Chapter IV: Part 4

"Jake White. Jake White's in four. Said I'd buy him a drink afterwards. Joke. He's a cocacola boy. Why can't you stay inside, Jake? Why can't you stay put?"

Unable to bear it longer, he rushed from field headquarters shouting, "Let's get'm out, boys, let's get'm out," and would personally have led a volunteer party charging on foot into the grass if he had not been forcibly restrained and sympathetically led away, sobbing hysterically, toward hospitalization and calming treatment.

The captain's impulse, though impractical, was shared by all his comrades. For the moment the destruction of the grass became secondary to the rescue of the trapped tankmen. If field headquarters had bustled before, it now turned into a veritable beehive, with officers shouting, exhorting, complaining, and men running backwards and forwards as though there were no specific for the situation except unlimited quantities of their own sweat.

_19._ It would be futile to relate, even if I could recall them, all the various methods and devices which were suggested and rejected or tried and proved failures in the attempt to rescue the tankdrivers. Press and radio followed every daring essay and carefully planned endeavor until the last vicarious quiver had been wrung from a fascinated public. For twentyfour hours there was no room on the front pages of the newspapers for anything but the latest on the "prisoners of the grass," as they were at first called. Later, when hope for their rescue had diminished and they were forced from the limelight to make way for later developments, they were known simply as "heroes in the fight against the weird enemy."

For the grass had not paused chivalrously during the interval. On the contrary, it seemed to take renewed vigor from the victims it had entombed. House after house, block after block were engulfed. The names of those forced from their homes were no longer treated individually and written up as separate stories, but listed in alphabetical order, like battle casualties. Miss Francis, frantically trying to get all her specimens and equipment moved from her kitchen in time, had been ousted from the peeling stucco and joined those who were finding shelter (with some difficulty) in other parts of the city.

The southernmost runners crept down toward Hollywood Boulevard where every effort was being marshaled to combat them, and the northernmost wandered around and seemingly lost themselves in the desert of sagebrush and greasewood about Hollywood Bowl. Traffic through Cahuenga Pass, the great artery between Los Angeles and its tributary valley, was threatened with disruption.

But while the parent body was spreading out, its offspring, as Miss Francis foresaw, had come into existence. Dozens of nuclei were reported, some close at hand, others far away as the Sunset Strip and Hollywoodland. These smaller bodies were vigorously attacked as soon as discovered but of course they had in every case made progress too great to be countered, for they were at first naturally indistinguishable from ordinary devilgrass and by the time their true character was determined so rapid was their growth they were already beyond all possibility of control.

The grass was now everyone's primary thought, replacing the moon (among lovers), the incometax (among individuals of importance), the weather (among strangers), and illness (among ladies no longer interested in the moon), as topics of conversation. Old friends meeting casually after many years' lapse greeted each other with "What's the latest on the grass?" Radiocomedians fired gagmen with weeks of service behind them for failure to provide botanical quips, or, conversely, hired raw writers who had inhabited the fringes of Hollywood since Mack Sennett days on the strength of a single agrostological illusion. Newspapers ran long articles on _Cynodon dactylon_ and the editors of their garden sections were roused from the somnolence into which they had sunk upon receiving their appointment and shoved into doubleleaded boldfaced position.

Textbooks on botany began outselling popular novels and a mere work of fiction having the accidental title _Greener Than You Think_ was catapulted onto the bestseller list before anyone realized it wasnt an academic discussion of the family Gramineae. Contributors to scientifiction magazines burst bloodvessels happily turning out ten thousand words a day describing their heroes' adventures amid the red grass of Mars or the blue grass of Venus after they had singlehanded--with the help of a deathray and the heroine's pure love--conquered the green grass of Tellus.

Professors, shy and otherwise, were lured from their classrooms to lecture before ladies' clubs hitherto sacred to the accents of transoceanic celebrities and Eleanor Roosevelt. There they competed on alternate forums with literate gardeners and stuttering horticultural amateurs. Stolon, rhizome and culm became words replacing crankshaft and piston in the popular vocabulary; the puerile reports Gootes fabricated under my name as the man responsible for the phenomenon were syndicated in newspapers from coast to coast, and a query as to rates was received from the _Daily Mail_.

Brother Paul's exhortations on the radio increased in both length and intensity as the grass spread. Pastors of other churches and conductors of similar programs denounced him as misled; realestate operators, fearful of all this talk about the grass bringing doom and so depreciating the value of their properties, complained to the Federal Communications Commission; Sundayschools voted him the Man of the Year and hundreds of motherly ladies stored the studio with cakes baked by their own hands. Brother Paul's answer to indorser and detractor alike was to buy up more radiotime.

No one doubted the government would at length awaken from its apathy and counter the menace swiftly and efficiently, as always before in crises when the country was threatened. The nation with the highest rate of production per manhour, the greatest efficiency per machine, the greatest wealth per capita, and the greatest vision per mindseye was not going to be defeated by a mere weed, however overgrown. While waiting the inevitable action and equally inevitable solution the public had all the excitement of war without suffering the accompanying privations and bereavements. The grass was a nuisance, but a nuisance with titillating compensations; most people felt like children whose schoolhouse had burned down; they were sorry, they knew there'd be a new one, they were quite ready to help build it--but in the meantime it was fun.

The _Daily Intelligencer_ was gorged with letters from its readers on the subject of the grass. Many of them wanted to know what a newspaper of its standing meant by devoting so much space to an ephemeral happening, while many more asked indignantly why more space wasnt given to something affecting their very lives and fortunes. Communist partymembers, using improbable pennames, asked passionately if this was not a direct result of the country's failure to come to a thorough understanding with the Soviet Union? Terrified propertyholders irately demanded that something, SOMETHING be done before realestate became as valueless in Southern California as it already was in Red Russia.

