IX
KNEE-DEEP IN KNICKERS
When the column of figures under the heading known as "Profits," andthe column of figures under the heading known as "Loss" are so unevenlybalanced that the wrong side of the ledger sags, then to the listeningstockholders there comes the painful thought that at the next regularmeeting it is perilously possible that the reading may come under theheads of Assets and Liabilities.
There had been a meeting in the offices of the T. A. Buck FeatherloomPetticoat Company, New York. The quarterly report had had a startlinglylop-sided sound. After it was over Mrs. Emma McChesney, secretary ofthe company, followed T. A. Buck, its president, into the big, brightshow-room. T. A. Buck's hands were thrust deep into his pockets. Histeeth worried a cigar, savagely. Care, that clawing, mouthing hag,perched on his brow, tore at his heart.
He turned to face Emma McChesney.
"Well," he said, bitterly, "it hasn't taken us long, has it? Father'sbeen dead a little over a year. In that time we've just about run thisgreat concern, the pride of his life, into the ground."
Mrs. Emma McChesney, calm, cool, unruffled, scrutinized the harassed manbefore her for a long minute.
"What rotten football material you would have made, wouldn't you?" sheobserved.
"Oh, I don't know," answered T. A. Buck, through his teeth. "I can standas stiff a scrimmage as the next one. But this isn't a game. You takethings too lightly. You're a woman. I don't think you know what thismeans."
Emma McChesney's lips opened as do those of one whose tongue's end holdsa quick and stinging retort. Then they closed again. She walked over tothe big window that faced the street. When she had stood there a moment,silent, she swung around and came back to where T. A. Buck stood, stillwrapped in gloom.
"Maybe I don't take myself seriously. I'd have been dead ten yearsago if I had. But I do take my job seriously. Don't forget that for aminute. You talk the way a man always talks when his pride is hurt."
"Pride! It isn't that."
"Oh, yes, it is. I didn't sell T. A. Buck's Featherloom Petticoats onthe road for almost ten years without learning a little something aboutmen and business. When your father died, and I learned that he had shownhis appreciation of my work and loyalty by making me secretary ofthis great company, I didn't think of it as a legacy--a stroke of goodfortune."
"No?"
"No. To me it was a sacred trust--something to be guarded, nursed,cherished. And now you say we've run this concern into the ground. Doyou honestly think that?"
T. A. shrugged impotent shoulders. "Figures don't lie." He plunged intoanother fathom of gloom. "Another year like this and we're done for."
Emma McChesney came over and put one firm hand on T. A. Buck's droopingshoulder. It was a strange little act for a woman--the sort of thing aman does when he would hearten another man.
"Wake up!" she said, lightly. "Wake up, and listen to the birdies sing.There isn't going to be another year like this. Not if the planning,and scheming, and brain-racking that I've been doing for the last two orthree months mean anything."
T. A. Buck seated himself as one who is weary, body and mind.
"Got another new one?"
Emma McChesney regarded him a moment thoughtfully. Then she stepped tothe tall show-case, pushed back the sliding glass door, and pointed tothe rows of brilliant-hued petticoats that hung close-packed within.
"Look at 'em!" she commanded, disgust in her voice. "Look at 'em!"
T. A. Buck raised heavy, lack-luster eyes and looked. What he saw didnot seem to interest him. Emma McChesney drew from the rack a skirt ofking's blue satin messaline and held it at arm's length.
"And they call that thing a petticoat! Why, fifteen years ago thematerial in this skirt wouldn't have made even a fair-sized sleeve."
T. A. Buck regarded the petticoat moodily. "I don't see how they getaround in the darned things. I honestly don't see how they wear 'em."
"That's just it. They don't wear 'em. There you have the root of thewhole trouble."
"Oh, nonsense!" disputed T. A. "They certainly wear something--some sortof an--"
"I tell you they don't. Here. Listen. Three years ago our taffeta skirtsran from thirty-six to thirty-eight yards to the dozen. We paidfrom ninety cents to one dollar five a yard. Now our skirts run fromtwenty-five to twenty-eight yards to the dozen. The silk costs usfrom fifty to sixty cents a yard. Silk skirts used to be a luxury. Nowthey're not even a necessity."
