temperamental type of charm. I, upon the other hand, am like some lover who values most an older picture of the woman he adores. I admire her for building character, but it is by her languorous beauty that I am infatuated, and the portrait which most effectively displays that beauty is the one for which I care.

Her very failings were so much a part of her that they made us the more sympathetic; she was too lovely to be greatly blamed for anything; gazing into her eyes, we hardly noticed that there was dust under the piano and in the corners; dining at her sumptuous table, we gave but little thought to the fact that the cellar was damp, the house none too healthy, and that there were mosquitoes and rats about the place; nor did it seem to matter, in face of her allurements, that she was shiftless, extravagant, improvident in the management of her affairs. If these things were brought to our attention, we excused them on the grounds of Latin blood and enervating climate.