Technocrats demanded the government be immediately turned over to a committee of engineers and competent agronomists who would deal with the situation as it deserved after harnessing the wasted energy of the populace. Nationalists hinted darkly that the whole thing was the result of a plot by the Elders of Zion and that Kaplan's Delicatessen--in conspiracy with A Cohen, Notions--was at the bottom of the grass. Brother Paul wrote--and his letter was printed, for he now advertised his radioprograms in the columns of the _Intelligencer_--that Caesar--presumably the state of California--had been chastened for arrogating to itself things not to be rendered unto Caesar and the tankmen had deservedly perished for their sacrilege. The letter aroused fury--the followers of Brother Paul either didnt read the _Intelligencer_ or were satisfied their leader needed no championing, if they did--and other letters poured in calling for various expressions of popular disapproval, from simple boycott up through tarring and feathering to plain and elaborated--with gasoline and castration--lynching. The grass was a hot topic.

With its acute perception of the popular taste Le ffaçasé's paper printed not only most of the communications--the unprintable ones were circulated among the staff till they wore out or disappeared mysteriously in the Gents Room--but maps showing the daily progress of the weed, guesses as to the duration of the plague by local prophets, learned articles by scientists, opinions of statesmen, views of prominent entertainers, in fact anything having any remote connection with the topic of the day. The paper even went further and offered a reward of ten thousand dollars to anyone advancing a suggestion leading to the destruction of the intruder. Its circulation jumped at the expense of less perspicacious rivals and the incoming mail, already many times normal, swelled to staggering proportions.

The contest was taken with deadly seriousness, for the livelihood of many of the paper's readers was suddenly threatened by its subject and from a new quarter. In the same issue as the offered reward there appeared an interview with the accredited head of the organized motionpicture producers. This retiring gentleman was rumored to be completely illiterate, an unquestionable slander, for he had written checks to support every cause dedicated to keeping wages where they belonged and seeing the wage earners didnt waste the money so benevolently supplied by their employers.

I got the details of the interview from the interviewer himself. The magnate--he had no objection to the description--had been irritable and minced no words. The grass was bad alike for production and boxoffice, taking everyone's mind off the prime business of making and viewing motionpictures. It was injuring The Industry and he couldnt conceal the fact that The Industry, speaking through his mouth and with his vocabulary, was annoyed.

"Unless this disgraceful episode ends within ten days," he had said sternly, "the Motion Picture Industry will move to Florida."

It was an ultimatum; Southern Californians heard and trembled. The last time this dread interdiction had been invoked--in the midst of a bitter election fight--it had sent them scurrying to the polls to do their benefactor's bidding. Now indeed the grass menace would be taken seriously.

The next day's paper had news of more immediate concern to me. The governor had appointed a special committee to investigate the situation and the first two witnesses to be called were Josephine Spencer Francis and Albert Weener.

_20._ William Rufus Le ffaçasé was as enthusiastic as his phlegmatic nature permitted. He called me into his office and half raised the snuffbox off the desk as though to offer me an unwelcome pinch. "Youre a made man now, Weener," he said, thinking better of his generosity and putting the snuffbox back. "Your name will be in headlines from Alabama to Alberta--and all due to the _Intelligencer_."

I would have resented this as a gross misappropriation of credit--for surely all obligation was on the other side--had I not been deeply disturbed by the prospect of being haled before this committee like a criminal before the bar of justice.

"I'd much rather avoid this unpleasant notoriety, Mr. Le ffaçasé," I protested. "Since the _Intelligencer_, for reasons best known to itself, chooses not to avail itself of my contributions, but prints my name over words I have not written, there could be no possible objection to my slipping away to Nevada until this investigation ends."

His face became a pretty shade of plum. "Weener, youre a thief, a petty, cadging, sly, larcenous, pilfering, bloody thief. You take the _Daily Intelligencer_'s honest dollars without a qualm, aye, with a smirk on your imbecile face, proposing with the cool impudence of the born embezzler to return no value for them. Weener, you forget yourself. The _Intelligencer_ picked you out of a gutter, a nauseous, dungspattered and thoroughly fitting gutter, and pays you well, mark that, you feebleminded counterfeit of a confidenceman, pays you well, not for your futile, lecherous pawings at the chastity of the English language, but out of the boundless generosity which only a newspaper with a great soul can have. And what do you propose to do in gratitude? To run, to flee, to hide from the expression of authority, to bring disgrace upon the very newspaper whose munificence pumps life into your boneless, soulless, gutless carcass. Not another word, not a sound, not a ghoulish syllable from your ineffective vocabulary. Out of my presence before I lose my temper. Get down to whatever smokefilled and tastelessly decorated room that committee is meeting in and do not leave while it is in session, neither to eat, sleep, nor move those bowels whose possession I gravely doubt. You hear me, Weener?"

For some reason the committee was not attempting to get the story of the grass in chronological order. When I arrived, the six distinguished gentlemen were trying to find out all about the crudeoil poured, apparently without effect, in what now seemed so long ago, but which actually had been less than two weeks before.

Flanked on either side by his colleagues, the little black plug of his hearingaid sticking out like a misplaced unicorn's horn, was the chairman, Senator Jones, his looseskinned old fingers resting lightly on the bright table, the nails square and ridged, the flesh brownspotted. He adjusted a pair of goldrimmed spectacles, quickly found the improvement in his vision unpleasant, and rumbled, "What did it cost the taxpayers?"

