Butler Ellis Parker
The Cheerful Smugglers

X
TARIFF REFORM

If a man really likes to wipe dishes, while his wife washes them, there is no better time for friendly confidences, and for the arrangement of difficulties. Diplomatists win their greatest battles for peace at the dinner-table, because the dinner-table gives abundant opportunity for the “interruption politic.” When the argument reaches the fatal climax, and the final ultimatum is delivered, a boiled potato may still avert war: “Now, me lud, I ask you finally, will your government, or won’t it? That is the question,” and from the opposing diplomat come the words, “Beg pardon, your ludship, but will you kindly pass me the salt? Thanks! Don’t you think the butter is a little strong?” and war is averted. Postponed, at least.

Just so over the dish-wiping; the hard and fast logic of who’s right and who’s wrong is interrupted and turned aside by timely ejaculations of: “Oh, I did wipe that cup!” or interpolated questions, as: “Have you washed this plate yet, my dear?” A wise man who finds himself cornered can always drop one of the blown-glass tumblers on the floor – they only cost five cents – or ask, innocently: “Did I crack this plate, or was it already cracked?” By a judicious use of these little wreckers of consecutive speech Mr. and Mrs. Fenelby, over the dishes, reached a perfect understanding and forgot their quarrel. Mr. Fenelby said she was perfectly right in hiding the set of Eugene Field in the attic, since it was intended as a surprise for him on the anniversary of their wedding, and the payment of the tariff duty on it would have divulged the secret; and Mrs. Fenelby agreed that he was doing exactly the right thing when he did the same, and for the same reason; but they both agreed that Kitty and Billy had acted rather shamelessly in the matter of smuggling.

“I know Billy,” said Mr. Fenelby, “and I know him well. I won’t say anything about Kitty, for she is your guest, but Billy would smuggle anything he could lay his hands on. He is a lawyer, and a young one, and all you have to do is to show a young lawyer a law, and he immediately begins to look for ways to get around it. I don’t say this to excuse him. I just say it.”

“Well, you know how women are,” said Mrs. Fenelby. “As sure as you get two or three women who have been abroad into a group they will begin telling how and what they were able to smuggle in when they came through the custom house. Some of them enjoy the smuggling part better than all the rest of their trips abroad, so what could you expect of Kitty when she had a perpetual custom house to smuggle things through? She looks on it as a sort of game, and the one that smuggles the most is the winner. I don’t say this to excuse her. But it is so.”

“I am not the least sorry that Billy is offended, if he is,” said Mr. Fenelby, between plates; “but if you wish I will apologize to Kitty, although I don’t see why I should. The thing I am worrying about is Bobberts. I like this tariff plan, and I think it is a good way to raise money – if anyone ever pays the tariff duties – but I don’t feel as if I was treating Bobberts right. Every time I put money in his bank in payment of the tariff duty on a thing I have brought into the house I feel that I am doing Bobberts a wrong. And the more I put in the more guilty I feel.”

“Of course it is all for his education fund,” said Mrs. Fenelby.

“I know it,” said Mr. Fenelby, “and that is what makes me feel so small and miserable when I pay my ten or thirty per cent. duty. Bobberts is my only son, and the dearest and sweetest baby that ever lived, and I ought to be glad to give money for his education fund voluntarily and freely; and yet we treat him as if we hated him and had to be forced to give him a few cents a day. We act as if he was nothing but a government treasury deficit, and instead of giving joyously and gladly because we love him, we act as if we had to have laws made to force us to give. I feel it more every time I have to pay tariff duty into his bank. I tell you, Laura, it isn’t treating Bobberts in the right spirit. 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; “do you think we have gone too far to make it all right again? Do you think we have hurt our love for him, or weakened it, or – or anything? If I thought so I should never, never forgive myself!”

“I hope we haven’t,” said Mr. Fenelby, seriously; “but we must not take any more chances. If this thing goes on we will become quite hardened toward Bobberts, and cease to love him altogether.”

“We will stop this tariff right this very minute!” cried Mrs. Fenelby joyously. “I am so glad, Tom. I just hated the old thing!”

