So Big

by Edna Ferber

  “Look here, Mother,” Dirk would protest, “you can’t wander around like that. It isn’t safe. This isn’t High Prairie, you know. If you want to go round I’ll get Saki to drive you.”

  “That would be nice,” she said, mildly. But she never availed herself of this offer. Sometimes she went over to South Water Street, changed now, and swollen to such proportions that it threatened to burst its confines. She liked to stroll along the crowded sidewalks, lined with crates and boxes and barrels of fruits, vegetables, poultry. Swarthy foreign faces predominated now. Where the red-faced overalled men had been she now saw lean muscular lads in old army shirts and khaki pants and scuffed puttees wheeling trucks, loading boxes, charging down the street in huge rumbling auto vans. Their faces were hard, their talk terse. They moved gracefully, with an economy of gesture. Any one of these, she reflected, was more vital, more native, functioned more usefully and honestly than her successful son, Dirk DeJong.

  “Where ‘r’ beans?”

  “In th’ ol’ beanery.”

  “Tough.”

  “Best you can get.”

  “Keep ’em.”

  Many of the older men knew her, shook hands with her, chatted a moment friendlily. William Talcott, a little more dried up, more wrinkled, his sparse hair quite gray now, still leaned up against the side of his doorway in his shirt sleeves and his neat pepper-and-salt pants and vest, a pretty good cigar, unlighted, in his mouth, the heavy gold watch chain spanning his middle.

  “Well, you certainly made good, Mrs. DeJong. Remember the day you come here with your first load?”

  Oh, yes. She remembered.

  “That boy of yours has made his mark, too, I see. Doing grand, ain’t he? Wa al, great satisfaction having a son turn out well like that. Yes, sirree! Why, look at my da’ter Car’line——”

  Life at High Prairie had its savour, too. Frequently you saw strange visitors there for a week or ten days at a time—boys and girls whose city pallor gave way to a rich tan; tired-looking women with sagging figures who drank Selina’s cream and ate her abundant vegetables and tender chickens as though they expected these viands to be momentarily snatched from them. Selina picked these up in odd corners of the city. Dirk protested against this, too. Selina was a member of the High Prairie school board now. She often drove about the roads and into town in a disreputable Ford which she manipulated with imagination and skill. She was on the Good Roads Committee and the Truck Farmers’ Association valued her opinion. Her life was full, pleasant, prolific.

  18

  Paula had a scheme for interesting women in bond buying. It was a good scheme. She suggested it so that Dirk thought he had thought of it. Dirk was head now of the bond department in the Great Lakes Trust Company’s magnificent new white building on Michigan Boulevard north. Its white towers gleamed pink in the lake mists. Dirk said it was a terrible building, badly proportioned, and that it looked like a vast vanilla sundae. His new private domain was more like a splendid bookless library than a business office. It was finished in rich dull walnut and there were great upholstered chairs, soft rugs, shaded lights. Special attention was paid to women clients. There was a room for their convenience fitted with low restful chairs and couches, lamps, writing desks, in mauve and rose. Paula had selected the furnishings for this room. Ten years earlier it would have been considered absurd in a suite of business offices. Now it was a routine part of the equipment.

  Dirk’s private office was almost as difficult of access as that of the nation’s executive. Cards, telephones, office boys, secretaries stood between the caller and Dirk DeJong, head of the bond department. You asked for him, uttering his name in the ear of the six-foot statuesque detective who, in the guise of usher, stood in the centre of the marble rotunda eyeing each visitor with a coldly appraising gaze. This one padded softly ahead of you on rubber heels, only to give you over to the care of a glorified office boy who took your name. You waited. He returned. You waited. Presently there appeared a young woman with inquiring eyebrows. She conversed with you. She vanished. You waited. She reappeared. You were ushered into Dirk DeJong’s large and luxurious inner office. And there formality fled.

  Dirk was glad to see you; quietly, interestly glad to see you. As you stated your business he listened attentively, as was his charming way. The volume of business done with women clients by the Great Lakes Trust Company was enormous. Dirk was conservative, helpful—and he always got the business. He talked little. He was amazingly effective. Ladies in the modish black of recent bereavement made quite a sombre procession to his door. His suggestions (often originating with Paula) made the Great Lakes Trust Company’s discreet advertising rich in results. Neat little pamphlets written for women on the subjects of saving, investments. “You are not dealing with a soulless corporation,” said these brochures. “May we serve you? You need more than friends. Before acting, you should have your judgment vindicated by an organization of investment specialists. You may have relatives and friends, some of whom would gladly advise you on investments. But perhaps you rightly feel that the less they know about your financial affairs, the better. To handle trusts, and to care for the securities of widows and orphans, is our business.”

