Montpelier examiner. [volume] (Montpelier, Idaho) 1895-1937, 1914-12-18
Underneath the High Cut Vest
A Business AdOenture of Emma McChesney
rs rs rs rs rs rs rs

By Edna FERBER
Aasho, Of .Da~n oFIaro . Battered Sid. Dovn. ETC

.aaight-stand country called Sleepland, a
practical working nightmare that we
use again and again, no matter how
varied the theme or setting Of our
dreamsdrama. Your surgeon, tossing
,lineasily on his bed, sees himself cut
ting to remove an appendix, only to
discover that that unpopular portion
OF his patients anatomy already hobs
in alcoholic giee in bottle on the top
shelf OF the laboratory Of more alert
professional brother. Your civil en-
gineer constructs imaginary bridges
which slump and fall as quickly as they
are completed. Your stage favorite,
AIN the throes OF a post-lobster night
ImaAre, has horrid vision of herself
resting" in january. But when he
who sells goods on the road groans
and losses in the clutches Of dread
fui dream, 1t is, strangely enough,
never of Cancelled orders, maniacal
train schedules. lumpy mattresses, or
vilely cooked food. These everyday
things he accepts with philosophers
.cheerfulness. No-his nightmare is
always a vision of himself, sick on the
road, at country hotel in the middle
OF the spring season.
On the third day that she looked
with more than ordinary indifference
aipon hotel and dining car food, Mrs.
Emma McChesney. representing the
Il. A. Buck Featherloom Petticoat
company, wondered if, perhaps, she
did not need bottle of bitter tonic.
On the fifth day she noticed that
there were chills chashing up and
down her spine, and back and forth
from legs to shoulder blades when
other people were wiping their chins
and foreheads with bedraggled-look
handkerchiefs, and demanding how
long this heat was going to last, any
way. On the sixth day she lost all in
terest in T. A. Bucks featherloom pet
ticoats. And then she knew that
something was seriously wrong. On
the seventh day, when the blonde and
nasal waitress approached her in the
dining room of the little hotel at Glen
Rock, Mimi, Emma McChesney's mind
somehow failed to grasp the meaning
OF the all too obvious string OF ques-
lions which were put to her-Ques-
fions ending in the inevitable tea, cof-
fee r milk?" At that juncture Emma
LMcChesney had looked up into the
girls face IN puzzled, uncompre-
hending way, had passed one hand
.dRzedly over her hot forehead and re-
piled, with great earnestness:
Yours OF the twelfth at hand and
contents noted the greatest
little skirt on the market he's
going to be a son to be proud Of, God
sbless him want to leave a call
for seven sharp
The lank waitress face took on an
added Darkness One of the two trav-
cling men at the same table started
to laugh, but the other put out his
hand quickly, rose. and said, Shut up,
you blamed fool! Cant you see the
1ady's sick?" And started in the d.
Tection of her chair
Even then there came into Emma
McChesney's ordinarily well-ordered,
alert mind the uncomfortable thought
that she was talking nonsense She
made o last effort to order her brain
into its usual sane clearness, failed,
Rnd saw the coarse white table cloth
rising swiftly and slanting to meet
her head.
It speaks well for Emma McChes-
ney's balance that when she found
herself in bed, two strange women,
and one strange man, and an all-too-
familiar .bell-boy IN the room, she did
not say, Where am 1? What hap
pened?" Instead she told herself that
the amazingly and unbelevably hand.
some young man bending over her
with stethoscope was doctor; that
the plump, bleached blonde in the
white shirtwaist was the hotel house.
keeper; that the lank ditto was
waitress; and that the expression on
the face of each was that of appre-
ihension, tinged with a pleasurable ex-
element So she sat up, dislodging
the stethoscope. and ignoring the pur-
pose Of the thermometer which had re-
posed under her tongue.
Look herei" she said, addressing
the doctor In high, queer voice. 81
can't be sick, young man. Haven't |
time. Not Just now. Put it off until
August and I'll be as sick as you like.
Why, man, this is the middle Of June,
and I'm due in Minneapolis now"
Lie down. please" said the hand
some young doctor, and don't dare
remove this thermometer again until
tell you to. This can't be put off until
August. You're sick right now"
AIRS. McChesney shut her lips over
tho little glass tube. and watched the
young doctors impassive face cit
takes them no time to learn that trick
and, womanwise. jumped to her own
conclusion.
How sick?" she demanded, the
read.
"Oh, 1t won't be so bad, said the
very young doctor, with profession
ally cheerful smile.
Emma MeChesney sat up in bed with
a Jerk. You mean-sick! Not i'll, or
grippy, or run down. but sick? Trained
nurse sick! Hospital sick! Doctor
twice-a-day sick! e-by-the-bedside-
with.bottles-on.it sick"
"Well-a-" hesitated the doctor,
and then took shelter behind bris-
Ting hedge of Latin phrases Emma
McChesney hurdled it at leap.
Never mind" she said. 81 know"
She looked at the faces of those four