TURN OFF
THE SUNSHINE
BY TIMOTHY C.TURNER
From the collection of the
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TURN OFF THE SUNSHINE
TURN OFF THE
SUNSHINE
Tales of Los Angeles on the
Wrong Side of the Tracks
by
TIMOTHY G. TURNER
191^42
The CAXTON PRINTERS, Ltd.
CALDWELL, IDAHO
COPYRIGHT 1942 BY
TIMOTHY G. TURNER
Printed and bound in the United States of America by
The CAXTON PRINTERS, Ltd.
Caldwell, Idaho
59024
Thanks for reprint permission are due
the editors of Esquire, Chicago ; The Coast,
San Francisco; Script, Hollywood, and the
Sunday Magazine of the Los Angeles Times.
Contents
THE MOVIE DIRECTOR WHO WENT NUTS - -
THE FARMER WHO WAS A GREAT GENIUS - -
THE PROSPECTOR WHO GOT His CHANCE - -
THE PATRIOT WHO BECAME A MAN ABOUT
TOWN
PAGE
11
33
50
73
THE WAITRESS WHO LOST HER SAILOR - - - 91
THE REPORTER WHO BECAME A HERO - - - 107
THE PRESS AGENT WHO REFORMED THE TOWN 132
THE PICNIC SECRETARY WHO DID His DUTY - 152
THE OLD MAN WHO WENT TO THE LIBRARY - 165
TKE ENGLISHMAN WHO LIKED BABOONS - - 184
THE COPYREADER WHO WAS HOMESICK - - 196
THE GIRL WHO WORKED IN THE FIVE-AND-TEN 207
THE MAN WHO KEPT His FEET ON THE DESK 215
Contents
PAGE
THE OLD WOMAN WHO CAME HOME - - - 222
THE MAN WHO GOT LOST IN THE FOG - - - 234
THE TENANTS WHO DECIDED TO REMAIN - - 250
THE ACTOR WHO MET AN ICEMAN - - - - 259
THE BOY WHO COULDN'T CHANGE His FACE - 266
THE JAPANESE CARPENTER WHO GOT RELIGION 272
THE ITALIAN COBBLER WHO WAS HAPPY - - 278
THE RICH INDIAN WHO WAS UNHAPPY - - 284
8
TURN OFF THE SUNSHINE
The Movie Director Who Went Nuts
HOLLYWOOD IS A SUBURB OF LOS ANGELES
where some large canneries are located.
They put their product up in round, flat
boxes shaped like, and about as big as, a cheese.
John Barton Hunter which was not his
real name worked in one of these canneries.
He made money, above two hundred grand
per income tax. That is when the making was
good.
Back when he was tender, Hunter had been
a newspaper reporter, and ever since affected
the soft, big leaded pencils. They dirtied his
hundred-dollar suits.
He had been an actor, and still watched
what effect his words had on audiences, down
to one. He strutted a little when he walked.
He pronounced words too correctly. Otherwise
he was a good egg.
11
Turn Off the Sunshine
Now he was a director, and a top one. He
made a lot of dough and had night-club
indigestion.
Lately Hunter had felt another symptom.
He couldn't just tell what it was.
Hunter worked, slaved when a picture was
in the making, on a vast industrial lot where
large, factorylike buildings were spread
around as if they disliked one another. The
company planted beds of flowers here and
there, but this didn't fool anybody.
Hunter had a bungalow on the lot with an
air-conditioned study in it. It was quiet as the
South Seas, but this didn't last long. There
was a telephone.
Napoleon sent for Hunter. They called him
Napoleon because his name was Wassermeyer.
That wasn't his real name, either. He was the
works.
Hunter didn't hate Napoleon, he just
loathed him.
"Johnny," said Napoleon, looking down his
long nose at the point of his pencil. The point
was sharp.
Hunter again felt that new disorder coming
up inside of him. What could it be? Was the
old pump out of order? High blood
12
The Movie Director Who Went Nuts
"Johnny, you've been pretty damn tem-
peramental lately. Temperamental is a word
that comes from temper, don't it?"
"No, temperament."
"Well, what's the difference? I've seen
temper and temperament in ham actors and
stuck-up directors for twenty years."
"What do producers have?"
"Don't get fresh."
Napoleon rose to his feet, which were flat.
He looked very grave.
"Hunter," he said severely, "I hate to do
this. But I think you need a rest. I will give
you 25 per cent of your salary, and you can go
and do what you like. When you come back
rested up, you can do better work, and maybe
get along better with the stars and with me.
I always liked you, Johnny."
Johnny stood up. He was nearly six feet
and strong as a horse. Tennis and swimming.
"Wassermeyer," he said, "I don't like you.
I happen to know what you did before you got
into pictures, and you haven't changed any."
"You're fired," yelled Napoleon. "I take
back that 25 per cent. Your pitchers are corny,
anyway. The last one stunk."
They soon got down to monosyllables.
13
Turn Off the Sunshine
"Ham !" said Napoleon.
"Fish!" said Hunter.
He slammed the door till it bounced open
again. It had been slammed before but it had
never done that. It was the door's way of
protesting at last.
"Why's your face so red for?" asked Myrna
when Hunter met her on the way to his
bungalow.
"Napoleon and I have had a conference.
Short one. I'm through."
Myrna went into her sympathetic business.
She had done it very well in Hearts and Bombs.
"You're coming up tonight, you know," she
said in her Hollywood-Mayfair voice. "You
can tell me all about it then, Johnny."
Myrna had never looked that way to him
before. Her bleached hair was no more
bleached than always, her plucked eyebrows no
more plucked. The face he saw reminded him
of a leprous albino.
"No," he replied, rather roughly, "I'm go-
ing out of town."
"Gee, darling, is it as bad as that?" said
Myrna, dropping her English accent like an
evening wrap and exposing the kitchen dress
beneath. She came from a small town in up-
14
The Movie Director Who Went Nuts
state New York where her father had a
garage.
Hunter went into his bungalow without an-
other brush with anybody. He took a drink.
He didn't feel better.
Then that strange new symptom came up
again inside of him. Now he recognized it. It
was disgust. He had always been a hearty
guy. He had never felt that way before.
Hunter packed some things in a handbag,
closed it so emphatically that he zipped the
zipper off. He tossed it into a wastebasket and,
grabbing up the bag, started out. The destruc-
tion of the zipper made him feel better, just as
had slamming Napoleon's door. He didn't ask
himself where he was going.
When he started to drive the car out of the
lot, the gateman stopped him.
"Sorry, Mr. Hunter," said Mac (he was as
dumb and honest as a gateman should be).
"Mr. Wassermeyer personally phoned me not
to let that car leave the lot. He says it ain't
your car."
Hunter didn't say a word, got out with his
handbag, and started to walk toward Holly-
wood Boulevard. He looked in his pockets and
found he had twenty dollars and fifteen cents.
15
Turn Off the Sunshine
"Well," he said to himself, "the old vulture
didn't get this/'
Hunter figured a minute. He knew his bank
account was overdrawn. Reasons: Myrna,
one ex-wife, taxes.
He was stripped. To his astonishment he
was glad of it.
"I'm shet of the whole nasty mess of trash,"
he said, dropping into his native Tennesseean,
"I'll never live that-a-way again."
Here came a red streetcar. Hunter got to the
safety zone, to the disappointment of a truck
which nearly hit him. The truck went on
grumbling down the boulevard.
Hunter sat down in the car next to a very
young woman who was reading a movie-fan
magazine. He moved over and sat down with
a negro who smelled. The negro carried a
lunch box, wore overalls, and bogged down
in his seat as if he were very, very tired.
Hunter looked at the man and smiled.
The negro smiled back.
Neither of them spoke a word, but each
knew that the other was a friend. This cheered
Hunter up.
He took out his appointment notebook from
his breast pocket, and tossed it on the floor. It
16
The Movie Director Who Went Nuts
lay there with some gum, some spittle, and a
lot of burnt matches. Hunter liked that.
He got off the red car at an important cross-
ing. Other people got off and so he got off.
Some of them took a yellow streetcar waiting
there.
It was where -the yellow car started, and the
motorman was in a hurry to get everybody
aboard. He banged his gong and looked cross.
Then he finished his pipe and looked im-
portant. Hunter had done that himself with
actors, and so who was he to complain?
"It's the big 'I Am' in all of us," he mused.
"Street car conductors or dictators."
The yellow car hurried on downtown. Final-
ly it passed Bertrand Goodhue's public library,
then Baron Long's Biltmore, and on down
Fifth Street. On past the Rosslyn with the
hotel bus waiting for the Santa Fe passengers.
On past Main Street with its cosmopolitan
shoppers and loafers. On down toward the old
railway station, into the working man's part
of Fifth Street, mostly American working men
now. The dirty brick of Labor Temple rose to
the right.
Hunter got off.
He was out of place in the street, but nobody
17
Turn Off the Sunshine
stared at him, for people are polite on the
wrong side of the tracks in Los Angeles.
Hunter was a big, tanned blond man, a
little too heavy, but he had all his hair and
didn't have to wear glasses. He always denied
being over forty. He was forty-two.
His clothes would have been called "sport"
in Hollywood and Long Island. That is, the
coat and trousers did not match. If they had
matched it would have been "business." His
shirt was real linen, and his shoes to the know-
ing eye were hand lasted.
Hunter, thus attired, stood on the curb and
looked up at a building very different from
him. The building was at least fifty years old,
all made of wood, with a touch of American
colonial about it, some red glass panes in the
windows that had survived the years, and a
cupola like a head that looked grotesquely
small for the body. The cupola was all band-
aged with tar paper.
"What a set!" thought Hunter.
He stood and looked up kindly at the build-
ing, which in turn looked down at him
kindly.
A sign over the door said it was a hotel.
There were some men on the porch, seated in
18
The Movie Director Who Went Nuts
old rocking chairs, and they had their feet on
the rail.
The office was deserted as, Hunter later
learned, it almost always was. In one wall was
a picture of two scared horses, and a bolt of
lightning over their heads to account for it.
There was a little hotel desk and a bell cord
with a wooden handle well patinated with
gripping palms.
Hunter pulled the cord, and the gong went
off like a bomb.
A short, fat man with no hair appeared in
due time. "Can I do something for you, mis-
ter?" he said in a New England voice that
smelled of fresh hay and boiling greens, mixed.
"How much are your rooms by the week?"
"Now, let me see," said the fat man, pre-
tending to look over his office records but really
looking Hunter over. Hunter realized this,
and beat him down two dollars. That at once
established common respect between them.
"This is a nice, old-fashioned place," said
Hunter.
"Glad you like it," said the man. "It used to
be quite a place for the settlers in the eighties."
"I never knew there were such old places in
Los Angeles," said Hunter. "They never told
19
Turn Off the Sunshine
me. Why, with a potato to stick the pen in
this would be in perfect period."
Hunter had taken up the pen and had inked
its tip, ready to sign the big book the pro-
prietor had produced from under the counter.
"Swan!" exclaimed the proprietor. "I re-
member them potatoes. Hey you, Chan," he
yelled.
The noise of loose slippers, batting their
heels, came down the hall, and an old China-
man stuck his head in the door and asked al-
most angrily, "What you want?"
"Fetch me a potato," said the proprietor.
In due time they had the hotel pen sticking
upright in a potato, which they rested in an
old-fashioned restaurant vegetable dish.
This greatly pleased Hunter and the pro-
prietor. It did not please Chan.
"Nuts !" he said as he left the office, and his
slippers flipflapped petulantly down the corri-
dor until a door slammed on them, far back
where there should be a kitchen.
"That's a fresh Chinaman," said the pro-
prietor. "He's been workin' for me for fifteen
years. I'm goin' to can him sometime when I
get around to findin' a new hired man."
The room assigned to Hunter had a worn
20
The Movie Director Who Went Nuts
Japanese matting on the floor, a bed that
looked clean enough but was noisy and trem-
bling when you sat on it. There was a marble-
topped washstand with fixings, all cracked,
and on the wall, proudly and patriotically, a
colored lithograph of General U. S. Grant, who
looked as if he had been up all night in a battle.
The proprietor left Hunter, but soon re-
turned. He carried a bottle of California wine,
which was about half empty.
"Thought you might like to hit the jug,"
he said hospitably. "Have a little snort of this
muscatel? It's better than three years."
Hunter concluded that this was an act of
friendship on the part of the proprietor. As
fellow sentimental antiquarians they had hit
it off.
Hunter took the tumbler, and the proprietor
took the toothbrush mug. Hunter was used to
sherry. The muscatel was too sweet for him,
but deliciously aromatic.
The wine and the fat man's friendship both
warmed him. He felt a lump in his throat
when he was left alone with General Grant.
He had entirely got rid of that disorder that
bothered him earlier in the day. He felt swell.
The slanting sun, about ready to go out
21
Turn Off the Sunshine
suns do not set in California lighted up
General Grant, and Hunter knew it must be
five o'clock. He had seen Napoleon at about
eleven. Six hours !
He went down to the little office. He met
the proprietor, whom he later discovered was
known, even to his Chinese servant, as Fat.
Fat was talking with a tall, gangling man
in washed-out yet filthy overalls. This man
had his neck shaved up into the quick, and his
face was wrinkled like a half -deflated balloon.
"Come on, mister, gimme the key/' he was
saying. "Me and my old woman gotta ram
along in the old Ford."
"You and your old woman ain't goin' to ram
along with your lousy baggage until you gim-
me that $1.50," said Fat.
"Aw, mister," protested the gangling man.
But he reached down into the poke of his jeans
and pulled out the $1.50. Hunter noted he had
more money than that.
"He's one of them Dust Bowlers," said Fat
later. "It ain't because I come from New
England, mind you, but most of them is bums
not as good as an old-fashioned bindle stiff,
whom I respect. These hillbillies and Pan-
handle farmers is poor people. I feel sorry for
22
The Movie Director Who Went Nuts
'em. But I know they been in trouble in good
times and bad, and that the real reason for
their misery is because they're lazy, lousy, and
chisselin'. All they do is play the fiddle and
breed. They Ve been spoiled specially bad ever
since that feller wrote a book about 'em."
It was a long speech for Fat, and it made
him pant. He pulled off one side of his fire-
man's suspenders so his right arm could swing
easier as he puttered around the office.
Fifth Street was filled with people, mostly
men. There were men wearing caps; men
wearing the little round black felt railway
boomers' hat; men wearing the big tan ranch-
ers' hats. You could tell occupations, nation-
alities even, by the hat as well as the face
beneath it.
There were cheap-John stores, pawnshops,
restaurants with fifteen-cent meals, and sa-
loons, some with pathetic attempts at floor
shows.
The B Girls of Los Angeles had not been
legislated out, and were everywhere. B Girls
may be barmaids, or work in front of the bar
getting a percentage on drinks. The girls be-
hind the bars were called sloppers, those in
front grippers.
23
Turn Off the Sunshine
The sloppers and grippers were mostly
young women, running to weight. Some wore
slacks and affected a masculine air; some
beach dresses with no backs to the waist.
Curious, Hunter went into one of these
places and ordered beer. It was crowded but
quiet, except for the entertainers, a cowboy
band that whined tunes with guitar and fiddle
frills. Other places had singers of old-
fashioned sentimental songs with appropriate
piano.
Hunter sipped his beer, watched the legs
parade under the swinging doors going into
the street.
A man tried to mooch a jitney off him, got it.
"Scram, Snitch," said the bartender to the
man, whose name it developed was Snitch. He
was a harmless stew bum, unusual in that part
of Fifth Street.
"Get up on Main Street where you belong,"
said the bartender. "No panhandlin' in here,
Snitch. Go on up to the Mission and bawl a
hymn and maybe they'll give you a bowl of
soup."
The man looked at the bartender, the only
male one behind the bar, with bleary eyes. "I
ain't goin' to sing no more psalms for no hand-
24
The Movie Director Who Went Nuts
outs," said the man, simply and a little proud-
ly. He was trying to be a man anyway.
Hunter noted that the bartender, who ap-
peared to be the proprietor, was kind to Snitch.
Anyway, he didn't throw him out.
A man with a Southwest ranch hat on, a big
stallion of a man with a red mustache, seemed
to be having a disagreement with a smaller,
but very stocky man with a black boomer's
hat on.
"Now, boys," soothed the bartender.
"Jane," he whispered, "get in between them
and break it up."
But Jane moved too slowly.
The man with the black hat was saying,
"Don't push me around or I'll cut your conk
off." He spoke quietly, in contrast to the big
man's bluster.
Hunter noted that the smaller man held a
knife in his right hand. It was a jackknife,
and he held it well in his palm with his thumb
along the outer edge of the blade.
The big man with the big white hat turned
and grinned at the crowd. "This little sport
can't take a joke," he said. "Come on, sport,
have a drink."
Then out from under the big white hat
25
Turn Off the Sunshine
someplace came a six-shooter, an old-fashioned
one. There was no shot fired. The six-shooter
came down broadside on the black hat. The
big man had used it for a billy.
"Ugh !" said the little man as he went down.
They dragged him out in back.
When the policeman came the place was
empty except for the B Girls, Hunter, the bar-
tender, and Snitch. He was a young copper,
and his black leather jacket was too tight for
him. His face was red and healthy. He asked
about Hunter. The bartender vouched for
him.
"Who's this?" he asked pointing to Snitch.
The stew bum cringed. That was enough for
the young cop. He beat Snitch until the old
bum fell onto the floor. Then the law walked
out through the swinging doors satisfied with
having performed a civic duty.
"What a scene !" said Hunter to himself.
One of the B Girls was washing off Snitch's
face when Hunter left. "That cop's a rat,"
the B Girl consoled the old man.
Hunter noticed her tenderness with him.
Like a mother.
"Toor old Snitch," she said as she washed
away the blood.
26
The Movie Director Who Went Nuts
The old man was overcome by this tender-
ness. He started to blubber.
Hunter walked up to Main Street, down a
block past the burlesque shows, the big stores
that cater to ranchmen and workingmen.
He passed Mexicans, Japanese, Chinese,
American ranchmen and longshoremen, little
dandified Filipinos, a few Hindus and Sikhs
from the cotton country down in the Imperial
Valley.
Hunter was feeling hungry. He didn't like
the look of the restaurants, though if he had
known it he could have eaten well and cheaply.
Men who work with their muscles have healthy
stomachs and demand good wholesome clean
food. They eat much better, as a rule, than
clerks.
He turned down a side street, and to his
surprise found the windows covered with
letters in the Greek alphabet. On one he saw
written in English, "Age of Pericles." He
went in.
Hunter sat by a table near the door. This
was because of the young woman behind the
cash register. She was unquestionably as
Greek as the place. He looked at her while he
was eating. She looked at him once, politely.
27
Turn Off the Sunshine
She asked if he would rather have the door
open. So they chatted.
The place was filled with Greeks, mostly
middle-class men. One looked as if he were a
man of letters. He was, it proved, the editor
of a local Greek newspaper. He was a poet.
He wore a high stiff collar and Windsor tie.
Hunter admired him.
The Greeks are, perhaps, the most handsome
people in the world. Descendants of a mess of
different peoples, they came out, as they start-
ed, looking like gods and goddesses fresh from
Olympus.
The waiter spoke a little French. The table
wine was good. He had eaten shish-kebab be-
fore, but never with peppers in between the
lamb on the skewer.
"Come again/ 7 said the young woman at the
cash register. She spoke an English rich in
dialect. She said "ain't."
She had a face so rich in browns and soft
pinks that Hunter could not take his eyes off it.
She had two eyes that must have been made
of some liquid. They looked to Hunter like two
pools in a garden at night.
He got back to the old hotel and went to bed.
The only person he met was General Grant.
28
The Movie Director Who Went Nuts
Next day Hunter asked Fat about getting
a job.
"I can work," said Hunter, and meant
"work" as it is used on East Fifth Street. Fat
phoned Louis, who ran a saloon which had a
job blackboard. Louis said the soap company
wanted an assistant driver. Hunter went
down.
It was in the wholesale district not far
away. The man who stuck his head out of the
hole in the door marked "Employees" was
more polite than studio gatemen in Hollywood.
Hunter found he would be on a truck de-
livering cases of soap to groceries and the
freight stations. He would help a Mexican
driver named Joe whom he met in the garage
that same day.
Joe had a lot of good teeth, skin like Cordo-
van leather, and the manners of a cavalier.
Hunter histed one of the soap boxes. It was
not too heavy. Sure, he could drive a truck.
He said he had. Joe pretended to believe his
story.
For a week Hunter learned his new job, and
went about his social duties. His social duties
caused him to move to a better lodging place
than Fat's. He got a room in Mrs. Murray's
29
Turn Off the Sunshine
house. She was a widow woman and lived in
Boyle Heights, over near where Joe lived.
Sophie also lived on the east side of the river.
He saw her often, though the Greek cooking
did not agree with his stomach. She was the
daughter of the restaurant keeper, and she had
been married. Yet Sophie would not go out
with Hunter unless escorted by her mama.
Sophie was placid, and her placidity made
Hunter more comfortable than he had been
since he was a little boy.
Hunter went to the christening of Joe's
third child, saw a Mexican family fiesta, and
became a little Cordovan baby's padrino. .
Hunter went to the Greek Orthodox with
Sophie one Sunday. It was a Greek Greek
Orthodox Church. He knew there were Rus-
sian ones in Hollywood. He was surprised to
find an old brick building with a bearded priest
in it who had good wine and told good stories.
Hunter went with Sophie to the Ahepa So-
ciety dance, and that was how they found out
about it in Hollywood. The Greek dances put
on the dog more than any other foreign colony
ones. They went that year to a big hotel over
on the right side of the tracks. At the hotel he
met Montgomery.
30
The Movie Director Who Went Nuts
"Napoleon has gone wacky looking for you,
old man/' said Montgomery.
Hunter told him where he had been all
about it. Montgomery promised not to tell.
Next day Montgomery hurried to Napoleon.
"But what did he say?" insisted Napoleon.
"Why has he gone nuts? Did you tell him I
want him to do the new picture with William
Brarley and June Overton? Did you tell him
we're goin' to call it 'Bachelor Beware'?"
"Yes," said Montgomery, "I told him, and
he said nuts for you. He says they got better
sets and better actors over on the East Side
than you've got in Hollywood."
"0 my God," moaned Napoleon. "Did you
tell him I would pay him 100 per cent all the
time he was away, plus a 10 per cent bonus?"
"No, I didn't know that, but it wouldn't do
any good. He is delivering soap. He says he is
going to be promoted next month. He is now
an assistant driver. He is going to be a driver."
"0 my God!"
"He is in love with a Greek girl who is the
daughter of a Greek named Nick who runs a
restaurant. A stinking Greek restaurant!"
"0 my God!"
"He says he works for a real gentleman,
31
Turn Off the Sunshine
who has charge of deliveries for the soap com-
pany. He says he won't work for any Simon
Legree like you any more."
"He'll call me by such a Biblical name ! An
insult!" cried Napoleon, shuffling up and down
the room. "I'll come right back at him. He's a
Judas Iscariot. He took my money and bit me
on the hand."
Napoleon sat down in an armchair, stuck
his feet out in front of him, as if they hurt.
"But why, why does he say he's doing this,
if he ain't plain nuts? Why?"
"He says it's because where he is now, what
he is doing now, he's happy."
"0 my God. He says he's happy. Happy!
What to hell does that amount to?"
32
The Farmer Who Was A Great Genius
THE SMELL CAME IN THROUGH THE HALF-OPEN
door and through the window. It tantalized
the sensitive nose of Jose Maria Talamantes.
He lay on his back in a venerable brass bed
that had been mended with iron plumbing
pipe. He wore his underwear, and the color of
the tan knit balbriggan was almost the identi-
cal color of his Mexican skin.
Jose Maria was a small man, sparse all over.
His long face had a scar from the cheekbone to
the tip of the chin. His mellow brown eyes
looked out on the world with a comical squint.
But just now they looked very sad, sad be-
cause of the smell.
"Mole de guajalote" he exclaimed. "Vdl-
game Dios!"
A woman in the corner of the one-room
apartment turned from the two-burner gas
33
Turn Off the Sunshine
stove. She was tall and slender except at the
hips. She had a long Mexican face with a big
toothy mouth, and when she spoke the pink
gum made the teeth look all the bigger and
shinier.
"Thou hast no reason/' she said. "It is not
mole de guajalote, it is mole de polio. 9 '
"Thou art a fool," said Jose Maria. "I can
smell it perfectly. I smell the chile and there
beside it in the air is the smell of turkey. It
is not chicken mole, as thou sayest, because
chicken has a tangier smell. Turkey is more
suave."
Jose Maria Talamantes took a long, deep
sniff of the air, and a look of pain came into
his face.
"Whence comes the smell of mole de guaja-
lote?" he asked.
"It comes from the house of Don Epitacio,"
said Encarnacion, for that was the long name
of this long woman.
"What a pity some people are so prosperous
and others so miserable," said the man. "My
poor luck always follows me. Don Epitacio
eats mole and I am to eat nothing but those
frijoles thou art boiling there. Can I have
them refrito estilo del norte?"
34
The Farmer Who Was a Great Genius
"There is no cheese," said Encarnacion.
"Pepe, thou art a lazy dreamer. I am tired of
working in the shirt factory while thou layest
there all day in thy interior clothes."
"Thou knowest very well," said Pepe, which
is not exactly short for Jose but is so con-
sidered, "thou knowest that I am a farmer and
I have no opportunity."
"Only once since I have known thee," said
the woman, "hast thou worked on a farm, and
that was in the Imperial Valley at harvest-
time and thou workest only two days."
"I am no sharecropero" cried Pepe angrily.
"I am a campesino farmer. When I get the
chance we shall see, we shall have a fine
house."
"When," demanded Encarnacion, with her
hands on her ample hips, "wilt thou keep thy
promise and marry me? We have lived thus
for four years. It is about time."
"Encarnacion, my heart," said Pepe, "I
shall make you my church wife sometime.
Give me time. I will get around to it."
The woman looked happy and doubtful at
the same time. She had heard such promises
before.
"Thou art an old he-goat," she cried.
35
Turn Off the Sunshine
Jose Maria Talamantes rose from the bed
in his balbriggan underwear. A look of fury
was on his face. He reached for something at
the side of the bed. A stranger peeking in the
window would have expected a knife.
The woman did not flee, and finally Jose
Maria Talamantes found what he sought and
raised it from the floor. It was a sock.
Encarnacion stood and glared at Pepe with
the look every husband knows the look that
means something is coming.
"Pepito," she said with sarcastic affection,
"here," and she reached in her apron pocket,
"is something that fell from thy coat when
thou went to bed last night and I found on the
floor. It is a package of marihuana cigarettes.
Thou wilt land in the jail if thou play longer
the monkey with man/mam. It is against the
law of California to grow or smoke or even
carry the marihuana. It is like the opium
under the law."
"Woman," cried Pepe, "keep thy chattering
changa tongue still or I will give thee a kick
with my fist! I know very well about the
marihuana. Once in a while I like a little, that
is all. It makes me forget thee, habladora. I
will wager those cigarettes did not fall from
36
The Farmer Who Was a Great Genius
my pocket when I went to bed but thy stealing
fingers found them when I slept."
"Where," said Encarnacion, advancing,
"did thou get the marihuana cigarettes?
Where?"
"From Jesus," Pepe answered sullenly.
"Jesus who?"
"Jesus Sanchez."
"So, thou are playing the marihuanero with
Jesus Sanchez! Pretty soon, vie jo, thou will
be a cucaracha like Jesus. Vdlgame!"
"If I had some good ground I would show
thee," cried Pepe. "I am a farmer, I tell thee.
I love the land."
"Thou lovest the bed," said Encarnacion.
Pepe and Encarnacion lived in that part of
Los Angeles that had the elegant name of Bel-
vedere Gardens. The street they lived in was
one of squalor, scented with aromatic chile
and decorated with silk lampshades and bright
advertising calendars.
While Pepe dresses we will look about us.
There were two chairs, both cripples, a
kitchen table with a clean white oilcloth on it,
and on the wall pictures of the Virgin of Guad-
alupe and Benito Juarez.
Pepe's hat, the only new thing in the room,
37
Turn Off the Sunshine
hung high on a peg in lonely grandeur near
the door. It was a large, tan Mexican border
hat, and it was in sharp contrast to the rest of
Pepe's apparel.
He covered his balbriggans with a pair of
checkered cotton pants, patched and none too
clean, a shirt that once had been light green
with a design of white polka dots, and a pair
of shoes, old and so much too large for him
that they must have been purchased by
another.
He ate his plate of frijoles, which he scooped
into a cupped piece of tortilla with a knife, and
and then scraping the plate with the knife,
licked it clean to the last dab of brown bean
gravy. He drank his cup of coffee and rose to
go. Uplifted by breakfast, he still was a down-
cast man.
He walked across the room with no enthusi-
asm, dragging his big shoes after him. He was
so thin and so short that no labor contractor
would enthuse about him. His boast of being
a farmer might go in south central Mexico.
But this was southern California, where there
were plenty of big, strong peons from Sonora
and Chihuahua.
Pepe shuffled to the door, reached for his
38
The Farmer Who Was a Great Genius
hat. He took it off the peg with loving care,
gave it an affectionate look, blew on it to re-
move the dust, and put it on with feminine
care.
The Mexican's hat is not merely a hat. It is
a symbol. So when Pepe put on his hat, his
whole being, his inner being and his outer
being, was transformed.
Pepe stood erect, his gait quickened, his
eyes glistened. He strutted from the room and
into the street.
The principal street of the Los Angeles of
those days was Broadway, between First and
Fifth. Broadway had originally been Fort
Street, but such a characteristic name had
been changed by some city council of the 1880's
to Broadway, and so it remained.
In the times of which we speak, the Los
Angeles population was around 100,000 and
the automobiles had not yet entirely put the
horse to rout.
It was this fact that brought our hero to
Broadway. He came to observe the work of
the whitewings, who still played the ponies.
He had heard that street-cleaning jobs were
not hard to get and he wanted to see how active
the street cleaners were required to be. Some-
39
Turn Off the Sunshine
how he considered this work not too far
removed from his dream of becoming a
farmer, since it was a kind of fertilization in
reverse.
The sight that met Pepe's eyes once he had
shuffled his big shoes into Broadway near
First caused him to stand and gape. At inter-
vals down the street were large wooden tubs
of soil, and from each a palm was growing.
The last time he had been on Broadway, for
no better purpose than to observe the more
prosperous elements of the population, it had
not been so.
Pepe did not read the newspapers, and so he
did not know that the current city council,
egged on by the chamber of commerce, had de-
cided that heart should be put in the cold busi-
ness of the city. This was not so much for the
chronic residents as for the tourists, who thus
would be given some exotic color in the down-
town street.
About that time it had been proposed to
establish a chamber of culture. The idea had
been mulled over at service clubs and in the
editorial columns of the newspapers, but
nothing came of it.
Pepe strolled down the street, observing the
40
The Farmer Who Was a Great Genius
palms, but more especially the tubs. He
fingered the soil with the air of an expert.
In the second block he stopped to observe
some men watering the earth in the tubs. They
had a sprinkling wagon, to which two mules
were hitched, and they merely dropped a hose
from this and irrigated the tub.
Jose Maria Talamantes no longer was in-
terested in becoming a collector of equine
residue.
Burns, the state drug-act officer, had been
hanging around the cop house all day. This
was more for social than official purposes. He
brought his prisoners to the city jail some-
times, and he knew all the city police by their
first and right last names.
Burns had not made a pinch in weeks. He
was congratulating himself that he seldom got
into the newspapers, for by the same token the
newspapers seldom got into Burns. Like they
did for example with a long succession of
chiefs of police who had not cleaned up the
town according to the notions of the two po-
litico-parsons who were rated with the town
bosses Los Angeles never was a single-boss
town.
41
Turn Off the Sunshine
It was a boresome day for the drug-act cop.
He was getting so bored he thought he might
go down by the Plaza and pinch a Chinaman.
