III
RED GAP AND THE BIG-LEAGUE STUFF
I waited beside Ma Pettengill at the open door of the Arrowhead ranchhouse. It was a moment of tranquil expectancy; presently we would besummoned to the evening meal. Down by the barn a tired janizary pumpedwater into a trough for two tired mules still in harness. Halfway downthe lane, before a mirror tacked to the wall beside the bunk-house door,two men hurriedly combed their damp hair. Blackbirds were still noisy inthe poplars. In the field at our left a lazy lot of white-faced cattle,large and placid, lolled or grazed on the new spring grass.
Surveying these cattle with a fond eye--had she not that day refused allof three hundred and twenty-five dollars a head for a score of thesepure-bred cows?--my hostess read me a brief lecture on the superiorfleshing disposition of the Hereford. No better rustler under rangeconditions, said she, accumulating flesh at all ages, storing it inseasons of plenty to draw on in seasons of want. Hadn't I noticed howcommon cows got paunchy and how well the fat was distributed on thepure-breds?
I had not noticed, cows being more or less cows to me, but I was preparedto look with deep respect upon any cow for which three hundred andtwenty-five dollars could be sanely refused, and I now did so. I wastold that I forgot their calves, which would be worth a hundred and sixtydollars the day they were weaned. This made it all more impressive. Ilooked respectfully again at the bulky creatures, though listening, too,for the stealthy-stepping Lew Wee; a day in the thin spring air along arocky trout stream had made even cattle on the hoof suggestive.
Ma Pettengill, with a last proud look at her jewels, swept the panoramiccamera of her eye round to the blacksmith shop on our right. Before itwere strewn the mutilated remains of four wood wagons. I had lately heardthe lady have words with Abner, the blacksmith, concerning repairs tothese. Abner himself had few of the words. They were almost entirely hisemployer's. They were acutely to the effect that these here wagons wouldbe running again before the week was out or she would know the reasonwhy. The aggrieved Abner had tried to suggest that this reason she wouldknow would not be the right reason at all, because wasn't he alreadyworking like a beaver? Possibly, said the lady. And beavers might be allright in their place. What she needed at this precise time was someoneworking like a blacksmith--someone!
Over her shoulder she had flung the word at him, blackened with emphasis.
"Any one hurt in the runaway?" I asked, observing her glance to lingerupon this snarl of wagon parts.
"Four wagons was mortally hurt," said the lady, "but of course not amule skinner touched. Talk about charmed lives! Besides, they wasn'taccidents; they was just incidents. It was part of our winter sports."
"I didn't know you had winter sports up here."
"I didn't either till I got down to Red Gap last winter and found outthat was what we had been having. Here I been gritting along winter afterwinter, calling it work, and come to find out it's what parties go a longdistance to indulge in and have to wear careful clothes for it. Yes, sir;society is mad about it. Red Gap itself was mad about it last winter,when it got a taste of the big-league stuff. Next winter I'll try to getthe real sporting spirit into this gang of sedentaries up here; buy 'emuniforms and start a winter-sports club. Their ideal winter sport so faris to calk up every chink in the bunk house, fill the air-tight stovefull of pitch pine and set down with a good book by Elinor Glyn. Theynever been at all mad about romping out in the keen frosty air that setsthe blood tingling and brings back the roses to their wan cheeks.
"Take last winter. Not knowing it was sport it seemed at times liketoil. First it snowed early and caught a lot of my cows and calves inthe mountains. While we sported round with these, working 'em down intothe valley, the weather changed. It snowed harder. Just oodles of themost perfectly darling snow. Then distemper broke out among the saddlehorses. Then being already shorthanded, what does the fool vaquero bossdo but pick a splinter out of his thumb with a pin and get blood poisonenough to lay him off? Too much trouble for cussing. I tried that outscientifically. So I had to get out and make a hand. If I heard someonesay I did as much as any three of these mollycoddles up here I'd justsimper in silence and look down. Only I wish I'd known it was afashionable winter sport. I'd of been more carefree.
"Then come the best of our winter sports--wood hauling through the driftsover a rocky road down the mountains. My lands, but it was jolly! On aquiet day there'd be only one runaway, one wagon fetched to the shop insections, like a puzzle. Then another day all hands would seem to bequite mad about the sport, and nothing but the skinners and the muleswould get back to camp that night--with the new outfit of harness andthe hoodlum wagon going back next morning to see what could be salvaged.
"Finally we got the cows and calves home, got our wood in and started ageneral rodeo for the dry stock--Nature's fleecy mantle getting thickerevery minute. And none of us ever suspecting that it was a sport onlythe wealthy have a right to. If I'd suggested building an ice palace asa sporty wind-up I'll bet the help wouldn't of took it right. Anyway, Ididn't. With everything under shelter or fence at last I fled down to RedGap, where I could lead a quiet life suitable to one of my years--whereI thought I could."
From the doorway Lew Wee softly called, "You come now!" We both heardhim. Inside my hostess stealthily closed the door upon the gentle springnight; closed and locked it. Furtively she next drew curtains over thetwo windows. Then, candle in hand, she went lightly across the big livingroom to a stern and businesslike safe that stands against the fartherwall. Kneeling before this she rapidly twirled the lock to a series ofmystic numbers and opened the formidable doors.
"Leave us keep the home fires burning," said she impressively, andwithdrew from an exposed cavern a bottle of Scotch whisky. Standingbefore the safe we drank chattily. We agreed that prohibition was a goodthing for the state of Washington. We said we were glad to deny ourselvesfor the sake of those weaker natures lacking self-control, including Mr.Bryan, whom the lady characterized as "just a water-spout."
The bottle restored to security my hostess shut the thick doors upon itand twirled the lock. Then she raised the curtains and reopened the doorto the innocent spring night, after which we sat to our meatless andwheatless repast. In place of meat we sternly contented ourselves withstewed chicken, certain of the Arrowhead fowls having refused to do theirbit in eggs and now paying the penalty in a crisis when something isexpected from everyone. In place of wheat we merely had corn muffins of avery coaxing perfection. Even under these hardships I would patrioticallypractice the gospel of the clean plate.
