Believe You Me! Part 3

One thing I will say for that school, though--they was not such a ill-informed lot as the Automobile Service. From the very minute I set foot inside the place they knew who I was, and the manager give me the pick of half a dozen young fellows who was just filled with patriotic longing to help me qualify for the service.

After giving them the once over I finally decided on one lean-looking bird, who seemed married, and quiet, and likely to teach me something about the insides of an auto, instead of asking me questions about the steps of the Teatime Tango Trot, and did I feel the same in my make-up?

Well, the first thing this bird asks me is do I know anything about a car? And I says, know what? And he says, well, can I name the parts of a car? And I says, yes; and he says for me to name them. So I says color, lining, flower holder, clock, speaking tube and chauffeur.

Well, the bird says so far correct; but that wasn't enough, and he guessed we better begin at the more fundamental parts and would I just step inside?

Well, it seems this auto school undertakes to teach you everything about a car from the paint on the body to the appendix, or magneto, as it is called, in twenty lessons; which is like trying to teach the Teatime Tango Trot, with three hand-springs and twenty whirls round your partner's neck, by mail for five dollars. Which is to say it can't be done.

First off, the instructor hands you a bunch of yellow papers with a lot of typewriting on them--twenty sheets in all, or one per lesson, and all you got to do is learn them good and then put into practice what you learn; and after that what you can't do to a car would fill a book!

Well, after you grab this sheaf of stage bank notes you look at number one and follow the bird that's teaching you round the room while he reels it off. I guess the idea of you holding the paper is to check him up if he makes a mistake. Anyways, this bird let me in among a flock of busted-looking pieces of machinery and begun talking fast. At first, I didn't get him at all; but when I got sort of used to it I realized he was saying something like this:

"The crank shaft is a steel drop-forging having arms extending from center of shaft according to number of cylinders. It is used to change the reciprocating movement of the piston into a rotary motion of the flywheel; it has a starting handle at one end and the flywheel at the other, as you observe. We will now pa.s.s on to the exhaust manifold, which is generally constructed of cast iron; it conducts the burned gases from the exhaust valve . . ."

"Hold on!" I says. "Exhaust is right! I'm exhausted this minute. If you don't mind I'd like to sit down and talk sense, instead of listening to a phonograph monologue in a foreign language."

The instructor bird seemed sort of winded by this; but he got a couple of chairs and pretty soon we was sitting in a quiet corner talking like we'd both been on the same circuit for five years.

"Now listen here, brother," I says real earnest; "I want to learn this stuff, and learn it right! And I want you to stick by me and see me through, same as you would any male man that come in here to learn to be a chauffeur. Now take it easy and make me get it, and I'll play square and do my best to understand, without no nonsense."

"Say, you bet I will, Miss La Tour!" says this bird, who, married or not, had some spirit in him yet. "You bet I will! You see, a lot of dames come in here just because they ain't got nothing else to do. And you yourself must realize that a guy can only go through the motions when that's all they want."

Well, I could see that plain enough, and from then on we got along like a new team of partners with equal money in the act and going big on thirty straight weeks' booking. And--believe you me--there is a awful lot of interesting things about a auto; only you would never suspect it until you start to look at what is under the hood and body. As to understanding them all, you couldn't get it all off of no twenty sheets of yellow paper, nor twenty hundred, either! It's a career, really understanding a machine is; just the same as being a expert dancer. The guy that invented all them parts and got them working together certainly must of set up nights doing it.

Well, anyways, after two hours of lapping up this dope I got so's I could actually tell the cam shaft from the crank shaft and the difference between a cycle and a cylinder, which was enough for one day.

And then I rode home to Ma.

Actually I had almost forgot to be miserable about Jim for two whole hours! But when I got home, and he hadn't phoned to apologize yet, it all came back over me, and I simply felt that, automobiles and enlistments or no, I wanted to die--just die! I cried so bad that even Ma couldn't make me mind, and I was so tired I couldn't even taste the hot cakes she had fixed. I do believe Ma would think of cooking something tasty if the world was coming to a end the next minute. She'd be afraid the recording angel would need a sandwich and a cup of hot coffee to keep him going while he was on the job.

But, anyways, they couldn't do nothing to me, or get me to go to the Ritz or the theater much less the midnight show; but the last did not matter, because I was wore out and asleep long before. And so Ma had to telephone that Miss La Tour was suddenly ill and unable to appear. I made her swear not to phone Jim nor let him in nor Roscoe, the publicity man, if they was to come--not on no account. And so I slept--poor child!--worn by the tossing of the cruel ocean of life--do you get me?

