Complete Stories (68 page)
Authors: Dorothy Parker,Colleen Bresse,Regina Barreca
Mrs. Wilcox herself would be the first to ascribe it to that cause.
MR. LEWIS WILCOXThere is no more accurate summary of Mr. Wilcox in appearance, habits and opinions than his own word picture of himself. In his graphic, though somewhat redundant, phrase, he is a he-man.
From listening to his dissertations upon the topic one might gather that Mr. Wilcox was a publicity agent for the cold bath. He talks of it with salesmanlike enthusiasm, rather as if he were seeking to popularize it. It would seem from the way he speaks as if he were the only living exponent of its daily use. His contempt for those cheats who underhandedly temper their baths with warm water is beyond the power of even his bluffest Anglo-Saxon words to express.
Mr. Wilcox prides himself—and with justice—upon the size of his appetite. He speaks almost boastfully of the hordes of chops which he habitually consumes at breakfast, of the pounds of thick red meat which regularly buoy him up at lunch and dinner. Given time, he will enlarge upon the subject and cite complete menus of typical repasts as examples of his prowess. It is not necessary to inquire directly as to Mr. Wilcox’s habits in order to elicit this information; he volunteers it gladly, without needing any reference to the topic to start him upon his recital.
Mr. Wilcox is for open air openly arrived at. His first action on entering a room is to fling up the windows, letting in great blasts of wholesome atmosphere. That this might cause hard feeling on the part of others in the room never deters him in his activities; he loudly explains to the discomforted ones that the air will do them good, and lets them enjoy a good, healthful shiver. It is characteristic of Mr. Wilcox that he feels himself cramped by ornaments and dim lights. He can breathe freely only when he has turned on every light in the room and has swept aside with an impatient hand all flowers, vases, pillows and such fripperies as may be near him. Any sensitiveness that the hostess may display on such occasions Mr. Wilcox nobly disregards.
His red-blooded exuberance is carried into his business life. Mr. Wilcox never speaks of his employment as work. Ask him his occupation and he will breezily reply that he is in the adding-machine game. Thus lightheartedly does he speak of any industry—the ball-bearing game, the renewable-fuse game, the motor-truck-belting game—as if it were some great national sport.
Mr. Wilcox stands unalterably for law and order; he is even willing to resort to violence to bring them about; he is, in fact, an earnest advocate of the firing squad as a corrective for social unrest. Mr. Wilcox goes on record as saying, two or three times a day at least, that the only way to treat these Bolsheviki is to shoot them. The vast breadth of this statement can be appreciated only when one understands that under the term Bolsheviki—which form of the word he uses interchangeably for both the singular and the plural—Mr. Wilcox lists anybody who asks for a raise in wages.
In his zeal for order Mr. Wilcox strongly urges military discipline. In fact, he verges on the fanatical on this subject. He ardently believes that the louder an argument is uttered the more convincing it is; therefore, he is wont almost to shout, with accompanying virile thumps on a neighboring table, that the only thing which can save this country from ruin is three months’ compulsory military training, annually, for all men between the ages of eighteen and forty.
Mr. Wilcox was forty-one last January.
MRS. HOMER PARTRIDGEMotherhood claims Mrs. Partridge’s undivided attention. She concentrates exclusively upon Homer Partridge, Junior, aged six; Titus Partridge (Mrs. Partridge was a Miss Titus), aged four; and Whittlesley Partridge (the maiden name of Mrs. Partridge’s mother was Whittlesley), aged eighteen months. She takes not the faintest interest in anything outside of their concerns; she makes not the least pretense, as she often confesses, of keeping abreast of anything that is going on in the world beyond their nursery. Mrs. Partridge makes this confession in no spirit of apology; on the contrary, it is her proudest boast. There may be some women, she admits, who are able to combine with their motherhood an interest in current events, both local and international, but her tone indicates that, if indeed such women do exist, she would not care to make their acquaintance.