They always had some hop around someplace.
He had witnessed two of his fellow flatfeet
beat up a suspect with rubber hoses, something
about as interesting as a tonsilectomy would
be to a hospital interne. He had put his feet
on the desk of his friend Lieutenant Miller,
exchanged pleasantries, and fallen asleep.
Now Burns, half in a reverie, found himself
walking down Broadway, dodging women
shoppers. He thought he would walk through
a department store and see what attracted
all these women. He stopped to note the new
palms in the tubs the artistic city council had
conjured up.
He stopped. He stared. His jaw dropped.
His eyes popped. His heart seemed to stop.
For there in the tub were growing several
plants of marihuana. There was no question
about it.
Marihuana, like opium, was Burns's special
business. It was before the days that the
Mexican weed, first cousin of the Oriental
hashish, had invaded the North, pepped up
hot bands under the English corruption of the
42
The Farmer Who Was a Great Genius
Mexican word, "Mary Warners," or the under-
world cant, "reefers." But it had been a prob-
lem all along the border. A problem was right.
For one can grow marihuana in a cornfield,
in a back yard, in a window box, in almost any
climate.
Burns noted that the plants in the tub were
two or three feet tall, grouped artistically
around the trunk of the palm. They had the
characteristic pointed leaves, sticky and hairy.
It was early August, marihuana crop time.
Burns's astonishment subsided sufficiently
for him to go into action. He hurried to the
next palm down the street, nudging the shop-
pers rudely. There, too, grew marihuana. On
to the next he galloped. More marihuana.
The state drug-act officer felt faint. He sat
down on the edge of one of the tubs and fanned
his face with his hat.
How he got back to the police station he did
not remember. He stumbled into the room of
Lieutenant Miller, closed the door, and told all.
"If the papers ever get this," said Burns, "I
will be laughed out of the state, and you too.
You cops are supposed to have some sense.
How many of your bulls have passed those
boxes? Some cholo is growing marihuana in
43
Turn Off the Sunshine
them boxes. What to hell do you think of
that?"
"Growing marihuana on city property, and
having it watered and cared for by the park
department!" exclaimed Lieutenant Miller,
when it finally sunk in. "Well I'll be damned !"
"Call in only one detective," warned Burns.
"The more knows it the more we are likely to
get it. It might mean our jobs. I'd rather lose
my job than to be laughed at. Think what the
newspaper boys would do to this ! Think !"
Lieutenant Miller thought and shuddered.
More than bullets, a cop hates ridicule.
They called in del Gado, the Mexican plain-
clothes man.
Discreet inquiries were made at the park
department. It seemed that the foreman in
charge of watering the palms had been
changed some time back. The new man thought
the plants had been put at the base of the palms
by his predecessor as a decoration. The prede-
cessor didn't recall having seen anything
growing there.
Within a week del Gado brought in the man.
He had caught him early one morning, going
from palm to palm picking the marihuana
which he put in a basket he carried.
44
The Farmer Who Was a Great Genius
Del Gado brought him into one of the little
rooms which had nothing but a few wooden
chairs in it. Conference rooms, a businessman
would call them.
Jose Maria Talamantes sat down on one of
these chairs and put his basket on the floor. It
was a basket with two wooden covers hinged
on the top, such a basket as might be used to
deliver eggs. Prosperity now radiated from
the person of our hero. He wore the same big
tan hat, but otherwise no stitch on him was
the same. He had on a starched shirt with a
red-striped tie. His suit was of a tweed, cheap
but fuzzy, of that kind that has a multitude of
colors, like Joseph's coat, and pants. Pepe no
longer slathered in his too-big shoes. Now he
wore new shoes, much too small. They were
of nigger-yellow leather, with brass eyelets.
On Pepe's finger flashed what purported to be
a large diamond ring.
State Officer Burns and Lieutenant Miller
and Detective del Gado considered this splen-
dor. Pepe sat with his big hat on his lap, his
basket beside him. He looked at his captors
with a rather friendly, inquisitive stare.
"He says he don't speak English," said del
Gado.
45
Turn Off the Sunshine
"Ask him," said Burns, "what he thinks he
has been doin'."
This was duly translated.
"Quiero trabajar como un hombre honrado,
no mds" said Pepe.
"He says he's just tryin' to make a livin'
like an honest man," translated del Gado.
Burns and Miller looked at one another as if
to say, "Did you hear what I heard?"
"So he thinks growin' marihuana in the
principal street of this city is makin' an honest
livin'," said Miller with heavy irony. "Ask
him what he usually does for a livin'?"
"Soy agricultor" replied Pepe.
"He says he's a farmer," said del Gado.
Miller and Burns had to laugh at this. He's
sure a farmer, all right, they said.
The Pepe started to talk. He talked on and
on. He used his hands and he bobbed his head
from side to side. He shrugged, and he lifted
his eyebrows, and he made faces. When he
finished del Gado gave a summary of it.
"He says there is a law of nature that comes
before the law of man," he began, and again
Miller and Burns looked at one another with
a what-the-hell-do-you-think-of-that look.
"He says he is a farmer, an honest farmer.
46
The Farmer Who Was a Great Genius
He says that he has no farm because of the
cruel economic system. He says he saw some
land, small pieces of land to be sure, but land
in the tubs on Broadway. He knows the land
was for the palms to beautify the city but, be-
ing a farmer, he knew that some plants grow-
ing in the tub would do no harm to the palm,
and that plenty of water was put in the tubs
for both. So this land not being in use, he used
it. He says it is a law older than the laws of
man that unused land can be used by the poor."
"For God's sake!" exclaimed Burns.
Miller just looked at Pepe. He looked at him
as if he admired him.
"Tell him," said Burns, "that we're goin'
to let him go. Tell him we could send him to
prison for ten years, but we got hearts. This
is his first offense. We understand that he
didn't know the law. So we will let him go.
But tell him, del Gado, and make it clear, to
keep his mouth shut, and if we find him on
Broadway around them palms we'll slough
him."
"He wants to know," said del Gado after
this had been translated, "if he is to under-
stand that he can't grow any more marihuana
in the tubs on Broadway."
47
Turn Off the Sunshine
"Of course not," said Miller. "What to hell
does he think?"
"Well," said del Gado, "he says he has a
proposition to make."
There was a dead silence. Miller and Burns
looked at one another again.
"He says," said del Gado, "that if you
gentlemen that's what he said will let him
keep on growing marihuana in the tubs on
Broadway where the park department will
water it he will give you gentlemen that's
what he said half the profits from the
marihuana cigarettes he peddles."
"Get to hell out of here," cried Miller di-
rectly at the prisoner. "Get out, vaya, beat it!
Or I'll croak you, you dirty little cholo."
Pepe clapped his hat on his head and dis-
appeared through the door, followed by del
Gado.
When Miller's outburst of virtue subsided
he and Burns congratulated themselves. After
all, they got out of it nicely. What a life a
copper has, anyway !
As they were talking, del Gado returned.
Behind him they saw the big hat of Pepe. At
this their astonishment knew no bounds. They
just sat there as if fastened to their chairs,
48
The Farmer Who Was a Great Genius
and as if the chairs in turn were fastened to
the floor.
"He's come back for his basket," said del
Gado.
"Of all the goddam gall !" exclaimed Miller
in admiration.
Pepe walked boldly into the room and, pick-
ing up his basket, walked out. As he departed,
he bowed politely to the policemen and lifted
his big hat.
"The basket's full of marihuana he had
picked," said del Gado.
"I don't care if it's full of diamonds," cried
Miller, "for God's sake, del Gado, can't you
keep that little cholo out of here? Didn't I say
I didn't want to see him again? You're a hell
of a cop, del Gado. Can't you keep a crook out
of the police station?"
49
The Prospector Who Got His Chance
OLD JACK FIRST TOOK OUT HIS UPPER PLATE
and then his lower plate. He put them careful-
ly in the side pockets of his coat, each plate to
a pocket.
Old Jack then took out a package of fine cut
and, selecting a generous pinch, munched it
between his gums. He squinted in satisfaction.
"Trouble with boughten teeth," he re-
marked, "is not with eatin' but with chewin'.
Don't seem to get the good out of tobacco."
Old Jack sat on a bench in the old plaza in
the Old Town of Los Angeles. The district
thereabouts, Mexicans to the south, Chinese to
the east, Italians to the north, immigrant Jews
to ,the west, had escaped those things called
improvements. It remained about as it had
been since Los Angeles was a tough cow town,
down through the era of round cuffs and
50
The Prospector Who Got His Chanoe
bustles, the coming of the gasoline buggy and
the "settlers" from the East. So remained
many of its old-time habitues.
Old Jack's remark about the deficiency of
store teeth was made to two men sunning
themselves on the same bench. They did not
answer. Like Old Jack they might have been
sixty or maybe seventy. Like him they showed
that intangible but unmistakable sign of a life
of hard work. Otherwise, how different were
they!
-Old Jack was the squatty prospector type,
bent with years of pottering over the earth.
His arms were set like a gorilla's, his legs
bowed. He wore a full beard, white but for
the dye of tobacco juice, and above this bush
was a sky of wrinkles with two watery gray
eyes for planets. These looked out on the world
with that boundless optimism, an optimism
mixed with resignation to fate, that is the
prospector's.
Next to Old Jack sat a lanky old man with
a coffee-strainer mustache under which habit-
ually bobbed a brown-paper hand-rolled cig-
arette. Two large, brown, liquid, humorous
eyes that gave away some ancestral intermix-
ture of Indian blood looked out under the
51
Turn Off the Sunshine
shade of a large-belly nutria hat, very soiled
and very misshapen. One did not have to note
the worn high-heeled boots under the trousers
to get the drift of this fellow.
The third man was a bindle stiff, squat like
the prospector, but better built except for the
rheumatism that gnarled his old body. "I am
so tired/' said every part of him. Only can
these migrant agricultural workers so per-
sonify fatigue. His skin was leather, and his
round, unintelligent face looked out on the
world without vivacity, without imagination,
without hope.
"Got bad news this mornin'," said Old Jack
to his friends. "My granddaughter in Tucson
who's been sendin' me money for some years
now writes that she can't do it no more. But
I ain't goin' on relief. Wish't I had some
'surance like you," he concluded, looking at the
cattleman.
"My 'surance was took out," that gentleman
answered, while the brownie cigarette bobbed
up and down under the weeping-willow mus-
tache, "by my son Willie when we sold the
ranch. He was smart ever since he was a little
button."
"I won't go on relief," repeated Old Jack.
52
The Prospector Who Got His Chance
He looked at the bindle stiff and was sorry he
had said it. For his farming friend had been
living on the county since the rheumatism took
him. He sat on the bench and stared at his two
friends with no expression of any kind in his
hopeless eyes. He said no word.
"You'll get shut of your rheumatism some-
time/' Old Jack told his friend. "I wouldn't
have needed ho help from my kin if I had only
had a chance. Ain't never had a chance for ten
or fifteen years. Used to make a good livin'
prospectin', and there is still good prospectin'
chances here in Southern California. I know
where it is. I'm a first-rate placer miner and
what's more I know where I can find some ore
that will make me rich. All I need is a grub-
stake a chance."
"You been lookin' for a grubstake ever since
I knew you," said the cattleman sympathetic-
ally. "You sure plays in hard luck. But I'm
ignorant of your business, if you can call it a
business. Livin' out in the hills with a couple
of burros is the hell of a business if you ask
me."
"You cowmen don't appreciate burros,"
said Old Jack. "They are smarter than horses.
They take care of themselves better. You gotta
53
Turn Off the Sunshine
tie or hobble your mounts at night. But my
burros will stick around until mornin' when
I call 'em for breakfast."
"For breakfast!" exclaimed the cattleman.
"How do you call them?"
"I hammer on a pan with a spoon," said Old
Jack, "and they come a-lopin'. They know
they'll get their flapjacks, just one or two as an
appetizer for their daily grass. I give 'em
mostly wheat cakes, sometimes corn cakes, but
never buckwheat cakes."
"Why not buckwheat?" asked the cattle-
man, a question Old Jack had been fishing for
all the time.
"It gives 'em the rash," he replied.
The bindle stiff laughed. The laugh came
out of him as a laugh would come out of a
barrel. It was a laugh without mirth.
The cattleman spat out his brownie ciga-
rette. It came to pieces as he did so, and the
paper and flakes of tobacco fell over his legs.
This reminded Old Jack, and he ejected his
tobacco cud following it with little spittings
like a cat's. Then he carefully took out his
dental plates and plopped them into place.
This done, his wrinkles formed a look of
concern.
54
The Prospector Who Got His Chance
"I'll get a grubstake in a day or two," he
whistled in the dark.
"I only get enough for chuck for myself and
to pay my room at the Wide West," said the
cattleman, "or I'd grubstake you."
"The grub ain't so important as a good span
of burros," said Old Jack.
"If you get fixed up I'll give you my light
skillet," said the bindle stiff.
"Thanks," said Old Jack, "but I got all the
tools, kitchen and prospectin'. I got my old
outfit in a box at the Wide West. It's as pretty
a outfit as you ever seen. It's almost new. I
got it together, let me see, in 1910."
Old Jack and the cattleman rose from the
bench and turned to help the bindle stiff up.
They stood on each side of him and histed.
After he had got to his feet the invalid made
off rapidly enough if stiffly.
The Wide West was a couple of short blocks
from the plaza. It was a ramshackle of rough
boards painted a dirty brown. Over its en-
trance were painted the words "Wide West,"
surmounted by an attempt at a setting sun.
Below was the legend "Housekeeping Rooms
for Men Only."
Inside, the Wide West was an early ap-
55
Turn Off the Sunshine
proximation of a California bungalow court.
Around the patio were little stall-like places,
each with a door and one window. This gave
rise to the supposition that it once had been an
integral part of the old Los Angeles tenderloin
that flourished thereabout until the beginning
of this enlightened and civilized century. How-
ever, this was stoutly denied by those old men
who batched it in the Wide West.
When the three friends entered the patio
the Wide West was in a domestic mood. Some
of the old-timers were hanging out their wash,
mostly long knit underwear that danced in the
breeze like so many victims of vigilante justice.
Others were sunning themselves in the quiet
of the patio, and smoke rose from many little
chimneys of the old pile as the smell of rancid
bacon was brought to the appreciative noses
of the three wayfarers.
One old man was wandering about bother-
ing the other old men. He was obviously
drunk. Old Jack as he went into his own place
looked on him first in censure and then in envy.
Old Jack's apartment was eight feet by five.
Yet in it were an old army cot with cotton
flannel sheets under its olive drab blankets, a
kitchen table with cooking utensils on it for
56
The Prospector Who Got His Chance
there was no cupboard, and a stove. The latter
was combination cooking and heating iron
stove, so small it looked like a toy.
On the walls, which were of bare boards
that once had been painted white, hung two
unframed pictures, ragged around the edges.
One was of a pretty girl dressed in the worst
styles of the 1900's. An advertisement on it
indicated it once had been a calendar. The
other picture was a lithograph of a young man
with lots of hair and what was meant to be
the upper reaches of a frock coat. It was
captioned "William Jennings Bryan for
President."
Old Jack lighted the stove, which had been
made ready for the match. He then went to
a corner of the room where there was a wooden
box once used to store harness. He fetched out
a key from some secret cache in the innermost
part of his clothing and, springing the padlock,
opened the box.
From it he took a pick, a shovel, and a noisy
old prospector's pan. This latter he fondled a
moment before he put it back in its place. Then
he poked around in the box and brought up a
compass in a brass box and then an old front-
ier-model Colt with a seven-inch barrel. It had
57
Turn Off the Sunshine
walnut grips, and it fitted into an old U. S.
Army black holster, which was made for a
left-hand draw.
Having pawed over these treasures, Old
Jack went to the table-cupboard and got an
old-fashioned coffeepot of gray enamel whose
cover had been removed at purchase. With
this he went out into the patio to a community
water hydrant, and, waiting for one of the
busy washermen to fill his tub, drew the coffee-
pot full of water.
Returning with this, he paused at the door
of his home and, leaning over, examined a
potted geranium which he failed to notice
when he went in before. He poured a good
deal of the water from the coffeepot on this
plant, which looked as if it were pleased with
the attention. Then Old Jack threw out some
more of the water onto the ground until he
had about two coffee cups left.
In his apartment, he poured out this water
into a bowl, put two heaping tablespoons of
coffee into the pot, and poured the water back
over it. He then put the pot over the small
opening in the top of the little stove, v/hich by
this time was glowing.
Old Jack peered into this pot like some al-
58
The Prospector Who Got His Chance
chemist who expected success at last Before
the water came to a boil he stirred the mixture
with an old kitchen case knife. When it boiled
up he jerked it off just in time to prevent loss,
put it back on the stove, and with his case
knife began salvaging the coffee that had
stuck to the sides of the pot above the water
line.
He then sat down on the cot for a few
minutes. He stirred the coffee once more be-
fore he put in the dash of cold water to settle
it and then, waiting a moment longer, poured
it out into an old half -inch thick china cup with
a care that did not disturb one of the particles
of coffee at the bottom of the pot. Old Jack
then put in sugar and a liberal dose of canned
milk and sat down at the table to enjoy his
mid-afternoon luxury.
The branch bank manager was daydream-
ing as he sat back of his desk near the door.
Suppose Mr. Martini, the Italian-American
bank president would come in that door, and
say, "Look here, Watkins, I've been watching
your work down here. Suppose you come up to
the main office and take over Muldoon's job.
He's going to San Francisco."
59
Turn Off the Sunshine
Mr. Watkins was very pleased with this
scene of his creation. So he was displeased
when a whiskered old man in brown canvas
overalls and a drooping old black hat stood in
front of the counter and demanded attention.
"You make loans on legiti-might business
ventures?" asked the old man. "Well, I'm a
mining man. I'm looking for a grubstake. I
got a prospect not far from Los Angeles, and
with a span of burros and a month's chuck I
can guarantee results. I work fifty-fifty."
"I'm sorry," said Mr. Watkins as though he
were not, "but we don't make loans on specu-
lative ventures."
The look of disappointment that came into
the old man's face made Mr. Watkins repent.
It reminded him of the look on his small son's
face that Christmas that he forgot to get him
the model train. That is, it was the look of
disappoinment where a boundless optimism
had not for a moment expected it.
"Thought you made loans on any good ven-
ture," said the old man after a while. "Years
ago out here in California banks used to grub-
stake reputable prospectors. But maybe times
have changed. Maybe now you bankers got it
so you don't make no bad loans."
60
The Prospector Who Got His Chance
This last cut Mr. Watkins to the quick. He
had behind him a whole file of bad loans. It
was a sarcasm that the old man had by no
means intended.
Old Jack did not go home. He walked down
past the plaza, and down Aliso Street. He was
going to blow himself to a treat, something to
allay his pain. He hadn't had a chance in all
these years and he knew where the stuff was
too. He wouldn't go on relief. He wouldn't.
He paused in front of an old building on
Aliso Street, and over the door was the sign
"El Capricho de los Dorados." He went in and
told the Mexican woman back of the counter
that he wanted a beer, a large one, and two
tacos. He crunched these crisp, greasy, stuffed
tortillas and sipped his beer with deep satis-
faction. The alcohol began to warm his old
blood, and the bubbles got in his nose and
tormented him delightfully.
"I'm in the market for a span of first-class
burros," he boasted to the woman, whom he
long had known as a dispenser of the delicacies
of life. To his astonishment she replied :
"There's a nice team of 'em down the street
at the old livery. I know because the boss there
asked me if I knew what's become of the man,
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a Mexican fellow, who left 'em there two weeks
ago. He never came back. He left his wagon
too."
Old Jack's heart jumped. He knew the old
livery. It had been there since horses were in
flower. It still was a livery stable, if of a kind
that shamed its old elegance when it was built
in the early 1870's. Today it was livery for
old paper, rubber, iron, and glass collectors.
The proprietor supplied wagons and horses
with the licenses for the same to junkmen,
who thus were relieved of capital outlay and
plant upkeep.
The old man hurried down to the old livery,
a wandering wooden building with the false
front in vogue when it was new. On this
facade was painted a sign that could be read
only when one was close, for most of the paint
had blown away in dust. "Fashion Livery/'
it read, "Wm. Hollister, Prop."
When Old Jack got near the door an acrid
smell of horse came to his nostrils, which
deemed it perfume. Inside was a bedlam of
dialects, for it was the hour when the wagons
were being returned for the day. The place
seemed to extend back in an endless series of
old barns. The noises of the horses blended in
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The Prospector Who Got His Chance
the talk of the junkmen, some of whom used
Yiddish, some the Deep South dialect that
went with their black faces.
The proprietor looked pleased when Old
Jack asked about the burros, displeased when
he was told that the old prospector had no
money. But he was still interested. He knew
the type of the man before him. He took Old
Jack back to the far end of the lot, and here the
old man's dog nose was greeted with the smell
of burro blending with the smell of horse.
In the stall were two of those gentle beasts
whose ancestors came from the shores of the
Mediterranean and, left by the early Spanish
in America, had populated the prairies with
the Spanish horse who became the half -wild
mustang. Unlike the mustang, the burro has
always been man's willing servant, easily be-
guiled into harness or packsaddle, an eager
member of the camp family.
"A nice span, boy and girl/' exclaimed Old
Jack. He rubbed their two noses, and they
said how-do-you-do with their long ears, which
they brought forward as they gazed at him
with their big brown eyes.
"Howdy, honeys," said Old Jack.
The proprietor showed the old man the
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wagon that had been left with the animals. It
was a miniature spring wagon, so old no paint
was left on its boards. It and the harness had
been patched and repaired with galvanized
iron and wire, with rope, canvas, and leather.
Old Jack examined it carefully.
After a long pldtica, the proprietor, who
was an old and sentimental horseman, agreed
to let Old Jack have the outfit. He had heard
that the Mexican owner had been run down
by an automobile, and had died at General
Hospital. For two weeks the burros had been
eating the livery hay, and in due time they
would eat their heads off, if indeed they al-
ready had not done so. Burros were a drug on
the market back in the desert country, though
seldom seen in Los Angeles.
"I'll cut you in 25 per cent on what I find/'
said Old Jack. "Now all I gotta get is some
groceries. I'll come and get the team first
thing in the morning.
"The way to get the most out of burros,"
Old Jack went on as if imparting a deep trade
secret, "is to let 'em mozey along on the up-
grade but when they get on the downgrade
let 'em have the whip and the wagon on top of
'em. Then they sure get out o' town."
64
The Prospector Who Got His Chance
The liveryman laughed, and gave Old Jack
a cigar.
"Look out, Papa," cried the young woman
in the back seat. But the car already had side-
swiped the animal.
"For heaven's sake, Will," said an older and
rougher female voice from the rear seat, "look
where you're going."
The car, the very most expensive thing they
make in Michigan, had continued down the
road, but Papa was putting on the brakes when
he heard the shot.
It sounded like a shotgun. Then almost im-
mediately there was another explosion, much
nearer, which he recognized correctly as one
of his rear tires blowing out. Michigan's Best
came to a full stop.
Papa and his suit of imported Irish home-
spun and his hand-lasted English shoes got out
of the car and started walking back. He was a
well-built man of sixty, strong from golf and
rugged ancestry.
The old man met him midway. He held in
his hand the biggest revolver the tourist had
ever seen.
"You killed my off burro, and you didn't
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stop," said a voice muffled by bristling
whiskers and the lack of dental plates.
"I was stopping as fast as I could," said
the tourist. "What's your donkey worth?"
They were interrupted by the official sound-
ing siren of a motorcycle which discharged a
man in the uniform of the state highway
patrol.
"You've been goin' sixty," he said, "and now
you've run down somebody."
Old Jack had returned to his wagon. It was
the male burro that had been slain. His mate
stood with her head down, her ears back. Old
Jack squatted down and patted the neck of the
dead animal. The other burro brought her ears
forward and her head down so that the nose
also touched the neck of her teammate.
Old Jack stopped patting the dead burro.
Instead he patted the grieving one.
Judge White sat in his chambers, surround-
ed by three walls of lawbooks he never read.
When he noticed that the tourist charged with
speeding and hit-and-run came from Chicago
he decided to make it hard for him.
This was not judicial of Judge White, for
his reason was pure prejudice. It lay in a
66
The Prospector Who Got His Chance
grudge against Chicago. When he visited that
city many years ago twice his feet were pain-
fully stepped on, and a waiter spilled gravy on
his clothes. In an inner corner of his mind he
had been laying for somebody from Chicago
ever since.
So the tourist was tied up with law and
could not get out of the district though he
brought forward a lawyer from Los Angeles.
Another lawyer, whose name was Levine,
sought out Old Jack, whom he found camping
just outside the town where his remaining
burro, with her master's help, had dragged
the little wagon.
"I've found out that this tourist is a rich
real-estate operator out from the Chicago
suburbs," said Mr. Levine. "Now, I will handle
a civil action against him for you. I'm sure I
can get a couple of thousand dollars out of him
for he's scared stiff. That is, I can if you will
go halvers with me."
"A thousand dollars," said Old Jack. "What
a grubstake !"
"Nope," he finally answered, "I don't need
no lawyer. I'm goin' to this tourist fellow my-
self and if he'll pay me a fair price for the
burro he killed so I can get another one that's
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all I want. If he don't pay me I'll shoot him
loose from his legs."
"Don't be a fool," said Mr. Levine. "Make
some good money out of this. It's a great
chance. Sentiment. Old prospector and his
burros. What a weeping jury would do to
this one !"
"Nope," insisted Old Jack. "I don't believe
in goin' to the law about anything. In the
good old days out in this Western country folks
settled their disputes amongst themselves.
We never had much trouble till they built the
courthouse."
"You're an anarchist!" exclaimed Mr.
Levine.
"What's that?" asked Old Jack.
The old man found the tourist up at the
hotel.
"Well how much do you want?" he said,
resuming the bargaining he had begun on the
highway.
"All I want," said Old Jack, "is the worth
of the dead burro. I reckon I can find another
hereabouts. I think twenty-five dollars would
be fair."
If the old prospector had said fifty dollars
or even one hundred dollars the man from the
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The Prospector Who Got His Chance
East would not have been surprised. He knew
nothing of the value of burros.
But something came up inside of him that
was more powerful than sympathy for the
pathetic old man before him. He had been
raised on a Wisconsin farm and he had started
business selling chickens in town. He had been
trading his life long. He had made a couple of
millions in real estate, and every parcel of it
meant a trade.
So it was that the man from the East
answered, almost instinctively, "I'll give you
fifteen dollars." So it was that Old Jack, a
trader himself but a very clumsy one, agreed
on twenty dollars. This was paid.
"Now that's a deal, and I have no more
claim on anything," said Old Jack. But he
remained standing uneasily before the man
from Chicago. He told him how he had started
out from Los Angeles bound for the desert
where he knew he could find gold and lots of it.
"You're a businessman," he ended. "I need
a little grubstake. All the groceries I got in
the wagon the boys at the place where I lived
staked me to. There ain't much. The man
that staked me to the wagon and the span of
burros gets 25 per cent of the gold, and if
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you'll grubstake me you can have the other 25
per cent of the usual 50. I'm a first-class
prospector."
"Nothin' doin'," said the man from Chicago,
"I won't be chiseled out of another dime."
Old Jack returned to his wagon.
The Mexican found Old Jack at his little
camp. He was a farmer Mexican who had a
sad Indian face.
"I hear you wanta buy a burro," he said.
"I got some on my place over the pass."
Old Jack was sitting propped up against a
wagon wheel. His remaining burro was stand-
ing near by, dozing.
The old man told the Mexican about his
situation, what the tourist had given him for
the dead burro. How much did the Mexican
ask for a burro that would team up? -
The Mexican felt something that came from
a long way back, back to the time when some
of his people moved from the north into what
is now Mexico. Back to the time when some
other of his people moved from Africa into
Spain. Back to the time when some other of
his people moved from the north of Europe
down into Spain.
This something was a reverence, almost
70
The Prospector Who Got His Chance
superstitious, for old age. He was dealing
with an old and a poor man.
"So the tourist gave you twenty dollars,"
said the Mexican. "Well, mister, I got a nice
young burro who knows the harness and is a
good lenero, too. I'll tell you what I'll do,
mister, I'll let you have this burro for ten
dollars and then you can make ten off n the
cabron from Chicago."
Ten dollars worth of groceries !
Old Jack showed his return of spirits by a
pleasantry. "You say it's a male burro," he
said. "Well mine is a girl. So I'll have to have
the judge up in town make 'em man and wife.
"But tell me, you say it's a young burro. Is
he good lookin'?"
"You bet your life," said the Mexican.
"He's guapo."
It was a cloudy day when Old Jack set out.
He got up over the pass and saw the desert
stretching out to the horizon. He was walking
beside the wagon with the stumbling gait that
even young prospectors have.
He had been laughed at and cursed by
motorists ever since he left Los Angeles on his
snail pilgrimage.
Sometimes on the bad grades he got behind
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and pushed on the back board. The little wagon
creaked in every joint, but it was clear it was
doing its very best. The burros, the man, and
the wagon took long rests, with rocks behind
the rear wheels.
On one of these halts Old Jack addressed the
old wagon.
"You hold together now," he said coaxingly.
"Pretty soon we'll park you for a good, long
rest while me and the burros pack out onto the
desert."
When they got down to the flat th going
was easier. "Move along, little honeys," said
Old Jack. "Let's get outa town. This is the
chance !"
The southwestern sun came out from be-
hind the clouds and kissed Old Jack. He felt
its warmth and lifting his face to it, blinked
and smiled.
The burros, also, felt the presence of the
Great Mother. They perked their vigilant
ears and dilated their velvet nostrils as they
caught the delicate and insidious odor of the
distant desert.
72
The Patriot Who Became a Man
about Town
THE OLD BUILDING OF THE LOS ANGELES Times
was built like a fort. It had castlelike archi-
tecture, and its insides were reinforced to
withstand dynamite for dynamite once had
wrecked it.
One day a young man, who appropriately
for this background wore a soldier's uniform,
walked into the building and took the elevator
to the editorial floor. His military appearance
was at once burlesque and pathetic. He had on
a Mexican army cape of blue, which was filthy,
and beneath this showed a pair of Mexican
soldier pants which had had the stripes ripped
off the sides of the legs. His shoes and his hat
were nondescript, and so worn they spoke to
the heart.
The young man was short, and above his
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cape, which he wore closed for the day was
chilly, there was a dusty blond head which
needed a haircut. The nose went to one side,
and evidently had been recently broken, and
the upper lip showed a fresh cut and teeth were
missing. He limped.
Captain Carlos Ponce, for that was his name
and title, when he came to the little reception
room did not look at the attendant but swept
past her with a wave of the hand and the
words, "It's all right." He did it so quickly
she did not have a chance to stop him.
He strode through the city room and into
an office with "Managing Editor" on the door.
"Mr. Hodgkin," he said, and the man at the
desk looked up with the editorial pucker still
on his brow. "How ya doin', Hodge/' repeated
the intruder, more familiarly, "Here I am."
He sat down.
"So you're back," said Hodgkin. "Where
in God's name have you been the last few
months?"
"I been fighting for my country. For
liberty," said Captain Ponce. "I been with the
de la Huertista forces down the West Coast.
I got wounded look," and he pulled up a dirty
trouser leg and showed a dirty leg. It had a
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The Patriot Who Became a Man about Town
fresh scar on the calf, and a complementary
one on the other side.
"I couldn't run so they took me, and sent
me to Tres Marias," went on Captain Ponce.
"I got in a little argument with one of the
prison guards, and he glomed me in the puss
with the butt of his rifle. Look," he said,
pointing to the broken nose and the battered
mouth. "I need some work at the General
Hospital. Will you speak for me?"
"So you been fighting for your dear coun-
try?" said Hodgkin. "I wonder whether you
are a Mexican or a gringo, Ponce. You speak
Spanish and English equally poorly. But one
thing I know, you never worked in your life.
