Ellis Parker Butler

“ Fenelby, gaily. “I tell you, Laura, that boy will soon have a lot of money if it keeps coming in at that rate. A quarter here, and a quarter there! It is amazing how it mounts up.”
“Yes,” she answered. “But shouldn’t you put in seventy-five cents, Tom? Cigars are a luxury, aren’t they? And you know you said luxuries were thirty per cent.”
Mr. Fenelby turned quickly.
“Nonsense!” he said. “Any man will tell you that cigars are an absolute necessity. Just as much so as food or drink or clothing. Every one knows that, Laura.” ”

“ Fenelby. “That is the very thing we want! An indirect tax, just as this nation pays its taxes, and the tariff is the very thing! It’s as simple as A B C. The nation charges a duty on everything that comes into the country; we will charge a duty on everything that comes into the house, and the money goes into Bobberts’ education fund. We won’t miss the money that way. That’s the beauty of an indirect tax: you don’t know you are paying it. ”

“ Fenelby looked moodily at the kitchen door.
“That is what it is,” said Billy decidedly. “The dictator has smashed your republic under her iron heel; your laws are all back numbers—if she wants any laws, she will let you know. I know the signs. When a Great One rises up in the midst of a Republic and puts her hands on her [Pg 274] hips and says ‘What are you going to do about it?’ and there isn’t anything to do about it, you have a dictator, and all that you can do is knuckle down and be good.” ”

“ Kitty declared. “I’m surprised at you, Laura Fenelby, I [Pg 219] am indeed. I’m surprised that you should let your husband dictate to you, and make you his slave with his tariffs and such things, but you like it. Very well, be his slave if you want to. But I can see one thing—Billy and I are not wanted in this house. You and your husband just want to be alone and enjoy your selfish house. The best thing Billy and I can do is to go. I can see very plainly now, Laura, that you got up that silly tariff just to drive us out of the house. ”

“ It is eighty cents a pound, isn’t it? But it is a luxury, isn’t it? That would be twenty-four cents!”
“Yes, twenty-four cents,” said Tom, smiling. “Twenty-four cents; but I don’t pay it. You pay it.”
[Pg 52] “I pay it!” cried Mrs. Fenelby. “The idea! I didn’t buy the candy. I didn’t even ask you to buy it, Tom, although I am very glad to have it, and you are a dear to bring it to me. But you are the one to pay for it. You bought it.”
“My dear,” said Mr. Fenelby, “whoever brings a thing into the house pays the duty on it. ”

“ Send her into the kitchen until we talk it over.”
Bridget went, willingly. She gathered an armful of dishes, and went into her throne-room, bearing her head high. She felt that she was master and she was.
“Now, this Commonwealth—” began Mr. Fenelby, when the kitchen door had closed, but Billy stopped him.
“Stop being foolish, Tom,” he said. [Pg 273] “What Commonwealth are you talking about? This is not a Commonwealth—this is an unlimited dictatorship, and Bridget is sole dictator! Wake up; don’t you know a coup d’état when you see one? Can’t you tell a usurper by sight?” ”

“ And that is just why I say we ought to have a domestic tariff. I don’t see how we can ever save enough to send Bobberts to college unless we have some system. We spend every cent of my twenty-five hundred dollars every year, and we could never in the world take two hundred and fifty dollars out of it at one time and put it in the bank for Bobberts, could we? We never have two hundred and fifty dollars at one time. And yet two hundred and fifty dollars is only ten per cent. ”

“ Fenelby, and had not met Kitty, as he preferred to sleep in the city, rather than in the hammock on the porch.
There is an admirable natural honesty in women that prevents them from claiming that their husbands are perfection. In some this is so abnormally developed that, to be on the safe side, I suppose, they will not allow that their husbands have any virtues whatever; in others the trace of this type of honesty is so slight that they will claim to every one, except their dearest friends, that their husbands are the best in the world. ”

“ Thomas Fenelby.” There had never been any duty paid on books since the Commonwealth of Bobberts had been established. For a moment Mr. Fenelby frowned angrily; then he smiled. He hid his set of Field in the other corner of the attic, and hurried down stairs.
He expected to find Billy there, for he had seen him start to run when he left the drug-store, but there was no Billy in sight, and Mr. Fenelby seated himself in the hammock and waited. He was ready to receive his returning family with an easy conscience. His box was well hidden. ”

“ Fenelby, with sudden joy, “you don’t have to pay on the gas bill this month! I wonder I hadn’t thought of it. That gas bill is for gas used before the tariff was adopted! And now that you know about it, you will expect to pay next month.”
“I shall warn Bridget again about using so much in the range,” said Laura. “We shall have to economize very carefully, Tom. I can see that. The tariff is going to make our living very expensive.” ”

“ Fenelby. “Think how late it is, Billy.”
“Mr. President and Ladies of Congress,” said Billy unrelentingly; “we are asked to repeal our tariff laws, our beneficent laws, enacted to send Bobberts to college. We stand in the presence of two cruel parents who would take away from their only Territory its sole chance—as we were informed—of securing an education. We are asked to do this merely because there has been some slight difficulty in [Pg 247] collecting the tariff tax. I am ashamed to be a State in a commonwealth that can put forward such an excuse. ”