As her exploring spoon wandered over the platter of half-submergedchicken Ma Pettengill casually remarked that carefree Bohemians wasalways the first to suffer under prohibition, and that you couldn't havea really good Latin Quarter in a dry town. I let it go. I must alwayspermit her certain speeches of seeming irrelevance before she willconsent to tell me all. Thus a moment later as she lavished valuablebutter fat upon one of the spirituelle muffins she communicated thefurther item that Cousin Egbert Floud still believed Bohemians was glassblowers, he having seen a troupe of such at the World's Fair. He had, itis true, known some section hands down on the narrow gauge that was alsoBohemians, but Bohemians of any class at all was glass blowers, and thatwas an end of it. No use telling him different, once he gets an idea intohis poor old head.
This, too, I let pass, overcome for the moment by the infatuatingqualities of the chicken stew. But when appetites, needlessly inflamed bythe lawless tippling, had at last been appeased and the lady had builther first cigarette I betrayed a willingness to hear more of the hintedconnection between winter sports and Latin Quarters peopled by Bohemians,glass-blowing or otherwise. The woman chuckled privately through thefirst cigarette, adeptly fashioned another, removed to a rocking-chairbefore the open fire and in a businesslike fervour seized a half-knittedwoollen sock, upon which she fell to work.
She now remarked that there must be along the Front millions of sweatersand wristlets and mufflers and dewdads that it l
ooked well to knit inpublic, so it seemed to be up to her to supply a few pairs of socks. Shesaid you naturally couldn't expect these here society dames that knittedin theatres and hotel corridors to be knitting anything so ugly as socks,even if they would know how to handle four needles, which they mostlywouldn't; but someone had to do it. Without the slightest change of keyshe added that it was a long story and painful in spots, but had a happyending, and she didn't know as she minded telling me.
So I come down to Red Gap about December first hoping to hole up forthe winter and get thoroughly warmed through before spring. Little didI know our growing metropolis was to be torn by dissension until youdidn't know who was speaking to who. And all because of a lady Bohemianfrom Washington Square, New York City, who had crept into our midstand started a Latin Quarter overnight. The first day I was downtown Ioverheard two ladies saying something about the new Latin Quarter. Thatmystified me, because I knew the town had been lidded tight since LonPrice went out of office as mayor. Then I meet Mrs. Judge Ballard in theBoston Cash Store and she says have I met a Miss Smith from New York whois visiting here. I said I had not. It didn't sound exciting. Some way "aMiss Smith" don't excite you overly, no matter where she hails from. So Idismissed that and went on with my shopping. Next I meet Egbert Floud,who is also down for the winter to rest beside a good coal stove, and weask each other what's the good word and is anything new. Cousin Egbertsays nothing is new in Red Gap except a Bohemian glass blower fromGrinitch Village, New York. He says he ain't seen her blow glass yet,but he's going some night, because them Bohemian glass blowers down tothe fair was right fascinating, and don't I think Grinitch is a bum namefor a town? He says when I see this glass blower I'll feel like askinganimal, vegetable, or mineral, because he has seen her in the post officewith Metta Bigler and she looks like a nut.
I tell the poor old zany he sounds simple-minded himself and I can't makea lick of sense out of what he's said, except I know this village ain'tspelled that way. He's telling me that's the way it's spoken anyway, andabout how he brought home a glass watch chain that these Bohemians blowedat the fair, when along come Metta Bigler herself and stops to shakehands, so Cousin Egbert slinks off.
I got to tell you about Metta. She's our artist; gives lessons in oilpainting and burnt wood and other refinements. People can take sixlessons off Metta and go home and burn all the Indian heads on leathersofa pillows that you'd ever want to see. Also she can paint a pink fishand a copper skillet and a watermelon with one slice cut out as good asany one between here and Spokane. She's a perfectly good girl, falling onthirty, refers to herself without a pang as a bachelor girl, and dressesas quiet as even a school-teacher has to in a small town.
Well, Metta rushes up to me now, all glowing and girlish, and saysI must come to her studio that very afternoon and meet her dear oldchum, Vernabelle Smith, that is visiting her from Washington Square,New York. She and Vernabelle met when they were completing their arteducation in the Latin Quarter of Chicago, and Vernabelle had gone downto New York and got into all the new movements and among people who wasdoing things, and was now very, very advanced being what you might callan intellectual; but I would be sure to like her because she was sodelightfully Bohemian, not standing on ceremony but darting straightto the heart of life, which is so complex to most of us who live withinconvention's shell and never get in touch with the great throbbing centreof things. She didn't say what things. It was a new line of chatter fromMetta. Usually she'd have been telling me her troubles with Chinese help,or what a robber the Square Deal meat market was, or, at the most, howher fruit-and-fish piece had carried off the first prize of twentydollars at the Kulanche County Fair.
So I say I'll be sure to look in on her and her new friend. I reckonedshe must be the Miss Smith and the glass blower I'd already heard aboutthat morning. Of course "Miss Smith" didn't sound like much, butVernabelle Smith was different. That name Vernabelle made all thedifference in the world. You sort of forgot the ensuing Smith.
That same afternoon about four P.M. I dropped round to the Bigler house.Metta's mother let me in. She's a neat and precise old lady with carefulhair, but she looked scared as she let me in and led me to the door ofMetta's studio, which is a big room at the back of the house. She didn'tgo in herself. She pulled it open and shut it on me quick, like it was alion's den or something.
All the curtains was down, candles lighted, and the room not only hot butfull of cigarette smoke and smoke from about forty of these here punksticks that smoldered away on different perches. It had the smell of anice hot Chinese laundry on a busy winter's night. About eight or tenpeople was huddled round the couch, parties I could hardly make outthrough this gas attack, and everyone was gabbling. Metta come forwardto see who it was, then she pulled something up out of the group and said"Meet dear Vernabelle."
Well, she was about Metta's age, a short thirty, a kind of a slaty blondewith bobbed hair--she'd been reached fore and aft--and dressed mostly ina pale-blue smock and no stockings. Nothing but sandals. I could hardlyget my eyes off her feet at first. Very few of our justly famous sex canafford to brave the public gaze without their stockings on. Vernabellecould ill afford it. She was skinny, if you know what I mean, lots oftendons and so forth, though I learned later that Vernabelle called itbeing willowy. She had slaty-gray eyes and a pale, dramatic face withlong teeth and a dignified and powerful-looking nose. She was kind ofhungry-looking or soulful or something. And she wore about two yards ofcrockery necklace that rattled when she moved. Sounded like that Chinamanwith his dishes out there in the kitchen. I learned later that this wasart jewellery.