You have given us a tip once in a while but as
a tipster you aren't much. Why don't you
hang out in El Paso or San Antonio between
revolutions? Why don't you go to work?"
Captain Ponce drew himself up in mock
dignity, and his comical eyes sparkled.
"Work !" he said. "I did not come here to be
insulted."
Hodgkin laughed as a man laughs who is
not used to it but who enjoys it.
"You laugh at my patriotism," went on
Captain Ponce. "Well, listen. When I was
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with the de la Huertista forces the Obre-
gonistas offered me a bribe. A big one."
"And you took it," said the editor.
"Yes, I took it," said Ponce. "But I still
acted honorably. I took the money from the
Obregonistas but didn't do what they expected
me to do for the money. Thus I was loyal to
my side, and gave the enemy a good lesson for
trying to corrupt me."
Again the editor laughed. He was enjoying
himself.
"Could you let me have five dollars?" asked
Ponce, seeing his chance.
"To hell with you," cried Hodgkin. "How
many five dollars have I given you and never
got one back? I am not made of money, and
I've got work to do. Wait a minute."
Hodgkin walked out into the city room, and
up to a cadaverous man who like a ghost re-
porter sat pecking away on an oldtime non-
visible Remington.
"Tanner," said the editor, "you have known
Carlos Ponce for years. How do you get rid of
him?"
"There is only one way, and obviously no-
body has done that," said the old reporter.
"What do you mean?"
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The Patriot Who Became a Man about Town
"The only way to get rid of him would be to
kill him. When I was in New York I used to
see Ponce and I know for a fact he used to walk
into the private office of old man Dabney, the
oil king who got his jack in Mexico. He used
to walk in anytime he liked and mooch off him.
"And when I was covering the Mexican
Revolution I knew Ponce. Then he used to
mooch off Carranza. I've seen old Don Venu-
stiano laugh in his whiskers many a time at
Ponce, but he always shelled out. However,
Carranza had his own printing press he made
money with.
"And say, wait a minute, that reminds me
of a little stunt Ponce pulled that was pretty
cute when he was on the staff of General Lucio
Blanco over on the East Coast. It got him his
rank of Captain. Well, Blanco had a lot of
'bilambiques/ the slang name for the constitu-
tionalist fiat currency. He was about to pay
his troops with them when he found some of
them were printed wrong. On one side they
read $100 and on the other $50. Ponce told
Blanco that that meant $150. Simple addition,
wasn't it? They paid out on that basis. What
does Ponce want now?"
"Five dollars," said the editor.
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"You better give it to him and have it over
with."
"I will no such thing," said Hodgkin. "I'm
damned if I do. I'll throw him out."
Hodgkin walked back into his office, closed
the door, and digging in his pocket handed
Ponce a five-dollar bill.
"I accept this," said Ponce, "on the under-
standing that I never repay loans. It is not
my custom. I would not deceive you."
"Get out of here," said Hodgkin, "and don't
come back drunk as you usually do. You are
the nastiest little drunk I ever saw."
Ponce walked out into the big room, and
went over to the old reporter. He never had
borrowed money from him his negative ges-
ture of affection.
"How'd you get out?" Tanner asked.
"They sent me to the border, on the ground
that I was a gringo," said Ponce. "From
Nogales I rode in here on freight trains."
"How did you explain that uniform, or what
there is left of it?" asked Tanner.
"Well," said the little captain, pleased with
himself, "I told the train crew when they were
going to throw me off that I was an actor from
Hollywood and had been working in a Mexican
78
The Patriot Who Became a Man about Town
war picture out in Arizona when I fell off a
sound truck and they left me behind."
"Did they believe you?"
"Did they believe me! They took me up in
the caboose and gave me plenty to eat and
cigarettes."
"Well how about your dear fatherland?"
asked the reporter.
"Mexico," said Ponce, "has gone to the dogs.
There isn't the ghost of a chance of a revo-
lution. Who's that new reporter over there?"
"A young fellow just out of college,"
said Tanner. "His folks have dough. He's
learning."
"I asked because I noticed he wears good
clothes, and he is just my size, height, and
build," explained Ponce.
"You aren't going to kill him for his
clothes," said Tanner. "I remember that man
you shot under the table in Monterrey. Did his
clothes fit you?"
"He drew a knife on me," said Ponce.
"He had a table knife and he drew it on a
plate of frijoles" said Tanner.
"Introduce me to that young fellow," begged
Ponce. "He's sure got some half-worn-out
clothes, and I need them worse'n him."
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Captain Ponce limped down to Main Street,
not far away, and entered the door to a stairs
marked "Hotel Bella Union." The hotel was
so old it was considered an historical building
by the Pioneer's Society.
Elderly people, mostly Americans, used to
come to the Mexican proprietor, a fat Sonoran,
and ask to see rooms of certain numbers. It
seems that the prosperous, middle-aged person
making such an inquiry always proved to have
been born in just that room, having found the
reference in some family document. This hotel
had been the best one in -the Los Angeles of
fifty years before, before women went to
hospitals to have babies.
Now it was filled with miserable ones of
Sonoratown. Ponce was not warmly received,
however.
"You have come to repay me two months and
a half rent?" asked the fat proprietor, sar-
castically, for he noted Ponce's clothes. They
spoke in Spanish.
"I have been fighting in the revolution, for
the Holy Mother," said Ponce. "Have you no
shame, to turn me away? Give me credit for
one month for the little half room at the rear
of the fourth floor. I have a prospect for good
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The Patriot Who Became a Man about Town
money, in fact it is assured. Then you will
recover the back rent as well. Do you want to
bring me bad luck?"
The proprietor, who was very avaricious
and very superstitious, consented. He even
patted Ponce on the back and called him "Mi
Capitancito."
Ponce proceeded around the corner to Los
Angeles Street, and entered an old brick build-
ing. As he climbed the steep stairs to the
second floor, built high above the first, he
heard the clatter of linotypes and the rumble
of a press. Over the entrance were the words
"La Opinion, Diario de la Raza."
The man at a desk, surrounded by the litter
of journalism which is the same the world over,
greeted Ponce in his Mexican way much as
Hodgkin had. He was friendly but not
enthusiastic.
He was an aging man, and beneath his eye-
shade was a round, pockmarked Indian face.
He spoke a scholarly Spanish of south central
Mexico.
"Listen, Martinez," said Ponce, sitting on
the editor's desk to assure attention. "I have
an idea. How would La Opinion like to have
the use of cuts from the Times, the next day
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early anything you want. And free or
practically free."
"What's the catch in it?" asked Martinez.
"The only catch," said Ponce, "since you are
so ungentlemanly as to suggest I would deceive
you, is that you pay me a salary, a small
salary, or we might agree on so much an elec-
trotype. I deliver the cuts and take them back.
I have friends at the Times. I can borrow
them, but nobody else could. I may need a little
expense money."
"Nothing doing," said Martinez.
"Well, we will forget the expense money,"
said Ponce.
Thus did Captain Carlos Ponce, returned
from the wars, go into business.
That midnight Hodgkin going home met
Ponce in front of the Times Building. The
Mexican was staggering drunk.
"So that's what you did with the five?" said
the editor, but not bitterly.
Hodgkin's life had been a humdrum one.
He had come from the Middle West, and most
of his life he had been an inside worker in
newspapers. He was a family man. Secretly
he envied Ponce. For every man in his heart
wants to be a reprobate.
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The Patriot Who Became a Man about Town
Guadalupe Fernandez had not been in the
United States many years, but she was already
agringada. She chewed gum. She liked ham
and eggs. She insisted on talking English even
to a Mexican if he could understand it. She
had become what in Los Angeles, though no-
where else on the border, is called a cholita.
Guadalupe also was stage-struck and
screen-struck. She dreamed of Hollywood.
She was employed as a small-part actress and
chorus girl, when they had a musical show, in
Teatro Mexico in the old American playhouse
of the 1890's on the edge of Sonoratown. She
was young, plump, active, good-natured, and
pretty but for the too full, too toothy mouth
that so often mars Mexican beauty.
Maestro Lozano was the impresario at Tea-
tro Mexico. He was a Spaniard long in Latin
America, a producer, a comic, a baritone. He
was tight with his money but loose with his
friendships.
Lozano tolerated Ponce, and sometimes
found him useful. Ponce would do chores just
so he might go backstage anytime he wanted.
In the sordid atmosphere of the old playhouse
Ponce had pretensions of being a stage-door
johnny.
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When Ponce appeared backstage at Teatro
Mexico he had on a fine suit of tweed, rather
collegiate and a little worn. The surgeons at
General had straightened his nose, and the
students at the dental college had fixed up his
teeth.
He looked twice at Guadalupe Fernandez.
That this miserable little actress would not
speak Spanish though she was so Mexican
amused him, and he found that she took her
work seriously. When she had the part of a
servant in Don Juan Tenorio she put her whole
soul in it, and she danced in the chorus of El
Soldado Chocolate in her notion of the Broad-
way form.
"I am humble," she told Ponce, "but I love
the art. But I am no aficionada, mister, let
me tell you."
Ponce told Guadalupe that he had friends in
Hollywood, could help her get an audition,
maybe an extra job. She hesitated to believe
him.
Then Ponce had the idea about the stills.
The dramatic editor at the Times threw them
on the floor more often than not. Ponce noted
this one day when he was at the newspaper
borrowing a cut La Opinion desired. He knew
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The Patriot Who Became a Man about Town
Shaw, the critic, had in fact honored him by
mooching passes from him.
"Do you throw away these fotos?" asked
Ponce. "Can I have some of 'em?"
"Sure," said Shaw, "help yourself."
Ponce picked up one of Mary Pickford and
another of Charlie Chaplin. He borrowed
Shaw's fountain pen. The critic looked over
his shoulder as Ponce wrote on one, in a mock,
small feminine hand, "For my darling Carlitos
Mary" and on the other "To my dear friend
Captain Carlos Ponce Charles Chaplin."
"What do you know about that!" exclaimed
the critic admiringly. "What a man! What
a man !"
The photographs subscribed to Captain
Carlos Ponce were hung among other relics of
Teatro Mexico, and Ponce's stock went up with
all the girls of the show, especially Guadalupe.
"Carlos, when are you going to see about
what you promise to get me in pictures?" she
asked one night after the show.
"At the right time," Ponce assured her.
"You can't push these things, Lupe. I know
two directors I could ask when the right time
comes."
Ponce stepped close to her there in the
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wings. "I am at your feet/' he said. "Where
do you live? You never will tell me. Where is
your sweet nest?"
"That's a lot of hooey, Carlos," said Guada-
lupe. "You don't seem so guapo to me, mister.
At your feet and your sweet nest don't sound
so good in English. You ought to get a new
line of talking. I'm no push 'em over."
Yet she looked pleased.
"When do I get that autographed photo-
graph you promised to get for me from Ramon
Novarro?" asked Lupe, pouting. "You are
always promising. Is it true my favorite
cinema artist is Mexican?"
"That's right," said Carlos. "Novarro's real
name is Samaniego. They came from Duran-
go. I knew the family well. I will get you that
picture sure in a day or two."
Guadalupe got it the next day, a shiny photo-
graph showing the actor in the role of a pirate,
his chest bared, earrings in his ears, his eyes
flashing. On it was penned "A la talentosa y
simpatica actriz national Guadalupe Fernan-
dez de su admirador Ramon Novarro. 9 '
Lupe hung it on the frame of the mirror in
the dressing room she shared with three of
the other girls. How they envied her !
86
The Patriot Who Became a Man about Town
It was some time before Ponce appeared
once more in Teatro Mexico. He was not idle.
One day he had seen the cashier of a restaurant
writing some letters in the slack time, and he
had begged a sheet and envelope of her station-
ery. It had caught his fancy because it had a
letter F embossed on it. Next day Guadalupe
got a letter written in a painstaking hand on
feminine paper marked F, and it was signed
Carlos.
"My life/' it began. "I have been at a house-
party in Hollywood for several days, and send
this note to let you know that I do not forget
you. I am trying to arrange the business for
you, but may have to delay a few weeks more.
I have been visiting my friends, the Fairbanks,
and also a house guest is Lady Mountbatten of
England, a good old girl and sixty if a day, so
don't fret about your little Carlos."
Captain Carlos Ponce, in a new suit, that is
new for him, and elevated by two or three
drinks, entered Teatro Mexico the next Satur-
day matinee. It was about time for the curtain
of the show variedades with a one-act drama
called Dulce Amor.
The captain had become fat. His face was
healed, but he still limped from the old wound
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as he swept past the ticket taker, who nodded
to him, and down the side aisle to the stage
door back of the boxes.
The house was filled with workingmen,
laborers, farmers, and more prosperous Mexi-
cans who were homesick for a play in Spanish.
Ponce found Lupe as she came out of her
dressing room, ready in her Spanish peasant
costume to do her dance with Chapo the
comedian.
At once he knew something was wrong.
"So," she said, "you come."
"You got my letter?" asked Carlos.
"Yes I got her," she answered, and added a
single Spanish word, "fenfrdw."
"I got your letter," she went on, "and I
noticed the handwriting. I noticed it too well,
Captain Ponce. I noticed it is the same hand-
writing, the very, very same handwriting as
is on the picture of Mister Ramon Novarro,
and on the picture of Charles Chaplin and on
the picture of Mary Pickf ord. 'My darling
Carlitos,' eh? Nuts for Carlitos."
Guadalupe was walking back and forth be-
fore him, and moving her arms more and more
violently as she talked. She passed a table
used as a workbench by the stage carpenter.
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The Patriot Who Became a Man about Town
She picked up something that flashed. It was a
long-bladed jackknife.
"Lupe, linda," said Carlos. "Let me explain,
j
"Bribon!" she called again. "Hablador.
You have deceive me. You have made the fool
out of me. You have betray me."
With this she made a lunge at him with the
knife, and she knew how to use it. Ponce, who
knew how to avoid it, leapt back. The blade
slashed the air where he had just been.
But she was after him.
"Vayase sinverguenzo" she screamed,
"vaya! vaya!"
He needed no command to flee.
Away they went, around the boxes and down
the side aisle. They bumped into people com-
ing down the aisle. They were sworn at and
laughed at. The lights in the theater went out,
for it was time for the curtain, but still they
ran on.
Ponce, looking back over his shoulder, could
only see Guadalupe's flashing teeth and the
glittering blade of the knife.
Ponce's game leg did not prevent him from
speeding forward like a frightened antelope,
nor did her yelling prevent her from pressing
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on him like a panther at the kill. The captain
shot into the street well ahead of her, and ran
on down the sidewalk.
At the entrance stood a policeman. When
Guadalupe saw him she concealed the knife in
the fold of her dress, and stood there, panting.
"What's coming off here?" said the police-
man.
"That fellow he made the disturbance in the
theater," said Guadalupe. She turned and
went back.
"Boy!" exclaimed the policeman. "What
do you know about that! A lady bouncer !"
90
The Waitress Who Lost Her Sailor
THE FACE ON THE PILLOW WAS A MOST ITALIAN
face. There was the Latin in it and the Greek
and the Moor.
It was a short yet an angular face, of dark
coloring and waxlike delicacy. It was a face
that painters like as a model to go with velvet
draperies or marble columns.
The eyes of the face on the pillow opened
and looked out with the stare of sudden con-
sciousness on the old, battered room. The noise
of metropolitan motor traffic did not alter the
fact that in the corner was a marble-top wash-
stand with bowl and pitcher of flowered china ;
nor that the bed in which the young woman
lay was of bird's-eye maple, out of vogue these
forty years ; nor that the wallpaper was com-
ing off there over the gas heater, exposing
underneath it other wallpaper which in turn
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had fallen off to expose still another design of
wallpaper.
Marta was twenty-five, and her strong,
beautiful peasant body was getting heavier
than it should since she came from New Jersey
to California. This worried her, but it was no
easy task for one of her profession to diet.
Marta was a hasher.
Marta didn't feel like getting up. The
bed still tasted good. As she rose to dress she
heard one of her favorite linnets singing there
in the eaves of the old wooden boardinghouse.
This, she thought, could not have been better
done in a storybook. This was to be the day
that Fred was coming back, and tomorrow was
to be the day that they would be married.
Let's see. She had left the family in New
Jersey four years ago. What luxury to have
a big room like this all to herself ! Back there
she had roomed with four of her sisters.
It hadn't been so nice, though, when she
worked in the Japanese restaurant at San
Pedro. The waterfront trade was not what
you would call refined. But since she came up
to town and worked in Louis', at the foot of
Bunker Hill, things had been fine. They had
high-class business district trade with almost
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The Waitress Who Lost Her Sailor
as much dinner as luncheon. The bar business
was good between times, with a steady flow of
tips. Louis' was half saloon and half restau-
rant; for the life of you you couldn't decide
which it was most.
She had met Fred at Louis'. He was a swell
fellow. He had soft manners and he was a
sailor. His blond German-American skin and
the blue gob uniform were becoming. He
thought Marta was swell. That was all there
was to it.
Every time his ship came to the harbor he
found her and they went to a show. She even,
once, got him to go to Mass with her. That was
something.
One thing and another, you know. Tomor-
row they would be married. She had filed the
intention to wed, and arranged things with
Father Murphy. Fred had sent an airmail
from Honolulu telling the date he would
probably arrive, and she had watched the
papers for the movements of the fleet. Then
he had sent a telegram ; it must have been sent
in by some other boat to Wilmington. Any-
way, it said he would be up from Long Beach
at eight o'clock Thursday, and to meet him at
the P. E. Station.
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She had arranged to take the day trick at
Louis' so she would be off. She couldn't miss a
day, marry or no marry, for Louis was getting
crabby lately and she had to keep her job. Jobs
weren't so easy to get since the second de-
pression and the Second World War.
Marta dressed in her uniform, slipped her
raincoat over it, though it was the dry season,
and went out. The sunlight hurt her eyes, and
she shielded them with her hand till they got
used to it. So she went down the hill. She
heard the linnets again.
She never had been half so happy, not even
when she got her first job and knew she
wouldn't have to live home any more. She
walked with the rubbery walk that went with
her youth, her well-poised body, and her low-
heeled waitress shoes.
She hadn't told them at the restaurant.
What fun it would be to spring it on Helen and
Myrtle and Bert the bartender ! About Louis
she didn't care so much, but he wasn't so bad.
He always spoke kindly enough, and on last
Christmas he had given her a five-dollar bill.
But the others got one, too.
"How's tricks?" said Bert as she went in.
"I see the fleet's coming in."
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The Waitress Who Lost Her Sailor
"Lookit her blush/' said Helen.
"That blond gob will be here for the rest of
the week," Bert went on. "How he can eat
and drink tap beer !"
"Nuts to you all," said Marta, but her face
said she liked it.
She slipped off the raincoat, and hung it in
the closet, went to the bar mirror to put on her
uniform cap.
The first customer took ham and eggs,
turned over heavy. The second customer took
coffee and buns. Fred would be here at eight
tonight. The third customer took coffee and
boiled eggs. The fourth customer took bourbon,
plain, with water wash.
Fred would bring her something from
China, she knew. Something for her dressing
table. He did last time. Maybe it would be
brass or cloisonne or maybe something made
of silk, real China silk. The fifth customer took
just coffee, and didn't drink half of it.
It was slow at luncheon. Things had been
slow lately. Mr. Montgomery, the nice lawyer,
wanted to change his order after they had
started a steak, but he was apologetic about
it and the chef said it was 0. K.
Would Fred want to live in Los Angeles
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after he learned his trade in the Navy and got
discharged? There ought to be as much oppor-
tunity in Los Angeles as anywhere for a
young electrician. The new customer in booth
three wanted some more water.
The fresh customer who always came in
with the printers from the job shop was es-
pecially fresh. But it was just as well to kid
him along. He was a customer, after all.
Would Fred look just the same? Would he
have his hair cut longer as she always asked
him to? She would go down early, right after
dinner, and wait for him. He might get in
early.
"What are you doing tonight, sweetheart?"
asked the fresh customer who comes in with
the printers.
About four o'clock, as regular as the mail-
man, old Mr. Murray came in for his old-
fashioned toddy. Mr. Murray was a dear,
seventy if he was a day. He always carried
books, not lawbooks but storybooks and history
books. They all came from the public library.
Once Mr. Murray came in with the younger
man, and they sat and talked a long time and
though they talked English all right Marta
couldn't understand much of what they said.
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The Waitress Who Lost Her Sailor
It was about literature and philosophy and
scientific stuff all mixed up. That day Mr.
Murray had drunk two old-fashioneds. He
never had before. Just one, not too much sugar.
The clerks from the Italian consulate came
in for dinner, and ordered a bottle of ten-year-
old sauterne. It seems somebody had a birth-
day. After the third glass the tourist clerk
said that the California wine was every bit as
good as the white wine of Italy, but the others
protested at this as unpatriotic.
They talked as they always did in Italian to
Marta, who was forgetting her Italian and
she made mistakes by mixing English words
in it which made them all laugh. They treated
her very politely, almost formally, always
called her signorina.
This made Marta happier than ever. It was
nice for a girl who was to be married tomorrow
to have people polite and kindly toward her.
Especially these people who were of the race
of her parents.
"Dove e nata, Signorina?" one of them
asked her.
She answered that she was born in Hoboken.
This made them all laugh, and she laughed
too. Such nice Italians. They made her, a
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waitress, feel that she was one of the party.
The dinner hour would never end. Probably
because there were so few customers, even
fewer than there had been lately. No wonder
Louis looked grumpy. She was thinking of
this when Louis got off the stool back of the
serving counter where Felipe, the Filipino
boy, worked, and came over to where Marta
stood at Station 2.
"You came on for the late breakfast, didn't
you?" asked Louis. "Well, you'll be quittin'
soon and I gotta tell you something, Marta."
This didn't sound so good.
"Your work's 0. K., Marta, but I gotta let
you go," said Louis. His face looked sorry.
She had been working there less time than any
one of the other girls, he said. He wanted to
be fair.
"Business has been rotten," said Louis, "and
I just got a jolt from the bank. You can stay
another week," he added, as if he hadn't at
first meant to do that.
"Thanks," said Marta, as if he had done her
a great favor.
No, she wouldn't tell Fred, not till she'd got
another job. Why worry Fred? Weren't they
going to be married tomorrow? Why spoil it?
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The Waitress Who Lost Her Sailor
Would Fred look the same? The funny little
smile he had, just around one side of his face,
when he was kidding just a little.
Where could she get a job? She hadn't the
least idea. She had seen the lines down at the
bureaus.
Maybe Fred would have a suggestion. No,
she wasn't going to tell Fred. The couple in
booth one wanted their dessert. The man in
three said he had ordered plain water in his
highball. Why didn't people speak up so you
could hear them?
Finally it was over and she went home. The
fog, which is as characteristic of Los Angeles
climate as sunshine, had descended. It comple-
mented her mood as the bright sunshine had
done a few hours before. It comforted her by
being sad with her. It flooded the city with
soft light.
She put on the new suit. She had not been
able to decide whether she would wear it first
to be married in or to meet him in. When she
saw the suit hanging there in the closet it
looked as if it wanted to be put on. So she put
it on.
It was awfully early to get to the electric
railway station on Main Street to meet a train
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coming in at 8. The station clock said 7:10.
But she might as well wait there as any place.
Then he might get in early. That would be
nice.
The rhythm of the railway station, a rhythm
like nothing else in the world, caught her and
she started to daydream. She daydreamed for-
ward to her marriage, and the time when Fred
would be discharged from the Navy. Let me
see, that would be nearly two years more.
Then she daydreamed backward to her home
in Jersey, and the day she went to New York
to see Pagliacci. Her dad had taken her, and
he yelled so loud there in the second balcony
that she was a little ashamed, though the other
people were yelling loud too.
Before she knew it, it was 8 :00. The train
that came in at 8:10 did not bring him. Nor
the one at 8:30. Well, he would come on the
8:40. He didn't.
There were other women waiting for the
trains, mostly young women. No sailor
arrived on the train, not one. Then Marta
heard somebody say something that made her
heart stop.
"The fleet's had new orders/' a woman's
voice said.
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The Waitress Who Lost Her Sailor
Marta started to walk, out of the station
waiting room she walked, and there on the
sidewalk were the newsboys who always are on
the sidewalks outside stations. She didn't
even hear what the newsboys were saying,
but her eyes automatically read the headline.
It said to her :
"Fleet Ordered to Atlantic."
Then she came closer and read the smaller
type of the headline. It explained to her :
"Eleventh Hour Orders Prevent Landing
Here; Hint European Complication but Wash-
ington Silent."
When Louis told Marta she had lost her job,
something inside of her something every-
body has inside that seems to float like a boat
on the sea started to sink. But it came up
again, drawn up by the prospect of Fred's
arrival.
When Marta read the newspaper headline
that something inside of her sank and didn't
come up again. After that there wasn't any-
thing inside of her at all. She seemed to feel
all right, just empty, empty of what every-
body must have inside, that thing which is
called hope.
She walked mechanically down the sidewalk.
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She looked into that part of the station where
the Pasadena cars start, a dark, quiet cave,
unlike the bustling waiting room inside. She
fled into this cave, and sat down on a bench in
a specially dark corner.
She hadn't sat there long until she saw
what she most needed to see, a friend. It was
her favorite customer, old Mr. Murray. He
carried, or it should be said he wore, his in-
separable library books under an arm. Mr.
Murray walked with the resigned, saintly air
of the commuter.
"Oh, Mr. Murray, oh, Mr. Murray!" cried
Marta.
"What's the matter, child?" said Mr. Mur-
ray, sensing her trouble.
He sat down beside her and put his books
on the bench on the other side of him.
"Oh, Mr. Murray," said Marta, "I have had
such trouble. All in this one day. I don't know
what to do, what to do."
"Tell me about it," said Mr. Murray, "I
have twenty minutes to wait for my train, and
I don't mind missing one."
"First thing," said Marta, "Louis fired me.
I have no job. I thought my job was good for-
ever. But that wasn't bad, not bad at all. I
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The Waitress Who Lost Her Sailor
was going to be married tomorrow, Mr. Mur-
ray. He is a sailor with the fleet, and he was
to come tonight. I came down to meet him.
But he didn't come."
"I know, I saw the papers," said Mr.
Murray. He looked just as sorry as if it had
happened to him.
"Now he may not be back for a year, he
may never be back," said Marta hopelessly.
She hadn't thought of that before.
"Why," asked Marta, "why should these
things happen to me? Is there anything in
the books you read, Mr. Murray, to tell why
these things happen to me? What have I
done?"
"What you do or don't do has nothing to do
with it," said Mr. Murray. "These things
happen to you because of what most people
call luck. The Greeks and Romans called it
fortune. Luck rules the world. Circumstance
has us in a vise.
"You see, my dear," said Mr. Murray,
speaking most gently, "somebody in Washing-
ton or maybe over in Europe did something or
said something and the fleet didn't land and
your sailor boy couldn't come to marry you. So
your life was changed because, it may be, two
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of these men we call statesmen got into a
quarrel and wanted to spite one another.
"Maybe this was because of some simple
thing, like a bad cup of coffee at breakfast.
That made one statesman angry, and he said
what he should not have said and that started
it all Maybe the fleet moved from the Pacific
to the Atlantic because somebody stubbed his
toe in Europe, and that set in motion a whole
chain of circumstances. So it was with your
losing your job, so it is with everything that
is beyond our direct control. It is luck."
"I don't believe it is luck," cried Marta. "I
believe in the Lord and the Devil, and today
the Devil has had his way with me."
"My dear, I won't contradict that at all,"
said Mr. Murray. "Some people call it the
Lord and the Devil. That is all right. I call it
luck. There are some people who say it is all
economics. They are very foolish people, I
think, but they have a right to their opinion.
"But you see, Marta, it doesn't matter what
you call it. What you call it doesn't make any
difference, as long as you recognize that it is
beyond our control. The thing is the same no
matter what you call it."
Marta felt something new inside of her. The
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The Waitress Who Lost Her Sailor
thing called hope still was gone, but she felt
something moving in her. It came up to her
throat and it stuck there.
She opened her pocketbook, took out her
handkerchief, and started to dab at her eyes
with it.
"I know it is hard," said Mr. Murray. "You
are young, and haven't gotten used to it yet.
Of course it is hard. It was when I first dis-
covered it, when I was young."
Mr. Murray took one of Marta's young
hands in his old hand, and they sat there with-
out speaking a long time.
Thus he tried to comfort her with his silence.
A man with a basket walked past their
bench.
"Violets, ten cent a bunch," he said. He
said it like a Greek.
"This is the season violets are cheap and
good," said Mr. Murray. "Wouldn't you like
a bunch, Marta?"
"Oh, Mr. Murray," she said. It wasn't
what she wanted to say. It wasn't much to
say. But that was what she said.
She took the bunch of violets and the pin
with the glass head the peddler gave her. She
pinned it on her coat. It was the first time
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anybody that she could remember had bought
her flowers. Even Fred had never done that.
She looked down at the violets. The violets
spoke to her with their little voices.
The quiet and darkness of the cave were
broken by the arrival of a streetcar. It was
a Watts car, and it moved in slowly, just as
slowly as a streetcar can move.
The bright light inside the streetcar didn't
seem to come out the windows and doors and
light the cave. The car was like a world mov-
ing through the universal night. At last it
stopped.
The shadows waiting for the car moved
close and climbed onto the steps. When they
entered the car these shadows became people.
The people arriving on the car got off and be-
came shadows.
The car finally started away, out over the
bridge at the back of the station. It moved
slowly as it had entered, taking the light with
it.
The young woman and the old man still sat
there on the bench holding hands.
106
The Reporter Who Became a Hero
MULLINS PUT HIS FEET ON TOP OF HIS DESK IN
the press room of Central Police. He leaned
back in the old swivel chair he had inherited
fifteen years before from his predecessor on
the night trick. The spot on the desk top where
he put his feet had no varnish, having been
rubbed down to the raw wood by generations
of idle feet.
The old swivel chair went back with a jerk
and groaned. It was a chair old and rheumatic
and getting pretty tired of being pushed
around.
So was Mullins. He was coming fifty and
getting fat. Life had been a flop. This was
attested by the shine on both pairs of pants to
his only suit and the look of misery on his
round, rather stupid face. This misery of
Mullins was due to thwarted ambition. He
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had been a reporter for thirty years, and this
was as far as he had got. Yet nobody would
have guessed it to hear Mullins talk, as he now
was talking, to a young man subbing for the
regular man on the morning opposition.
"My best advice to you younger men, the
result of what I have seen in my career/' said
Mullins, "is to be different. Get away from
hackneyed reporting. Find the men who bite
the dogs."
The cub yessed him politely. This made
Mullins feel better than he had in years. A
glow came into his face as he gazed up at the
light fixture, with its usual design of dead
flies.
Like most other police reporters in Los
Angeles in those days, Mullins carried a gun
under his coat and wore a regulation police
badge, which he called a buzzer. This he con-
trived to show so as to impress the young man.
It was one of the few vanities fate had left
Mullins.
He had not noticed Williams in the room or
he would not have blown so much. When the
lad left, Williams from his corner opened fire
on poor Mullins.
"Lecturing the cubs again, eh," said the
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The Reporter Who Became a Hero
assignment man whom Mullins envied but did
not hate, for there was no hate inside of
Mullins, "why don't you teach journalism I
said journalism out at U. S. C.? I noticed
you spoke of your career."
Mullins cringed at this, and that look of
misery came back into his face. This made
Williams repent.
"Gosh, Williams/' said Mullins, playing for
pity, "I been hamming it on police for the Tri-
bune for fifteen years. I know I got what it
takes, too. Just never had a break. I write
better copy than many a guy in the office but
rewrite always gets my good stories and
garbles 'em. They cut out the cops' names just
to make it tough on me.
"And Baker he's on the desk nights has
it in for me. I get up fresh little features and
they don't even get a break. What a butcher
shop a city room is !"
"Ambition," quoted Williams, "should be
made of sterner stuff. Why don't you do some-
thing theatrical, instead of sitting around this
cop house waiting for men to bite dogs?"