On the stand, the chief of police was settled in great discomfort, so far forward on the rounded edge of his chair that his balance was a source of fascinated speculation to the gallery. He squirmed a perilous half inch forward, but before he had time to reply, old Judge Robinson of the State Supreme Court, who scorned any palliation of his deafness such as Senator Jones condescended to, cupped his left ear with his hand and shrieked, "Ay? Ay? What's that? Speak up, can't you? Don't sit there mumbling."

Assemblyman Brown, head of the legislature's antiracketeering committee, intense concentration expressed in the forward push of his vigorous shoulders and the creased lines on his youthful forehead, asked if it were not true that the oil had been held up by a union jurisdictional dispute? There was a spattering of applause from the listeners at this adroit question and one man in the back of the room cried "Sha--" and then sat down quickly.

Attorney General Smith wanted to know just who had ordered the oil in the first place and whether the propertyowners had given their consent to its application. The attorney general's square face, softened and rounded by fat, shone on the wriggling chief like a klieglight; his lips, irresistibly suggesting twin slices of underdone steak, parting into a pleasant smile when his question had concluded. The other two members of the committee seemed about to inquire further when the chief managed to stammer, he was awfully sorry, gentlemen, but he had been out of town and hadnt even heard of the oil till this moment.

He was instantly dismissed from the stand and a new witness, from the mayor's office, was called, with no happier results. He, too, was about to be excused when Dr Johnson, who represented Science on the committee, descended from Himalayan abstraction to demand what effect the oil had had on the grass.

There were excited whisperings and craning of feminine heads as Dr Johnson propounded his question. The interest he excited was, however, largely vicarious. For he was famous, not so much in his own right, as in being the husband of the _Intelligencer_'s widely read society columnist whose malapropisms caused more wry enjoyment and fearsome anticipation than an elopement to Nevada.

"And what effect did the oil have on the grass?" he repeated.

The query caused confusion, for it seemed the committee could not proceed until this fact had been ascertained. Various technicians were sent for, and the doctor, tall, solemn and benign, looked over his stiff, turned-down collar and the black string tie drooping around it, as though searching for some profound truth which would be readily apparent to him alone.

The experts discoursed at some length in esoteric terms--one even bringing a portable blackboard on which he demonstrated, with diagrams, the chemical, geologic and mathematical aspects of the problem--but no pertinent information was forthcoming till some minor clerk in the Department of Water and Power, who had only got to the stand through a confusion of names, said boldly, "No effect whatever."

"Why not?" asked Judge Robinson. "Was the oil adulterated? Speak up, speak up; don't mumble."

Henry Miller, the Southland's bestknown realtor ("Los Angeles First in Population by Nineteen Ninety Nine"), who had connections in the oil industry, as well as in citrus and walnut packing, frowned disapprovingly. The clerk said he didnt know, but he might venture a guess--

Senator Jones informed him majestically that the committee was concerned with facts, not speculations. This created an impasse until Attorney General Smith tactfully suggested the clerk might be permitted to guess, entirely off the record. After the official stenographer had been commanded sternly not to take down a single word of conjecture, the witness was allowed to advance the opinion that the oil hadnt killed the plant because it had never reached the roots.

"Ay?" questioned the learned judge, looking as though neither his lunch nor breakfast nor, for that matter, any nourishment absorbed since the Taft administration, had agreed with him.

"I'm a bit of a gardener myself, gentlemen," the witness assured them confidentially, settling back comfortably. "I putter around my own place Saturdays and Sundays and I know what devilgrass is like. I can well imagine a bunch of it twenty or twentyfive feet high could be coated with many, many gallons of oil without a drop seeping down into the ground."

Mr Miller said magisterially, "Not really good American oil," but no one paid attention, knowing that he was commenting, not as a member of the committee, but in his other capacity as the head of an organization to promote Brotherhood and Democracy by deporting all foreignborn and the descendants of foreignborn to their original countries. Everyone was only too happy to have the oil matter concluded at any cost; and after the stenographer was ordered to resume his labors, the next witness was called.

"Albert Weener!"

I hope I may never again have to submit to the scrutiny of twelve such merciless eyes. I cast my own down at the brown linoleum until every stain and inkspot was impressed ineradicably on my mind. Senator Jones finally broke the tension by asking, "What is your name?"

Judge Robinson enjoined, "Speak up, speak up. Don't mumble."

"Albert Weener," I replied.

There was a faint sigh through the room. Everyone who read the _Daily Intelligencer_ had heard of me.

"And what is your occupation, Mr Weener?" asked Henry Miller.

"Salesman, sir," I answered automatically, forgetting my present connection with the newspaper, and he smiled at me sympathetically.

"You belong to a socalled tradesunion?" inquired Assemblyman Brown.

"I will ask the honorable Mr Brown to modify his question by having the word 'socalled' struck from it."

"I will inform the honorable attorney general that my question stands exactly as I phrased it," rejoined Assemblyman Brown sharply. "I'll remind the attorney general I myself am a member in good standing of a legitimate union, namely the International Brotherhood of Embalmers, Morticians, Gravediggers and Helpers, and when I asked the witness if he belonged to a socalled tradesunion I was referring to any one of those groups of Red conspirators who attempt to strangle the economic body by interfering with the normal course of business and mulcting honest citizens of tributary dues before they can pursue their livelihoods."

Judge Robinson cupped his ear again and glared at me. "Speak up man; stop mumbling."

"I don't belong to any union," I answered as soon as there was a chance for my words to be heard. Senator Jones took a notebook from his pocket, consulted it, put it back, scribbled something on the pad in front of him, tore it up, looked at his notebook again and asked, "What is your connection with this ... um ... grass?"

"I applied Miss Francis' Metamorphizer to it, sir," I answered.

