VI
ALL over the United States conditions were becoming terrible, hundredsand hundreds of thousands of militant women, wives, widows, matrons,maidens, and stenographers had gone on strike. Non-intercourse with manwas to be the punishment for any longer withholding the franchise;husbands, fathers, uncles, fiances, bachelors, and authors held franticmass meetings to determine what course to pursue in the imminence ofrapidly impending industrial, political, and social disaster.
But, although men's sufferings threatened to be frightful; although formonths now nobody of the gentler sex had condescended to pay them theslightest attention; although their wives replied to them only withmonosyllables and scornful smiles, and their sweethearts were never athome to them, let it be remembered to their eternal credit that not onethought of surrender ever entered their limited minds.
And so it was with young Langdon, who was left in a condition neitherdignified nor picturesque--a martyr to friendship and a victim to his ownrather frivolous idea of practical humour.
Hopelessly entangled in the net which enveloped him from head to foot, heflopped about among the dead leaves on the bank of the stream, strugglingand kicking like a fly in a cobweb. This he considered humorous.
The lithe figure across the brook continued to view his gyrations withmingled emotions.
She was a boyish young thing with a full-lipped, sensitive mouth, eyeslike bluish-black velvet, and clipped hair of a dull gold colour thatcurled thickly all over a small and beautifully shaped head in littleburnished _boucles d'or_--which description ought to hold the reader fora while.
She wore gray wool kilts, riding breeches laced in about the knee, suedeputtees and tan shoes; and she carried a Russian game pouch beautifullyembroidered across her right shoulder.
For a minute or two she watched the entangled young man, eyes still widewith the excitement of the chase, full delicate lips softly parted; andher intent and earnest face reflected modest triumph charmingly modifiedby an involuntary sympathy--the natural tribute of a generous sportswomanto the quarry successfully stalked and bagged.
Cautiously, now, but without hesitation she advanced to the edge of thestream, picked her way cleverly across it on the stones, and, leapinglightly to the bank, stood looking down at Langdon, who had ceased hiscontortions and now lay flat on his back, gazing skyward, a grin on hisotherwise attractive countenance.
He smiled up at her through the meshes of the net when he encountered hercurious eyes, expecting immediate release.
There was no answering smile from her as she coolly examined hissymmetrical features and perfect physical proportions through the foldsof the net.
No, there could be no longer any doubt in her mind that this young manwas what the New Race University required for breeding purposes.
No such specimen as this could hope to escape instant marriage. Here werefeatures so mathematically flawless that they became practicallyfeatureless; here was bodily balance so ideal that the ultimate standardsof Greek perfection seemed lop-sided in comparison. No, there could be nodoubt about it; this young man was certainly required for the purpose ofscientific propagation; willy-nilly he was destined to be one of theancestors of that future and god-like race which must, one day, peoplethe earth to replace the bigoted and degenerate population which atpresent encumbered it.
She regarded him without the slightest personal interest now. Hissymmetry wearied her profoundly.
"When are you going to let me out?" he asked cheerfully.
She looked at him almost insolently under slightly lifted brows.
"Presently," she said; and began to fumble in her satchel. In a fewmoments she produced two bottles, a roll of antiseptic cotton, and ahypodermic needle.
"Will you come with me voluntarily?" she inquired, stepping nearer andlooking down at him, "or must I use force?"
He might have been humorously willing to go; he really desired to seethis amusing adventure to the finish. But man resents coercion.
"Force?" he repeated.
"Exactly," she replied, displaying her pocket pharmacy.
"What are those things you have in your hand?" he asked, trying to see.
"Chloroform and a hypodermic needle. If you do not wish to come with mevoluntarily you may take your choice."
He laughed long and loud and derisively.
"That's ridiculous," he said. "Be kind enough to undo this net. I mighthave been willing to go with you and look 'em over--your friends, youknow; but I don't care for your idea of humour."
"Your reply is typically man-like and tyrannical. For centuries man hasenjoyed and abused the option of doing what he pleased. Now men are goingto do what _we_ please, whether or not it suits them."
"So I've understood," he said, laughing; "but this revolt has been on fora year and I haven't noticed any men doing what they did not wish to do."
"We have four who are doing it. They are in training for theirhoneymoons. You are to be the fifth to begin training," she said coolly.
He laughed again derisively, and lay watching her. She walked up closebeside him and seated herself on the rock marked "Votes for Women."
"I suppose," she said, tauntingly, "that you were rather astonished towake up from your fishing nap, and find yourself----" she considered theeffect of her words, gazing at him insolently from under slightlylowered lashes--"find yourself all balled up in a fish net."