Vernabelle greeted me with many contortions like she was taking anexercise and said she had heard so much about me and how interestingit was to meet one who did things. I said I was merely in the cattlebusiness. She said "How perfect!" and clasped her hands in ecstasy overthe very idea. She said I was by way of being the ideal type for it. Anddid I employ real cowboys; and they, too, must be fascinating, becausethey did things. I said they did if watched; otherwise not. And did Iacquire an ascendancy over their rough natures. I said we quickly partedforever if I didn't do that. Then she clanked across to the couch, whereshe set down on her feet. I give her credit for that much judgment. Thatgirl never did just plain set down. It was either on one foot or on bothfeet, or she draped herself along the furniture to show how willowy shecould be without its hurting.
She now lighted a new cigarette from her old one and went on telling thefish-faces about her how little colour she had found here. She said wewas by way of being a mere flat expanse in dull tints. But what couldbe expected of a crude commercialism where the arts was by way of beingstarved. Ah, it was so different from dear old Washington Square, whereone was by way of being at the heart of life. It took me some time toget this by-way-of-being stuff, but the others was eating it up. MettaBigler hovered round proud as Lucifer and trying to smoke for the firsttime in her life, though making poor work of it, like she was eatingthe cigarette and every now and then finding bits she couldn't swallow,and holding it off at arm's length in between bites. Mrs. HenriettaTempleton Price was making better work of the cigarettes, and Beryl MaeMacomber, a wealthy young society heiress and debutante, aged seventeen,was saying that she had always felt this lack in Red Gap and would ofbeen in the movies long since if her aunt had listened to reason. Theonly man present was Edgar Tomlinson, who is Red Gap's most prominentfirst-nighter and does the Lounger-in-the-Lobby column for the Recorder,reviewing all the new films in an able and fearless manner. Edgar waslooking like he had come into his own at last. He was wearing a flowingtie and a collar that hardly come higher than his chest and big windshields on a black cord, and had his hair mussed up like a regularBohemian in a Sunday paper. Vernabelle was soon telling him howrefreshing it was to meet away out here one who was by way of doingthings, and she had read that very morning his review of the filmentitled A Sister of Sin, and had found it masterly in its clear-cutanalysis, but why did he waste himself here when the great world la
yopen. Edgar thrust back his falling hair with a weary hand and tried tolook modest, but it was useless. Vernabelle devoted most of her chat toEdgar. She was an incessant person but it seemed to take a man to bringout all that was best in her.
Pretty soon Metta went over to a table and brought back some glassesof wine on a tray, of which all partook with more or less relish. Irecognized it from the bottle. It was elderberry wine that Metta'smother had put up. You have to be resourceful in a dry state.
"I'm afraid you'll all think me frightfully Bohemian," said Mettaproudly.
Beryl Mae held her glass up to the light and said, "After all, doesanything in life really matter?" She appeared very blase in all herdesperate young beauty. She and Edgar Tomlinson looked as near right asanything you'd see in Washington Square. Vernabelle said the true spiritof Bohemia knew neither time nor place; it was wherever those gatheredwho were doing things, and wasn't it splendid that even here in thiscrude Western town a few of the real sort could meet and make theirown little quarter and talk about the big things, the lasting things!Everyone said yes, quite so; and they all tried to handle their wine likeit was a rare old vintage. But you can't hold much wassail on the juiceof the elderberry; it ain't the most jocund stuff the world as fermentedby Metta's mother.
However, it livened things up a bit and Vernabelle set down her glass andchattered some more. She said after all life was anything but selective,but didn't we think that all the arts rounded out one's appreciationof the beautiful. Several said "How true--how true indeed!" and sighedimportantly. Then Metta said Vernabelle must show us some of her work andVernabelle said she could hardly bring herself to do that; but yet shecould and did, getting up promptly. She had designs for magazine coversand designs for war posters and designs for mural decorations and designsfor oil paintings and so forth--"studies; crude, unfinished bits" shecalled 'em, but in a tone that didn't urge any one else to call 'em that.
It was mostly clouds and figures of females, some with ladies' wearingapparel and many not, engaged in dancing or plucking fruit or doing uptheir hair. Quite different stuff from Metta's innocent pictures ofkittens and grapes and daffodils. After everyone was put on the easelHenrietta Templeton Price would stick her thumb up in the air and sightacross it with one eye shut and say "A stunning bit, that!" and theothers would gasp with delight and mutter to each other about its beingsimply wonderful.
Vernabelle listened in an all-too-negligent manner, putting in a tiredword or two now and then. She admitted that one or two was by way ofbeing precious bits. "Rather precious in an elemental way," she wouldsay. "Of course I am trying to develop the psychology of the line."Everyone said "Oh, of course!"
While she had one up showing part of a mottled nude lady who was smilingand reaching one hand up over to about where her shoulder blades wouldmeet in the back, who should be let in on the scene but Lon Price andCousin Egbert Floud. Lon had called for Henrietta, and Cousin Egbert hadtrailed along, I suppose, with glass blowing in mind. Vernabelle forgother picture and fluttered about the two new men. I guess Lon Price is anatural-born Bohemian. He took to her at once.
"Sit here and tell me all about yourself," says Vernabelle, and Lon didso while the girl hung breathless on his words. In no time at all he wastelling her about Price's Addition to Red Gap, how you walk ten blocksand save ten dollars a block and your rent money buys a home in this,the choicest villa site on God's green earth. Vernabelle had sort of kepthold of Cousin Egbert's sleeve with an absent hand--that girl was a manhound if ever there was one--and pretty soon she turned from Lon toEgbert and told him also to tell her all about himself.
Cousin Egbert wasn't so glib as Lon. He looked nervous. He'd comeexpecting a little glass blowing and here was something strange. Hedidn't seem to be able to tell her all about himself. He couldn't startgood.
