The Sturdy Oak by Samuel Merwin
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Samuel Merwin >> The Sturdy Oak
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"Some straight talk, and quick talk, and the exercise of a little of the
art of pressure they say you men exercise," was the prompt reply. "I
telephoned Mr. Ledbetter of the _Sentinel_ advising him to hold the extra
Mr. Doolittle had threatened until he heard from Mr. Wesley Norton,
proprietor of the Norton Dry Goods Store. You know, Mr. Norton is the
_Sentinel_'s largest single advertiser and president of the Whitewater
Business Men's Club.
"Then a committee of us women called on Mr. Norton and told him that we'd
organize the women of the city and would carry on a boycott campaign
against his store--we didn't really put it quite as crudely as that--unless
he'd force the _Sentinel_ to stop Mr. Doolittle's lying extra and print
your statement.
"Mr. Norton gave in, and telephoned the _Sentinel_ that if it didn't do as
he said he'd cancel his advertising contract. Then, to make sure, we got
hold of Mr. Jaffry, called on Mr. Ledbetter, who called in the business
manager--and your Uncle Martin told them that unless they printed the
truth, and every bit of it, and printed it at once, he was going to put up
the money to start an opposition paper that _would print the truth_.
That explains the extra." "Well," ejaculated George, still staring, "you
certainly are a wonder as a campaign manager!"
"Oh, I only did my fraction. That Miss Eliot did as much as I--she's a
find--she's going to be one of Whitewater's really big women. And Betty
Sheridan, you can't guess how Betty's worked--and your wife, Mr. Remington,
she's turning out to be a marvel!
"But that's not all," Mrs. Herrington continued rapidly. "We bought ten
thousand copies of that extra for ourselves--your uncle paid for them--and
we're going to distribute them in every home in town. When the best element
in Whitewater read how the women were trampled down by Noonan's mob--well,
they'll know how to vote! Mr. Noonan will never guess how much he has
helped us."
"You seem to have left nothing for me to do," said George.
"You'll find out there'll be all you'll want," replied the brisk Mrs.
Herrington. "We're organizing meetings--one in every hall in the city, one
on almost every other street corner, and we're going to rush you from one
to the next--most of the night--and there'll be no letup for you tomorrow,
even if it is election day. Yes, you'll find there'll be plenty to do!"
The next twenty-four hours were the busiest that George Remington had ever
known in his twenty-six years.
But at nine o'clock the next evening it was over--the tumult and the
shouting and the congratulations--and all were gone save only Martin
Jaffry; and District-Attorney-Elect Remington sat in his hotel suite alone
in the bosom of his family.
He was still dazed by what had happened to him--at the part he had
unexpectedly played--dazed by the intense but well-ordered activity of
the women: their management of his whirlwind tour of the city; their
organization of parades with amazing swiftness; their rapid and complete
house-to-house canvass--the work of Mrs. Herrington, of Betty, of that
Miss Eliot, of hundreds of women--and especially of Genevieve. He marveled
especially at Genevieve because he had never thought of Genevieve as doing
such things. But she _had_ done them--he felt that somehow she was a
different Genevieve: he didn't know what the difference was--he was in too
much of a whirl for analysis--but he had an undefined sense of _aliveness_,
of a spirited, joyous initiative in her.
She and all the rest seemed so strange as to be unbelievable. And yet,
she--and all of it--true!...
From dramatic events and intangible qualities of the spirit, his
consciousness shifted to material things--his immediate surroundings.
Not till this blessed moment of relaxation did he become aware of the
discomforts of this suite--nor did Genevieve fully appreciate the
flamboyantly flowered maroon wall-paper and the jig-saw furniture.
"George,"' she sighed, "now that you're not needed down here, can't we go
home?"
"Home!" The word came out half snort, half growl--hardly the tone becoming
one whose triumph was so exultingly fresh. With a jar he had come back to a
present which he fully understood. "Damn home! I haven't any home!"
Genevieve stared. Uncle Martin snickered, for Uncle Martin had the gift of
understanding.
"You mean those flowers of womanhood whom chivalrous man----"
"Shut up," commanded George. He thought for a brief space; then his jaw
set. "Excuse me a moment."
Drawing hotel stationery toward him, he scribbled rapidly and then sealed
and addressed what he had written.
"Uncle Martin, your car's outside doing nothing; would you mind going on
ahead and giving this little note to Cousin Alys Brewster-Smith, and then
staying around and having a little supper with Genevieve and me? We'll be
out soon, but there are a few things I want to talk over with Genevieve
alone before we come."
Uncle Martin would oblige. But when he had gone, there seemed to be nothing
of pressing importance that George had to communicate to Genevieve. Nor
half an hour later, when he led his bride of four months up to their home,
had he delivered himself of anything which seemed to require privacy.
As they stepped up on the porch, softly lighted by a frosted bulb in its
ceiling, Cousin Emelene, her cat under her arm, came out of the front door
and hurried past them, without speech.
"Why, Cousin Emelene!" George called after her.