Mr. Fenelby shook his head slowly and Mrs. Fenelby’s face lost its radiance and became questioningly fear-struck.

“What is it?” she asked, anxiously. “Can’t we stop? Must we keep on with it forever and forever?”

“You forget the Congress of the Commonwealth of Bobberts,” said Mr. Fenelby. “The tariff law was passed by the congress, and it can only be repealed by the congress, with Bobberts present.”

Mrs. Fenelby wiped her hands hurriedly and rapidly untied her apron.

“I hate to waken Bobberts,” she said, “but I will! I’d do anything to have that tariff unpassed again.”

Mr. Fenelby put his hand on her 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 two needed States were nowhere to be found, neither in the house, nor on the porch, nor were they on the grounds. There was nothing to do but to await their return. It was quite late when Kitty and Billy returned, and the Fenelbys had grown tired of sitting on the porch and had gone inside, but Kitty and Billy did not seem to mind the dampness or the chill for the moon was beautiful, and they seated themselves in the hammock. Bobberts had been put to bed, and his parents had become almost merry with their old-time merriment as they contemplated the speedy over-throw of the Fenelby Domestic Tariff. The joy that comes from a tax repealed is greater than the peace that comes from paying a tax honestly. There is no fun in paying taxes. Not the least.

“I think, Laura,” said Mr. Fenelby, when he and his wife had listened to the slow creaking of the hammock hooks for some minutes, “you had better go out and tell them to come in.”

Mrs. Fenelby went. She let the porch screen slam as she went out – which was only fair – and she heard the low whispers change to louder tones, and a slight movement of feet; but she was not, evidently, intruding, for Kitty and Billy were quite primly disposed in the hammock when she reached them.

“Hello!” she said pleasantly, “Won’t you come in? We are going to vote on the tariff.”

“Go ahead and vote,” said Billy cheerfully. “We won’t interfere.”

“But we can’t vote until you come in,” explained Mrs. Fenelby. “We haven’t a quorum until you come in. You are States, and we can’t do anything until you come in.”

“Did you try?” asked Billy, just as cheerfully as before. “We don’t want to vote. We are comfortable out here. If we must vote, bring your congress out here.”

“Billy, I would if I could,” said Mrs. Fenelby,“but I can’t! Bobberts has to be present, and he can’t be brought out into the night air.”

Kitty half rose from the hammock. She felt to see that her hair was in order.

“Come on, Billy,” she said. “Be accommodating,” and they went in.

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 – ”

“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!”

“Seriously, now,” said Mr. Fenelby, very seriously indeed, “this has got to stop! You and Kitty may think it is all a joke, but Laura and I went into this thing before you came, and we meant it seriously. We went into it in parliamentary form, and in good faith. Now we see it was all a mistake and we want to do away with it. If you will just take it seriously for five minutes – if you can be sensible that long – we will not trouble you with it any more. Laura, awaken Bobberts!”

Mrs. Fenelby awakened the Territory by gently kissing him on his eyes, and he opened them and blinked sleepily at the ceiling.

“Congress is in session,” said Mr. Fenelby. “And Laura moves that the Fenelby Domestic Tariff be repealed and annulled. I second it. All in favor of the motion say – ”

“Stop!” exclaimed Billy, rising from his chair. “I object to this! Kitty and I did not come in here to have such an important motion rushed through without consideration. It is not parliamentary. I want to make a speech.”

“Oh, don’t!” pleaded Mrs. 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 collecting the tariff tax. I am ashamed to be a State in a commonwealth that can put forward such an excuse. I care not what others may do, but as for me I shall never cast my vote to rob that poor innocent,” he pointed feelingly toward Bobberts, “to rob him of his future happiness! Never. 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 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.

He put the motion, and the vote was what he had expected – two for and two against the motion. It was not carried. For a few minutes all sat in silence, the air tingling with suppressed irritability. A word would have condensed it into cruel speech. It was Billy who broke the spell.

“I’m going out to smoke another duty-paid cigar before I turn in,” he said. “Do you want to have a turn on the porch, Kitty?”

