Emma McChesney Co | Page 5

what they've been wearing? Petticoats made in England! You know what that means. An English woman chooses a petticoat like she does a husband--for life. It isn't only a garment. It's a shelter. It's built like a tent. If once I can introduce the T. A. Buck Featherloom petticoat and knickerbocker into sunny South America, they'll use those English and German petticoats for linoleum floor-coverings. Heaven knows they'll fit the floor better than the human form!"
But Buck was unsmiling. The muscles of his jaw were tense.
"I won't let you go. Understand that! I won't allow it!"
"Tut, tut, T. A.! What is this? Cave-man stuff?"
"Emma, I tell you it's dangerous. It isn't worth the risk, no matter what it brings us."
Emma McChesney struck an attitude, hand on heart. " `Heaven will protect the working girrul,' " she sang.
Buck grabbed his hat.
"I'm going to wire Jock."
"All right! That'll save me fifty cents. Do you know what he'll wire back? `Go to it. Get the tango on its native tairn'--or words to that effect."
"Emma, use a little logic and common sense!"
There was a note in Buck's voice that brought a quick response from Mrs. McChesney. She dropped her little air of gayety. The pain in his voice, and the hurt in his eyes, and the pleading in his whole attitude banished the smile from her face. It had not been much of a smile, anyway. T. A. knew her genuine smiles well enough to recognize a counterfeit at sight. And Emma McChesney knew that he knew. She came over and laid a hand lightly on his arm.
"T. A., I don't know anything about logic. It is a hot-house plant. But common sense is a field flower, and I've gathered whole bunches of it in my years of business experience. I'm not going down to South America for a lark. I'm going because the time is ripe to go. I'm going because the future of our business needs it. I'm going because it's a job to be handled by the most experienced salesman on our staff. And I'm just that. I say it because it's true. Your father, T. A., used to see things straighter and farther than any business man I ever knew. Since his death made me a partner in this firm, I find myself, when I'm troubled or puzzled, trying to see a situation as he'd see it if he were alive. It's like having an expert stand back of you in a game of cards, showing you the next move. That's the way I'm playing this hand. And I think we're going to take most of the tricks away from Fat Ed Meyers."
T. A. Buck's eyes traveled from Emma McChesney's earnest, glowing face to the hand that rested on his arm. He reached over and gently covered that hand with his own.
"I suppose you must be right, little woman. You always are. Dad was the founder of this business. It was the pride of his life. That word `founder' has two meanings. I never want to be responsible for its second meaning in connection with this concern."
"You never will be, T. A."
"Not with you at the helm." He smiled rather sadly. "I'm a good, ordinary, common seaman. But you've got imagination, and foresight, and nerve, and daring, and that's the stuff that admirals are made of."
"Bless you, T. A.! I knew you'd see the thing as I do after the first shock was over. It has always been nip and tuck between the Sans-Silk Company and us. You gave me the hint that showed me their plans. Now help me follow it up."
Buck picked up his hat, squared his shoulders and fumbled with his gloves like a bashful schoolboy.
"You--you couldn't kill two birds with one stone on this trip, could you, Mrs. Mack?"
Mrs. McChesney, back at her desk again, threw him an inquiring glance over her shoulder.
"You might make it a combination honeymoon and Featherloom expedition."
"T. A. Buck!" exclaimed Emma McChesney. Then, as Buck dodged for the door: "Just for that, I'm going to break this to you. You know that I intended to handle the Middle Western territory for one trip, or until we could get a man to take Fat Ed Meyers' place."
"Well?" said Buck apprehensively.
"I leave in three days. Goodness knows how long I'll be gone! A business deal down there is a ceremony. And--you won't need any white-flannel clothes in Rock Island, Illinois."
Buck, aghast, faced her from the doorway.
"You mean, I----"
"Just that," smiled Emma McChesney pleasantly. And pressed the button that summoned the stenographer.
In the next forty-eight hours, Mrs. McChesney performed a series of mental and physical calisthenics that would have landed an ordinary woman in a sanatorium. She cleaned up with the thoroughness and dispatch of a housewife who, before going to the seashore, forgets