"Nonsense," said Judge Robinson sharply.

"Explain yourself," demanded Attorney General Smith.

"Tell us just what this stuff is and how you applied it," suggested Henry Miller.

"Don't mumble," ordered Judge Robinson.

"I'm sorry, gentlemen, I don't know exactly what it is. Youll have to ask Miss Francis that. But--"

Senator Jones interrupted me. "You mean to say you applied a chemical to someone's lawn, a piece of valuable property, without knowing its contents?" he asked sternly.

"Well, Senator----" I began.

"Do you habitually act in this irresponsible manner?"

"Senator, I----"

"Don't you understand, sir, that consequences necessarily follow actions? What sort of world would this be if everyone rushed around blindly using things of whose nature they were completely unaware?"

"Don't mumble," warned Judge Robinson.

I began to feel very low indeed and could only say haltingly, "I acted in good faith, gentlemen," when Mr Miller kindly recommended that I be excused since I had evidently given all the information at my command.

"Subject to recall," growled Attorney General Smith.

"Oh, certainly, sir, certainly," agreed Mr Miller, and I was thankfully released from my ordeal.

"Josephine Spencer Francis."

I cannot say Miss Francis had made any concessions in her appearance in deference to the committee, for she looked as though she had come straight from her kitchen, a suspicion strengthened by the strand of grass she carried in her fingers and played with absently throughout. She appeared quite at home as she settled herself in the chair, scanning with the greatest interest the faces of the committeemen as if she were memorizing each feature for future reference.

The honorable body returned her scrutiny with sharply individual emphasis. The attorney general smiled pleasantly at her; Judge Robinson looked more sour than ever and grunted, "Woman; mistake"; Senator Jones bowed toward her with courtesy; Assemblyman Brown gave her a sharp onceover; Mr Miller pursed his lips in amusement; and Dr Johnson gazed at her in horrified fascination.

Senator Jones bowed for a second time and inquired her name. He received the information and chewed it meditatively. Miss Francis took out her gold toothpick, considered the etiquette of using it and regretfully put it away in time to hear the attorney general's question, "Mrs or Miss Francis?"

"Miss," she replied gruffly. "_Virgo intacta._"

Senator Jones drew back as if attacked by a wasp. Attorney General Smith said, "Hum," very loudly and looked at Assemblyman Brown who looked blank. Dr Johnson's nose raised itself a perceptible inch and Judge Robinson, sensing a sensation among his colleagues, shouted, "Speak up, madam, don't mumble."

Mr. Miller, who hadnt been affected, inquired, "What is your occupation, Miss Francis?"

"Agrostological engineer, specializing in chemical research."

"How's that again?" Judge Robinson managed to put into the simple gesture of cupping his ear a devastating condemnation of Miss Francis, women in general, science and presentday society. She politely repeated herself.

"Astrology--what's that got to do with the grass? Do you cast horoscopes?"

"Agrostology," Dr Johnson murmured to the ceiling.

"Will you explain please in simpler terms, just what you do?" requested Attorney General Smith.

"Local statutes against fortunetelling," burst out Judge Robinson.

"I have spent my life studying reactions of plants to the lighter elements and the effects of certain compounds on their growth, reproduction, and metabolism."

Judge Robinson removed his hand from behind his ear and rubbed his skull irritably. Assemblyman Brown complained, "There's entirely too much talk about reaction." Dr Johnson inspected a paneled wall with no interest whatever and Senator Jones stated pontifically, "You are an agricultural chemist."

Miss Francis smiled at him amiably. "Agriculture is a broad field and I farm one small corner of it."

Attorney General Smith leaned forward with interest. "From what university did you obtain your degrees, Miss Francis?"

She slouched back comfortably, to look more cylindrical than ever. "None," she stated baldly.

"Hay? ... mumble!"

Senator Jones said, "I'm afraid I did not quite understand your reply, madam."

"I hold no degrees, honors, or diplomas whatever, and I have not wasted one second of my life in any college, university, academy, or other alleged institution of learning. The degrees good enough for Roger Bacon, Erasmus Darwin, Lavoisier, Linnaeus and Lamarck are good enough for me. I am a questioner, gentlemen, a learner, not a collector of alphabetical letters which, strung together in any form your fancy pleases, continue eternally to spell nothing whatever."

Sensation. One of the experts who had been waiting patiently to testify, folded his arms and said in a loud voice, "This is what comes of tolerating women in the professions." Another muttered, "Charlatan ... ridiculous ... dangerous thing ... shameful ... sex ..." Two elderly ladies in broadcloth coats with fur collars, later identified as crusaders for antivivisection, cheered feebly and were promptly ejected.

Senator Jones took off his spectacles, polished them exhaustively, tried to put them on upside down, gave up and stated gravely, "This is an extraordinary admission, Miss, um, Francis."

"It is not an admission at all; it is a statement of fact. As for its irregularity, I take the liberty of believing we unlettered ones are in the majority rather than minority."

Judge Robinson warned, "Could be cited for contempt, Miss Harrumph."

Dr Johnson said sharply, "Nonsense, madam, even a--even a tree surgeon has more respect for learning."

Mr Miller leaned slightly over the table. "Do you realize that in your ignorant dabbling you have ruined hundreds of propertyowners and taxpayers?"

"I thought there was some law against practicing without a license," speculated Assemblyman Brown.

"There is apparently no law applying intelligence qualifications for members of the legislature," remarked Miss Francis pleasantly.

Senator Jones lifted his gavel, idle until now, and banged it on the table, smashing his spectacles thoughtlessly placed in front of him a moment before. This did nothing to appease his rising choler. "Silence, madam! We have perhaps been too lenient in deference to your, um, sex. I'll remind you that this body is vested with all the dignity of the state of California. Unless you apologize instantly I shall cite you for contempt."

