Ten North Frederick (44 page)

Edith danced with Joe; with Arthur McHenry, Henry Laubach, Mike Slattery, Alec Weeks, her brother Carter, and Paul Donaldson. She sat out her dance with Dave Harrison, who had lost a leg in an airplane accident in France.

The dancing ended at the reasonable hour of one o'clock and nearly all of the guests stayed to the end. It was close to two-thirty when the Chapins, the McHenrys, the Weekses, the Harrisons and the Donaldsons sat down to scrambled eggs in the smoking room. The Donaldsons were staying with the Chapins, the Weekses with the McHenrys; and the Harrisons were staying at the hotel because of Dave's leg and the hotel elevator. All agreed that it had been a splendid party, over and above such misfortunes as a lady's lost earring, the early departure of several of the elderly, a man who had lost the keys to his car, another man who had upchucked before quite making the bathroom, Billy English's being called away in the middle of dinner, the orchestra's not playing enough waltzes for the older crowd, one whole table's being served a full course behind the others because it was out of sight in an
L,
one lady's insistence on being at the party when she should have been on her way to the delivery room, and in addition to the misfortunes that were discussed at the supper party there were a few others like the lady who lay moaning and taking aspirin in the upstairs rest room, and the stout lady who committed a loud fart over the singing of “Jolly Good Fellow,” and the waiter who had not buttoned his fly, and the small incident of Jane Weeks and her dinner partner in which Jane said: “Are you by any chance a customer of my husband's firm?”

“No,” said the man.

“Then take your hand off my leg.”

Back at
10
North Frederick the Chapins made sure that the Donaldsons had everything, knew where everything was, didn't want a glass of milk—and retired to their own room.

“Thank you, Edith,” said Joe. “It was a grand party.”

“Yes, I think it was. I'm glad you enjoyed it.”

He was lying with his hands clasped at the back of his neck. “It had a nice friendly atmosphere. Not too pushy friendly, but almost a family feeling. It wasn't so much me. It was Gibbsville. My father was right. This is a good town, and I'm glad I didn't decide to live in New York or Philadelphia. I wouldn't like to feel out of it, the way I would in a big city, and I wouldn't like to do what Paul does, spends more and more of his time in New York. If you're going to be a New Yorker, be a New Yorker. If you're going to be a Scranton man, be one. I wonder what he's saying about us, right this minute. Probably saying I'm a stick-in-the-mud.”

“No, Paul couldn't say it. He's still half-stuck in Scranton. Dave might say it, or Alec. But you don't care what they say. You don't really care what anybody says.”

“Well, now that I'm forty, I am a stick-in-the-mud for good, and I'm not the least sorry. Not in the least.”

“All those people tonight, that ought to make you feel anything but sorry.” She entered the bed and turned out the light.

“Forty,” said Joe.

“I'm sure it doesn't feel very different.”

“No, not unless I look at my friends, Alec and Dave, fellows I don't see all the time, and ask myself whether I've changed as much as they have. In appearance, that is.”

“I can answer that. You haven't. Dave has been through a lot of pain and suffering. And Alec's appearance can be blamed on other things.”

“Very handsome fellow, though.”

“If you like his kind of looks. I happen not to believe that an American should try to look so much like an Englishman.”

“It's not English, Edith. It's a certain kind of New York–swell look. Of course he does get everything in London, right down to his collar buttons. And he went to Oxford, remember.”

“He rubs me the wrong way.”

“Not while he was dancing with you, I hope . . . I couldn't resist that. Well, pretty soon that will be all over for all of us, Alec and me and all of us.”

“Yes, all of us.”

“I'm ten years away from fifty, and ten years ago I was a young man of thirty. It's easier for me to imagine myself fifty than to remember how I was at thirty. I wonder how long I'll live.”

“Till you're eighty, at least.”

“Do you think so? My mother and father and my grandparents were all in their seventies or about that when they died.”