“I think not. I’m tired. I’ll go up, I think,” said Kitty, and they left the room together.

Mr. Fenelby gathered his papers and his book together and pushed them wearily into the desk. Then he dropped into a chair and looked sadly at the floor.

“Tom,” said Laura, “can’t we stop the tariff anyway?”

“Oh, no!” said her husband disconsolately. “We can’t do anything. We’ve got to go ahead with the foolishness until Kitty and Billy go. They would laugh at us and crow over us all their lives if we didn’t. Especially after the fool I have made of myself with this voting nonsense,” he added bitterly.

Mrs. Fenelby sighed.

XI
THE COUP D’ÉTAT

The next morning dawned gloomily. The sky was a dull gray, and a sickening drizzle was falling, mixed with a thick fog that made everything and everybody soggy and damp. It was a most dismal and disheartening Sunday, without a ray of cheerfulness in it, and Mr. and Mrs. Fenelby felt the burden of the day keenly. The house had the usual Sunday morning air of untidiness. It was a bad day on which to take up the load of the tariff and carry it through twelve hours of servantless housekeeping.

Breakfast was a sad affair. Kitty and Billy, who seemed in high spirits, tried to give the meal an air of gaiety, but Mr. Fenelby was glum and his wife naturally reflected some of his feeling, and after a few attempts to liven things Kitty and Billy turned their attention to each other and left the Fenelbys alone with their gloom. As soon as breakfast was over, Kitty, after a weak suggestion that she should help Laura with the dishes, carried Billy away, saying that no matter what happened she was going to church. The Fenelbys were glad to have them go, and Mr. Fenelby helped Laura carry out the breakfast things.

“Laura,” said Mr. Fenelby, “I lay awake a long time last night thinking about the tariff, and something has got to be done about it! I cannot, as the father of Bobberts, let it go on as it is going.”

“I lay awake too,” said Laura, “and I think exactly as you do, Tom.”

“I knew you would,” said Mr. 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 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. They think we don’t love dear little Bobberts, and they think they can make us provide for him, just because they have the balance of power!”

“Yes,” said Laura sympathetically. “I thought of all that, Tom, and I don’t think it does them much credit. 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.”

“That is just what I think,” said Mr. Fenelby feelingly, “and I am not going to stand it any longer. I am going to have another meeting of congress this afternoon – ”

“They will vote just the same way,” said Laura, hopelessly.

“Probably,” said Mr. Fenelby. “But if they do we will end the whole thing.”

“We can’t send them away,” said Laura. “We couldn’t be so rude as that.”

“No,” said Mr. Fenelby, “but we will secede. You and I and Bobberts will secede from the Union. I never believed in secession, Laura, but I see now that there are times when conditions become so intolerable that there is nothing else to do. We will give them a chance to vote the tariff out of existence, and if they don’t we will just secede from the Commonwealth of Bobberts. We will have a free trade commonwealth of our own, and Kitty and Billy can do as they please.”

“Tom,” said Mrs. Fenelby, “that is just what we will do!” And so it was settled.

By the time Kitty and Billy returned loiteringly from church Mr. Fenelby had progressed pretty well through four of the sixteen sections of the Sunday paper, and Mrs. Fenelby had Bobberts washed and dressed and was in the kitchen preparing dinner, which on Sunday was supposed to be at noon, but which, this Sunday, threatened to be about two o’clock. Kitty threw off her hat and dropped her umbrella in the hall and rushed for the kitchen. Billy merely glanced into the parlor, and seeing Tom holding the grim funny page uncompromisingly before his face, strolled out to the hammock.

“Laura,” cried Kitty, “you must let me help you! And what do you think? We met Doctor Stafford, and he did prescribe whisky and rock candy for Bridget’s cold! So I fixed everything all right. I rushed Billy around to Bridget’s sister’s and Bridget is just getting over her cold, so she was glad to come back to you. She says she never, never drinks except under her doctor’s orders, and she said that if you hadn’t been so hasty – ”

Mrs. Fenelby dropped the potato she was slicing. Her pretty mouth hardened.

