“Exactly,” he says, “and there is nothing that worries the Spokesman
so much as thinking about them fellers. You see how it is when it comes
to election time they are all busy rustling out the vote for Him and
after that He has got to find something for them to do.”
Well I had thought I must be careful not to leave Mrs. Edgerton out
of this conversation so I says, “A little while ago, Mrs. Edgerton I
thought I understood about this here economy business but now I find
it is complicated and there is something that Mr. Edgerton or maybe
yourself might explain.”
“And what is that?” she says.
“Well it is this business that you can never economize in nothing
without turning somebody out of work. But it is a terrible thing for
working people to be out of jobs,” I says, “right now my Pop is scared
that he may lose his job at the gas-works and him with a half a dozen
kids growing up and why should them kids have to starve just because
some people is took it into their heads to economize on gas-bills?”
“Perhaps we had better go in to the table,” says Mrs. Edgerton and so
there is the dining room and gee Mom if you could see how them people
live they are surely making jobs for the poor. The table is all got a
solid piece of glass over the whole top and there is a centre-piece
that is hand-embroidered lace and you have got a hand-embroidered doily
in front of your place and there is real silver and what I guess is
cut-glass and there is little electric candles at each place and there
is two sorts of wine glasses well Mom all I can say is that I am glad
I have took your advice and studied the etiquette books and practiced
them so that now I do not have to be rattled but can give my thoughts
to being intellectual.
Well we have got started on some oyster cocktails and I says, “Have you
thought up any way to undo them blunders of ours and get the people to
liking the Spokesman again?” And he says, “No I have not.”
And so I says, “I have been thinking hard about it and I have been
looking at the pictures of the Spokesman that I see in the papers and
it seems to me they are wrong. Have you ever thought about them?” “No,”
he says, “I can’t say that I have what is it?”
And so I tell him, “They are all pictures that is took in regular
clothes like a business Man with a white collar and one of them hundred
and twenty-five dollars suits on. But the most of the people in this
country don’t look like a fashion model,” I says, “and they don’t wear
white collars except on Sunday and the Fourth of July. It seems to me
they would be a lot more interested in listening to the Spokesman’s
advice about how to live their lives if they thought He lived the same
kind of lives that they do.”
So he sits very thoughtful and he says, “That might be a worthwhile
idea,” he says. “What would you suggest Miss Riggs?”
“Well,” I says, “what was it that the Spokesman done when He was young
back there in the State of North Carolina?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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