Part 10

You see it come over me all of a sudden that we ladies have now a vote and so forth, which unquestionably makes us more or less citizens the same as the men, and if the country went bluey, why wouldn't it be our fault as well? And I come to this partially through the sense of unrest and having eat something that didn't settle good and Ma's behavior. All coming at once they kind of got together and exploded into my idea.

Well anyways, I had just come to a place in my personal life where I seen a little peace and quiet ahead and nothing to do but go up in an aeroplane for the second reel of "The Dove." The war was over without Jim being killed in it and a new chance offered by a big picture contract the minute his uniform should be off him; I was going strong with nothing but Broadway releases and a salary which made Morgan jealous; my spring clothes hadn't a failure among them and only one of my hats was too tight in the head. The fool dogs was both healthy, the cook had stayed a month; the car had been in order for over three weeks, and I had successfully nursed Ma through the flu. And I thought fat could not harm me, as the poet says, for I had dieted to-day. When all of a sudden Ma, who had hardly got over the Influenza, come down with Bolshevism.

Now the trouble with these new diseases is that the doctors don't seem to know anything about them nor what makes them catching. At least that is the line of talk they pull, but I got a hunch myself, that if the flu had been quarantined right in the first place it could of been stopped. Do you get me? You do! And I will say one more word in favor of Influenza. You was obliged to report it, if only to the Board of Health. But Bolshevism seems to be like a cold in the head. If you catch it, that evidently is nobody's business but your own; if you spread it--the same. Then again folks are kind of proud of having had the flu. It makes conversation and everything, and one which has escaped feels a little mortified like admitting they had never seen Charlie Chaplin. Indeed, people certainly do get a lot of pleasure out of illness and etc. And so long as it is under control, all right, leave them enjoy theirselves. They had to suffer first and mabe a little talk is coming to them.

But with this Bolshevism it's the other way around. The talk comes first, but believe you me, the suffering will come afterwards. And if they could only be made to realise this ere too late, a whole lot of patients would be cured before they got it. A ounce of Americanism is worth a pound of red propaganda, as the poet says, or would of had he written to-day.

Things started with Ma as per usual upsetting the cook which has come to be a habit with her, for cooking is to Ma what his art is to Caruso--naught but death could tear her from it permanent. And while I give her credit for trying in every way to be an idle rich, the kitchen might as well be furnished with magnets and she a nail for all she can keep out of it with the natural result that keeping out of it is the best thing the cooks we hire do. And I can't say with any truth that I have made as much effort to break her of that as of some other lack of refinements, such as remembering that toothpicks ain't a public utility and never to say "excuse my back," or keep her knife and fork for the next course at the Ritz. Because believe you me, Ma is some cook and a real authograph dinner by her is something to bring tears of sweet memory to the eyes of the older generation and leave us young things in sympathetic wonder about them dear dead days when first class home-cooking was a custom, not a curiosity. And so while the material side of life don't interest me much, what with my work and etc. to take my mind off it, still even a artist must eat or Gawd knows where the strength to act in the "Dove of Peace" or any other six-reeler would come from if I didn't, and Ma's is that simple nourishing kind, but with quality, the same as the sort of dresses I wear--made out of two dollars worth of material and a thousand dollar idea.

Well anyways, our latest cook which had a husband in the service and had took up her work again so's to release him for the front at Camp Mills, for he got no further, heard he was coming back home, having got his discharge and it upset her so but whether from joy or rage, I don't know which, that there was nothing to eat in the kitchen but a little liquor she had left at seven-thirty, when we went in to see what was the cause of delay, and me with Maison Rosabelle and a friend to dinner. So Ma woke her up out of her emotions which she claimed had overcome her, and give her a honorable discharge of her own and then turned up the ends of her sleeves, and only a little hampered by the narrow skirt to the green satin evening gown she had on her, give us a meal as per above described. And no one would of cared how long it was before the intelligence office--I mean domestic, not U.S. Army--sent us a cook but that in trying to save her dress Ma got hot grease on her right hand and that changed the situation because we had to call up next day and take anything they had--and they sent us up a German woman.

