Collected Works of Booth Tarkington

by Booth Tarkington

  NORA: But last month, with new economies, we showed a larger profit than you had!

  GIBSON: And this month?

  NORA: We shan’t know that until the report’s read at the meeting to-morrow. I think it will be the largest profit of all.

  CARTER: That bookkeeper’s workin’ on it to-day. Talked like he was going to cut us down two or three thousand, mebbe. [Laughing.] That’s the way he always talks.

  NORA: He isn’t a good influence.

  CARTER: No — too gloomy, too gloomy to suit me!

  GIBSON: What about the two other bookkeepers?

  CARTER: The committee voted them into the packing department; and they ain’t much good even there. It’s a crime!

  NORA: They weren’t needed. Our bookkeeping is so simplified since you left!

  GIBSON: It all seems to be simplified, Miss Gorodna.

  NORA: Yes; and whatever problems come up, they’re all settled at our meetings.

  [A sound of squabbling is heard upon the street, growing louder as the people engaging in it approach along the sidewalk.]

  CARTER: There’s one we got to bring up and do something about at the meetin’ to-morrow.

  GIBSON: What is it? [CARTER goes up to the gate.]

  NORA: It’s that Mrs. Simpson; she’s a great nuisance.

  CARTER: Yes, it’s her and Simpson and Frankel. The Simpsons moved into a flat right up in this neighbourhood. Quite some of the comrades live up round here now.

  [FRANKEL and MRS. SIMPSON are heard disputing as they approach: “Well, what you goin’ to do about it!” “I’ll show you what we’re goin’ to do about it!” “You can’t do nothing!” “You wait till to-morrow and see.” “I got my rights, ain’t I?” and so on.]

  SIMPSON [heard remonstrating]: Now, Mamie, Mamie! Frankel, you oughtn’t to talk to Mamie that way.

  [GIBSON, interested and amused, goes part way up to the hedge. NORA is somewhat mortified as the disputants reach the gate. GIBSON speaks to them.]

  GIBSON: How do you do, Simpson! How do you do, Mrs. Simpson! How do you do, Frankel! Won’t you come in and argue here?

  MRS. SIMPSON: Wha’d you say, Mr. Gibson?

  GIBSON: I said come in; come in!

  SIMPSON [uncertainly]: Well, I don’t know.

  GIBSON: Come in! Nobody here but friends of yours. Sit down. I’d like to hear what the argument was about.

  [MRS. SIMPSON is a large woman, domineering and noisy, dressed somewhat expensively. She is proud of some new furs and a pair of quite fancy shoes. SIMPSON has a new suit of clothes and a gold-headed cane.

  FRANKEL wears a cheap cutaway suit and is smoking a cigar.]

  MRS. SIMPSON: I don’t care who hears the argument! Right’s right and wrong’s wrong!

  FRANKEL: You bet right’s right, and so’s my rights right!

  MRS. SIMPSON: You ain’t got any rights.

  FRANKEL [hotly to everybody]: Do you hear she says I ain’t got no rights at all?

  MRS. SIMPSON: You ain’t got the rights you claim you got.

  FRANKEL: She comes down there and tries to run the whole factory. Ask any of ’em if she don’t. Ask Carter!

  MRS. SIMPSON: I own that factory just as much as anybody does.

  SIMPSON: Now, Frankel, you be careful what you say to Mamie!

  FRANKEL: I got shares in that factory and by rights ought to have as many votes at the meetin’ as I got shares — let alone your talking about trying to root me out of my profits!

  GIBSON: What’s this about Frankel having shares?

  FRANKEL [violently]: You bet your life I got shares! And I’m going to have my shares of the money at that meetin’ to-morrow!

  MRS. SIMPSON: You bet your life you ain’t!

  SIMPSON: You think we’re goin’ to vote all our profits away to you?

  CARTER: Wait a minute! Ain’t I the chairman of that —

  MRS. SIMPSON: You may be chairman yet — but not long!

  FRANKEL [sharply to CARTER]: You just try to rule me out once!

  GIBSON: What’s it all about?

  MRS. SIMPSON: I’ll soon enough tell anybody what it’s about!

  FRANKEL: You couldn’t tell nothing straight!

  CARTER [deprecatingly]: Now, now, this here’s just one of our little side difficulties, you might say. What’s the use to git huffy over it, we’re gittin’ along so well and all? The trouble is, some o’ the men and their families ain’t been used to so much prosperity and money in the house that way, all of a sudden. Of course some of ’em got to living too high and run into some debt and everything.