"Well, what's the answer? I've been pondering some petticoat problemsmyself. I know we've got to sell three skirts to-day to make the profitthat we used to make on one three years ago."
Emma McChesney had the brave-heartedness to laugh. "This skirt businessreminds me of a game we used to play when I was a kid. We called itGoing to Jerusalem, I think. Anyway, I know each child sat in a chairexcept the one who was It. At a signal everybody had to get up andchange chairs. There was a wild scramble, in which the one who wasIt took part. When the burly-burly was over some child was alwayschairless, of course. He had to be It. That's the skirt business to-day.There aren't enough chairs to go round, and in the scramble somebody'sgot to be left out. And let me tell you, here and now, that the firm ofT. A. Buck, Featherloom Petticoats, is not going to be It."
T. A. rose as wearily as he had sat down. Even the most optimistic ofwatchers could have discerned no gleam of enthusiasm on his face.
"I thought," he said listlessly, "that you and I had tried everypossible scheme to stimulate the skirt trade."
"Every possible one, yes," agreed Mrs. McChesney, sweetly. "And now it'stime to try the impossible. The possibilities haven't worked. My land!I could write a book on the Decline and Fall of the Petticoat, beginningwith the billowy white muslin variety, and working up to the presentslinky messaline affair. When I think of those dear dead days of theglorious--er--past, when the hired girl used to complain and threatento leave because every woman in the family had at least three ruffled,embroidery-flounced white muslin petticoats on the line on Mondays--"
The lines about T. A. Buck's mouth relaxed into a grim smile.
"Remember that feature you got them to run in the _Sunday Sphere?_ Theone headed 'Are Skirts Growing Fuller, and Where?'"
"Do I remember it!" wailed Emma McChesney. "And can I ever forget themoney we put into that fringed model we called the Carmencita! We madeit up so it could retail for a dollar ninety-five, and I could havesworn that the women would maim each other to get to it. But it didn'tgo. They won't even wear fringe around their ankles."
T. A.'s grim smile stretched into a reminiscent grin. "But nothing inour whole hopeless campaign could touch your Municipal Purity Leagueagitation for the abolition of the form-hugging skirt. You talked publicmorals until you had A. Comstock and Lucy Page Gaston looking likeParisian Apaches."
A little laugh rippled up to Emma McChesney's lips, only to die away toa sigh. She shook her head in sorrowful remembrance.
"Yes. But what good did it do? The newspapers and magazines did takeit up, but what happened? The dressmakers and tailors, who are chargingmore than ever for their work, and putting in half as much material,got together and knocked my plans into a cocked hat. In answer to thosesnap-shots showing what took place every time a woman climbed a carstep, they came back with pictures of the styles of '61, proving thatthe street-car effect is nothing to what happened to a belle of '61 ifshe chanced to sit down or get up too suddenly in the hoop-skirt days."
They were both laughing now, like a couple of children. "And, oh, say!"gasped Emma, "remember Moe Selig, of the Fine-Form Skirt Company,trying to get the doctors to state that hobble skirts were making womenknock-kneed! Oh, mercy!"
But their laugh ended in a little rueful silence. It was no laughingmatter, this situation. T. A. Buck shrugged his shoulders, and began arestless pacing up and down. "Yep. There you are. Meanwhile--"
"Meanwhile, women are still wearing 'em tight, and going petticoatless."
Suddenly T. A. stopped short in his pacing and fast
ened his surprisedand interested gaze on the skirt of the trim and correct little businessfrock that sat so well upon Emma McChesney's pretty figure.
"Why, look at that!" he exclaimed, and pointed with one eager finger.
"Mercy!" screamed Emma McChesney. "What is it? Quick! A mouse?"
T. A. Buck shook his head, impatiently. "Mouse! Lord, no! Plaits!"
"Plaits!"
She looked down, bewildered.
"Yes. In your skirt. Three plaits at the front-left, and three in theback. That's new, isn't it? If outer skirts are being made fuller, thenit follows--"
"It ought to follow," interrupted Emma McChesney, "but it doesn't.It lags way behind. These plaits are stitched down. See? That's thefiendishness of it. And the petticoat underneath--if there is one--mustbe just as smooth, and unwrinkled, and scant as ever. Don't let 'em foolyou."