"By God," cried Mullins, "sometime I will."
He let his feet slip off the edge of the desk,
while the venerable swivel chair, as if trying
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to get rid of him, pitched him forward. Then
the chair whimpered a little, resignedly.
"You're all right," said the assignment man,
touched a little. "If you are a leg man, Mul-
lins, you're the best leg man in California."
Mullins looked grateful.
Baker, the city editor, was a large man, with
the desk man spread on the part of him that
he used the most. He was a soft-spoken, super-
ficially gentle man, who was almost at inner
war with the world and very bitter about it.
His bitterness took the form of exterior polite-
ness. The madder he got the softer he spoke.
He hadn't been city editor long. They never
were on the Tribune.
Baker was specially polite to the telegraph
editor, whom he detested. He had just had a
run in with him. He was frothing with polite-
ness when Mullins appeared out of a cloud of
copy boys and tobacco smoke.
He approached Baker timidly.
"Good evening," said Baker scornfully. "I
don't recall ever having had the pleasure of
seeing you in the shop except on payday. Is
your telephone out of order? Did your swivel
chair break down?"
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The Reporter Who Became a Hero
Mullins drew himself up and smiled as if he
thought it was all in fun.
"Baker," he said gravely, "I have a little
story I think is pretty good. Thought I'd come
in and tell you about it personally. Most
curious. Fact, I've been waiting years for it
to happen. Knew it must happen sooner or
later by the law of averages. A man has bit a
dog!" "
The police reporter paused dramatically for
his words to sink in. The city editor's face did
not change its scornfully polite expression.
Baker waited patiently, too patiently.
"Knew it would happen sometime," Mullins
stumbled on. "A drugstore clerk who lives
out in West Adams had a neighbor who had a
small, fresh dog. The dog always runs out and
growls and snaps at the drugstore clerk when
he goes home. Last night this pill-and-poultice
salesman gets half crocked and when he is
met by the neighbor's dog he gets down on all
fours, growls, and jumps around like a dog.
All the neighbors are lookin' on! I talked to
four witnesses.
"The dog he's astonished, but he plays the
game. The man don't fight fair, though. He
reaches out with a hand and grabs the dog, and
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growling furiously just like a dog he bites the
poor animal on the leg. The dog he retreats
yelpin', and the drugstore clerk gets pinched
for cruelty to animals and intoxication. It's
all in the record."
The city editor waited a long time before he
spoke. The reporter shifted his weight from
one leg to another then tilted back on his
heels.
Finally Baker looked up with a fishy eye.
"Which leg did he bite the dog on?"
There he had him. Mullins didn't know
which leg and he didn't think quickly enough
to specify one.
"I don't know," he muttered.
"Please go back," said the city editor, "and
get the facts."
The look of a broken-hearted boy violinist
came into the eyes of Mullins and from his fat
face the sweat began to ooze. He started to
walk away. Then he turned suddenly and
returned to the city desk.
"Baker," he said loud enough for the boys
on the rim to hear, "last Christmas I got cards
from five ex-city editors of the Tribune"
After he said that he felt swell. The titter
of copyreader laughter was mingled with the
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The Reporter Who Became a Hero
guffaw of the telegraph editor, who didn't
have to titter.
The telegraph editor's guffaw socked the
city editor in the face. But he did not wince.
He took it.
The city editor's phone rang.
"Yes, madam, this is the city editor," said
Baker. "No, madam, I do not know where the
fire is. But I will be only too happy to ascertain
and call you back if you would like to attend."
Josephine was a two-fisted hasher who slung
it in the Dirty Spoon around the corner. She
was easy on the eyes for a gal who had worked
like a horse most of her forty years. She
was uneducated and unaffected, witty and
friendly.
Mullins' wife hadn't lasted long. That was
back when he started on the Tribune. She had
looked at her husband much as Baker now
looked at him with tolerant scorn.
Mullins thought he might go out with Jose-
phine sometime, but they worked different
hours. Hadn't 0. Henry played the shop girls
and waitresses of Bagdad? Why shouldn't
Mullins of the Tribune! Who was he to think
himself better than 0. Henry?
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He saw Josephine at dinner that night.
Mullins was perched on a stool, the old-
fashioned restaurant stool that had a round,
revolving top like the stools that eye-ear-and-
nose doctors have in their offices.
Drunks had fallen off these stools and
broken bones, but Mullins had ridden them
drunk and sober, winter and summer. He
knew just what the whirling top of the stool
would do under all circumstances. Just where
the rail was for the feet. At just what spot on
the counter you could reach over and get a
clean spoon.
"Listen, Jo," said Mullins as she fetched
him his usual hot roast beef sandwich.
"Listen," he said expanding in the warmth of
her friendship. "I sure told the cheese of police
where to get off yesterday."
"Did you?" said Josephine with mock in-
credulity.
"I said, 'A chief of police doesn't scare a
good reporter/ I told him that if his lousy flat-
feet didn't stop torturing suspects I was going
to crusade it.
"It's a scandal, Jo, the way they beat up
poor innocent guys in hopes they will confess
what the cops call confess. Torture was
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abolished about the end of the Middle Ages.
The Fourth Estate's got a duty."
"What did the chief say?" said Josephine.
"I never liked him. He is crabby about his
food."
"He said to me," went on Mullins, puffing
up like a pouter, "he said to me, 'All right
Mullins, all right, I'll see that it is stopped/ "
"Well, will it be, do you think?"
"No," admitted Mullins, deflating. "He has
said it before and they never stop it. I'd expose
'em if my city editor would give me any
support. But how about you, Jo? What you
been doing?"
"I been to Catalina," said Josephine.
"Not with a guy," said Mullins in feigned
jealousy.
"No, with a girl friend. Hadn't been there in
years. It's swell. We saw the flying fish and
went out in the glass-bottom boats."
"So," said Mullins, "you went out in a glass-
bottom boat and gave the fish a treat."
That hash-house repartee convulsed the
waitress and two pressmen she was also wait-
ing on. They sat there on the stools in their
greasy cotton pants and greasy undershirts
and the clean, square, white paper caps that
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pressmen traditionally and ceremoniously
fashion daily for themselves.
"So long, honey," said Mullins whirling
around on the stool and landing like a pole
vaulter on the floor.
"So long/' said Josephine. Just "so long."
Mullins had only been half refreshed at the
lunch counter.
Only half, for man is nourished by two
kinds of food bread and applause. There is
the food for the belly and the food for the ego.
The pain of the belly hunger ends as the fast
progresses, but a starving human heart throbs
on, on, on always.
Mullins stopped to pay his check and chat a
moment with the proprietor, an elderly man
who with no regard for the implication it
involved was always complaining of his
digestion.
Mullins looked up at the picture, as he
always did when he paid his check. "I meant
to ask you where you got that," said Mullins.
"Nice, isn't it?" said the proprietor. "Well,
sir, ever since I was a young man I admired
that old brewery number, always wanted one.
There was one in the barroom back in Wis-
consin where I learned to drink nickel beers.
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The Reporter Who Became a Hero
"Well," continued the proprietor, whanging
the cash register for the pressmen in the dirty
shirts, "well, a few years ago I had a customer,
a lunger who used to come in every day for
milk toast. I once told him about how I always
admired Custer gettin' massacreed by the In-
juns, and what do you think? This customer
next day brought me in a cardboard tube, with
that pitcher in it, fresh and new as the day it
was printed. Seems this fellow had been a
drummer for the brewery years before and he
had saved several of these 'Last Stands.' I had
it framed. It cost me $4.50."
"It's swell," said Mullins. "This modern
art can't hold a candle to the old stuff. Look at
the action ! That fellow Custer sure knew the
truth of what Shakespeare said that ambition
should be made of sterner stuff."
"You're damn tootin'," said the proprietor.
Mullins got to the cop house just as a game
was starting. On one of the desks in the
press room a city jail trusty had painted a
checkerboard. For men the reporters used
beerbottle caps. Eastside for the red and
Rainier for the white.
"Shut the door and lock it," said Paul, the
perennial police reporter who came from New
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Orleans. "Lock the door and keep out those
ornery cops. They're always horning in here
on the pretense of giving us news. Keep the
bulls out."
Paul was a bald-headed old man, mummified
and loquacious. He spoke English, French,
and Spanish and was now studying Japanese
for no particular reason. He was very hard-
boiled on the outside and tenderhearted inside.
A good reporter once, he had been ruined by
too much police.
Mullins never had been a good reporter, but
he thought he was one. At least he thought he
thought he was.
The game had not been in progress long
when someone tried the door and, finding it
locked, pounded on it.
"Open up, you tramps," said a voice, muffled
by the door. "I got a story for you, a good
story."
The men at checkers and those tilted back in
their chairs with their feet on the desks did
not get up. The players made two more moves.
The pounding continued.
"All right," said the muffled voice, "you can
all go to hell. It's a shootin' in Belvedere. A
cop has been killed by a marihuanero. The
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The Reporter Who Became a Hero
cholo's got a rifle, and he's barricaded in a
house."
"Open the door," said Paul. "Let the damn
bull in."
Captain Burke of Homicide stood in the
door. He would have been recognized for a cop
if seen with no clothes on.
"You fellows trying to keep news out?" he
said. Nobody denied it.
"Come on, all of you if you like," said Cap-
tain Burke. "I got a car for you with Tony.
And for God's sake get my name in this story.
I ain't had my name in the paper for two
weeks."
Mullins sat in the front seat of the old open
car, so it was his business to crank the siren.
Paul and the others tumbled into the back seat.
Tony was in fine fettle, a reckless but brilliant
driver.
"Keep the sireen open all the time, even
between intersections," he told Mullins.
Mullins started to crank, and the sound of
the siren at first hurt his ears. Then he got
to like it. Pretty soon the siren seemed to be
saying something over and over. What was
it? Now it was clear.
"Sterner stuff, sterner stuff," said the siren.
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The car shot down First to San Pedro, San
Pedro to Sixth. It shot past blurred faces and
dancing automobiles, dancing as boxcars dance
as you pass them on the express. It shot out
over the river, out past a beautiful park, past
an ugly subdivision, past rows of stores, past a
corn field, past rows of small wooden houses.
All the time there were the blurred faces on
either side. One was the face of an astonished
horse hitched to a junk wagon.
All the time the siren kept saying, "Sterner
stuff, sterner stuff." It whined it slowly
but unmistakably like this, "S-t-e-r-n-e-r
s-t-u-f-f-f-f!"
Mullins' arm ached but he did not dare stop
cranking.
Then above the noise of the siren and the
roar of the motor he heard another even more
persistent noise. It sounded like many auto-
mobile tires blowing out. It was a sub-machine
gun.
"Better not drive any further," said a voice
when the car came to a stop.
Mullins stopped cranking the siren, and
there was a crash of silence.
The voice belonged to a man who was all
covered with dust. He held a six-shooter in
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The Reporter Who Became a Hero
one hand and on his ample belly rode a cart-
ridge belt. The loops were half empty.
"The cholo sure can shoot," said the voice,
hoarse and tired. "He has a rifle. He's a
Mexican hop, one of the Mary Warner boys.
The neighbors complained about the noise he
was making and they sent Johnson over, and
Johnson got it right between the eyes. The
Pierce Brothers Mortuary wagon just took
him away. Now don't any of you boys get
croaked. But we got to get the lousy cholo"
This voice left them.
"El cabron cucaracha!" said another voice.
It was Aguirre, the Mexican cop. There was a
hole through his hat, low down on the crown.
The bullet must have gone through Aguirre's
head, thought Mullins. Aguirre, it seemed,
had held the hat out on a stick.
"El cabron!" repeated Aguirre. "They say
he's an old insurrecto. Used to be one of Pan-
cho Villa's Dorados."
Mullins peeked around the corner. There
stood the house.
It was a placid-looking house, a declasse
bungalow with a deep overhanging roof a
squat, cozy, kindly-looking house. Out of it
from someplace came little flashes, followed, it
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seemed, by sharp explosions and then long
whines.
Then the sub-machine gun opened up again,
and Mullins was surprised to find that it, too,
kept saying, "Sterner stuff, sterner stuff,
sterner stuff." It said it more emphatically
than the auto siren had.
Mullins moved along with the policeman,
hugging the walls of the houses. A woman's
voice from one of them said, "Is it safe to get
up now?"
"No," a man's voice told the woman's voice,
"keep down on the floor."
Mullins stumbled over a child's tricycle. He
barked his shin on a stoop. He didn't take his
eyes off the bungalow with the overhanging
roof.
"Slow now," said Captain Burke, "slow
now!"
"Sterner stuff," said the sub-machine gun,
"sterner stuff."
"Whang," said the old bungalow, and there
was a crash at Mullins' rear. The shot had
splintered a board of the house behind him.
Something came over Mullins. It was like
when the morphine creeps up into you when
the doctor tries to ease your pain. It made
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The Reporter Who Became a Hero
him feel fine and self-confident. It was the
morphine of excitement.
Later he felt the old pain coming back. The
pain of failure, of being kicked around by
fate, of ambition that never got him anything.
Then Mullins remembered what Williams, the
assignment man, had told him. Why not try
something dramatic?
"Sterner stuff, sterner stuff," rattled the
sub-machine gun.
What would people say what would Baker
say, what would Josephine say if he could
capture that drug-crazed Mexican single-
handed? He'd better be dead than to feel the
way he did, the way he always felt.
Then up came another wave of the morphine
called excitement. It went this time way up,
all over him.
"Come back, you fool," yelled Captain
Burke.
Mullins didn't hear him. He had started
out from the protecting house, out across the
street right toward the old bungalow. He held
his revolver in his hand. He hadn't re-
membered taking it from the holster.
The flashes came oftener from the old
bungalow, and he heard the whining over his
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head and back of him. He deliberately cocked
and fired his pistol until the six shots were
gone, and then he started to run. He ran for-
ward. He kept zig-zagging.
His fat slowed him down. He hadn't run in
years. He was soon in the front yard of the
bungalow, and now two flashes came at once
from under the shadow of the porch, there
where the window blinds were drawn.
Up onto the porch puffed Mullins, sweat
streaming from his face. He held his empty
revolver in front of him menacingly. He
might have looked fierce.
The police had stopped firing as Mullins
rushed forward, and now the fire from the
house, which had entirely missed him, ceased.
Mullins stood there on the porch of the old
bungalow with his empty pistol in his hand,
not knowing what to do next.
It was perfectly quiet. Vines were growing
over the old porch. Mullins smelled flowers
somewhere. He heard a bee.
The door of the house opened, opened so
quickly it seemed that it just vanished.
Out came a hand. It darted as a snake
strikes. It took Mullins by the wrist of the
hand that held the pistol, and it jerked him
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The Reporter Who Became a Hero
into the house and the door slammed behind
him.
The hand held tight to his wrist, and another
hand took the pistol away from him. A third
hand how many hands did this m&rihuanero
have, anyway? held him by the throat, and a
fourth hand floated in front of his face as if
about to do something, but it didn't.
Then they let him go. So there were two of
them, a big one and a little one. The big one
smiled at him in a most cordial way, and some-
how Mullins felt the cordiality was genuine.
The little one smiled too. He wore a bloody
piece of sheeting on his arm. The two of them
seemed elated and very happy. More extra-
ordinary still they looked at Mullins, with,
first, concern, and then admiration.
They looked Mullins all over. They turned
him around and looked at his back. All the
time they chatted in Spanish, which Mullins
did not understand.
"By golly, mister/' said the big one at last.
"We didn't hit you no place."
"That's right, mister," said the little one,
"we didn't hit you no place at all. You pretty
lucky."
"You are a brave man," said the big one,
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"and I want to give you honor. I respect a
brave man, mister. You are one of the bravest
men I ever seen."
He spoke enough English with that Mexican
dialect that defies transliteration.
"Yes, we honor you," said the little man, and
he raised his hat. He tried to do it first with
his right arm, the one with the bandage on it,
but a look of pain came in his face. Then he
lifted his hat with the left hand and bowed
politely.
"Give nue one abrazo" demanded the big
man. He grabbed Mullins in the embrace of
the Hispanic race, the bear hug with back
pattings but no kiss like the French.
The little man insisted on hugging Mullins
too, and then he stepped back and raised his
hat again. Mullins felt as he never had felt
before. He couldn't tell just why that was.
He was reminded of his position when the
little man stepped to the window, peeked
through a hole in the shade. All the window
shades were drawn. There were lots of holes
in them, little round holes. There was broken
glass on the floor near the windows.
In the middle of the floor was a mattress,
and a litter of empty bottles, cigarette butts,
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The Reporter Who Became a Hero
matches, and a neat little pile of tortillas on a
china plate.
"Would you be so kind as to take a drink
with me?" said the big one. He handed Mullins
a bottle.
Mullins raised it to his lips when an ex-
plosion just behind him made him start and
spill some of the brandy on his chin.
It was the rifle of the small one.
"Sahs!" he exclaimed the Mexican oral
imitation of the noise a bullet makes. They
both seemed to have the attitude of small boys
at play, happy, healthy small boys at play. It
all seemed make-believe.
Mullins took a swig from the bottle. It was
cheap brandy and it scalded his throat.
"Did you ever try the marihuana?" asked
the small one.
Mullins said he never had. They handed
him a cigarette, hand rolled with the paper
at the ends tucked in neatly. The big man
lighted a match for him.
The smoke tasted of tobacco and of some-
thing else, sickish sweet but not disagreeable.
Mullins felt like staying with these charm-
ing new friends always.
"Alii vienen!" yelled the small one, who had
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been looking through the hole in the window
shade. He fired his rifle three times in quick
succession.
He turned and looked at Mullins. The big
one looked at Mullins too.
"Metalo en el excusado" said the big one.
"Excelente idea, companero" said the small
one. "Vamanos!"
They grabbed Mullins on either side and
gave him the bum's rush. They hurried him
through the adjoining room, a bedroom with
no mattress on the bed.
They opened a door, and pushed Mullins
into the dark, and the door slammed, and the
bolt of the lock was shot.
Mullins was pitched forward only a little
way. Something hard caught him at the knees
and he fell over. He threw out his arm, and it
hit something hard. It hurt.
He kept going down, but it wasn't a table
for he went down lower than the height of his
knees and the hand that held onto the hard
thing. He went way down but his head didn't
touch anything.
At last he got control of himself, and got to
his feet. There was a dim light from up high
in the place, and when his eyes got adjusted to
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The Reporter Who Became a Hero
this half-light he could see around the dark
circle in which he stood.
He was in the bathroom. What he had hit
was the bathtub. It was one of those old-
fashioned tubs, raised from the floor by stubby
legs. Over there was the washstand, with the
mirror on the medicine closet shining in the
dim light. There on the other side was the
toilet seat, with the old-style tank high over it.
He might find the light and turn it on. He
thought better of it.
Then the shooting began again. Lots of it
now. It died down and it seemed a long while
before it began again. This time he heard the
sub-machine gun singing its lethal song, closer
and closer.
There was another wait. Then some glass
breaking. Lots of glass breaking. Then some
wood splintering. Then all of a sudden some
voices.
"Here they are," said one voice. There was
another shot, a short sharp shot.
"What to hell?" said another voice. "Why
mess 'em up any more? Can't you see they're
all shot to hell now?"
"We gotta find Mullins," said still another
voice, the voice of the captain of the homicide
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Then Mullins began yelling at them. They
soon found the door, and turned the lock and
opened it.
Into the dark bathroom burst the light of
two flashlights. Mullins saw in the door a
mass of familiar faces, policemen's faces, and
behind them his fellow reporters' faces.
What they saw was Mullins, his face white,
his eyes staring, sitting bolt upright in the
bathtub. Laughter, coarse copper laughter,
burst into the room along with the light of the
flashlights.
Mullins tried to think of something to say,
something to save his face just a little.
"I figured it would be good protection from
bullets," explained Mullins. That seemed to
make them laugh all the harder.
It didn't matter much anyway, for he had
felt the old hopeless feeling come over him.
The excitement had left his bloodstream.
Mullins rose with dignity and walked out
of the bathroom into the bedroom and out into
the front room. There they lay. The sight
made him feel faint, and he was used to such
sights. There lay two messes of the two men
who had been kind to him. Two men who had
admired him, who had honored him !
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The Reporter Who Became a Hero
Two tears came into Mullins' eyes. They
moved into the corners next to the nose, and
then they ran down either side of the nose.
The tears met at the end of the nose, and,
hesitating for a moment, fell together to join
the blood on the floor.
131
The Press Agent Who Reformed the
Town
IT WAS THE MORNING OF THE DAY THAT OBEY-
the-Law-or-Repeal-It Simpson was to be sworn
in as mayor.
Nature seemed on tiptoe for the event, doing
her very California best. The early sunlight
was soft gold as it swept through what poets
and boosters called mist but most folks called
fog.
Well might Nature herself rejoice, for the
election of Judge Simpson meant that upper-
case Virtue had come to the great, gangling
city. Human frailty in the form of Boss
Watts, who had long been mayor or as good as
mayor, had been routed.
This was all due to the unselfish, unstinted
work of Reformer Brown, a dilettante in
politics, who ran a chain of shoe-repair shops
132
The Press Agent Who Reformed the Town
under the maxim of dubious application, "Go
to Town with Brown."
This day's sun slanted onto the messed-up
bed of Billy Blake in his home and it was all
that out on the sandy flat that, dotted with
third-class subdivisions and industrial plants,
extended from the city to the sea.
The house had been inherited by his wife.
The roof leaked, there were termites in the
underpinning, and the whole thing cost more
in upkeep and taxes than the Blakes ever
would have spent on rent.
Billy Blake put on his dressing gown and
walked out into the kitchen where his wife,
always as sour as he was cheery, was getting
breakfast. The children were already waiting
for theirs. There were five of them, and the
contour of Mrs. Blake's cotton flannel wrapper
hinted what one might already guess.
"Well this is the day," she said, just as the
old-fashioned coffeepot boiled over. She set
out a fresh can of milk and poked the holes in
it with the can opener.
"Guess HI go down to see the inauguration,
if I can get in," said Billy.
"That's ironical, isn't it?" said his wife,
"and you practically unmade Boss Watts and
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you certainly built up the new mayor. Simp-
son wouldn't ever have been elected but for
your work."
"Oh, I don't know," said her husband. "I
did a lot of work, I admit, on research and I
wrote a lot of speeches, but Go-to-Town Brown
paid me for it and I got no kick comin'."
"Paid you forty dollars a week for eight
months," said Mrs. Blake, blowing her nose
as if it were to blame. "You dug around in the
newspaper files for months, got all the dirt on
the old gang, and blew up the new one. Who
ever heard of Judge Simpson until you got up
that biographical dope that made him into
another Abraham Lincoln?"
Billy Blake was trying to get some milk out
of the old can, but had to take a match to
unplug one of the holes which was caked with
dried milk. He then poured the old milk and,
when it ran out, some of the new into his
coffee until it was a beautiful soft brown. Some
truant grounds floated on the top, the result
of the calamity when the coffee boiled over.
Like a certain kind of maiden who is popu-
lar but never pursued, Billy Blake was liked
by everybody, but nobody ever offered him a
job. Back East he had been a newspaper re-
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The Press Agent Who Reformed the Town
porter, covered the state legislature, got to
-writing speeches for politicians, and soon
drifted into political publicity. That, as the
easiest way, he continued after he had come
to California.
He had been the first one to apply for a re-
search and writing job when Reformer Brown
began the campaign which resulted in the
municipal revolution. From then on Blake had
been the one-man brain trust of it, always
puttering around in the background.
To look at him among the showy, theatrical
politicians nobody would have guessed. He
was a slender man with a shock of hair that
he always kept mussed his only affectation.
His humorous gray eyes popped out at you and
his mouth puckered up, and the most whim-
sical words came out well-selected words as
if they were going down on paper.
He was always happy and always contented,
apparently. This annoyed his friends who
tried in vain to help him, and infuriated his
wife.
"Do you know a funny thing?" said Billy
Blake, as breakfast was over and the five chil-
dren well smeared with egg and spattered with
oatmeal. "I have never seen Mayor Watts or
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Judge Simpson as long as I have researched
them and written stories and speeches about
them. That's why I'd kinda like to have a look
at the ceremonies when the one hands the key
to the city to the other, just to see what they
look like in the meat. God knows I've seen
their photos often enough."
"Then, what are you goin' to do?" asked
Mrs. Blake cuttingly, and Billy winced. "Go-
ing around once a week to the newspaper
offices or is it the Federal Writers' Project
again?"
"No use to try the papers," said Billy.
"They got the Indian sign on me. In this town
I'm just a political press agent, and I don't
blame 'em. I should have stuck to my trade
when I came to this town and not gone back
stuffin' shirts. Maybe I can get on the Writers'
Project again. They are not finished with the
Guide Book, I understand. I may as well be
goin' around interviewin' doty old pioneers
as do anything else."
"Everybody in town has got an electric re-
frigerator but us," said his wife.
The children, all except the youngest one
who was at that time teasing the cat, who
had just had kittens, took the tip from their
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The Press Agent Who Reformed the Town
mother's remark. They crowded around and
stated their demands, all of which cost money.
"And," cut in his wife, "we also are the
only family in Southern California that has
no car. Even the reliefers over in Boyle
Heights have got cars."
Her husband already was trying to finish
the newspaper. His eyes hopped here and
there over page one, part two, which was
plastered with tidings of the day's coming
event.
There were divisional stories, which are
called "sidebars," about the inauguration, the
new mayor's past, the old man's record, the
stale gambling scandal, the current pinball
one. There was an interview with Judge
Simpson who said that if laws were not wanted
they should be repealed but while they were
on the books should be obeyed. In this he was
not stealing the thunder from his inaugural
address that afternoon, for he had said just
that over and over again in the campaign.
There were pictures displaying all the art-
ifice of the news photographer. The expiring
mayor was shown making a speech, with his
mouth twisted as if he was trying to blow a
fly off the end of his nose. There was another
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showing Boss Watts kissing a baby and looking
absolutely disgusted about it. This had been
used often in the campaign to dethrone him,
and had had its influence within Parent-
Teachers' membership.
There was the shot of Judge Simpson in his
black robes chatting with a midget who sat on
his desk smoking a cigar. This had originally
been a plug for the Barnes Circus which
wintered near by.
Obey-the-Law-or-Repeal-It Simpson also
was shown in his home, surrounded by his
wife, their two children, a police dog, a Pomer-
anian, and a set of Early American living-
room furniture.
There was a picture of Reformer Go-
to-Town Brown apparently trying to peek
through a keyhole. He had threatened to sue
for this one, holding he had been photographed
as he was about to insert a key in the lock of
his own office door. He never sued so they ran
it again.
There also was a photo of a minister of the
gospel who had been Go-to-Town Brown's pas-
tor, and it was hinted, egger on. This gentle-
man was shot while at a Community Chest
luncheon, with one cheek protruding from its
138
The Press Agent Who Reformed the Town
overload of mashed potatoes and roast beef,
an effect achieved by the best newspaper
cameraman in town, whose pictures of faces
with enlarged pores had been printed in the
national foto-mags.
All this, and much more, Billy Blake in-
spected over the dirty breakfast dishes. All
through it he saw the evidence of his back-
stage handiwork.
This only amused him. Sour grapes were
never found in his emotional market basket,
which was always filled with roses and wine.
Dr. Willkins called, as he had promised to
drive Billy downtown, a long ways, in his old
car, almost as old and pathetic as Dr. Willkins
himself. The "doctor" was for his degrees in
the liberal arts. He had taught English and
history in a fresh-water college about the
time of the Spanish- American War, and had
been a private tutor. He wanted to be a
philosopher, but never got the hang of it.
Currently he ran an elevator in an industrial
building in Los Angeles Street, and lived with
a married daughter who was not living with
her husband.
"How yo' doin', Billy?" called Dr. Willkins,
who originally came from Texas as that greet-
139
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ing might have implied. "Hop in and we'll get
out o' town."
Billy Blake crawled into the car. It was
littered with books, mostly history and biog-
raphy, and articles of homely household value
such as shopping bags, wine demijohns, and
mason jars, for Dr. Willkins, like many
another oldster in Southern California, was an
ardent shopper in the public markets.
"Billy," said old Dr. Willkins, "you should
be up on the platform equally honored with the
new mayor. Can't Go-to-Town Brown see that
you get your rewards?"
"He," said Billy, "has pledged he will ask no
favors, play no politics. So far as I go he has
kept his word. I guess the new mayor never
heard of me, except just to see my initials on
memos. I have been honored at times by his
adopting my stately prose."
"You should do more than ghostwriting,"
said Dr. Willkins. "You have "
"My God, man," cried Billy, "you went
against the signal right through that inter-
section."
"Did I?" went on his friend. "You have
talent, Billy, at putting words together, and at
penetrating political thinking. But you are
140
The Press Agent Who Reformed the Town
too realistic. Life, my boy, is mostly illusion.
Do you think Simpson can succeed in enforcing
the law?"
"Don't ask me silly questions," said Billy.
"Pardon me, I stand corrected," said Dr.
Willkins.
There was a long pause. The quivering
old car swept along through lines of dingy
East Indian bungalows, some malappropri-
ately reroof ed with bright-colored composition
shingles.
It passed through subdivisions of new
homes, painfully new homes of every known
architecture, and then plunged again into dis-
tricts built up in the Taft and Wilson epochs.
"When my job was over I had a little argu-
ment with Go-to-Town Brown," resumed Billy
Blake. "He said Judge Simpson if elected
would enforce the law impartially. I said,
'nuts r Did he ever stop to think what would
happen in any city in the country if all the laws
were enforced impartially? I pointed out one
or two cases to prove it."
"What for instance?" asked the old man.
"Well I asked Brown if he thought Simpson,
if elected, would knock over any gambling
games in the bluestocking clubs and hotels as
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the cops are always doin' on the wrong side of
the tracks. Or did he think the police would
protect citizens from bein' beaten up by union
pickets while exercising their right in simply
walking on the sidewalks? Or did he think
they would enforce the motor-traffic laws im-
partially or to the letter? I showed him that
one month of really enforcing the laws would
turn the town inside out and that the mayor
would be impeached. Oh, they'd find a way.
Then he asked what I would suggest."
"There's where he laid himself open," re-
marked Dr. Willkins.
"Well, I told him," Billy went on. "I said
the only way to stop political corruption is to
repeal the laws against gambling, prostitution,
and bunco all laws designed to protect in-
dividuals from their own folly. Let the cops
and D. A.'s spend their time trying to stop
theft and crimes of violence and nothing else.
"Also, I showed him that with no such laws
there would be little or no political corruption
no law, no pay-off. And as for laws decreas-
ing gambling, prostitution, and such, the re-
verse is the case. The pay-off is the overhead
of people in those lines of business, and they
have to increase their production to make up
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The Press Agent Who Reformed the Town
for it just as in any other line of business. If
there is a law against prostitution the street-
walker has to pay off to a cop ; that increases
her expenses, and she has to rustle all the
harder. So reformers really increase vice, the
very reverse of what they pretend to do. They
are in the racket, too."
"Good Lord!" exclaimed Willkins. "Did
you tell him that?"
"I thought he'd be interested," said Billy,
"but he didn't seem to like it very well."
They had got in the heavy traffic by now, and
the old professor didn't want to talk any more.
"Spiff it up, Pappy," said a fresh traffic
cop as they went past.
"We who run the elevators in life are used to
insults," said Dr. Willkins.
"Oh, life is not so bad," said Billy. "I'm
thankful for the breaks I get."
The doctor let Billy out several blocks from
the Civic Center, and he walked up to City
Hall. The crowds had formed, for the mayor
was to make his inaugural address over
loudspeakers.
Billy met Martin Green, who did assign-
ments on one of the newspapers.
Green was accompanied by a photographer
143
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who carried his photographic impedimenta as
if he never, never would get used to it. He
wore Hollywoodish clothes the slackest of
slacks, a gabardine shirt open at the throat,
and Deauville sandals.
