“It says here,” stated her husband, “that there are 27,650,267 automobiles in the world, according to a census just completed.”
It was Mrs. Taylor’s own fault that Louis had contracted the habit of reciting interesting tidbits from the paper. Back in May, 1924, he had asked her whether she would like to hear the news of the Loeb-Leopold case. She had already read it, but she said yes, thinking it would be more thrilling, even in repetition, than one of Louis’ own experiences, also in repetition. Since then, she had listened every evening—except Wednesday, when Louis went out, and Sundays, when there was no paper—to excerpts from the Star, consisting principally of what is known in newspaper offices as filler—incontrovertible statistics about men and things in all parts of the world, facts that seemed to smite her husband like a bolt from the blue.
“Think of it!” he said. “Nearly twenty-eight million automobiles!”
“Heavens!” said Mrs. Taylor.
“And speaking of automobiles: ‘Storms have made roads so bad in parts of Chile that drivers have not dared to go into the rural districts.’ That’s the trouble with owning a car. If you don’t stay right on the paved streets or paved roads, you’re liable to get stuck and maybe walk home. Besides that, you’ve got to be a mechanic yourself or else, when there’s something wrong, you have to take it to a garage and lay it up a week till they consent to look at it and find out what’s the matter, and then they don’t know themselves nine times out of ten. But they charge you just the same and they charge you plenty. Did I tell you about Walter Trumbull’s trip to Harper City?”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Taylor.
“I don’t believe I did. It was only last Friday night; no, Thursday night, the night after the Spartans beat us by one pin, when I had a chance to get a 202 and hit the head pin just a little too full and they split on me. That was the night Berger showed up so drunk he couldn’t bowl and we had to use Tommy and he shot 123.
“So it was the night after that when Walter and Marjorie started over to the City to see the Seventh Heaven, and about five miles the other side of Two Oaks the engine died and Walter couldn’t get it going again. His flashlight wouldn’t work and Marjorie wouldn’t let him strike matches with the hood up to see what the trouble was. As it turned out, it wouldn’t have done him any good anyway.
“Finally he left poor Marjorie in the car and walked way back to Two Oaks, but the garage was closed up for the night and the whole town was asleep, so he went back to the car and by that time of course it was too late to see the show. He hailed three or four cars coming from the other way, trying to get a ride home, but it wasn’t till after ten o’clock that he could get a car to stop and pick them up. The next morning he sent Charlie Thomas out to fix up the car so it would run or else tow it in, and Charlie found out there was nothing the matter with it except it was out of gas. When Walter told me about it, I said that was what he deserved for not patronizing the Interurban.”
“We don’t patronize it ourselves.”
“I hear enough about it in the daytime without riding on it at night.”
Mrs. Taylor shuffled the cards and Louis resumed perusal of the Star.
“The old U.S. is a pretty good country after all,” he said presently. “Listen to this: ‘The Netherlands’ unemployed now include 26,000 skilled and 24,000 unskilled workers.’ And listen: ‘A large proportion of Belgium’s population still wear wooden shoes.’ You wouldn’t think that was possible in this day and age!”
“I imagine,” said Mrs. Taylor, “that there are some places in the United States where people don’t wear any shoes at all.”
“Oh, sure, but not a large proportion; probably a few of those backwoods Tennessee mountaineers. And of course the colored people in the small towns in Georgia and South Carolina. You see lots of them, passing through on the train, that never had a shoe on in their life. I remember a place named Jesup, Georgia, a kind of junction. There was—No, that wasn’t Jesup; it was some other place, some place the boss and I went through on the way to Daytona that time. I guess I told you about it.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Taylor.
“You wouldn’t believe the way some of those people live. Not all colored people, either; white people, too. Poor white trash, they call them. Or rather, ‘po’ white trash.’ Families of four and five in one room. Mr. Parvis said it was a crime and kept wishing he could do something for them.”
“Why didn’t he?”
“Well, he’s hardly got money enough to house and clothe the whole South and it wouldn’t do any good to just pick out some one town and try and better conditions there.”
“Why not?”
“It would be a drop in the bucket, and besides, other towns would hear about it and pester the life out of him. I reminded him he was taking the trip to get away from care and worry for a while and he ought not to fret himself about other people’s business. Then, too, if he was going to practise some of his philanthrophy down there, I’d probably be put in charge of it. We might have even had to live there a year or two. I guess you wouldn’t like that, would you?”
“It wouldn’t make any difference to me,” said Mrs. Taylor.
“What! Live in one of those Godforsaken holes, without any friends or anybody you’d want to make friends with! Nothing to do all day and all night but eat and sleep and—”
“Play solitaire,” suggested Mrs. Taylor.
“You may think you wouldn’t mind