Buck spread his palms with a little gesture of utter futility.
"I'm through. Out with your scheme. We're ready for it. It's our lastcard, whatever it is."
There was visible on Emma McChesney's face that little tightening ofthe muscles, that narrowing of the eyelids which betokens intenseearnestness; the gathering of all the forces before taking a momentousstep. Then, as quickly, her face cleared. She shook her head with alittle air of sudden decision.
"Not now. Just because it's our last card I want to be sure that I'mplaying it well. I'll be ready for you to-morrow morning in my office.Come prepared for the jolt of your young life."
For the first time since the beginning of the conversation a glow of newcourage and hope lighted up T. A. Buck's good-looking features. His fineeyes rested admiringly upon Emma McChesney standing there by the greatshow-case. She seemed to radiate energy, alertness, confidence.
"When you begin to talk like that," he said, "I always feel as though Icould take hold in a way to make those famous jobs that Hercules tackledlook like little Willie's chores after school."
"Fine!" beamed Emma McChesney. "Just store that up, will you? And don'tlet it filter out at your finger-tips when I begin to talk to-morrow."
"We'll have lunch together, eh? And talk it over then sociably."
Mrs. McChesney closed the glass door of the case with a bang.
"No, thanks. My office at 9:30."
T. A. Buck followed her to the door. "But why not lunch? You never willtake lunch with me. Ever so much more comfortable to talk things overthat way--"
"When I talk business," said Emma McChesney, pausing at the threshold,"I want to be surrounded by a business atmosphere. I want the sceneall set--one practical desk, two practical chairs, one telephone, oneletter-basket, one self-filling fountain-pen, et cetera. And whenI lunch I want to lunch, with nothing weightier on my mind than thequestion as to whether I'll have chicken livers saute or creamedsweetbreads with mushrooms."
"That's no reason," grumbled T. A. "That's an excuse."
"It will have to do, though," replied Mrs. McChesney abruptly, andpassed out as he held the door open for her. He was still standing inthe doorway after her trim, erect figure had disappeared into the littleoffice across the hail.
The little scarlet leather clock on Emma McChesney's desk pointedto 9:29 A.M. when there entered her office an immaculately garbed,miraculously shaven, healthily rosy youngish-middle-aged man who lookedten years younger than the harassed, frowning T. A. Buck with whomshe had almost quarreled the evening before. Mrs. McChesney was busilydictating to a sleek little stenographer. The sleek little stenographerglanced up at T. A. Buck's entrance. The glance, being a feminine one,embraced all of T. A.'s good points and approved them from the tips ofhis modish boots to the crown of his slightly bald head, and includingthe creamy-white flower that reposed in his buttonhole.
"'Morning!" said Emma McChesney, looking up briefly. "Be with you in aminute.... and in reply would say we regret that you have had troublewith No. 339. It is impossible to avoid pulling at the seams in thelower-grade silk skirts when they are made up in the present scantstyle. Our Mr. Spalding warned you of this at the time of your purchase.We will not under any circumstances consent to receive the goods ifthey are sent back on our hands. Yours sincerely. That'll be all, MissCasey."
She swung around to face her visitor as the door closed. If T. A.Buck looked ten years younger than he had the afternoon before, EmmaMcChesney undoubtedly looked five years older. There were little,worried, sagging lines about her eyes and mouth.
T. A. Buck's eyes had followed the sheaf of signed correspondence, andthe well-filled pad of more recent dictation which the sleek littlestenographer had carried away with her.
"Good Lord! It looks as though you had stayed down here all night."
Emma McChesney smiled a little wearily. "Not quite that. But I was herethis morning in time to greet the night watchman. Wanted to get my mailout of the way." Her eyes searched T. A. Buck's serene face. Then sheleaned forward, earnestly.
"Haven't you seen the morning paper?"
"Just a mere glance at 'em. Picked up Burrows on the way down, and wegot to talking. Why?"
"The Rasmussen-Welsh Skirt Company has failed. Liabilities three hundredthousand. Assets one hundred thousand."
"Failed! Good God!" All the rosy color, all the brisk morning freshnesshad vanished from his face. "Failed! Why, girl, I thought that concernwas as solid as Gibraltar." He passed a worried hand over his head."That knocks the wind out of my sails."