  It was startling to note how this sort of thing mounted into millions. “Women are becoming more and more used to the handling of money,” Paula said, shrewdly. “Pretty soon their patronage is going to be as valuable as that of men. The average woman doesn’t know about bonds—about bond buying. They think they’re something mysterious and risky. They ought to be educated up to it. Didn’t you say something, Dirk, about classes in finance for women? You could make a sort of semi-social affair of it. Send out invitations and get various bankers—big men, whose names are known—to talk to these women.”

  “But would the women come?”

  “Of course they’d come. Women will accept any invitation that’s engraved on heavy cream paper.”

  The Great Lakes Trust had a branch in Cleveland now, and one in New York, on Fifth Avenue. The drive to interest women in bond buying and to instruct them in finance was to take on almost national proportions. There was to be newspaper and magazine advertising.

  The Talks for Women on the Subject of Finance were held every two weeks in the crystal room of the Blackstone and were a great success. Paula was right. Much of old Aug Hempel’s shrewdness and business foresight had descended to her. The women came—widows with money to invest; business women who had thriftily saved a portion of their salaries; moneyed women who wanted to manage their own property, or who resented a husband’s interference. Some came out of curiosity. Others for lack of anything better to do. Others to gaze on the well-known banker or lawyer or business man who was scheduled to address the meeting. Dirk spoke three or four times during the winter and was markedly a favourite. The women, in smart crêpe gowns and tailored suits and small chic hats, twittered and murmured about him, even while they sensibly digested his well-thought-out remarks. He looked very handsome, clean-cut, and distinguished there on the platform in his admirably tailored clothes, a small white flower in his buttonhole. He talked easily, clearly, fluently; answered the questions put to him afterward with just the right mixture of thoughtful hesitation and confidence.

  It was decided that for the national advertising there must be an illustration that would catch the eye of women, and interest them. The person to do it, Dirk thought, was this Dallas O’Mara whose queer hentrack signature you saw scrawled on half the advertising illustrations that caught your eye. Paula had not been enthusiastic about this idea.

  “M-m-m, she’s very good,” Paula had said, guardedly, “but aren’t there others who are better?”

  “She!” Dirk had exclaimed. “Is it a woman? I didn’t know. That name might be anything.”

  “Oh, yes, she’s a woman. She’s said to be very—very attractive.”

  Dirk sent for Dallas O’Mara. She replied, suggesting an appointment two weeks from that date. Dirk decided not to wait, consulted oth
er commercial artists, looked at their work, heard their plans outlined, and was satisfied with none of them. The time was short. Ten days had passed. He had his secretary call Dallas O’Mara on the telephone. Could she come down to see him that day at eleven?

  No: she worked until four daily at her studio.

  Could she come to his office at four-thirty, then?

  Yes, but wouldn’t it be better if he could come to her studio where he could see something of the various types of drawings—oils, or black-and-white, or crayons. She was working mostly in crayons now.

  All this relayed by his secretary at the telephone to Dirk at his desk. He jammed his cigarette-end viciously into a tray, blew a final infuriated wraith of smoke, and picked up the telephone connection on his own desk. “One of those damned temperamental near-artists trying to be grand,” he muttered, his hand over the mouthpiece. “Here, Miss Rawlings——I’ll talk to her. Switch her over.”

  “Hello, Miss—uh—O’Mara. This is Mr. DeJong talking. I much prefer that you come to my office and talk to me.” (No more of this nonsense.)

  Her voice: “Certainly, if you prefer it. I thought the other would save us both some time. I’ll be there at four-thirty.” Her voice was leisurely, low, rounded. An admirable voice. Restful.

  “Very well. Four-thirty,” said Dirk, crisply. Jerked the receiver into the hook. That was the way to handle ’em. These females of forty with straggling hair and a bundle of drawings under their arm.

