Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 245, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 October 1918 — The Haters [ARTICLE]

The Haters

By R. RAY BAKER

(Copyright, 1918, by the McClure Newspaper Syndicate.) Maybelle St. Clare sat in her dressing room, smeared grease paint on her face, recited sotto voce her great song hit and hated men. “Here’s some more gorgeous flowers —from a Jdr. Kendricks,” announced Geraldine Albcrtoq, her maid, entering the room and holding a bouquet of red roses at arm’s length, so she could survey it with the eye of a critic. And why shouldn’t Geraldine Alberton be considered a connoisseur on matters of flowers? Hadn’t she personally received 519 bouquets addressed to her mistress in the year and a half since Maybelle had made her debut as a singer and dancer on the vaudeville stage? And hadn’t each and every one of those offerings from admiring men been crushed deliberately under the same small foot or else dumped unceremoniously into a convenient waste basket? “Well, don’t bother me about them,” grumbled Maybelle, as she penciled little black crosses at the corners of her eyes, adding luster to her already vivacious countenance. “Drop them out the window. I noticed there’s an alley there.”

Not that Maybelle St. Clare, “dainty, diminutive, dancing damsel,” had an aversion for flowers. To the contrary, she possessed a normal girl’s fondness for them. It was the fact that men sent them to her that caused her to spurn these particular bouquets that were delivered to her room on the average of four a night. When she lived in Ludington, Mich., Mabel Clare (the extra “y” and “le” and the “St.” had been acquired since the aforementioned debut) had not been a man-hater. In sact —impossible as it now seemed —she had beep in love, tremendously*in love, at one time. That was before she decided on a career instead of a dishrag and carpet sweeper. It was ■: her only love affair. The young man had wooed her for three years and won her, when along came this question of women’s rights. The wedding bells were about due to ring, when study of 'Suffrage and sundry other subjects put that career idea into Mabel’s head. Her fiance dbjected seriously to the stage, although she insisted that he should accompany her and utilize his musical ability to help make her famous. She had just about won him over to her way of thinking when the suffrage question came up to Lave its fate decided by the electors of the state. Mabel took a prominent part in the campaign, and when the amendment was defeated she was heartbroken. In the midst of her tears of disappointment, while her husband-to-be was attempting to comfort her, she ceased sobbing sufficiently to remark that she supposed, of course, he had voted to enfranchise women. Being an honest but undiplomatic young man, he confessed that he had marked his cross in the “No” square. And from that moment he stopped being a prospective benedict. “You’re just a lowbrow, with backwoods ideas, and you’Jl never make any progress,” she had cried as she showed him the door. a “I never want to see you again—or any other man.. I’ll never get married —never! I’ll carve a career on the vaudeville stage, as I have planned; but I’ll do it without your assistance or any other man’s. I’ll show that men are not necessary, and you can stay here and rust into a grave.”

She gave up her position in a dry goods store and went to. Chicago, where she had an aunt whose husband exercised some influence in the theatrical world and who had taken considerable sympathetic interest in Mabel’s footlight ambitions. The other aunt, with whom Mabel lived in Ludington, tried to dissuade her; but the objections were overruled; and as both the young lady’s parents were dead, there was no one to Interfere with her working out a future in her chosen course. She sent no letters to her erstwhile sweetheart —not even a post card picture of Lincoln park. “He’s too nar-row-minded and we have nothing In common,” she repeatedly assured herself to assuage the pain that was bound to be felt after such a long and serious affair of the heart. While Maybelle St. Clare “made up” for her first appearance In the Detroit vaudeville theater, Philip Warner sat In the orchestra pit doing his bit In the making of melody for the first act on the bill. As he puffed out his cheeks and performed gyrations with the trombone slide, he kept his eyes averted from the slackwire artist, principally because the artist was a woman —and he hated women. His one disastrous love affair had embittered his heart against the sex. Maybelle St. Clare’s act was third on the bill. She was electric-lighted out in front as the headliner; consequently the audience was in an expectant 'mood. The orchestra rendered a dashing, soul-thrilling selection, and when the crescendo had reached Its climax the girl who had carved a career tripped daintily out on the stage and bowed and blew kisses in response to the generous applause. She was feeling especially full of the artistic spirit this evening; possibly because she was paying her first professional visit to bar home state and

