Ma Pettengill Part 4

The poor thing had got so dead for sleep by this time that she was merely babbling. She'd probably of fallen over in her clothes if I hadn't been there. Anyway, I got her undressed and into bed. She said Clyde's goodnight song always rung in her ears till she slept. It didn't ring long this night. She was off before I got out the door. Darned if I hadn't been kind of embarra.s.sed by her talk, knowing it would never do for me to bust in with anything bordering on the vicious, such as suggesting that if Clyde now and then went into the kitchen and helped Baby Girl with the dishes it would make a very attractive difference in him. I took another good look at his pictures in the parlour before I let myself out of the house. He still looked good--but h.e.l.l!

I wrote Aunt Esther the same evening not to worry one minute about Vida's happiness, because I wished we could all be as happy as she was. All the same I took pains to go round to that boarding house a couple times more because it seemed like the girl's happiness might have a b.u.m foundation.

Darling Clyde was as merry and attentive as ever and Vida was still joyous. I guess she kept joyous at her work all day by looking forward to that golden moment after dinner when her boy would sing Good night, good night, beloved--he'd come to watch o'er her! How that song did light her face up!

She confided to me one of these times that the funny men are always making jokes about how much it costs a woman for clothes, and she wondered why they didn't make some of their old jokes about how much it costs for men's clothes too. She said I wouldn't believe how much they had to lay out on Clyde's clothes so he'd be sure to look right when a suitable opening occurred. I could take the item of shirts alone that had to be made to order and cost seven-fifty each, to say nothing of collars and ties and suits from what Clyde said was the only tailor in New York that could dress a gentleman so he looked like one. She said if these funny humourists could see what they spent on her clothes and what they had to spend on Clyde's, she bet they'd feel mighty cheap. She laughed like she had a bully joke on the poor things.

She was glad, too, for Clyde's sake that a suitable opening was just about to occur any moment, because the poor chap said himself it was a dog's life he was leading, with nothing much to do every day but go to the club and set round. And how thankful she'd ought to be that he never drank--the least bit of liquor made him ill--and so many young men of his cla.s.s nowadays drank to excess.

No; nothing for me to say and nothing to do. Here was one happy love match. So I come home, making Vida promise to write often.

She did write about six times in the next three years. The chief fact standing out was that the right opening for Clyde hadn't opened yet--and he was getting more impatient every day. He always had something in view.

But I judged he was far-sighted. And some way when he had got his rope over a job the hondoo wouldn't seem to render. He couldn't cinch anything. He was as full of blandishment as ever, though, and not a one of his staunch old friends had dropped him on account of his unfortunate marriage. He was a great diner-out and spent lots of week-ends, and just now was on a jolly houseboat in Florida for three months with an old college mate worth nine million dollars, and wasn't that nice! She could just see him keeping the whole party gay with his mandolin and his songs.

The summer before that this same friend had let Clyde have an elegant motor car for his own use, and the foolish boy had actually took her out in it one Sunday, there being a pongee motor coat in the car that fit her beautifully so that none of his rich friends could have told she wasn't dressed as smartly as they was. He not only kept her out all afternoon, but would have took her to dinner some place only she had to get back to the boarding house because you couldn't trust these raw Swedes.

And there was one thing she was going to bring herself to confess to me, no matter if it did sound disloyal--a dreadful thing about Clyde.

It was ugly of her to breathe a word against him, but she was greatly worried and mebbe I could help her. The horrible truth was that her boy was betraying an inclination to get fat, and he'd only laugh at her when she warned him. Many a night her pillow had been wet with tears on this account, and did I believe in any of these remedies for reducing? Wasn't there something she could slip into his pudding that would keep him down without his knowing it, because otherwise, though it was a thing no true wife ought to say, her beloved would dig his grave with his teeth.

I thought that was about enough and even ample. I started a hot answer to this letter, saying that if darling Clyde was digging his grave with his teeth it was her own fault because she was providing the spade and the burial plot, and the quickest way to thin her darling down would be for her to quit work. But shucks! Why insult the poor thing? I got back my composure and wrote her a nice letter of sympathy in her hour of great trouble. I didn't say at all that if I had been in her place Mr. Clyde would of long since had my permission to go to the devil. Yes, sir; I'd have had that lad going south early in the second year. Mebbe not at that! A woman never really knows how some other man might of made a fool of her.

