by Edna Ferber
III
DICTATED BUT NOT READ
About the time that Jock McChesney began to carry a yellowwalking-stick down to work each morning his mother noticed agrowing tendency on his part to patronize her. Now Mrs. EmmaMcChesney, successful, capable business woman that she was, couldafford to regard her young son's attitude with a quiet and deepamusement. In twelve years Emma McChesney had risen from thehumble position of stenographer in the office of the T.A. BuckFeatherloom Petticoat Company to the secretaryship of the firm. Sowhen her young son, backed by the profound business knowledgegained in his one year with the Berg, Shriner Advertising Company,hinted gently that her methods and training were archaic,ineffectual, and lacking in those twin condiments known to thetwentieth century as pep and ginger, she would listen, eyebrowsraised, lower lip caught between her teeth--a trick which givesa distorted expression to the features, calculated to hide anylurking tendency to grin. Besides, though Emma McChesney was fortyshe looked thirty-two (as business women do), and knew it. Herhard-working life had brought her in contact with people, andthings, and events, and had kept her young.
"Jock McChesney began to carry a yellow walking-stick down to work"]
"Thank fortune!" Mrs. McChesney often said, "thatI wasn't cursed with a life of ease. Thesemassage-at-ten-fitting-at-eleven-bridge-at-one womenalways look such hags at thirty-five."
But repetition will ruin the rarest of jokes. As the weeks went onand Jock's attitude persisted, the twinkle in Emma McChesney's eyedied. The glow of growing resentment began to burn in its place.Now and then there crept into her eyes a little look of doubt andbewilderment. You sometimes see that same little shocked, dazedexpression in the eyes of a woman whose husband has just said,"Isn't that hat too young for you?"
Then, one evening, Emma McChesney's resentment flared into openrevolt. She had announced that she intended to rise half an hourearlier each morning in order that she might walk a brisk mile orso on her way down-town, before taking the subway.
"But won't it tire you too much, Mother?" Jock had asked withmaddeningly tender solicitude.
His mother's color heightened. Her blue eyes glowed dark.
"Look here, Jock! Will you kindly stop this lean-on-me-grandmastuff! To hear you talk one would think I was ready for a wheelchair and gray woolen bedroom slippers."
"Why, I didn't mean--I only thought that perhaps overexertion in awoman of your--That is, you need your energy for--"
"Don't wallow around in it," snapped Emma McChesney. "You'll onlysink in deeper in your efforts to crawl out. I merely want to warnyou that if you persist in this pose of tender solicitude for yourdoddering old mother, I'll--I'll present you with a stepfather ayear younger than you. Don't laugh. Perhaps you think I couldn'tdo it."
"Good Lord, Mother! Of course you don't mean it, but--"
"Mean it! Cleverer women than I have been driven by theirchildren to marrying bell-boys in self-defense. I warn you!"
"'Good Lord, Mother! Of course you don't mean it, but--'"]
That stopped it--for a while. Jock ceased to bestow upon hismother judicious advice from the vast storehouse of his ownexperience. He refrained from breaking out with elaborateadvertising schemes whereby the T.A. Buck Featherloom PetticoatCompany might grind every other skirt concern to dust. He gaveonly a startled look when his mother mischievously suggestedraspberry as the color for her new autumn suit. Then, quitesuddenly, Circumstance caught Emma McChesney in the meshes and,before she had fought her way free, wrought trouble and changeupon her.
Jock McChesney was seated in the window of his mother's office atnoon of a brilliant autumn day. A little impatient frown wasforming between his eyes. He wanted his luncheon. He had calledaround expressly to take his mother out to luncheon--always afestive occasion when taken together. But Mrs. McChesney, seatedat her desk, was bent absorbedly over a sheet of paper whereon shewas adding up two columns of figures at a time--a trick on whichshe rather prided herself. She was counting aloud, her mindleaping agilely, thus:
"Eleven, twenty-nine, forty-three, sixty, sixty-nine--" Her pencilcame down on the desk with a thwack. "SIXTY-NINE!" she repeated incapital letters. She turned around to face Jock. "Sixty-nine!" Hervoice bristled with indignation. "Now what do you think of that!"
