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Show Th Honorable Urade Lsrasif B, ETHEL HUESTON O Bobbs-Merrlll Co. WNU S"1" THE STORY THUS FAR Left orphans by a tragic automobile accident which claimed the lives of their mother and father, three sisters. Helen, Adele and "Limpy," are visited by their Aunt Olympia, politically minded wife of Senator Alencon Delaporte Slopshire. She Insists that the girls return with her to Washington, to make their home with them. In addition to loving the girls. Aunt Olympia knows they will be a terrific political asset. Senator Slopshire has as his political opponent one Brother Wilkie. a minister, whose political campaign Is furthered by seven "unspeakable brats" who sit on the rostrum with him while he makes speeches. Aunt Olympia and the Senator, kind and loving, nevertheless know that their three nieces will mean votes for the Senator. Senator Slopshire, a pleasantly foggy Individual who depends on the astuteness of his wife, prepares for their coming. Though Limpy, the youngest. Is 16, and Helen, the oldest. Is 21, the Senator buys them all the toys and gifts he can find, feeling that "children" should be occupied. When they first meet their "Uncle Lancy," as he is to be known, the girls take him to their united bosom. Soon Adele, most beautiful of the sisters, meets Len Hardesty, publicity man for Brother Wilkie. Though It is Len's job to help defeat the Senator, he promptly falls in love with Adele. CHAPTER IV Continued The Senator coughed deprecating-ly. deprecating-ly. "She's joking, Adele. This is preelection pre-election stuff. Before election day, she'll be telling me, with forceful, force-ful, if inelegant, expletives, that if I ever run for anything again she'll divorce, and probably de-neck, me. This is before-the-campaign stuff." "My very words," said Aunt Olympia complacently. "I forgot my quotes," admitted Uncle Lancy. "What a cocky little fool I was. Brick," Helen wrote home to Iowa, "to think I could learn this racket in one year. Aunt Olympia' s been In it right from the cradle or at least from the marriage altar and she says it's still so much haywire to her. It seems to be mostly luck and 'getting the breaks,' and of course, seizing Opportunity before the Opposition gets hold of it Aunt Olympia says if she didn't watch every breath the Senator draws, he'd get himself impeached before breakfast. break-fast. But I am learning a little, I think. "There's one thing I've learned, and this is Important. We've got to get over that provincial feeling that political opponents are social lepers, to be snubbed and ostracised and passed by on the other side. Aunt Olympia says it is a sign of superiority superi-ority to hobnob with the Opposition except at the polls, of course. She says it is only little fry who carry political animosities further than the Congressional Record. And I must say, she lives up to her philosophy. I've met quite a number of Republican Repub-lican wives and they are very nice to me and ask me to their meetings and teas, and Aunt Olympia encourages encour-ages me to go. Sometimes she goes with me. "Really, Brick, they are amazing, amaz-ing, Uncle Lancy and she. Take Len Hardesty for instance. He is here half the time, mooning over Adele mostly, but always showing up at the dinner table and the cocktail cock-tail tray. And last week who should breeze In unexpectedly but Brother Wilkie, the Governor, running against Uncle Lancy. He 'phoned and Auntie asked him to dinner and he came. They were lovely to him and Aunt Olympia Olym-pia asked him to ask the blessing." Aunt Olympia was far deeper in the campaign than either the girls or the Senator realized. She spent two hours every morning carefully conning the important dailies from home and making notes of things to be attended to; cards of congratulations congratula-tions from herself and the Senator to everyone having babies or getting married; condolences for illness and death; approval of the activities of clubs and church organizations, with pertinent suggestions and offering of-fering co-operation; and she painstakingly, pains-takingly, with well-concealed bitterness, bitter-ness, received every constituent who happened to be in Washington and telephoned or called. By the first of April Olympia had completed plans for the campaign entourage; deciding on a motor trailer to insure the domesticity of the family, with beds, kitchen and cozy dinette. "We won't have to eat there much," she assured the girls kindly. kind-ly. "Just enough to get good photos of how domestic and homey we are, with you girls tripping prettily around at your work. We'll have Hilda send us a crate of cooked food every day." "Doesn't she campaign with us?" "Oh, no! Except in the Scandinavian Scandi-navian districts, where she sits at the table with us . . . Not in the rest of the state. The average voter thinks if a Senator can afford a maid he's getting too much money." There would be a sound truck for the Senator's speeches and in addition addi-tion to their own big car, a couple of secondhand Fords for the staff, visiting reporters, et al. She fretted a good deal over the sound truck, having ideas of her own on that important im-portant matter. It must have microphones both inside and on the driver's seat: on the driver's seat to show the Senator off in good weather and inside "for rain; the Senator catches cold if he gets wet" After consulting and personally inspecting every make of trailer and