Two more years drug on, with about two letters from Vida, and then I get a terrible one announcing the grand crash. First, the boarding house had died a lingering death, what from Vida buying the best the market afforded and not having learned to say "No!" to parties that got behind, and Clyde having had to lend a couple hundred dollars to a fraternity brother that was having a little hard luck. She'd run the business on a narrow trail for the last two months, trying to guard every penny, but it got so she and Clyde actually had to worry over his next club dues, to say nothing of a new dress suit he was badly needing. Then some parties she owed bills to come along and pushed her over the cliff by taking her furniture. She was at first dreadfully worried about how her boy would stand the blow, but he'd took it like the brave, staunch man he was, being such a help to her when they had to move to a furnished room near the old home where they both had been so happy. He'd fairly made the place ring with his musical laughter and his merry jesting about their hardships.

Then she'd got a good job as cashier in a big grocery she'd dealt with, not getting a million dollars a year, to be sure, but they were doing nicely, because Clyde took most of his meals with his thoughtful friends--and then crash out of a clear sky a horrible tragedy happened that for a minute darkened the whole world.

Yes, it was a bitter tragedy. Clyde's two-year-old dress suit, that he was bravely wearing without a murmur, had needed pressing and she promised to do it; but she overslept herself till seven-thirty that morning, which made her late at the store, so she'd asked the girl in this rooming house to do it down in the kitchen. The girl had been willing but weak-minded. She started with too hot an iron and didn't put a damp cloth between the iron and the goods. In the midst of the job something boiled over on the stove. She got rattled and jumped for that, and when she come back the dress coat of darling Clyde was branded for fair in the middle of the back--a nifty flatiron brand that you could of picked him out of a bunch of animals by in one second. The girl was scared stiff and hung the clothes back in the closet without a word. And poor Clyde discovered the outrage that night when he was dressing for a cla.s.s reunion of his dear old Alvah Mater.

I had to read between the lines some, but I gathered that he now broke down completely at this betrayal of his trusting nature. Vida must of been suffering too keenly herself to write me all the pitiful details.

And right on top of this blow comes the horrible discovery, when he takes his mandolin out of the case, that it has been fatally injured in the moving. One blow right on another. How little we realize the suffering that goes on all about us in this hard world. Imagine the agony in that furnished room this night!

Clyde wasn't made of iron. When the first flood of grief subsided he seems to of got cold and desperate. Said Vida in this letter: "My heart stopped when he suddenly declared in cool, terrible tones: 'There's always the river!' I could see that he had resolved to end it all, and through the night I pleaded with my boy."

I bet she made mistakes as a grocer's cashier next day, but it was worth it because her appeals to Clyde's better nature had prevailed. He did disappear that day, getting his trunks from the house while she was at the store and not being able to say good-bye because he couldn't remember which store she was accepting a situation at. But he left her a nice note. He wasn't going to end it all in the river. He was going off on the private steamboat of one of his dearest friends for a trip round the world that might last a year--and she mustn't worry about the silly old dress coat, because his new dinner-jacket suit would be ample for a boat trip. Also she'd be glad to know that he had a new mandolin, though she wasn't to worry about the bill for it, because the man didn't expect his pay on time and, anyway, he could wait, so with fondest love!

And Vida was so relieved at this good fortune. To think that her despondent boy was once more a.s.sured of his rightful position for a whole year, while she was saving her princely wages till she got enough to start another boarding house that would be more like a home. Wasn't it all simply too good to be true--wasn't it always darkest just before dawn!

I didn't trust myself to answer that letter, beyond wiring her that if she ever felt she was having any really hard luck to be sure and call on me. And she went on working and putting her money by. It was two years later when I next saw her. I looked her up the first thing when I got to New York.

She was still accepting a position in this grocery, but of course had changed to a much smaller furnished room where she could be cozy and feed herself from a gas stove on the simple plain foods that one just can't seem to get at high-priced restaurants.

She'd changed a lot. Lines in her face now, and streaks in her brown hair, and she barely thirty. I made up my mind to do something harsh, but couldn't just tell how to start. She'd had a picture card from her boy the first year, showing the Bay of Naples and telling how he longed for her; but six months later had come a despondent letter from j.a.pan speaking again of the river and saying he often felt like ending it all. Only, he might drag out his existence a bit longer because another wealthy old chum was in port and begging him to switch over to his yacht and liven up the party, which was also going round the world--and maybe he would, because "after all, does anything in life really matter?"

That was the last line. I read it myself while Vida watched me, setting on her little iron bed after work one night. She had a plain little room with no windows but one in the roof, though very tastefully furnished with photos of Clyde on every wall. The only other luxury she'd indulged in was a three-dollar revolver because she was deathly afraid of burglars. She'd also bought a hammer to shoot the revolver off with, keeping 'em both on the stand at the head of her bed. Yes; she said that was the way the man was firing it off in the advertis.e.m.e.nt--hitting it on a certain spot with a hammer. She was a reckless little scoundrel. She told me all about how to shoot a revolver while I was thinking up what to say about Clyde.