"I beg the committee's pardon."

The investigators held a whispered conference among themselves, evidently to determine whether this equivocal apology was to be accepted. Apparently it was, for Dr Johnson now asked loftily and with an abstracted air, as though he already knew the answer and considered it beneath notice, "What was this magic formula you caused to be put on the grass?"

Malicious spirits averred that Dickie Johnson had flunked out of agricultural school, had an obscure European diploma, and that his fame as a professor at Creighton University was based on the gleaming granite and stainless steel building dedicated to research in agronomy which bore the legend "Johnson Foundation" over the entrance. No one hearing him pronounce "magic formula" putting into the word all the contempt of the scientist for the quack, could ever put credence in the base slander. "What was this 'magic formula' you caused to be put on the grass?" he repeated.

Miss Francis reeled off a list of elements so swiftly I'm sure no one but the stenographer caught them all. I know I didnt get more than half, though I was sitting less than five feet from her. "Magnesium," she stated, "iodine, carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, helium, potash, sulphur, oxygen ..."

Dr Johnson seemed to have known its composition since grammarschool days. Senator Jones asked, "And what effect did you expect this extraordinary conglomeration to have?"

She repeated what she had told me at first and the deductions she had made since. Dr Johnson smiled. "A true Man of Science," he stated, "one who has labored for years to acquire those degrees you affect to despise, would have been trained in selfless devotion to the service of mankind, would never have made whatever gross error your ignorance, heightened by projection into a sphere for which you are probably biologically unfitted--though this is perhaps controversial--has betrayed you into. For had you freely shared your work with colleagues they would have been able to correct your mistakes and this catastrophe brought on by selfish greed--a catastrophe which has already cost millions--would not have occurred."

The entire committee, including Dr Johnson himself, seemed pleased with this indictment. Attorney General Smith looked inquiringly at the witness as though inviting her to answer _that_ if she could. Miss Francis evidently took the invitation literally, for she addressed herself directly to Dr Johnson.

"I do not know, Doctor, where these beautiful and eminently sensible ideals you have so eloquently outlined are practiced, where scientists, regardless of biological fitness, share with each other their advances from moment to moment and so add to the security of civilization from day to day. Is it in the great research foundations whose unlimited funds are used to lure promising young men to their staffs, much as athletes used to be given scholarships by universities anxious to improve the physical qualities of American youth? Is it in the experimental laboratories of great industries where technological advances are daily suppressed, locked away in safes, so profits may not be diminished by the expensive retooling necessary to put these advances into effect? Or is it in a field closer to my own, in chemical research--pure science, if you like--where truly secrets are shared on an international scale in order to build up the cartels which choke production by increasing prices and promote those industries which thrive on international illwill?"

Assemblyman Brown rose to his feet and said in measured tones, "This woman is a paid agent of the Communist International. I have heard such rantings from demagogues on streetcorners. I demand the committee listen to no more of this propaganda."

Mr Miller gave a polite wave of his hand toward the assemblyman, indicating at once full agreement with what the legislator said and apology for pursuing his questioning of Miss Francis. He then asked the witness sternly, "What is your real name?"

"I'm afraid I don't quite understand. The only name I have is Josephine Spencer Francis and so far as I know it is thus written on my birth certificate."

"Birth certificate, ay? Where were you born? Speak up, don't mumble."

"Russia, without a doubt," muttered Assemblyman Brown.

"Youre sure it isnt Franciski or Franciscovitch? Or say, Finklestein?"

"My name is not Finkelstein, although I do not find myself terrified of that combination of syllables. I was born in Moscow--"

Another sensation. "I thought so!" screamed Judge Robinson triumphantly.

"Aha!" exclaimed Senator Jones profoundly.

"The leopard doesnt change his spots or the Red his (or her) color," asserted Assemblyman Brown.

"A sabatoor," yelled several of the spectators. Only Dr Johnson seemed unimpressed with the revelation; he smiled contentedly.

"--in Moscow, Idaho," concluded Miss Francis, picking her teeth with a flourish.

Judge Robinson screeched, "Ay? Ay? What's all this hubbub?" Assemblyman Brown sneered, "A very unlikely story." Attorney General Smith wanted it proven in blackandwhite while Senator Jones remarked Miss Francis' taste was on a level with her scholarship.

She waved the toothpick toward the chairman and politely waited for either further questions or dismissal. All the while her intense interest in each gesture of the inquisitors and every facet of the investigation had not diminished at all. As she sat there patiently, her eyes darted from one to the other as they consulted and only came to rest on Senator Jones when he spoke directly to her again.

"And what steps can you take to undo, hum, this?"

"So far, none," admitted Miss Francis, "but since this thing has happened I have given all my time to experiment hoping in some manner to reverse the action of the Metamorphizer and evolve a formula whereby the growth it induced will be inhibited. I cannot say I am even on the right road yet, for you must recall I have spent my adult life going, as it were, in one direction and it is now not a matter of merely retracing my steps, but of starting out for an entirely different destination in a field where there are no highwaymaps and few compasspoints. I cannot say I am even optimistic of success, but it is not for want of trying--be assured of that."