  FRANKEL: Well, what business is that of yours? The factory ain’t a Home, is it? And you ain’t the Matron, are you?

  CARTER: I don’t claim such!

  FRANKEL: It’s my business, ain’t it, if I take and live on the cheaps and put by for a rainy day, and happen to have money when other people need it from me?

  SIMPSON: That much may be your business, but I reckon it was our business when you come blowin’ round the factory, first that you owned seven shares besides your own; then, a week after, you says seventeen; then —

  GIBSON: Well, how many shares has he got?

  SIMPSON: He was claimin’ twenty-four yesterday.

  MRS. SIMPSON [violently]: He’s bought two more since last night. Now he claims twenty-six!

  FRANKEL: Yes; and I own twenty-six!

  CARTER: That ain’t never goin’ to do! I don’t say it’s a condition as you might say we exactly see how to handle right now, but the way it is, you certainly got us all disturbed up and hard to git at the rights of it. You claimin’ all them shares —

  FRANKEL: Well, my goodness, you git the work fer them shares, don’t you? What you yelpin’ about?

  CARTER: I don’t say we don’t git the same amount o’ work, but —

  FRANKEL: Well, how you git it, that’s my lookout, ain’t it, so it’s done?

  CARTER: But you claim you got a right to draw out twenty-six profits!

  FRANKEL: Sure I do when I furnish the labour for twenty-six. Am I crazy?

  CARTER: But that way you’re makin’ more than any ten men put together in the whole factory!

  FRANKEL: Ain’t it just? What you goin’ to do about it?

  [During this speech SHOMBERG has come along the street and

  stands looking over the gate.]

  CARTER: Well, so fur, we ain’t been able to see how to argue with you.

  It don’t look right, and yet it’s hard to find jest what to say to you.

  FRANKEL: You bet it is!

  CARTER: ‘Course, that’s one of the points that’s got to be settled at the meeting to-morrow.

  FRANKEL: You bet it’ll be settled!

  MRS. SIMPSON: If we had another kind of a chairman it’d been settled long ago, and settled right!

  CARTER: Now look here, Mrs. Simpson —

  FRANKEL [passionately]: I got twenty-six shares, and I earned ’em, too! [To GIBSON.] Look at the trouble they make me — to git my legal rights, let alone the rest the trouble I got! [Fiercely to CARTER and to SIMPSON]: Yes, I had twenty-four shares yesterday and I got twenty-six to-day! and I might have another by to-night. Don’t think I’m the only one that’s got sense enough not to go smearin’ his money all round on cheap limousines and Queen Anne dinin’-room sets at eighty-nine dollars per! [Dramatically pointing at SHOMBERG]: There’s a man worth four shares right now! He had three and he bought Mitchell’s out last night at Steinwitz’s pool room. Ask him whether he thinks I got a right to my twenty-six profits or not!

  SHOMBERG: You bet your life!

  MRS. SIMPSON: I guess that Dutchman hasn’t got the say-so, has he?

  FRANKEL: No. You run the factory now, Mrs. Simpson!

  CARTER: Now look here; this ain’t very much like comrades, is it, all this arguin’? Sunday, too!

  FRANKEL: Oh, I’m tryin’ to be friendly!

  CARTER [to GIBSON]: This buyin’ of shares and all has kind of introduced a sort of an un
desirable element into the factory, you might say. That’s kind of the bothersome side of it, and it can’t be denied we would have quite a good deal of bothersomeness if it wasn’t for our meeting.

  NORA [to everybody except GIBSON]: Don’t you all think that these arguments are pretty foolish when you know that nothing can be settled except at the governing committee’s meeting?

  SIMPSON: That’s so, Miss Gorodna. What’s more, it don’t look like as good comrades as it ought to. I don’t want to have no trouble with Frankel. He might have the rights of it for all I know. Anyways, if he hasn’t I ain’t got the brains to make out the case against him, and anyways, as you say, the meetin’ settles all them things.

  NORA: Don’t you think you and Frankel might shake hands now, like good comrades?

  FRANKEL [with hostility]: Sure, I’ll shake hands with him!

  SIMPSON: Well, I just as soon.

  MRS. SIMPSON: Don’t you do it, Henry!

  SIMPSON: Well, but he’s a comrade.

  MRS. SIMPSON: Well, you can’t help that! You don’t have to shake hands with him.