All those about her are regarded by Mrs. Partridge merely in the relation in which they stand to her children. She never calls or refers to any one of her friends just by his or her first name; she always prefaces the name with the word “Auntie” or “Uncle,” which purely courtesy title the children are wont to employ. Her husband is known to her only as “Daddy.”
On those rare occasions when she tears herself from a cribside long enough to attend a social gathering, Mrs. Partridge takes part in the conversation only when it touches upon her progeny. She will address the entire dinner party upon the boys, ranging in her discourse from the deeply serious, such as excerpts from the doctor’s report on Junior’s adenoids, to the light and frivolous, such as accounts of the reactions of little Titus to his first day in Sunday school. Warming to her theme, she will even give impersonations of the baby making cooing sounds in his bathtub. Delightful as this performance no doubt is in the original, much of the illusion is unfortunately lost in the imitation.
Should the conversation veer to more general topics, Mrs. Partridge becomes restless and preoccupied. Only when the talk is brought back to her young—by her own efforts if necessary—does Mrs. Partridge really give herself over to enjoying the evening; she can go on indefinitely, never losing any whit of her interest in the subject.
In which respect she is wholly unique among those present.
MR. HOMER PARTRIDGEIt is always with a start of surprise that one recalls Mr. Partridge’s presence in the room. He has a way of effacing himself so completely that, without straining the memory, it is almost impossible to bear in mind that he is among the company. He has probably been addressed by more names that are not his own than has any other man of like age in the community. Try as they may, people seem to be wholly unable to remember what his name is.
His most frequently recurring experience is that of being put, by some mutual friend, through the ceremony of an introduction to someone whom he has met several times before. Not for worlds would he chance causing any embarrassment by suggesting that they have already been repeatedly introduced. He politely shakes hands, sincerely glad to meet the one in question on each separate occasion, yet knowing that as soon as he goes away his new acquaintance’s mind will retain absolutely no impression of him and the whole process will only have to be gone through again. In the same way, Mr. Partridge is too desirous of saving discomfort to correct those who miscall him. Rather, he will answer willingly to any name whatever, thankful at being addressed at all.
If one determinedly seeks out Mr. Partridge in his unobtrusive corner at some social gathering and draws him into conversation, he will be found the most sympathetic of companions. He hangs on every syllable, making little wordless murmurs of commiseration, approbation or amazement as the nature of the recital prompts, laughing long and heartily at humorous touches and nearly breaking down over strokes of pathos. One leaves Mr. Partridge reluctantly, vowing to seek him out again at the very next opportunity and have another good long talk.
The unfortunate part of it is that one forgets all about him long before the next opportunity of seeking him out occurs.
MRS. MORRIS PRESSEYThe trouble with Mrs. Pressey—for, as she assures you, it is really a great trouble to her—is that she has too much soul. Her soulfulness is continually getting in her way, causing her to feel things and to yearn for things of which the more materially minded are totally unconscious. Other painful afflictions of Mrs. Pressey’s are her extreme sensitiveness and her too highly strung nerves.
Besides all this, Mrs. Pressey is psychic to a high degree. It is no unusual occurrence for her to dream about some friend from whom she has not heard for a long time and then within the very next week to receive a letter from that friend. Mrs. Pressey has become accustomed to such phenomena as this. She has come to accept them as only additional evidences of her intense spirituality. This quality, which so differentiates her from those about her, she would like to express in her dress, but has met with little if any encouragement in her desires. In a town of less than one hundred thousand people it is difficult to wear garments which interpret one’s soul without causing talk. So Mrs. Pressey is forced to content herself with leaving off hair nets and having her gowns made with mildly flowing sleeves.
Mrs. Pressey is given to sitting alone at twilight, gazing out over the darkening world. If spoken to suddenly at such times she starts and has some difficulty in bringing herself back to everyday affairs. It is understood that she is thinking great thoughts on these occasions. Many of her friends are firm in their belief that Mrs. Pressey could create a furore in the literary world should she ever commit her impressions to paper; indeed, Mrs. Pressey acknowledges that she would write if only she had the time.