"Don't let it. Just say that it fills them with a new breeze. I'm allthe more sure that the time is ripe for my plan."
T. A. Buck took from a vest pocket a scrap of paper and a fountainpen, slid down in his chair, crossed his legs, and began to scrawlmeaningless twists and curlycues, as was his wont when worried or deeplyinterested.
"Are you as sure of this scheme of yours as you were yesterday?"
"Sure," replied Emma McChesney, briskly. "Sartin-sure."
"Then fire away."
Mrs. McChesney leaned forward, breathing a trifle fast. Her eyes werefastened on her listener.
"Here's the plan. We'll make Featherloom Petticoats because there stillare some women who have kept their senses. But we'll make them as a sideline. The thing that has got to keep us afloat until full skirts comein again will be a full and complete line of women's satin messalineknickerbockers made up to match any suit or gown, and a full line ofpajamas for women and girls. Get the idea? Scant, smart, trim littletaupe-gray messaline knickers for a taupe gray suit, blue messaline forblue suits, brown messaline for brown--"
T. A. Buck stared, open-mouthed, the paper on which he had beenscrawling fluttering unnoticed to the floor.
"Look here!" he interrupted. "Is this supposed to be humorous?"
"And," went on Emma McChesney, calmly, "in our full and complete, notto say nifty line of women's pajamas--pink pajamas, blue pajamas, violetpajamas, yellow pajamas, white silk--"
T. A. Buck stood up. "I want to say," he began, "that if you arejesting, I think this is a mighty poor time to joke. And if you areserious I can only deduce from it that this year of business worry andresponsibility has been too much for you. I'm sure that if you were--"
"That's all right," interrupted Emma McChesney. "Don't apologize. Ipurposely broke it to you this way, when I might have approached itgently. You've done just what I knew you'd do, so it's all right. Afteryou've thought it over, and sort of got chummy with the idea, you'll bejust as keen on it as I am."
"Never!"
"Oh, yes, you will. It's the knickerbocker end of it that scares you.Nothing new or startling about pajamas, except that more and more womenare wearing 'em, and that no girl would dream of going away to schoolwithout her six sets of pajamas. Why, a girl in a regulation nightieat one of their midnight spreads would be ostracized. Of course I'vethought up a couple of new kinks in 'em--new ways of cutting and allthat, and there's one model--a washable crepe, for traveling, thatdoesn't need to be pressed--but I'll talk about that later."
T. A. Buck was trying to put in a word of objection, but she
would havenone of it. But at Emma McChesney's next words his indignation wouldbrook no barriers.
"Now," she went on, "the feature of the knickerbockers will be this:They've got to be ready for the boys' spring trip, and in all the largercities, especially in the hustling Middle-Western towns, and alongthe coast, too, I'm planning to have the knickerbockers introduced atprivate and exclusive exhibitions, and worn by--get this, please--wornby living models. One big store in each town, see? Half a dozengood-looking girls--"
"Never!" shouted T. A. Buck, white and shaking. "Never! This firm hasalways had a name for dignity, solidness, conservatism--"
"Then it's just about time it lost that reputation. It's all very wellto hang on to your dignity when you're on solid ground, but when youfeel things slipping from under you the thing to do is to grab on toanything that'll keep you on your feet for a while at least. I tellyou the women will go wild over this knickerbocker idea. They've beenwaiting for it."
"It's a wild-cat scheme," disputed Buck hotly. "It's a drowning man'sstraw, and just about as helpful. I'm a reasonable man--"
"All unreasonable men say that," smiled Emma McChesney.
"--I'm a reasonable man, I say. And heaven knows I have the interest ofthis firm at heart. But this is going too far. If we're going to smashwe'll go decently, and with our name untarnished. Pajamas are badenough. But when it comes to the firm of T. A. Buck being representedby--by--living model hussies stalking about in satin tights like chorusgirls, why--"
In Emma McChesney's alert, electric mind there leapt about a dozen plansfor winning this man over. For win him she would, in the end. It wasmerely a question of method. She chose the simplest. There was a setlook about her jaw. Her eyes flashed. Two spots of carmine glowed in hercheeks.