I finally said if he had ended it all she must cheer up, because it might be for the best. She considered this sadly and said she didn't believe dear Clyde had been prepared to die. I could see she was remembering old things that had been taught her in Sabbath school about G.o.d and wickedness and the bad place, so I cheered her on that point. I told her they hadn't been burning people for about thirty years now, the same not being considered smart any longer in the best religious circles.

I also tried in a delicate manner to convince her that her boy would never end it all by any free act of his. I offered to bet her a large sum of money on this at any odds she wanted--she could write her own ticket.

I said I knew men well enough to be certain that with this one it would be a long life but a merry one. Gee! The idea of this four-carder hurting himself!

And I had to cheer her up on another point. This was that she didn't have about three babies, all the image of their father. Yes, sir; she was grieving sorely about that. It give me a new line on her. I saw all at once she was mostly mother--a born one. Couldn't ever be anything else and hadn't ever really felt anything but mothersome to this here wandering treasure of hers. It give me kind of a shock. It made me feel so queer I wanted to swear.

Well, I wrastled with that mulish female seven straight days to make her leave that twelve-hour job of hers and come out here with me. I tried everything. I even told her what with long hours and b.u.m food she was making herself so old that her boy wouldn't give her a second look when he got back. That rattled her. She took hold of her face and said that ma.s.sage cream would take all those silly lines out when she got time to rub it in properly; and as for the gray in her hair, she could never bring herself to use a dye, but if Clyde come back she might apply a little of the magic remedy that restores the natural colour. She also said in plain words that to come out here with me would look like deserting her boy. Do you get that?

"Dear Clyde is so sensitive," she says. "I couldn't bear the thought of his coming back and finding that I had left our home."

My work was cut for me, all right. I guess I'd failed if I hadn't been helped by her getting a sick spell from worry over what the good G.o.d would do to Clyde if he should end it all in some nasty old river, and from the grocery being sold to a party that had his own cashier. But I won, she being too sick to hunt another job just then. A least I got a fair compromise.

She wouldn't come here to live with me, but she remembered that Clyde had often talked of Southern California, where he had once gone with genial friends in a private car. He had said that some day when he had acquired the means he would keep a home there. So she was willing to go there herself and start a home for him. I saw it was the best I could get from her, so I applauded.

I says: "That's fine. You take this three hundred and eighty dollars you got saved and I'll put a few dollars more with it and get you a little country place down there where you can be out of doors all day and raise oranges and chickens, and enough hogs for table use, and when the dear boy comes back he'll be awful proud of you."

"Oh, he always was that," says Vida. "But I'll go--and I'll always keep a light in the window for him."

And a lot of folks say women ought to vote!

So we start for Los Angeles, deserting Clyde just as mean as dirt. Sure, I went with her! I didn't trust her to finish the trip. As it was, she wanted to get off the train twice before we got to Chicago--thinking of the shock to her boy's tender heart if he should come back and find himself deserted.

But then, right after we left Chicago, she got interested. In the section across from us was a fifty-five-year-old male grouch with a few gray bristles on his head who had been snarling at everyone that come near him ever since the train left New York. The porters and conductors had got so they'd rush by him like they was afraid of getting bit on the arm.

He had a gray face that seemed like it had been gouged out of stone. It was like one of these gargles you see on rare old churches in Europe. He was just hating everyone in the world, not even playing himself a favourite. And Vida had stood his growling as long as she could. Having at last give up the notion of tracking back to New York, she plumped herself down in the seat with this raging wild beast and begged for his troubles. I looked to see her tore limb from limb, instead of which in three minutes he was cooing to her in a rocky ba.s.s voice. His trouble was lumbago or pleurisy or some misery that kept him every minute in this pernickety state.

That was all old mother Vida needed to know. She rustled a couple hot-water bags and kept 'em on the ribs of this grouch for about two thousand miles, to say nothing of doping him with asperin and quinine and camphor and menthol and hot tea and soothing words. He was the only son in sight, so he got it good. She simply has to mother something.

The grouch got a little human himself the last day out and begun to ask Vida questions about herself. Being one that will tell any person anything at all, she told him her life history and how her plans was now unsettled, but she hoped to make a home out on this coast. The grouch come right out and asked her how big her roll was, saying he lived out here and it cost something to make a home. Vida told him she had her two years' savings of three hundred and eighty good dollars and that I had promised to loan her a few dollars to piece out with. At this the old boy looked me over carefully and could see no signs of vast wealth because I never wear such in Pullman cars, so he warns her that I'll have to piece out her savings with a few thousand instead of a few dollars if she's to start anything worth keeping, because what they do to you in taxes down there is a-plenty.

