Ma Pettengill Part 24

Of course Lew Wee dashed out after his property, hugging the sack to his chest; and, of course, he created just as much disturbance as his little pet had. Policemen was mingling with the violence by this time and adding much to its spirit. One public-spirited citizen grabbed Lew Wee in spite of its being distasteful; but he kicked the poor man on the kneecap and made a way through the crowd without too much trouble.

He wasn't having any vogue whatever in that neighbourhood. He run down a little side street, up an alley, and into a cellar he knew about, this cellar being the way out of the Young China Progressive a.s.sociation when they was raided up the front stairs on account of gambling at poker.

He could hear the roar of the mob clear from there. It took about an hour for this to die down. People would come to see what all the excitement was about, and find out almost at once; then they'd try to get away, and run against others coming to find out, thus producing a very earnest riot. There was mounted policemen and patrol wagons and many arrests, and an armed posse hunting for the escaped pet and shooting up alleys at every little thing that moved. They never did find the pet--so one of Lew Wee's cousins wrote him; which made him sorry on account of Doctor Hong Foy and the twenty-five or mebbe thirty dollars.

He lay hid in this cellar till dark; then started out to find his friends and get something to eat. He darned near started everything all over again; but he dodged down another alley and managed to get some noodles and chowmain at the back door of the Hong-Kong Grill, where a tong brother worked. He begun to realize that he was a marked man. The mark didn't show; but he was. He didn't know what the law might do to him.

It looked like at least twenty years in some penal inst.i.tution, if not hanging; and he didn't want either one.

So he borrowed three dollars from the tong brother and started for some place where he could lead a quiet life. He managed to get to Oakland, though the deck hands on the ferryboat talked about throwing him overboard. But they let him live if he would stay at the back end till everyone, including the deck hands, was safe off or behind something when the boat landed. Then he wandered off into the night and found a freight train. He didn't care where he went--just somewhere they wouldn't know about his crime.

He rode a while between two freight cars; then left that train and found a blind baggage on a pa.s.senger train that went faster and near froze him to death. He got off, chilled in the early morning, at some little town and bought some food in a Chinee restaurant and also got warm. But he hadn't no more than got warm when he was put out of the place, right by his own people.

It was warm outside by this time, so he didn't mind it so much. The town did, though. It must of been a small town, but he says thousands of men chased him out of it about as soon as he was warmed up enough to run. He couldn't understand this, because how could they know he was the one that caused all that trouble in San Francisco?

He got a freight train outside the town and rode on and on. He says he rode on for weeks and weeks; but that's his imagination. It must of been about three days, with spells of getting off for food and to get warmed when he was freezing, and be chased by these wild hill tribes when he had done the latter. It put a crimp into his sunny nature--all this armed pursuit of him. He says if he had been a Christian, and believed in only one G.o.d, he would never of come through alive, it taking about seventy-four or five of his own G.o.ds to protect him from these maddened savages. He had a continuous nightmare of harsh words and blows. He wondered they didn't put him in jail; but it seemed like they only wanted to keep him going.

Of course it had to end. He got to Spokane finally and sneaked round to a friend that had a laundry; and this friend must of been a n.o.ble soul.

He took in the outcast and nursed him with food and drink, and repeatedly washed his clothes. Wanting a ranch cook about that time, I got in touch with him through another cousin, who said this man wanted very much to go out into a safe country, and would never leave it because of unpleasantness in getting here.

It was ten days after he got there that I saw him first, and I'll be darned if he was any human sachet, even then. But after hearing his story I knew that time would once more make him fit for human a.s.sociation.

He told me his story with much feeling this time and he told it to me about once a week for three months after he got here--pieces of it at a time. It used to cheer me a lot. He was always remembering something new.

He said he liked the great silence and peace of this spot.

You couldn't tell him to this day that his belief about the savage hill tribes ain't sound. He believes anything "can happen" in that country down there. Doctor Hong Foy never paid him the twenty-five, of course, though admitting that he would of done so if the animal had not escaped, because he was in such good condition, for a skunk, that he was worth twenty-five dollars of any doctor's money. I don't know. As I say, they're friendly little critters; but it's more money that I would actually pay for one.

Through two closed doors the whine of the fiddle still penetrated.

Perhaps Lew Wee's recent loss had moved him to play later than was his custom, pondering upon the curious whims that stir the G.o.ds when they start to make things happen. But he was still no cynic. Over and over he played the little air which means: "Life comes like a bird-song through the open windows of the heart."

IX

THE TAKER-UP

On a tired evening, in front of the Arrowhead's open fire, I lived over for the hundredth time a great moment. From the big pool under the falls four miles up the creek I had landed the Big Trout. Others had failed in years past; I, too, had failed more than once. But to-day!

At the hour of 9:46 A.M., to be exact, as one should in these matters, I had cast three times above the known lair of this fish. Then I cast a fourth time, more from habit than hope; and the fight was on. I put it here with the grim brevity of a communique. Despite stout resistance, the objective was gained at 9:55 A.M. And the Big Trout would weigh a good two and one half--say three or three and one quarter--pounds. These are the bare facts.