“At least eighty,” said Edith. “You may live to be a hundred. You've never had a serious illness, you do everything in moderation and they say that's the secret.”

“Not for everybody,” said Joe. “Think of the old drunks in this town, a lot of them in their seventies. But it isn't just living to an old age that I've been thinking about. Crocodiles and turtles, look at them. And there's always some man in Turkey that's just celebrated his one hundred and thirtieth birthday.”

“I think they have a different calendar,” said Edith. “What would you like to do, or be?”

“I would like to be President of the United States,” said Joe.

“You would?”

“I honestly would,” said Joe.

“Is that a new thought?”

“Not entirely new. At least I didn't just think of it tonight.”

“Do you think you could be elected?”

“Not in
1924
. I've never been elected to anything, at least not president of anything. If I ever plan to realize my ambition I'll have to get started soon. I think Mr. Harding is about fifty-seven now, and he was fifty when he was elected to the Senate.”

“He looks younger than fifty-seven.”

“A very handsome man, even in knickers,” said Joe.

“Yes, he looks like a Roman senator,” said Edith.

“Well, I don't look like a Roman senator, I'm sure of that, but neither do most of the senators. And I have some qualifications and some I can acquire. I'm more than thirty-five, I'm a native-born citizen. White. Protestant. Republican, and never even a Bull Mooser. I'm blessed with enough of this world's goods without being a Wall Street millionaire. Married to a fine woman, father of two children. Attorney-at-law. Never connected with any scandal. And a grandfather who was lieutenant governor of one of the largest states and ancestors who fought in the Revolutionary War. The one thing against me is my own war record, but people are inclined to forget things like that, and anyway, it would take me ten years to get established in politics. By that time my war record won't seem quite so important, unless my opponent happens to be a war hero. But I wouldn't run against a war hero. Have you ever heard such boasting?”

“It isn't boasting. It's what I've always wanted you to do. Not President. I never thought of that. But I've always thought you should do more in public affairs. And why not aim for the top?”

“It's an insane idea, positively insane, and yet it could happen. If I go about it the right way, build slowly and carefully, it could happen.”

On this night, the early morning after his fortieth birthday, she made all her efforts to please him and found that he was also pleasing her, and pleasing her more than Lloyd Williams had pleased her, because this man was her own.

 • • • 

In the months that followed they had many conversations over strategy and tactics. The little bits were considered carefully in their relation to the grand strategy. An invitation to buy tickets for a church supper no longer received a perfunctory small check. Edith would send the check, but she would send with it a brief note to the effect that she and her husband were delighted to help such a worthy cause. Worthy causes, from the Boy Scouts of America to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, were equally delighted to print the Chapin name high on their published lists of contributors. Joe shrewdly by-passed the Merchants Association, a group of men who were forever identified in Mr. Lewis's
Babbitt
. “They want to use
me
, but I'm out to use
them,”
Joe remarked, and regretfully declined invitations to speak at their meetings and at the luncheons of the Rotary, Kiwanis, and Lions.

They did not go in too deeply. “I don't want to do anything that looks like politics,” said Joe. “I want people to get to know that I'm alive, but at least for the time being I'm not going to enter into activities that will make people put two-and-two together. That's why these charities are good. We've always given to charity, but until now, it hasn't been getting in the paper.”

Among non-charitable organizations there existed a timidity about asking Joe or his wife for support. The people of the town, and the people in the circulation area of the Gibbsville newspapers, were becoming familiar with the name, so that as a name it was beginning to mean something more than nothing. But Joe Chapin held no office and had a successful business in the law, and consequently did not have to yield to polite pressure when a free speaker was needed for a high school commencement or the dedication of a drinking font. He continued to lend his name and give his money to such projects as a public swimming pool, public tennis courts, the public library, the Mission (a recreation center for poor children, having no connection with denominational religion, and conducted by young ladies who in larger cities would have been the Junior League), the Children's Home (an orphanage), the Junior Baseball League, the Gibbsville professional football team, the Gibbsville Historical Society, the Committee for the Maintenance and Preservation of Historical Monuments, the Y.M.C.A., the Y.W.C.A., the Y.M.H.A., and the Y.W.H.A. A large number of the worthy causes had to do with children, and Joe's contributions and interest needed no explanation. And in some instances the worthy causes had been supported by two or three generations of Chapins and Stokeses. But now the Chapin name was being used, and the happy circumstance that the name stood high on alphabetical lists made for an increasing public awareness of it.