"Tell me what you are reading, then," says Vernabelle; and Cousin Egbertkind of strangled at this, too. He finally manages to say that he triedto read Shakespere once but it was too fine print. The old liar! Hewouldn't read a line of Shakespere in letters a foot high. It just showedthat he, too, was trying to bluff along with the rest of 'em on thisBohemian chatter.
Vernabelle continued full of blandishment for the two men and poured 'emout stiff hookers of this demon elderberry wine and lighted cigarettesfor 'em from hers. I don't know whether this beverage got to Lon Priceor not, but in a minute he was telling her that beauty in her sex was acommon-enough heritage, but how all-too rare it was to find beauty andbrains in the same woman! Vernabelle called him comrade after that, andthen she was telling Cousin Egbert that he was of the great outdoors--aman's man! Egbert looked kind of silly and puzzled at this. He didn'tseem to be so darned sure about it.
Then Vernabelle worked over by the easel--it took her about six attitudesleaning against things, to get there--and showed her oil paintings to thenewcomers. Lon Price was full of talk and admiration and said she mustdo a poster for him showing a creature of rare beauty up in the cloudsbeckoning home-buyers out to Price's Addition, where it was Big Lots,Little Payments, and all Nature seemed to smile. He said this figure,however, had better have something in the shape of a garment on itbecause the poster would go into homes where art in its broader extentwas still regarded in a suspicious or even hostile manner, if she caughtwhat he meant. The artist says she can readily understand, and that lifeafter all is anything but selective.
Cousin Egbert just looked at the pictures in an uncomfortable manner.He spoke only once and that was about the mottled lady reaching overher shoulder and smiling. "Grinitch," says he with a knowing leer. ButVernabelle only says, yes, it was painted in the dear old village.
Then the crowd sort of got together on the couch and in chairs andVernabelle talked for one and all. She said how stimulating it was for afew of the real people who did things to come together in this way afterthe day's turmoil--to get away from it all! Beryl Mae said she had oftenwanted to get away from it all, but her aunt was narrow-minded. HenriettaPrice lighted her ninth cigarette and said how it reminded her of theLatin Quarter of Paris, which she had never been to, but her cousin hadspent a whole afternoon there once and had been simply wild about it.Vernabelle said it was times like this, with a few real people, that shegot her biggest ideas; that life in the rough was too terribly alabyrinth, didn't we think, stunning one with its immensity, while inthese dear little half-lighted moments the real came out unafraid, ifwe understood what she meant. Many of us said we did.
It was when we got up to go that Vernabelle told me things about CousinEgbert. She said he must have great reserve strength in his personality.She said he fairly frightened her, he was so superbly elemental.
"It is not so much Mr. Floud that frightens me," says she, "as theinevitability of him--just beautifully that! And such sang fraw!"
Poor Egbert was where he had to overhear this, and I had never seen himless sang fraw--if that's the word. He looked more like a case of nettlerash, especially when Vernabelle gripped his hand at parting and calledhim comrade!
We finally groped our way through the smoke of the door and said what alovely time we'd had, and Metta said we must make a practice of droppingin at this hour. Vernabelle called us all comrade and said the time hadbeen by way of being a series of precious moments to her, even if theselittle studio affairs did always leave poor her like a limp lily. Yep;that's the term she used and she was draped down a bookcase when she saidit, trying to look as near as possible like a limp lily.
The awestruck group split up outside. Nothing like this had ever enteredour dull lives, and it was too soon to talk about it. Cousin Egbertwalked downtown with me and even he said only a few little things. Hestill called the lady a glass blower, and said if she must paint at allwhy not paint family pictures that could be hung in the home. He said,what with every barroom in the state closed, there couldn't be muchdemand for them Grinitch paintings. He also said, after another block,that if he owned this lady and wanted to get her in shape to sell he'dput her out on short sand grass, shor
t almost to the roots, where she'dwear her teeth down. And a block later he said she hadn't ought to becalling everyone comrade that way--it sounded too much like a German.Still and all, he said, there was something about her. He didn't saywhat.
So now the Latin Quarter had begun, and in no time at all it was goingstrong. It seemed like everybody had long been wanting to get away fromit all but hadn't known how. They gathered daily in Metta's studio, thewomen setting round in smocks, they all took to wearing smocks, ofcourse, while hungry-eyed Vernabelle got the men to tell her all aboutthemselves, and said wasn't it precious that a few choice spirits couldthus meet in the little half-lighted hour, away from it all, and be byway of forgetting that outer world where human souls are bartered in themarket place.
Of course the elderberry wine was by way of giving plumb out afterthe second half-lighted hour, but others come forward with cherishedofferings. Mrs. Dr. Percy Hailey Martingale brought round some currantwine that had been laid down in her cellar over a year ago, and Beryl MaeMacomber pilfered a quart of homemade cherry brandy that her aunt hadbeen saving against sickness, and even Mrs. Judge Ballard kicked in withsome blackberry cordial made from her own berries, though originallymeant for medicine.
Lon Price was a feverish Bohemian from the start, dropping in almostevery day to tell Vernabelle all about himself and get out ofconvention's shell into the raw throb of life, as it was now beingcalled. Lon always was kind of light-minded, even after the statewent dry. He told Vernabelle he had a treasured keepsake hid away whichhe would sacrifice to Bohemia at the last moment, consisting of one quartbottle of prime old rye. And he was going to make over to her a choicebuilding lot in Price's Addition, right near the proposed site of theCarnegie library, if Vernabelle would put up something snappy on it inthe way of a Latin Quarter bungalow.
Lon also added Jeff Tuttle to the Bohemians the day that old horned toadgot down from his ranch. After going once Jeff said darned if he hadn'tbeen a Bohemian all his life and never knew what was the matter with him.Vernabelle had him telling her all about himself instantly. She said hewas such a colourful bit, so virile and red-blooded, and she just knewthat when he was in his untamed wilderness he put vine leaves in hishair and went beautifully barefoot. She said it wasn't so much him as theinevitability of him. She'd said this about Cousin Egbert, too, but shewas now saying of this old silly that he had a nameless pathos that cutto her artist's heart. It seems Cousin Egbert had gone round a coupletimes more looking for glass blowing and getting disappointed.
