WASHY STEPS INTO THE HALL OF FAME
At about nine o’clock next morning, in a at the Hotel Cosmopolis, Mrs. Cora Bates McCall, the on Rational Eating, was seated at with her family. Before her sat Mr. McCall, a little hunted-looking man, the natural of were by a pair of of shape, like half-moons with the up. Behind these, Mr. McCall’s played a game of peekaboo, now over them, and them. He was a cup of anti-caffeine. On his right, with a of cereal, sat his son, Washington. Mrs. McCall herself was a slice of Health Bread and nut butter. For she as well as the which she had for so many years to in an populace. Her day always with a light but breakfast, at which a cereal, which looked and like an old that had been through a meat chopper, for place in the of her husband and son with a more than of coffee. Mr. McCall was to think that he the coffee more than the cereal, but Washington views on the latter’s ghastliness. Both Washington and his father, however, would have been fair-minded to admit that it was a close thing.
Mrs. McCall her with approval.
“I am to see, Lindsay,” she said to her husband, over the as he his name, “that Washy has his appetite. When he his dinner last night, I was that he might be for something. Especially as he had a look. You noticed his look?”
“He did look flushed.”
“Very flushed. And his was almost stertorous. And, when he said that he had no appetite, I am to say that I was anxious. But he is perfectly well this morning. You do perfectly well this morning, Washy?”
The of the McCall’s looked up from his cereal. He was a long, thin boy of about sixteen, with red hair, eyelashes, and a long neck.
“Uh-huh,” he said.
Mrs. McCall nodded.
“Surely now you will agree, Lindsay, that a and diet is what a boy needs? Washy’s is superb. He has a stamina, and I it to my of his food. I when I think of the boys who are permitted by people to meat, candy, pie—” She off. “What is the matter, Washy?”
It that the of at the of ran in the McCall family, for at the mention of the word a of had Washington’s frame, and over his there had come an that was almost one of pain. He had been out his hand for a slice of Health Bread, but now he it and sat hard.
“I’m all right,” he said, huskily.
“Pie,” Mrs. McCall, in her voice. She stopped again abruptly. “Whatever is the matter, Washington? You are making me nervous.”
“I’m all right.”
Mrs. McCall had the of her remarks. Moreover, having now her breakfast, she was for a little light reading. One of the to the of on which she was the question of reading at meals. She was of the opinion that the on the eye, with the on the digestion, not fail to give the the end of the contest; and it was a at her table that the paper should not be at till the of the meal. She said that it was to the day by reading the paper, and events were to prove that she was occasionally right.
All through the New York Chronicle had been her plate. She now opened it, and, with a about looking for the report of her yesterday’s lecture at the Butterfly Club, her at the page, on which she that an with the best of the public at had to place her.
Mr. McCall, jumping up and his glasses, her closely as she to read. He always did this on these occasions, for none than he that his for the day on some unknown he had met. If this had done his work properly and as the of his subject, Mrs. McCall’s mood for the next twelve hours would be as sunny as it was possible for it to be. But sometimes the their job disgracefully; and once, on a day which in Mr. McCall’s memory, they had failed to make a report at all.
To-day, he noted with relief, all to be well. The report actually was on the page, an to his wife’s utterances. Moreover, from the time it took her to read the thing, she had been reported at length.
“Good, my dear?” he ventured. “Satisfactory?”
“Eh?” Mrs. McCall meditatively. “Oh, yes, excellent. They have used my photograph, too. Not at all reproduced.”
“Splendid!” said Mr. McCall.
Mrs. McCall gave a shriek, and the paper from her hand.
“My dear!” said Mr. McCall, with concern.
His wife had the paper, and was reading with eyes. A of colour had over her features. She was as as her son Washington had done on the previous night.
“Washington!”
A across the table and the long boy to stone—all his mouth, which opened feebly.
“Washington! Is this true?”
Washy closed his mouth, then let it slowly open again.
“My dear!” Mr. McCall’s voice was alarmed. “What is it?” His had up over his and there. “What is the matter? Is anything wrong?”
“Wrong! Read for yourself!”