After which he goes to sleep.

Vida moves over and asks what I meant by saying I'd only have to put in a few dollars when I must of known it would take a few thousand, and didn't I realize that Clyde would be hurt to the quick if he come back and found she hadn't been independent? She indignantly said she'd have to give up the country place and work till she had enough to start another home for paying guests.

I was so mad at this truthful grouch for b.u.t.ting in on my game that I up and told her flat she could never run a boarding house and make it pay; that no woman could who hadn't learned to say "No!" and she was too much of a mush-head for that. She was quite offended by this and says firmness has always been considered a strong point in her personality. A first-cla.s.s palmist had told her this only two weeks before. While we are squabbling back and forth the grouch wakes up again and says that he's in the moving-picture business and will give her a good job in the wardrobe department of the company he's with, so she must show up there at eight o'clock the next morning. Just like that! He didn't ask her. He told her.

Vida is kind of took off her feet, but mumbles "Yes, sir!" and puts his card in her bag. Me? I was too mad to talk, seeing the girl get into the mill again when I'd tried so hard to get her out. But I swore to myself I'd stick round and try to get some sense into the cup-custard she called her brain.

So the next morning I took her out to this moving-picture joint that they call a studio--not a bit like Metta Bigler's studio in Red Gap--and sure enough here's the grouch ready to put Vida on a job. The job is in a room about ninety feet long filled with boxes and sewing machines and shelves full of costumes, and Vida is to be a.s.sistant wardrobe mistress. Yes, sir; a regular t.i.tle for the job. And the pay is twenty-five a week, which is thirteen more than she'd ever dreamed of making before. The grouch is very decent to her and tells everybody she's a friend of his, and they all pay polite attention to him because he's someone important in the works. It seems he's a director. He stands round and yells at the actors how to act, which I had always supposed they knew already but it seems not. Anyway, I left Vida there to get on to her new duties.

She was full of good reports that night about how well she'd got along, and how interesting the work was, and how she'd helped doctor up another boy. She said he was one of the world's greatest actors, because if they give him four or five stiff drinks first he would fall off a forty-foot cliff backwards into the ocean. She'd helped bandage a sprained wrist for him that he got by jumping out of a second-story window in a gripping drama replete with punch and not landing quite right.

I said to myself it must be a crazy joint and she'd soon give up and let me get her a nice little place on the edge of town that I'd already looked over. So I let her go three days more, but still she stuck there with great enthusiasm. Then I had to be leaving for home, so the afternoon of the fourth day I went out to see for myself how things looked.

Vida is tickled to see me and takes me right in where they're beginning to act a gripping feature production. Old Bill Grouch is there in front of a three-legged camera barking at the actors that are waiting round in their disguises--with more paint on 'em than even a young girl will use if her mother don't watch her. The grouch is very polite to Vida and me and shows us where to stand so we won't get knocked over by other actors that are carrying round furniture and electric light stands and things.

They got a parlour in a humble home where the first scene is to be.

There's a mother and a fair-haired boy of twenty and a cop that's come to pinch him for a crime. The play at this point is that the mother has to plead with the cop not to drag her boy off to a prison cell, and she has to do it with streaming eyes. It was darned interesting. The boy is standing with bowed head and the cop is looking sympathetic but firm, and mother is putting something into her eyes out of a medicine dropper. I whisper to Vida and she says it's glycerine for the tears. She holds her head back when she puts 'em in and they run down her cheeks very lifelike when she straightens up.

So mother comes forward with her streaming face and they're all ready to act when the grouch halts things and barks at the boy that he ain't standing right. He goes up and shows him how to stand more shamefully.

But the tears on mother's face have dripped away and have to be renewed.

She was a nice, kind-appearing mother all right, but I noticed she looked peeved when this delay happened. Vida explains that glycerine don't damage the eyes really, but it makes 'em smart a lot, and this actress, Miss St. Clair, has a right to feel mad over having to put in some more.

But she does it, though with low muttering when the grouch calls "All right, Miss St. Clair!" and is coming forward to act with this here second batch of tears when the grouch stops it with another barking fit.

He barks at the policeman this time. He says the policeman must do more acting.

"You know you have a boy of your own," says he, "and how you'd hate to have him arrested for this crime, but you're also remembering that law is law and you're sworn to uphold it. Try to get that now. All ready, Miss St. Clair--we're waiting for you, Miss St. Clair!"