Another semisilence while the committee conferred once more. Finally Senator Jones spoke in grave and measured tones: "It is a customary politeness in hearings of this nature to thank the witness for his helpfulness and cooperation. This courtesy I cannot with any sincerity extend to you, madam. It seems to me you have proven yourself the opposite of a good citizen, that you have set yourself up, in your arrogance, against all logical authority and have presumed to look down upon the work and methods of men whose standing and ways of procedure are recognized by all sound people. By your conceit, madam, you have caused the death of young men, the flower of our state's manhood, who gave their lives in a vain attempt to destroy what your ignorance created. If I may be permitted a rather daring and perhaps harsh aside, I think this should strike you doubly, as a woman who has not brought forth offspring to carry on the work of our forefathers and as one who--with doubtful taste--boasts of that sterility. I think the results of your socalled experiments should chasten you and make you heed the words of men properly qualified in a field where you are clearly not so."

Someone in the back of the room applauded the senator's eloquence.

"Senator Jones," said Miss Francis, turning her eyes on him with the attention I knew so well, the look which meant she had found an interest for the moment excluding all others, "you accuse me of what amounts to crime or at least criminal folly and I must answer that your accusations are at once both true and false. I have been foolish, but it was not in despising the constrictions and falsity of the academic world. I _have_ flouted authority, but it was not the authority of the movingpicture heroes, whose comic errors are perpetuated for generations, like those of Pasteur, or so quietly repudiated their repudiation passes unnoticed, like those of Lister, in order to protect a vested interest. The authority I have flouted, in my arrogance as you call it, is that authority all scientists recognized in the days when science was scientific and called itself, not boastfully by the name of all knowledge, but more humbly and decently, natural philosophy. That authority is what theologians term the Will of God; others, the life force, the immaterial principle, the common unconscious, or whatever you will. When I, along with all the academic robots whom you admire, denied that authority, we did not make ourselves, as we thought, men of pure science, but, on the contrary, by deposing one master we invited in a horde of others. Since we could not submit to moral force we submitted in our blind stupidity--we called it the rejection of metaphysical concepts--to financial force, to political force, to social force; and finally, since there was no longer any reward in itself for our speculations, we submitted to the lust for personal aggrandizement in fortune, in notoriety, in castebound irresponsibility, and even for the hypocritical backslapping of our fellows.

"In the counterrevolution known as the nineteenth century we even repudiated the name of speculation and it became a term of disrepute, like metaphysical. We went further than a mere disavowal of the name; we disavowed the whole process and turned with disgust from the using of our minds to the use of our hands in a manner which would have revolted the most illiterate of Carpathian peasants. We extirpated the salivary glands of dogs in order to find out if they would slobber without them. We cut off the tails of mice to discover if the operation affected their greatgrandchildren. We decapitated, emasculated, malnourished, and poisoned rodents against whom we had no personal animus for no other reason than to keep an elaborate apparatus in use.

"Even these pastimes failed to satisfy our undiscriminating appetite. Someone a little stupider, a little less imaginative--though such conditions must have been difficult indeed to achieve--invented what is called the Control Experiment whereby, if theory tested be correct, half the subjects are condemned without trial to execution.

"These are my sins: that in despising academic ends I did not despise academic means, that in repudiating the brainlessness of the professorial mind I did not attempt to use my own. Because I was proud of the integrity which made me choose not to do the will of a research foundation or industrial empire, I overlooked the vital fact that I had also chosen not to do God's Will, but what I stupidly thought to be my own. It was not. It was faintheartedness, sloth, placation, doubt, vagueness and romantical misconception. In a word, it was the aimlessness and falsity of the nineteenth century coming back in the window after having been booted out the door; my folly was the failure to recognize it. I have deluded myself, I have taken halfmeasures, I have followed false paths. Condemn me for these crimes. I am guilty."

Attorney General Smith said acidly, "This is neither a psychiatrist's consulting room, a confessional, nor a court of law. I suggest the witness be excused and her last hysterical remarks expunged from the record."

"It is so ordered," ruled Senator Jones. "And now, gentlemen, we shall recess until tomorrow."

THREE

_Man Triumphant ... I_

_21._ The hearings of the Committee to Investigate Dangerous Vegetation went on for five days and Mr Le ffaçasé was increasingly delighted as the proceedings went down, properly edited and embellished to excite reader interest, in the columns of the _Daily Intelligencer_. He even unbent so far as to call me a fool without any adjectival modification, which was for him the height of geniality.

I don't want to give the impression the committee stole the show, as the saying goes. The show essentially and primarily was still the grass itself. It grew while the honorable body inquired and it grew while the honorable body, tired by its labors, slept. It increased during the speeches of Senator Jones, through the interjections of Judge Robinson, and as Dr Johnson added his wisdom to the deliberations.

While the committee probed, listened and digested, the grass finally pushed its way across Hollywood Boulevard, resisting frantic efforts by the National Guard, the fire and police departments, and a volunteer brigade of local merchants, to stem its course. It defied alike sharpened steel, fire, chemicals and explosives. Even the smallest runner could now be severed only with the greatest difficulty, for in its advance the weed had toughened--some said because of its omnivorous diet, others, its ability to absorb nitrogen from the air--and its rubbery quality caused it to yield to onslaught only to bound back, apparently uninjured, after each blow.

One of the most disquieting aspects of the advance was its variability and unpredictability. To the west, it had hardly gone five blocks from the Dinkman house, while southward it had crossed Santa Monica Boulevard and was nosing toward Melrose. Its growth had been measured and checked, over and over again, but the figures were never constant. Some days it traveled a foot an hour; on others it leapt nearly a city block between sunrise and nightfall.

It is simple to put down "the grass crossed Hollywood Boulevard"; as simple as saying, "our troops advanced" or "the man was hanged at dawn." But when I write these words less than a generation later, surrounded by rolling hills, gentle brooks, and vast lawns sedate and tame, I can close my eyes and see again the green glacier crawling down the sidestreets and over the low roofs of the shops to pour like a cascade upon the busy artery.