"Hello, Billy," called the reporter. "Are
you acquainted with Mr. Cecil B. de Mille
here?"
"Hello, kid," said Billy to the photographer,
who was fifty if a day. He put his camera and
crash kit down on the ground, gently and
wearily as a bindle stiff might ease himself of
his bedroll.
"Billy," said Green, "I've been wondering
about you, old man. What job do you get in
the new administration?"
"Nothing at all," replied Billy. "I just got
my jack for the trick I did during the cam-
paign."
"You dope," cried the reporter. "Why, you
were the brains of that bunch of cafeteria
statesmen."
"I just dug up a little background and did
some ghostwriting," said Billy, with modesty
that was not false. "Are there any openings
for reporting or rewrite you know of?"
"None," said Green. "The papers are tight.
144
The Press Agent Who Reformed the Town
When anybody drops dead there are two or
three guys waiting in the toilet to get his job.
Come on, useless," he added to the photogra-
pher in cinema clothes.
That individual picked up his stuff, and
again like a bindle stiff proceeded hopelessly
on. Throughout the interview he had said no
word.
"Well, so long," said Billy. "I'm goin' to
try and get in City Hall to see the passing of
the buck and the keys to the city. You know I
never in my life saw either Simpson or Watts."
"To hell you never did," the reporter called
back.
Billy Blake zigzagged through the crowd.
There were some people wearing campaign
buttons and carrying a banner that read,
"Simpson and Law and Order."
There were some women in white dresses
with long blue capes and no hats. They were
led by a tall woman who had her dyed hair in
a fresh do, and the skin of her face showed a
recent lift. She had a large gold cross em-
broidered on her cape. As she passed some
people in the crowd cried, "God bless you,
sister." Others just laughed.
The crowd got thicker and thicker.
145
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A band on City Hall steps began to play
"God Bless America."
Billy Blake could not see the steps of City
Hall for the jam of people around him. He
couldn't get up to the entrance. Everywhere
policemen pushed him around. He recalled
having once seen a side entrance, a single door
hidden by a depression in the building on the
other side. He skirted around to it. The door
was closed.
Billy felt if he could get through that door he
could get into the council room where the cere-
mony was to be held. He might meet some
newspaper friend who could help. Why hadn't
he thought quickly enough to ask Martin Green
when he met him with Cecil B. de Mille?
Billy gingerly turned the knob of the door.
It began to open. Then it opened faster than
it should have, faster than it possibly could
have with the pressure he was putting on
it. It finally flew open and in the doorway
stood a man who was so big he filled the
opening.
The man had about him something that said
he was a policeman, though he wore no uni-
form or badge.
"You can't come in this way," he said.
146
The Press Agent Who Reformed the Town
"But I am one of the campaign workers,
I began Billy.
"There was lots of campaign workers,"
said the man with cutting irony. "The streets
outside is filled wid 'em."
"But I," continued Billy, trying to look im-
portant and stepping into the doorway.
The man said no more. He put out a big fat
soft hand and placing it on Billy's breastbone
gave him a push that sent him up against the
wall opposite. His shoulder struck the con-
crete so hard he felt a stab of pain. When he
recovered himself the door was closed.
Billy Blake walked off, this time away from
City Hall. He had not gone far before he began
to chuckle to himself.
"This is a good joke on me," he said.
He was down on Main Street now. He was
passing a hole-in-the-wall restaurant when
on the air there came to his nose the odors of
embalmed hamburger being cooked in stale
lard and to his ears the voice of Judge Simp-
son, distorted by a cheap radio.
"And, my fellow Americans," the voice was
saying, "I wish to repeat, if I may, that I shall
enforce the laws without fear or favor. When
I say the laws I mean all the laws. There shall
147
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be no more special privilege. There shall be no
law for the poor and another for the rich.
There is no room in America for a two-way
system in law enforcement or in distributing
the blessings of good government.
"Especially, my friends, this is so in this
beautiful land on the Pacific where freedom
and democracy were implanted by energetic
pioneers. They and those who came after them
have builded well, and we no longer will
tolerate social and economic house wreckers
in our midst."
Here the new mayor was interrupted by
cheers and one high voice that cried, " You're
tellin' 'em, your honor."
"But, fellow citizens," resumed Obey-the-
Law Simpson, "it is not my place to intoler-
antly and indiscriminately condemn those
who "
Billy Blake made a face and hurried on.
"The old Stoughton bottle split that infini-
tive on me," he said. "I never wrote it that
way."
He walked on until he came to a neon sign
which said simply, "Cocktails." He went down
past a long bar where men and women were
drinking everything but cocktails. At the back
148
The Press Agent Who Reformed the Town
was a telephone booth, and Billy went into it.
It was one of those booths with a little ledge
to sit on. For the first time he realized that he
was very tired. Once his muscles were relaxed
that thing we call rest came up his legs like
morphine, on up his spine to the back of his
head.
Billy sat there a long time. He had not
closed the door of the booth, and the soothing
babble of the barroom came to him the clink-
ing of glasses, laughter, and that intent talk
only found in barrooms.
He felt very much alone and a little sad, but
at last he came out of his daydream. He picked
up the phone book and started to look up the
number of the Federal Writers' Project. He
turned to "United States Government." The
listings of government offices extended over
three columns, and he started to hunt.
First he looked down in the W's for
"Writers." There was none. Then he started
back and ran into a "Federal." It was
"Federal Surplus Commodities Corporation."
Why, how absurd. It all was "federal"
since it was all under United States Govern-
ment.
Then he found a "Federal Bureau of Invest-
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igation" and a "Federal Communications
Commission." No "Federal Writers'."
Then he started to read the whole list, every
one of the fine type lines in the three columns.
But there was no Writers' Project.
Billy Blake fished in his pocket. The only
coin he found was a quarter. He went out to
the bar and had it changed into nickels, and
returned to the booth. He closed the door,
shutting out the noise of the barroom. He
seemed to float away in his little cell of silence.
It was stuffy in the booth and as he worked
Billy opened the door every once in a while.
When he would do this the noise of the barroom
would rush in and surround him, and then
when he closed the door again the silence
seemed to press on him from all sides.
First Billy called the main exchange in the
Federal Building. The phone operator had
never heard of Federal Writers' Project. May-
be, it was under P. W. A., she said, and she
told him what number to call. This took
another nickel.
No, said the operator there, P. W. A. was
only construction relief projects. Maybe it
was W. P. A. and she told him that number.
This took another nickel.
150
The Press Agent Who Reformed the Town
Yes, said W. P. A., she knew of Federal
Writers' Project and she told him what
number to call. That took another nickel. He
had one left out of the quarter.
"Is this you, Murphy?" he said. "Good.
This is Billy Blake. Oh, I'm fine. Yes, that's
right, I been workin' for Go-to-Town Brown
during the campaign. Say, Murphy. I'm
through, see, and I can't get on anyplace and
I was wondering if I can get back on the Pro-
ject you know, sooner or later. You can?
And on the Guide Book job? Oh, sure I'd be
glad to wait a month. Gee, Murphy, that will
be swell. I knew everything would come out
all right."
151
The Picnic Secretary Who Did His
Duty
POP JONES ARRIVED AT SYCAMORE GROVE
especially early for he had work to do as
secretary of the Van Wert, Ohio, Picnic
Association.
It was in the spring, of a Saturday, and the
big park between Los Angeles and Pasadena
was already crowded by picnics set for early
in the day. For Sycamore Grove was the
f olksiest of all the city parks.
Pop Jones viewed the park from an elevation
over which he drove his chugging little old car.
Below him stretched a few square miles of
green, relieved by smoke from picnic fires and
several black masses of parked cars. These
latter looked like swarms of dead cockroaches,
slain by cunning poison. Now and then live
cockroaches would join the group and die,
152
The Picnic Secretary Who Did His Duty
while others at times seemed to come to life
and escape from the immobile mass.
The biggest picnic that day was the Texas
State, and Pop Jones found it convenient to
cut through it on his way to the town picnic of
his native heath. The scene of a state picnic in
full cry was not novel to him, for like other
Van Werters he often attended the Ohio State
Picnics held in this same grove each fall.
The Texans had the same method of serving
coffee in tin cups to complement the box
lunches everybody brought. They also were
conventional in gathering by counties for
special social communion before the program
began at the bandstand, where some politician
or preacher spouted an annual speech and the
children's chorus sang the state anthem.
Ohio and Texas alike indicated the county
gatherings by placards, naming each county,
which were affixed to trees at intervals in the
grove. Also fastened to each tree was a board
with paper on it for registering of visitors
who would get postal notices of the next picnic.
Many's the old friend and old flame that meets
thus, and many's the stale scandal warmed
over in this most typical American institution
out in California. Nowhere in the world does
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human gregariousness reach such peaks, for it
is a reflex of that most saddening of diseases,
homesickness.
While the scene was familiar to Pop Jones
as he passed through the Texas grounds he
felt he was not among his people. They talked
a strange English in a singsong manner, and
their interests seemed not to be the interests
of Ohioans. He heard snatches of their talk.
For nothing ever escaped his ears.
"Is Bill Meeker still runnin' cows?"
"An' then old High Hat smacks him down,
but Pete was rarin' to go."
"They have as good silks in Midland as they
have right here in Los Angeles. I told the
clerk somethinV
"Trouble is you can't get no good chili out
chere, and Ah jest can't get shet o' the chili
habit."
"So I kenoes three times that night and next
payday "
"Is Mrs. Murray from Arkansas, sure
enough? I always thought she was a
Tex-e-an."
That and much more went into the sensitive
ears of Pop Jones as he walked along. He
seldom missed anything. It seemed amazing
154
The Picnic Secretary Who Did His Duty
that one so big could be so busy. He stood well
over six feet, and he was fat.
His face was curiously small and thin for
one so big. He had no nose to speak of. Time
had done for most of his hair, and so the most
notable feature was the mouth, which was
large. It wore a fixed smile which was neither
mirthful nor sinister. Pop Jones was like a
radio studio audience. That is to say he would
laugh at anything.
Pop Jones had run a grocery in Van Wert
most of his life, and in that endeavor had
developed his taste for gossip and capacity for
petty personal detail which had fitted him
admirably for the secretaryship of the town
picnic association. Alone in the world his
wife had been dead many years and inde-
pendent but that's about all building and
loan and insurance Pop Jones made the Van
Wert Association his lifework.
He kept the membership lists in perfect
order, and he could get a turnout on short
notice for an annual picnic or a funeral of
some notable Van Wertian. But he was best of
all at news, the peculiar kind of news that goes
with the state picnics. The keyhole personal
columnists deal in old stuff, something that has
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been going on over back fences and from cave
to cave since Darwin created man.
Pop Jones had flopped at the forthcoming
picnic. His best correspondent back in Van
Wert was Sandy Walker, a retired ham-
burger-stand proprietor, who seldom failed
in his letters to get the town news to the secre-
tary in time for the picnic out in Los Angeles.
He had not this time, and Pop Jones came to
the picnic empty-handed. He had arranged for
the hot coffee and for the eucalyptus wood for
the campfires but that was only fuel for the
physical man. Well did Pop Jones know man
is no economic animal, he is also a thing of
spirit. And scandal is the sauce of that simian
swarming the society reporters call social
intercourse.
Mrs. Mullins already was there and had the
coffee steaming. She rattled the tin cups while
Pop Jones put out the lined foolscap paper for
registration. He gave Mrs. Mullins the nickels
and dimes he had gotten at the bank so she
could make change, and he kept some himself
so he could collect the 25 cents dues from each
member of the association to cover postage and
printing.
Soon they began to arrive. They carried
156
The Picnic Secretary Who Did His Duty
boxes of lunch, vacuum bottles of every known
unalcoholic drink, blankets, and extra wraps,
for it is cool evenings most of the year in
California. They took places at the picnic
tables with their backless benches, and when
they started to set out their lunch the marvels
never ceased. Then they began to stuff. But
already they had begun to do what they did
continuously all the rest of the day they
talked.
There were the Williams sisters, who had
run the millinery; Old Man Brown the banker,
and his daughter, a young widow who was
suspected of coming to picnics just to laugh up
her sleeve; Mrs. Rodgers, widow of the saw-
mill king of the county, her two daughters,
and the young son of one of them, who looked
bored throughout but ate heartily; an ex-
mayor of Van Wert who was to make a short
address; and the Rev. Wilmot Wilkins, sus-
pected of making up his name for use in
evangelism before he took over a church in
Van Wert and preached, buried, married, bap-
tized until he retired at seventy to move to
California, where there were whole genera-
tions of his flock to hand out holiday dinners
157
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and contributions to the church elder clergy
fund.
There were perhaps forty others, some
strangers to Pop Jones, and these he promptly
accosted to get their addresses if they were
recent Van Werters. Some of them were
guests of Van Werters from other parts of the
country, and some came out of sheer curiosity
and lonesomeness, for talk is as free as air at
Sycamore Grove.
The talk, Pop Jones found, revolved around
the personal lives of the picnickers, and none
had any Van Wert news of note. They kept
asking the secretary what he knew, and he
had to tell them nothing. Why had his faith-
ful correspondent failed him? What ailed
Sandy Walker?
The ex-mayor talked, stressing citizenship,
and the old parson prayed for righteousness,
and one and all filled their stomachs and the
day was fine, yet somehow the picnic was a
flop, or at least just middling, as Pop Jones
put it. They broke up earlier than usual, and
turned their cars to all points of the compass.
Sadly, Pop Jones drove to South Los
Angeles, where he boarded with a railroad
conductor and his wife, who kept chickens. He
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The Picnic Secretary Who Did His Duty
was sad. The major event of his year had been
a disappointment. None had told him any-
thing worth hearing, and he as secretary and
chronicler had fallen down.
When Pop Jones arrived home he found a
letter waiting for him. It was a special-de-
livery letter, of all things, and it came from
Sandy Walker ! He ripped it open, and read
eagerly, as a dog bolts meat :
Dear Pop: I take my pen in hand and put on a
special delivery 10 cent stamp to let you know the
terrible disgrace that has come to our fair little city
in the garden spot of Ohio, to wit, that last week at
4 :30 a. m. in the morning two auto loads of people
drove into town from the direction of the new road-
house and they were singing and laughing and acted
tipsy, and there was together in one seat Mrs. Wag-
ner, the widow, and Dan Tucker who, as you know
has a wife, and two young people together, Mrs.
Deever's daughter, who never before was known to
be a traipser, and the son of Elder Johnson; they
had on one another's hats, I mean the young man
had on the girl's hat and her his'n, and there was
Mrs. Tom Kegley, whose husband works like a dog
in the garage, and she was hugging young Will
Maynard, who is to be married soon to Dixie Waters,
if it comes off now, and all this was seen by reliable
people. Ned, I don't know what his name is, the
milkman, and the night watchman Constable Hansen,
who used to farm for the Wilkins, and this special
delivery stamp will get you this news in time for the
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picnic out in Los Angeles; remember you owe me
ten cents extra for this chore, hoping you are well,
yours truly, William K. Walker, Van Wert, Ohio.
Pop Jones read this as it was written, at
one gulp, and when he got through he was
pop-eyed. His joy at getting such news was
only modified by his grief at not getting it
earlier.
Why, the people mentioned in Sandy's letter
had connections in high places in Van Wert
and Los Angeles. Pop Jones saw his duty
clear. He was up soon after daylight. He
took along his newly corrected list of Van
Wert Association members and he filled the
tanks of his little car with all they would hold.
With fast and sure driving, and good judg-
ment in arranging the trip he could call on
most of the members, if he did not stay too
long, and get back home soon after nightfall.
He checked his car like a race driver.
He drove bravely down the road toward
Long Beach. First he would call on the
Rodgers, and then cut back and make the
Williamses, and then Rev. Wilkins. He had
it all figured out, not one detail escaped him.
When he drove up to the Rodgers and parked
under the shade palm one of the girls saw him
160
The Picnic Secretary Who Did His Duty
and came out cheerily. She said her mother
and sister were in. Surely, come right in.
"We didn't expect to see you so soon again,
but it's nice," said Mrs. Rodgers, who had
been cooking doughnuts and apologized for
the greasy smell through the house.
"It is curious," said Pop Jones, "but I had
some business down at Long Beach and I was
a little early and thought I'd drop in to say
howdy."
They chatted a while.
"Oh, by the way," said Pop Jones, "I got a
letter when I reached home last night with
some news from home. It's not the kind of
news I like to hear, but "
He stopped, but they had read his face. The
three women sat forward in their chairs, their
necks inclined forward and their mouths a
little open.
Then Pop Jones told them.
Most of the others were home, for they were
tired after the picnic. To each he made an
excuse for the call, chatted a while and then
as an afterthought told them of the early-
morning scene on the streets of Van Wert.
Some wanted to hear the story told all over
again.
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He had to hurry, and twice he stopped for
more gas and water. His little car, which had
borne him to ten successive Van Wert annual
picnics, did not fail him now. Pop Jones, how-
ever, got tired. His big frame was wearied by
so much riding and so much talk. He had had
a good lunch at the Blakeleys, but he did not
rest long.
Darkness found Pop Jones and his faithful
car at the foot of a steep hill on a road that
gives off of Sunset Boulevard not far from the
border of Hollywood. The last of the people
he must see lived on top of that hill. It was
pretty steep. Perhaps he should try to go
around.
Pop Jones, who had been raised with horses,
put out his hand and patted the side of his car.
"Can you make it, old-timer?" he asked and,
receiving what he considered a reply, clucked
his lips as one does to a horse, and up they
started.
The hill was even steeper than he had
reckoned. The little car trembled as he
struggled along, slowly, up, up, up.
Then about halfway up the incline it hap-
pened. Something cracked, the brake failed,
and Pop Jones felt that terrifying feeling
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The Picnic Secretary Who Did His Duty
when one goes backward with the car out of
control.
At last he managed to swing the car to the
side of the road. It backed over the curb,
which was a low one, across the sidewalk and
onto a lawn and up against the trunk of a tree,
a pepper that had stood there for years and
intended to remain standing there.
The rear of the car struck this tree with a
terrific jolt that threw Pop Jones back until
he thought his spine would snap, and then the
car settled down in the rear, for the axle broke,
and remained there at rest like a big dog on
his haunches.
A man came out of the house, and hurried
across the lawn.
"Are you hurt?" he asked.
Pop Jones had managed to get out of the car.
His legs and arms seemed to work well enough,
but he felt faint and dizzy.
"Not hurt much," he answered. "Sorry
about your lawn, and the tree if it's barked."
"That's all right," said the man. "I'm glad
you're not hurt. That hill is pretty steep. I
come over the other way."
They looked at each other appraisingly.
"Lived here long?" asked Pop Jones.
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Turn Off the Sunshine
"I've lived here since we came out from Indi-
ana five years ago," said the man.
"Indiana," exclaimed Pop Jones. "That's
funny. Indiana is the next state to my state,
Ohio. I came from Van Wert, Ohio, and my
name's Arthur D. Jones."
"I come from Terre Haute, and my name's
Martindale," said the man. "Pleased to meet
you."
"That's right," said Pop Jones, "Indiana is
the very next state to Ohio. That makes us
kind of neighbors, don't it? You know this is
a small world. News gets around somehow.
Why last night I got a letter from home. . . ."
Pop Jones sat down on the running board of
the car as he told him about it.
164
The Old Man Who Went to the
Library
MR. ROSS SLID FAR DOWN IN THE LONG,
narrow, old-fashioned tub, bringing his toes
out on either side of the faucet. They rose
from the water, opaque with soap, as if they
were detached from him.
The toes were sixty-seven years old. The
faucet was not much younger, being the kind
in vogue when Mr. Ross was in his thirties.
He remembered it well, the squarish design
with the letters H and C cut in the metal on a
little extension at the top of either handle.
How many times had faucets changed their
style since his youth? The thought annoyed
Mr. Ross, for he did not like the idea of
growing old.
Again he contemplated the toes. At least
the styles in toes had not changed.
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Turn Off the Sunshine
Such was the posture, such were the
thoughts of Mr. Ross of an early spring
morning in Los Angeles.
Such an antique bathroom in such a new
city was not so strange if you knew Bunker
Hill. It rose in the very center of the old part
of Los Angeles, a barrier that has annoyed
motorists and city planners for two gener-
ations.
Left on the top of the hill was a piece,
caught intact, of the era when men wore stiff
collars, women pinned their dresses on, and
children had their legs covered.
No more perfect petrification of the '90's
and early 1900's could be found in any western
American city, not even in San Francisco,
where they cherish, even reverence, mustiness.
In Los Angeles the spanking new is rever-
enced, and Bunker Hill was only tolerated, for
the most part ignored.
Mr. Ross lived on the top floor of the old
tourist hotel on the Hill, and so this fine morn-
ing as he lolled in his bathtub he was on the
very highest point in Los Angeles. Mr. Ross
lived in one of the cheaper rooms of the old
hotel, but one with its own bath. As long as
his allowances on the annuity permitted it
166
The Old Man Who Went to the Library
he would have a bath. In that he would be the
gentleman if he went hungry for it.
He washed his own socks and underwear,
which being knit he could dry and do without
ironing. The starched things he fetched him-
self to the little Japanese laundry.
His food cost him an average of ninety cents
a day. He had figured it out many times; it
always came to around ninety cents.
And there lay Mr. Ross gazing at his toes,
considering his toes as he wriggled them. But
he thought thoughts far removed from ancient
bathtub faucets and ancient toes.
Here he was nearing the final chapters of
life. On the whole, life had been kind in all
but one thing, love. Strange thought for a toe
gazer, but thoughts often defy the fitness of
things.
There was a chance of love, but he lost it.
There was Mary, the one before the one he
married, Mary always somewhere in his
recollection and now in recent years recurring
persistently, like the theme in an opera. Here
suggested. Now complete and free. Again
lost while the hearer groped in vain through
the heavy chords to find it again.
The sad truth was, Mr. Ross admitted, he
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had always been in love with Mary. Perhaps
if he had married her they would have de-
veloped along the same lines, enjoyed that
mental companionship which age cannot
damage but sometimes makes more keen. They
could have enjoyed things together, the things
Mr. Ross especially liked, books, the reviews,
lectures, the art exhibitions. Mary had been
interested in those things, he recalled. Yes,
she had had a mind.
Back East, when Mr. Ross was just starting
in with the firm, life had been keen and sweet.
Reared in the suburbs, he had come to the
great city with its romance and bustle. He
would work hard and, freed, hurry home on
the new elevated in time to dress and meet her.
Often they would hold hands as they rode
through Central Park while the crack of a
whip, cast from high up and behind them,
punctuated with perfect regularity the ca-
dences of the hooves. This to two hand-holders
was the poetry of motion. Then that first
evening in the hansom cab when they had
kissed.
Here Mr. Ross's left toes wriggled and came
in collision with the faucet, and he rose to dry
himself. As he shook each foot, dog-like, while
168
The Old Man Who Went to the Library
climbing out of the tub he wondered how it had
come that Mary and he had never gone through
with it. Somehow they just didn't. She had
left for a trip to Europe and when she came
back he was especially busy at the office. Just
petty circumstances.
But what are circumstances that do such
things, thought Mr. Ross? Small things that
have us in a vise?
It was petty circumstances that led to his
marriage with another, made his fair success,
as successes are judged by the world.
Chance had led to his interest in books and
that development of the mind which had in-
creased in volume as the energies of the body
slowed down.
Now at a ripe age he was not alone, for he
daily associated with the world's very finest
companions, whom he could always find at
home, homes built of that heavy buckram that
public libraries use.
Still he missed a more earthy companion
with whom he could exchange impressions of
these booky associations. Despite his mental
activity, he was bitterly lonesome, a lonesome-
ness even keener because of that activity of
the mind.
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Turn Off the Sunshine
Mary, yes, he felt sure, Mary would have
been just such a companion, for love combined
with thought is very sweet.
Mr. Ross shaved with his sharp, old-type
razor which he had had from those days when
men were taught dexterity with that peerless
tool. He had had his breakfast as was his
custom, before the bath, breakfasting in state
in his pajamas. This was accomplished with
an outfit got at the five-and-ten with which he
made coffee and toast.
When dressed, Mr. Ross proved to be a fine-
looking old gentleman, a little seedy in spite
of his care, for poverty always has a way of
peeking out someplace. He had taken up
calisthenics when he left off tennis, and kept
up the habit. He did them while the coffee
brewed.
He was straight from the heels of his shoes,
which he never allowed to run over, to the top
of his spine, which he kept encased in a stiff
wing collar, always fresh, and with its associ-
ate, the tie, always exactly in place, thanks to
the assistance of a plain, single-pearl pin, Mr.
Ross's only piece of jewelry.
He even had given up his watch, the cost of
having it cleaned was so great. Then he
170
The Old Man Who Went to the Library
learned that he did not need a watch ; the hour
made no difference to him, and there were
clocks everywhere anyway. How many things
we use through mere habit, he thought.
Mr. Ross picked up his pile of library books
to be returned and started off. He had been
having poor hunting lately.
And, oh, that woman in History, the one
with the school-teacherish squint. What right
had she to say that to him? He had asked for
the new biography of Nero, for Roman his-
tory was one of his hobbies, and she had
remarked on how strange it was that "every-
body nowadays" was only interested in wicked
people, that they couldn't supply the demand
for Billy the Kids, etc. What right had she to
slur a customer's tastes? He later had thought
of many tart things he might have replied to
her.
These thoughts had accompanied him down
the long, musty hall from the west wing to the
elevator cage.
Old John who ran the elevators gave Mr.
Ross as cheery a good morning as his lumbago
would permit. Los Angeles, that asylum for
the aged as well as resort of sun-tanned youth,
has many like John, but of varying social
171
Turn Off the Sunshine
grades. Bland climate, cheap living, a large
city where one can live independently or, go-
ing to state picnics and lonesome clubs, find
companionship of a sort in plenty. Usually
there are some relatives around within call,
and now and then they come with the children,
come from a hundred miles around in their
cars, from barren new subdivisions, from
little agricultural communities, from piles of
California apartments, mostly "singles,"
where life has a Pullman car compactness,
strangely popular in a land where there is so
much room.
But Mr. Ross as we have seen was not of
the generality, was not one of these. Old John
recognized this, resented it a little, for he
always found himself respectful in the ex-
treme to this guest of the old hotel. But they
always chatted continuously while the poky
elevator with many a thump and wheeze sub-
sided to the first floor.
Young Martin, the clerk, respectfully
saluted Mr. Ross, whom he considered the most
distinguished guest of the hotel. Also, Martin
was Mr. Ross's favorite. The lad came of a
family of some prosperity in North Side Chi-
cago before the market broke, and the hotel-
172
The Old Man Who Went to the Library
clerking job was to him a potboiler while he
studied law.
Mr. Ross and young Martin often talked of
books and plays, for the clerk had a taste for
such things. He read what Mr. Ross suggested.
Martin leaned over the desk when Mr. Ross
came up and said eagerly: "I've really got to
decide right away whether we are to marry.
Got to decide, Mr. Ross. Now, honestly, what
do you think about it? You know all the f acts,"
the lad concluded rather foolishly.
Mr. Ross had often heard of Martin's sweet-
heart, had met her once or twice. She was
employed in an office. There was nothing to
prevent their marrying in the modern fashion
while both kept their jobs.
Mr. Ross placed his armful of books on the
desk and pondered. His long, lean scholar's
face showed a sincere interest.
"Don't know what to say," he began. "Don't
know why you shouldn't as things can be done
nowadays. Yet when you marry you are in for
it, you know. You both are mighty young.
Humm. Coming back soon if anybody calls,"
he added with a sort of business formality,
for he was not expecting any calls.
The two clean-shaven faces smiled at one
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another. Both were alert faces, though one
was wrinkled and leathery ; in fact, both were
equally young faces if you looked into the eyes
of them. Both looked out at things with en-
thusiasm, enjoyment, wonder. Mr. Ross's had
a little less wonder, for the play was getting
familiar. The lines had differed but the plot
was the same.
Mr. Ross walked out and sniffed the morn-
ing fog, which had not yet lifted. He passed
down a street of shade trees with its frame
houses, adorned with the wooden crochet and
colored glass of their period.
From all sides over the edge of the hill there
came to his ears the gentle rumble of a city.
It got louder and louder as he progressed, for
he was making for the south edge. Mr. Ross
paused at the top of the concrete steps that
would bring him down onto Fifth Street,
opposite the public library. He paused, as
often was his custom, to admire that building.
Its low walls with their perfect balance were
softened to beautiful tones by the fog, as if
seen through some delicate theatrical drop.
Mr. Ross, of catholic taste, had studied
architecture enough to sharpen his apprecia-
tion. This building was "modern," but he liked
174
The Old Man Who Went to the Library
it. The sight thrilled him. A jewel of a build-
ing. How could any structure so small, as
nowaday standards go, be so grand? How
little mere bulk meant after all.
But more than esthetically thrilled, Mr.
Ross became sentimental. Suppose Mary were
standing there with him, enjoying it all?
When that wave of feeling passed he began to
feel lonesome again.
Then he felt rather foolish. A man of his
age ! And he shook off his mood and hurried
down the concrete stairs.
Below on the through street all things were
changed. Here the fog softened nothing. Out-
lines were sharp. Things were in terrific
motion.
It was the going-to-work hour, a little late,
and past Mr. Ross as he waited for his chance
to cross swept file after file of motorists, honk-
ing their horns and bringing up their cars in
agonies of screeching, for since the depression
a favorite economy had been to leave brakes
unlined.
Here came two yellow monsters of street-
cars, one after the other as if in hot pursuit,
lumbering with the noise of empty freight
cars, bolts loose, bearings squeaking. These
175
Turn Off the Sunshine
were filled to standing with other people work-
bound. The motormen kept clanging their
gongs whether or not anything was in the way.
Such was the twice-daily parade of moving
people to and from their homes, homes spread
over miles upon miles of countryside, brand-
new homes, the greatest expanse of domestic
newness the world has ever known.
Mr. Ross standing there on the curb was not
one of these. He had come from the quiet
haven of Bunker Hill, and now he had crossed
the street and stepped into the quiet, which
seemed to envelop him like some material sub-
stance, of the library. The racket of the street
had pummelled him for less than five minutes.
Once more in the quiet, his mind resumed
the mood, and again he thought of Mary. He
must not forget to look in the trough in Litera-
ture. Then a gust of bad air from Magazines
struck him, subterranean, musty air, and
something worse the smell that to dogs is the
smell of man.
Every room in the library to Mr. Ross had
its characteristic smell, in proportion to the
number of these hangers-on, and depending
on how well the ventilating system was work-
ing. He found Science was best of all. Maga-
176
The Old Man Who Went to the Library
zines was on the ground floor, just off the
street. One had to climb stairs to get to
Science.
He turned into Newspapers and heard the
ceaseless, soft rustle of wood pulp sheets. Here
he stopped and stared. At the door he came
face to face with Mary.
They knew each other instantly, and stood
stock still for one of those moments that seem
so long, that are long, if feeling is the gauge.
Mr. Ross felt a strange glow move down
from the top of his head to his heels. It re-
minded him curiously of the feeling that fol-
lowed something the doctor had once given
him. But he felt it must have been the same
sort of sensation he had had when he was very
young and in love.
Then, all of a sudden they began to talk,
both at once and a little hysterically, asking
those trivial questions that most people ask
in spite of themselves under such circum-
stances.
The roomful of lonesome men and women
reading their home-town news frowned at
them for talking. So they went out and sat
down on a bench in the parkway.
As they talked of the old days it seemed to
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Turn Off the Sunshine
Mr. Ross that the concrete bench swayed like
a hansom. The balmy California sun had come
out and shoved away the fog, bringing out the
sharp, even green of the lawns.
They were the lawns of Central Park. She
looked as young and pretty as she had in those
days.
Mr. Ross felt happy, happier than he could
ever remember. Miracles do happen, he told
himself. Here it was. Here was Mary.
He noted that she carried books under her
arm. Now they could read together. Now he
could indulge in that great pleasure of the real
student that of talking it over with a like-
minded friend.