"I expected just this," she said. "And I prepared for it." She crossedswiftly to her desk, opened a drawer, and took out a flat package. "Iexpected opposition. That's why I had these samples made up to show you.I designed them myself, and tore up fifty patterns before I struck onethat suited me. Here are the pajamas."
She lifted out a dainty, shell-pink garment, and shook it out before thehalf-interested, half-unwilling eyes of T. A. Buck.
"This is the jacket. Buttons on the left; see? Instead of the right, asit would in a man's garment. Semi-sailor collar, with knotted softsilk scarf. Oh, it's just a little kink, but they'll love it. They'reactually becoming. I've tried 'em. Notice the frogs and cord. Prettyneat, yes? Slight flare at the hips. Makes 'em set and hang right.Perfectly straight, like a man's coat."
T. A. Buck eyed the garments with a grudging admiration.
"Oh, that part of it don't sound so unreasonable, although I don'tbelieve there is much of a demand for that kind of thing. But theother---the--the knickerbocker things--that's not even practical. Itwill make an ugly garment, and the women who would fall for a fad likethat wouldn't be of the sort to wear an ugly piece of lingerie. It isn'tto be thought of seriously--"
Emma McChesney stepped to the door of the tiny wash-room off her officeand threw it open.
"Miss La Noyes! We're ready for you."
And there emerged from the inner room a trim, lithe, almost boyishlyslim figure attired in a bewitchingly skittish-looking garmentconsisting of knickerbockers and snug brassiere of king's blue satinmessaline. Dainty black silk stockings and tiny buckled slippers set offthe whole effect.
"Miss La Noyes," said Emma McChesney, almost solemnly, "this is Mr. T.A. Buck, president of the firm. Miss La Noyes, of the 'Gay Social Whirl'company."
Miss La Noyes bowed slightly and rested one white hand at her side in anattitude of nonchalant ease.
"Pleased, I'm shaw!" she said, in a clear, high voice.
And, "Charmed," replied T. A. Buck, his years and breeding standing himin good stead now.
Emma McChesney laid a kindly hand on the girl's shoulder. "Turn slowly,please. Observe the absence of unnecessary fulness about the hips, orat the knees. No wrinkles to show there. No man will ever appreciate thefine points of this little garment, but the women!--To the left, Miss LaNoyes. You'll see it fastens snug and trim with a tiny clasp just belowthe knees. This garment has the added attraction of being fastenedto the upper garment, a tight satin brassiere. The single, unattachedgarment is just as satisfactory, however. Women are wearing plush thisyear. Not only for the street, but for evening dresses. I rather thinkthey'll fancy a snappy little pair of yellow satin knickers under a gownof the new orange plush. Or a taupe pair, under a gray street suit. Or anatty little pair of black satin, finished and piped in white satin, tobe worn with a black and white shopping costume. Why, I haven't worn apetticoat since I--"
"Do you mean to tell me," burst from the long-pent T. A. Buck, "that youwear 'em too?"
"Crazy about 'em. Miss La Noyes, will you just slip on your streetskirt, please?"
She waited in silence until the demure Miss La Noyes reappeared. Anarrow, straight-hanging, wrinkleless cloth skirt covered the muchdiscussed under-garment. "Turn slowly, please. Thanks. You see, Mr.Buck? Not a wrinkle. No bunchiness. No lumps. No crawling up about theknees. Nothing but ease, and comfort, and trim good looks."
T. A. Buck passed his hand over his head in a dazed, helpless gesture.There was something pathetic in his utter bewilderment and helplessnessin contrast with Emma McChesney's breezy self-confidence, and theshow-girl's cool poise and unconcern.
"Wait a minute," he murmured, almost pleadingly. "Let me ask a couple ofquestions, will you?"
"Questions? A hundred. That proves you're interested."
"Well, then, let me ask this young lady the first one. Miss--er--LaNoyes, do you honestly and truly like this garment? Would you buy one ifyou saw it in a shop window?"
Miss La Noyes' answer came trippingly and without hesitation. She didnot even have to feel of her back hair first.
"Say, I'd go without my lunch for a week to get it. Mrs. McChesney saysI can have this pair. I can't wait till our prima donna sees 'em. She'llhate me till she's got a dozen like 'em."
"Next!" urged Mrs. McChesney, pleasantly.