She paused and half turned.
"You--you--" she half choked upon expletives that would not come forth.
"The man will come for my trunks in the morning." Thrusting a handkerchief
to her face, she hurried away.
"George, what can have happened to her?" cried the amazed Genevieve.
But George was saved answering her just then. Another figure had emerged
from the front door--a rather largish figure, all in black--her left hand
clutching the right hand of a child, aged, possibly, five. And this figure
did not cower and hurry away. This figure halted, and glowered.
"George Remington," exclaimed Cousin Alys, "after your invitation--you--you
apostate to chivalry! That outrageous letter! But if I am leaving your
home, thank God I'm leaving it for a home of my own! Come on, Martin!"
With that she stalked away, dragging the sleepy Eleanor.
Not till then did George and Genevieve become aware that Uncle Martin
was before them, having until now been obscured by Mrs. Brewster-Smith's
outraged amplitude. His arms were loaded with coats, obviously feminine.
"Uncle Martin!" exclaimed George.
"George," gulped his uncle--"George--" And then he gained control of a
dazed sort of speech. "When I gave her that letter I didn't know it was
a letter of eviction. And the way she broke down before me--a woman, you
know--I--I--well, George, it's my home she's going to."
"You don't mean----"
"Yes, George, that's just what I mean. Though, of course, I'm taking her
back now to Mrs. Gallup's boarding-house until--until--good-night, George;
good-night, Genevieve." The little man went staggering down the walk
with his burden of wraps; and after a minute there came the sound of his
six-cylinder roadster buzzing away into the darkness.
"I didn't tell 'em they had to go tonight," said George doggedly. "But I
did remark that even if every woman had a right to a home, every woman
didn't have the right to make my home her home. Anyhow," his tone becoming
softer, "I've at last got a home of my own. Our own," he corrected.
He took her in his arms. "And, sweetheart--it's a better home than when we
first came to it, for now I've got more sense. Now it is a home in which
each of us has the right to think and be what we please."
* * * * *
At just about this same hour just about this same scene was being enacted
upon another front porch in Whitewater--there being the slight difference
that this second porch was not softly illuminated by any frosted globule of
incandescence. Up the three steps leading to this second porch Mr. Penfield
Evans had that moment escorted Miss Elizabeth Sheridan.
"Good-night, Penny," she said.
He caught her by her two shoulders.
"See here, Betty--the last twenty-four hours have been mighty busy
hours--too busy even to talk about ourselves. But now--see here, you're not
going to get away with any rough work like that. Come across, now. Will
you?"
"Will I what?"
"Say, how long do you think you're a paid-up subscriber to this little
daily speech of mine?... Well, if I've got to hand you another copy, here
goes. You promised me, on your word of honor, if George swung around for
suffrage, you'd swing around for me. Well, George has come around. Not that
I had much to do with it--but he surely did come around! Now, the point
is, Miss Betty Sheridan, are you a woman of your promise--are you going to
marry me?"
"Well, if you try to put it that way, demanding your pound of flesh----"
"One hundred and twenty pounds," corrected Penny.
"I'll say that, of course, I don't love you, but I guess a promise is a
promise--and--and--" And suddenly a pair of strong young arms were flung
about the neck of Mr. Penfield Evans. "Oh, I'm so happy, Penny dear!"
"Betty!"
After that there was a long silence ... silence broken only by that softly
sibilant detonation which belongs most properly to the month of June,
but confines itself to no season ... to a long, long silence born of and
blessed by the gods ... until one Percival Sheridan, coming stealthily home
from a late debauch at Humphrey's drug store, and mounting the steps in
the tennis sneakers which were his invariable wear on dry and non-state
occasions, bumped into the invisible and unhearing couple.
"Say, there--" gasped the startled youth, backing away.
Betty gave an affrighted cry--it was a long swift journey down from where
she had just been. Her right hand, reaching drowningly out, fell upon a
familiar shoulder.
"It's Pudge!" she cried. "Pudge"--shaking him--"snooping around, listening
and trying to spy----"
"You stop that--it ain't so!" protested the outraged Pudge, his utterance
throttled down somewhat by the chocolate cream in his mouth.
"Spying on people! And, besides, you've been stuffing yourself with candy
again! You're ruining your stomach with that sticky sweet stuff--you're
headed straight for a candy-fiend's grave. Now, you go upstairs and to
bed!"
She jerked him toward the door, opened it, and as he was thrust through
the door Pudge felt something, something warm, press impulsively against a
cheek. Not until the door had closed upon him did he realize what Betty had
done to him. He stood dazed for a moment--unbalanced between impulses. Then
the sturdy maleness of fourteen rewon its dominance.
"Guess I know what they was doing, all right--aw, wouldn't it make you
sick!" And, in disgust which another chocolate cream alleviated hardly at
all, he mounted to his bed.
Outside there was again silence ... faintly disturbed only by that softly
sibilant, almost muted percussion which recalls inevitably the month of
June....
THE END
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