"What are you reading?" asked Mr. Ross
with that relish of the bookman for peeking at
titles. Now they would have a good chat.
"Some Greek philosophy," she replied.
"Do you incline toward the Stoic or the
Epicurean?" he asked.
She looked a little puzzled. "Oh, I am read-
ing," and, hesitating, she glanced at the book,
" Tythagoras.' That's it. You know I have
taken up numerology, and he was one of the
early authorities."
"Numerology?" said Mr. Ross, astonished.
178
The Old Man Who Went to the Library
"Yes," she went on. "I have changed my
name, and have gotten great results from it
already."
"Not changed ! Not Mary !" he cried.
"Yes, I am now Constance Frances," she
said, "and I vibrate so much better."
It seemed that the fog was settling again.
That swaying, hansom-wise, of the concrete
bench had ceased.
This fog was suffocating, Mr. Ross felt.
Fog had never done that to him before. It
seemed to press on him from all sides. It felt
like a weight on his forehead, on his chest. But
could it be the fog, after all? How could fog
do that?
Of course it was not fog. Now Mr. Ross
realized what it was. It was the old weight of
lonesomeness coming back, with a greater
pressure than he ever had felt before. So that
was it.
Mr. Ross turned and looked at Mary again.
He was surprised to see her dressed like a
young woman, though she was little younger
than he, dressed and made up with the most
horrible, as it is futile, attempt to cheat the
years.
That delusion often strikes the aging under
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the California sun. He noted that the collar of
her coat, which she carried, was soiled.
On and on she talked. She, too, had made the
library her club. Strange that they had not
met before. She, too, went to lectures. But
contrasted with his rugged rationality, she
had gone in for numerology, raw-food diet,
absent-healing swamis.
"You must come down to hear Dr. Smithen
at Trinity Auditorium/' she ran on. "He can
breathe through his hair, it's all in the
rhythm."
He told her of what he had been doing.
She, too, had attended the lectures by the
visiting astronomers from Mt. Wilson Ob-
servatory.
"How strange that we never saw -one
another there," she said. "I find those talks a
great help in understanding astrology."
The lines deepened on her face, the light
shifted so the liquid powder showed and Mr.
Ross noted again the too young clothes, the
clash of two discordant colors.
"How queer, how remarkable, how almost
mystic," she gushed, "that we should not have
met before in this funny, ugly little library."
"Funny? Ugly?" exclaimed Mr. Ross.
180
The Old Man Who Went to the Library
"Yes, don't you think so?" she asked. "It's
so squatty."
When they parted she gave him her address.
He pleaded he could not give her his. He was
about to move, he said, and didn't know the
number of the new place. But she would hear
from him soon.
Mr. Ross entered the old tourist hotel out
of breath. He had walked up instead of going
around Hill Street and coming up on the
"flight" as he usually did. But always before
he had come up with a pile of books. Now he
had no books. He had not even seen the book
reviews. He had forgotten all about the book
reviews !
But Mr. Ross was not in a funk. He still
had his sturdy step and cheery eye.
The lobby was still deserted but for young
Martin back of the desk, and the two men,
young and old, smiled again the natural smile
of friends, the smile that comes without the
smiler knowing he smiles.
Mr. Ross sat down. The only evidence that
he was flustered was that he sat down in the
carved Chinese chair. Nobody had sat down in
it for years. Just to look at its impossible seat
and the sharp corners of the arms would scare
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away any prospective sitter. But Mr. Ross sat
in it instead of one of the old mission chairs
with their upholstered but well-shaped con-
tours.
Aside from the shadow of an uncomfortable
look on his face there was no evidence that he
suffered.
"Well?" said young Martin, and gave Mr.
Ross an appealing look, as one chronically ill
might give some great physician. "Well, what
do you really think?"
Mr. Ross began judiciously.
"You know, I have been thinking," he said,
"about this problem of yours. Well I should
say marry her, if you think you two care that
much. Go ahead.
"If you make a go of it you will be happy,
as happy as one can be in this puzzling world.
If it fails, still good, for you will have it over,
will be harboring no illusions. Oh, dear boy,
don't have illusions for someday, someday
have it over with, boy, quick."
Now Mr. Ross seemed excited.
"Try growing up, try developing together,
for one should grow up all along, to the very
end. You are dead, dead when you stop grow-
ing up."
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The Old Man Who Went to the Library
From far down the hill came the sound of
the Bible Institute chimes, the Bow Bells of
Los Angeles. "Go ahead and marry," Mr.
Ross commanded. "Why not? You eat your
food while it's hot, don't you? Don't wait for
it to get cold perhaps spoil."
He turned away from the puzzled young
man. Martin needed little urging to make up
his mind.
"All right," he called after Mr. Ross, "you
just see, we'll be married before Sunday.
You'll see, Mr. Ross."
But Mr. Ross scarcely heard. He had
entered the elevator and had coughed politely
for Old John, leaning against the grating half
asleep, to rouse himself.
"You weren't out long," said Old John.
"Any news?"
"No, John," said Mr. Ross. "Not a thing.
I've just been down to the library."
183
The Englishman Who Liked Baboons
NEVER AGAIN WILL I BELIEVE THAT STUFF
about the deceitful, selfish English.
About the two-faced, canting chaps whose
monocles flash in the sunlight that is when
it is not foggy and who carry an umbrella in
one hand, a varnished calf dispatch case in
the other.
About the race whose diplomacy and per-
sonal affairs are always full of duplicity and
sentimentality. You know, Perfidious Al-
bumin.
For I know better since I learned about the
Major. For he was the atonement of all the
faults of his people.
What he did or rather didn't do in his
quiet English way, quiet but firm mind you,
was downright noble. Noble may not be the
word, but it must serve. It showed the human-
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The Englishman Who Liked Baboons
ity beneath the English crust. Crust may not
be the word either, but we will let it go.
They called him the Major for no reason
that I could discover, except that he had never
been one. He had not even been a sergeant
major. Nor a drum major.
The Major and I had been friends back on
the Mexican border, where he ran an ostrich
ranch. He had lived in Africa or our American
Southwest most of the years of his life, but sun
never diminished that ruddy English com-
plexion, and he always dressed as if he had
just come over second class and was going
right back.
He hadn't been in England, except during
the late war, for forty years but he was always
well tweeded, malacca sticked, ever ready for
a spot of Scotch or tea.
One day when I was strolling along North
Main Street I met the Major, who popped out
of Commercial Street, up there in the mellow
"Old Town" of Los Angeles that Hollywood
ignores, luckily. Luckily for "Old Town/' that
is.
He was an individual utterly alien to the
surroundings.
We strolled up to the old plaza, where nearly
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everything is Mexican. There he told me all
about his latest project he was always hav-
ing projects, an American characteristic he
had taken on full force. It was no less than a
plan to go to South Africa to get baboon glands
for a Los Angeles gland doctor.
Just then the gland cure, mostly goat glands,
was at the height of its popularity. Remark-
able cures of senility were reported. Aging
men filled the anterooms of specialists in this
field.
It was the latest form taken by the El
Dorado-Fountain of Youth mania always
endemic in the American blood that ever
hopeful attempt to beat the nature of things.
"I never thought this of you," I said to the
Major. "Going to Africa to snatch glands
from baboons. Who is this doctor? Gypsy
Dan who sells his Monkey Joy Tablets back
there on Main near the Westminster Hotel?"
"Oh, nothing quite so raw as that," he said.
"This medical man is really somebody. He
has an idea, bloody good one, I think, about
getting real ape-gland extract on the ground.
Costs too much to bring the hairy blighters
here to the United States. Lots of freight. No
end of bother. All there is this way, I go down
186
The Englishman Who Liked Baboons
with a doctor chap and a photographer and we
fetch back the gland extract. You see I know
where there are lots of baboons."
"Where?"! asked.
"They are back on the desert about the
Karoo Mountains in Cape Colony. They bother
the farmers a lot. They wouldn't object."
"The monkeys?"
"No, the farmers, damn it. The baboons
will object, you jolly well know. They kill the
farmers' cows, they are so keen on milk. They
just kill the cow and tear out the milk sacs.
Make a horrible mess of things. The farmers
don't like this, nor the cows either, I fancy."
"All these years I have known you I never
thought you were a monkey man; always
looked on you as an ostrich man," I told him.
"There is rather a difference between those
two animals," he mused. "Come to think of it,
rather a difference. Something of the dif-
ference between, say, a Gila monster and a
pussy cat, what? But I shot some of these
baboons years ago for a German taxidermist,
and while I am not strictly a monkey man, but
rather an ostrich man, I can do this job up
brown.
"When this doctor chap heard about me
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being an experienced animal man who knew
where a lot of fine, healthy baboons lived, he
sent for me. When he broached the subject I
didn't fancy it at first. I asked him if he
expected me to go running about in Africa
with a butcher knife in my hand chasing
screeching baboons all over the place.
"Silly, rather, it seemed to me. He said no,
that he planned to get the best extract from
live apes. Wanted to catch them in nets; his
medical associate who would go down with me
would do the rest. He and the photographer."
"What is the photographer for?" I asked.
"Promise you won't tell?" the Major de-
manded. Then he leaned close to me, so that
the Mexican workman who was sound asleep
on the other end of the bench wouldn't hear.
"You see this doctor has a great idea. He
wants to make this thing personal. There is a
psychological side to all cures, and that's why
the goat-gland treatment hasn't worked out
as well as it should have. What does the aging
businessman get out of knowing that he had a
glandular extract from a damn silly billy goat
in his system? Very little. It's not an uplift-
ing idea.
"But everybody knows that man is a simian.
188
The Englishman Who Liked Baboons
There's where the doctor chap's great idea
comes in. He plans to inject the extract from
the glands of a particular monkey in each
particular patient. See? The patient will get
the glandular stimulation from one individual
monkey. Observe the idea?"
"Yes, but why the photographer?" I in-
sisted.
"Wait now. I'm coming to that. He will
take a photograph of each baboon, and we will
keep the films marked with numbers to corres-
pond to the portion of the gland extract we
take from each baboon. Understand? In this
way we can give the patient a photograph of
the very baboon from which the gland we
inject in him was taken."
"Good Lord," I moaned. "Something to
keep in the family album?"
The Major was convulsed with merriment.
His face became as red as a lobster. "Or to
hang on the wall," he chuckled. "Or to present
to their wives. You know, suitably framed in
a little Morocco leather case with 'To My Very
Own' embossed on the back of it."
Here again he burst into laughter. He went
on, "These old codgers who take gland treat-
ment are silly asses, I tell you. But I don't
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worry about that. My conscience doesn't hurt
me there. It is about the baboons that I feel
squeamish. That's what gets under the con-
science I inherited from those damn Puritan
ancestors of mine. Just a pack of damn Puri-
tanical yeomen they were.
"Yes, it's the bloody baboons that get me.
The poor blighters. Losing their glands. I
sort of feel us men ought to stick together. You
know. Noblesse oblige. Honi soit qui mal y
pense. Meum et tuum. All that sort of thing."
This thought, it seemed, preyed on the
Major's mind. He was conversely like his
noted countryman Doctor John Doolittle of
Puddleby-on-the-Marsh who wanted to go to
Africa to vaccinate all the monkeys when he
heard that smallpox was raging among them.
It was clear the Major didn't fancy the notion
of taking glandular extract from live monkeys.
Yet all might have gone well if one day he
had not taken a couple of drinks of tequila
from Don Jose's private stock (right back of
the prescription counter) and soon after
wandered into a live-animal show that occu-
pied a vacant store in Main Street.
"It's all off," he sadly told me a few days
later. "The baboon-gland expedition I was
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The Englishman Who Liked Baboons
telling you about. My fault. My error. I
might have become a noted baboon-gland
grabber. Been photographed by the cinema
boys when I returned, posing in my pith hel-
met and linen clothes. 'Explorer Returns from
Africa with Shipload of Baboon Gland Ex-
tracts Plans to Rejuvenate Congress/ That
sort of twaddle. I might have made lots of
money, for I was to go on a royalty basis with
that gland doctor. But I threw all my chances
away. Like the mug that I am.
"I got to thinking about what a mucker
trick it was to grab the glands of a baboon in
his own country down there in Cape Colony.
What a rotter I would be. Probably a happily
married baboon chap, always glad to help the
missus and the little ones. Regular chap in
the community. Member of the choral society.
Lord, what a frightful noise they do make
when they all howl at once. Fine fellow, this
baboon. Happy. All that. Then I would sneak
up with a net and take from him his Lord,
I couldn't think of it take away his" very
baboonhood !"
I looked at the Major from the corner of my
eye. He was very serious.
His emotions seemed to choke him for a
191
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moment but he went on, "Still I think I would
have gone through with it if it hadn't been for
those few drinks, and my visit to that grubby
little animal show. For they had a young male
baboon, a mandrill, in there, and when I
walked in and saw him he looked straight at
me, looked me right in the eye and cried out,
'Arrk !' or something like that. It was awful.
Maybe it was the drinks, but it was awful, just
the same.
"He was a fine-looking baboon, and I stood
and looked at him a long time. By God, he was
a human being. Damn sight more human than
some of those blokes that sit about in Pershing
Square and feed the pigeons. Damn sight
more. He had a personality just like you or
me, and, damn me, it was a male personality
just like yours or mine, and I felt sure just as
prized by him. He was human, and the more
I looked at him the more human he seemed.
Baboons aren't apes, but monkeys, as you
know, but they're just as human. By God, they
are human.
"Then I went back to Don Jose's drugstore
and got another spot or two of tequila.
"Don't just remember how it came about
but not long after I was out in the Wilshire
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The Englishman Who Liked Baboons
district in this medical chap's office and I was
talking loud and he was trying to quiet me.
'Damned if I'll be a party to your nefarious
scheme/ I told him. Tm too much of a man's
man/ I told him. 'I wouldn't have the face to
steal glands from baboons. Why, man alive,
that would be as bad as cannibalism !'
" 'All right/ he kept saying, 'Only don't talk
so loud.' There were a lot of patients waiting
in the reception room, it seemed. I had entered
by a side door. But I kept on. I yelled louder
and louder. It was bally awful.
" 'Good-by/ I cried. 'Good-by forever, you
low criminal, you ! You'll never get me to do
this dastardly thing.'
"I lurched across the floor and before he
could stop me I opened the door into the recep-
tion room. Seated there were a lot of old
fossils, and they stared at me popeyed. But I
kept on yelling as I stood in the doorway.
" 'You've tried to bribe me, you scoundrel/
I told the doctor. 'Bribe me, that's what!'
" 'Bribe you? For heaven's sake, how?' he
asked.
" 'You've tried to bribe me to steal the
glands from my brothers/ I cried, 'my dear,
dear brothers !'
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"The old men in the reception room sat up
and took notice at that, I'll tell you.
" 'To steal the glands from my very own
brothers, just so you can try and rejuvenate a
lot of silly old blighters that have one foot in
the grave/ I went on. 'Never ! You can't pay
me enough of your dirty gold to do that. You
just go on using your old goat glands, or sheep
glands or tomcat glands for all I care. But
you shan't touch my brothers. Not if I can
help it/
"By this time I had got out into the corridor
and I kept yelling, 'My brothers, my brothers,
you can't have their glands.'
"They came out of other offices, nurses in
uniform and physicians in their white coats,
sticking their heads out of the doors as I went
past. Lord, it was bloody awful ! I don't know
what ever came over me. You know, old man,
I am usually the gentleman. Hate to make a
scene."
The Major paused, pondered.
"Do you think," he asked me, "that I could
straighten things out with the doctor, make
peace with him and go through with it after
all? Or do you think I've ruined the deal?"
"I'm afraid you have," I frankly told him.
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The Englishman Who Liked Baboons
"Perhaps it's just as well," he said. "Maybe
I couldn't go through with it anyway. It might
have been the tequila and it might have been
my better nature.
"Do you know a funny thing happened, a
strange thing. I went back that evening to
the little museum in Main Street to take an-
other look at that baboon they have, and do
you know that, instead of eyeing me with
suspicion and screaming at me as he had done
before, he clearly showed that he was glad to
see me. Fm not superstitious, even if I have
seen queer things in India, but it seemed to
me that this baboon knew what I had done and
how I felt."
"Did he show it very clearly?" I asked.
"Clearly?" said the Major. "Hell, man!
He got his arm around my neck and actually
tried to kiss me. My hat fell off, and I dropped
my stick. There were people standing around.
It was dashed awkward."
195
The Copyreader Who Was Homesick
COPYREADERS ARE THE NEWSPAPER WORKERS
who correct the stories and write the heads,
and Lord how they hate it. They perpetually
look as if they had just smelled a very bad
smell.
They are melancholy-looking men, anyway.
They sit for long hours on kitchen chairs at a
big horseshoe-shaped desk and push their
pencils in a hopeless and determined manner.
A graduate one of those on "the rim/' as the
outer side of the horseshoe is called, sits in the
inside of the semicircle and deals out the pieces
of copy to be read, and inspects the work done.
He is almost invariably the most melancholy of
the copyreaders, and the men on the rim hate
him as, indeed, they hate one another with a
calm, emotionless, futile hate.
Copyreaders have their own proper habits.
196
The Copyreader Who Was Homesick
They take pencil stubs and paste up rolls of
copy paper to make them longer so they can
write on them to the bitter end. They do this
although pencils are free in newspaper offices.
They lay out their pencils, nicely sharpened ;
their shears ; maybe an old razor blade for nice
work ; and the paste pots which the office boys
had better not have too full of paste and the
brushes which had better not be too dry and
hard.
All these things they arrange in certain
order, depending on individual technique in
workmanship. It always suggested to me the
preparation of a surgeon only are copy-
readers and surgeons so meticulous about
going to work.
When all is prepared the copyreader takes
up a story that is allotted to him, reads it like
the schoolboy reading his lesson, painstakingly
and without enthusiasm. He will make a few
corrections, here pounce on a misspelled word,
there unsplit an infinitive, and if the writer
has not marked out well what he wants marked
out the pencil of the copyreader will black it
out beyond any peradventure.
Then the copyreader will write the head.
He makes a little flourish with his hand before
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he begins this. . He will think the fraction of a
moment, and then down will go the words, all
short words of the large short- worded vocabu-
lary which is the copyreader's chief stock in
trade.
The words must fit more or less to the letter-
and-spaces count of each line of the head and
the lines must be arranged arbitrarily into
decks, as they are called. It is like writing
formal verse each line so many counts and
so many lines to the stanza.
When the copyreader gets a piece from
Police he will write, "Slays Dad with Ax."
When he gets one from Society he writes,
"Troth Bared at Tea." Thus he works on.
Once I knew a copyreader who had the look
of a man with a secret. He had come to Los
Angeles from Brooklyn, it seemed, and I did
not know him long before he admitted to me
that he was terribly lonesome. He used to join
some of us reporters at supper and he would
tell us how unhappy he was, how lost he felt
away from Brooklyn.
He talked with a most Brooklynese accent,
forever making "er" out of a final "a." This
had a curious effect with the California place-
198
The Copyreader Who Was Homesick
names. He would say "viller" for "villa" and
"Pasadener" for "Pasadena."
In my many years in the Southwest I have
observed many kinds of homesickness. The
unfortunates who come out to New Mexico,
Arizona, or West Texas for their lungs suffer
from it. The most homesick of all homesick
ones in my observation is the man from New
York. And Brooklyn is the homesickingest of
all the boroughs. Somehow they cannot adjust
themselves to their new environment the
spell of the great city is such a part of their
nature, perhaps.
This Brooklyn copyreader was one of the
worst I ever saw. He had never lived or
worked on Manhattan, seldom been there I
believe. He was all Brooklyn, knowing that
enormous city thoroughly, having been a re-
porter there twenty-five years before he began
to do desk work.
He simply couldn't adjust himself to Los
Angeles. He was scornful of its inhabitants,
whom he termed "towners." He complained
that they did not know even how to walk on the
street, that they were forever bumping into
one. His way of expressing this was that they
had "blind feet."
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He observed the heavy traffic on downtown
streets at night when nearly all business was
closed, particularly Saturday nights, and this
he declared was because Los Angeles people
came mostly from small towns.
"City people want to get out of town after
working hours," he explained, "but you notice
these people driving and walking up and down
Broadway here in Los Angeles. They just
come to town to parade up and down the main
drag, to see the other folks and to show them-
selves and their girls off. They's just towners."
I used to take him for long walks up in Old
Town, where he felt more at home. The old
buildings, some of which looked like the ones
back home in Brooklyn, and the crowds, while
very different from Brooklyn's, were cosmo-
politan. On these walks he would become
happier ; that dull look of pain of the homesick
would leave his face.
Once down in the Japanese district we came
upon an old barn of a building, a cheap hotel.
It hadn't been painted since the Battle of
Manila, and what paint was left was peeling
off. Its wooden jig-saw ornaments were rot-
ting away. It was a building, in short, much
scarred by life's battles but standing there a
200
The Copy reader Who Was Homesick
gray, determined figure in the somber light of
a foggy early morning.
He stood a long time looking at this building,
and he gave a sigh, a sort of happy sigh. He
said it reminded him of Brooklyn.
One day he became particularly mellow at
some such sight and he told me his secret.
Little more than a year before he had been a
happy resident of Brooklyn, an apparently
perfectly fixed part in its life. He had been a
newspaper office boy, a reporter, a copyreader,
and finally an editor, with a pretty good job,
had become something of a personage in town.
He was happily married, owned his own home,
and had some money in the bank. Ah, how
fortunate he was, ah, how happy he was !
Why had he left, why had he quit Brooklyn?
Had he committed some crime, was he a man
with a sinister past? No, not that.
He had been uprooted from his happy life,
from his dear Brooklyn, from the environs of
its miles upon miles of elevated, its huge blocks
solid with apartment houses, its aromatic
wholesale district, its seething waterfront.
Uprooted, but by what? By chiropractic. That
was what.
His dear wife and he had been treated at
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different times by a chiropractic doctor. He
seemed to help some of their pet ills, none very
serious. He was a kindly chap, and filled with
enthusiasm for the new school of healing he
represented, and he imparted some of this
enthusiasm to the newspaperman and his wife.
One day he told them of his work, of the
necessary course of study.
"It is a great profession for a man and his
wife; the two can practice together," he ex-
plained. "Why don't you try it?"
They were caught in the spell of enthusiasm
about chiropractic. Then a wave of adventure-
someness came over this man and this woman
of middle age, so well grounded in the soil of
Brooklyn.
They had never felt anything like it before;
it was wine that went to their heads, and be-
fore they knew what they had done he had quit
his job, they had sold their house, and they
were on a train bound for Iowa where the
chiropractic school was located.
"Well," he told me, "we started in studying
hard, and we made good progress. But we had
not been at it many months when our enthusi-
asm sort of played out. Somehow, chiropractic
did not seem to be so wonderful. Some of our
202
The Copyreader Who Was Homesick
own personal symptoms, my indigestion and
her neuritis, that we thought had left us for
good, came back.
"It was terrible. But finally we admitted to
one another that neither of us really wanted
to be chiropractic or any other kind of a doctor.
We simply couldn't go through with it. The
spell that that kindly, well-intentioned bone-
shaper back in Brooklyn had cast over us had
passed."
I looked well at the man ; I had never looked
well at him before. He wasn't much different
from any other man, in fact, he looked like a
sort of composite of many, many men. His
face was round and he was losing his hair.
His way of dressing was colorless. He was
neither tall nor short, fat nor slim.
The only extraordinary thing about him
came from the inside it was his terrific
homesickness.
"And so there we were way out west in
Iowa," he went on and did not understand my
smile. "All the money we had got from our
house and the furniture and our savings was
about gone. What to do? Somehow I had
such pride that I couldn't think of going back
to Brooklyn and trying to get my old job back ;
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maybe I couldn't anyway. I might have to go
back reading copy or maybe going on the city
staff and covering a district or police court or
some such damn thing.
"Well, everybody in Iowa was talking about
Los Angeles. It seemed that half the popula-
tion had come out here. Then we began to get
the Los Angeles fever. I guess we were just a
couple of babes in the woods."
He sighed.
"The thought of going farther west sort of
startled us at first. Going farther away from
Brooklyn ! But as I say, we didn't want to go
back, face our old friends, and admit that we
had failed.
"Well, here we are. We are living in a one-
room apartment in a little bungalow court out
in the West Adams district, and I got this job
reading copy. But we are not happy, neither
of us.
"The California sunshine makes us all the
more gloomy because they don't have so much
sunshine back in Brooklyn. When we see a
palm we get homesick because they don't have
palms in Brooklyn. And when I write a head
it makes me homesick because the count isn't
the same as with the heads on the Eagle"
204
The Copyreader Who Was Homesick
The poor fellow almost made me weep, it
was all so sad. I am cursed with a sympathetic
nature.
"You'll get over it; you'll come to like Cali-
fornia," I tried to console him.
the awful look he gave me for that !
One day he came over to my desk and
slapped me on the back. His face was radiant.
"I've got my old job back," he told me. "I
wrote them honestly and they said to come
back, the job was waiting. What do you think
of that? I will leave in two weeks, my wife
and I. Is she happy, too! We even have
written and found that the real-estate man we
sold our house to hasn't disposed of it, and we
are going to get that back too. We had lived
there twenty years. So, everything is going
to be just the same, just as if we hadn't left.
Won't that be great?"
"Hope you won't miss the California cli-
mate," I said, by way of teasing him.
"Say, say," he protested, "we got a better
climate in Brooklyn than you ever had in
California. And more of it. Really, we have.
"I've been spending some time in the library
looking up the U. S. Weather Bureau Records
of Brooklyn. Records, mind you. Facts. We
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got a great climate in Brooklyn. When I get
back I'm going to write a magazine article
about it."
So the poor dope went back to Brooklyn
without realizing that California had changed
him fundamentally. He had become a booster.
206
The Girl Who Worked in the
Five-and-Ten
HE PUT HIS HAND OVER HERS, WHICH RESTED
on the table. She drew it away.
"I know, Johnny," she said, "that you like
me and I like you, but things are so mixed up."
She was a California Mexican and one of
the prettiest. She was slender, rather tall, a
mestizo, with a little Indian nose that seemed
to want to turn up at the end but couldn't.
"What do you mean, mixed up?" he asked,
and she did not answer for a long time. In the
meantime they sipped their beer.
He was as blond as a Swede, a big young
man who looked very grave when he was not
smiling. But he smiled a lot.
These young people sat at a table in a cock-
tail bar in Hill Street up where Hill Street
was not exactly nice. The bartenders were
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dark young men with patent leather hair and
the waitresses were all blondes, big ones. The
men customers drank at the tables and the
women customers at the bar.
There are all kinds of people and all kinds
of bars. This was one of those bars that, like
a dipper, scoops up scum from the street. In
this district it was American scum, mostly
middle-aged and elderly men and women. It
was after six and they were getting noisy.
Some of the women carried shopping bags
stuffed with vegetables and groceries they
had got at the biggest market in Los Angeles
near by. Their menfolks would have to wait
for dinner. Other women seemed to have no
men and that's why they were there.
"I'm glad we came in here to talk it over,"
said Johnny. "Why not, Adelita? Why not?"
"It's funny," said the girl, "it's funny my
reason. You and I, Johnny, get on swell, don't
we? We both got pretty good ideas about life
if we do both work in the Five-and-Ten. And
you got a future there, Johnny, even if you are
only a stockroom clerk. Mr. Williams came up
from the stockroom, didn't he?
"Us girls upstairs have no future any more.
The department stores don't take us so much
208
The Girl Who Worked in the Five-and-Ten
as they used to. Experience isn't everything.
Why, I've been from kitchen ware to feminine
hygiene, and what future have I?"
"What's all that got to do with you and me
getting married?" said Johnny. "Even if you
got to keep workin' for a while till I can make
enough, we can be married, can't we? Lots
do. Not keep house, for that would be too much
for you. Just live with our folks and once in a
while "
"That's it, Johnny, our folks," said Adelita.
"I don't know about yours. I'll tell you about
mine "
"But what difference do our folks make?"
he interrupted. "We aren't going to marry the
other's family."
"It's not that," went on the girl. "It's what
our folks, I mean what the people back of us,
what the things our ancestors stand for might
do to us, even if we went off to another city
together and never heard from our folks again.
"It's that you are an American and I am a
Mexican just a little cholita, Johnny. I speak
English just as good as anybody, but when I
am alone I think in Spanish. I like enchiladas,
Johnny, and your favorite dish is fried chicken
and sweet potatoes."
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"We'll have one for dinner one day and the
other the next," said Johnny.
"It isn't that, silly. It's deeper than that.
Let me tell you about my folks. My father had
a big ranch down in Sinaloa before the revolu-
tion. He lost everything. They took every-
thing from him and then they killed him. My
mother goes to mass every morning in the
Plaza Church and prays for my father's soul.
"She's a very kind mother, but she thinks it
wicked for young people not married ever to
see one another alone. She would die if she
knew we came into this bar to have a beer and
talk. But that isn't it, not all of it.
"I have two brothers and three sisters. All
but two of them they are too young work.
And my mother works, let me tell you. We
help, but she works like a slave all day. She
cooks, she does all the laundry. At night she
is as tired as a dog. But she gets up early
every morning and goes to mass.
, "We all live together because it is the way
of our people. We have a lot of fun, too. We
play games and have music, mostly music.
We children make a lot of noise, but we all love
each other and we love our mother.
"Our mother wants us to get married and
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The Girl Who Worked in the Five-and-Ten
have children. Johnny, if you and I get
married now I would have to keep on working,
of course, but how could we have children? I
don't know if I want to have children if we
should marry. I wouldn't get up every morn-
ing and go to mass. I haven't been to mass
since last Christmas. Maybe when I got older
I would. Tell me about your folks, Johnny
dear."
The man and woman at the next table were
making a lot of noise. It stopped when the
man rose and, leaving the woman, reeled into
the street.
"Come back, you dirty rat, and pay this
check," screamed the woman.
"My folks," said Johnny, "are pretty dif-
ferent from yours all right. I am an only child
but I wasn't spoiled. My daddy and mamma
were good to me, though. They are divorced
now. I lived with Mother, but we couldn't get
along somehow. I don't know why she was
always nagging me. You know how mothers
are, kind but naggy. But she is worried a lot
so I forgive her. The debts worry her. She's
always buying things and then can't pay for
them.
"Daddy and I get along but we don't see
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much of one another. We go to a ball game or
the fights together once in a while. He lets me
drive his car a lot of the time. He's 0. K.
Daddy remarried, and Mother is going to
marry again in a little while. Dad can't pay
the alimony any more.
"There sure is a difference between our
families. Of course as you say yours likes to
eat enchiladas and mine fried chicken. But
what do those differences mean? Each genera-
tion has got to start all over again, hasn't it?
As for different races coming together in
marriages, why that has been going on a long
time and if it hadn't worked we wouldn't be
here.
"You remember your history in high school,
Adelita. The Angles, Saxons, Danes, Nor-
mans, and look at your people the Spanish,
Moors and then, when they came to America,
the Indians. And look at us in the United
States every race on earth all mixed up.
Young people when they are in love have been
up against this sort of thing for a long time.
It's nothing new."
"It may not be new, but it may not work this
time, that's what I'm thinking about," said
Adelita.
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The Girl Who Worked in the Five-and-Ten
"And," said the young man, warming to his
subject, "people who really love each other
have always said, not impolitely, understand
me, but said in one way or another to hell
with the old folks and their ways. That is
what life ought to be, a fresh start each time.
Otherwise, this would be a rotten world."
He brightened.
"Do you remember Romeo and Juliet?' 9 he
asked.
"Sure, I saw it in the movies," said Adelita.
"I thought it was swell."
"I had to read it in school," said Johnny,
"and I remember it well. Their families were
enemies, you remember. The Capulets and
the Montgomeries, or something like that.
Well did those young people hesitate?"
"It seems to me that they talked about it,
that Juliet said something like what I've said,"
answered Adelita.
