The Best Short Stories of 1917 | Page 8

vied with other old
ladies in automobile bonnets, who, with opera glasses, searched out the
meaning of every passing buoy. Young girls carrying "mesh-bags," that
subtle connotation of the feminine character, extracted tooth-picks from
them or searched for bits of chewing gum among their over scented
treasures.
As it was an excursion, the Fall of Rome carried a band and booths
laden with many delicious superfluities such as pop-corn and the
misleading compound known as "salt-water taffy." There were, besides,
the blue and red pennants that always go on excursions, and the yellow
and pink fly-flappers that always come home from them; also there
were stacks of whistle-whips and slender canes with ivory heads with
little holes pierced through. These canes were bought only by cynical
young men whose new straw hats were fastened to their persons by thin
black strings. Each young man, after purchasing an ivory-headed cane
retired to privacy to squint through it undisturbed. Emerging from this
privacy the young man would then confer with other young men. What
these joyless young men saw when they squinted they never revealed.
But among their elders they spread the strong impression that it was the
Capital at Washington or Bunker Hill Monument.
Besides bottled soda and all soft drinks the Fall of Rome carried other
stimuli in the shape of comic gentlemen--such beings, as, more or less
depressed in their own proper environment, on excursions suddenly see

themselves in their true light, irresistibly facetious. These funny
gentlemen, mostly husbands, seated themselves near to large groups of
indulgent women and kept up an exquisite banter directed at each
other's personal defects, or upon the idiosyncrasies of any bachelor or
spinster near. These funny gentlemen kept alluding to the excursion as
the "Exertion." If the boat rolled a little they said, "Now, Mother, don't
rock the boat."
"Here, girls, sit up close, we'll all go down together."
"Hold on to yer beau, Minnie. He'll fall overboard and where'll you git
another?"
The peals of laughter at these sallies were unfailing. The crunch of
peanuts was unfailing. The band, with a sort of plethoric indulgence,
played slow waltzes in which the bass instruments frequently
misapplied notes, but to the allure of which came youthful dancers
lovely in proud awkward poses.
Mrs. Tuttle meanwhile was the social center, demonstrating that
mysterious psychic force known as being the "life of the party." She
advanced upon a tall sallow woman in mourning, challenging, "Now
Mis' Mealer, why don't you just set and take a little comfort, it won't
cost you nothing? Ain't that your girl over there by the coffee fountain?
I should ha' known her by the reesemblance to you; she's rill refined
lookin'."
Mrs. Mealer, a tall, sallow widow with carefully maintained mourning
visage, admitted that this was so. Refinement, she averred, was in the
family, but she hinted at some obscure ailment which, while it made
Emma refined, kept her "mizzable."
"I brought her along," sighed Mrs. Mealer, "tain't as if neither of us
could take much pleasure into it, both of us being so deep in black fer
her Popper, but the styles is bound to do her good. Emma is such a
great hand for style."
"Yuess?" replied Mrs. Tuttle blandly. This lady in blue was not nearly

so interested in Emma as in keeping a circle of admirers hanging
around her cerulean presence, but even slightly encouraged, Mrs.
Mealer warmed to her topic.
"Style?" she repeated impressively, "style? Seems like Emma couldn't
never have enough of it. Where she got it I don't know. I wasn't never
much for dress, and give her Popper coat and pants, twuz all he wanted.
But Emma--ef you want to make her happy tie a bow onto suthin'."
Mrs. Tuttle nodded with ostentatious understanding. Rising, she seized
Romeo's cage and placed it more conspicuously near her. She was
critically watched by the older women. They viewed the thing with
mingled feelings, one or two going so far as to murmur darkly, "Her
and her parrot!"
Still, the lady's elegance and the known fact that she owned and
operated her own automobile cast a spell over most of her observers,
and many faces, as Mrs. Tuttle proceeded to draw out her pet, were
screwed into watchful and ingratiating benevolence.
Romeo, a blasé bird with the air of having bitter memories, affected for
a long time not to hear his mistress's blandishments. After looking
contemptuously into his seed-cup, he crept slowly around the sides of
his cage, fixing a cynical eye upon all observers.
"How goes it, Romeo?" appealed Mrs. Tuttle. Making sounds supposed
to be appreciated by birds, the lady put her feathered head down,
suggesting, "Ah there, Romeo?"
"Rubberneck," returned Romeo sullenly. To show general scorn, the
bird revolved on one claw round and round