But that was not all my woe in being director and leading lady of that play, given before Frontier Grange to get money for a curtain and some kind of backdrop, my long-time desires. Baldy Parsons had been stowed in an upper berth, from which he was supposed to poke his head, uttering a groan and the quotation from Hamlet, “O my prophetic soul, my uncle!”
The moment came, following my efforts to establish some sort of relationship to the bearded stranger, when Baldy was to make his sarcastic remark. Nothing happened. Baldy had fallen asleep, though he had been kind enough to leave his teeth in his mouth, ready for the utterance he was not uttering. I waited, dying in my tracks. At last, because the play depended on that cue, I had decided to make the speech myself, in an assumed voice, hoping some sudden gift of ventriloquism might be visited upon me, as the gift of tongues was bestowed upon the faithful on that historic pentecostal day.
Before I could do more than open my mouth, from the curtained-off side wing came the blast, “No, you can’t git no ride on this here Pullman car, you big bum. Now, git right offen here, quick as the Lord’ll let you, er I’ll da-mighty near break yer ornery neck fer yuh, yuh big bum...”
I had opened my mouth, hoping to ventriloquize a few words, and my mouth remained open in astonishment. I can stand perfectly still, but the part I was playing was that of a woman who was never still, either in body or in tongue; yet there I stood, a pillar of salt, not even looking behind me. I recognized in the midst of my horror that Sam Curry had done his best to come to the rescue. He had felt that dreadful pause of Baldy Parsons, and he was vamping a tramp being thrown from a Pullman sleeper, where, I’ll venture to say, no tramp in creation ever attempted to be.
Of course, Sam could not keep up that monologue forever, ingenious as he was. He was wearing the barber coat of his former trade, and his face was grease-painted a dark brown. He had wanted to make up with broad red lips and great white eyes, à la comic minstrel shows, and only my tears had prevented his wife from this consummation. Now I wondered if he would burst back on the stage, and whether we should have to vamp the rest of a play, or whether I should wake Baldy up, or what to do, when I heard Sam’s voice, raised to top notch, suddenly declaiming, apropos of nothing at all except an effort to supply my cue, “O my prophetic soul, my uncle!”
The familiar words pierced the consciousness of the sleeping Baldy, and he bellowed an echo that startled everyone, “O MY PROPHETIC SOUL, MY UNCLE!”
I had undergone such strain that I very nearly shrieked, “O my prophetic soul, my uncle!”
I did not really utter a word, though it might have been wise to have ended the play then and there; for I had some female enemies in the audience who were lying in wait for me, and the sooner I made my exit from any activity in the Frontier Grange, the more peaceful it would be for me.
I WAS BORN without a sense of money or of time. Until I married, I was a creature of eternity. I was practical enough to be able to pay back to my dear Cousin Joe the money he voluntarily lent me for my further college education, my father thinking that a Bachelor of Letters from a local educational institution was enough, and adding to this judgment the illogical statement that certain of his other children must have opportunities I wanted, though they did not, because I would learn anywhere. Except for conscientiously paying back that debt, I never thought of money, and I had equally no thought of time, horrifying folks with my last-minute catching of trains and other exhibitions of the sort, through which I passed unharmed in spite of their prophecies.
But I married a man whose father’s middle name had been Punctuality, he being connected with a railroad, and my husband had either inherited this attribute in exaggerated form or had been so trained that he spent most of his life fretting while he waited on others. He always feared I would be late, but I never was. I became as sensitive on that score as ever he could be. During my years on the farm I developed a great exasperation over the unpunctuality of farmers in general. They had come into the world timed about an hour too slow. There is time enough for everything that is important enough to do if we put our minds to managing it.
Old Man Babcock was some sort of officer in the Grange while I was Lecturer. I used to hurry down to the school-house, not even waiting for the rest of my family, in order to open Grange at the time voted, for it seemed to me that the sagebrush folks always voted a set time so they could be sure of coming late. Bab also would get there early, on foot if necessary, leaving his wife to drive the team from the seat of the high wagon, bundled, like as not, in one of her husband’s overcoats.
Of course, Jack Overdonk should have been there to open Grange, but he never was, still keeping banking hours, night as well as day. I do not mean that bankers would not be on time at Grange. I cannot imagine a successful banker not being punctual. In fact, I am so rabid on the subject of punctuality that I cannot imagine a successful human being who could ignore the exact time when a duty must be performed. But Jack got up in the morning so late that it threw his whole day out of gear, and since he was working only for himself, and there was no one to push him, he stayed out late. Besides, I have a secret suspicion that he never did take any of our sagebrush activities seriously.
Old Man Babcock and I used to build up the school-house fire, which had generally almost died out, and then we would push the benches into place to form the required stations for officers. After that, together, we patrolled the snowy starlit or moonlit road to requisition a quorum of seven with which we could open the Grange meeting. From which you will see that we took our jobs seriously. I am afraid I harbor intolerance for lukewarm people. I believe in doing everything with my whole heart. When I care for my flowers, there is no danger of their dying of drouth, but they may be drowned.
