“You will be free,” he says, “and so will I because why,” he says,
“when you are in private business you can have some fun and you do not
have to worry about a lot of meddlesome Matties and old women in pants
that is watching everything you do. And you and me can have a little
apartment and be as jolly as two turtle-doves.” And while he says that
he is put his arm about me and he says, “Oh Mame I am sure fond of you
for you are the gamest kid I ever got to know and wouldn’t you like to
have a nice little love-nest and with nobody to look out for but just
me?”
Well Mom I am trembling all over because it is all so sudden and after
all I do think that Mr. Edgerton is a mighty fine man and I have never
had nothing so lovely as an apartment and he is holding me close and
I can hardly think straight but I says, “Oh Mr. Edgerton do not tempt
me,” I says, “for I have always been a good girl and always gone
straight.”
“Yes,” he says, “but there is nothing wrong with this for we are real
friends.”
“But you have got a wife!” I says.
“But she does not care for me she is interested in that syker now.”
“But that is only for a moment,” I says, “and she does love you I know
for I have saw it in her face and what is more I know that you love her
because else why should you of been jealous of the syker? And then too
I have got a fyansay and you know he is a good boy--”
“But my God Mamie will you go and throw yourself away on a
shipping-clerk what kind of a life is that for an intellectual girl
like you that is learned to understand all about international
affairs?” he says. “Why you will go and live in some hole with him and
you will have eleven babies and spend your life over a washtub and it
is a crime.”
“I know it is hard,” I says, “but you talk about the plain people and
what they think--”
“Oh to hell with the plain people!” he says. “That is all bunk and you
know it”--just like that he says it and of course I am shocked and I do
not want him to keep his arm around me then.
I says, “Mr. Edgerton,” I says, “you are going now to be a
shirt-stuffer or whatever you call it for the brass kings and so I
suppose you have got to feel like that about the plain people and
trample them beneath your heel,” I says, “but I am going to stay one of
them like I have always been because there is my Mom and my Pop and my
kid brothers and sisters and a good honest boy that I have promised to
wait for. And I am very much obliged to you and I like you very much
as I have always done but it makes me sad to see that you are going to
be cynical and lose all your ideals,” I says.
And so then he sees it is no use and he says, “Then you are going to
stay a Field Grammarian Mame?”
I says, “About that I cannot tell,” I says. “Would it be right for me
to keep the job if I am not doing no work for you and the Spokesman?”
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