Chapter VI

Olive was twenty-five. Twenty-five is the standard age, so to speak, of bungalow matrons. My closest scrutiny has failed to discover one a day older. It is too early for any one to forecast the ultimate fate of the bungalow. The bungalow speaks for youth, and whether it will survive as an architectural type, or whether those hopeful young married persons who trustingly kindle their domestic altars in bungalow fireplaces will be found there in contentment at fifty, is not for this writing. What did strike me was the fact that Olive, being twenty-five, was an anomaly as a bungalow lady by reason of her unmarriedness. Her domesticity was complete, her efficiency indisputable, her charm ineffable; and it seemed that here was a chance to perfect a type which I, with my strong scientific bent, could not suffer to pass. By the mere process of changing the name on her visiting card, and moving from a brown to a green bungalow, she might become the perfect representation of the most interesting and delightful type of American women. Half of my study of bungalow life was finished, and a publisher to whom I submitted the early chapters returned them immediately with a contract, whose terms were in all ways generous, so that I was able to view the future in that jaunty confidence with which young folk intrust their fate to the bungalow gods.

I looked up from my writing-table, which the chill air had driven indoors, and saw Olive on her lawn engaged in some mysterious occupation. She was whistling the while she dabbed paint with a brush and a sophisticated air upon the bruised legs of the baby’s high chair.

At my approach Romance nudged Realism. Or maybe it was Realism that nudged Romance. I cannot see that it makes the slightest difference, one way or another, on whose initiative I spoke: let it suffice that I did speak. Realism and Romance tripped away and left me alone with the situation. When I had spoken Olive rose, viewed her work musingly, with head slightly tilted, and still whistling touched the foot-rest of the baby chair lingeringly with the paint-brush. Those neat cans of prepared paint which place the most fascinating of joys within the range of womankind are in every well-regulated bungalow tool-closet--and another chapter for my book began working in my subconsciousness.

A little later Romance and Realism returned and stood to right and left of us by the living-room fire. Realism, in the outward form of W. D. H., winked at Romance as represented by R. L. S. I observed that W. D. H., in a pepper-and-salt business suit, played with his eye-glasses; R. L. S., in a velvet jacket, toyed with his dagger hilt.

Olive informed me that her atrabilious brother was about to marry a widow in Emerson Road, so there seemed to be no serious obstacle to the immediate perfecting of Olive as a type by a visit to the young clergyman in the white bungalow in Channing Lane, on the other side of Sherwood Forest Addition. Romance and Realism therefore quietly withdrew and left us to discuss the future.

“I think,” said Olive with a far-away look in her eyes, “that there should be a box of geraniums on our veranda rail next summer, and that a hen-house could be built back of the coal shed without spoiling the looks of the yard.”

As I saw no objection whatever to these arrangements, we took the baby for a walk, met Tom at the car, and later we all dined together at the brown bungalow. I seem to recall that there was roast fowl for dinner, a salad with the smoothest of mayonnaise, canned apricots, and chocolate layer cake, and a Schumann programme afterward.

HOW, THEN, SHOULD SMITH VOTE?

[1920]

THE talk on the veranda had been prolonged, and only my old friend Smith, smoking in meditative silence, had refused to contribute to our discussion of the men and the issues. Between campaigns Smith is open-minded on all matters affecting the body politic. Not infrequently his views are marked by a praiseworthy independence. Smith has brains; Smith thinks. A Republican, he criticises his party with the utmost freedom; and when sorely tried he renounces it with a superb gesture of disdain. But on election day, in a mood of high consecration, he unfailingly casts his ballot for the Republican nominee. A week earlier he may have declared in the most convincing manner that he would not support the ticket; and under extreme provocation I have known him to threaten to leave the Republican fold for all time.

Party loyalty is one of the most powerful factors in the operation of our democracy, and it has its special psychology, to which only a Josiah Royce could do full justice. Smith really thinks that he will bolt; but when it comes to the scratch an influence against which he is powerless stays his hand when he is alone in the voting booth with his conscience and his God. Later, when gently reminded of this mood of disaffection, he snarls that, when it comes down to brass tacks, any Republican is better than any Democrat, anyhow--a fragment of philosophy that is the consolation of great numbers of Smiths.

Smith, as I was saying, had refrained from participating in our talk on that August night where the saltless sea complained upon the beach and the pines took counsel of the stars. Then, as the party broke up, Smith flung his cigar into Lake Michigan and closed the discussion by remarking with a despairing sigh--

“Well, either way, the people lose!”