The Choiring of the Trees - Donald Harington [117]
Cyril Monday, her father, was both proud and uncomfortable to have so many journalists in his parlor and his kitchen and, the night being fair, out on his front porch, where, journalists being what they are, they smoked cigars and swilled champagne and kept the neighbors awake. Her father’s occupation had required him to deal with many kinds of men, but he had little experience with journalists, certainly not a dozen of them at once. They were polite and respectful to him. One of them, the Commercial Appeal, interviewed him at length over a bottle of the Mumm’s, asking him such questions as: What did you notice in the childhood of your daughter that would have turned her into a crusader and heroine?
Some of these men, after several glasses of champagne, became excessively gallant and even romantic toward her, and before the evening was over she would receive, and decline, a proposal of marriage from the Houston Chronicle. Flattery flowed like the champagne. Tom Fletcher told her he’d never seen her more “radiant,” and he called her “ebullient” and told her she was “tingling.” No one had ever used those adjectives on her before.
At the request of the Post-Dispatch she went upstairs to Dorinda, told her to put on her best dress, then led her downstairs and presented her to the newsmen. One of them offered Dorinda a glass of champagne, which the girl sampled but did not finish. Several of the reporters stimulated the girl into conversation, and before long Dorinda was talking and talking.
When the Kansas City Star, who also happened to be the newspaper’s art critic, asked to look at some of Viridis’ paintings, she took him upstairs to her studio for a while, and he was quite impressed, or pretended to be. He asked her for her opinion of Ernest Bodenhammer’s work, and she said that she was still looking forward to seeing the young man’s drawings. The Star suggested that they go together to the penitentiary the next day to interview young Bodenhammer and see his work.
The man from Associated Press wanted to talk with her about Governor Hays. Was it true, he asked, that the governor considered black people a primitive race of subhumans? Yes, she said. Was it also true that the governor’s primary objective in office was to build up a loyal political machine? Quite true, she said. Was Governor Hays using the prohibition issue as a football and playing quarterback simultaneously for both teams? She did not understand football, but yes, the governor had succeeded in making Arkansas almost totally dry while pretending to be sympathetic to the wets.
Her mother and her sister Cyrilla did not join the party, although both she and her father invited them to come downstairs. Cyrilla declined her sister’s invitation with “Tonight belongs to you,” and would not leave her room; later, however, Viridis looked in and saw the Atlanta Constitution sitting with her and offering her some champagne.
Only one of the reporters, the Times-Picayune, actually broached the possibility that Viridis’ great effort to save Nail Chism was motivated by anything other than her humanitarian zeal. “Honey, let me ask you a question,” he said to her in the kitchen while she was refilling the bowl of shelled nuts. “If they let Chism out of there tomorrow, would you run away with him?”
She paused, and gave a laugh to cover up the discomfort the question caused her. “It’s very unlikely they’ll let him out of there tomorrow,” she said.
“But if they did,” the Times-Picayune persisted.
“Oh, sure,” she said with irony. “I’ve always wanted to be a shepherdess.”
“No fooling?”
She looked him in the eye.