“Kitty!” she exclaimed. “Now I shall never forgive you! I will never have Bridget in this kitchen again! It wasn’t only that she drank, it was her awful, awful deceitfulness. It was that, Kitty, more than anything else. I won’t have people about me who will not live up to the tariff poor dear Tom worked and worried to make! You may smuggle, Kitty, if you must be so low, and I certainly have no control over Billy, but my servants must not break the rules of this house. If that Bridget dares to put her head inside of this door I will send her about her business.”

“Laura,” said Kitty, “I wish you would be reasonable – like Billy and me. We talked it all over on the way to church, and we saw that it was Tom’s crazy old tariff that was making all the trouble and driving Bridget away and everything, and we decided we would stop the tariff right away.”

Laura’s chin went into the air and her eyes flashed.

“You will stop the tariff!” she cried, turning red. “What right have you to stop anything in this house, Kitty? And it isn’t a crazy tariff. It was a splendid idea, and no one but Tom would ever have thought of it, and it worked all right until you and Billy began spoiling it!”

“But I thought you wanted it stopped,” said Kitty.

“I don’t!” exclaimed Laura, bursting into tears. “It is a nice, lovely tariff, and if I ever said I didn’t want it, it was because you aggravated me. I won’t have it stopped. I won’t be so mean to anything dear old Tom starts. It’s Bobberts’ tariff. You ought to think more of Bobberts than to suggest such a thing, if you don’t love me.”

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, always going to have a tariff – for ever and ever!”

When she told Mr. Fenelby this he was not as happy about it as might have been expected. He agreed that under the circumstances there was nothing else to do; that the tariff must become a permanent fixture; but he did not say so joyfully. He had more the air of a Job admitting that a continued succession of boils was inevitable. Job, under those circumstances was probably as placid as could be expected, but not hilarious, and neither was Mr. Fenelby.

Dinner was as gloomy as breakfast had been. It developed into one of the plate-studying kind, with each of the four eating hastily and silently. Even Bobberts was not cheerful. He did not “coo” as usual, but stared unsmilingly at the ceiling. 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. Suddenly Mrs. Fenelby looked up.

“Tom,” she said, “there is somebody in the kitchen!”

Mr. Fenelby laid his fork softly on his plate and listened. There was no doubt of it. Someone was in the kitchen, gathering up the silverware. Mr. Fenelby arose and went into the kitchen. Almost immediately he returned. He returned because he either had to follow Bridget into the dining room or stay in the kitchen alone.

“It’s me, ma’am,” said Bridget. She planted herself before Mrs. Fenelby and placed her hands on her hips. Mrs. Fenelby arose. “I’ve come back,” said Bridget.

“And you can go again,” said Mrs. Fenelby regally. “I do not want you, you can go!”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Bridget. “’Tis all th’ same t’ me – stay or go, ma’am, – but I’ll be askin’ ye t’ pay me a month’s wages, Mrs. Fenelby, if ye want me t’ go. A month’s wages or a month’s notice – that is th’ law, ma’am.”

“The idea!” exclaimed Mrs. Fenelby. “I have not even hired you, yet!”

“No, ma’am,” said Bridget, “but th’ young lady has. She hired me with her own mouth, at me own sister Maggie’s, who will be witness t’ it, an’ I have been workin’ in th’ kitchen already. I’ve washed th’ spoons.”

“The young lady,” said Mrs. Fenelby coldly, “has no right to hire servants for me.”

“And hasn’t she, ma’am?” said Bridget angrily. “Let th’ judge in th’ court-house say if she has or hasn’t! Don’t try t’ fool me, Missus Fenelby, ma’am. I’ve worked here before, ma’am, an’ I know all about th’ Commonwealth way ye have of doin’ things. Wan of ye has as good a right t’ vote me into a job as another has, Mrs. Fenelby, an’ th’ young lady an’ th’ young gintleman both asked me t’ come. Even a poor ign’rant Irish girl has rights, Mrs. Fenelby, an’ hired I was, t’ worrk for th’ Commonwealth. An’ here I stay, without ye choose t’ hand me me month’s wages!”