And there was new Bohemians every day. Otto Gashwiler, that keeps booksfor the canning factory, and Hugo Jennings, night clerk of the OccidentalHotel, was now prominent lights of the good old Latin Quarter passingtheir spare moments there where they could get away from it all, insteadof shaking dice at the Owl cigar store, like they used to. And OswaldCummings of the Elite Bootery, was another. Oswald is a big fair-hairedlummox that sings tenor in the Presbyterian choir and has the young men'sBible class in the Sabbath School. Vernabelle lost no time in tellinghim that he was oh, so frankly a pagan creature, born for splendid sins;and Otto seemed to believe it for a couple of weeks, going round absentlike as if trying to think up some sins that would be splendid, thoughif any one but a Bohemian had told him this he'd have blushed himself todeath. It shows you what a hold Vernabelle was by way of getting on RedGap.
It was sure one season of triumph for Metta Bigler, who lurked proudlyin the background as manager. Metta's mother wasn't near so thrilled asMetta, though. She confided to me that Bohemians was a messy lot to cleanup after, raining cigarette ashes over everything; and also it was prettyhard to have raised a child to Metta's age only to see her become acigarette fiend overnight, and having these mad revels with currantwine and other intoxicants--and Metta was even using a lip stick!
And Metta's mother wasn't the only one in town looking sidewise at theseBohemian doings. There was them that held aloof from the beginning andwould give their bitter reasons at every opportunity. These was theultra-conservative element of the North Side set, and what they saidabout the new Latin Quarter was a plenty. They said it was mostly anexcuse for drunken orgies in which all sense of decency was cast aside,to say nothing of cigarettes being brazenly smoked by so-called ladies.They said this here talk about getting away from it all meant the ruinof the home upon which all durable civilization must be built; and asfor wives and mothers going round without their stockings look at whatbefell proud Rome! And it was time something was done to stem this tideof corruption.
Mrs. Cora Wales and Mrs. Tracy Bangs, president and vice-president of ouranti-tobacco league, was the leaders of this movement and sent in a longcomplaint to the chamber of commerce urging instant action or a foul blotwould be splashed on the fair name of our city, to say nothing of homesbeing broken up. They was ably backed up in this move by a committee fromthe civic purity league.
And of course this added to the attractions of the Latin Quarter, givingeach Bohemian a new thrill. Vernabelle said it was by way of beingancient history; that from time immemorial these little groups of choicespirits who did things had been scorned and persecuted, but that everytrue Bohemian would give a light laugh and pursue his carefree way,regardless of the Philistine And so it went, venomous on both sides, butwith Vernabelle holding the bridge. She'd brought new stuff to town andhad a good working majority in favour of it.
Downtown one day I met Metta in the Red Front grocery buying olives andsardines in an excited way. I suppose it's for one of her unspeakableorgies, but she tells me it's something special and I must be sure tocome.
"Dear Vernabelle," she says, "has consented to give an evening cycle ofdance portrayals for just a few of the choicer spirits. I know there hasbeen dreadful talk about our little group, but this will be a stunningbit and you are broad-minded, so do come."
I could just see Vernabelle consenting, almost peevishly; but it soundedlike it might be disorderly enough, so I says I'll come if she promisesto leave at least one window down at the top, me not having a gas mask.
Metta thinks a minute, then says she guesses she can leave one windowdown a mite; not much, on account of the nature of Vernabelle's dancecostume. I says if such is to be the nature of her costume I'll comeanyway and risk being gassed. Metta chides me gravely. She says thecostume is perfectly proper to the artist eye, being a darling littleearly Greek thing; built on simple lines that follow the figure, it istrue, yet suggest rather than reveal, and if the early Greeks saw no harmin it why should we? I tell her to say no more, but reserve me a ringsideseat, though near a window if one can be opened; say, as far as the earlyGreeks would have done at such a time, on account of the punk sticks.
And of course I wouldn't miss it. I'm there at eight-thirty and findquite a bunch of Latin Quarter denizens already gathered and full ofsuppressed emotion. The punk sticks, of course, are going strong.Vernabelle in a pink kimono says they supply atmosphere; which is theonly joke I ever heard her get off, if she knew it was one. BohemiansLon Price and Jeff Tuttle are hanging over the punch bowl, into whichsomething illegal has been poured. Jeff is calling Vernabelle littlewoman and telling her if worse comes to worst they might try beingBohemians on a mixture his men up on the ranch thought of for a NewYear's celebration. He says they took a whole case of vanilla extractand mixed it with one dozen cans of condensed milk, the vanilla havinga surprising kick in it and making 'em all feel like the good old daysnext morning.
Vernabelle says he reminds her of some untamed creature of the open,some woodsy monster of the dells, and Jeff says that's just what he feelslike. He's going on to tell her some more about what he feels like, butVernabelle is now greeting Oswald Cummings, the pagan of splendid sins,from the Elite Bootery. She tells Oswald there is a cold cruelty in thelines of his face that reminds her of the emperor Nero.
Finally about twenty choice spirits who did things was gathered for thishalf-lighted hour, so everybody set down on chairs and the couch and thefloor, leaving a clear space for Vernabelle; and Profes
sor Gluckstein,our music teacher, puts down his meerschaum pipe and goes to the pianoand plays a soft piece. The prof is a German, but not a pro-German, andplays first rate in the old-fashioned way, with his hands. Then, whenall the comrades get settled and their cigarettes lighted, the profdrifted into something quite mournful and Vernabelle appeared frombehind a screen without her kimono.
The early Greeks must of been strong on art jewellery. Vernabelle clankedat every step with bracelets and anklets and necklaces. She had apriceless ruby weighing half a pound fastened to the middle of herbony forehead. Her costume was spangled, but not many spangles had beenneeded. The early Greeks couldn't of been a dressy lot. If Vernabelle hadbeen my daughter I could of give her what she deserved with almost notrouble. The costume, as Metta had said, not only followed the linesof the figure, so far as it went anywhere at all, but it suggested andalmost revealed that Vernabelle had been badly assembled. The Bohemianskind of gasped and shivered, all except Jeff Tuttle, who applaudedloudly. They seemed to feel that Vernabelle was indeed getting awayfrom it all.