"I think you'd better make it an even seventy, whatever it isyou're counting up, and come on out to luncheon. I've anappointment at two-fifteen, you know."
"Luncheon!"--she waved the paper in the air--"with this outrage onmy mind! Nectar would curdle in my system."
Jock rose and strolled lazily over to the desk. "What is it?" Heglanced idly at the sheet of paper. "Sixty-nine what?"
Mrs. McChesney pressed a buzzer at the side of her desk."Sixty-nine dollars, that's what! Representing two days' expensesin the six weeks' missionary trip that Fat Ed Meyers just made forus. And in Iowa, too."
"When you gave that fellow the job," began Jock hotly, "I toldyou, and Buck told you, that--"
Mrs. McChesney interrupted wearily. "Yes, I know. You'll neverhave a grander chance to say 'I told you so.' I hired himbecause he was out of a job and we needed a man who knew theMiddle-Western trade, and then because--well, poor fellow, hebegged so and promised to keep straight. As though I oughtn't toknow that a pinochle-and-poker traveling man can never be anythingbut a pinochle-and-poker traveling man--"
The office door opened as there appeared in answer to the buzzer avery alert, very smiling, and very tidy office girl. EmmaMcChesney had tried office boys, and found them wanting.
"Tell Mr. Meyers I want to see him."
"Just going out to lunch,"--she turned like a race horse tremblingto be off,--"putting on his overcoat in the front office. ShallI--"
"Catch him."
"Listen here," began Jock uncomfortably; "if you're going to callhim perhaps I'd better vanish."
"To save Ed Meyers's tender feelings! You don't know him. Fat EdMeyers could be courtmartialed, tried, convicted, and publiclydisgraced, with his epaulets torn off, and his sword broken, andlikely as not he'd stoop down, pick up a splinter of steel to useas a toothpick, and Castlewalk down the aisle to the tune withwhich they were drumming him out of the regiment. Stay righthere. Meyers's explanation ought to be at least amusing, if noteducating."
In the corridor outside could be heard some one blithely hummingin the throaty tenor of the fat man. The humming ceased with alast high note as the door opened and there entered Fat Ed Meyers,rosy, cherubic, smiling, his huge frame looming mountainous in therippling folds of a loose-hung London plaid topcoat.
"Greetings!" boomed this cheery vision, raising one hand, palmoutward, in mystic salute. He beamed upon the frowning Jock."How's the infant prodigy!" The fact that Jock's frown deepened toa scowl ruffled him not at all. "And what," went on he, crossinghis feet and leaning negligently against Mrs. McChesney's desk,"and what can I do for thee, fair lady?"
"'Greetings!'"]
"For me?" said Emma McChesney, looking up at him through narrowedeyelids. "I'll tell you what. You can explain to me, in whatthey call a few well-chosen words, just how you, or any otherliving creature, could manage to turn in an expense account likethat on a six-weeks' missionary trip through the Middle West."
"Dear lady,"--in the bland tones that one uses to an unreasonablechild,--"you will need no explanation if you will just remember tolay the stress on the word missionary. I went forth through theMiddle West to spread the light among the benighted skirt trade.This wasn't a selling trip, dear lady. It was a buying expedition.And I had to buy, didn't I? all the way from Michigan to Indiana."
He smiled down at her, calm, self-assured, impudent. A littleflush grew in Emma McChesney's cheeks.
"I've always said," she began, crisply, "that one could prettywell judge a man's character, temperament, morals, and physicalmake-up by just glancing at his expense account. The trouble withyou is that you haven't learned the art of spending money wisely.It isn't always the man with the largest expense sheet that getsthe most business.