He only grinned at her.
"What are you laughing at?" she demanded, unsmiling.
"Lying here flat on my back, I am smiling at Woman! at every individualwoman on earth! at this ridiculous feminine uprising, this suffragetterevolution--at your National Female Federation Committee; the thousandsof local unions; this strike of your entire sex; this general boycott ofmy sex! What has it accomplished?" He tried to wave his hand.
"You parade and make speeches in the streets, throw bricks, slap thefaces of a few State Congressmen, and finally proclaim a general strikeand boycott.
"And what's the result? All social functions and ceremonies aresuspended; caterers, florists, confectioners, cabmen, ruined; theatres,restaurants, department stores, novelists, milliners, in financialthroes; a falling off of over eighty per cent. in marriages andbirths--and you are no nearer a vote than you were before the greatstrike paralysed the business of this Republic."
The young lady had been growing pinker and pinker.
"Oh! . . . And is that why you are laughing?" she asked.
"Yes. It's the funniest strike that ever happened to a serious-mindedsex. Because you know your sex, as a sex, is a trifle destitute of asense of humour----"
"That expression," she cut in with bitter satisfaction, "definitelydetermines _your_ intellectual and social limits, Mr. Langdon. You arewhat you appear to be--one of those dreary bothers whose stock phrase is'a sense of humour'--the kind of young man who has acquired a floridimitation of cultivation, a sort of near-polish; the type of person whouses the word 'brainy' for 'capable,' and 'mentality' for 'intelligence';the dreadful kind of person who speaks of a subject as 'meaty' instead ofproperly employing the words 'substance' or 'material'; the sort of----"
Langdon, red and wrathful, sat up on the ground, peering at her throughthe enveloping net.
"Never in my life," he said, "have I been spoken to in such terms offeminine contempt. Stop it! Can't you appreciate a joke?"
"Mr. Langdon, the day is past when women will either countenance or takepart in any disrespectful witticisms, slurs, or jests at the expense oftheir own sex. Once--and that not very long ago--they did it. Comicpapers made my sex the subject of cartoons and witticisms; the stagedared to spread the contemptible misinformation; women either smiled orremained indifferent. The impression became general and fixed that womenwere gallinaceous, that a hen-like philosophy characterised the sex; thatthey were, at best, second-rate humans, tagging rather gratefully at theheels of the Lords of Creation, unconcerned with the greater and vitalquestions of the world.
"Now your sex has discovered its
mistake. After countless centuries ofintellectual and physical bondage Woman has calmly risen to assertherself--not as the peer of man, _but as his superior_!"
"What!" exclaimed Langdon, angrily.
"Certainly. Since prehistoric times man has attempted to govern andshape the destinies of all things living on this earth. He has made ofhis reign a miserable fizzle. It is our turn now to try our hands.
"And so, at last, woman steps forward, tipping the symbols of despoticpower--sceptre and crown--from the nerveless hand and dishonoured brow ofher recent lord and master! And down he goes under her feet--where hebelongs."
Langdon, unable to endure such language, attempted to sit up, but the netinterfered and he lay clawing at the meshes while the girl calmlycontinued:
"The human race, as it is at present, is a disgrace to the world itinhabits. We women have now decided to repeople the earth scientificallywith a race as wholesome in body as our instruction shall render it inmind. Those among us women who are adjudged physically and mentallyperfect for this great and sacred work have pledged ourselves to thesacrifice--_pro bono publico_.
"We shall pick out, from your degenerate sex, such physically perfectindividuals as chance to remain; we shall regard our marriages with themas purely scientific and cold-blooded affairs; we have begun, for thepurposes of re-populating the world by capturing four symmetrical youngmen. You are the fifth. The Regents of the New Race University willselect for you several girls who, theoretically, are best qualified tobecome the mothers of your----"
"Stop!" shouted Langdon, tearing violently at the net. "I don't want youto talk that way to me!"
"What way?"
"You know perfectly well," he retorted, blushing vividly. "I won't standit!"
"What a slave to prudery and smug convention you are," she observed withamused contempt. "Nobody in the University is going to shock yourmodesty."
"Well, what _are_ they going to do?"
"Turn you loose in the preserve after the Regents have inspected you."
"And then?"
"Oh, I suppose two or three girls will be selected."
"To do w-what?"
"To pay you marked attention."
"M-m-marked _what_?"
"Attention. Two or three girls will begin to court you."
"How?"
"Oh, the usual way--by sending you flowers and books and bon-bons, andasking permission to call on you in your cave," she said carelessly.