In less than two years there was scarcely an adult (who was not an illiterate) who did not at least know the name Joseph B. Chapin, and know it in a favorable association. There were poor people in the mill section who had never seen Joe Chapin, but that too was going to be taken care of in its proper time. And the campaign to acquaint Gibbsville citizens with the name was accomplished without a single conference with Mike Slattery. It was all done from
10
North Frederick or from Joe's office.

Then one evening in '
24
Mike Slattery, reading his Gibbsville
Standard
, said as though to no one: “Well, now, will you listen to this.”

“What?” said Peg Slattery.

“In the paper. Joe Chapin. According to this he presented an American flag, a silk American flag, to the Joseph B. Chapin Grammar School.”

“He's always giving to this or that,” said Peg. “The both of them are.”

“Oh, no. Oh, no, my girl. This is different. This isn't one of those five-dollar donations to St. Isaac's Hebrew Sodality.”

“Why is this so different, giving a flag to a school?” said Peg.

“This time he went there himself. He presented the flag. He—made—the presentation.” He laid the paper on his lap and gazed up at the ceiling, running his upper teeth over his lip. Peg recognized the signs that her husband made when he was planning an important move, and kept quiet.

“Mr. Joe Chapin and I are about ready to have a private talk,” he said. “He is a much smarter man than I gave him credit for.”

“She's in it somewhere,” said Peg.

“You're right she is. She may be at the bottom of it,” said Mike. “That's neither here nor there at this time. Now what I do, I make the first move. I could wait for him to come to me, but if I make the first move and offer him something, he'll be flattered and he'll be one of my men. If I wait for him to come to me, he may come to me with plans of his own and I may have to turn him down, and I don't want to do that.”

“He may turn down what you offer.”

“That won't matter. I'll still be making the offer before he can come to me.”

“Don't leave her out of your thinking.”

“Oh, you may be sure I won't,” said Mike. “They have been doing this together, and I wasn't very smart not to notice it before. The day after tomorrow I'll see him. I don't want him to get away from me. I wish there was some way I could find out all the charities and stuff he's been contributing to. But there isn't time!”

“Then why don't you take for granted that he's contributed to everything? Talk to him and meanwhile you can get someone at your office to examine the back numbers of the
Standard
.”

“I'll do that,” said Mike. “We don't want this fledgling to learn to fly without us.”

“No.”

“And I'll talk to him day after tomorrow and find out how high he wants to fly.”

It was easy for Mike to obtain an appointment to see Joe. “But I'd rather we met at the Gibbsville Club, Joe. I have a feeling Arthur wouldn't like us to talk politics in your office.”

“Your feeling is correct, Mike,” said Joe. “I'll meet you there after lunch. I'm having lunch there.”

“Great! The more casual the better. I'll eat at the round table and then you and I can have our meeting accidentally-on-purpose.”

At about
1
:
45
the next afternoon Henry Laubach said he would have to get back to his office, and Joe said he wanted to have a look at the New York papers. With Henry safely out of the club Mike joined Joe.

“Joe, I'll be blunt,” said Mike. “The time has come for me to talk of many things, and they all concern you. I could fill you up with a lot of high-sounding phrases about the good of the party, and good citizenship, but we wouldn't have been friends so long if you didn't trust me, and you trust me because I've always been pretty darn frank with you. Am I right?”