The next time Grange met after the two plays were given, I expected the pleasure of receiving half the money taken in at the door, so that I might buy a new curtain and a backdrop for our platform stage and reimburse myself for incidental things I had bought. I had publicly announced the plans for this project in Grange about six weeks before, and there had been no objections; and all my time possible had been spent on The Sleeping Car with that object in view. Everybody knew this. So when the Treasurer was requested to report how much money had been collected in precious nickels and dimes, I listened with pleased anticipation. I had so wanted a decent curtain and something to cover that everlasting row of windows on which we gazed every time we came to the school-house for any form of entertainment.
To my utter astonishment, Worthy Master Overdonk asked the question, quite superfluous under the circumstances, “What is the pleasure of the Grange as to the disposition of the fund taken in by reason of the two plays?”
There is just a chance that Jack thought it necessary to say this, as a matter of form, but certainly he might have used some intelligent direction later. One of my best dislikers was on her feet at once, and the motion was made and seconded with such lightning rapidity and was acted upon by the Worthy Master in so brief a time, that I believe I cannot be blamed for suspecting that Jack Overdonk was not ignorant of what was to occur that night.
“I move you,” said my best disliker, “that the money be used for an oyster supper, to be given at the next Grange meeting.”
My second-best disliker seconded the motion. Worthy Master Overdonk, without comment, put the question. I was on my feet at once, my whole being one flame of indignation. I am not tactful under such circumstances. I stated the case, that the idea of giving The Sleeping Car was all my own, that I had trained the cast, that I had stated beforehand the reason why the play was to be given, and that there had been no objection. I most decidedly did object to seeing that money eaten in one evening.
When I was through, I looked to Worthy Master Overdonk for support. He had been our intimate companion, Charley’s and mine, at every dinner I had cooked during the course of more than three months. I had thought he was my friend, as Eb Hall was my friend, and Ben Temple, and several other men in the distri
ct. I failed to take into consideration that Jack’s wife was present, and I knew later what she thought of our friendship.
Without a single word in favor of what I had said, the Worthy Master put the question to a vote. And any time you put to a vote whether a big double roomful of farm folks will have a feed or will buy a curtain and backdrop, you may not know what the result will be, but I do. Something to eat! I had been defeated by the united sagebrush stomach. Not that any one there was in the least hungry, but they could not understand my desire, and they could understand the proposition that there be something to eat. Thou settest a table for mine enemies in my presence, and they eat up the reward of my ambition.
It was the most natural thing possible on the part of my women dislikers and on the part of the school-house mob. The shock came in realizing that it was also the most natural thing possible on the part of Jack Overdonk. I was so deeply wounded that I could not adjust myself at once to the discovery that he was not the person I had thought him. I should have been as trivial as he, had it been possible for me without pain to accept him at his lack of worth. I had to think him out first. Then I saw plainly the scarlet thread running throughout his life, which had meant disloyalty to others more important than I. Jack Overdonk was incapable of loyalty, absolute, to any one. He was a man who could never reach all of which he appeared capable, because he had not character enough to determine it. Loyalty is not the badge of little men.
But I thanked God for what had happened. I had lost my precious new curtain and the backdrop, but only by such disillusionment as I suffered in learning what Jack Overdonk’s handsome face and ready wit really covered could I have been made aware of the danger that threatened me. Not that Jack had any designs upon my virtuous living, nor that I might actually have committed any foolish act; but I might have had something to bury in myself, thoughts, impulses, beyond anything that I have there entombed. There is enough, without adding the folly of fancying Jack Overdonk too much.
If this were my autobiography, a book that I shall never write, I would tell you what I have suffered through a heart too filled with the passion of life and living. And I shall never be burnt out. But I have learned that I was right in suffering rather than in seizing forbidden fruit, for the flame is still burning, purged, ready for a use more necessary. I speak in veiled terms. Only she who has so suffered can read.
I went to Grange the next week, helping Old Man Babcock to round up seven stragglers to form a quorum, acting as though nothing had happened. I did not hate my best disliker, my second-best disliker, or any of my other dislikers. I am not a hater. I did not even hate Jack Overdonk. But something had happened to me. We did not leave the farm for a long time after that. But my spirit tore loose some of its roots. I think perhaps the tap-root was torn away.
There was oyster stew. And in order to punish the Baron and me and those who supported us, we were given canned cove oysters, while the rest had fresh oysters, ordered especially for the Grange meeting. Charley, who was usually so popular with those very women, was furious at the insult of cove oysters, long-time canned. I did not mind. They came as a kind of anti-climax, an amusing commentary on the sagebrush farm psyche.
I was not beyond their claws. Those women would hurt me again and again, sometimes with justice, sometimes not. But, at least, I understood them, and they never did understand me. And I loved them, and still do love them. I should include Jack Overdonk, but I have too much self-love to do more than scorn a man who had placed so slight a value upon my personality. You see I am not humble.
And so, as an uplifting factor, I had begun to lose out. Uplifters are silly nuisances. I did not consciously pose as one, but I always fancied myself leading the Tenth Crusade. Looking back, I could see that whatever I had accomplished had been sort of sneaked in when the sagebrush family of farmers were not looking. Though, indeed, the first farmers were perhaps more suggestible. I learned the lesson that only an outsider can act as a leader among farmers. Every farmer is suspicious of his neighbor.