Mr. McCall was mystified. He not a at the of the trouble. That it appeared to his son Washington to be the one solid at his disposal, and that only the still more puzzling. Where, Mr. McCall asked himself, did Washington come in?
He looked at the paper, and enlightenment. Headlines met his eyes:
GOOD STUFF IN THIS BOY.
ABOUT A TON OF IT.
SON OF CORA BATES McCALL
FAMOUS FOOD-REFORM LECTURER
WINS PIE-EATING CHAMPIONSHIP OF WEST SIDE.
There a outburst. So had the by the of his news that he had been unable to himself to prose:—
My children, if you fail to or in your special line; if, let us say, your are on some day being President, and your proper worth, and say you’ve not a on earth—Cheer up! for in these days Fame may be in many ways. Consider, when your fall, the case of Washington McCall.
Yes, your on Washy, please! He looks just like a piece of cheese: he’s not a of chap: he has a and map: his are blank, his is red, his ears out his head. In fact, to end these compliments, he would be dear at thirty cents. Yet Fame has to her Hall this self-same Washington McCall.
His mother (nee Miss Cora Bates) is one who upon the proper of food which every should include. With the world she from and and and beans. Such she’d like to crush, and make us live on milk and mush. But oh! the thing that makes her is when she sees us pie. (We her lecture last July upon “The Nation’s Menace—Pie.”) Alas, the it was small with Master Washington McCall.
For yesterday we took a to see the great Pie Championship, where men with and of pies. A West Side the champion, Spike O’Dowd, to his against an upstart, Blake’s Unknown. He wasn’t an Unknown at all. He was Washington McCall.
We own we’d give a leg if we borrow, steal, or the skill old Homer used to show. (He the Iliad, you know.) Old Homer a pen, but we are ordinary men, and cannot start to of doing to our theme. The of that great is too and vast. We can’t (or try) the way those their pie. Enough to say that, when for hours each had all his pow’rs, toward the O’Dowd to McCall.
The was a lad. He gave the public all he had. His was a soul. He’d of speed and much control. No yellow did he evince. He apple-pie and mince. This was the on his shield—“O’Dowds may burst. They yield.” His to start and roll. He his another hole. Poor fellow! With a single one saw that he had not a chance. A python would have had to and own from McCall.
At last, long last, the came. His with shame, O’Dowd, who’d once or twice, to eat another slice. He off, and men around with oxygen. But Washy, Cora Bates’s son, it was done. He somehow those present he’d started on his meal. We ask him, “Aren’t you bad?” “Me!” said the lion-hearted lad. “Lead me”—he started for the street—“where I can a bite to eat!” Oh, what a lesson it teach to all of us, that speech! How can the on Master Washington McCall!
Mr. McCall read this through, then he looked at his son. He looked at him over his glasses, then through his glasses, then over his again, then through his once more. A was in his eyes. If such a thing had not been so impossible, one would have said that his had in it something of respect, of admiration, of reverence.
“But how did they out your name?” he asked, at length.
Mrs. McCall impatiently.
“Is that all you have to say?”
“No, no, my dear, of not, so. But the point me as curious.”
“Wretched boy,” Mrs. McCall, “were you to your name?”
Washington uneasily. Unable to the of his mother, he had to the window, and was looking out with his turned. But there he her on the of his neck.
“I didn’t think it ’ud matter,” he mumbled. “A with tortoiseshell-rimmed asked me, so I told him. How was I to know—”
His was cut by the opening of the door.
“Hallo-allo-allo! What ho! What ho!”
Archie was in the doorway, on the family.
The of an entire to the of Mrs. McCall’s from the Washy. Archie, it the eyes, and on to the wall. He had to that he had so to Lucille’s that he should look in on the McCalls and use the of his upon them in the of them to settle the lawsuit. He wished, too, if the visit had to be paid that he had it till after lunch, for he was at his in the morning. But Lucille had him to go now and it over, and here he was.
“I think,” said Mrs. McCall, icily, “that you must have your room.”
Archie his forces.
“Oh, no. Rather not. Better myself, what? My name’s Moffam, you know. I’m old Brewster’s son-in-law, and all that of rot, if you know what I mean.” He and continued. “I’ve come about this old lawsuit, don’t you know.”