Well, believe you me, that was a shock because I had an idea that all the Germans in the country was either interned or incognito, but this one wasn't even disguised, which isn't so remarkable on account of her being pretty near as big as Ma and a voice on her like a fog-horn with a strong accent on the fog. I never in my life see so many bags and bundles and ecteras as that female had with her, for she was undoubtedly one, although she had a sort of moustache beside the voice. But what she had in voice she certainly lacked in words. When Ma set out to ask her the usual questions which everybody does, although their heart is trembling with fear, she won't take the job, this lady Hun didn't divulge no more information about herself than we asked. She was as stingy with her language as if it had been hard liquor. Ma asked her to come in, and she did, and sat without being asked upon one of the gold chairs in the parlor which I certainly never expected it would survive the test, they being made for parlor rather than sitting room.

Well anyways, it's a fact she certainly was a mountain and if she were a fair specimen, all this about the Germans starving to death is the bunk. Only her being over here may of made a difference. Well, after she had set down a bundle done up in black oil-cloth, a cute little hand-bag about a yard long made out of somebody's old stair-carpet, a shoe-box with a heel of bread sticking out at one end, an umbrella which looked like a sea-side one, a pot of white hyacinths in full bloom and a net-bag full of little odds and ends, she still had an old black pocket-book and a big bulky bundle done up in a shawl lying idly in her lap. After I had taken all this in, I gave her personally the once-over and was surprised to see she wasn't so old as her figure, or anything like it. For by the size of her she might of been the Pyramids, but her face was quite young and if she had been a boy I would of said the moustache was the first cherished down.

"What's your name, dearie?" says Ma, which I simply can't learn her not to be familiar with servants.

"Anna," says the lump.

"And where do you come from?" says Ma, giving a poor imitation of a detective.

"Old Country," says Anna. Well, Ma and me at once exchanged glances, putting name and place together.

"German?" says Ma. "Of course!"

"Swedish," says Anna, more lumpishly than ever.

And just at that moment the air was filled with a big laugh that none of us there had give voice to. It was _some_ shock, that laugh, and Ma and me looked around expecting to see who had come into the room, but it was nobody. Anna was the only one who didn't seem disturbed. She just went on sitting.

"Who was that?" says Ma.

"It must of been outside," I says, for it was warm and we had the windows open so's to let in the gasoline and railroad smoke and a little fresh air.

"I guess so," says Ma. Then she went back to her third-degree.

"So you're Swedish!" says Ma. "Can you cook?"

"Good!" says Anna. "Svell cook!"

"Well, dearie!" says Ma, "why was it you left your last place?"

"Too hot!" says Anna. And again me and Ma exchanged glances.

"Are you a good American?" says Ma.

"Good American-Swedish," says Anna. And immediately that awful laugh was repeated. This time it was in the room, no doubt about it. And yet no one was there outside ourselfs.

"My Gawd!" says Ma. "What was it?"

"Somebody is hid some place!" I says. "And I'd like to know who is it with the cheap sense of humor?"

"It bane Frits," says Anna. "Na, na, Frits!"

"But where on earth . . ." I was commencing, when I noticed Anna was unwinding the shawl off the package in her lap. And then in another moment we seen Frits for our own selves, for there he was, a big moth-eaten parrot, interned in a cage, making wicked eyes at us and giving us the ha-ha like the true Hun he was!

"Frits and me, we stay!" announced Anna comfortably. "We stay!"

"But look here," says I, "we didn't start out to hire any parrots."

"Why Mary Gilligan!" says Ma, and I could see she was scared that if Frits went Anna would certainly go, too. "Why Mary Gilligan, I thought you was fond of dumb animals!" she says.

"And so I am," I says. "The dumber the better. But this one is evidently far from it! How am I going to figure out my income tax with this bird hanging around?"