"Well what if she did?" said Johnny. "She
didn't argue long."
Adelita laughed and blushed a little at the
same time.
"It's all the same," insisted Johnny, "all
the same sort of thing. There was Romeo
dressed up in a snazzy suit but he was no sissy.
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He climbed up the vine onto the balcony, didn't
he, and Juliet said yes, didn't she?"
One of the bartenders came around in front
and led an old woman out of the place. She
was a drunken, foul-mouthed old woman.
"What's the difference," went on Johnny,
"between a balcony over a beautiful garden
back there in those times, and this table with
you and me sitting at it in this dump? What's
the difference? I love you, Adelita. That's all
there is to it."
He put his hand over hers and pressed it
firmly against the table. She did not try to
draw it away.
214
The Man Who Kept His Feet
on the Desk
MASON WASN'T AFRAID OF ANYTHING, AS
everybody knew. You would hardly have be-
lieved it seeing him with his chair tilted back
against the pillar in the city room and his feet
up on his desk, which as long as anybody could
remember had served no better purpose.
The young reporters called him a high
power because he didn't do anything as far as
anybody could find out. He had sat there with
his feet on the desk for ten or fifteen years.
Once in a while, it was rumored, he did a
chore for the publisher, and some of the boys
had seen him get off his chair and go into a
telephone booth or back to the men's room.
Why they let him sit there for years nobody
knew. Strange things happen in newspaper
offices.
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Mason was a big, blond man, getting gray
but still youthful. When he was not reading a
newspaper or sharpening and resharpening a
pencil he never used, he would just look into
space as if daydreaming of his exciting past.
The cubs and office boys reckoned he was
just waiting for the big story to break that
would be his meat. Cynics thought it might
be that Mason had something on the boss.
Others figured that he long had been off the
payroll and that they just let him sit around.
In any event there was no doubt about his
record back when he was a young man. He
was known as a daredevil.
It was Mason who was on duty the day the
crank with the infernal machine walked into
the police station and scared all the coppers
nearly to death. He told them that if they
didn't treat him nice he would pull the trigger
in the box he carried. He kept his hand stuck
in the box all the time.
When the camera man started to bolt, it
was Mason who grabbed the camera and took
a pretty good picture of the whole thing.
It was Mason who stood talking to the crank
while Detective Johnson came up behind and
slugged him on the back of the neck so quickly
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The Man Who Kept His Feet on the Desk
he couldn't have pulled the trigger if he had
thought of it under the circumstances.
It was Mason who had climbed onto the wall
with the firemen at the famed lumber yard
fire.
It was Mason who had taken the rowboat
into the stricken suburb that time the dam
broke.
It was Mason who, on many an occasion, had
told the chief of police where to get off.
Mason, no doubt about it, was afraid of
nothing, and many thought it an irony that he
sat there all day with his feet on the desk.
They made jokes about it. Jack Condon, the
press agent, was chatting with the city editor
one day he was a most privileged press agent
because he never asked for anything and never
got anything either.
"Do you know," said Condon, "I have known
Mason for ten years at least, and I never saw
him with his feet on the floor."
"Did you ever notice his typewriter," one
office boy said to another. "The keys are all
caked with dust and there are cobwebs on it.
It's kinda spooky, ain't it? Reminds me of a
ghost story."
Once there was a new man on the city desk
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who didn't know what a privileged character
Mason was. In a pinch he called to him,
"Mason, come and take some dictation from
Carter who is down at Long Beach/'
"I would be glad to but for two things,"
Mason called back. "I can't typewrite and I
can't spell."
Mason was an agreeable chap. He never
upstaged anybody though he thought well of
himself. He loved to talk of his past exploits.
The younger men hung around his desk, and
he gave them many a good pointer.
"If you haven't got guts, you shouldn't be
in this business," he used to say. "Always
keep cool. A good reporter never gets excited.
If I do say it myself I've covered some of the
very biggest stories and I never lost my head."
Bradford was a good city editor but a fuss-
budget. He hated to sit in his chair all the
time and had the habit of taking up a lot of
rewrite and photographs to distribute to the
reporters and artists.
He devised a special method for this; he
filed the pieces of paper and photos between
the fingers of his two hands, got really expert
at it. He would walk around with each hand
bristling with copy and when he did that he
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The Man Who Kept His Feet on the Desk
seemed to enjoy the height of self-importance.
Members of the staff often had talked of
what they would do if there were an earth-
quake. Interest in this subject was heightened
by the fact that the composing room, with its
linotype machines and their molten metal
was right overhead. The floor was reinforced
concrete, but would it hold?
It was one of the best earthquakes Los
Angeles had had, though it was centered in a
town some distance away. It seemed that some
super-giant had taken hold of the building and
shaken it as one shakes an apple tree to make
the fruit fall. It made the paste pots and
telephone receivers jump around. Rattles and
rumbles came from very side.
When the first shock came Bradford was on
his rounds with two hands full of copy. The
second jolt found Bradford on the landing of
the floor below, and so on down the four flights
of stairs to the street.
It took all the copy boys to collect the matter
for that edition which they found strewn down
the stairs. The last piece was out in the middle
of the street.
Others followed Bradford, and some, for no
reason anybody could learn later, found their
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way up onto the roof. Still others got under
tables, a good idea, because it is a protection
from falling plaster.
When the first shock came there was a
woman's scream, continuous like an ambu-
lance siren. It came from the Sunday room,
and got fainter as it went down the stairs. It
was the society editor leaving. Like many
another she was a gentlewoman in reduced
circumstances, a large, active woman with a
voice strengthened by incessant use.
The city room was pretty well cleaned out,
for there is nothing more terrifying than an
earthquake. It was soon full of men again
working on the telephones. Reporters and
photographers began to slip out the door.
In all the excitement Mason never took his
feet off the desk. He sat there just as he always
had.
They went up to him, admiration on the
faces of the younger men and embarrassment
on the faces of the older ones, for they were a
little jealous of Mason.
"He's sure got guts," they said. "He sure
can keep cool."
But it was soon apparent there was some-
thing wrong with Mason. His face was white,
220
The Man Who Kept His Feet on the Desk
and his eyes were turned upward, his head
tilted back against the concrete pillar.
Soon his eyes began to flutter, and the blood
rushed back into his face. He had fainted.
221
The Old Woman Who Came Home
SHE WAS A LITTLE OLD WOMAN IN A BLACK
dress that was ragged on the hem, and her
shoes needed new lifts. She was looking for
a house, it seemed, but the house just wasn't
there. She seemed annoyed at this as if the
house had promised to wait for her.
She walked around the corner and back,
peering between the buildings as she stood on
tiptoe. She would shake her head and go on
and then return to do it all over again.
Finally she was rewarded. She spied the
corner of a mansard roof. It was back there
on a corner of the lot that had no frontage on
the street, between the laundry building and
the new church. It was an old wooden pile
that hadn't seen paint for a long time.
There was a three-story apartment house
on the side street with the 1900's written all
222
The Old Woman Who Came Home
over it. Perhaps the old house was connected
with that.
A young woman came to the door, a blonde
young woman in a yellow dress. She was all
light against the gloomy doorway.
"I was interested in the old house there at
the back/' said the old woman. "Is the
entrance through this place?"
"Yes," said the girl, "you go right through
into it from this hall. We run it I mean my
mother and I. She is away for the afternoon.
I am in charge."
"Do you rent rooms there?" asked the old
woman.
"Oh, yes," replied the girl. "But they are
pretty dark. We rent them mostly to people
who work at night and want a quiet, cheap
place."
"I do not work at night," said the old
woman, "but I like a quiet, dim place. As I
passed in the street I noticed that the old house
is close to the newer buildings around it. I
thought it might suit me."
"Come in," said the girl, "and I will show
you some of the rooms we have vacant. This
is the slack season."
"Thank you, my dear," said the old woman.
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She had a wrinkled face with two large
dark eyes in it. When she smiled it seemed all
the wrinkles went away, but of course they
didn't.
They walked along the corridor of the apart-
ment house. It had golden oak woodwork and
a green strip carpet. They passed directly
from the 1900's into the 1870's. They stood in
what evidently had been once a larger entry
place. At one side was an old parlor, and
directly in front was the staircase. It was a
nut-brown walnut staircase well patinated by
the years.
As they started upstairs the old woman
stopped to examine the post at the bottom.
She felt the top of it, which had a hole in it
for no apparent purpose. The old woman was
very spry about going upstairs.
"Are there any rooms vacant on the back of
this floor?" she asked. "I think I might like
the one on the left corner."
"It happens to be vacant," said the young
woman.
The room had the original wooden blinds
that folded back into the wainscoting. The
wallpaper was of big flowers, and the iron bed
in the corner also spoke of the 1890's. But
224
The Old Woman Who Came Home
there was still much of the preceding genera-
tion about the room besides the blinds. It had
the high ceilings of that period and the wood-
work, which once had been walnut, had had
many a coat of ill-chosen varnish. There was
one old chair in the room, a walnut one with
flowers carved on the top of the back.
"May I sit down a moment?" said the old
woman, choosing this chair.
"Certainly/' said the girl. "I hope the stairs
were not too much for you."
"Oh, no," she replied. She looked out of the
windows on both sides and shook her head.
"My dear, I will tell you something," she
went on, "something that may interest you if
you have lived here long."
"All my life," said the girl.
"Ah," said the old woman, "have you really?
Well, there should be a garden out that window
to the left, and from the other window there
should stretch a lawn way down past what is
now Figueroa Street."
"You used to live here when this house was
new !" said the girl. "Do tell me all about it.
What is your name? Mine is Jane Carson."
"I am Mrs. Maynard," she replied. "May I
call you just Jane? Fine. Well, Jane, I must
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tell you I didn't intend to say anything about
it that I spent my childhood in this house.
This was my room. I haven't been home this
always has been home since I was about your
age.
"I go back a long way. My mother was the
daughter of a cattleman up in central Cali-
fornia. She had a sad life. She ran away from
home with a gambling man from San Fran-
cisco, a dark chap with a long silky mustache,
I suppose, just as they would have it in the
storybooks. Well my mother had some talent,
and when her father disowned her she worked
in the music hall at San Francisco while her
husband, who liked whiskey and other women
too well, dealt a little monte and faro once in
a while. That was a long way back, not long
after the Civil War.
"Then my mother and father came down
here to Los Angeles. My father deserted my
mother here. I was born soon after that. How
it happened, I do not know, but a very kind
and very rich man just like in the old story-
books again took pity on my mother. He and
his wife had no children, and they took a
fancy to me, perhaps that was it. Anyway,
this man had made a fortune in mines in
226
The Old Woman Who Came Home
Colorado, and he came down from Denver to
live here because his wife wanted a warm
climate.
"They built a grand house this very house,
my dear. It was really very grand in those
days. One of the wings must have been cut off.
It should extend to where the laundry is now.
There was a driveway from a road I can't
locate at all that ran up through the lawn to
the entrance where the new apartment house
now stands. Back there was an aviary with
canaries, Mexican finches, parrots, and cocka-
toos. My dear; I had a big St. Bernard dog,
and a monkey, yes, a monkey, a cute little devil
who was always kept on a chain. I also had a
Shetland pony and a little cart for him. His
name was Napoleon."
"How wonderful," said the girl, "how
wonderful !"
"We had a Chinese cook named Fong," went
on the old woman. "He was a proper China-
man with a pigtail, and we never could get him
to keep his shirttail tucked in his trousers.
And I had an apple-cheeked Irish girl for a
nurse, Bridget she was that old fashioned.
The coachman, he was Irish too, used to take
me to sail my boat in the zanja that watered
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the orchards down the dirt road that ran north.
I had only servants for playmates. I can't
remember another child at all when I was
young."
"I played all alone too," said Jane. "I know
how it is."
They sat for a while smiling at one another.
It was very quiet in the old parlor. You could
just hear the hum of automobile traffic.
"Well," went on the old woman, "my mother
died when I was still very young, and our bene-
factor that's an old-fashioned word you
probably don't hear much nowadays form-
ally adopted me. It was not long until he and
his wife died. I inherited all his fortune."
"Oh," said the young woman.
"The Sunday supplements of the news-
papers had a lot about it in them. They called
me 'Little Margaret.' I will not tell you the
details of all the rest for I do not enjoy talking
about it and probably you are getting bored
all ready."
"Oh, no," said the girl most decidedly.
"Well," continued the old woman, "I went
to a fashionable finishing school, traveled in
Europe, and all the rest. Of course my guard-
ian and the lawyers finally got all the money.
228
The Old Woman Who Came Home
I myself did a very foolish thing. I married an
Englishman who had a title, and for the title,
I am afraid. I married again, an American
this time, and that wasn't much of a success
either. I became an actress, a fairly good one,
if I do say it myself."
"Where do you live now, Mrs. Maynard?"
asked the young woman.
"Not far away, Jane, she replied. "To
tell you the truth, I have been on relief for
quite a long time. I had got down to doing
maid's work in a hotel. I was too old finally.
I do not complain of all this. It is the way of
the world."
"You must come and live here in the old
house," said the young woman.
"I dearly would love to," said Mrs. May-
nard. "But I am afraid they would not let me.
I cannot very well leave the place I am now,
you see. I storied to you, Jane, that I might
rent one of the rooms. I just wanted to see the
place where I was a little girl."
"Oh, don't apologize," said the girl, "I am so
glad you came. I only wish my mother and
Jack could have heard your story."
"Have you and Jack been in love long?"
The girl started with astonishment.
229
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"How did you know? We both are still
going to high school."
"Oh, my dear, I read it in your face. May
I see the parlor downstairs?"
They went down the old nut-brown stairs
slowly, for Mrs. Maynard had to run her hand
along every inch of the rail.
"The curve at this landing," she said, "was
the most dangerous one."
"Yes, I found it so," said Jane. "How funny,
you used to slide down this railing too."
"It was much better sliding in your time
than in mine," said Mrs. Maynard when they
got to the bottom. "For in my time, Jane, there
was a bronze Roman soldier with a gas jet on
his head here on the bottom post, and you had
to slow up or you would hit it and hurt
yourself."
"Sit down on the sofa," said Jane when
they went into the parlor which had more of
the 1870's and '80's in it than the room up-
stairs.
"This sofa," said Mrs. Maynard, "is an old
friend of mine. But it used to have haircloth
on it, which is not very nice for little girls with
thin cotton dresses. It sticks you. Haircloth
is black, you know, my dear. I used to cut out
230
The Old Woman Who Came Home
paper dolls and put them on the couch as I
knelt on the floor in front of it. The black
background was nice. It made a kind of stage.
I had plays. I always have had the theater in
me."
Mrs. Maynard looked around the room. She
smiled and made a little bow at each piece of
furniture she recognized.
"That cabinet/' she said, "used to be full of
bric-a-brac. You use it for books and maga-
zines now. Much more sensible. I see the
whatnot is gone. It had daguerreotypes and
seashells on it. I liked the seashells much
better. Most of our old pictures are gone. I
suppose they have been sold. Probably when
the crash came they sold the house furnished,
and down through the years things have been
broken, lost, sold, and others put in their place.
Those chairs, that table, never were here in
my time."
Mrs. Maynard was at last satisfied with
her examination of the room.
She turned to Jane with a mock childish
smile. "Now you tell me about when you were
a little girl," she said.
"There isn't anything interesting to tell,"
said the young woman. "My father died when
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I was a baby, and Mother has run this place
as long as I can remember. We always have
lived in the old part by that I mean this part
of the house, your old home. So I grew up
here as you did.
"You see, I had no yard to play in. My
mother took me out to Westlake Park once in
awhile. But I liked to play at home alone. You
see I played a game it is kind of funny I
pretended that I had a playmate, a little girl.
We got along fine. We used to sit at tea table
a toy one together. She used to watch my
favorite doll when I was away, and I did the
same for her. Did you ever make believe, Mrs.
Maynard?"
"Indeed I have," she answered. "Tell me,
was your little friend dark or light?"
"Dark," said Jane. "I suppose I made her
dark because I was blonde and I wanted to
make her different. And oh, yes, we used to see
who could slide down the banister the fastest.
Sometimes she won. Sometimes I did. We
always divided things up."
"My darling," said Mrs. Maynard, "have
you still got that doll?"
"Yes, I keep it in an old trunk."
"Fetch it, my dear. I love all dolls."
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The Old Woman Who Came Home
Mrs. Maynard took the doll as little girls
take up dolls, tenderly. She noted that the eyes
wouldn't open and close any more, but re-
mained half open all the time. She praised the
dolPs complexion, which was coming off on
one cheek. She pulled up the dress and
solemnly examined the panties, as one always
does sooner or later with a doll.
"She is a darling," she said at last. "So
this is the doll that you and your imaginary
playmate used to like so well?"
"I like her still," said Jane.
"Now I must go," said Mrs. Maynard, get-
ting up and starting off almost at once.
"Thank you so much, my dear, and don't forget
me, will you?"
They stood together at the door.
"Do kiss me good-by," said Mrs. Maynard,
and Jane did at once.
"It seems," said the young woman, "that
we have always known one another."
"We have," said the old woman, "we have.
I will tell you something. It's a secret. I have
never left this house ; it was only the grown-up
part of me that went away."
"Oh," said the young woman, "Oh, I see.
It was you all the time."
233
The Man Who Got Lost in the Fog
JUST AS WILLIAM RUSSELL WAS ABOUT TO GET
on the Long Beach train something came up
inside of him and spoke.
"You want a drink," it said over and over
again. "You want a drink."
"Maybe I do," said Russell to the Thing. He
did not feel like arguing about it.
When a man is past sixty he needs a drink
now and then to give him a lift, thought
Russell. He was in the dumps anyway.
Ever since he had retired from his business
in Los Angeles and gone to Long Beach to live
the doctor said it would do his sinuses good
but it didn't he had felt like a has-been.
There was a new generation in the Chamber
of Commerce, where he once was vice-presi-
dent and chairman of the Committee on
Un-American Activities. They called him an
234
The Man Who Got Lost in the Fog
old-fashioned booster. They said his stuff was
corny.
"You need a shot of bourbon or two to get a
good glow on before you go- home," was what
he told himself. "Mary can wait dinner twenty
minutes until the next train."
He walked out of the station. The fog had
come over the city as it usually does at night
in November. The fog felt good on his face
and hands, for the day had been a rather warm
one. He was in Main Street, the Bowery or
South Clark Street of Los Angeles.
It was not the kind of a saloon they still
called them that on Main Street that a civic
leader should enter, except perhaps to use the
telephone or the toilet. It was not, to be sure,
one of those dumps where they have B girls.
It was a man's bar that got the second-class
commuting trade and the general run of Main
Street trade that would pay fifteen cents for
liquor and a dime for beer.
"Let me try some of your bar bourbon,"
Russell told the bartender, affecting a man-of-
the-world air which he had never quite got
somehow.
It wasn't so bad or so good either. It
warmed him, anyway.
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Turn Off the Sunshine
The whiskey pleased him more than his face
in the mirror. It was a fat face, with gray
hair on the sides, and he knew that it was bald
on top under the hat. Getting old is no fun,
he thought, especially since he had led an active
life, not only in his business, which was a good
one in the old days of the city's phenomenal
expansion, but in civic affairs. There was
hardly a good cause from charity to patriotism
that Bill Russell hadn't gone for in a big way.
"Trade pretty good?" he asked the bar-
tender.
He was rather an old-fashioned bartender,
though still a young man. He wore a white
coat that was dirty on the under part of the
sleeves.
"Yes, it's been good since the defense pro-
gram got under way," the bartender replied.
"It was pretty lousy before that. But these
crums on Main Street don't spend any more
money than they ever did."
"Let's have another," said Russell, trying
again to get the hang of worldly nonchalance.
This one gave him a good lift. He began to
feel fine.
"I thought," said a voice at his side, "that
you never had fogs in Los Angeles."
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The Man Who Got Lost in the Fog
The voice addressed the bartender. It had
a dialect not unlike New Yorkese.
"I'm from San Francisco," went on the
voice. "You people down here are always pan-
ning us for our fog."
Russell turned and looked at the Man from
San Francisco. He was a red-faced man
dressed a little on the old-fashioned side.
"If I may butt in," said Russell, "our fogs
here are a blessing. They keep us cooler than
we would be otherwise in the summer the
high fog you know."
"Oh, yeah," said the Man from San Fran-
cisco.
He said it in a nasty way. Russell felt the
glow of anger along with the alcohol.
"Of course," he said, "you bein' from San
Francisco know all about fogs. When I was up
there once I never felt anything like it. They
go through you like a wet blanket I mean a
knife. It's the only place in the world where
you can have a high wind and a fog at the same
time. Anyplace else the wind blows the fog
away."
"Everybody to his liking," said the Man
from San Francisco. "But you can have your
goddamn Los Angeles climate. It takes all the
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starch out of a real man. Enervating, that's
what it is."
That "real man" made Russell still madder,
but he decided to overlook it. They glared at
one another for a while.
"Do you wear the long, knit underwear most
everybody does in San Francisco?" asked
Russell at last.
The Man from San Francisco did not
answer, and they glared at one another a while
longer.
"Do you know," the Man from San Fran-
cisco finally said, "I could tell by looking at
you that you are from Los Angeles."
He waited, and Russell finally said, "Why?"
though he tried hard not to say it.
"Because you got a streak of grease across
your vest," he said.
"How's that?" asked Russell, looking down
at his vest.
"It's made by the cafeteria trays," said the
man and then broke into a bazoo of laughter
that made everybody in the place look around.
"Give me another shot," said Russell to the
bartender, and turned his back on the Man
from San Francisco.
He had felt better after the first drink. Now
238
The Man Who Got Lost in the Fog
he felt all mussed up inside. That guy from
San Francisco ! Talk about blowhards !
"Pardon me," said the man on the stool at
his right, "but I couldn't help but hear you two
fellows talking. Maybe as an Easterner I
can cut in. I'm from New York City
Manhattan."
He talked a little like Al Smith.
"Oh, that's all right," said Russell. "Have
a drink. Here, Mr. Bartender "
"Thanks a lot," said the man. "I will have
another bottle of beer. What I was going to
say, if you don't mind, I find Los Angeles just
a big "
"Country town," cut in Russell, in disgust.
"Country town," went on the man, "and
that's the truth. Do you know a good definition
of Los Angeles?"
"Well?" said Russell without enthusiasm.
"Los Angeles," said the Man from New
York, "is six suburbs in search of a city.
Pretty neat, eh?"
"Funny as hell," said Russell.
"But no hard feeling," said the Man from
New York. "You got lots on the ball out here.
Those fellows from San Francisco ought to
envy your progressiveness. I went up to Frisco
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once. It's the city of the dead. It reminds me
of Philadelphia. You know how to do things
down here."
"Well," said Russell, "we do have a good
idea of organization. We have a really pro-
gressive spirit. We know how to correlate our
civic enkevors, I mean enrevors, I mean
endeavors."
"Sure," said the Man from New York.
"You're 0. K., old-timer."
Russell didn't like that "old-timer" very
well. But how could he deny it? He was a
passe civic leader. Just one of the old-timers.
He felt a little dizzy, but the liquor still gave
him a pleasant glow. Out of the glow came
something he might have said to the Man from
San Francisco. It was about the new bridge to
Oakland. He would tell him that
But when he turned to the left another man
sat on the stool. He was a young man dressed
as if he might be a mechanic. He wore a blue
cotton shirt with a little leather bow tie, and
had a cap on.
"Oh, excuse me," said Russell, "I thought
you were that guy from San Francisco."
"I am from San Francisco," said the young
man.
240
The Man Who Got Lost in the Fog
Russell took a good look at him. Yes, he
was a different man, all right. Of course, why
couldn't two people come from San Francisco?
"I came down to this stinkin' open-shop
town," said the young man, "because I had to,
not because I wanted to. I'm on my way to
San Diego to work in the shipyard."
"You can scoff at the open shop," said
Russell, "but it has made this town. The
American plan is "
"American plan, nuts," said the young man.
This young man perhaps it was his
manner riled him more than the others.
"Have a drink?" said the young man, who
evidently had had several already.
"Sure," said Russell brightly, for he was
by nature a social man.
The booze had elevated him, and if it had
not been for the things people said about Los
Angeles he would have felt fine.
Somebody dropped a nickel in the juke box,
and it began playing a rhumba. The music
made Russell feel happy.
"Here's to you," he said, raising his freshly
filled glass.
"How !" said the young man.
The spell of happiness was soon broken.
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"As I say," went on the young man, "I hate
to stay in this scab town. The people are a lot
of towners who ain't got no social conscious-
ness. Perhaps I feel it more than most people
because I am a party man."
"So'm I," said Russell, still trying to be
pleasant. "I've belonged to the Republican
Party since I was twenty-one."
The stranger turned and looked at him with
mock astonishment.
"You don't say," said he. "Well, by 'party
man' I mean what's usually meant by it
Communist Party."
"You a Communist?" exclaimed Russell.
"I am," said the young man, looking defiant.
Russell felt a new sensation the sensation
of adventure. The feeling stout Cortez felt
when he gazed on the Pacific from the Peaks
of Darien.
Russell had never seen a Communist before.
He had made speeches about them, had drafted
resolutions with many a whereas and where-
fore about them. There probably was nothing
in the world he would rather not associate with
than a Communist. And here he was drinking
with one.
The feeling of adventure was superseded by
242
The Man Who Got Lost in the Fog
one of outraged patriotism. These Commu-
nists were the enemies of all he held dear.
He turned to the Communist and looked
carefully at him. He looked no different than
any other young man. He noted that he was
stoutly built.
"I have no use/' said Russell choosing his
words slowly, "for Communism or Commu-
nists. I am sorry I let you buy me a drink."
"So," cried the Communist, "you think
you're better than I am, you dirty old Fascist,
you reactionary " He failed to find the
right word.
"Subflusive, I mean subflersive acblivities
should not be to'rated in Free American air,"
said Russell, unconsciously quoting from a
speech he had made fifteen years before which
somehow hung suspended in his memory.
The Communist replied with a resounding
and humid razzberry.
"Nuts to you," he yelled.
Again Russell felt the upsurge of anger,
this time stronger than ever. He got off the
stool. On his feet he felt more solid and sure of
himself than he had expected.
Russell took off his spectacles and placed
them carefully on the bar. Beside them he put
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his hat. He then put up his fists and squared
away.
"Come on," he cried, "I'm goin' to knock
your block off."
The Communist slipped off his stool, and
began to retreat. He looked appealingly to-
ward the bartender.
"The old poop's gone nuts," said the
Communist.
Russell was ready to fight, and yet somehow
he hoped the Communist would not fight.
When he saw the Communist was afraid of
him his anger broke all bounds. He began
flaying about with his fists at the retreating
enemy.
The bartender came around from behind
the bar and got between Russell and the
Communist.
"Hold on, mister," said the bartender in a
kindly, even respectful voice. "Hold on! No
fightin' in here."
"I'll kill the dirty Red!" cried Russell, by
this time jumping up and down in his anger.
The more the bartender held him back the
more eager he was to get at the Communist,
who by this time was backing through the
doorway into the street.
244
The Man Who Got Lost in the Fog
"People like him are undermining the
foundations of the Republic," cried Russell.
"Look a here, mister," said the bartender.
"The country ain't in no danger. If it was I'd
be right with you tryin' to preserve it."
"That's a patriotic statement," said Russell.
"You're a damn good American. Shake my
hand."
The two shook hands solemnly.
When Russell again thought of the Commu-
nist the anger came up inside of him. "I'll get
the dirty rat," he cried. He grabbed his hat
and ran into the street.
To his astonishment he could not see across
the street just dim lights on the other side.
People passing him looked like blotches.
"My God," exclaimed Russell, "the fog!
There never was a fog like this. It's worse
than any San Francisco fog. It's a London
fog. And in the Land of Sunshine, Incorpo-
rated. It's a pity the Chamber ever gave up
that slogan. It was a pretty good one, if I did
think of it myself."
When he started to walk along the street he
noted he was not very steady on his feet, but
he didn't feel drunk. He had so much trouble
seeing that he avoided the curbs, hugging the
245
Turn Off the Sunshine
buildings. To do this he had to walk on the left
side, and people were always bumping into
him.
Russell had forgotten which way from the
electric station he had walked when he found
the saloon. He recalled it was less than a
block away.
He came to a corner, and waited for the
traffic to change. He could not see whether the
lights were red or green they each looked the
same to him. He followed the people across,
as a dog would.
On the other side he found that he had gone
the wrong way, and he traced back and crossed
the street again. He walked on thinking of
his adventures in the saloon. He was still
pretty mad but now he would not know the
Communist if he met him face to face.
He came to another corner. The station
wasn't there. Now he had to admit he had lost
all sense of direction.
He was lost, lost in the fog in Los Angeles.
He felt a real humiliation at this. He stopped
a man and asked what corner it was.
"Third and Spring," said the man.
"I want to get to Fifth and Main/' said
Russell.
246
The Man Who Got Lost in the Fog
"It's only two long blocks and a short one."
said the man.
"But the fog," said Russell. "Isn't it
terrible? I can hardly see."
"Oh, I've seen worse," said the man and
walked on.
The bulk of a canary-yellow taxicab was
something Russell could identify. He hailed it.
It obediently drew up along side him.
"Drive me to Long Beach," he said.
"Do you know, mister, that it will cost some-
thing like four dollars?" said the driver,
judging how drunk he was.
"Sure," said Russell. "Don't worry about
your money. But drive carefully in this fog."
"Oh, I'm used to fog," said the driver, who
started off at a pace that shocked Russell.
However, he began to doze on the cushions of
the cab.
Mary came out the front door and down to
the curb when the cab drove up. She was re-
lieved when she found her husband was not
injured.
"Why you're drunk, Will," she exclaimed.
"You haven't been that way since the male
smoker of your club last winter. Dinner, of
course, is spoiled."
247
Turn Off the Sunshine
She didn't seem very angry. Mary wasn't
a bad old girl.
"But I don't think it quite fair," she com-
plained, "that you drive in from Los Angeles
in a taxi. And me saving as I do."
"I had to," said her husband. "I got lost in
the fog. Isn't it terrible?"
"Really, I hadn't noticed," she answered.
"Why, Will, where are your spectacles? You've
lost your glasses. You're as blind as a bat
without them. How did you ever see to get
along?"
"Oh, that was it," he said putting his hands
up to his eyes. "I thought it was the fog all
the time. I lost my glasses in the fight with
the Communist."
"In the fight with a Communist!" she
exclaimed. "Why, Will, have you been fight-
ing? Did he hurt you?"
"Not much, I guess," he answered. "He
hardly laid a hand on me. I knocked him down
twice."
She came close to him and put her arm over
his shoulder and began to stroke his head. Her
hair tickled his cheek.
"You big, bad boy," she said. "Promise me
you'll never, never fight again."
248
The Man Who Got Lost in the Fog
He threw back his shoulders, puffed out his
chest, drew in his belly.
"Oh, I'm 0. K.," he said.
He felt 0. K. In fact, he felt swell. He
hadn't felt like that in thirty years.
249
The Tenants Who Decided To Remain
THE PITCH DARKNESS OF THE ROOM WAS
broken by a dim light from the hall as the door
opened. A hand groped up and down the inside
of the wall until it found the switch. It clicked
on, and the room was flooded with light.
It was a ramshackle of an old one-room
furnished apartment.
A man who wore an eyeshade and carried
two suitcases came in. After him came a man
of about thirty-five followed by a woman some-
what younger. She carried a hatbox.
"Put 'em down anywhere/' said the man.
"Thanks for your help."
"0. K.," said the man with the eyeshade.
"I'm all alone around here nights so I got to
get back to the office. You'll find everything.
It's an old place but fully furnished. Every-
thing you'll need is in the kitchen, ma'am.
250
The Tenants Who Decided To Remain
Wait, I'll see if there's soap in the bathroom.
You takin' the room by the day are entitled to
soap. Hope you'll stay with us. The weekly
and monthly rates are much lower. We've
got some nice doubles if a single is too small
for you."