Once more I can feel the crawling of my skin as I looked upon the methodical obliteration of men's work. I can see the tendrils splaying out over the sidewalks, choking the roadways, climbing walls, finding vulnerable chinks in masonry, bunching themselves inside apertures and bursting out, carrying with them fragments of their momentary prison as they pursued their ruthless course.

Now the uproar and clamor of a disturbed public swelled to giant volume. All the disruption and distress going before had been news; this was disaster. "All same Glauman's Chinese, all same Pa'thenon," remarked Gootes, and indeed I have heard far less outcry over the destruction of historic landmarks than was raised when the grass obscured the celebrated footprints.

Recall of the mayor was demanded and councilmen's official limousines were frequently overturned. Meetings denounced the inaction of the authorities; a gigantic parade bearing placards calling for an end to procrastination marched past the cityhall. Democrats blamed Republicans for inefficiency and Republicans retorted that Miss Francis had done her research during a Democratic administration.

Every means previously tried and found wanting was tried again as though it were impossible for human minds to acknowledge defeat by an insensate plant. The axes, the scythes, weedburners and reapers were brought out again, only to prove their inability to cope with the relentless flow of the grass. Robot tanks loaded with explosives disappeared as had those containing the soldiers, and only the stifled sound of their explosion registered the fact that they had fulfilled their design if not their purpose.

It was difficult for the man on the street to understand how the weapons successful in Normandy and Tarawa could be balked by vegetation. Like the Investigating Committee's pursuit of the question of the crudeoil's adulteration, they wanted to know if the tanks were firstline vehicles or some surplus palmed off by the War Department; if the weedburners were properly accredited graminicides or just a bunch of bums taken from the reliefrolls. The necessary reverse of this picture was the jubilant hailing of each new instrument of attack, the brief but hysterical enthusiasm for each in turn as the ultimate savior.

Because of my unique position I witnessed the trial of them all. I saw tanks dragging rotary plows and others equipped with devices like electricfans but with blades of hardened steel sharpened to razor keenness. The only thing this latter gadget did was to scatter more potential nuclei to the accommodating wind.

I saw the Flammenwerfer, the dreadful flamethrowers which had scorched the bodies of men like burnt toast in an instant, direct their concentrated fire upon the advancing runners. I smelled the sweetly sick smell of steaming sap and saw the runners shrivel and curl back as they had done on other occasions, until nothing was presented to the flamethrowers except the tangled mass of interwoven stems denuded of all foliage. Upon this involved wall the fire had no effect, the stems did not wilt, the hard membranes did not collapse, the steely network did not retreat. It seemed a drawn battle in one small sector, yet in that very part where the grass paused on the ground it rose higher into the air like a poising tidalwave. Higher and higher, until its crest, unbalanced, toppled forward to engulf its tormentors.

Then the unruffled advance resumed, again some resource was interposed against it, again it was checked for an instant and again it overcame its adversary, careless of obstacles, impartially taking to itself gouty roominghouses and pimping frenchprovincial ("17 master bedrooms") chateaus, hotdogstand and Brown Derby, cornergrocery and pyramidal foodmart; undeterred by anything in its path.

When you say a clump of weed attacked a city you utter an absurdity. I think everyone was aware of the fantastic discrepancy between statement of the event and the event itself. So innocent and ridiculous the grass looked as it made its first tentative thrust at the urban nerves; the green blades sloped forward like some prettily arranged but unimaginative corsage upon the concrete bosom of the street. You could not believe those fragile seeming strands would resist the impress of a careless boot, much less the entire arsenal of military and agricultural implements. It must have been this deceptive fragility which broke the spirit of so many people.

From an item in the _Intelligencer_ I recalled the existence of one of Mrs Dinkman's neighbors who had rudely refused the opportunity to have his lawn treated with the Metamorphizer. He had left an incoherent suicidenote: "Pigeons in the grass alas. Too many pigeons, too much grass. Pigeons are doves, but Noah expressed a raven. Contradiction lies. Roses are red, violets are blue. The grass is green and I am thru. Too too too. Darling kiddies." He then, in full view of the helpless weedfighters, marched on into the grass and was lost to sight.

In the days following, so many selfdestructions succeeded this one that the grass became known in the papers as the Green Horror. Perhaps a peculiar sidelight on human oddity was revealed in most of these suicides choosing to immolate themselves, not in the main body of the grass, but in one of the many smaller nuclei springing up in close proximity.

It was my fortune to witness the confluence of two of these descendant bodies. They had come into being only a few blocks apart; understandably their true character was unrecognized until they were out of control and had enveloped the neighborhoods of their origin. They crept toward each other with a sort of incestuous attraction until mere yards separated them; they paused skittishly, the runners crawled forward speculatively, the green fronds began overlapping like clasping fingers, then with accelerating speed came together much as a pack of cards in the hands of a deft shuffler slides edge under edge to make a compact and indivisible whole. The line of division disappeared, the two became one, and where before there had been left a narrow path for men to tread, now only a serene line of vegetation outlined itself against the unblinking sky.

_22._ I have said Mr Le ffaçasé had softened his brutality toward me, but his favor did not extend--so pervasive is literary jealousy--to printing my own reports. He continued to subject me to the indignity of being "ghosted," a thoroughly expressive term, which by a combination of bad conjugation and the suggestion of insubstantiality defines the sort of prose produced, by Jacson Gootes. This arrangement, instead of giving me some freedom, shackled me to the reporter, who dashed from celebrity to celebrity, grass to nuclei, office to point of momentary interest, with unflagging energy and infuriating jocosity. I knew his repertory of tricks and accents down to the last yawn.

