So of course what can she do but start work and the madame what can she
do but hold her mouth and me what am I there for but to talk? So I says
in a good loud voice, “Oh Flora dear I am having such a wonderful time
and rising so fast in the world I am an Emergency Field Grammarian to
the Bureau of Indian Affairs of the Department of the Interior and it
is a most responsible position and I do not have to do a thing except
what I please and I can travel and have an allowance for expenses and
I am going to Camden New Jersey the first time I can be spared from
the government and see my Mom and my Pop and my fyansay. And hello
Adair,” I says, “and hello Hotaire and hello Mary May Marie,” I says,
“I thought I would drop in for the sake of old times because you see
I have got to keep in touch with the plain people and not forget how
it is that they feel and what they think about international affairs.
And what do you say to this idea of the secretary of state that they
call Scared Sally letting in this Bolshiviki count to be with his sick
wife?” I says.
Well it costs me two-fifty to have that splurge but there is nothing
that has made me feel so good since I come to Washington, D. C. And
then I have a stroll down the street and look at all the pretty things
in the shop windows and think that I am going to have seven-fifty more
each week to spend like I want to only for what I send to you Mom and I
sure do think this is a wonderful government and the greatest country
in the whole world. And then I have got a date to have dinner with Mr.
Edgerton in that same Imperial Cafay where you get the cocktails in a
soup-tureen and I tell him about how I been to the Elite and show him
what was the expression on Madame Lafferty’s face and he says, “Mame,”
he says, “you might of been a great actress like your Mom.”
Well then I tell him what the girls is said about that there Bolshiviki
count that is to be let into the country and what a mistake it is and
he says, “You can see the mistake for already the news has been cabled
to that there Hungry country and there is a lot of stuff cabled back
about what it is that the count would of said if he had not of pledged
that he would not say nothing.” And I says, “Yes I have read it and it
is terrible stuff and I do not understand because it says this here
Bolshiviki count is charging that the people that is opposing him is
killing and shooting people and torturing them in dungeons and all that
and all the time I have been told that it is the Bolshivikis that does
that and here it seems to be the other side that is doing it.”
And he says, “So you see just how the propaganda works,” he says, “that
is the whole purpose to get you to asking questions like that.”
But I says, “Is it true?”
And he says, “There it is,” he says, “you can see how he has sewed
some doubts into a mind that had never before had none but had always
believed the right thing.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account