And it isn't the man who leaves the greatestnumber of circles on the table top in his hotel room, either."She paused a moment. Ed Meyers's smile had lost some of itsheartiness. "Mr. Buck's out of town, as you know. He'll be backnext week. He wasn't in favor of--"
"Now, Mrs. McChesney," interrupted Ed Meyers nervously, "you knowthere's always one live one in every firm, just like there'salways one star in every family. You're the--"
"I'm the one who wants to know how you could spend sixty-ninedollars for two days' incidentals in Iowa. Iowa! Why, look here,Ed Meyers, I made Iowa for ten years when I was on the road. Youknow that. And you know, and I know, that in order to spendsixty-nine dollars for incidentals in two days in Iowa you have tocall out the militia."
"Not when you're trying to win the love of every skirt buyer fromSioux City to Des Moines."
Emma McChesney rose impatiently. "Oh, that's nonsense! You don'tneed to do that these days. Those are old-fashioned methods.They're out of date. They--"
At that a little sound came from Jock. Emma heard it, glanced athim, turned away again in confusion.
"I was foolish enough in the first place to give you this job forold times' sake," she continued hurriedly.
Fat Ed Meyers' face drooped dolefully. He cocked his round head onone side fatuously. "For old times' sake," he repeated, withtremulous pathos, and heaved a gusty sigh.
"Which goes to show that I need a guardian," finished EmmaMcChesney cruelly. "The only old times that I can remember arewhen I was selling Featherlooms, and you were out for theSans-Silk Skirt Company, both covering the same territory, andboth running a year-around race to see which could beat the otherat his own game. The only difference was that I always playedfair, while you played low-down whenever you had a chance."
"Now, my dear Mrs. McChesney--"
"That'll be all," said Emma McChesney, as one whose patience isfast slipping away. "Mr. Buck will see you next week." Then,turning to her son as the door closed on the drooping figure ofthe erstwhile buoyant Meyers, "Where'll we lunch, Jock?"
"Mother," Jock broke out hotly, "why in the name of all that'sfoolish do you persist in using the methods of Methuselah! Peopledon't sell goods any more by sending out fat old ex-traveling mento jolly up the trade."
"Jock," repeated Emma McChesney slowly, "where--shall--we--lunch?"
It was a grim little meal, eaten almost in silence. Emma McChesneyhad made it a rule to use luncheon time as a recess. She playedmental tag and hop-scotch, so that, returning to her officerefreshed in mind and body, she could attack the afternoon's workwith new vigor. And never did she talk or think business.
To-day she ate her luncheon with a forced appetite, glanced aboutwith a listlessness far removed from her usual alert interest, andfollowed Jock's attempts at conversation with a polite effort thatwas more insulting than downright inattention.
"Dessert, Mother?" Jock had to say it twice before she heard.
"What? Oh, no--I think not."
The waiter hesitated, coughed discreetly, lifted his eyebrowsinsinuatingly. "The French pastry's particularly nice to-day,madam. If you'd care to try something? Eclair, madam--peachtart--mocha tart--caramel--"
Emma McChesney smiled. "It does sound tempting." She glanced atJock. "And we're wearing our gowns so floppy this year that itmakes no difference whether one's fat or not." She turned to thewaiter. "I never can tell till I see them. Bring your pastry tray,will you?"
Jock McChesney's finger and thumb came together with a snap. Heleaned across the table toward his mother, eyes glowing, lipsparted and eager. "There! you've proved my point."
"Point?"
"About advertising. No, don't stop me. Don't you see that whatapplies to pastry applies to petticoats? You didn't think ofFrench pastry until he suggested it to you--advertised it, really.And then you wanted a picture of them. You wanted to knowwhat they looked like before buying. That's all there is toadvertising. Telling people about a thing, making 'em want it, andshowing 'em how it will look when they have it. Get me?"
Emma McChesney was gazing at Jock with a curious, fascinatedstare. It was a blank little look, such as we sometimes wear whenthe mind is working furiously. If the insinuating waiter,presenting the laden tray for her inspection, was startled by therapt expression which she turned upon the cunningly wrought wares,he was too much a waiter to show it.
A pause. "That one," said Mrs. McChesney, pointing to the leastornate. She ate it, down to the last crumb, in a silence that waspregnant with portent. She put down her fork and sat back.