Well, next morning I was up long before Musette, and would of been obliged to dress unaided, only for Ma never having got used to sleeping late, partly on account of her always taking a nap just after the matinee performance when with the circus, and still continuing the habit. So Ma give me my coffee and a big kiss, and promised not to tell Jim nothing if he telephoned and I set off to be at the hospital at nine A. M., according to orders from Miss Lieutenant.

Well, there has always been something about a hospital I didn't care for much; not that I have went to many--only the night Jim got bit by the alligator; and once, when me and Jim was first engaged, he had a dog which we had to take to the dog hospital. But--believe you me--this St.

Timothy's Hospital, was quite different from the dog hospital. It was a whole lot more like a swell hotel, with porters and bell boys and clerks and elevators, and everything except a cafe, as far as I could make out; and I'm not sure about that, but I don't suppose they had it.

I was so scared of being late that I was a little early and had to wait in a office. Pretty soon two or three other rookies come in; and, being ladies, of course we didn't dare to speak to each other at first. And then the ladies of the Automobile Service commenced coming in, wearing their uniforms. And were they a fine-looking lot? They were! I sure did wish I had a right to that costume; and I had a feeling that my heart wouldn't hurt near so bad, even when thinking of Jim, once it was beating under that snappy-looking uniform coat in Uncle Sam's service--do you get me?

Well, about this time we were let go upstairs in one of them regular hotel elevators, the rookies still scared, the regular members in good standing talking among theirselves, though several spoke to me nice and friendly; in particular, the little frowzy one which had been reading the book the day before in the office, but wasn't at all sloppy in her uniform.

Believe you me, I had a awful funny feeling in the middle of my stomach going up in that elevator, and not for the same reason as the Metropolitan Tower or any of them tall buildings, either. It was because of not knowing what was ahead of me and preparing for the worst. After I'd seen the kind of stuff them lady soldiers had to learn in the auto shop, it seemed like about anything might be expected of them in a mere hospital. So I got myself all braced up so's if I had to cut off a leg, or extract a tooth or anything, I'd be able to go to it and not bat an eye-lash--not outwardly, anyway.

But things is seldom as bad as you figure in advance--not even first-night performances. And the stuff which was actually put up to us was simple as a ordinary one-step. At least, it looked so from a distance. By distance I mean this: When the nursing instructor--a lady in a white dress, with the darndest-looking little soubrette cap stuck 'way on the back of her head--when she stood up in front of the lot of us and put a Velpeau bandage--which is French for sling, I guess, and looks it--on one of the lady soldiers who was acting as mannequin, why, it looked easy.

While she was putting it on she handed us a line of talk something like that bird at the auto school, only not so fluent. And when she got through it was up to the rest of us to put the Velpeau bandages on each other. Gawd knows it was no cinch.

First, I set down, and a girl in uniform asked could she wrap me up.

Well, it just naturally rumpled my Georgette blouse; but what's a blouse to a patriot? I let her go to it, and she done it so good and so quick that it was all over before I knew it, as the dentist says; and then it was up to me. Somebody give me a nice new roll of bandage and told me to get a model.

Well, I didn't have the nerve to ask any one, me being so new and the name Marie La Tour not meaning anything to n.o.body here. And so here was me standing round like a fool, not knowing how to commence, when up comes that lady--her which had been so sloppy reading a book in the office.

"Can't I be your model?" she offered, and--believe you me--I could of almost cried, I was so glad to have somebody take notice of me.

I liked that dame more each time I seen her; she sure was refined. Even her sloppiness was refined--do you get me?

Well, as to real work, that sheaf of yellow papers up to the auto school had nothing on the bandaging game when it come to understanding it properly. Believe you me, that bandage had a will of its own, and the only way to make it mind would of been to step on it and kill it. But after a little I managed to tie up the lady pretty good, and before I was done I had my mind made up that Musette had lost her regular job and was going to be a bandage mannequin from that P. M. on until I got the hang of the thing.

Well, when the scramble of putting on the bandage was over and past, we was told that after we got on to the theory we'd be sent down to the Charity Ward for two solid weeks and practice what we'd learned.

Well, I thought, if I ever get there Gawd help the charity patients! I guess the two weeks won't qualify me for the Auto Service. More likely I'll be ready for the Battalion of Death, or whatever they call them Russian women!

Well, when the bandages was all gathered up we was dismissed, as they call it, and told to report for drill in a certain place in the park, it being a fine day.

I must say I didn't think a whole lot of the hospital end of the game, because it wasn't pleasant. Of course I had no intention to quit in any way, but it sort of depressed me, what with all that sickness going on round me and the talk about wounds and bandages. And so my mind wasn't took off Jim, like it was by the auto work, me having a heart which needed a little bandaging--only that can't be done, of course.

