Torchy and Vee Part 9

"Why, sure," I breaks in. "I'd do what I could."

I throws it off casual as I'm grabbin' my hat on my way out to lunch.

And I supposed that would be all there'd be to it. But I hadn't got more'n half a line on Miss Casey. She's no easy quitter, that young lady. Having let me in on her little affair, she seems to think it's no more'n right I should be kept posted. A day or so later she lugs in a picture of Private Mears, one of the muddy printed post-card effects such as these roadside tripod artists take of the buddy boys around the camps.

"That's him," says she. "Looks kind of swell in the uniform, don't he?"

It was a fact. Stubby not only looks swell--but swelling. And it's lucky them army b.u.t.tons are sewed on tight or else a good snappy salute would wreck him from the chin down. He's a st.u.r.dy, bulgy party, 'specially about the leggins.

"That's right, too," says Miss Casey. "Know what I tell him? If he can fight like he can eat, good-night Kaiser Bill. But at that they've pared fifteen pounds off him since he's been in the service."

"It's a great life," says I.

"Maybe," sighs Miss Casey, "but I wisht they'd let me have a close-up of him before they risk loadin' him on a transport. That's all I got against the Government. You ain't thought of any way it might be worked, have you?"

I had to admit that I hadn't, not addin' I didn't expect to. And I must have been stallin' along that line for a week or more until the forenoon when Vee blows in unexpected durin' a shoppin' trip and announces that I may take her out to luncheon.

"Fine!" says I. "Just as soon as I give two more letters to Miss Casey."

In the middle of the second one though, there's a call for me to go into the private office, and when I comes back from a ten-minute interview with Old Hickory I finds Vee and Miss Casey chattin' away like old friends. Vee is being told all about Stubby and the hard-boiled eggs he has for company officers.

"Three months without a furlough!" says Vee. "Isn't that a shame, Torchy? What is the number of his regiment?"

Miss Casey reels it off, addin' the company and division.

"Really!" says Vee. "Why, that's the company Captain Woodhouse commands.

You remember him, Torchy?"

"Oh, yes! Woodie," says I. "I'd most forgotten him."

"I am going to call him up on the long distance right now," says Vee.

And in spite of all my lay-off signals she does it. Gets the captain, too. Yes, Woodie knows the case and he regrets to report that Private Mears's record isn't a good one; three times in the guardhouse and another week of K. P. coming to him. Under these circ.u.mstances he don't quite see how----

"Oh, come, captain!" puts in Vee coaxin'. "Don't be disagreeable. He's engaged, you know. Such a nice girl. And then there is his poor old mother who has seen him only once since he was drafted. Please, Woodie!"

I expect it was the "Woodie" that worked the trick. You see, this Woodhouse party used to think he was in the runnin' with Vee himself, way back when Auntie was doin' her best to discourage my little campaign, and although he quit and picked another several years ago I don't suppose he minds bein' called Woodie by Vee, even now. Anyway, after consultin' one of his lieutenants he gives her the word that if Private Mears don't pull any more cut-up stuff between now and a week from Wednesday he'll probably have forty-eight hours comin' to him.

And for a minute there I thought both Vee and I were let in for a fond clinch act with Miss Casey. As it is she takes it out in pattin' Vee's hand and callin' her Dearie.

"A week Wednesday, eh?" says Miss Casey. "Say, ain't that grand! And believe muh, I mean to work up some little party for Stubby. It's due him, and the old lady."

"Of course it is," agrees Vee. "And Torchy, you must do all you can to help."

"Very well, major," says I, salutin'.

And from then on I reports to Vee. It's only the next night that I gives her the first bulletin from the front. "What do you know?" says I. "Miss Casey has a hunch that she might organize a block party for the big night. I don't know whether she can swing it or not, but that's her scheme."

"But what on earth is a block party, Torchy?" Vee demands.

"Why," I explains, "it's a small town stunt that's being used in the city these days. Very popular, too. They get all the people in the block to chip in for a celebration--decorations, music, ice cream, all that--and generally they raise a block service flag. It takes some organizin', though."

"How perfectly splendid!" says Vee. "And that is just where you can be useful."

So that's how I come to spend that next evenin' trottin' up and down this block in the sixties between Ninth and Amsterdam. I must say it didn't look specially promisin' as a place to work up community spirit and that sort of thing. Just a dingy row of old style dumb-bell flats, most of 'em with "Room to Rent" signs hung out and little bas.e.m.e.nt shops tucked in here and there. Maybe you know the kind--the asphalt always littered with paper, garbage cans left out, and swarms of kids playin'

tip-cat or dashin' about on roller skates. Cheap and messy. And to judge by the names on the letter boxes you'd say the tenants had been shipped in from every country on the map. Anyway, our n.o.ble allies was well represented--with the French and Italians in the lead and the rest made up of Irish, Jews, Poles and I don't know what else. Everything but straight Americans.