"Jock, you win. I--I suppose I have fallen out of step. PerhapsI've been too busy watching my own feet. T.A. will be back nextweek. Could your office have an advertising plan roughly sketchedby that time?"
"Could they!" His tone was exultant. "Watch 'em! Hupp's been crazyto make Featherlooms famous."
"But look here, son. I want a hand in that copy. I knowFeatherlooms better than your Sam Hupp will ever--"
Jock shook his head. "They won't stand for that, Mother. It neverworks. The manufacturer always thinks he can write magic stuffbecause he knows his own product. But he never can. You see, heknows too much. That's it. No perspective."
"We'll see," said Emma McChesney curtly.
So it was that ten days later the first important conference inthe interests of the Featherloom Petticoat Company's advertisingcampaign was called. But in those ten days of hurried preparationa little silent tragedy had come about. For the first time in herbrave, sunny life Emma McChesney had lost faith in herself. Andwith such malicious humor does Fate work her will that she choseSam Hupp's new dictagraph as the instrument with which to prickthe bubble of Mrs. McChesney's self-confidence.
Sam Hupp, one of the copy-writing marvels of the Berg, Shrinerfirm, had a trick of forgetting to shut off certain necessarycurrents when he paused in his dictation to throw inconversational asides. The old and experienced stenographers, hadlearned to look out for that, and to eliminate from theirtypewritten letters certain irrelevant and sometimes irreverentasides which Sam Hupp evidently had addressed to his pipe, or theoffice boy, and not intended for the tube of the all-devouringdictagraph.
There was a new and nervous little stenographer in the outeroffice, and she had not been warned of this.
"We think very highly of the plan you suggest," Sam Hupp had saidinto the dictagraph's mouthpiece. "In fact, in one of yourvaluable copy suggestions you--"
Without changing his tone he glanced over his shoulder at hiscolleague, Hopper, who was listening and approving.
"... Let the old girl think the idea is her own. She's virtuallythe head of that concern, and they've spoiled her. Successful, andused to being kowtowed to. Doesn't know her notions of copy areten years behind the advertising game--"
And went on with his letter again. After which he left the officeto play golf. And the little blond numbskull in the outer officedutifully took down what the instrument had to say, word for word,marked it, "Dictated, but not read," signed neat initials, andwith a sigh went on with the rest of her sheaf of letters.
Emma McChesney read the letter next morning. She read it down tothe end, and then again. The two readings were punctuated with alittle gasp, such as we give when an icy douche is suddenlyturned upon us. And that was all.
A week later an intent little group formed a ragged circle aboutthe big table in the private office of Bartholomew Berg, head ofthe Berg, Shriner Advertising Company. Bartholomew Berg himself,massive, watchful, taciturn, managing to give an impression ofpower by his very silence, sat at one side of the long table. Justacross from him a sleek-haired stenographer bent over her notebook, jotting down every word, that the conference might makebusiness history. Hopper, at one end of the room, studied his shoeheel intently. He was unbelievably boyish looking to command thefabulous salary reported to be his. Advertising men, mentioninghis name, pulled a figurative forelock as they did so. Near Mrs.McChesney sat Sam Hupp, he of the lightning brain and thesure-fire copy. Emma McChesney, strangely silent, kept her eyesinte
nt on the faces of the others. T.A. Buck, interested,enthusiastic, but somewhat uncertain, glanced now and then at hissilent business partner, found no satisfaction in her set face,and glanced away again. Grace Galt, unbelievably young and prettyto have won a place for herself in that conference of businesspeople, smiled in secret at Jock McChesney's evident struggle toconceal his elation at being present at this, his first staffmeeting.
The conference had lasted one hour now. In that time Featherloompetticoats had been picked to pieces, bit by bit, from hem towaist-band. Nothing had been left untouched. Every angle had comeunder the keen vision of the advertising experts--the comfort ofthe garment, its durability, style, cheapness, service. Which toemphasize?
"H--m, novelty campaign, in my opinion," said Hopper, breaking oneof his long silences. "There's nothing new in petticoatsthemselves, you know. You've got to give 'em a new angle."
