“No,” says Mrs. Shaw. “He’s late.” So Katie says better late than never, and the wife says, yes, but she’s got a feeling that some day it’ll be never; something tells her that if he ever goes to France, he won’t come back. So Bridget says, “You been reading the war news again and it always makes you sad.” “I hate wars!” says Mrs. Shaw, and that line got one of the biggest laughs.
After this they was a couple of minutes when neither of them could think of nothing to add, and then the phone rung and Bridget answered it. It was Capt. Shaw, saying he’d be there pretty soon; so Bridget goes right back to the kitchen to finish getting dinner, but she ain’t no sooner than left the stage when Capt. Shaw struts in. He must of called up from the public booth on his front porch.
The audience had a tough time recognizing him without his comic makeup, but when they did they give him a good hand. Mrs. Shaw got up to greet him, but he brushed by her and come down to the footlights to bow. Then he turned and went back to his Mrs., saying “Maizie!” like this was the last place he expected to run acrost her. They kissed and then he ast her “Where is Bobbie, our dear little one?”—for fear she wouldn’t know whose little one he meant. So she rung a bell and back come Bridget, and he says “Well, Bridget!” and Bridget says, “Well, it’s the master!” This line was another riot. “Bring the little one, Bridget,” says Mrs. Shaw, and the audience hollered again.
Wile Bridget was after the little one, the captain celebrated the reunion by walking round the room, looking at the pictures. Bridget brings the baby in and the captain uncovers its face and says, “Well, Bobbie!” Then he turns to his wife and says, “Let’s see, Maizie. How old is he?” “Two weeks,” says Maizie. “Two weeks!” says Captain Shaw, surprised. “Well,” he says, “I hope by the time he’s old enough to fight for the Stars and Stripes, they won’t be no such a thing as war.” So Mrs. Shaw says, “And I hope his father won’t be called on to make the supreme sacrifice for him and we others that must stay home and wait. I sometimes think that in wartime, it’s the women and children that suffers most. Take him back to his cozy cradle, Bridget. We mothers must be careful of our little ones. Who knows when the kiddies will be our only comfort!” So Bridget beat it out with the little one and I bet he hated to leave all the gayety.
“Well,” says Shaw to his wife, “and what’s the little woman been doing?”
“Just reading,” she says, “reading the news of this horrible war. I don’t never pick up the paper but what I think that some day I’ll see your name amongst the dead.”
“Well,” says the captain bravely, “they’s no danger wile I stay on U.S. soil. But only for you and the little one, I would welcome the call to go Over There and take my place in the battle line. The call will come soon, I believe, for they say France needs men.” This rumor pretty near caused a riot in the audience and Ralston turned and give us all a dirty look.
Then Bridget come in again and said dinner was ready, and Shaw says, “It’ll seem funny to set down wile I eat.” Which was the first time I ever knew that army captains took their meals off the mantelpiece.
Wile the Shaws was out eating, their maid stayed in the living room, where she’d be out of their way. It seems that Ralston had wrote a swell speech for her to make in this spot, about what a tough thing war is, to come along and separate a happy young couple like the Shaws that hadn’t only been married a year. But the speech started “This is terrible!” and when Bridget got that much of it out, some egg in the gallery hollered “You said a mouthful, kid!” and stopped the show.
The house finally quieted down, but Katie was dumb for the first time in her life. She couldn’t say the line that was the cue for the phone to ring, and she had to go over and answer a silent call. It was for the captain, and him and his wife both come back on the stage.
“Maizie,” he says, after he’d hung up, “it’s came! That was my general! We sail for France in half an hour!”
“O husband!” says Maizie. “This is the end!”
“Nonsense!” says Shaw with a brave smile. “This war means death for only a small percent of our men.”
“And almost no captains,” yells the guy in the gallery.
Shaw gets ready to go, but she tells him to wait till she puts on her wraps; she’ll go down to the dock and see him off.
“No, darling,” he says. “Our orders is secret. I can’t give you the name of our ship or where we’re sailing from.”
So he goes and she flops on the couch w’ining because he wouldn’t tell her whether his ship left from Times Square or Grand Central.
They rung the curtain down here to make you think six days has passed. When it goes up again, Maizie’s setting on the couch, holding the little one. Pretty soon Bridget comes in with the evening paper.
“They’s a big headline, mum,” she says. “A troopship has been torpedoed.”
Well, when she handed her the paper, I could see the big headline. It said, “Phillies Hit Grimes Hard.” But Maizie may of had a bet on Brooklyn. Anyway, she begin trembling and finally fell over stiff. So Bridget picked up the paper and read it out loud:
“Amongst the men lost was Capt. F. Shaw of
