Part 5

Some slight revenge she had, we know, the following day. As this portion of the picture has received very good notices, it may interest the reader to know under what circumstances it was taken.

I have mentioned the scene in the studio where the smugglers were banqueting, and Tish, followed by revenue officers, was to appear and, after a shot or two, force them to subjection. Aggie and I had been permitted to watch this, the crowning scene of the picture, and stood behind the camera. The musicians were playing For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow, and the rum runners were drinking cold tea in champagne glasses and getting very drunk over it, when Tish entered.

Aggie took one look at her and clutched my arm.

“I don’t like her expression, Lizzie,” she whispered. “She----”

At that moment Tish fired, and the bandit who’d been standing gave a loud bellow. She had shot his wine glass out of his hand.

“Stop the camera!” the chief smuggler called in a loud voice. “She’s crazy! She’s got that gun loaded!”

The director, however, seemed delighted, and called to the camera men to keep on grinding.

“Great stuff, Miss Carberry!” he yelled. “I didn’t think anybody could put life in these wooden soldiers, but you have. Keep it up, only don’t kill anyone. Hold it, everybody! Camera! Camera! Now shoot out the lights, Miss Carberry, and I’ll think up something to follow while you’re doing it.”

I believe now that he referred to the candles on the table, but Tish either did not or would not understand. A second later there were two crashes of broken glass, and wild howls from the men with the arc lamps above, which lighted the scene. The stage was in semidarkness, and pieces of glass and metal and the most frightful language continued to drop from above. In the confusion all I could hear was the director muttering something about five hundred dollars gone to perdition, and the rush of the entire company from the stage.

It has been no surprise to me that this scene has made the great hit of the picture, the critics describing it as a classical study in fear. It was, indeed.

This small explosion of indignation had one good effect, however. Tish was almost her own self that night, recalling with a certain humor that a piece of one arc lamp had fallen down and had hit Mr. Macmanus on the head.

VIII

Tish is the most open and candid of women, and nothing so rouses her indignation as trickery. Had Mr. Stein not resorted to stratagem to compel her consent to the final scenes, I believe a compromise might have been effected.

It was his deliberate attempt to imprison Tish on the lot the night before those final shots which brought about the catastrophe. To pretend, as he does now, that he thought we had left at midnight does not absolve him.

The fact remains that after the final night shots, when Tish had her make-up off and we started to leave, we found that the gates were locked and the gatekeeper gone. What is more, there was a man across the street behind a tree box, watching the exit.

Tish called to him in an angry voice, but he pretended not to be there, and we finally turned away.

From the beginning Tish had recognized it as a trick, and she lost but little time in organizing herself for escape. A trial of the high fence which surrounded the lot, with Aggie on Tish’s shoulders while Tish stood on a box, revealed three strands of heavy barbed wire. But, more than that, Aggie declared that there were guards here and there all around.

On receiving this information Tish stood for a moment in deep thought. She then instructed Aggie to go on to the balloon hangar and open the doors, while she and I gathered up her personal possessions and followed.

It is not our method to question Tish at such times; ours not to reason why, ours but to do and die. But I confess to a certain uneasiness. If she proposed to escape by means of the baby blimp, well and good. At the same time, it required a dozen men to haul the balloon out of its shed, and we were but three weak women. I believed that she had overlooked this, but, as usual, I underestimated her.

On reaching the hangar I found the door open, and I could see in the darkness the large balloon, with what appeared to be a smaller one beside it, a matter of surprise to me, as I knew of no other. But I could not see Aggie.

I entered as quietly as possible and advanced into the hangar.

“Aggie!” I called in a low tone. “Aggie! Where are you?”

There was a silence, then from somewhere above came a sneeze, followed by Aggie’s voice, broken and trembling.

“On--on a r-r-rafter, Lizzie,” she said.

I could not believe my ears and advanced towards the sound. Suddenly Aggie yelled, and at the same moment the smaller balloon lurched and came toward me.

“Run!” Aggie yelled. “Run. She’s after you!”

