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The Cheerful Smugglers, a fiction by Ellis Parker Butler |
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Chapter 10. Tariff Reform |
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_ CHAPTER X. TARIFF REFORM If a man really likes to wipe dishes, while his wife washes them, there is no better time for friendly confidences, and for the arrangement of difficulties. Diplomatists win their greatest battles for peace at the dinner-table, because the dinner-table gives abundant opportunity for the "interruption politic." When the argument reaches the fatal climax, and the final ultimatum is delivered, a boiled potato may still avert war: "Now, me lud, I ask you finally, will your government, or won't it? That is the question," and from the opposing diplomat come the words, "Beg pardon, your ludship, but will you kindly pass me the salt? Thanks! Don't you think the butter is a little strong?" and war is averted. Postponed, at least. Just so over the dish-wiping; the hard and fast logic of who's right and who's wrong is interrupted and turned aside by timely ejaculations of: "Oh, I did wipe that cup!" or interpolated questions, as: "Have you washed this plate yet, my dear?" A wise man who finds himself cornered can always drop one of the blown-glass tumblers on the floor--they only cost five cents--or ask, innocently: "Did I crack this plate, or was it already cracked?" By a judicious use of these little wreckers of consecutive speech Mr. and Mrs. Fenelby, over the dishes, reached a perfect understanding and forgot their quarrel. Mr. Fenelby said she was perfectly right in hiding the set of Eugene Field in the attic, since it was intended as a surprise for him on the anniversary of their wedding, and the payment of the tariff duty on it would have divulged the secret; and Mrs. Fenelby agreed that he was doing exactly the right thing when he did the same, and for the same reason; but they both agreed that Kitty and Billy had acted rather shamelessly in the matter of smuggling. "I know Billy," said Mr. Fenelby, "and I know him well. I won't say anything about Kitty, for she is your guest, but Billy would smuggle anything he could lay his hands on. He is a lawyer, and a young one, and all you have to do is to show a young lawyer a law, and he immediately begins to look for ways to get around it. I don't say this to excuse him. I just say it." "Well, you know how women are," said Mrs. Fenelby. "As sure as you get two or three women who have been abroad into a group they will begin telling how and what they were able to smuggle in when they came through the custom house. Some of them enjoy the smuggling part better than all the rest of their trips abroad, so what could you expect of Kitty when she had a perpetual custom house to smuggle things through? She looks on it as a sort of game, and the one that smuggles the most is the winner. I don't say this to excuse her. But it is so." "I am not the least sorry that Billy is offended, if he is," said Mr. Fenelby, between plates; "but if you wish I will apologize to Kitty, although I don't see why I should. The thing I am worrying about is Bobberts. I like this tariff plan, and I think it is a good way to raise money--if anyone ever pays the tariff duties--but I don't feel as if I was treating Bobberts right. Every time I put money in his bank in payment of the tariff duty on a thing I have brought into the house I feel that I am doing Bobberts a wrong. And the more I put in the more guilty I feel." "Of course it is all for his education fund," said Mrs. Fenelby. "I know it," said Mr. Fenelby, "and that is what makes me feel so small and miserable when I pay my ten or thirty per cent. duty. Bobberts is my only son, and the dearest and sweetest baby that ever lived, and I ought to be glad to give money for his education fund voluntarily and freely; and yet we treat him as if we hated him and had to be forced to give him a few cents a day. We act as if he was nothing but a government treasury deficit, and instead of giving joyously and gladly because we love him, we act as if we had to have laws made to force us to give. I feel it more every time I have to pay tariff duty into his bank. I tell you, Laura, it isn't treating Bobberts in the right spirit. If he could understand he would be hurt and offended to think his parents were the kind that had to be compelled to give him an education, as if he were a reformatory child or a Home for something or other. Any tax is always unpopular, and that means it is annoying and vexatious; and what I am afraid of is that we will get to dislike Bobberts because we feel we are injuring him. I don't mind the tariff, myself, but I do want to be fair and square with Bobberts. He's the only child we have, Laura." "Oh, Tom!" exclaimed Mrs. Fenelby, taking her hands out of the dish water; "do you think we have gone too far to make it all right again? Do you think we have hurt our love for him, or weakened it, or--or anything? If I thought so I should never, never forgive myself!" "I hope we haven't," said Mr. Fenelby, seriously; "but we must not take any more chances. If this thing goes on we will become quite hardened toward Bobberts, and cease to love him altogether." "We will stop this tariff right this very minute!" cried Mrs. Fenelby joyously. "I am so glad, Tom. I just hated the old thing!" Mr. Fenelby shook his head slowly and Mrs. Fenelby's face lost its radiance and became questioningly fear-struck. "What is it?" she asked, anxiously. "Can't we stop? Must we keep on with it forever and forever?" "You forget the Congress of the Commonwealth of Bobberts," said Mr. Fenelby. "The tariff law was passed by the congress, and it can only be repealed by the congress, with Bobberts present." Mrs. Fenelby wiped her hands hurriedly and rapidly untied her apron. "I hate to waken Bobberts," she said, "but I will! I'd do anything to have that tariff unpassed again." Mr. Fenelby put his hand on her arm, restraining her as she was about to rush from the kitchen. "Wait, Laura!" he said. "You forget that you and I are not the only States now. Kitty and Billy are States, too. You and I would not form a