Verily it was a moment to live over; and to myself now I was more discursive. I vanquished the giant trout again and again, altering details of the contest at will--as when I waded into icy water to the waist in a last moment of panic. My calm review disclosed that this had been fanciful overcaution; but at the great crisis and for three minutes afterward I had gloried in the wetting.

Now again I three times idly flicked that corner of the pool with a synthetic moth. Again for the fourth time I cast, more from habit than hope. Then ensued that terrific rush from the pool's lucent depths--

"Yes, sir; you wouldn't need no two guesses for what she'd wear at a grand costume ball of the Allied nations--not if you knew her like I do."

This was Ma Pettengill, who had stripped a Sunday paper from the great city to its society page. She lifted this under the lamp and made strange but eloquent noises of derision:

"You take Genevieve May now, of a morning, before that strong-arm j.a.panese maid has got her face rubbed down and calked with paints, oils, and putty, and you'd say to her, as a friend and well-wisher: 'Now look here, old girl, you might get by at that costume ball as Stricken Serbia or Ravaged Belgium, but you better take a well-meant hint and everlastingly do not try to get over as La Belle France. True, France has had a lot of things done to her,' you'd say, 'and she may show a blemish here and there; but still, don't try it unless you wish to start something with a now friendly ally--even if it is in your own house. That nation is already pushed to a desperate point, and any little thing might prove too much--even if you are Mrs. Genevieve May Popper and have took up the war in a hearty girlish manner.' Yes, sir!"

This, to be sure, was outrageous--that I should hear myself addressing a strange lady in terms so gross. Besides, I wished again to be present at the death of my favourite trout. I affected not to have heard. I affected to be thinking deeply.

It worked, measurably. Once more I scanned the pool's gleaming surface and felt the cold p.r.i.c.king of spray from the white water that tumbled from a cleft in the rocks above. Once more I wondered if this, by chance, might prove a sad but glorious day for a long-elusive trout. Once more I looked to the fly. Once more I--

"What I never been able to figger out--how can a dame like that fool herself beyond a certain age? Seams in her face! And not a soul but would know she got her hair like the United States acquired Louisiana. That lady's power of belief is enormous. And I bet she couldn't put two and two together without making a total wreck of the problem. Like fair time a year ago, when she was down to Red Gap taking up the war. She comes along Fourth Street in her uniform one morning, fresh from the hands of this hired accomplice of hers, and meets Cousin Egbert Floud and me where we'd stopped to talk a minute. She is bubbling with war activity as usual, but stopped and bubbled at us a bit--kind of hale and girlish, you might say. We pa.s.sed the time of day; and, being that I'm a first-cla.s.s society liar, I say how young and fresh she looks; and she gets the ball and bats it right back to Cousin Egbert.

"'You'd never dream,' says she, 'what my funny little mite of a j.a.panese maid calls me! You'd really never guess! She calls me Madam Peach Blossom! Isn't that perfectly absurd, Mr. Floud?'

"And poor Cousin Egbert, instead of giggling in a hearty manner and saying 'Oh, come now, Mrs. Popper! What's in the least absurd about that?'--like he was meant to and like any gentleman would of--what does the poor silly do but blink at her a couple of times like an old barn owl that's been startled and say 'Yes, ma'am!'--flat and cold, just like that!

"It almost made an awkward pause; but the lady pretended she had been saying something to me, so she couldn't hear him. That Cousin Egbert! He certainly wouldn't ever get very high in the diplomatic service of anybody's country.

"And here's this grand ball of the Allied nations in costume, give in Genevieve May's palatial residence. It must of throwed a new panic into Berlin when they got the news off the wire. Matter of fact, I don't see how them Germans held out long as they did, with Genevieve May Popper putting crimps into 'em with her tireless war activities. That proves itself they'd been long preparing for the fray. Of course, with Genevieve May and this here new city marshal, Fotch, the French got, it was only a question of time. Genevieve is sure one born taker-up! Now she's made a complete circle of the useful arts and got round to dancing again. Yes, sir!"

I affected to believe I was solitary in the room. This time it did not work--even measurably. Almost at once came: "I said she was the darndest woman in the world to take things up!" The tone compelled notice, so I said "Indeed!" and "You don't say!" with a cautiously extended s.p.a.ce between them, and tried to go on thinking.

Then I knew the woman's full habit of speech was strong upon her and that one might no longer muse upon a caught trout--even one to weigh well up toward four pounds. So I remembered that I was supposed to be a gentleman.

"Go right ahead and talk," I murmured.

"Sure!" said the lady, not murmuring. "What in time did you think I was going to do?"