Unfortunately, the warning came too late. Something reached out from the running balloon and caught me around the body, and the next moment, to my horror, I was lifted off the ground and thrust up into the timbers which supported the roof of the building. I am a heavy woman, and only by a desperate effort did I catch a rafter as the thing let go of me, and drew myself to safety. Aggie was somewhere close at hand, sobbing in the darkness.

It was a moment before I could speak. Then I managed to ask what had happened to me.

“It’s Katie, Lizzie,” Aggie said between sobs. “I think she must have found the blackberry cordial we left here, and it’s gone to her head!”

Our position was very unfortunate, especially as time was important. Katie was merely playful, but on any attempt to move on our part she would trumpet loudly and reach up for us. Most annoying of all, she had taken a fancy to one of my shoes and kept reaching up and pulling at it.

“Let her have it, if it keeps her quiet,” Aggie said tartly when I told her. “Give her anything she wants. Give her your bonnet. I never liked it, anyhow.”

It was then after midnight, but fortunately it was very soon after that that we saw an electric flash and heard our dear Tish’s voice.

“Aggie! Lizzie!” she called. And then she saw the elephant and advanced toward her.

“Katie!” she said. “What are you doing here? I’ve been looking for you all over the lot!” She then turned the flash on Katie and beheld her swaying. “Shame on you,” she said. “I believe you’ve been drinking.”

“Don’t reprove her; kill her”; Aggie said suddenly from overhead, and Tish looked up.

“I thought so,” she said rather sharply. “I cannot count on the faintest coöperation. I need two courageous hearts, and I find you roosting like frightened chickens on a beam. That elephant’s harmless. She’s only playing.”

“I don’t like the way she plays, then,” I protested angrily. “If you do, play with her yourself.”

But Tish had no time for irony. She simply picked up a piece of wood from the ground and hit Katie on the trunk with it.

“Now!” she said. “Bring them down, you shame to your sex. And be gentle. Remember you are not quite yourself.”

Thanks to Tish’s dominance over all types of inferior minds, Katie at once obeyed, and brought us down without difficulty.

Then she ambled unsteadily to a corner, and proceeded to empty another bottle of cordial we had concealed there.

I have always considered, in spite of its dénouement, that Tish’s idea of using Katie to drag the blimp out of the shed was a brilliant one. Katie herself made no demur. She stood swaying gently while we harnessed her to the balloon and at the word she bent to her work. Tish was in the car, examining the controls at the time, and turning up what I believe are called the flippers, which direct its course away from Mother Earth.

But I have blamed her for her impatience in starting the engine before we had unfastened Katie’s harness. Tish has a tendency now and then toward hasty action, which she always regrets later. There is this excuse for her, however: She had apparently no idea that the balloon would rise the moment the propeller reached a certain number of revolutions. But it did.

It seemed only a moment after we heard the engine start that I felt the car lifting from the earth, and in desperation flung myself into it, as Aggie did the same thing from the other side.

The next instant we were well above the ground, and from below there was coming a terrible trumpeting and squealing. We all looked over the side, and there beneath us was Katie, fastened to us by her harness and rising with us!

I shall never forget that moment. One and all, we are members of the Humane Society. And if Katie’s ropes and straps gave way, she would certainly fall to a terrible death. Even Tish lost her sang-froid and, frantically starting the engine, endeavored to maneuver the thing to earth again. But anybody who has traveled in a blimp knows that it cannot be brought to earth again without outside aid.

Moreover, we were already outside the studio grounds, and traveling over roofs which Katie barely escaped. Indeed, from certain sounds, we had reason to believe that she was striking numerous chimneys, and I think now that this may account for the stories of a mysterious electric storm that night, which destroyed a half dozen chimneys in one block.

It was a fortunate thing that Tish remembered in time to elevate the flippers still further, thus giving us a certain amount of leeway. But a strong breeze from the sea had sprung up and was carrying us toward the city, and it became increasingly evident that, even if we cleared the highest buildings, Katie would not.

It was a tragic moment. Aggie proposed lightening the craft by throwing out the bottles of liquor, which had been a part of the smugglers’ cargo in the picture, but Tish restrained her.

