Bethel Merriday

'I certainly do not! That's what you could call a real Mission, and not kid yourself either--thousands of households getting better coffee--'

'And quicker!'

'--yes, and quicker, every morning! And you got no idea what sales resistance there is, these days. It takes guts and scientific training to make folks change their brand of percolator. It's a real man-sized job--not like painting your face and putting on a lot of fancy clothes and pee-rading around in front of a lot of women.'

'I see your idea.'

'Yes, and you'll adopt it, too, when you grow up and realize your responsibilities. Now, Bet, I'm no poet or no actor, but I guess you know I've always stuck to you like a limpet.'

'What's a limpet?'

'Huh? Oh, you know. It's just a kind of expression. And as I say, you're never going to find any of these pretty boys that'll be devoted to you, and forgive all your wild ideas, the way I do. I watched 'em to-night! Bunch of acrobats!'

'Charley Hatch! You look at those two men at that table! Andy Deacon, the big fellow, and Fletcher Hewitt--the Yankee--he's our stage manager. Either one of 'em could lick his weight in Joe Louises. Either one of 'em could build a set out of cardboard, and tour it carrying the set on his shoulders, and play with a fever in his bones. I suppose they're pretty boys! I suppose they're acrobats!'

'I didn't mean to get you sore. I just mean--'

'And what did you just-mean, may I ask!'

'Ah, don't get sore! I just mean things are going fine with me. I'll be making fifty, in less than two years, if you could wait. We could get a dandy little three-room flat, looking right out on the high-school grounds. And a convertible coop with a top that it goes up automatically when you push a button. You've seen 'em? They're dandy.' Wistfully: 'We could have an awfully nice time, driving around to Waterbury and Hartford and every place, on Sunday, and take a picnic lunch along--I'd get a thermos jug. We'd laugh a lot together. I don't laugh so much, now you're gone, Bet.'

'Oh, I'm sorry, but--Oh no, no, no!'

'Not good enough for you, eh? I hear that Deacon fellow has all kinds of dough. I suppose a fellow has to have a Park Avenue apartment and a chauffeur to interest you in him!'

'You see here! I expect to have a hall bedroom, myself, in New York--'

'So you are going there!'

'I certainly am . . . now! I expect to walk my feet off looking for a job at minimum. I expect to model or wait on table while I'm waiting for it. I'm going to act. You've made me see that, no matter if it makes me feel wicked and ungrateful and selfish, no matter even if I fail, I'm going to act. I know now!'

'Well, it's kind of too bad. You and I might've had a good time. Of course you aren't pretty, like Annie McLaut--remember her?'

'In school? Lots of teeth?'

'She's got the finest set of teeth in Sladesbury, let me tell you that! And she doesn't want to go helling around New York and Hollywood. She'd be glad to stay home and keep house. She thinks it's important to increase a sales quota. I think I'll see a lot of her. I don't guess you'll be sore, will you?'

'I certainly won't!'

'Then I guess she and I'll be married in the fall.'

'Oh, that's splendid; that's perfectly splendid.'

She tried to make it enthusiastic, but she had dropped ten thousand feet and landed on rock. She had discovered that she was much worse than wicked; she was dispensable. As Charley babbled about the wonders of Miss McLaut, apparently rather relieved at his freedom to enter a new slavery, Bethel was a very little girl whose family had forgotten to call her for Christmas dinner. It was all of five minutes before she could get up a self-respecting bad temper again.

'You say this Andrew Deacon is quite a husky guy,' said Charley.

'Oh yes. He got his football letter at Yale, and he was Skull and Bones, too, and Phi Beta Kappa.'

'And rich? Don't some guys have all the luck! I don't think he's good-looking like these fellows in the moom [sic] pictures, though.'

'Oh course not, thank heaven!'

'He ever make a pass at you?'

'Don't be absurd! Mr. Deacon doesn't know I exist, except as the dark-eyed kid among the apprentices. He isn't sure whether my name is Bethel or Elizabeth--or Mehitabel.

'But your name isn't anything like Mehitabel.'

'No--no--is isn't.'

'Well, I guess it's all to the good he don't care for you.'

'But he does!'

'But I thought you said--'

'Oh, never mind what I said!'

'Gosh, Bet, this play-acting life is certainly getting you hysterical. Well, never mind. I hear this Deacon fellow's mother lives in a regular high-toned castle, in Newport. He's out of our class entirely.'

'Ours? Charley, I never realized it: you're perfectly content to go on living on a side street in a side-street town!'

'Aren't you?'

'I've never thought much about it. But I guess there's no position in the world that I won't demand--if I can earn it.'

'You're going to let yourself in for a lot of trouble.'

'I hope so!' She was exuberant. 'Yes. I hope so.'

Andy and Fletcher Hewitt were leaving; Fletcher stopped by their table and spoke to Charley:

'I envy you for being an old friend of Bethel. We're very proud of her. I don't believe she knows it herself--she'll probably scratch me for calling her a good Puritanical influence--but I assure you, Mr. Hatch, she's the kind that keeps us all working harder and drinking less and going to bed earlier.'

Charley--her Charley, who so recently had been nothing but the scrubby little boy next door--answered condescendingly: 'Glad to hear that. Guess it's pretty hard to go straight and take care of your health when you associate with a lot of crazy actors that stay up all night.'

'You make me sick!' said Bethel.

But Fletcher answered Charley with gravity: 'Yes, it is. The stage is a good dream, but I long for a little reality sometimes. Good night.'

'Any time you're in Sladesbury, just drop in and see me--the Flamolio sales offices,' said Charley.

'Oh, thank you, that's very kind of you,' said Fletcher.

And what made Bethel glad to see the last of Charley, to feel free when he had gone, was his patronizing summary afterward:

'Well now, that's not such a bad guy, that Mr. Fletcher. I wouldn't hardly think he was connected with the stage. He looks like a regular guy.'

'Yes--yes dear--I think he might be a regular guy. Will you forgive me, Charley? I'm so sleepy.'

Only she felt that it was her youth, and everything she had loved and trusted, that was driving away that night with Charley Hatch.

Iris had not come in yet, at one in the morning--as Iris was likely not to come in, these days, now that the auriferous Pete Chew was fascinated by her. Bethel sat brooding:

'I would go home and stay--oh, not a year, but for months and months. But they wouldn't like it. They wouldn't like it any better than Charley did, when they find out how restless I really am.

'So I'm "out of Andy's class!" Not good enough for him. I'm slightly crazy about you, Mr. Deacon. I like your funny, bristly hair. I like your solid jaw. I would very much like to pat it--except that you would probably sock me. I think your voice is like a whole flock of organs all playing Bach suites. I like your childish grin. But a Merriday of Merriday Grange is as good as any powder-making Deacon and any Mrs. J. Goddard Deacon and your Aunt Victoria Cabot Lodge Sedgwick Lowell Brewster Deacon, if there is one. I come from a very fine family, Mr. Deacon, and my mother's brother is the best accordion player in the state of New Hampshire.

'Anyway, I'm not one of these brats that want to go on the stage just to escape from a beastly home, as Toni does, as Pete Chew does . . . as maybe Andy does. Dear Andy.