"Yep," agreed Hupp. "Start out with a feature skirt. Mightillustrate with one of those freak drawings they're crazy aboutnow--slinky figure, you know, hollow-chested, one foot trailing,and all that. They're crazy, but they do attract attention, nodoubt of that."
Bartholomew Berg turned his head slowly. "What's your opinion,Mrs. McChesney?" he asked.
"I--I'm afraid I haven't any," said Emma McChesney listlessly.T.A. Buck stared at her in dismay and amazement.
"How about you, Mr. Buck?"
"Why--I--er--of course this advertising game's new to me. I'mreally leaving it in your hands. I really thought that Mrs.McChesney's idea was to make a point of the fact that thesepetticoats were not freak petticoats, but skirts for the everydaywomen. She gave me what I thought was a splendid argument a weekago." He turned to her helplessly.
Mrs. McChesney sat silent.
Bartholomew Berg leaned forward a little and smiled one of hisrare smiles.
"Won't you tell us, Mrs. McChesney? We'd all like to hear what youhave to say."
Mrs. McChesney looked down at her hands. Then she looked up, andaddressed what she had to say straight to Bartholomew Berg.
"I--simply didn't want to interfere in this business. I knownothing about it, really. Of course, I do know Featherloompetticoats. I know all about them. It seemed to me that justbecause the newspapers and magazines were full of pictures showingspectacular creatures in impossible attitudes wearing tango teaskirts, we are apt to forget that those types form only a thinupper crust, and that down beneath there are millions and millionsof regular, everyday women doing regular everyday things inregular everyday clothes. Women who wash on Monday, and iron onTuesday, and bake one-egg cakes, and who have to hurry home to getsupper when they go down-town in the afternoon. They're the kindwho go to market every morning, and take the baby along in thego-cart, and they're not wearing crepe de chine tango petticoatsto do it in, either. They're wearing skirts with a drawstring inthe back, and a label in the band, guaranteed to last one year.Those are the people I'd like to reach, and hold."
"Hm!" said Hopper, from his corner, cryptically.
Bartholomew Berg looked at Emma McChesney admiringly. "Soundsreasonable and logical," he said.
Sam Hupp sat up with a jerk.
"It does sound reasonable," he said briskly. "But it isn't. Pardonme, won't you, Mrs. McChesney? But you must realize that this isan extravagant age. The very workingmen's wives have caught thespending fever. The time is past when you can attract people toyour goods with the promise of durability and wear. They don'texpect goods to wear. They'd resent it if they did. They get tiredof an article before it's worn out. They're looking for novelties.They'd rather get two months' wear out of a skirt that's slashed anew way, than a year's wear out of one that looks like the sortthat mother used to make."
Mrs. McChesney, her cheeks very pink, her eyes very bright,subsided into silence. In silence she sat throughout the rest ofthe conference. In silence she descended in the elevator with T.A.Buck, and in silence she stepped into his waiting car.
T.A. Buck eyed her worriedly. "Well?" he said. Then, as Mrs.McChesney shrugged noncommittal shoulders, "Tell me, how do youfeel about it?"
Emma McChesney turned to face him, breathing rather quickly.
"The last time I felt as I do just now was when Jock was a baby.He took sick, and the doctors were puzzled. They thought it mightbe something wrong with his spine. They had a consultation--fiveof them--with the poor little chap on the bed, naked. Theywouldn't let me in, so I listened in the hallway, pressed againstthe door with my face to the crack. They prodded him, and pokedhim, and worked his little legs and arms, and every time he criedI prayed, and wept, and clawed the door with my fingers, andcalled them beasts and torturers and begged them to let me in,though I wasn't conscious that I was doing those things--at thetime. I didn't know what they were doing to him, though they saidit was all for his good, and they were only trying to help him.But I only knew that I wanted to rush in, and grab him up in myarms, and run away with him--run, and run, and run."
She stopped, lips trembling, eyes suspiciously bright.
"And that's the way I felt in there--this afternoon."
T.A. Buck reached up and patted her shoulder. "Don't, old girl!It's going to work out splendidly, I'm sure. After all, thosechaps do know best."