Then came this here cycle-of-dance portrayals. The first one wasn't muchdance; it was mostly slow, snaky motions with the arms and other things,and it was to portray a mother cobra mourning her first-born. At leastthat's the way I understood it. Another one was called "The StrivingSoul," to which the prof played something livelier. Vernabelle went roundand round, lifting her feet high. It looked to me like she was climbinga spiral staircase that wasn't there. Then she was a hunted fawn in adark forest and was finally shot through the heart by a cruel hunter--whowas probably nearsighted. And in the last one she was a Russian peasantthat has got stewed on vodka at the Russian county fair. This was thebest one. You couldn't see her so well when she moved quick.
Of course there was hearty applause when it was all over, and pretty soonVernabelle come out again in her kimono. Panting like a tuckered houndshe was when the comrades gathered to tell her how wonderful she hadbeen.
"That music tears me," says Vernabelle, putting her hands to her chestto show where it tore. "That last maddening Russian bit--it leaves melike a limp lily!" So she was led to the punch bowl by Comrades Priceand Tuttle, with the others pushing after and lighting cigarettes forher.
It was agreed that the evening had been a triumph for Vernabelle's art.Almost every Bohemian present, it seemed, had either been tore ormaddened by that last Russian bit.
Vernabelle was soon saying that if she had one message for us it was thesacred message of beauty. Jeff Tuttle says, "You've certainly deliveredit, little woman!" Vernabelle says, oh, perhaps, in her poor, weakway--she was being a limp lily against the piano then--but art is aterrible master to serve, demanding one's all. Comrade Price says whatmore could she give than she has to-night. And then, first thing Iknow, they're all talking about an intimate theatre.
This was another part of Vernabelle's message. It seems intimate theatresis all the rage in New York, and the Bigler barn is just the place tohave one in. Vernabelle says they will use the big part where the hayused to be and paint their own scenery and act their own plays and thusfind a splendid means of self-expression the way people of the real sortare doing in large cities.
Everyone is wild about this in a minute, and says how quaint and jollyBohemian it will be. The Bigler barn is just the place, with no horsethere since Metta bought one of the best-selling cars that ever came outof Michigan, and Vernabelle says she has written a couple of stunninglittle one-act pieces, too powerful for the big theatres because they goright to the throbbing raw of life, and it will be an inspiration anduplift to the community, of which all present can be proud. Lon Pricesays he will furnish a good drop curtain free, painted with a choicenine-room villa with just a line mentioning Price's Addition to Red Gap,Big Lots, Little Payments. And he's quite hurt when Vernabelle tells himno, that they must keep entirely out of the slime of commercialism. Idon't think Lon ever again felt the same toward Vernabelle--calling hisbusiness slime, that way.
However, the party broke up full of plans for the new intimate theatre,leaving an empty punch bowl and a million cigarette ends.
And right here was where the Philistine opposition braided feathers inits hair and done a war dance. Members of the little group that didthings spoke freely the next day of Vernabelle's art in the dance and herearly Greek costume, taking a mean enjoyment in the horror they inspiredamong pillars of the church and the civic purity league. It is probablethat in their artistic relish they endowed Vernabelle with even fewerclothes than she had wore. At any rate, they left a whole lot to beinferred, and it promptly was inferred.
The opposition now said this was no job for a chamber of commerce; ithad become a simple matter for the police. The civic purity league hada special meeting at which the rind was peeled off Vernabelle's moralcharacter, and the following Sabbath one of the ministers gave a hotsermon in which the fate of Babylon and a few other undesirable residencecentres mentioned in the Bible was pointed out. He said that so-calledBohemia was the gateway to hell. He never minced his words, not once.
And the Latin Quarter come in for some more shock assaults when thetalk about an intimate theatre in the Bigler barn got out. The regulartheatre was bad enough, said the civic purity league; in fact, they hadstarted a campaign against that the month before, right after a one-nightengagement of the Jolly Paris Divorcees Burlesque Company, which, Igathered, had not upheld the very highest standards of dramatic art.And if the town was going to stand for anything more intimate than thisshow had provided, why, it was time for drastic action if any wholesomefamily life was to be saved from the wreck.
Feeling ran high, I want to tell you, and a few of the younger set fellout of the ranks of good old Bohemia--or was yanked out. Luella Stultz'sfather, who is old-fashioned, it was said, had give Luella a good lickingfor smoking cigarettes, and old Jesse Himebaugh had threatened hisdaughter Gussie with the reform school if she didn't stop trying to getaway from it all. Even Beryl Mae's aunt put her foot down. Beryl Mae metme in the post office one day and says auntie won't let her be a Bohemianany more, having threatened to take her new ukulele away from her if shegoes to that Latin Quarter another single time; and poor Beryl Mae havinghoped to do a Hawaiian dance in native costume for the intimate theatre,where it wouldn't be misunderstood!
Things was just in this shape, with bitterness on every side and oldfriends not speaking, and the opposition passing the Bohemians on thestreet with the frown of moral disgust, and no one knowing how it wouldall end, when I hear that Cora Wales has a niece coming from New York tovisit her--a Miss Smith. I says to myself, "My lands! Here's another MissSmith from New York when it looks to me like the one we got is giving usa plenty of the big league stuff." But I meet Cora Wales and learn thatthis one's first name is Dulcie, which again seemed to make a difference.
Cora says this Dulcie niece is one of New York's society leaders andshe's sorry she invited her, because what kind of a town is it in whichto introduce a pure young girl that never smoked or drank in her life andwhose people belong to one of the very most exclusive churches in thecity. She had hoped to give Dulcie a good time, but how can she sullyherself with any of our young people that have took up Bohemianism? Shebeing fresh from her social triumphs in New York, where her folks livein one of the very most fashionable apartment houses on Columbus Avenue,right in the centre of things and next to the elevated railway, willbe horrified at coming to a town where society seems to be mostly alittle group of people who do things they hadn't ought to.
Dulcie is a dear girl and very refined, everything she wears beinghand embroidered, and it would of been a good chance for Red Gap to getacquainted with a young society girl of the right sort, but with thisscandal tearing up the town it looks like the visit will be a failurefor all parties.