“Better to kill an elephant,” she said, “than to brain some harmless wretch below.”

Katie meanwhile had lapsed into the silence of despair, or possibly had fainted. I do not know, nor is it now pertinent, for in a few moments the situation solved itself. We had barely missed the roof of the First National Bank Building when the blimp gave a terrific jar, and momentarily stopped.

On looking over the side the cause of this was explained. Katie had landed squarely on the flat roof of the building, and had immediately thrown her trunk around a chimney and braced herself. Even as we looked, her harness parted and left her free of us.

Katie was saved.

Glancing again over the side as we quickly rose, we could see her in the moonlight still hugging her chimney and gazing after us. What thoughts were hers we cannot know.

I am glad to solve in this manner a problem which caused much perplexity throughout the country--namely, how an elephant could have reached the roof of the First National Bank Building, to which the only possible entrance was through a trapdoor two feet six inches each way. As will be seen, the explanation, like that of many mysteries, is entirely simple.

* * * * *

It is necessary to touch but lightly on the unfortunate incident which concluded our escape. That the apparently friendly villagers who, the next morning, ran out from their peaceful businesses to haul on our ropes and bring us to a landing, should so change in attitude in a few moments has ever since been a warning to us of the innate suspicion of human nature.

How could they look at Tish’s firm and noble face, and so misread it? Why did they not at once open the smugglers’ rum cargo which had remained in the car, and discover that the liquid in the bottles was only cold tea?

Can it be possible that Charlie Sands’ explanation is correct, and that the fact that many of them purchased the stuff from the sheriff and later threatened to lynch him, can account for his peculiar malignity to us?

One thing is certain--they held us in the local jail for days, until Charlie Sands was able to rescue us.

We never saw Mr. Stein again. Nor, frankly, did we ever expect to see Tish’s picture, since she had not finished it. But, as all the world now knows, it opened in June of this current year, and made a great success.

But our surprise at this was as nothing compared with the fact that Tish’s name did not appear in connection with it, and that the announcements read: “Featuring Miss Betty Carlisle.”

There had been no Miss Carlisle in Tish’s cast.

On the opening night we went to see it, accompanied by Charlie Sands. He said very little while watching Tish perform her various exploits, but when, after the shooting scene, Tish prepared to depart he protested.

“I’ve stood it up to this point,” he said grimly. “I propose to see it through.”

“There will be no more, Charles,” Tish explained in an indulgent manner. “I quit at the end of this scene. Be glad of one picture which does not end with an embrace.”

But she had spoken too soon!

Judge of our amazement when we saw our Tish, on the screen, disappear through a doorway, and return a moment later, a young and beautiful girl, who was at once clasped in Mr. Macmanus’ arms.

The title was: Her Elderly Disguise at Last Removed!

HIJACK AND THE GAME

I

It was last May that Tish’s cousin, Annabelle Carter, wrote to her and asked her to take Lily May for the summer.

“I need a rest, Tish,” she wrote. “I need a rest from her. I want to go off where I can eat a cup custard without her looking at my waistline, and can smoke an occasional cigarette without having to steal one of hers when she is out. I may even bob my hair.”

“She’ll smoke no cigarettes here,” Tish interjected. “And Annabelle Carter’s a fool. Always was and always will be. Bob her hair indeed!”

She read on: “I want you to take her, Tish, and show her that high principles still exist in the older generation. They seem to think we are all hypocrites and whited sepulchers. But most of all, I want to get her away from Billy Field. He is an enchanting person, but he couldn’t buy gas for her car. Jim says if he can earn a thousand dollars this summer he’ll think about it. But outside of bootlegging, how can he? And he has promised not to do that.”

Tish had read us the letter, but she had already made up her mind.

“It is a duty,” she said, “and I have never shirked a duty. Annabelle Carter has no more right to have a daughter than I have; I’ve seen her playing bridge and poker before that child. And she serves liquor in her house, although it is against the law of the nation.”

And later on: “What the girl needs,” she said, “is to be taken away from the artificial life she is living, and to meet with Nature. Nature,” she said, “is always natural. A mountain is always a mountain; the sea is the sea. Sufficient of either should make her forget that boy.”

