It is as easy to grin as to growl.
Hatred is self-punishment.
Rotten or decayed wood cannot be carved.
Have no care for the future and you will sorrow for the
present.
Life is a mirror that gives back as much as it receives. A record is often broken when competition gets keen. A good cure for drunkenness is while sober to see a drunken man.
Courage at the critical moment is half the victory. Words show the wit of a man, actions his meanings. The anvil lasts longer than the hammer. The pleasure of doing good is never tiresome. Contentment is an inexhaustible treasure. A handful of common sense is worth a bushel of learning.
Douglas went through these more and more rapidly. Having finished, and not knowing exactly what to do with the list, thinking she might want it back, he put it in a desk drawer and paid no further attention to it. In the days that followed their eyes occasionally met and locked, in-expressively.
He knew she was waiting for him to comment; she knew he had read the maxims.
94. Very Gay Indeed
Ruth did not write home as often as Mrs. Bridge had expected, nor was it possible to guess from her letters what sort of a life she was leading in New York; however she seemed to be getting along all right and did not sound unhappy. She wrote that she had moved into an apartment near the Hudson, that she was now working for a fashion magazine, and that she hoped for a promotion before long. In April she was promoted; she became an “assistant editor,” whatever that meant, but it did sound important and Mrs. Bridge was very proud and let her friends know about Ruth’s success. That same month they were surprised and delighted when she flew home for a visit. She had changed a great deal; she had become very sophisticated.
Carolyn came home from the university that week end, and Mrs. Bridge was struck by the difference in the girls. It was hard to believe they were sisters Ruth so dark and sleek, and really too thin, angular, sauntering about and smoking one cigarette after another and having cocktails with her father as though she had been drinking for years; Carolyn so active and blond and determined, and rather sturdy-looking in low-heeled golfing shoes, for she had begun playing golf in high school and was now getting exceptionally good.
Ruth was undeniably more mature and Mrs. Bridge noticed an odd fact: Ruth and Douglas liked each other very much. There was no reason they should not in fact they certainly should like each other but she could not get over a sense of astonishment when she heard them laughing together, or saw them earnestly talking in the breakfast room, drinking pots of coffee and discussing she did not know what. They appeared to have developed a new relationship. They were no longer just brother and sister, and Mrs, Bridge felt a little thrilled and more than a little sad.
She and Ruth did not have much time alone, and all at once, so it seemed, Ruth was on the telephone checking her plane reservation to New York. On her last evening in Kansas City the two of them remained in the dining room after Douglas and Mr. Bridge had left the table. They had only a few minutes because a young man named Callaway Rugg was coming to take Ruth to a Little Theatre production of Cyrano, but while they were talking at the dinner table she mentioned that one of the men who worked in her office in New York was a homosexual.
“Just what do you mean, Ruth?” asked Mrs. Bridge soberly. She had picked up a spoon and was slowly stirring her coffee.
“Why, he’s gay, Mother. Queer. You know/’
“I’m afraid I don’t know,” said Mrs. Bridge.
Ruth could not tell whether her mother was serious or not. The idea of her mother not knowing was too incredible, and yet, thinking back, and having talked with Douglas about things that had happened recently, and after a long, probing look into her mother’s eyes, Ruth knew her mother was speaking the truth. This realization so shocked her that she said coldly, “Then it’s time you found out.” Feeling cruel and nervous and frightened she continued, in the same tone, “I’m very fond of him, Mother. One morning he brought me a dozen long-stemmed roses/’
From the hall came the sound of the front door chimes. Immediately Ruth jumped up and hurried to open the door, leaving Mrs. Bridge as isolated as she had ever been in her life, as she had been isolated by her husband that day on the rue Auber.
95. Local Talent
Seldom had anyone from the country-club district attracted national attention, but there had been a few. A girl named Catlett, whose mother Mrs. Bridge knew slightly, went off to the Bahamas for a summer vacation and came back triumphantly engaged to a senator. Then there were the twins who were featured in a toothpaste advertisement, and occasionally one of the older men would be mentioned. But of the younger people the most celebrated was Callaway Rugg. He was a few years older than Ruth, but he had known her in high school and used to take her on long drives through the country; he would speak of the brevity of human affairs and of how vital it was to live as one wanted to live. He himself did not know how he wanted to live, but after playing in some dramatic productions staged in a barn on the outskirts of the city he was picked up by a talent scout and sent to Hollywood, where for the first two weeks
they were under the impression he was a lion tamer. After this was straightened out he was put into a movie-The Tattler spoke of “Kansas City’s own Carleton Reynolds/’ which was what Hollywood named him. Surprisingly, or so Mrs. Bridge had thought, the fact that he was a Kansas Citian did not noticeably increase the run of the picture. She had gone to see it. Rugg had appeared in only one scene: on the stroke of midnight, arms bound behind his back and a sack over his head, he fell out of a grandfather clock.
“Of course his part was small/’ she had remarked while discussing it with Madge Arlen, “but I do think he’s quite talented/’
However Hollywood must not have thought so, for Rugg was next heard from selling encyclopedias on the Plaza.
96. Exchange o Letters
The new Tattler came out a few days after Ruth returned to New York and Mrs. Bridge mailed a clipping to her; “Found holidaying at the charming home of her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Walter Bridge of Crescent Heights Drive, was the lovely eldest, Ruth, now setting Gotham aflame. Scores of admirers hope the fascinating and exotic editoress-to-be won’t become a permanent Manhattanite.” On the back of the clipping was the conclusion of an article of advice to hostesses: “… jungle the natives simply peel and eat, and so should we! No more worry about knives and forks, left-hand or righthand.” And below this was the first line of a quotation from Thoreau.
Mrs. Bridge wrote that Carolyn was playing golf every afternoon and had beaten one of the boys who was on the university team, that the weather in Kansas City was awfully pleasant this time of year, that some man named Genaro had telephoned just after she returned to New York but hadn’t left a message, that the city was finally widening the street in front of the Junior League clubhouse, and that her visit to Kansas City had seemed awfully brief. Ruth had remarked on the graft in New York, so Mrs. Bridge wrote, “Isn’t it awful there’s so much graft? We have it here, too. It just makes you wonder about people.”
She also mentioned what had been going on socially and what events were on the calendar. ”Wednesday evening the Arlens are staging a cocktail party for Anne who’s off to Europe and it sounds quite intriguing. Thursday, Madge and I are off to a recital given by some folk singer who plays the dulcimer, and then on Friday there’s to be a church doing (at which a Moslem will talk!) but I’m not sure I’ll be able to make it. I’ve been having a siege of headaches and they just don’t seem to be able to make heads or tails of them. Dr. Stapp told me it’s all mental but that doesn’t make sense. Dr. Mclntyre (he’s so nice!) thinks it may be an allergy but if so I wish they’d hurry up and get together, whatever it is. Then next Monday there’s a reception at Crestwood for the McKinney girls who’re just back from a month at the Royal Hawaiian. That must have been grand….”