IV

WELL, on the way home I cried some more. And well I might. For when I got there had Jim phoned? He had not! n.o.body but Goldringer, the manager, and Roscoe, the publicity man, and a few unimportant nuts like that, and some of the newspapers. Ma had stalled them off pretty good by saying it was impossible to disturb me.

And it seems these people hadn't been able to locate Jim anywheres, either. At first that sounded sort of funny to me; but when I come to think it over I realized about his nose, where the alligator had bit him and the doctor had put on the brown stuff, from which he wouldn't naturally care to be seen--only no one could say that it would prevent him using the phone, which I also realized.

Well, after I eat a little liver and bacon, and so on, which Ma had fixed for me, and cried some, which made me feel better again, I started out for drill; which means that now comes the real important part of what happened and the true measure of the tale, as the poet says.

Well, it seems we rookies--and I must pause to mention that I don't like that word rookies; it sounds like something that would get the hook amateur nights. Well, as I was saying, we rookies was told to report at three o'clock for a private drill, all of our very own. But I was on to the fact that the regular members in good standing would be there ahead of us to do well what we was about to do badly. So I thought I would go early and sit out in front, or whatever was the same thing, and try and get a line on how it was done.

Believe you me, there ain't many steps I can't get by seeing them done once; and if I was to of gone up to the Palace and watch Castle, or Rock and White, or any one of them, when I come away I could do the steps they pulled as good as if I had invented them!

Well, this was my idea in going up and seeing the ladies drill. So there I was at the park bright and early on a fine sunny afternoon, with the ladies all in uniform. But I wasn't in any too much time, for I'd no sooner got there than a big roughneck of a feller--a regular U. S. drill sergeant, I found out after--come up and yelled: "Fall in!" Just as rude as any stage director I ever seen! But the ladies didn't seem to mind a bit. They didn't fall into nothing though; they just hustled into line and stood there.

"Ten-shun!" says the feller. And they all stood like a chorus when the stage manager is telling them he is going to quit the show if they don't learn no better, and they're a bunch of fatheads, and he's going to get them fired. In other words, they stood perfectly still.

Well, after that it was something grand, what those ladies did. I will say that when I come down to the park that afternoon I thought maybe I'd see some pretty fair chorus work; you know--formations, and etc. But this was no chorus work, it was soldiering. I never seen anything neater in my life. Was it snappy? It was! And when I thought how that bunch of ladies knew all about autos from soup to nuts, and about bandages, and etc., believe you me--that drill was the finis.h.i.+ng touch.

For once in my life, I was anxious to be in the chorus, even in the back line. But not forever--not much! Believe you me, I made up my mind that, once I was really in it, I was going to work for a speaking part like I never worked before. And meantime I started in that direction by trying to figure out just what the ladies did when the stage manager--I mean, officer--hollered at them. And--believe you me--I had the turn-on-the-heel and push-off-with-the-toe idea on that right-and-left face stuff long before the regular members in good standing was dismissed and we lady rookies was called.

Well, the same roughneck which had drilled the others had us simps wished on to him; and the first thing he done was to get us in a row --you couldn't properly call it a line--and then stand out in front and look at us sort of hopeless and discouraged, like a good director which has just finished with a bunch of old-timers and is starting with green material for the back row. Then he commenced talking.

Well, while this bird was getting off a line of talk about us now being soldiers of the U. S. A. and that being no joke to him or us, and etc., and etc., but no instructions in it, I let my mind wander just a little, on account of me having enlisted for deeper reasons than any he mentioned and him quite incapable of strengthening them.

And while my mind wandered this little bit, and I was thinking how funny it felt to be back in the chorus--do you get me?--I happened to take a look at the houses facing the park. And--believe you me--I got a jolt, for there we was standing right opposite Ruby Rosalie's house!

Well, I was that astonished to realize it you could of knocked me over with a sudden noise! Up to then I had been so interested in the other ladies and what they was doing I hadn't even noticed it.

And then, before I could really commence to think what a awful thing it would be if Ruby was to look out of the window and see me standing there, and think I was just in some chorus, and maybe that nasty Von Hoffman with her, and the both of them laughing their fool heads off, the officer says "Ten-shun!" he says. And, of course, I tenshuned, because of me being anxious to get everything he said when it come to instruction, and get it right.

Well, he told us a lot of dope on one thing at a time after he had got us in line, with the tallest at the right hand, which was me. And he told us very simple and then made us do it; and no camouflage, because--believe you me--he could spot any lady which done it wrong quick as a flash.