Mr. McCall about to speak, but his wife him.
“Mr. Brewster’s are in with ours. We do not wish to discuss the matter.”
Archie took an seat, the Health Bread on the table for a moment with curiosity, and his discourse.
“No, but I say, you know! I’ll tell you what happened. I to in where I’m not wanted and all that, but my wife such a point of it. Rightly or she me as a of a in the line, and she me to look you up and see we couldn’t do something about settling the old thing. I to say, you know, the old bird—old Brewster, you know—is about the affair—hates the of being in a posish where he has either got to bite his old McCall in the or be by him—and—well, and so forth, don’t you know! How about it?” He off. “Great Scot! I say, what!”
So had he been in his that he had not the presence of the pie-eating champion, and himself a large plant intervened. But now Washington, the familiar voice, had moved from the window and was him with an stare.
“He me do it!” said Washy, with the a sixteen-year-old boy when he sees somebody on to he can shift trouble from his own. “That’s the who took me to the place!”
“What are you talking about, Washington?”
“I’m telling you! He got me into the thing.”
“Do you this—this—” Mrs. McCall shuddered. “Are you to this pie-eating contest?”
“You I am!”
“Is this true?” Mrs. McCall at Archie, “Was it you who my boy into that—that—”
“Oh, absolutely. The is, don’t you know, a dear old of mine who a tobacco shop on Sixth Avenue was in the soup. He had a against the champion, and the was by one of your and off at the hour. Dashed hard luck on the chap, don’t you know! And then I got the idea that our little friend here was the one to step in and save the situash, so I the to him. And I’ll tell you one thing,” said Archie, handsomely, “I don’t know what of a the original had, but I’ll he wasn’t in your son’s class. Your son has to be to be believed! Absolutely! You ought to be proud of him!” He in fashion to Washy. “Rummy we should meet again like this! Never I should you here. And, by Jove, it’s how fit you look after yesterday. I had a of idea you would be on a of and all that.”
There was a in the background. It something up steam. And this, enough, is what it was. The thing that was up steam was Mr. Lindsay McCall.
The of the Washy on Mr. McCall had been to him. It was not until the of Archie that he had had to think; but since Archie’s entrance he had been and deeply.
For many years Mr. McCall had been in a of revolution. He had smouldered, but had not to blaze. But this of his fellow-sufferer, Washy, had upon him like a high explosive. There was a in his eye, a of determination. He was hard.
“Washy!”
His voice had its mildness. It and clear.
“Yes, pop?”
“How many did you eat yesterday?”
Washy considered.
“A good few.”
“How many? Twenty?”
“More than that. I count. A good few.”
“And you as well as ever?”
“I fine.”
Mr. McCall his glasses. He for a moment at the table. His took in the Health Bread, the coffee-pot, the cereal, the nut-butter. Then with a movement he the cloth, it forcibly, and the entire and to the floor.
“Lindsay!”
Mr. McCall met his wife’s with determination. It was plain that something had in the of Mr. McCall’s soul.
“Cora,” he said, resolutely, “I have come to a decision. I’ve been you your own way a little too long in this family. I’m going to myself. For one thing, I’ve had all I want of this food-reform foolery. Look at Washy! Yesterday that boy to have anything from a of to a of pie, and he has on it! Thriven! I don’t want to your feelings, Cora, but Washington and I have our last cup of anti-caffeine! If you to go on with the stuff, that’s your look-out. But Washy and I are through.”
He his wife with a and to Archie. “And there’s another thing. I liked the idea of that lawsuit, but I let you talk me into it. Now I’m going to do my way. Mr. Moffam, I’m you looked in this morning. I’ll do just what you want. Take me to Dan Brewster now, and let’s call the thing off, and shake hands on it.”
“Are you mad, Lindsay?”
It was Cora Bates McCall’s last shot. Mr. McCall paid no attention to it. He was hands with Archie.
“I you, Mr. Moffam,” he said, “the most man I have met!”
Archie modestly.
“Awfully good of you, old bean,” he said. “I wonder if you’d mind telling my old father-in-law that? It’ll be a of news for him!”