"They may know best, but they don't know Featherlooms," retortedEmma McChesney.
"True. But perhaps what Jock said when he walked with us to theelevator was pretty nearly right. You know he said we werecriticising their copy the way a plumber would criticise theParthenon--so busy finding fault with the lack of drains that wefailed to see the beauty of the architecture."
"T.A.," said Emma McChesney solemnly, "T.A., we're getting old."
"Old! You! I! Ha!"
"You may 'Ha!' all you like. But do you know what they thought ofus in there? They thought we were a couple of fogies, and theyhumored us, that's what they did. I'll tell you, T.A., when thetime comes for me to give Jock up to some little pink-faced girlI'll do it, and smile if it kills me. But to hand my Featherloomsover to a lot of cold-blooded experts who--well--" she paused,biting her lip.
"We'll see, Emma; we'll see."
They did see. The Featherloom petticoat campaign was launched witha great splash. It sailed serenely into the sea of nationalbusiness. Then suddenly something seemed to go wrong with itsengines. It began to wobble and showed a decided list to port.Jock, who at the beginning was so puffed with pride that his goldfountain pen threatened to burst the confines of his very modishlytight vest, lost two degrees of pompousness a day, and hisattitude toward his unreproachful mother was almost humble.
A dozen times a week T.A. Buck would stroll casually into Mrs.McChesney's office. "Think it's going to take hold?" he would ask."Our men say the dealers have laid in, but the public doesn't seemto be tearing itself limb from limb to get to our stuff."
Emma McChesney would smile, and shrug noncommittal shoulders.
When it became very painfully apparent that it wasn't "takinghold," T.A. Buck, after asking the same question, now worn andfrayed with asking, broke out, crossly:
"Well, really, I don't mind the shrug, but I do wish you wouldn'tsmile. After all, you know, this campaign is costing usmoney--real money, and large chunks of it. It's very evident thatwe shouldn't have tried to make a national campaign of thisthing."
Whereupon Mrs. McChesney's smile grew into a laugh. "Forgive me,T.A. I'm not laughing at you. I'm laughing because--well, I can'ttell you why. It's a woman's reason, and you wouldn't think it areason at all. For that matter, I suppose it isn't, but--Anyway,I've got something to tell you. The fault of this campaign hasbeen the copy. It was perfectly good advertising, but it left thepublic cold. When they read those ads they might have beenimpressed with the charm of the garment, but it didn't fill theirbreasts with any wild longing to possess one. It didn't make thewomen feel unhappy until they had one of those skirts hanging onthe third hook in their closet. The only kind of advertising thatis advertising is the kind that makes the reader say, 'I'll haveone of those.'"
&n
bsp; T.A. Buck threw out helpless hands. "What are we going to do aboutit?"
"Do? I've already done it."
"Done what?"
"Written the kind of copy that I think Featherlooms ought to have.I just took my knowledge of Featherlooms, plus what I knew abouthuman nature, sprinkled in a handful of good humor and sincerity,and they're going to feed it to the public. It's the same recipethat I used to use in selling Featherlooms on the road. It used togo by word of mouth. I don't see why it shouldn't go on paper. Itisn't classic advertising. It isn't scientific. It isn't even whatthey call psychological, I suppose. But it's human. And it's goingto reach that great, big, solid, safe, spot-cash mass known as themiddle class. Of course my copy may be wrong. It may not go, afterall, but--"
But it did go. It didn't go with a rush, or a bang. It wentslowly, surely, hand over hand, but it went, and it kept on going.And watching it climb and take hold there came back to EmmaMcChesney's eye the old sparkle, to her step the old buoyancy, toher voice the old delightful ring. And now, when T.A. Buckstrolled into her office of a morning, with his, "It's takinghold, Mrs. Mack," she would dimple like a girl as she laughed backat him--
"With a grip that won't let go."
"It looks very much as though we were going to be millionaires inour old age, you and I?" went on Buck.
Emma McChesney opened her eyes wide.
"Old!" she mocked, "Old! You! I! Ha!"