I tell Cora on the contrary it looks like a good chance to recall thetown to its better self. If this here Dulcie is all that is claimed forher she can very probably demolish the Latin Quarter and have us allleading correct society lives i
n no time, because the public is fickleand ever ready for new stuff, and as a matter of fact I suspect the LatinQuarter is in a bad way because of everything in town of an illegalcharacter having been drunk up by the comrades. Me? I was trying to getsome new life into the fight, understand, being afraid it would dienatural and leave us to a dull winter.
Cora's eyes lighted up with a great hope and she beat it off to theRecorder office to have a piece put in the paper about Dulcie's coming.It was a grand piece, what with Cora giving the points and EdgarTomlinson writing it. It said one of Gotham's fair daughters would winterin our midst, and how she was a prominent society leader and an ornamentof the fast hunting set, noted for her wit and beauty and dazzlingcostumes, and how a series of brilliant affairs was being planned in herhonour by her hostess and aunt, Mrs. Leonard Wales, Red Gap's prominentsociety matron and representative of all that was best in our community,who would entertain extensively at her new and attractive home in Price'sAddition. And so forth.
I'm bound to say it created a flurry of interest among the youngerdancing set, and more than one begun to consider whether they wouldremain loyal to Bohemia or plunge back into society once more, wherestockings are commonly wore, and smoking if done at all is hurriedlysneaked through out on the porch or up in the bathroom.
From Cora's description I was all prepared to find Dulcie a tall,stately creature of twenty-eight, kind of blase and haggard from herwearing social duties in New York. But not so. Not so at all. Cora hadinvitations out for a tea the day after Dulcie come; invitations, thatis, to the non-Bohemians and such as had reformed or give good signs ofit. I don't know which head I got in under. And this Dulcie niece wasnothing but a short, fat, blond kid of seventeen or eighteen that hadnever led any society whatever. You could tell that right quick.
She was rapidly eating cream-cheese sandwiches when I was presented toher. I knew in one look that society had never bothered Dulcie any.Victuals was her curse. In the cattle business it ain't ridingdisrespectful horses that gets you the big money; it's being able toguess weights. And if Dulcie pulled a pound less than one hundred andeighty then all my years of training has gone for naught. She wascertainly big-framed stock and going into the winter strong. Betweenbites of sandwich, with a marshmallow now and then, she was saying thatshe was simply crazy about the war, having the dandiest young Frenchsoldier for a godson and sending him packages of food and cigarettesconstantly, and all the girls of her set had one, and wasn't it thedarlingest idea.
And her soldier was only twenty-two, though his beard made him look moremature, and he wrote such dandy letters, but she didn't suppose therewould ever be anything between them because papa was too busy with hiscoal yard to take her over there.
As the girl chattered on it didn't seem to me that our Latin Quarter wasin the slightest danger from her. Still, some of the girls that was thereseemed quite impressed or buffaloed by her manner. One idea she give outnow was new in Red Gap. She had all her rings named after meals. She hada breakfast ring and a dinner ring and a supper ring and a banquet ring,and Daisy Estelle Maybury admired the necklace she had on, and Dulciesaid that was a mere travelling necklace; and how did they like this cutelittle restaurant frock she was wearing? A little dressmaker over onAmsterdam Avenue had turned it out. All the parties she dealt with,apparently, was little. She had a little dressmaker and a little hairwoman and a little manicure and a little florist, and so forth. She'det five cream-cheese sandwiches by this time, in spite of its being quitepainful for her to pick up a dropped napkin. Dulcie didn't fold overgood. You could tell here was a girl that had never tried to get awayfrom it all. She wanted to be right where it was.
Pretty soon one of the girls said something about the Bohemians of theLatin Quarter, probably aiming to show this New York chatterbox that RedGap wasn't so far west as it looked. But Dulcie gave 'em the laugh. Shesaid oh, dear, New York society had simply quit taking up Bohemians, itnot being considered smart any longer, and did we really take them uphere? The girls backed up at this. And Dulcie went on being superior. Shesaid of course society people now and then made up a party and went downto Washington Square to look them over, but as for taking them up, oh,dear, no! It was more like a slumming party. One could stare at them,but one simply didn't know them.
And perhaps, if she could get Aunt Cora to chaperon them, they might makeup one of these slumming parties some evening and go down to Red Gap'sLatin Quarter; it might be amusing. Cora Wales glistened at this. Shesaid she guessed people could now see how such goings-on were regarded bysociety in the true sense of the word. And it did give the girls a chill,calling the Bigler home a slum. But I still didn't see any stuff inDulcie to vanquish Vernabelle.
And I didn't see it a minute later when Dulcie wolfed her tenthmarshmallow and broke out about winter sports. She first said whatperfectly darling snow we had here. This caused some astonishment, noone present having ever regarded snow as darling but merely as somethingto shovel or wade through. So Dulcie pronged off a piece of stickychocolate cake and talked on. She said that everyone in New York wasoutdooring, and why didn't we outdoor. It was a shame if we didn't goin for it, with all this perfectly dandy snow. New York people had togo out of town for their winter sports, owing to the snow not being goodfor sport after it fell there; but here it was right at hand, and did wemean to say we hadn't organized a winter-sports club.
No one spoke, for no one could guess what you did to outdoor properly.About all they could think of was hustling out after another chunk forthe fireplace or bringing a scuttle of coal up from the cellar. But theysoon got the idea. Dulcie said right from this window she could see acorking hill for a toboggan slide, and it would be perfectly darling tobe out there with plenty of hot coffee and sandwiches; and there must besome peachy trips for snowshoe parties with sandwiches and coffee at theend; or skating in the moonlight with a big bonfire and coffee andsandwiches.
She suggested other things with coffee and sandwiches and finally gotup some real enthusiasm when she said she had brought some of the dearestsport toggery with her. The girls was excited enough when they found outyou had to dress especial for it. They was willing to listen to anythinglike that if New York society was really mad about it, even if itconflicted with lifelong habits--no one in Red Gap but small boyshaving ever slid downhill.
And still I didn't suspect Dulcie was going to groundsluice Vernabelle.It looked like the Latin Quarter would still have the best of it, atleast during a cold winter. Which goes to show that you can't tell whatsociety will go mad about, even in Red Gap, when you can dress for it.