But T. A. Buck shook his head. "That's all. Only--"
Emma McChesney patted Miss La Noyes lightly on the shoulder, and smileddazzlingly upon her. "Run along, little girl. You've done beautifully.And many thanks."
Miss La Noyes, appearing in another moment dressed for the street,stopped at the door to bestow a frankly admiring smile upon theabstracted president of the company, and a grateful one upon itspink-cheeked secretary.
"Hope you'll come and see our show some evening. You won't know me atfirst, because I wear a blond wig in the first scene. Third from theleft, front row." And to Mrs. McChesney: "I cer'nly did hate to get upso early this morning, but after you're up it ain't so fierce. And itcer'nly was easy money. Thanks."
"'No man will ever appreciate the fine points of thislittle garment, but the women--!'"]
Emma McChesney glanced quickly at T. A., saw that he was pliant enoughfor the molding process, and deftly began to shape, and bend, and smoothand pat.
"Let's sit down, and unravel the kinks in our nerves. Now, if you dofavor this new plan--oh, I mean after you've given it consideration, andall that! Yes, indeed. But if you do, I think it would be good policyto start the game in--say--Cleveland. The Kaufman-Oster Company ofCleveland have a big, snappy, up-to-the-minute store. We'll get them tosend out announcement cards. Something neat and flattering-looking.See? Little stage all framed up. Scene set to show a bedroom or boudoir.Then, thin girls, plump girls, short girls, high girls. They'll gothrough all the paces. We won't only show the knickerbockers: wedemonstrate how the ordinary petticoat bunches and crawls up under theheavy plush and velvet top skirt. We'll show 'em in street clothes,evening clothes, afternoon frocks. Each one in a different shade ofsatin knicker. And silk stockings and cunning little slippers to match.The store will stand for that. It's a big ad for them, too."
Emma McChesney's hair was slightly tousled. Her cheeks were carmine. Hereyes glowed.
&nb
sp; "Don't you see! Don't you get it! Can't you feel how the thing's goingto take hold?"
"By Gad!" burst from T. A. Buck, "I'm darned if I don't believe you'reright--almost--But are you sure that you believe--"
Emma McChesney brought one little white fist down into the palm of theother hand. "Sure? Why, I'm so sure that when I shut my eyes I can seeT. A. Senior sitting over there in that chair, tapping the side of hisnose with the edge of his tortoise-shell-rimmed glasses, and nodding hishead, with his features all screwed up like a blessed old gargoyle, theway he always did when something tickled him. That's how sure I am."
T. A. Buck stood up abruptly. He shrugged his shoulders. His face lookedstrangely white and drawn. "I'll leave it to you. I'll do my share ofthe work. But I'm not more than half convinced, remember."
"That's enough for the present," answered Emma McChesney, briskly."Well, now, suppose we talk machinery and girls, and cutters for awhile."
Two months later found T. A. Buck and his sales-manager, bothshirt-sleeved, both smoking nervously, as they marked, ticketed, folded,arranged. They were getting out the travelers' spring lines. EnteredMrs. McChesney, and stood eying them, worriedly. It was her dozenthvisit to the stock-room that morning. A strange restlessness seemed totrouble her. She wandered from office to show-room, from show-room tofactory.
"What's the trouble?" inquired T. A. Buck, squinting up at her through acloud of cigar smoke.
"Oh, nothing," answered Mrs. McChesney, and stood fingering the piles ofglistening satin garments, a queer, faraway look in her eyes. Then sheturned and walked listlessly toward the door. There she encounteredSpalding--Billy Spalding, of the coveted Middle-Western territory, BillySpalding, the long-headed, quick-thinking; Spalding, the persuasive,Spalding the mixer, Spalding on whom depended the fate of the T. A. BuckFeatherloom Knickerbocker and Pajama.
"'Morning! When do you start out?" she asked him.
"In the morning. Gad, that's some line, what? I'm itching to spread it.You're certainly a wonder-child, Mrs. McChesney. Why, the boys--"
Emma McChesney sighed, somberly. "That line does sort of--well, tug atyour heart-strings, doesn't it?" She smiled, almost wistfully. "Say,Billy, when you reach the Eagle House at Waterloo, tell Annie, thehead-waitress to rustle you a couple of Mrs. Traudt's dill pickles. Tellher Mrs. McChesney asked you to. Mrs. Traudt, the proprietor's wife,doles 'em out to her favorites. They're crisp, you know, and firm, andjuicy, and cold, and briny."