"Hang in den Kitchen!" says Anna firmly, and at that we gave in, because cooks is cooks, and what's a bird more or less after all? Still I didn't like him on account of suspecting he wasn't a neutral any more than Anna was for all she claimed to be a Swede. I had read a piece in the paper about where the Germans was pretending to be Swede or Spanish or anything they could get away with so's to remain free to spread Bolshevism and influenza and bombs and send up the price of dry and fancy goods and put through the Prohibition amendment and all them other gentle little activities for which they are so well and justly known.

But I thought knowledge is power as the guy which wrote the copy-book says, and I had the drop on Anna through being on to her disguise and beside which I could see Ma was going to be miserable if she had to eat out while her hand was in the sling, and so we took the viper to our bosom, or in other words, we hired her, and anyways, she had already accepted the job and it would of been a lot of trouble to get her out by force. Which, believe you me, a person seldom has to do with servants now-a-days, and confirmed me about her being German because naturally people don't hire them, if acknowledging to themselves that they _are_ Germans any more than they would now deliberately import sauerkraut or any other German industry. Do you get me? You'd better!

But in this case there was a reasonable doubt together with a real necessity, although from what come of it, I feel, looking backwards, it would of been better to eat out and suffer than to of compromised with our patriotic consciences like we done at that time. Because there is _no_ reasonable doubt but that Anna's coming into the house was greatly responsible for Ma's catching Bolshevism.

II

NOT that she caught it off Anna directly, because for once we had a cook which couldn't talk or understand American and so there was no use in Ma's hanging around the kitchen worrying the life out of her. And so the very first morning Anna was on the premises, Ma commenced hanging around and worrying the life out of me.

It happened we was waiting for the aeroplane I was to go up in to arrive at the studio, and so for once having my morning for myself, I thought I would just dash off my income tax return, and be done with it.

But it seems that this is one of the things which is easier said than done, the same as signing the peace-treaty, and believe you me, the last ain't got a thing on the former and I don't know did Pres. Wilson make out his own income tax return or not. But if he did and the collector of Internal Revenue left him get by with it as he must of or why would the Pres. be in Paris, which is out of the country, well anyways, if the Pres. did it alone, believe you me, he will get away with the treaty all right, and probably even write in this here Leg of Nations under table 13, page 1, of return and instructions page 2 under K (b) without having to ask anybody how to do it, he having undoubtedly shown the power to think.

Well anyways, I had taken all the poker-chips, silk-sale samples, old theatre programs and etc., out of my desk, found my fountain pen and a bottle of ink, and was turning that cute little literacy test around and over to see where would I commence and had got no further than the realization that most of my brains is in my feet instead of behind my face, when Ma comes in and commences worrying me because she could not cook nor yet crochet like the lillies of the field, or whatever that well-known idle flower was. I tried to listen at least as politely as is ever required of a daughter to her mother, but when I was trying to figure out my answer to question No. 5 and getting real mad over its personalness, I couldn't stand to hear her complain over not being able to crochet them terrible mats she makes which are not fit for anything except Xmas presents, anyways.

"The trouble with you, Ma," I snapped at last, "is that you aught to get a live-wire outside interest. You're getting out of date. Ladies don't crochet no more and even knitting has been dished by the armistice. You never read a newspaper or a book. You should go in for something snappy and up to the moment like literature or jobs for soldiers, or business, or something."

This got Ma's goat right off, like I hoped it would.

"Oh, so I'm on the shelf, am I?" she says, "well, leave me tell you Mary Gilligan, if it wasn't for us back numbers you new numbers wouldn't even _be_ here, don't forget that! And after having been the first American lady to do the double backward leap on the two center trapeses, I can hardly be called a dead one, even if a little heavier than I was. And from that time on I have never ceased to be forward."

"You'd have to show me," I says, grimly.

"All right, I will," she says.

And believe you me, she did. She went and got on her dolman and her spring hat and left me in wrath and the midst of that income tax with that "I'll never come back" air so familiar to all well-regulated families.