Yet when you come to count up the service flags in the front windows you had to admit that Miss Casey's block must have a good many reg'lar citizens in it at that. There was more blue stars in evidence than you'd find on any three brownstone front blocks down on Madison or up in the Seventies. One flag had four, and none of 'em stood for butlers or chauffeurs. Course, some was only faded cotton, a few nothing but colored paper, but every star stood for a soldier, and I'll bet there wasn't a bomb-proofer in the lot.

Whether you could get these people together on any kind of a celebration or not was another question. We begins with Mike's place, on the corner.

"Sure!" says Mike. "Let's have a party. I'll ante twenty-five. And, say, I got a cousin in the Knights of Columbus who'll give you some tips on how to manage the thing."

The little old Frenchy in the Parisian hand laundry gave us a boost, too. Even J. Streblitz, high-cla.s.s tailoring for ladies and gents, chipped in a ten and told us about his boy Herman, who'd been made a corporal and was at Chateau Thierry. Inside of three hours we'd made a sketchy canvas of the whole block, got half a dozen of the men to go on the committee, had over $100 subscribed, and the thing was under way.

"I just knew you could do it," says Vee, when I tells her about the start that's been made.

"Me!" says I. "Why it was mostly Miss Casey. About all I did was tag along and watch her work up the enthusiasm. She's some breeze, she is.

When I left her she was plannin' on two bands and free ice cream for everyone who came."

As a matter of fact, that's about all I had to do with it, after the first push. Miss Casey must have had a busy week, but she don't lay down once on her reg'lar work nor beg for any time off. All she asks is if Vee and me couldn't be persuaded to be on hand Wednesday night as guests of honor.

"We wouldn't miss it for anything," says I.

Well, we didn't. I'd heard more or less about these block parties, but I'd never been to one. Course, I wasn't sure just how Vee would take it gettin' mixed up in a mob like that, but I was bankin' on her being a good sport. Besides, she was wild to go and see how Miss Casey had made out.

And say, when we swings in off Ninth Avenue and I gets my first glimpse of what had been done to that scrubby, messy lookin' block, it got a gasp out of me. First off there was strings of j.a.panese lanterns with electric lights in 'em stretched across the street from the front of every flat buildin' to the one opposite. Also every doorway and window was draped and decorated with bunting. Then there was all kinds of flags, from little ten centers to big twenty footers swung across the street. There was a whackin' big Irish flag loaned by the A. O. H.; two Italian flags almost as big; I don't know how many French tri-colors and some I couldn't place; Czecho-Slovaks maybe. And besides the lanterns and extra arc-lights there was red fire burnin' liberal. Then at either end of the block was a truck backed up with a band in it and they was tearin' away at all kinds of tunes from the "Ma.r.s.eillaise" to "K-k-k-katie," while b.u.mpin' and bobbin' about on the asphalt were hundreds of couples doing jazz steps and gettin' pelted with confetti.

"Why, it's almost like the Mardi Gras!" says Vee.

"Looks festive, all right," says I. "And I should say Miss Casey has put over the real thing. I wonder if we can find her in this mob."

Seemed like a hopeless search, but finally, down in the middle of the block, I spots an old lady in a wheel chair, and I has a hunch it might be Mrs. Mears. Sure enough, it is. Not much to look at, she ain't; sort of humped over, with a shawl 'round her shoulders. But say, when you got a glimpse of the way her old eyes was lighted up, and saw the smile flickerin' around her lips, you knew that n.o.body in that whole crowd was any happier than she was just at that minute.

"Oh, yes," says she. "Minnie Casey is looking for you two young folks.

She's dancing with Edgar now, but they'll be back soon. Haven't seen my son Edgar, have you? Well, you must. He--he's a soldier, you know."

"We should be delighted," says Vee. And then she whispers to me: "Hasn't she a nice face, though?"

We hadn't waited long before I sees a tall, willowy young thing wearin'

one of them zippy French tams come bearin' down on us wavin' energetic and towin' along a red-faced young doughboy who looks like he'd been stuffed into his uniform by a sausage machine. It's Minnie and Stub.

"h.e.l.lo, folks!" she sings out. "Say, I was just wonderin' if you was goin' to renig on me. Fine work! An' I want you to meet one of the most prominent privates in the division, Mr. Mears. Come on, Stubby, pull that overseas salute of yours. Ain't he a bear-cat, though? And how about the show? Ain't it some party?"

"Why, it's simply wonderful," says Vee. "I had no idea, Miss Casey, that you were planning anything like this."

"I didn't," says Minnie. "Only after we got started it kept gettin'

bigger and bigger until there wa'n't a soul on the block but what came in on it. Know what one of the decorators told me? He says there ain't a block on the West Side has had anything up to this, from Houston Street up to the Harlem. That's goin' some, ain't it? You got here just in time for the big doin's, too. It's comin' off right now. See who's standin'

up in the truck over there? That's one of the Paulist Fathers, who's goin' to make the speech and bless the flag. There it comes, out of that third-story window. Wow! Hear 'em cheer."