Most of all I resented his irregular habits. He never arrived at the _Intelligencer_ office on time or quit after a proper day's work. He thought nothing of getting me out of bed before I'd had my eight hours' sleep to accompany him on some ridiculous errand. "Bertie, old dormouse, the grass is knocking at the doors of NBC."

"All right," I answered, annoyed. "It started down Vine Street yesterday. It would be more surprising if it obligingly paused before the studios."

"Cynic," he said, pulling the bedclothes away from my face. I consider this the lowest form of horseplay I know of. "How quickly your ideals have been tarnished by contact with the vulgar world of newspaperdom. Front and center, Bertie lad, we must catch the grass making its own soundeffects before they jerk out the microphones."

Protests having no effect I reluctantly went with him, but the scene was merely a repetition of hundreds of previous ones, the grass being no more or less spectacular for NBC than for Watanabe's Nursery and Cut Flower Shop a halfmile away. Its aftereffects, however, were immediate. The governor declared martial law in Los Angeles County and ordered the evacuation of an area five miles wide on the perimeter of the grass.

Furious cries of anguish went up from those affected by the arbitrary order. What authority had any official to dispossess honest people from their homes in times of peace? The right to hold their property unmolested was a prerogative vested in the humblest American and who was the governor to abrogate the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and manifold decisions of the Supreme Court? In embittered fury Henry Miller resigned from the Investigating Committee, now defunct anyway, its voluminous and inconclusive report buried in the state archives. Injunctions issued from local courts like ashes from a stirring volcano, but the militia were impervious and hustled the freeholders from their homes with callous disregard for the sacred dues of property.

When the reason behind this evacuation order leaked out a still greater lamentation was evoked, for the National Guard was planning nothing less than a saturation incendiary bombing of the entire area. The bludgeon which reduced the cities of Europe to mere shells must surely destroy this new invader. Even the stoutest defenders of property conceded this must be so--but what was the point of annihilating the enemy if their holdings were to be sacrificed in the process? No, no, let the governor take whatever means he pleased to dispatch the weed so long as the method involved left them homes to enjoy when things were--as they inevitably must be--restored to normal. So frantic were their efforts that the Supreme Court actually forced the governor to postpone his proposed bombing, though it did not discontinue the evacuation.

There were few indeed who understood how the weed would digest the very wood, bricks or stucco and who packed up and moved out ahead of the troops. American flags and shotguns recalled the heroic days of the frontier, and defiance of the governor's edict was the rule instead of the exception. Fierce old ladies dared the militiamen to lay a finger on them or their possessions and apoplectic gentlemen, eyes as glazed as those of the huntingtrophies on their walls, sputtered refusals to stir, no, not for all the brutal force in the world. No one was seriously hurt in this rebellion, the commonest wound being long scratches on the cheeks of the guardsmen, inflicted by feminine nails, as with various degrees of resistance the inhabitants were carried or shooed from their dwellings.

While the wrangling over its destruction went on, the grass continued its progress. Out through Cahuenga Pass it flowed, toward fertile San Fernando Valley. Steadily it climbed to the hilltops, masticating sage, greasewood, oak, sycamore and manzanita with the same ease it bolted houses and pavements. Into Griffith Park it swaggered, mumbling the planetarium, Mount Hollywood and Fern Dell in successive mouthfuls and swarmed down to the concretelined bed of the Los Angeles River. Here ineffectual shallow pools had preserved illusion and given tourists something at which to laugh in the dry season; the weed licked them up like a thirsty cow at a wallow. Up and down and over the river it ran, each day with greater speed.

It broke into the watermains, it tore down the poles bearing electric, telephone and telegraph wires, it forced its way between the threaded joints of gaspipes and turned their lethal vapor loose in the air until all services in the vicinity were hastily discontinued. Short weeks after I'd inoculated Mrs Dinkman's lawn, that part of Los Angeles known as Hollywood had disappeared from the map of civilization and had become one solid mass of green devilgrass.

No one refused to move for this dispossessor as they had for the governor; thousands of homeless fled from it. Their going clogged the highways with automobiles and produced an artificial gasoline shortage reminiscent of wartime. In downtown Los Angeles freightcars stood unloaded on their sidings, their consignees out of business and the warehouses glutted. The strain on local transportation, already enfeebled by a publicservice system designed for a city one twentieth its size and a complete lack of those facilities mandatory in every other large center of population, increased by the necessary rerouting around the affected area, threatened disruption of the entire organism and the further disintegration of the city's already weakened coordination. The values of realestate dropped, houses were sold for a song, officebuildings for an aria, hotels for a chorus.

The San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, secure in the knowledge its city suffered from nothing worse than fires, earthquakes, a miserable climate, and an invincible provincialism, invited displaced businessmen to resettle themselves in an area where improbable happenings were less likely; and the state of Oklahoma organized a border patrol to keep out Californians.

I could not blame the realestate men for attempting to unload their holdings before they suffered the fate of one tall building at Hollywood and Highland. The grass closed about its base like a false foundation and surged on to new conquests, leaving the monolith bare and forlorn in its new surroundings. At first the weed satisfied itself with jocular and teasing ventures up the smooth sides; then, as though rasped by the skyscraper's quiescence, it forced its way into the narrow space between the steel sash, filling the lower floor and bursting out again in a riot of whirling tendrils. Up the sides it climbed like some false ivy; clinging, falling back, building upon its own defeated body until it reached another story--and another and another. At each one the tale was repeated: windows burglariously forced, a floor suffocated, egress effected, and another height of wall scaled. At the end the proud structure was a lonely obelisk furred in a green covering to the very flagpole on its peak, from which waved disappointed yet still aspiring runners.