“Too much of either might, Tish,” I said, rather tartly. “You can drown her or throw her over a precipice, of course. But if you think she’ll trade him for a view or a sailboat, you’d better think again.”

But Tish was not listening.

“An island,” she said, “would be ideal. Just the four of us, and Hannah. Simple living and high thinking. That’s what the young girls of to-day require.”

“I often wonder,” Aggie said sadly, “what Mr. Wiggins would have thought of them! I remember how shocked he was when his Cousin Harriet used ice on her face before a party, to make her cheeks pink.”

So the matter was determined, and Tish appealed to Charlie Sands, her nephew, to find her an island. I shall never forget his face when she told him why.

“A flapper!” he said. “Well, your work’s cut out for you all right.”

“Nonsense!” Tish said sharply. “I have been a girl myself. I understand girls.”

“Have you made any preparations for her?”

“I’ve bought a set of Louisa M. Alcott. And I can hire a piano if she wants to keep in practice.”

“Oh, she’ll keep in practice all right,” he said, “but I wouldn’t bother with a piano.” He did not explain this, but went away soon after. “I’ll do my best to find you an island,” he said cryptically, as he departed, “but the chances are she can swim.”

That last sentence of his made Tish thoughtful, and she determined that, if our summer was to be spent on the sea, we should all learn to swim. I cannot say that the result was successful. Indeed, our very first lesson almost ended in a tragedy, for it was Tish’s theory that one must start in deep water.

“The natural buoyancy of the water is greater there,” she said. “One goes in and then simply strikes out.”

She did this, therefore, standing on the diving board in the correct position--the instructor was not yet ready--and made a very nice dive. But she did not come up again, although the water was very agitated, and after a time Aggie became alarmed and called the instructor. He found her at last, but she was so filled with water that we abandoned the lesson for the day.

As the instructor said to her, “All you need is a few goldfish, lady, and you’d be a first-class aquarium.”

And then, with all our ideas of setting Lily May an example of dignity and decorum, along about the middle of June Hannah, going out on a Thursday, came creeping in about nine o’clock at night and brought in the tray with cake and blackberry cordial, with her hat on.

“What do you mean,” Tish demanded, fixing her with a stony glare, “by coming in here like that?”

Hannah set the tray down and looked rather pale.

“It’s my hat, Miss Tish,” she said; “and it’s my head.”

“Take it off,” said Tish. “Your hat, not your head. Not that you’d miss one more than the other.”

So Hannah took her hat off, and she had had her hair shingle-bobbed! I never saw anything more dreadful, unless it was our dear Tish’s face. She looked at her for some moments in silence.

“Have you seen yourself?” she demanded.

“Yes.”

“Then I shall add no further punishment,” said Tish grimly. “But as I do not propose to look at you in this condition, you will continue to wear a hat until it grows out again.”

“I’m to wear a hat over the stove?”

“You’re to wear a hat over yourself, Hannah,” Tish corrected her, and Hannah went out in tears.

It was very strange, after that, to see Hannah serving the table with a hat on, but our dear Tish is firmness itself when it comes to a matter of principle, and even the discovery of an artificial rosebud in the stewed lamb one day did not cause her to weaken. I shall, however, never forget Lily May’s expression when Hannah served luncheon the day she arrived.

She came in, followed by a taxi man and the janitor of Tish’s apartment building, who were loaded down with bags and hat boxes, and having kissed Tish without any particular warmth, turned to the janitor.

“Go easy with that bag, Charles,” she said. His name is not Charles, but this seemed not to worry her. “If you break the contents Miss Carberry will be out her summer liquor.”

As Tish has been for many years a member of the W.C.T.U., she protested at once, but the taxi man seemed to think it funny until Tish turned on him.

“It is you,” she said, “and your kind who make it impossible to enforce the best law our nation has ever passed. If there is liquor in that bag,” she said to Lily May, “it will not remain in this apartment one instant. Lizzie, open the bag, and pour the wretched stuff into the kitchen sink.”

I was about to open the bag, when the taxi man said that, while he was not a drinking man, plenty of hospitals need stimulants.