Well, as I sat there struggling over where to put the × and = marks, and how much exemption could I get away with and still be on speaking terms with myself, and wondering whether the two fool dogs was dependents or not--which they aught to be, seeing how helpless they are and a big expense and Gawd knows I keep them only for appearances and they aught to come under the head of professional expenditures, because no well-known actress but has them to help out the scenery--well anyways, I was deep in this highly high-brow occupation in the comparatively perfect silence of my exclusive flat where ordinarily we don't hear a thing but the neighbors' pianola and the dumb-waiter and the auto horns on the drive and the train just beyond--well, this comparatively for New York, perfect silence was broke by an awful yell in the apartment itself.

"Anarchy!" a terrible voice hollered. And then again "Anarchy! Anarchy!"

Believe you me, my blood turned to lemon soda for a moment and the boys in the trenches never had worse crawling down the back than me at that minute, coming as it did right on top of me, writing in opposite to B. income from salaries--you know--$60,000.00. The silence which followed was even worse. And I sat there sort of frozen while expecting a bomb would go off any minute, and Gawd knows sixty thousand is a lot of money, but any one which investigated the true facts could quickly see that I earn every cent of it and anyways brains has a right to the bigger share, not to mention ability, and if the way I worked myself up from the lower classes ain't proof of what can be done single-handed in America, I don't know what is, and anybody which works as hard and lives as decent as I done can do the same, not that I want to hand myself anything extra, only speaking personally, I am in a position to know.

But just the same I wasn't reasoning at the minute and the justice, as you might say, of my case didn't occur to me until later. As I sat there trying to remember to think, the voice yells it again, only this time with additions.

"Anarchy! Love Anarchy! Pretzel!"

And then I realised it was that parrot belonging to the new cook.

Can you imagine my feelings on top of my suspicions of her? You can! I got up and went into the kitchen to see if a bomb was may be being prepared for our dinner, but not at all. The kitchen was scrubbed to the last tile, something that smelled simply grand was baking, the white hyacinths was in the sun on the window-sill, and Anna was humming under her breath while she rolled out biscuit-dough. The radical parrot was shut up, but only as to mouth, he being loose and walking about the top of the clothes-wringer, making himself very much at home, and giving me _some_ evil look as I come in.

"Aren't you afraid he'll get away?" I says.

"Huh?" says Anna, stopping rolling, and blinking at me.

"Lose him--parrot----!" I says, pointing to him and flapping my arms like wings.

"Frits?" she said. "Na--Frits like liberty!"

And that was all I could get out of her. I stuck around for a few minutes more, until Anna commenced to give me the cook's-eye, that bird backing her up and sneering at me while dancing slowly on the wringer, but not moving a step. So I got out and back to the parlor but not to my work which Gawd knows I had to take it over to the bank and leave them do it for me after all--but sat down instead to consider them two suspicious birds in the back part of the flat. I personally myself was convinced that there was something very wrong about Anna. But so far she had said nothing under the espionage law exactly and I didn't know could you arrest a bird for too much liberty of speech even though it loved anarchy, and liberty and everything and was undoubtedly capable of spreading propaganda what with the voice it had.

Well anyways, as I was holding my marcelle wave with both hands and racking what little was underneath it over the situation, I heard the key in the lock and in come Ma all flushed and cheerful and pleased with herself and handed me another jolt.

"I had a real sweet, pleasant morning," she says, taking off her gloves and hat and wiping her face with one of them big handkerchiefs like she used to carry in the circus and will not give up. "A real nice time," she says, egging me on to question her.

"Where have you been?" I says, like she wanted me to.

"Oh, just to a little Bolsheviki meeting," she says, casual. And picking up her things she started for her room.

"Hold on, Ma!" I says, having managed to get my breath before she reached the door. "Say that again, will you?"

She turned and come back at that, still keeping up the careless stuff.

"Certainly," she says, "Bolsheviki meeting. Are you interested in this up-to-date stuff?"