“ There is no satisfaction in knowing a person is guilty, the satisfaction is in [Pg 175] making the person look guilty, and Kitty looked like an innocent child questioning the face of a tempter and seeing guilt there. He longed to ask her outright how she happened to have a pink shirt-waist, but he did not dare to, lest he put her at once on her guard. He felt a great desire to take her by the shoulders and shake her out of her calm superiority. It was very trying to him. No girl had a right to act as if she thought herself the superior of any man. ”

“ Billy Fenelby, after having been heroized by innumerable girls during his college years, had become definitely a man’s man, and was in the habit of saying that his girly-girl days were over, and that he would walk around a block any day to escape meeting a girl. ”

“ Fenelby, “and they pay ten per—”
“What a notion!” exclaimed Kitty. [Pg 106] “Collars are not a necessity. Collars are an actual luxury, especially in warm weather. Many very worthy men never wear a collar at all, and would not think of wearing one in hot weather. They are like jewelry or—or something of that sort. Collars certainly pay thirty per cent.”
“I reserve the right to appeal,” said Billy. “Those are the words of an unjust judge. But how much do I take off the value of the collar because two thirds of its life has been laundered away? How much is one third of twelve and a half?” ”

“ It is easy enough for them to say there must be a tariff, when they bring hardly anything into the house that they have to pay duty on, but we have to keep the house going. We have to have vegetables and meat and all sorts of things, and they are making us pay duty, while all they have to do is to eat and have a good time. Bobberts is our child, Tom, and it ought to be for us to say what we will save for him, and how we will save it. ”

“ Kitty stood back and looked at Laura as at some one possessed of evil spirits. Then she turned to the table and took up the potato knife and began slicing potatoes calmly.
“Very well, Laura,” she said. “I tried to do what I thought you would like, but if you want the tariff so badly I shall certainly not oppose you. Hereafter, no matter what happens, Billy and I will vote for the tariff!”
“And Tom and I certainly will,” said Laura between sobs. “We don’t care who the tariff bothers, or how much trouble it is. We are always, [Pg 263] always going to have a tariff—for ever and ever!” ”

“ Do you think they will make white places on the lawn, Mr. Fenelby?”
“I don’t know,” he said, abstractedly. “I mean, yes, of course they will. But they will get rained on. You don’t want your trunks rained on, you know. Trunks aren’t meant to be rained on. It isn’t good for them.” A thought came to him suddenly. “You and Laura haven’t quarreled, have you?” he asked, for he thought that perhaps that was why Kitty would not have her trunks carried up.
“Indeed not!” cried Kitty, putting her arm affectionately around Laura’s waist. ”

“ If he could understand he would be hurt and offended to think his parents were the kind that had to be compelled to give him an education, as if he were a reformatory child or a Home for something or other. Any tax is always unpopular, and that means it is annoying and vexatious; and what I am afraid of is that we will get to dislike Bobberts because we feel we are injuring him. I don’t mind the tariff, myself, but I do want to be fair and square with Bobberts. He’s the only child we have, Laura.”
“Oh, Tom!” exclaimed Mrs. Fenelby, taking her hands out of the dish water ”

“ You won’t either, will you, Kitty?”
“I should think not!” exclaimed Kitty. “Poor little Bobberts!”
Mr. Fenelby moved the papers on his desk nervously. He was tempted to say something about smuggling, but he controlled himself, for it would not do to antagonize one-half of congress. He felt that Kitty and Billy [Pg 248] had been planning some great feats of smuggling, and that they had no desire to have their fun spoiled by the repeal of the tariff. Probably no smugglers are free traders at heart—free trade would ruin their business. ”

“ It is worthless, and I wouldn’t give ten per cent. of nothing for it. It stays outside. So I pay nothing. I go in free. Unless I have to pay on myself.”
“You don’t have to,” said Kitty, “although I suppose Laura and Tom think you are a luxury.”
“Don’t you think I am one?” asked Billy.
“No, I don’t,” said Kitty frankly, “and when you know me better, you will not ask such a foolish question. Where ever I am, there a young man is a necessity.” ”

“ Fenelby. “The way Kitty and Billy are acting is not to be borne. They acted last night as if you and I were not capable of raising our own child! I [Pg 254] really cannot put another cent in that bank under the tariff law, Laura. Just think how it looks—we are not to be trusted to provide Bobberts with an education; we are not fit to decide how to raise the money for him. No, Kitty and Billy are to be his guardians. They don’t trust us; they insist that we shall keep ourselves bound by the tariff system. ”