Spalding drew a sibilant breath. "I'll be there!" he grinned. "I'll bethere!"
But he wasn't. At eight the next morning there burst upon Mrs. McChesneya distraught T. A. Buck.
"Hear about Spalding?" he demanded.
"Spalding? No."
"His wife 'phoned from St. Luke's. Taken with an appendicitis attackat midnight. They operated at five this morning. One of thosehad-it-been-twenty-four-hours-later-etc. operations. That settles us."
"Poor kid," replied Emma McChesney. "Rough on him and his brand-newwife."
"Poor kid! Yes. But how about his territory? How about our new line? Howabout--"
"Oh, that's all right," said Emma McChesney, cheerfully.
"I'd like to know how! We haven't a man equal to the territory. He's ourone best bet."
"Oh, that's all right," said Mrs. McChesney again, smoothly.
A little impatient exclamation broke from T. A. Buck. At that EmmaMcChesney smiled. Her new listlessness and abstraction seemed to dropfrom her. She braced her shoulders, and smiled her old sunny, hearteningsmile.
"I'm going out with that line. I'm going to leave a trail of pajamas andknickerbockers from Duluth to Canton."
"You! No, you won't!" A dull, painful red had swept into T. A. Buck'sface. It was answered by a flood of scarlet in Mrs. McChesney'scountenance.
"I don't get you," she said. "I'm afraid you don't realize what thistrip means. It's going to be a fight. They'll have to be coaxed andbullied and cajoled, and reasoned with. It's going to be a 'show-me'trip."
T. A. Buck took a quick step forward. "That's just why. I won't have youfighting with buyers, taking their insults, kowtowing to them, salvingthem. It--it isn't woman's work."
Emma McChesney was sorting the contents of her desk with quick, nervousfingers. "I'll get the Twentieth Century," she said, over her shoulder."Don't argue, please. If it's no work for a woman then I suppose itfollows that I'm unwomanly. For ten years I traveled this countryselling T. A. Buck's Featherloom Petticoats. My first trip on the roadI was in the twenties--and pretty, too. I'm a woman of thirty-sevennow. I'll never forget that first trip--the heartbreaks, the insultsI endured, the disappointments, the humiliation, until they understoodthat I meant business--strictly business. I'm tired of hearing you mensay that this and that and the other isn't woman's work. Any work iswoman's work that a woman can do well. I've given the ten best years ofmy life to this firm. Next to my boy at school it's the biggest thing inmy life. Sometimes it swamps even him. Don't come to me with that sortof talk." She was locking drawers, searching pigeon-holes, skimmingfiles. "This is my busy day." She arose, and shut her desk with a bang,locked it, and turned a flushed and beaming face toward T. A. Buck, ashe stood frowning before her.
"Emma McChesney... I believe in you now! Dad and I bothbelieve in you'"]
"Your father believed in me--from the ground up. We understood eachother, he and I. You've learned a lot in the last year and a half, T. A.Junior-that-was, but there's one thing you haven't mastered. When willyou learn to believe in Emma McChesney?"
She was out of the office before he had time to answer, leaving himstanding there.
In the dusk of a late winter evening just three weeks later, a manpaused at the door of the unlighted office marked "Mrs. McChesney." Helooked about a moment, as though dreading detection. Then he opened thedoor, stepped into the dim quiet of the little room, and closed the doorgently after him. Everything in the tiny room was quiet, neat, orderly.It seemed to possess something of the character of its absent owner. Theintruder stood there a moment, uncertainly, looking about him.
Then he took a step forward and laid one hand on the back of the emptychair before the closed desk. He shut his eyes and it seemed that hefelt her firm, cool, reassuring grip on his fingers as they clutched thewooden chair. The impression was so strong that he kept his eyes shut,and they were still closed when his voice broke the silence of the dim,quiet little room.
"Emma McChesney," he was saying aloud, "Emma McChesney, you great big,fine, brave, wonderful woman, you! I believe in you now! Dad and I bothbelieve in you."