"Thanks. We'll get along fine," said the
woman. "Goodnight."
"Good night to you both," said the man and
went out closing the door.
The new roomers were good-looking people,
she pretty, he handsome enough. They looked
a little bedraggled. He needed a shave.
They just stood there looking at the door,
as if waiting until the night clerk had got
down the hall. Finally they heard the elevator
rattle its way down.
"Let's have a look," said the man, and to-
gether they went into the kitchen.
"What a funny old gas stove," she said,
"and no electric refrigerator."
"The refrigerator we won't need, and the
old gas stove is just as good as a new one,"
said the man. "It's got just as many jets. This
natural gas in Los Angeles is just as easy to
take as carbon monoxide out of an automobile
exhaust. We may have trouble stopping up
251
Turn Off the Sunshine
the cracks in that swinging door into the other
room. We can use a sheet."
They went back into the other room and sat
down.
"Silly our bringing our things/ 7 said the
woman. "We might have left everything in
the rooming house. Must have just been habit.
We didn't think."
"All life's habit, I guess," said the man.
They looked around them.
"Funny old place," said the woman. "Must
have been built forty years ago, and never
refurnished. Isn't this a dumpy old daven-
port? The springs come at you from all
directions. I didn't know they had built-in
features so long ago. There's the folding bed
over there behind the big door with the mirror
on it."
She went over and swung out the door.
"Oh, look," she cried. "It's one of those
terribly old-fashioned folding beds with
weights instead of springs. I've seen them
before. I bet it's lumpy. The clothes closet is
back of it. There's a dresser in there and a
mirror. You put it all together and it's a
home."
She closed the door and sat down again. She
252
The Tenants Who Decided To Remain
looked at the two suitcases and the hatbox
which had been left in the middle of the floor.
"Well," he said finally, "we're all set, sweet-
heart. All set. We're not the only ones the
depression has finished. We could go on, but
what's the use?"
"I could if I didn't feel so sick most of the
time, though I feel all right sometimes," she
said. "I'd try another doctor, but they are
all the same. They can find nothing wrong,
but something is wrong. If you had a job,
Billy, I'd be able to keep house all right do
everything. We could live cheap, say in a
dump like this. But I couldn't hold a job, I
know. I couldn't pound the typewriter or
clerk on my feet all day. I just couldn't. You
know I broke down when I tried it last."
"I wouldn't let you, honey," said the man.
"I'm healthy enough anyway. What in hell
is the justice in the world where a healthy man
and a pretty damn smart one yes, I admit
it can't get a job?"
"Miller says the economic system has broken
down," she said.
"Miller's one of those fellow travelers, but
he may be right," he said. "I think it is the
kickback from the war. But what to hell?
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Turn Off the Sunshine
What difference does it make? They say in
New York there are thousands walking the
streets. It's worse than out here in California,
and out here it's plenty bad. I told you about
Welch and his family. Four brothers and two
sisters and all out of work. Maybe I'm no
good. But I been making a living for fifteen
years, eight of them with you, honey. I'm just
one of the white-collar boys and I can't take
it."
"It's awful, Billy," she exclaimed. "I know
just how you feel. Anyway, we're down to-
gether. There's something in that."
She walked into the bathroom.
"What a funny old-fashioned tub," she
called back, "the kind that has legs. Yes,
they're lion-paw legs."
"I think I'll take a bath," he said.
This made them both laugh.
"A lot of difference it would make," he said.
"Life's just habit, I tell you."
"Oh, maybe it's more than that."
She came back and sat down, this time in an
old mahogany rocking chair. She rocked back
and forth vigorously.
"I haven't been in a rocking chair since I
was a little girl," she said. "Look at that
254
The Tenants Who Decided To Remain
picture over there. Why I remember that old
one, the lady sitting on the world."
She got up and went over to the wall.
"It's an old art calendar, I bet you," she
decided. "Somebody put it in this old frame,
for the frame was never made for the picture.
Do you remember this, Billy, the lady sitting
on the world, with her bare feet sticking down
from her draperies you can't call them
clothes, they're just draperies. She is blind-
folded and her head's hanging down. Come
and look at it, will you?"
"What does it say there on the bottom?" he
asked, coming over. "It says 'Hope' by Watts.
Then over there on the other side, 'Courtesy
Darm's Grocery.' You always liked corny
Americana. Now you have it."
"It's lovely," she exclaimed, "if it is old-
fashioned and trite. 'Hope.' A kind of goddess
or is it a muse of hope? Who was Watts?
Must have been an English or American
painter. Nineteenth century, certainly."
"You didn't go to art class for nothing," he
said. He seemed to admire her for her
knowledge.
"But why the bandage over Hope's eyes?"
she asked. "I don't get that. Allegory, I
255
Turn Off the Sunshine
suppose. It means that, don't you see, that we
can't see our future, and it may be good as well
as bad. We can't tell. You know, kind of 'hope
springs eternal.' "
"Oh, is that it," he said. "It isn't a bad
picture come to look at it."
They both stepped back to get a better look
at the picture, just as people do in art galleries
after they read the artist's name.
They sat down again.
"That's all very well, that stuff about the
future," he said, "but life is a practical thing."
"We could go on " she began.
"I told you before," he said angrily.
"Nothing doing, I won't. I'm damned if I take
a handout from anybody, including the
Government. Anyway, those on relief can
hardly keep body and soul together. It may be
better later. But I'll steal first."
They sat a while in silence.
"It's rotten," he said finally, "this kind of
world we have built in the United States. You
can be nigger rich living on credit. You can
get anything you want, from automobiles to
jewelry. You can get everything on credit
but the really important things, a place to live
and something to eat. Those you got to pay
256
The Tenants Who Decided To Remain
cash for. What you really got to have you
can't get."
"I never thought of that," she said. "It is
ironical. But you never can tell, Billy, just
as that picture says. You might go out to-
morrow and get a good job. There are jobs
still if you can only find them."
"Yes, but try," he said. "I've been trying
for a year now. Still, as you say there must
be some jobs."
Now they sat silent for a long time.
"Billy," she said suddenly, "put on your hat
and go out and get something for breakfast."
He looked startled, but said nothing.
"How much have we got left?" she asked.
"About six dollars," he replied. "I've told
you that over and over."
He rose and picked up his hat. He came over
and kissed her.
"I'll unpack and wash out some things
before you get back," she said. "I can hang
'em up on clothes hangers. Most of our things
are dirty. Did that old gazabo leave soap?
"Now listen, Billy. Take out your pencil
and paper and put it all down. You're a child
at shopping. Get a half-pound can of coffee,
and a can, a small can of condensed milk, and
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Turn Off the Sunshine
as little sugar as they'll sell you, and a quarter
pound of butter and a loaf of whole wheat
bread for toast. We can't have any eggs. Now,
don't forget, whole wheat."
"All right," he said.
"And as you go out tell the old man we'll
take the apartment for a week anyway, do
you hear me?"
"All right, all right," he called back from
down the hall.
She stood for a while in the center of the
floor looking around her. She decided the
picture of the lady sitting on the world was a
little crooked and straightened it. She moved
a chair a little farther away from the wall.
She discovered the table needed dusting.
Then she opened one of the suitcases and
throwing out some rumpled clothes she began
to sing softly to herself.
258
The Actor Who Met an Iceman
JOHN MARLBOROUGH MAYBEE, THE VETERAN
stage and screen actor, had chronic auto-
appreciation.
That, to believe the casting directors in
Hollywood, was a disorder endemic among the
older fry who had transferred from Man-
hattan to Los Angeles in such numbers as to
make a housing problem around the studios.
Maybee, said his friends, might die of a rush
of blood to the head or of conventional traffic
injuries, but he never, never would jump off
the high bridge over the Arroyo Seco.
Long out of work, Maybee one day came to
downtown Los Angeles on his way to see an
old friend who had summoned him mysteri-
ously. He had promised a surprise ; somebody
Maybee would be delighted to see would be
there too. Well, Los Angeles was like New
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Turn Off the Sunshine
York in that respect; old connections were
always popping up.
Maybee had come from Hollywood on one
of the red streetcars, had changed to one of
the yellow ones which would take him to his
friend's place far out in the flat district
stretching toward Long Beach. He regretted
the total transportation cost of thirty-four
cents, but he was curious.
He looked, acted, and felt like an actor who
had had his triumphs. These had been senti-
mental as well as professional, for he had
concluded long ago that he had a way with
the ladies.
He was a big, well-formed man, still with all
his hair, which his barber kept dark brown, a
stubble mustache, and a way of dressing and
speaking that led people who did not know the
English to think he was English.
That was much in error, for Maybee came
from a small town in Illinois and had not
acquired the habit of the daily bath until he
was well into his twenties. But no snob, May-
bee was sentimental about his origin. He
always was planning to go back to his home
town but never did anything about it.
If he ever did go back, he might locate his
260
The Actor Who Met an Iceman
brother from whom he had not heard since
early youth. What had become of William?
This was a matter of more than common curi-
osity, for they had been not only twins, but
identical twins, as the doctors put it.
On the yellow car, Maybee became aware of
the man sitting next to him when that in-
dividual spat over the side in a way that indi-
cated he was a tobacco chewer. He was a
vulgar fellow, good-looking enough but he had
his neck shaved round and high, and he wore
a sport shirt that exposed a chest of graying,
kinky hair.
"These old busses ain't what they used to
be," said the man, with a grin that exposed
three gold-capped teeth. Maybee tried to be
amiable.
"Just old ice wagons, aren't they?'' he
answered, hoping that would end it.
"Don't say ice wagons," returned the man.
"Ice wagons was pretty fine vehicles" he
pronounced it "vehickles." "I know," he
went on, "for I used to work on one. Don't
like to boast, but for years I was the champeen
iceman of Omaha."
"Really," said the old actor with an inflec-
tion he hoped was not too rude.
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Turn Off the Sunshine
How strange is fame, he thought. He an
actor who had trod the boards in good Shake-
spearean stock, who had done good parts, too,
in pictures since they had made stage play-act-
ing a thing of rarity. He who once ate a mid-
night supper (with five or six others) with
Mansfield and had once been introduced to
Laughton at a cocktail party. And here was
one who boasted of being the champion iceman
of where was it?
"In Omaha," the fellow went on, "I had the
record for years. They used to have champeen-
ship icemen contests. I never was beat. One
year they rung in a phoney on me, though. He
was no iceman at all. He was a pie-ano mover
from Chicago. That day I histed a 350-pound
cake of crystal-clear off the wagon and ran
with it one hundred yards, but when that there
Chicago pie-ano mover tried to hist it he just
caved in and bogged down."
"You mean you could pick up and carry 350
pounds of ice?"
"Before breakfast every morning, and I'm
as good as ever, I bet, but I quit the ice business
even before the 'lectric 'frigerators come in.
I got fired for sparkinV
"For what?" exclaimed the actor.
262
The Actor Who Met an Iceman
"For flirtin' with a customer. She gimme
the come-on, but the lady musta changed her
mind for she kicked to the company. Said I
come into her kitchen and got fresh. They
canned me mostly, though, because all the
other delivery men was jealous of me winning
the champeenship every year and dug up a lot
of dirt on me. But what was I to do if the
womenfolks was always fallin' for me?"
"What an egotist!" the actor thought.
"What a creature! A champion iceman and
lady killer. How amusing !"
Now there came over John Marlborough
Maybee what sooner or later came over him
when he met a stranger. That is, ever since he
had become an actor of parts and put that
Marlborough in the middle of his name where
his maternal family name of Udder originally
had been.
That something that came over him, like a
touch of the fever, was the lust for praise, to
get some tribute, however slight, to feed the
constant glow of self-esteem within. Usually
the stranger had heard of him or pretended he
had. Sometimes he even was recognized !
"It seems to me," said Maybee, "I once saw
an amusing film about an iceman who was it
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Turn Off the Sunshine
took the part?" He went on quickly. "By the
way, do you go to the movies often?"
"All the time," said the iceman. "I know
all the pitcher stars. I've followed actors
ever since we used to get them little pitchers
of 'em in every pack of Sweet Cap cigarettes,
remember?"
"Do I !" said the old actor with a glow at the
reminder of his youth. "Well, I was going to
ask do you know of the work on the screen of
John Marlborough Maybee?"
"Never heard of him," said the iceman. The
actor's blood pressure dropped. Of course this
creature was not one of his public.
"But now that you mention a actor named
Maybee," the iceman went on. "I'm a goin' to
ast you a question. Did you ever hear of
William Maybee?"
"This is where you said you wanted off,"
interrupted the conductor as he nudged the
actor with one hand and rang the bell with
the other.
"Because," continued the creature, "Wil-
liam Maybee was the champeen iceman of
Omaha, and that's my name, mister."
John Marlborough Maybee, the veteran
stage and screen character actor, auto-
264
The Actor Who Met an Iceman
matically got off and stood in the safety zone
while the car rattled on. Then it came to him :
"William Maybee. Why, that might have
been my brother Bill. That was Bill! I re-
member now, he did go to Omaha. But, oh,
what an impossible egotist he turned out to
be!"
He turned and looked angrily at the retreat-
ing streetcar.
265
The Boy Who Couldn't Change
His Face
IT WAS THE ANNUAL DANCE OF THE TRADI-
tional Chinese lion, Tsewje. So I could see
better I got up onto a balcony of the tong house
in Chinatown of Los Angeles.
The boy beside me was Chinese and eight
or nine years old. He managed to balance him-
self on the railing for he was so short that
when he stood on the floor the rail came right
in front of his eyes.
He had a face as round as a plate and the
color of brown gravy. There were two slits in
it you knew had eyes behind them, and in the
center was a lump you guessed was a nose. To
make up for it the mouth was very large, and
when it was not talking it was chewing gum.
Children are like cats you mustn't go right
up to them and assume you are a friend. You
266
The Boy Who Couldn't Change His Face
should wait and let them look at you for a
while and then, if they appear willing, you can
make advances.
I pretended to be ignorant of what was go-
ing on, and the boy was glad to enlighten me.
He spoke American public-school English.
"Do you know what makes the lion dance?"
he said. "I can tell you. It's the men inside of
him. One is in the head and another in the tail.
It is hot in there. I know the man in the head ;
he's a cook. He gives me cakes sometimes.
"I touched the lion once. It's made of silk
and paper and glass. The glass makes him
shine. It is like the things on a Christmas
tree I have seen in the Mission. Christmas is
better than any old Chinese New Year's, you
betcha.
"That's my big brother pounding a pan in
the orchestra. That drum makes a lot of noise.
I hit it once with my hand. But the orchestra
is not so good as one I heard in the movie. Do
you like movies?
"Now the lion is going to climb onto the
tables piled up there. They say that is the
ladder to heaven. Heaven is much higher.
Those tables are not any higher than we are
up here. We ain't in heaven.
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Turn Off the Sunshine .
"You see the lion is supposed to scare away
evil spirits. That's what they set off those
firecrackers for, too. Firecrackers make me
think of the Fourth of July. I have a cap
pistol, a automatic.
"Now the lion is scratching himself because
he is supposed to have fleas. I never had fleas,
but I have had chickenpox and that makes
you scratch like the dickens.
"See the lion jump around. He will fall off
the table in a minute and break his old neck.
I mean the necks of the men inside him.
"Those men running around look after the
lion, and when the men inside get tired they
get inside and dance too. Those pants they
wear make them look something like baseball
players, don't they? I can play baseball. May-
be I'll be a profess'nal ballplayer when I grow
up.
"See now they are fanning under the lion
to cool off the man in the tail. That's just like
the way they fan the prizefighters, ain't it?
Prizefighting ain't against the law, is it? I
may be a prizefighter when I grow up.
"My father says when I grow up I can dance
inside a lion. But I don't want to. It's too
much like work.
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The Boy Who Couldn't Change His Face
"That's Tom Gubbins standing down there.
He runs a curio store and they call him the
American consul to Chinatown. He thinks
he's smart.
"See, they're feeding the lion cabbage. Who
wants to eat cabbage anyway? Do you like
caramel ice cream? I like chocolate better.
"Now the lion's going over to the Six Com-
panies and then all the houses will have money
in front of the door. No, he isn't going yet.
He's got another bite. See him scratch ! Ho,
ho!
"I saw a circus once, and they had a imita-
tion donkey with two men inside and it was
funnier than this old lion.
"Sure I can speak Chinese. But I'm an
American. It makes me mad when people
think I'm just Chinese, and not American. I
had a fight in school once about it.
"I look Chinese on the outside, but I'm not
Chinese inside. Just like that lion is not a
lion inside, but people inside. The outside of
me looks Chinese because my folks are Chinese.
I wisht I could change my old face.
"What burns me up is my name. It's a
Chinese name. It could be changed, I suppose.
My name is Tin Chut. What's your name?
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Turn Off the Sunshine
"I got a rotten name. Do you know what
Tin Chut means? It means 'born in heaven.'
That's a kind of a girl name, ain't it? It's too
much like my sister's. Her name is Suey Sin.
That means 'water lily.' I wisht I had a real
boy name like Bill.
"Oh, look't the fire engines. There must be
a fire in Main Street somewhere. Look't all
the people lookin' at the fire engines. They
don't look at the lion any more. Oh, ho ! Now,
the lion is looking at the fire engines, too, all
except the man in the tail who can't look. Gee,
can't fire engines go fast ! But the police autos
can go faster, can't they?
"When firemen ain't going to fires they're
playing handball. I see them play at the sta-
tion in Aliso Street. It must be great to be
able to play handball all day and then go to a
fire lickitysplit ! When I grow up I'm going to
be a fireman, that's what I'm going to be.
"Do you hear that lady calling? That's my
mother. You can't understand her because she
speaks Chinese. Do you know what she says?
She says to come to dinner. I ain't hungry but
I'm goin'.
"I'm sick of this old Chinese lion dance. I'm
an American. What do I care about it? It's
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The Boy Who Couldn't Change His Face
just fairy tales. It's phoney. That's what it
is. It's just phoney."
The boy slipped down from the rail and
went off into the crowd to find his future.
271
The Japanese Carpenter Who Got
Religion
THERE WAS AN HONEST JAPANESE CARPENTER,
none too bright, even as honest Japanese car-
penters go. One Sunday he wandered up from
the Japanese district out East First Street
way where he lived, and witnessed the Sabbath
Eve bedlam in the old plaza. He was touched
by its madness.
Especially was he attracted by an American
evangelist who wore a uniform like a soldier's
and who played a cornet. The Japanese car-
penter understood not one word the man spoke,
but he was carried away by his sheer person-
ality. Especially did the uniform and the
cornet attract him.
Not very long after this the Japanese car-
penter appeared one Sunday on Los Angeles
Street and exhorted his countrymen. He wore
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The Japanese Carpenter Who Got Religion
a doughboy's uniform he had bought at a con-
demned army and navy goods shop and he blew
a second-hand cornet which he had obtained at
a pawnshop, and which he had mastered to the
extent of two hymn tunes, barely recognizable.
He began going out with his uniform and
horn evenings after work as well as Sundays.
He would orate in a jargon which his fellow-
Japanese passing along the sidewalks could
not understand for the life of them. But this
did not daunt him.
He felt differently somehow when he had on
that uniform and carried that horn nothing
like the way he had felt before in his life. He
liked the feeling.
One Sunday afternoon before he was to
begin his unattended street-curb service the
Japanese carpenter went up to the old plaza.
He often went there and was fascinated by
the scene. The men preaching atheism inter-
ested him quite as much as the men preaching
religion, for he understood nothing that they
said.
But things were not the same at the plaza.
There were none of the curbstone shouters
about. Instead some men stood on park
benches and talked to the crowd which nearly
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Turn Off the Sunshine
filled the park, a bigger crowd than the Japa-
nese carpenter had ever seen there before. It
was a Communist meeting held in the face of
police refusal for a permit, and marchers were
forming already on Main Street.
The little carpenter did not understand why
the crowds had assembled. But he mixed with
them and caught their suppressed excitement
and he listened attentively to the speeches in
English, Spanish, and Yiddish.
Then he saw many policemen turning into
the plaza from the south, and he heard the
people around him yell and growl and he
caught the feeling of anger though he did not
know for what. He blew his horn and played
his two tunes.
This made the people around him laugh and
applaud.
He never had been applauded before, never
once before. He was happy.
Then he began to orate in his strange Japa-
nese and sway back and forth as street-curb
orators do, as wild animals in cages do.
Now the police line was very close, and the
press of people was terrific. And out in the
space between the crowd and the police was
the little Japanese blowing his horn and shout-
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The Japanese Carpenter Who Got Religion
ing. The two lines came closer together and
then met in collision, with the little Japanese
between.
He was struck of a sudden by a mass of
human bodies from one side, and then struck
similarly from the other by many elbows and
rigid arms with rigid palms on the end of
them.
He was whirled around and squeezed to
suffocation between these two terrible lines of
human bodies, and he got a clout on the side of
the head and a terrible jab in the ribs and down
he went to the pavement.
Feet, many feet, walked on him, and every
one of his sturdy little Japanese muscles
strained to keep the feet from crushing the life
out of him.
Finally he managed to rise and stood sway-
ing, the familiar sights of the plaza whirling
around him as if he were on a merry-go-round.
Then he thought of his horn, his dear horn.
He had lost his horn. He tried to look for it.
Of a sudden he heard a screeching and a
clanging and he saw fire engines and more
policemen. People kept running past him and
into him, and he was constantly being whirled
around and run into again.
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Turn Off the Sunshine
He had just started to look for his horn
when a terrible monster assailed him and in
its clutches he found himself helpless.
This monster struck him like a battering
ram and it knocked him down, and while he
was on the pavement it still pursued him,
whirling him round like a top, forcing its way
down his throat whenever he gasped and it ran
up his nose and knocked him in the belly until
there seemed no breath in him.
The two firemen at the other end of the
monster laughed and turned the stream of
water in another direction, leaving the little
Japanese carpenter lying there on the street.
The next he remembered he was sitting on
the curb. The plaza and the streets were
almost deserted. Somewhere he had picked up
his cornet, but it was squashed flat by the
wheels of a fire truck. It was just a sheet of
brass, but it still looked like a cornet if you
held it broadside.
He was shivering from the cold, soaked to
the skin, his soldier cap lost, the side of his
face fast swelling, his body aching in every
bone.
But worst of all he felt something had
happened to his insides. Something had been
276
The Japanese Carpenter Who Got Religion
squeezed out of him. Something that he had
had that he wanted to keep was gone.
Perhaps it had been pounded out of him by
the feet of the crowd and the stream from the
firemen's hose. Anyway, it was gone, that
fine feeling he had felt when he first got his
soldier suit and his brass horn.
The little Japanese carpenter never again
was seen delivering orations nobody could
understand from the curbs of the streets of
Japan-town in Los Angeles. He was no longer
a public personage at all.
He worked hard at his carpentering, and he
was sometimes seen, dressed in a neat suit of
black, entering the Buddhist Temple at First
and Central.
277
The Italian Cobbler Who Was Happy
DOWN ON ALISO STREET NEAR ALAMEDA, ABOUT
midway between the Pelota Court and the
Bello Lucerito Restaurant, was the little
cobbler shop with the sign that read :
John Barbagallo
Speak American
Hablo Espanol
Si Parla Italano
It was obvious after a critical inspection of
the sign with so many lingual mistakes in
proclaiming the linguist that John Barbagallo
was Italian.
I often had wondered what manner of man
John Barbagallo was. This was not alone for
the sign proclaiming him a great linguist but
because of the surname of the man himself.
For Barbagallo is a most curious name. In
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The Italian Cobbler Who Was Happy
Italian and Spanish the meaning is the same ;
in fact, in those two Romance languages the
two words making up the compound are abso-
lutely the same in spelling although pro-
nounced a little differently.
"Barba" means beard, and "gallo" means
cock. Thus an easy, idiomatic translation of
this individual's name would be John Rooster-
whiskers.
I had heard that in a certain ancient town
in Italy they once had a most barbarous cus-
tom of naming foundling children, way back
there in the Middle Ages. The poor mothers
would leave the little ones at a fountain in the
center of the town, and the municipal authori-
ties would pick them up and send them to an
orphans' home. They would give these poor
nameless ones the most ridiculous names they
could think up, and that accounted for some
curious surnames down to this day among
Italians.
There had been also, I had read, a similar
barbarous notion of humor in Germany in past
centuries in renaming Jews who were forced
to drop their ancient surnames and take
absurd German ones.
My Mexican friends in Old Town said they
279
Turn Off the Sunshine
had noted Barbagallo's sign and the name
amused them.
I asked the Italian Consul about it. He said
the compound meant roosterwhiskers all right,
but to his ear it was not so ridiculous. He
never had seen the name before, but would
assume it was a surname of ancient rural
origin.
One day curiosity and run-over heels con-
spired that I should enter the portals of this
cobbler shop and, removing my shoes, hand
them to Signor Barbagallo himself that he
repair them while I waited.
The place was very small, just big enough
for the cobbler, his machinery, and a customer
or two. The walls were covered with chromos
of Italian patriots and opera singers.
He was a roly-poly little Italian with a
ruddy, round face. He was well along in
years, but I noted that he cobbled skillfully
and rapidly.
He said he had been eighteen years in that
same shop, and before that had lived in South
America.
He spoke English in the most exaggerated
Italian dialect, emphasizing syllables and put-
ting an "a" onto many words. His English or
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The Italian Cobbler Who Was Happy
"American," as his sign proclaimed, was very
weak indeed.
I tried him in Spanish, and that was worse,
if anything. While I was there a French
Basque from Hotel du Champ D'Or, around
the corner in Commercial Street, canje in, and
I noted that Signor Barbagallo knew little
French.
Yet the sign that proclaimed him a polyglot
was not so much of a fraud. He did know how
to say "rubber heels" in those languages.
"Have you always been a cobbler?" I asked.
"No," he replied, "I once work-a for th'
posta-office depart-a-ment."
"In Italy?" I asked.
"No in Italy," he said, "I been away from
Italy since I was a boy. No, not in Buenos
Aires. I works for the posta-office depart-a-
ment right-a here in Los Angeles. I cobble the
mail-a bags, that's what. The big leather
mail-a bags. When they need a patch, need a
sew-up, I fix 'em. That's how I work for the
posta-office depart-a-ment."
I could see that John Barbagallo was a man
of considerable amour propre. The sign in the
window proclaimed that. His pride in having
been a government employee showed it, too.
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Turn Off The Sunshine
Self-importance does not always have a
relation to achievement; one is tempera-
mentally so, just born self-important. I have
noted it in babies.
That a man of such temperament should be
named Barbagallo rather baffled me for I had
come with cunning intent to learn from him
something of the origin of that name. But I
hesitated.
There was something in John Barbagallo
that awed me. He was so sure of himself, so
pleased with himself. He had somewhat of
the Italian grand manner that comes down
from the Roman.
Then, too, I could see he was a happy man,
people sure of themselves are usually happy.
How could I ask him about his name?
My new heels were nearly finished, a good
job, too.
"Your name, Mr. Barbagallo, is an Italian
name?" I asked.
"Sure," he said, "sure, Ital-i-an name."
"Does it, is it, ah, I mean does it mean any-
thing in particular?" I asked.
His honest, simple face showed no sign of
alarm at my question, as he answered :
"It's joost a name, my family name, joost
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The Italian Cobbler Who Was Happy
lik-a anybody's name. Joost a name. Ital-i-an
name. Lik-a maybe your name, Smith, Mur-
phy, something lik-a that."
"Oh, I see," I hastily said. "I think it's a
fine name, that's why I asked. It has a fine
sound. It must have been an old noble Italian
name when it started a long time ago, a noble
Italian name."
"Maybe so," he said.
He looked really pleased.
283
The Rich Indian Who Was Unhappy
MOST PEOPLE CONSIDERED HIM A COMIC
character, but I never thought him so, for
Jackson Barnett was called the richest Indian
in the world. Whether he was or not, he was
"powerful" rich. For years he lived in Los
Angeles and, for years, those in the federal
government whose duty it was to care for
Indians made his life miserable until he died a
very old man.
Barnett was a lowly Creek who was almost
as black as a negro. When they allotted lands
in what then was Indian Territory, Barnett,
with his shirttail hanging out in the conven-
tional Indian fashion, was given the rockiest
piece of land any Indian ever got, and that is
rocky ! He decided it couldn't be farmed, and
he made a poor living running a little ferry
over a river. But when they started to find oil,
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The Rich Indian Who Was Unhappy
Barnett's land was lousy with it and he got
rich, mighty rich.
Barnett married a white woman, a good
housewife with an Oklahoma-East Texas
twang in her voice. There the trouble began.
It wasn't because she wasn't a good wife. She
seemed to be in all particulars, and certainly
he doted on her.
"My wife is pretty damn smart," he once
told me. "Why, she can make change for any
amount of money, even a fifty-dollar bill yes,
sir quick as anything and right every time.
They can't fool her."
He was all admiration. He couldn't read or
write himself, and it didn't seem to be in his
mental equipment to learn, or maybe he just
didn't want to learn. All he wanted was a full
stomach and a seat in the sun and his white
wife who was such a good cook and could make
change so well.
But the government people objected, for it
seems that the Indian as an individual has no
rights. This woman had married Barnett for
his money, they held. Just as if that hadn't
been done before, once or twice anyway; and
just as if anybody could tell what anybody
married anybody for.
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Turn Off The Sunshine
There was lawsuit after lawsuit back in
Oklahoma and, once or twice, the Indian
agents came to Los Angeles and dragged Jack-
son Barnett back to Oklahoma to testify about
something or other.
It was like a Chancery case in Dickens' time,
no end to it and only unhappiness for every-
body, including the Indian agents who were
most unhappy because Mrs. Barnett might
get all that money. How they wanted to save
Jackson Barnett!
But Barnett only declared over and over
that he wanted to keep his white wife, that she
was a good wife to him.
The wife bought a fine colonial house on
Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles, and there
she lived with Barnett and her daughter by a
former marriage. She dressed Barnett as a
conventional banker would be dressed. His
dark old Indian face peered out of this setting
on a world he could not understand and, I
think, didn't care much about. All he wanted
was a full belly and a good wife ; to be shut of
the lice and those government fellows.
Most of the time Barnett spent his days
just across from his fine home sitting on a
bench designed for those waiting for the
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The Rich Indian Who Was Unhappy
double-deck busses that ran on the boulevard.
Every now and then he would come out of his
stupor and, balancing himself on the curb,
move his arms as a traffic policeman would.
There were automatic traffic signals at the
intersection, and Barnett would command
traffic to move in accordance with those signals
(he got pretty good at it), and the traffic
moved apparently at his command. This never
ceased to amuse him.
People on the busses would ask: "Who's
that dippy old black man who thinks he is a
traffic cop?"
To this the bus conductors and drivers would
reply: "He's not black, he's red. That's the
richest Indian in the world." Then people
would try to get another look at the old fellow
but they would be too late ; the bus would have
passed on.
The last time I saw Jackson Barnett he was
down on Spring Street in the financial district
of Los Angeles. He was half sitting, half
standing against a little projection of stone on
the side of the Alexandria Hotel, munching an
apple. He was in a most unusual and out-
landisH posture and occupation for that dis-
trict. It caused the brokers and stenographers
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going to their luncheons to stare at him, this
dark old man, dressed so well, quite fittingly
for the district, and yet unquestionably a man
not of their world. Many thought he was a
British Indian, maybe a maharaja.
Barnett stared back between bites on the
apple, and I am sure he understood them no
better than they did him. They smiled at him,
the smile of condescension. He smiled back at
them, the smile of perfect good nature, the
sweet smile of an unspoiled child, the smile
that comes from a calm inside.
Thus Barnett became a sort of town comedy
character, an eccentric, a match for any such
in Hollywood or Long Beach.
But he really was a tragic character, at
least to me. He was the man who was happily
married and would have been happy in all
ways if only they had let him alone. He only
wanted what most people want nowadays, but
don't know it to be let alone.
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