"Interested!" I says. "Of course I am. I'm against it. Why Ma Gilligan!" I says. "Do you know what Bolshevism _is?"_

"Do you?" says Ma, sweetly.

"No!" says I. "And neither do they. But I am sure it's the bunk, and I feel it's wrong, and I am ashamed of you going!"

"How old-fashioned of you, dearie," says Ma. "Have you ever heard a speaker or been to a meeting?"

"I don't need to!" I says short, being kind of at a loss.

"Well, I have!" says Ma, triumphant.

"Where was it at?" I demanded.

"Down to the circus," says Ma. "In the Bear-wrestler's dressing room. I went to call on some of the folks and get the news and Madame Jones, the new automobile act--very distinguished lady--got me to it. A most exclusive affair, with only the highest priced acts invited!"

"And who spoke?" I says.

"Kiskoff, the bear-wrestler," says Ma. "It certainly was interesting."

"What did he say?" I says, it getting harder and harder to remember I was a lady and she my only mother. "What did he say?"

"I dunno!" says Ma.

"You don't know!" I fairly yells. "And why don't you know?"

"Because he only talks Russian!" says Ma, and walked out, leaving me flat.

Well, believe you me, I was that upset I scarcely took any notice of my lunch, although it was a real nice meal, commencing with some juicy kind of fish and eggs and ending up with pancakes rolled up and filled with cream curds and powdered sugar.

Ma took to these eats immensely, and she and Anna exchanged a couple of smiles, which made me feel like the only living American. And when later in the day Ma told me she thought she'd join the Bolshevists if she didn't have to be immersed, and that this Kiskoff's life was in danger for his beliefs just like the early Romans and nobody knew where he lived, but was a man of mystery, I couldn't stand it another moment, but beat it for a long walk by myself because my nerves was sure on edge and that aeroplane stunt facing me next week.

But the walk wasn't altogether pleasant, at least not at the start or at the finish, because when I come out of our palatial near-marble front stoop, there was a guy standing which might just as well of had on the brass-buttons and all because you could tell at once by the disguise that he was a plain-clothes cop. Not that I am so familiar with them, but their clothes is generally so plain any one could tell them. Do you get me? You do!

Well anyways, this bird was standing opposite our door, and at the second glance I had him spotted or nearly so, and when I come back from walking fast and wishing to Gawd Jim was back to advise me and occupying our flat instead of Germany, the fly-cop was still there by which I became certain he was one; the more so as I watched him from a window once I was in, and the way he kept camouflaging himself as a casual passer-by, ended my doubts.

Well, was that some situation? It was! Here was myself, a good American though but an ignorant woman, surrounded by all the terrible and disturbing elements of the day; with everything which aught to be kept out of every U. S. A. home creeping into mine, and all so sudden that I hadn't got my breath yet much less any action. In fact, I was sort of dizzy with what was happening, and my head didn't quiet down any when, after dinner that night, I heard deep voices out in back.

"Anna has company!" says Ma in explanation. "Two of them, and I think they are talking Russian. At any rate one has a beard almost as handsome as Mr. Kiskoff's."

This got my angora, and while no lady would ever spy on her cook, this was surely a exception and so I took a quiet peek in through the pantry slide and there was Anna and two big he-men all talking at once. The window was open a little ways from the top and on it was Frits, also talking in Russian or something, and no earthly reason why he couldn't take his liberty and go right out if he had really wanted it. And still another jolt was handed me when I realised one of the men was our very own ice-man!

Believe you me, when I went to bed that night in my grey French enameled Empire style I was wore out with the series of jolts which the day has handed me. But it is not my custom to sit back and talk things over too long. I have ever noticed that the person which talks too much seldom does a whole lot, and that a quick decision if wrong, at least learns you something, and you can start again on the right track. And no later than the next day after a funny, though good breakfast, of coffee and new bread with cinnamon and sugar baked into it and herrings in cream, I commenced to act.

"Ma, are you going to keep up this Bolshevist bull?" I says.