Mrs. Fenelby looked appealingly at Tom, and Tom looked at Billy.

“I think she’d win, if she took it to law,” said Billy. “You know how the judges are. And if she brought up the matter of the Commonwealth, you know you did make Kitty and me full partakers in it.”

“Tom,” said Mrs. Fenelby, “pay her a month’s wages and let her go!”

Mr. Fenelby moved uneasily. He had put all his money into Bobberts’ bank. In all the house there was not a month’s wages except in Bobberts’ bank. Mr. Fenelby looked toward the bank.

“Never!” said Billy. “I put money into that, and so did Kitty. It is for Bobberts, not for month’s wages. I object.”

Mr. Fenelby looked away from the bank. He looked, helplessly, all around the room, and ended by looking at Laura.

“My dear,” he said, “I think we had better keep Bridget.”

“I think ye had!” said Bridget. “For there ain’t no way t’ git rid of me. I’m here, ma’am, an’ I don’t bear no ill will. I forgive ye all, an’ I’m willin’ t’ let by-gones be by-gones, excipt one or two things, which ye will have t’ change.”

“The idea!” exclaimed Mrs. Fenelby. Bridget shrugged her shoulders.

“Have it yer own way, ma’am,” she said. “I am not one that would dictate t’ th’ lady of th’ house. I am no dictator, ma’am, an’ I don’t wish t’ be, but here I am an’ here I stay, an’ ’tis no fault of mine if some things riles me temper and makes me act as I shouldn’t. I’m one that likes things t’ be peaceful, ma’am, for no one knows how much row a girrl can make in th’ house better ’n than I does, especially when she’s hired by th’ month an’ can’t be fired. I can’t forget one Mrs. Grasset I worked for, ma’am, an’ her that miserable an’ cryin’ all th’ time, just because I had one of me bad timper spells. I should hate t’ have one of thim here, Mrs. Fenelby.”

“Well,” said Mr. Fenelby, controlling his righteous indignation as best he could, “what is it you want?”

“I want no more of thim tariff doin’s!” said Bridget firmly. “Thim tariff doin’s is more than mortal mind can stand, Mr. Fenelby, sir! Nawthin’ I ever had t’ do with in anny of me places riled me up like thim tariff doin’s, an’ we will have no more tariff in th’ house, if ye please, sir.”

“Well, of all the impert – ” began Mr. Fenelby angrily, but Mrs. Fenelby put her hand on his arm and quieted him.

“Tom,” she said, “please be careful! You do not have to spend your days with Bridget, and I do! Don’t be rash. 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. “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?”

Mr. 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 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.”

There was a minute’s silence. The Commonwealth was dying hard.

“I could shake the money out of Bobberts’ bank,” said Mr. Fenelby, but even as he said it Bobberts wailed. His voice arose clear and strong in protest against that or against something else. The kitchen door swung open and the Dictator ran in and approached the Heir, and Bobberts held out his arms.

“Bless th’ darlin’,” said Bridget, cuddling him in her arms, but Mrs. Fenelby frowned.

“Give him to me,” she said sternly, and Bridget turned to her. And then, in the eyes of all the Commonwealth, Bobberts turned his back on his own mother and clung to the Dictator! Clung, and squealed, until the danger of separation was over.

“You see!” said Billy, triumphantly.

Mrs. Fenelby sighed. The Dictator had won. The tariff was dead.

“And in our house,” said Kitty, cheerfully, “we won’t have any tariff, will we, Billy?”

“Your house!” exclaimed Mrs. Fenelby, forgetting all about the Dictator in the new interest, and brightening into herself again.

“Our house,” said Kitty proudly. “Mine and Billy’s.”

“Our house,” echoed Billy, blushing. “We can’t stand a Dictator, and we are going to secede and – and have a United State of our own.”

“Isn’t it splendid about Kitty and Billy?” said Mrs. Fenelby that evening to Tom, as they bent over Bobberts’ crib. “And if it hadn’t been for our tariff driving them together I don’t believe it would ever have happened.”