  SIMPSON: Well, consider it done, Frankel. Consider it done!

  CARTER: That’s right, that’s right! We can leave it to the meeting.

  SHOMBERG: You bet you can! You goin’ my way, Frankel?

  [FRANKEL, joining him, speaks to MRS. SIMPSON.]

  FRANKEL: I s’pose you’re going to come to the meetin’, Mrs. Simpson?

  MRS. SIMPSON: Ain’t my place where my husband is?

  FRANKEL: Well, you don’t git no vote!

  MRS. SIMPSON: There’s goin’ to be a motion introduced for the wives to vote.

  FRANKEL: Watch it pass! Good-bye, Mr. Gibson!

  [GIBSON nods. FRANKEL goes away with SHOMBERG.]

  SIMPSON: Good-bye, Mr. Gibson! All this don’t amount to much. It’ll all be settled to-morrow.

  MRS. SIMPSON: Good-bye, Mr. Gibson! [And as they go out the gate]: You bet your life it’ll be settled! If that wall-eyed runt thinks he can walk over me —

  CARTER [looking after them, laughing]: Well, she’s an awful interfering woman! And she ain’t the only one. If they’d all stay home like my wife things would be smoother, I guess. Still, they’re smooth enough. [Going]: If you want to see that, Mr. Gibson, we’ll be glad to have you look in at the meeting. You’re always welcome at the factory and it’d be a treat to you to see how things work out. It’s at eleven o’clock if you’d like to come.

  GIBSON: Thanks, Carter.

  CARTER: Well, good afternoon, Mr. Gibson and Miss Gorodna. Good evening,

  I should say, I reckon.

  GIBSON: Good evening, Carter.

  [The light has grown to be of sunset. CARTER goes.]

  NORA [going toward the gate]: I’m glad to see you looking so well.

  Good evening!

  GIBSON: Oh, just a minute more.

  NORA: Well?

  GIBSON: It looks as if that might be a lively meeting to-morrow.

  NORA: Is that the old capitalistic sneer?

  GIBSON: Indeed it’s not! It only seemed to me from what we’ve just heard here —

  NORA [bitterly]: Oh, I suppose all business men’s meetings and arguments, when their interests happen to clash, are angelically sweet and amiable! Because you see that my comrades are human and have their human differences —

  GIBSON: Nora, don’t be angry.

  NORA: I’ll try not. Of course it isn’t all a bed of roses! Of course things don’t run like oiled machinery!

  GIBSON: But they do run?

  NORA: It’s magnificent!

  GIBSON: Do you want me to come to that meeting to-morrow?

  NORA: Yes; I’d like you to see how reasonable people settle their differences when they have an absolutely equal and common interest.

  GIBSON [in a low voice]: Aren’t you ever tired?

  [For a moment she has looked weary. She instantly braces up and answers with spirit.]

  NORA: Tired of living out my ideals?

  GIBSON: No; I just mean tired of working. Wouldn’t you rather stop and come here and live in this quiet house?

  NORA [incredulously]: I?

  GIBSON: Couldn’t there even be a chance of it, Nora? That you’d marry me?

  NORA [amazed and indignant]: A chance that I would —

  GIBSON: Well, then, wouldn’t you even be willing to leave it to the meeting to-morrow?

  [Already in motion she gives him a look of terror and intense negation.]

  NORA: Oh! [She runs from the gateway.]

  ACT III

  THE SCENE IS the same as the first, the factory office — with a difference. It is now littered and disorderly. Files have been taken from the cases and left heaped upon the large table and upon chairs. Piles of mail are on the desk and upon the table. The safe is open, showing papers in disorder and hanging from the compartments. Hanging upon the walls, variously, are suits of old overalls and men’s coats and, hats. The chairs stand irregularly about the large table; a couple of old soft hats are on the water filter. The former posters have been replaced by two new ones. One shows a brawny workman with whiskers, paper cap, and large sledge hammer leaning upon an upright piano. Rubrics: “The Freedom and Fraternity Coöperative Upright.” “The Piano You Ought to Support.” The other poster shows a workman with a banner upon which is printed: “No Capital! The Freedom and Fraternity Coöperative Upright The Only Piano Produced by Toilers Not Ground by Capital. Buy One to Help the Cause!”

  NORA is busily engaged at GIBSON’S desk. Her hat and jacket hang on the wall.