Yes, sir; I bet she's the greatest taker-up--bar none--the war has yet produced. She's took up France the latest. I understand they got a society of real workers somewhere that's trying to house and feed and give medicine and crutches to them poor unfortunates that got in the way of the dear old Fatherland when it took the lid off its Culture and tried to make the world safe--even for Germans; but I guess this here society gets things over to devastated France without much music or flourishes or uniforms that would interest Genevieve May.

But if that country is to be saved by costume b.a.l.l.s of the Allied nations, with Genevieve May being La Belle France in a dress hardly long enough to show three colours, then it needn't have another uneasy moment.

Genevieve stands ready to do all if she can wear a costume and dance the steps it cost her eight dollars a lesson to learn from one of these slim professionals that looks like a rich college boy.

It was this reckless dancing she'd took up when I first knew her, though she probably goes back far enough to of took up roller skating when that was sprung on an eager world; and I know she got herself talked about in 1892 for wearing bloomers on a bicycle. But we wasn't really acquainted till folks begun to act too familiar in public, and call it dancing, and pay eight dollars a lesson to learn something any of 'em that was healthy would of known by instinct at a proper time and place. Having lots of money, Genevieve May travelled round to the big towns, learning new steps and always taking with her one of these eight-dollar boys, with his hair done like a seal, to make sure she'd learn every step she saw.

She was systematic, that woman. If she was in Seattle and heard about a new step in San Francisco, she'd be on the train with her instructor in one hour and come back with the new step down pat. She scandalized Red Gap the year she come to visit her married daughter, Lucille Stultz, by introducing many of these new grips and clinches; but of course that soon wore off. Seems like we get used to anything in this world after it's done by well-dressed people a few times.

Then, as I say, these kind-hearted, music-loving Germans, with their strong affection for home life and little ones, started in to shoot the rest of the world up to German standards, and they hadn't burned more than a dozen towns in Belgium, after shooting the oldest and youngest and s.e.xecuting the women--I suppose s.e.xecution is what you might call it--before Genevieve took up the war herself.

Yes, sir--took it right up; no sooner said than done with her. It was really all over right then. The Germans might just as well of begun four years ago to talk about the anarchistic blood-l.u.s.t of Woodrow Wilson as to wait until they found out the Almighty knows other languages besides German.

I believe the Red Cross was the first handle by which Genevieve May took up the war. But that costume is too cheap for one that feels she's a born social leader if she could only get someone to follow. She found that young chits of no real social standing, but with a pleasing exterior, could get into a Red Cross uniform costing about two-eighty-five and sell objects of luxury at a bazaar twice as fast as a mature woman of sterling character in the same simple garb.

So Genevieve May saw it had got to be something costing more money and beyond the reach of an element you wouldn't care to entertain in your own drawing room. And next thing I was up to Spokane, and here she is, das.h.i.+ng round the corridors of the hotel in a uniform that never cost a penny under two hundred and fifty, what with its being made by a swell tailor and having s.h.i.+ny boots with silver spurs and a natty tucked cap and a s.h.i.+ny belt that went round the waist and also up over one shoulder, with metal tr.i.m.m.i.n.g, and so on. She was awful busy, darting hither and yon at the lunch hour, looking prettily worried and like she would wish to avoid being so conspicuous, but was foiled by the stares of the crowd.

Something always seemed to be happening to make her stand out; like in the restaurant, where, no sooner did she pick out just the right table, after some hesitation, and get nicely seated, than she'd see someone across the room at a far table and have to run over and speak. She spoke to parties at five distant tables that day, getting a scratchy lunch, I should say. One of the tables was mine. We wasn't what you'd call close friends, but she cut a swath clean across a crowded dining room to tell me how well I was looking.

Of course I fell for the uniform and wanted to know what it meant. Well, it meant that she was organizing a corps of girl ambulance drivers from the city's beet families. She was a major herself already, and was being saluted by he-officers. She said it was a wonderful work, and how did I think she looked in this, because it was a time calling for everyone's best, and what had I taken up for my bit? I was only raising beef cattle, so I didn't have any answer to that. I felt quite shamed. And Genevieve went back to her own table for another bite of food, bowing tolerantly to most of the people in the room.

I don't know how far she ever got with this girl's ambulance corps beyond her own uniform. She certainly made an imposing ambulance driver herself on the streets of that town. You'd see her big, s.h.i.+ny, light-blue limousine drive up, with two men on the seat and Genevieve, in uniform, would be helped out by one of 'em, and you knew right off you'd love to be a wounded soldier and be drove over sh.e.l.l-torn roads by her own hands.

Anyway, she got mad and left the ambulance service flat, getting into some sort of brawl with an adjutant general or something through wanting to take a mere detail out of his hands that he felt should stay right where it was, he being one of these offensive martinets and a stickler for red tape, and swollen with petty power. So Genevieve May said.

So she looked round for another way to start a few home fires burning on the other side of the Rhine. I forget what her next strategy was, but you know it was something cute and busy in a well-fitting uniform, and calculated to shorten the conflict if Germany found it out. You know that much.