  The female of forty with straggling hair and a bundle of drawings under her arm was announced at four-thirty to the dot. Dirk let her wait five minutes in the outer office, being still a little annoyed. At four-thirty-five there entered his private office a tall slim girl in a smart little broadtail jacket, fur-trimmed skirt, and a black hat at once so daring and so simple that even a man must recognize its French nativity. She carried no portfolio of drawings under her arms.

  Through the man’s mind flashed a series of unbusinesslike thoughts such as: “Gosh! . . . Eyes! . . . That’s the way I like to see a girl dress . . . Tired looking . . . No, guess it’s her eyes—sort of fatigued. . . . Pretty . . . No, she isn’t . . . yes, she . . .” Aloud he said, “This is very kind of you, Miss O’Mara.” Then he thought that sounded pompous and said, curtly. “Sit down.”

  Miss O’Mara sat down. Miss O’Mara looked at him with her tired deep blue eyes. Miss O’Mara said nothing. She regarded him pleasantly, quietly, composedly. He waited for her to say that usually she did not come to business offices; that she had only twenty minutes to give him; that the day was warm, or cold; his office handsome; the view over the river magnificent. Miss O’Mara said nothing, pleasantly. So Dirk began to talk, rather hurriedly.

  Now, this was a new experience for Dirk DeJong. Usually women spoke to him first and fluently. Quiet women waxed voluble under his silence; voluble women chattered. Paula always spoke a hundred words to his one. But here was a woman more silent than he; not sullenly silent, nor heavily silent, but quietly, composedly, restfully silent.

  “I’ll tell you the sort of thing we want, Miss O’Mara.” He told her. When he had finished she probably would burst out with three or four plans. The others had done that.

  When he had finished she said, “I’ll think about it for a couple of days while I’m working on something else. I always do. I’m doing an olive soap picture now. I can begin work on yours Wednesday.”

  “But I’d like to see it—that is, I’d like to have an idea of what you’re planning to do with it.” Did she think he was going to let her go ahead without consulting his judgment!

  “Oh, it will be all right. But drop into the studio if you like. It will take me about a week, I suppose. I’m over on Ontario in that old studio building. You’ll know it by the way most of the bricks have fallen out of the building and are scattered over the sidewalk.” She smiled a slow wide smile. Her teeth were good but her mouth was too big, he thought. Nice big warm kind of smile, though. He found himself smiling, too, sociably. Then he became businesslike again. Very businesslike.

  “How much do you—what is your—what would you expect to get for a drawing such as that?”

  “Fifteen hundred dollars,” said Miss O’Mara.

  “Nonsense.” He looked at her then. Perhaps that had been humour. But she was not smiling. “You mean fifteen hundred for a single drawing?”

  “For that sort of thing, yes.”

  “I’m afraid we can’t pay that, Miss O’Mara.”

  Miss O’Mara stood up. “That is my price.” She was not at all embarrassed. He realized that he had never seen such effortless composure. It was he who was fumbling with the objects on his flat-topped desk—a pen, a sheet of paper, a blotter. “Good-bye, Mr.—DeJong.” She held out a friendly hand. He took it. Her hair was gold—dull gold, not bright—and coiled in a single great knot at the back of her head, low. He took her hand. The tired eyes looked up at him.

  “Well, if that’s your price, Miss O’Mara. I wasn’t prepared to pay any such—but of course I suppose you top-notchers do get crazy prices for your work.”

  “Not any crazier than the prices you top-notchers get.”

  “Still, fifteen hundred dollars is quite a lot of money.”

  “I think so, too. But then, I’ll always think anything over nine dollars is quite a lot of money. You see, I used to get twenty-five cents apiece for sketching hats for Gage’s.”

  She was undeniably attractive. “And now you’ve arrived. You’re successful.”

  “Arrived! Heavens, no! I’ve started.”

  “Who gets more money than you do for a drawing?”

  “Nobody, I suppose.”

  “Well, then?”

  “Well, then, in another minute I’ll be telling you the story of my life.” She smiled again her slow wide smile; turned to leave. Dirk decided that while most women’s mouths were merely features this girl’s was a decoration.

  She was gone. Miss Ethelinda Quinn et al., in the outer office, appraised the costume of Miss Dallas O’Mara from her made-to-order foot-gear to her made-in-France millinery and achieved a lightning mental reconstruction of their own costumes. Dirk DeJong in the inner office realized that he had ordered a fifteen-hundred-dollar drawing, sight unseen, and that Paula was going to ask questions about it.