But what with her walking to school with the children in the morning, calling for them at noon and having only the remainder of the day to herself, it looks as if Mrs. Pressey’s Alice-blue quill pen must stand forever idle in its glassful of buckshot.
MR. MORRIS PRESSEYThe present seems to hold nothing for Mr. Pressey and the future can offer but little promise. He dwells entirely in the roseate past, in that glorious period when he used to live in Chicago. True, it was for only two brief years, but it was enough.
A change in his business, marriage and the desirability of bringing up the children in the semicountry air conspired, in the order mentioned, to bring Mr. Pressey to the town of his present residence and to keep him there. But his ten years’ establishment has in no degree robbed him of his metropolitan viewpoint. Mr. Pressey has not become as the other inhabitants; his attitude is that of a transient visitor from some mighty city.
Of course, knowing as they do Mr. Pressey’s feelings toward their efforts, his associates strain to pass muster in his sophisticated sight. They labor to carry off all their activities—particularly those of a social nature—in such a manner that Mr. Pressey may not be too deeply struck with the difference in the way those things are done in Chicago. Curiously enough, the decade which has elapsed since he was in direct contact with the whirl of life in a great city has not clouded his memory in the least; as a matter of fact, with the passing of time he grows more and more authoritative in his statements of what is done in the Windy City.
His metropolitan residence has given Mr. Pressey quite a standing as an authority on the stage and its people, and the ladies of his acquaintance depend upon him for bits of information as to who is who, and why, in Chicago society. A further result of his experience is his election to the office of president of the country club, a position which he holds with indulgent good nature, as a grown-up humors children by taking part in their game.
Only once has the glamour which surrounds Mr. Pressey been dimmed in the eyes of the townspeople. That was the time when the Frisbies had as a house guest a man who had lived for sixteen years in New York.
Ladies’ Home Journal,
August 1920
August 1920
A Summer Hotel Anthology
In this self-centered world it is indeed refreshing to chance upon one so insistently altruistic as Miss Finch. Her entire life is given lavishly over to the furthering of innocent merrymaking for others; her whole endeavor is to draw together all those about her and to plunge them into a happy round of stimulating yet impeccable divertisements. To Miss Finch that day is counted as practically thrown away whose sunset finds her unsuccessful in having imbued some of her fellow creatures with the get-together spirit. A predilection on the part of anyone to sit quietly apart, reading or merely resting, she regards as little short of unwholesome; her conscience gives her no rest until she has approached such a one and, with her cheery smile and playfully commanding manner, induced him or her to drag over a rocking-chair and join some convivial game or neighborly tourney of gossip.
As surely as welcome summer comes around again each year Miss Finch blossoms forth, reliable as one of the hardier annuals, each season a little more energetic, a little more executive, a little more determinedly brisk and cheerful, than the season before. Voluntarily she assumes all responsibility for the organizing and carrying out of the hotel’s social activities; it is almost as if she regarded herself as the hostess, so conscientiously does she strive to see to it that the guests are provided with congenial entertainment. Indeed, more than one new arrival, until definitely set right, has labored under the delusion that Miss Finch is the proprietress of the establishment.
It is Miss Finch who instigates the biweekly bridge parties, collecting the entrance fees—in itself no mean undertaking—and selecting the prizes. It is she who engineers the various tournaments of the more active sports; who soothes the usual hard feeling caused by the handicap awards; who presents the silver-finished cups, accompanying each by a humorously apt speech, composed of sly yet inoffensive hits at the prize winner. She arranges the annual straw ride, the beach party, the moonlight sail, cheerfully deferring each from the appointed date to the next clear night; she intimidates faint-hearted male guests into attending the midsummer masquerade. If a time arrives for which no special event is scheduled, Miss Finch collects a gathering about the hotel piano and, seating herself firmly upon the stool, plays formerly popular airs strictly according to note and in rigid time, thus endeavoring to inspire a spontaneous outburst of song.
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