  CARTER enters, smoking a pipe; he wears overalls and jumper. He carries a heavy roll of typewritten sheets. Tosses this upon the table, glances at NORA, who does not notice him, divests himself of overalls and jumper, and puts on the black frock coat which he wore in Act II. He looks at his watch and at the clock on the wall.

  CARTER [straightening out his coat]: I thought it might look better to get on my Sunday clothes for the meeting, as you might say, Miss Gorodna. Being as I’m chairman it might look more dignified; kind o’ help give a kind of authority, maybe.

  NORA [absently, not looking up]: Yes.

  CARTER [looking at his watch and at the clock again]: It ought to be wound up for meetings. [He steps upon a chair; moves the hands of clock.] There, doggone it, the key’s lost! I believe Mrs. Simpson took that key for their own clock. [He goes to the table; sits, unrolls the typewritten sheets, puts on his spectacles, and studies the sheets in a kind of misery, roughing his hair badly and making sounds of moaning.] Miss Gorodna, can you make this figure out here for me? Does that mean profits — or what?

  NORA: Oh, no; that’s only an amount carried over.

  CARTER: They’s so many little puzzlin’ things in this bookkeeper’s report. I don’t believe he understands it himself. I don’t see how he expects me to read that to the meeting. Some parts I can’t make head or tail of. Others it looks like he’s got the words jest changed round.

  NORA: Oh, we’ll work it all out at the meeting, Mr. Carter!

  CARTER: My, we got a lot to work out at this meeting.

  NORA: We’ll do it, comrade!

  CARTER [cheering up]: Sure! Sure we will! It’s wonderful what a meeting does; I’m always forgettin’ all we got to do is vote and then the trouble’s over.

  [Instantly upon this a loud squabbling and women’s voices are

  heard outside, in the factory.]

  NORA [troubled]: I was afraid this would happen. Of course after Mrs.

  Simpson came other wives were bound to.

  CARTER [uneasily moving toward the door to the street]: Well, I guess

  I better —

  [The door into the factory is flung open by MRS. SIMPSON, in a state of fury. Another woman’s voice is heard for a moment, shouting: “Old Cat! Old She-Cat! Wants to be a Tom-Cat!”]

  MRS. SIMPSON: See here, Carter, if you still pretend to be chairman you come out here and keep order!

  CARTER: Now, Mrs
. Simpson, you better go on home!

  MRS. SIMPSON [raging]: Me! My place is right here, but I’m not going to stand this Commiskey woman’s insults! She come down here this morning with her husband and started right in to run this factory. My heavens! Ain’t she got five children at home? As long as you still pretend to be chairman I demand you come out and tell this woman to go about her business.

  SHREWISH VOICE: It is my business!

  MRS. SIMPSON: I’ll show you! I was here first; everything was going all right. Carter, are you going to come out here and do your duty like I said?

  CARTER [attempting sternness and failing]: You shut that door! I got to get this report in order before the meeting. I’m not comin’.

  MRS. SIMPSON: Then I won’t be responsible for what happens! She ain’t the only one. Mrs. Shomberg is out here messin’ things up, too. If you won’t do your duty there’ll be direct action took here! [She goes out violently.]

  CARTER: That’s got to come up in meeting. It certainly has. These here wives! For example, my wife’s an awful quiet woman, but you s’pose she’s goin’ to stand it when she hears about all these others? I’d like to keep her at home.

  NORA: I just wonder —

  CARTER: What was you wondering, Miss Gorodna?

  NORA: Well, if that’s something the meeting can settle?

  CARTER [doggedly]: Well, it’s got to vote on it.

  NORA: We did vote on Mrs. Simpson last meeting.

  CARTER: Well, we got to vote on her and all the rest of ’em this time.

  NORA: It didn’t seem to settle Mrs. Simpson, did it?

  CARTER: Well, it hadn’t got so bad then. Now it’s got to be settled! We got to git everything fixed up now.

  [A frightful dispute is heard in numerous male voices; some speaking Italian, some Yiddish, and some broken English. This grows louder as FRANKEL rushes in, throwing the door shut behind him and leaning against it, wiping his forehead.]

  FRANKEL: Life ain’t worth livin’! Life ain’t worth livin’!

  CARTER: Serves you right, Frankel!

  [At the filter FRANKEL pours water from the glass upon a dirty handkerchief and passes the handkerchief over his forehead.]

  FRANKEL: I got to git some peace! I got to collect myself.