“ It was necessary to bring Bobberts down from the nursery, and Mrs. Fenelby brought him in, limp and sleeping, and sat with him in her arms. Mr. Fenelby explained why the meeting was called.
“It is because Laura and I are tired of this tariff nonsense,” he explained. “You and Kitty have seen how it works—everybody in the house mad at one another—”
[Pg 244] “Not Billy and I,” interposed Kitty. “Are we Billy?”
“Let us, for the sake of argument, suppose we are,” said Billy. “We must give Tom a fair chance. It is his tariff, not ours.”
“Very well,” said Kitty; “we are all angry! Let us quarrel!” ”

“ Fenelby were busy in the kitchen, but after the dishes were washed, and the rooms set [Pg 161] to rights, and the beds made, and Bobberts given his bath, Kitty came out. It had been a long and tedious morning for Billy. There is nothing so helpless as a detective who can’t work at his business of detecting, and when the job is to detect a pretty girl, and she won’t show up, the waiting is rather tiresome. At one time Billy was almost tempted to go in and ask her to come out, and he would probably have gone in and snooped around a bit, if she had not appeared just then. ”

“ Into such a condition does a nation come when it suffers under a tax that is obnoxious, but which it cannot and will not repeal. When a nation gets into that condition one State can hardly ask another State to pass the butter, and when it does ask, its parliamentary courtesy is something frigidly polite. ”

“ I’d do anything to have that tariff unpassed again.”
Mr. Fenelby put his hand on her [Pg 239] arm, restraining her as she was about to rush from the kitchen.
“Wait, Laura!” he said. “You forget that you and I are not the only States now. Kitty and Billy are States, too. You and I would not form a quorum. We must have Kitty and Billy.”
“Tom,” she said, “I will get Kitty and Billy if I have to drag them in by main force!” and she went to find them. Ten minutes later she returned but without them. Mr. Fenelby had finished the dishes, and was hanging the dish-pan on its nail. ”

“ The normal wife first announces that her husband [Pg 61] is as near perfect as any man can be, and then proceeds to enumerate all his imperfections, bad humors, and annoying habits, under the impression, perhaps, that she is praising him. Mrs. Fenelby had been proceeding in somewhat this way in her conversation with Kitty, under the impression that she was showing Kitty how lovely and domestically perfect was her life, but Kitty gained from it only the impression that Mrs. Fenelby had become the slave of Mr. Fenelby and Bobberts. ”

“ It isn’t natural that a woman shouldn’t notice what another woman has on, is it? They are all keen on that sort of thing. I don’t say Laura is standing in with Kitty on this shirt-waist smuggling. I suppose it worries her terribly to see Kitty smuggling clothes in right under her nose, but how can Laura say anything about it? Kitty is her guest, isn’t she? You leave it to me!”
[Pg 138] Just then they reached the station and the train arrived and Mr. Fenelby jumped aboard, and as it pulled out Billy turned and walked back to the house. ”

“ Bobberts’ bank, and provide that baby with an education fund, but it was an injustice to bachelor uncles when there was an unmarried girl in the house. If this Kitty girl was willing to so forget what was due to a young man as to appear in one dress the whole time of her stay, that was her look-out, but for his part he did not intend to lower his dignity by going down to breakfast in a soiled collar. ”

“ He walked down the stairs boldly.
“And to think that his vanity should be the cause of robbing poor little Bobberts,” he heard a clear voice say as he neared the dining room door. “It is too mean! I can never look up to man with the faith I have always had in man, after this. But I know they were his foot-prints, Laura.”
“Are you so sure, Kitty?” asked Mrs. Fenelby. “Mightn’t they be—mightn’t they be Bridget’s?”
“They were not,” said the voice of Kitty, and Billy paused where he was [Pg 127] and stood still. “Bridget does not go about in the wet grass in her stocking feet. ”

“ He preferred to stand pat on the tariff as it had been originally adopted.
“I told her,” said Kitty, “that she had no right to throw off the duty on my trunks, at all, and that I wouldn’t have it, and I didn’t.”
[Pg 76] “Well, Tom,” said Mrs. Fenelby, “you know perfectly well that we can’t leave those trunks out on the lawn. It would not only be absolutely foolish to do that, but cruel to Kitty. A girl simply can’t visit away from home without trunks, and it is absolutely necessary that Kitty should have her trunks.”
“‘Necessities, ten per cent.,’” quoted Kitty. ”

“ There had been nothing said, when Bridget had been engaged, about a domestic tariff. Paying one is not usually considered a part of a general house-worker’s duties, and Mrs. Fenelby felt that it would be poor policy to break this news to Bridget too abruptly. She used diplomacy.
“Bridget,” she said, kindly, “we are very well satisfied with the way you do your work. We like you very well indeed.”
“Thank ye, ma’am,” answered Bridget, [Pg 143] “and I’m glad to hear ye say it, though it makes little odds t’ me. ”

“ There was one thing he had to do. He had to see Tom before Mrs. Fenelby could see him, and explain about [Pg 191] that box of cigars. If Tom was to be held responsible for the duty on it Tom should at least know that a box of cigars had been brought into the house. It was absolutely necessary for Billy to see Tom, and explain a few things.
“We have none of us been out enough to-day,” said Mrs. Fenelby. “It will do us all good to walk down to the station, and we will take Bobberts.” ”