There was an embarrassed pause, then:
"Will _you_ be one of those--those aspirants to my hand?" he inquired.
She said indifferently: "I hope not. I'm sure I don't desire to be themother of----"
"Stop! I tell you to stop conversing on such topics!" he yelled,struggling and squirming and finally rolling over, all fours in the air.
"I want to get up!" he shouted. "My position is undignified! Anybody'dthink I was a prize animal. I don't like this poultry talk! I'm a _man_!I'm no bench-winner. And if ever I marry and p-p-produce p-p-progeny, itwill be somebody _I_ select, not somebody who selects _me_!"
The girl looked at him sternly.
"No," she said. "For centuries man has mated from sentiment and filledthe earth with mental and physical degeneracy. Now woman steps in. It isher turn. And she flings aside precedent, prejudice, and sentiment--forthe good of the human race! and joining hands with Science marchesforward inexorably toward the millennium!"
The girl was so earnest, so naive, so emotionally stirred by the pictureevoked that she enacted in pretty gestures the allegory of womanhoodtrampling upon sentimental emotion and turning toward Science with armsoutstretched.
Langdon, who had managed to sit up, regarded her with terrified interest.
"Would you be amiable enough to remove this net?" he asked, shivering.
"I shall take you before the Board of Regents of the New Race University.They will assign you a cave."
"This joke has gone far enough," he said. "Please take off this net."
"No. I am going to show the Regents what I caught."
"_Me?_"
"Certainly."
"But, my poor child," he said, "I am not what I seem. The joke isentirely on woman--poor, derided, deluded, down-trodden, humourlesswoman! Why, all this symmetry of mine--all these endearing young charms,are--are----"
He hesitated, looked at her, reflected, wavered. She was _so_pretty--somehow he didn't want to tell her. He felt furtively of hisrubber chest improver, his flexible pneumatic calves, his golden brownwig, his pencilled brows, silky moustache, and carefully fashionedrosebud mouth. . . . A sudden and curious distaste for confessing to herthat all the beauties were unreal came over him.
Meanwhile, paying him no further attention for the moment, she was tryinghard to uncork the bottle of chloroform.
When she succeeded, she soaked the roll of antiseptic cotton, folded itin a handkerchief, and re-corked the bottle. Then, eyeing him coldly,holding the saturated handkerchief with one hand, her pretty nose withthe other, she said with nasal difficulty:
"Dow, Bister Lagdod, bake up your bind dot to struggle----"
"Are you actually going to do it?" he asked, incredulously.
"I ab!" she replied firmly.
"Nonsense! _You_ are not accustomed to give chloroform!"
"Do; but I've read up od the subject----"
"What!" he exclaimed, horrified. "Look out what you're doing, child!Don't you dare try that on me!"
"I've got to," she insisted. "Please dod bake be dervous or we bay havead accidend----"
"Take that stuff away!" he yelled. "You'll give me too much and then Iwon't wake up at all!"
"I'll be as careful as I cad," she promised him. "Dow be still----"
"But this is monstrous!" he retorted, flopping about in the leaves like astranded fish and frantically endeavouring to dodge the wet and reekinghandkerchief.
"Let go of my nose! Help! He--he--hah--h--um! bz-z-z-z----" and hesuddenly relaxed and fell back a limp, loose-limbed mass among theleaves.
Pale and resolute the girl knelt beside him, freed him from the net, and,bending nearer, gazed earnestly into his unconscious features. Stillgazing, she drew a postman's whistle from her satchel, set it to herlips, and was about to summon the student on duty at the distant gate tohelp bring in the quarry, when something about the features of therecumbent young man arrested her attention.
The postman's whistle fell from her pretty lips; her startled eyeswidened as she bent closer to examine the perfections which hadcaptivated her from a scientific standpoint.
At that instant consciousness began to return; he gave a sudden spasmodicand comprehensive flop; there was a report like a pistol. His chestimprover had exploded.
Terrified, trembling, she dropped on her knees beside him; never beforehad she heard of a young man being blown to pieces by chloroform. Then,almost hysterical, she ran to the stream, filled her leather satchel withwater, and, running back again, emptied it upon his upturnedcountenance.
Horror on horror! His golden brown hair--his very scalp seemed to beparting from his forehead--eyebrows, silky moustache, lips--his entireface seemed to be coming off; and, as she shrieked and tottered to herfeet, he began to sputter and kick so violently that both pneumaticcalves blew up like the reports of a double-barreled shotgun.
And Ethra reeled back against a tree and cowered there, covering hershocked eyes with shaking fingers.
The Gay Rebellion Page 7