I remember the first Fourth of July celebration I ever engineered. The farm folks asked me to do it. I took the job with pleasure, loving to do such work. I know now they gave it to me only because they did not want it themselves. And Mrs. Hubert, an estimable woman, more competent by far than I as a farm woman, firmly believed that I planned every game of that day in order that her little Willie should lose the prizes. She told Mrs. Parish, and Mrs. Parish told Mrs. Babcock, and Mrs. Babcock told Miss Butterworth, and Miss Butterworth told her brother, and her brother told Sam Curry, and Sam Curry told Charley, and the Baron, in that pleasing way husbands sometimes have, told me.
I just exclaimed, “Oh, for heaving’s sake, Marier!” or some silly thing like that, and laughed so hard I had to sit right down on the kitchen floor. Charley was disgusted with me. I should have cared a little, at least, with a thing like that going all over the community about me.
That Fourth of July I had a grand time speaking the supposed speech of John Adams. It was misdirected energy, as so much of my energy was misdirected in those days, trying, as I did, to work off some of my superabundant spirits, entirely superfluous in a farm woman. As I stood there declaiming, my good sagebrush farm people stared at me as though hypnotized by a snake. They had not the least idea what I was trying to do. I’ll say this for the Baron: that night he said, “You spoke wonderfully, Annie, but there was nobody there who knew it.” And he said it in that pleasing way husbands sometimes have, which is more important than any John Adams speech, supposed or real, unless John Adams himself spoke a little speech like that to Abigail.
I was even less successful with “The Star-Spangled Banner,” that bloody, Gottstrafe hymn of hate for England, which we United Staters have adopted as our national anthem, talking peace one minute, and the next minute screeching about bombs bursting in air and we-hope-they-kill-some-son-of-a-gun. If our united patriotic brains were jumbled together and shaken, there would be a sound like the seeds rattling in a gourd.
I am not making these remarks because of my jealous fury at not being able to sing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Nobody but a colortura soprano can sing “The Star-Spangled Banner,” and she does not sing it; she just shows off, while everybody else stands in open-mouthed amazement, some of us thinking what a fine siren she would make on a fire-engine, and some of us wishing she would quit holding onto that note so the bloody war song would end and we could sit down. And only a hundred per cent pickled American could claim that standing up while somebody screeches a song about hatred for another country is any reasonable way of showing love and respect for one’s own land. And now just let’s see somebody try to intern me for that!
Of course, we could not have our Fourth of July celebration without screeching about bombs bursting in air, so I took my stand beside the Curry organ, which Sam Curry and Eb Hall had hauled down on a hay-rack the day before. Mrs. Curry, as usual, was the organist. The grown folks did not know the words, so they just stood and stared. The children and I carried out the patriotic project.
I like to sing, but I am a very low contralto. At least, my voice is. I had forgotten this when I attempted to lead the children. By the time we reached the bombs bursting in air, it was too high for the children, so they had sense enough to stop. That left me making a solo flight. It could not last. Finally, that high screeching note was just in view. I also stopped. I not only stopped, but as Mrs. Curry struck that note, I smiled at the farm people and pointed upward, where they could imagine the note to be. Then I did what in wartime would have caused me to be shot at daybreak, if not before. I burst out laughing. And, believe me, the whole double school-house room rocked with laughter, too. Everybody sat down in that ghastly, unpatriotic manner that proves you do not love your country, but think maybe there are other countries in the world, too, that might be permitted to draw a few breaths.
We had a pie-eating contest. This seems to me to be a thoroughly patriotic American contest, suitable for the Fourth of July.
In fact, I think a piece of pie, or an ice-cream cone, would be far more appropriate for the United States emblem than the eagle, and either could stand the light of intelligent analysis better than our use of an old hate-filled war song for our national hymn.
The Baron circulated among the crowd, collecting small change to give the children for prizes. And little Willie didn’t get a cent of it because Mrs. Greenwood arranged so he could not. But I told that before. Just as strange as the strafe Mrs. Greenwood had on little Willie, whom she did not know from any other of the towheads running about, was the fact that a transplanted city girl won the fifty cents offered for the young person eating the most pie. She was wearing a pretty, eyelet-embroidered white city dress, and she had been with us, she and her family, for only a few months. They remained about as much longer. But that day she won the pie-eating contest.
I think hardly any city person could have resisted entering that contest. The pies were most delectable. Mazie Taylor was so much faster than our born-and-bred farm children that in a second all they could see was the dust of her pie race. Time up! Mazie had won. Looking a little white, she received the fifty cents in view of the marveling farm folks. Mazie had swallowed three pies in about three minutes. Fairly grabbing the prize money, she turned and began running. She managed to reach the corner of the school-yard, and there, in full view of the silent crowd, who had never taken their eyes off her, up came the pie. We won’t count her regurgitations, but all three pies came up.
Annie Pike Greenwood Page 24