  “Make a note, Miss Rawlings, to call Miss O’Mara’s studio on Thursday.”

  In the next few days he learned that a surprising lot of people knew a surprisingly good deal about this Dallas O’Mara. She hailed from Texas, hence the absurd name. She was twenty-eight—twenty-five—thirty-two—thirty-six. She was beautiful. She was ugly. She was an orphan. She had worked her way through art school. She had no sense of the value of money. Two years ago she had achieved sudden success with her drawings. Her ambition was to work in oils. She toiled like a galley-slave; played like a child; had twenty beaux and no lover; her friends, men and women, were legion and wandered in and out of her studio as though it were a public thoroughfare. You were likely to find there at any hour any one from Bert Colson, the blackface musical comedy star, to Mrs. Robinson Gilman of Lake Forest and Paris; from Leo Mahler, first violin with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, to Fanny Whipple who designed dresses for Carson’s. She supported an assortment of unlucky brothers and spineless sisters in Texas and points west.

  Miss Rawlings made an appointment for Thursday at three. Paula said she’d go with him and went. She dressed for Dallas O’Mara and the result was undeniably enchanting. Dallas sometimes did a crayon portrait, or even attempted one in oils. Had got a prize for her portrait of Mrs. Robinson Gilman at last spring’s portrait exhibit at the Chicago Art Institute. It was considered something of an achievement to be asked to pose for her. Paula’s hat had been chosen in deference to her hair and profile, and the neck line of her gown in deference to hat, hair, and profile, and her pearls with an eye to all four. The whole defied competition on the part of Miss Dallas O’Mara.

  Miss Dallas O’Mara, in her studi
o, was perched on a high stool before an easel with a large tray of assorted crayons at her side. She looked a sight and didn’t care at all. She greeted Dirk and Paula with a cheerful friendliness and went right on working. A model, very smartly gowned, was sitting for her.

  “Hello!” said Dallas O’Mara. “This is it. Do you think you’re going to like it?”

  “Oh,” said Dirk. “Is that it?” It was merely the beginning of a drawing of the smartly gowned model. “Oh, that’s it, is it?” Fifteen hundred dollars!

  “I hope you didn’t think it was going to be a picture of a woman buying bonds.” She went on working. She squinted one eye, picked up a funny little mirror thing which she held to one side, looked into, and put down. She made a black mark on the board with a piece of crayon then smeared the mark with her thumb. She had on a faded all-enveloping smock over which French ink, rubber cement, pencil marks, crayon dust and wash were so impartially distributed that the whole blended and mixed in a rich mellow haze like the Chicago atmosphere itself. The collar of a white silk blouse, not especially clean, showed above this. On her feet were soft kid bedroom slippers, scuffed, with pompons on them. Her dull gold hair was carelessly rolled into that great loose knot at the back. Across one cheek was a swipe of black.

  “Well,” thought Dirk, “she looks a sight.”

  Dallas O’Mara waved a friendly hand toward some chairs on which were piled hats, odd garments, bristol board and (on the broad arm of one) a piece of yellow cake. “Sit down.” She called to the girl who had opened the door to them: “Gilda, will you dump some of those things. This is Mrs. Storm, Mr. DeJong—Gilda Hanan.” Her secretary, Dirk later learned.

  The place was disorderly, comfortable, shabby. A battered grand piano stood in one corner. A great skylight formed half the ceiling and sloped down at the north end of the room. A man and a girl sat talking earnestly on the couch in another corner. A swarthy foreign-looking chap, vaguely familiar to Dirk, was playing softly at the piano. The telephone rang. Miss Hanan took the message, transmitted it to Dallas O’Mara, received the answer, repeated it. Perched atop the stool, one slippered foot screwed in a rung, Dallas worked on concentratedly, calmly, earnestly. A lock of hair straggled over her eyes. She pushed it back with her wrist and left another dark splotch on her forehead. There was something splendid, something impressive, something magnificent about her absorption, her indifference to appearance, her unawareness of outsiders, her concentration on the work before her. Her nose was shiny. Dirk hadn’t seen a girl with a shiny nose in years. They were always taking out those little boxes and things and plastering themselves with the stuff in ’em.