“You pour it down the sink,” he said, “and where is it? Nowhere, lady. But if I take it to the Samaritan, and they use it--why, it’s a Christian action, as I see it.”

I will say for Lily May that she offered no objection. She stood by, looking at each of us in turn and seeming rather puzzled. She only spoke once.

“Look here, Aunt Tish,” she began, “I was only----”

“I shall discuss this with you later and in private,” Tish cut in sternly, and motioned me to open the bag.

I did so, but it contained no alcoholic stimulant whatever; only a number of bottles and jars for the toilet. Tish eyed them, and then turned to Lily May.

“Have I your word of honor,” she said, “that these are what they purport to be?”

“Probably not,” said Lily May coolly. “Nothing is these days. But there’s nothing there for Volstead to beat his breast about. I tried to tell you.”

While she was in her room taking off her things, Tish expressed herself with her usual clearness on the situation in which she found herself.

“Already,” she said, “the girl has shown two of the most undesirable modern qualities--flippancy and a disregard for the law of the nation. I am convinced that I saw a box of rouge in that bag, Lizzie.”

But when, later on, she accused Lily May of making up her face, Lily May only smiled sweetly and said she was obliged to do so.

“Obliged!” Tish sniffed. “Don’t talk nonsense.”

“Not nonsense at all,” said Lily May. “All the----” She seemed to hesitate. “It’s like this,” she said. “Make-up is respectable. The other thing isn’t. When you see a woman these days with a dead-white face, watch her. That’s all.”

Poor Aggie cast an agonized glance at herself in the mirror, but Tish stared hard at Lily May.

“There are certain subjects on which I do not wish to be informed,” she said coldly.

“Oh, very well,” said Lily May. “If you like to think that the Easter bunny lays hardboiled eggs----”

I must say things looked very uncomfortable from the start. Nobody could accuse Lily May of being any trouble, or even of being unpleasant; she had a very sweet smile, and she did everything she was told. But she seemed to regard the three of us as mere children, and this was particularly galling to Tish.

“Why shouldn’t we see that picture?” Tish demanded one night, when she steered us away from a movie we had been waiting three weeks to see.

“It’s not a nice movie,” said Lily May gently, and took us to see The Ten Commandments, which we had already seen three times.

It was a difficult situation, for of course Tish could not insist on going, after that. And Aggie suffered also, for on the hay-fever season coming on she brought out her medicinal cigarettes, and Lily May walked right out and bought her a vaporizing lamp instead, which smelled simply horrible when lighted.

But it was over Hannah that Tish suffered the most, for of course Lily May had had her hair bobbed, and Hannah rebelled the first minute she saw it.

“Either she wears a hat or I don’t, Miss Tish,” she said. “And you’d better put a hat on her. The way that janitor is hanging around this place is simply sinful.”

It ended by Hannah abandoning her hat, copying Lily May’s method of fixing her hair; only where Lily May’s hair hung straight and dark, Hannah was obliged to use soap to gain the same effect.

As Tish observed to her scathingly, “It will break off some night in your sleep. And then where will you be?”

It became evident before long that the city simply would not do for Lily May. The grocer’s boy took to forgetting things so he could make a second trip, and in the market one day Mr. Jurgens, Tish’s butcher, handed Lily May a bunch of pansies.

“Pansies are for thoughts, Miss Lily May,” he said.

And Tish said he looked so like a sick calf that she absently ordered veal for dinner, although she had meant to have lamb chops.

Other things, too, began to worry us. One was that although Lily May had, according to orders, received no letters from the Field youth, Hannah’s mail had suddenly increased. For years she had received scarcely anything but the catalogue of a mail-order house, and now there was seldom a mail went by without her getting something.

Another was Tish’s discovery that Lily May wore hardly any clothes. I shall never forget the day Tish discovered how little she actually wore. It was wash day, and Tish had engaged Mrs. Schwartz for an extra day.

“There will be extra petticoats and--er--undergarments, Mrs. Schwartz,” she explained. “I well remember in my young days that my dear mother always alluded to the expense of my frillies.”