quorum. We must have Kitty and Billy." "Tom," she said, "I will get Kitty and Billy if I have to drag them in by main force!" and she went to find them. Ten minutes later she returned but without them. Mr. Fenelby had finished the dishes, and was hanging the dish-pan on its nail. The two needed States were nowhere to be found, neither in the house, nor on the porch, nor were they on the grounds. There was nothing to do but to await their return. It was quite late when Kitty and Billy returned, and the Fenelbys had grown tired of sitting on the porch and had gone inside, but Kitty and Billy did not seem to mind the dampness or the chill for the moon was beautiful, and they seated themselves in the hammock. Bobberts had been put to bed, and his parents had become almost merry with their old-time merriment as they contemplated the speedy over-throw of the Fenelby Domestic Tariff. The joy that comes from a tax repealed is greater than the peace that comes from paying a tax honestly. There is no fun in paying taxes. Not the least. "I think, Laura," said Mr. Fenelby, when he and his wife had listened to the slow creaking of the hammock hooks for some minutes, "you had better go out and tell them to come in." Mrs. Fenelby went. She let the porch screen slam as she went out--which was only fair--and she heard the low whispers change to louder tones, and a slight movement of feet; but she was not, evidently, intruding, for Kitty and Billy were quite primly disposed in the hammock when she reached them. "Hello!" she said pleasantly, "Won't you come in? We are going to vote on the tariff." "Go ahead and vote," said Billy cheerfully. "We won't interfere." "But we can't vote until you come in," explained Mrs. Fenelby. "We haven't a quorum until you come in. You are States, and we can't do anything until you come in." "Did you try?" asked Billy, just as cheerfully as before. "We don't want to vote. We are comfortable out here. If we must vote, bring your congress out here." "Billy, I would if I could," said Mrs. Fenelby, "but I can't! Bobberts has to be present, and he can't be brought out into the night air." Kitty half rose from the hammock. She felt to see that her hair was in order. "Come on, Billy," she said. "Be accommodating," and they went in. It was necessary to bring Bobberts down from the nursery, and Mrs. Fenelby brought him in, limp and sleeping, and sat with him in her arms. Mr. Fenelby explained why the meeting was called. "It is because Laura and I are tired of this tariff nonsense," he explained. "You and Kitty have seen how it works--everybody in the house mad at one another--" "Not Billy and I," interposed Kitty. "Are we Billy?" "Let us, for the sake of argument, suppose we are," said Billy. "We must give Tom a fair chance. It is his tariff, not ours." "Very well," said Kitty; "we are all angry! Let us quarrel!" "Seriously, now," said Mr. Fenelby, very seriously indeed, "this has got to stop! You and Kitty may think it is all a joke, but Laura and I went into this thing before you came, and we meant it seriously. We went into it in parliamentary form, and in good faith. Now we see it was all a mistake and we want to do away with it. If you will just take it seriously for five minutes--if you can be sensible that long--we will not trouble you with it any more. Laura, awaken Bobberts!" Mrs. Fenelby awakened the Territory by gently kissing him on his eyes, and he opened them and blinked sleepily at the ceiling. "Congress is in session," said Mr. Fenelby. "And Laura moves that the Fenelby Domestic Tariff be repealed and annulled. I second it. All in favor of the motion say--" "Stop!" exclaimed Billy, rising from his chair. "I object to this! Kitty and I did not come in here to have such an important motion rushed through without consideration. It is not parliamentary. I want to make a speech." "Oh, don't!" pleaded Mrs. Fenelby. "Think how late it is, Billy." "Mr. President and Ladies of Congress," said Billy unrelentingly; "we are asked to repeal our tariff laws, our beneficent laws, enacted to send Bobberts to college. We stand in the presence of two cruel parents who would take away from their only Territory its sole chance--as we were informed--of securing an education. We are asked to do this merely because there has been some slight difficulty in collecting the tariff tax. I am ashamed to be a State in a commonwealth that can put forward such an excuse. I care not what others may do, but as for me I shall never cast my vote to rob that poor innocent," he pointed feelingly toward Bobberts, "to rob him of his future happiness! Never. You won't either, will you, Kitty?" "I should think not!" exclaimed Kitty. "Poor little Bobberts!" Mr. Fenelby moved the papers on his desk nervously. He was tempted to say something about smuggling, but he controlled himself, for it would not do to antagonize one-half of congress. He felt that Kitty and Billy had been planning some great feats of smuggling, and that they had no desire to have their fun spoiled by the repeal of the tariff. Probably no smugglers are free traders at heart--free trade would ruin their business. He put the motion, and the vote was what he had expected--two for and two against the motion. It was not carried. For a few minutes all sat in silence, the air tingling with suppressed irritability. A word would have condensed it into cruel speech. It was Billy who broke the spell. "I'm going out to smoke another duty-paid cigar before I turn in," he said. "Do you want to have a turn on the porch, Kitty?" "I think not. I'm tired. I'll go up, I think," said Kitty, and they left the room together. Mr. Fenelby gathered his papers and his book together and pushed them wearily into the desk. Then he dropped into a chair and looked sadly at the floor. "Tom," said Laura, "can't we stop the tariff anyway?" "Oh, no!" said her husband disconsolately. "We can't do anything. We've got to go ahead with the foolishness until Kitty and Billy go. They would laugh at us and crow over us all their lives if we didn't. Especially after the fool I have made of myself with this voting nonsense," he added bitterly. Mrs. Fenelby sighed. _ |
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