The girls had got a line on Dulcie and was properly impressed by her, andthen with an evening affair at the Wales home the dancing men had theirchance. Even some of the Bohemians was let to come, just to have 'em seethat there was indeed a better life; and reports of Dulcie was such thatall took advantage of it. The male sex was strong for the girl at once.She didn't know that life is anything but selective, or that all the artsround out one's appreciation of the beautiful, or that anything was "byway of being" something. But all the food she took didn't make hertorpid; she giggled easily and had eyes like hothouse grapes, and inspite of her fat there was something about her, like Cousin Egbert saidof Vernabelle. Anyway, she prevailed. Oswald Cummings, the pagan, forone, quickly side-stepped his destiny of splendid sins, and Hugo Jenningstold Dulcie he had merely gone to this Latin Quarter as he would go to ananimal show, never having meant for one moment to take Bohemians up, anymore than New York society would.
First thing I hear, the winter-sports club has been organized, snowshoessent for and a couple of toboggans, and a toboggan slide half a milelong made out in Price's Addition, starting at the top of the highesthill, where Lon's big board sign with the painted bungalow made a finewindshield, and running across some very choice building lots to thefoot of the grade, where it stopped on the proposed site of the CarnegieLibrary. Lon was very keen about the sport himself after meeting Dulcie,and let a fire be built near his sign that burned it dow
n one night, buthe said it was all good advertising, more than he'd ever got out of beinga Bohemian.
Of course there was a great deal of fuss about the proper sport toggery,but everyone got rigged out by the time the toboggans got there. Dulciewas a great help in this and was downtown every day advising one oranother about the proper sweaters or blanket coats or peaked caps withtassels, or these here big-eyed boots. You'd meet her in a store withStella Ballard, eating from a sack of potato chips; and half an hourlater she'd be in another store with Daisy Estelle Maybury, munching froma box of ginger wafers; with always a final stop at the Bon Ton KandyKitchen for a sack of something to keep life in her on the way home.There really got to be so much excitement about winter sports that youhardly heard any more talk about the Latin Quarter. People got tospeaking to each other again.
By the opening day of the sports club you wouldn't of thought any one intown had ever tried to get away from it all. Even them that thought itcrazy came and stood round and said so. Cousin Egbert Floud said thisDulcie was some sparrow, but nutty--going out in the cold that way whennothing drove her out. Dulcie made a great hit with the club this firstday, having the correct Canadian toggery and being entirely fearless inthe presence of a toboggan. She'd zip to the bottom, come tramping back,shooting on all six, grab a sandwich--for not a morsel of food had passedher lips since she went down the time before--and do it all over again.And every last ex-Bohemian, even Edgar Tomlinson, fighting for the chanceto save her from death by starvation! Dulcie played no favourites, beingentranced with 'em all. She said they was the dearest gentleman friendsshe'd ever had. The way they was fighting for her favours she could ofcalled 'em her gentleman frenzy. Ain't I the heinous old madcap, thinkingof jokes like that?
Next day there was a snowshoe trip up to Stender's spring and back by wayof the tie camp. Dulcie hadn't ever snowshoed and it wasn't any lightmatter when her shoes threw her down--requiring about three of thehuskiest boys to up-end her--but she was game and the boys was game andshe was soon teaching snowshoeing shoes how to take a joke. And from thaton winter sports ruled in Red Gap. The chamber of commerce even talked ofbuilding an ice palace next year and having a carnival and getting thetown's name in the papers. Oh, there certainly must of been a surprisedlot of snow round there that winter. Nothing like this had ever happenedto it before.
And all being done on nothing stronger than coffee, with hardly acigarette and never anything that was by way of being a punk stick in aclosed room. It was certainly a lot healthier than a Latin Quarter forthese young people, and for the old ones, too. Dulcie had sure put onelarge crimp into Bohemia, even if she could not be justly called anintellectual giantess.
And Vernabelle knew who to blame, too, when the little group quit cominground to get away from it all. She knew it was Dulcie. She said thatDulcie seemed to be a pampered society butterfly that devoted all herthoughts to dress. This was repeated to Dulcie by an ex-Bohemian, but shefound no poison in it. She said of course she devoted all her thoughts todress; that a young girl with her figure had to if she ever expected toget anywhere in the world.
Even ex-comrade Lon Price would now shut his office at four o'clock everyday and go up on the hill and outdoor a bit, instead of getting away fromit all in a smoky Bohemian way. Besides he'd had a difference of opinionwith Vernabelle about the poster she was doing for him, the same beingmore like an advertisement for some good bath soap, he said, than forchoice villa sites.
"I don't know anything about art," says Lon, "but I know what my wifelikes." Which left Vernabelle with another design on her hands andbrought Comrade Price out of Bohemia.
Even if Dulcie's winter sports hadn't done the trick I guess it would ofbeen done easy by her report that Bohemians was no longer thought to besmart in New York, Red Gap being keenly sensitive in such matters. MettaBigler's mother firmly turned out the half-lights in Bohemia when sheheard of this talk of Dulcie's. I don't blame her. She didn't one bitrelish having her neat home referred to as a slum, say nothing of havingher only child using a lip stick and acting like an abandoned woman withcigarettes and the wine cup.
She said just that to me, Metta's mother did. She said she had heard thatNew York was all broken up into social sets, the same way Red Gap is, andif Bohemians wasn't being took up by the better element in New York, thenthey shouldn't be took up by the better element of Red Gap--at least notin any home of which the deed was still in her name. She said of courseshe couldn't keep Metta's guest from being a Bohemian, but she would haveto be it alone. She wasn't going to have a whole mob coming round everyday and being Bohemians all over the place, it being not only messy butrepugnant alike to sound morality and Christian enlightenment. And thatsettled it. Our town was safe for one more winter. Of course God onlyknows what someone may start next winter. We are far off from things,but by no means safe.
Cousin Egbert was kind of sorry for Vernabelle. He said if she'd juststuck to plain glass blowing she might of got by with it. He's a wonder,that man--as teachable as a granite bowlder.
My Godfrey! Ten-thirty, and me having to start the spring sport of ditchcleaning to-morrow morning at seven! Won't I ever learn!