some one from “up home” might b* an observer of her effort The audi ence was with her from the start, am anybody who ever bad doubted her vocal or terpiichorean ability would have been'forced to amend his opinion upon witnessing her offering that evening. Near the close of the act was when she always made the “big hit.” She did it'by rendering a song that she had stutpbjed on by accident in a music store in the West. It was not a popular song; she had never hehrd of it before, but it had seemed to fit the one void in her repertoire, so she had annexed it. Shortly after that she got recognition on the “big time” circuits and she had b<*en told her “landing” there was dtfe largely to that one selection. .

The orchestra became silent and the audience hushed as she stepped close to the footlights and waited for .darkness and the, spotlight. Evidently there was a misunderstanding at the switchboard, for there was a vexatious delayabout darkening the house. It was only a moment that she stood waiting, but that moment was enough for her gaze to meet that of the trombone player—and that settled it! The lights went out and the spotlight found her, but she stood in a trance. She opened her-mouth, but no sound came forth —for the simple reason that every word and note of thht.very necessary song had fled from her brain when she recognized that face in the orchestra.

She concentrated with all her will, but those eyes in the pit, which she could not see but could feel piercing her through and through so disconcerted her that she was unable to apprehend the elusive words and notes. Horrors! she thought. What if some one from home were a witness of her plight! A woman tittered foolishly and a man’s guffaw followed. ‘Sounds like Jeff Sullivan and Kittle Frickles,” she told herself. “This is terrible!” She shifted her weight from her right to her left foot, as perspiration streaked a canal through her artificial complexion. She had stood in that one pose at least a week —so it seemed — when it suddenly dawned on her that a whisper was floating up from the orchestra pit. A husky voice was peating over and over: “Back on the old plantation Ilves a white-haired negro man." Maybelle St. Clare suddenly came to herself. Those were the first words of her song. Her mind pounced upon them and with them the tune. She smiled and opened her mouth once more, and her “great hit” scored another success.

After the show there was a little party in a nearby case. The participants were Maybelle St. Clare and Philip Warner. On her bosom she wore a bouquet of red roses which he had sent an usher to get when he received the note telling him she wished to see him and “thank” him. As she nibbled a chicken sandwich she remarked casually: “Do you know, Philip, I’ve changed my mind about woman suffrage. I agree with you that woman’s place is in the home. I’ve carved my career, but I’m sick and tired of it all.” He dipped a spoon In his coffee and sipped testily. “I’ve changed my mind, too,” he announced. ,‘Tm in favor of giving women the vote or anything else they want.” She laughed, hesitated somewhat confusedly and held a menu card before her eyes. “If that’s the case,” she said simply, “you’ll give me back that ring I returned to. you two years ago.” He nearly choked on the hot coffee, but he managed to swallow It, and reached into a vest pocket.

“I’ve always kept it with me,” he declared. In defiance of curious eyes at nearby tables, she allowed him to reach across and place the thin gold, dia-mond-set band on a finger which it had graced once before. “Now, will you explain how you happened to be acquainted with the words of ‘Where the Cotton Grows?’” she asked, , “and how you „ knew I needed that song to make my act go?” He signaled the waiter to bring the check. ; -‘Certainly,” he replied amiably. “The program told me you were supposed to sing that song, although it didn’t inform me that Maybelle St. Clare was Mabel Clare. I knew the words of the piece because I wrote them —and the muslc » to °- M you’ll dig up your copy you’ll see printed on it, ‘Words and Music by Philipe de Warnaire.’ ”