sound truck on the market, she decided to buy from some home dealer, of course old, run-down, antiquated an-tiquated cars that could be rebuilt. "The shabbier the better on the outside." she explained to the girls. "To take some of the gravel off that 'Alencon' . . . New cars look royalistic royal-istic . . . But' don't worry. We'll mve the best and most modern en- i ;,ncs installed under the rusty mods; like Uncle Joe Cannon, with silk underwear under his homey homespun. We'll have them rebuilt from the tires up on the inside. Fortunately, the works don't show." Aunt Olympia knew her Congressional Congres-sional Record better than her "Alice "Al-ice in Wonderland." She went straight back to the campaign. She sent up to Maysville, her home town and the state capital, for a motor dealer and had him come to Washington at the Senator's expense ex-pense to get her ideas. She had drawn rough drafts of what she desired, de-sired, both in trailer and trunk, but the expert did not comprehend them readily. "Why, it's as simple as a a logarithm," log-arithm," she said irritably. "For the sound truck we want a secondhand, second-hand, run-down delivery wagon, an enclosed one, of course. Put in the best works you can get hold of. Get a good sound man to wire it, with miles on the driver's seat as well as inside. Build cabinets of shelves and drawers along the inside in-side to put papers and books in. And leave room for a good easy chair for the Senator, because his feet swell before the end of the cam- Hie Senator coughed deprecatHg-ly. deprecatHg-ly. "She's joking, my dear," he said. paign. And put in long narrow windows win-dows on each side for ventilation. Isn't that simple enough?" "What color you want this painted?" paint-ed?" "I don't want it painted," she said exasperatedly. "No paint! I want rust and mud and scratches and dents, but no paint. If it's painted when you get it, you set fire to it or soak it in acid. Is that clear?" The month of April she devoted pretty largely to planning the girls' campaign wardrobes. On these, she spared neither time, talent nor expense. ex-pense. She had the best dressmakers dressmak-ers and designers in Washington at work. There were graceful, girlish dresses for afternoon and for dinner; din-ner; here were sport clothes, bathing bath-ing suits, riding costumes; there were fetching little costumes of finest fin-est gingham for their dainty housework house-work about the trailer. Aunt Olympia Olym-pia persistently referred to these as their "cottons." "Why cotton, Auntie?" demanded demand-ed Limpy. "We don't raise cotton up there, do we?" "No, darling," said Aunt Olympia, Olym-pia, beaming approval for her acumen. acu-men. "We don't raise cotton, but we have nineteen large cotton mills and they employ at least ten thousand thou-sand constituents." Although all their dresses were what. Aunt Olympia called "vote-getters" "vote-getters" to the last ribbon and the smallest button, she reserved her most passionate interest for what she called their "wind-up ensembles. ensem-bles. The Senator winds up with a huge rally. That's the big night You catch a lot of voters floaters, they are if you handle the wind-up right Your wind-up costumes are to be chef d'oeuvres; absolutely chef d'oeuvres." "It can't be the same as hors d'oeuvres." Limpy assured her sisters. sis-ters. "Not even Aunt Olympia would expect them to eat us." "I wouldn't trust Len Hardesty." said Aunt Olympia. "Not if Adele looks as well as I expect . . . Let me see, that will be the first week of November. Fall dresses. Felt hats. Wide, sweeping black for Helen Hel-en with little white doodads. Droopy white for Limpy with long biack streamers. ' "I suppose I'm to go bareheaded," barehead-ed," said Adele. "No, no, darling! Not quite. Teeny Tee-ny black and white something or other, with a bit of a veil and my only regret Is that Len Hardesty won't be there to see it. He'd strangle stran-gle the brats with bis bare hands." Helen did not follow the preliminary prelimi-nary campaign activities as closely as her sisters. Studying the political politi-cal racket kept her fairly busy. She read the Congressional Record conscientiously, con-scientiously, if boredly. She spent hours visiting the Senator's committees commit-tees and trying to make heads and tails of things which didn't make sense to an average intelligence like hers. She hung over .the gallery cJ the House as if she had become a fixture there. Aunt Olympia at last reached a stage of her preparations where she felt impelled to ask the Senator's advice. "Del, how about a publicity man for our campaign?" "Why, we're going to have Dave Cooper. He's the best we can get since Len's tied up. I've already spoken to him about it. He's working work-ing on it now." "Yes, of course, for you," she said significantly. "But how about the girls here?" The Senator wisely said nothing, but the girls rose to it "For us!" "We've had enough publicity to last us a lifetime!" "Heavens, Auntie, do we rate a publicity man?" "Oh, he'll only be an assistant to Dave Cooper, but we'll need someone some-one to handle our end of it. Dave'll be pretty busy . . . We need someone some-one more sentimentaL For sob stuff. Heart interest Human appeal. Let me see um ah! Del what would you think of well, what would you think of say someone like Cecil Dodd?" The Senator came to with a snap. "Cecil Dodd! . . . Cecil Dodd, my dear!" The Senator put on an extra ex-tra pair of glasses to regard her more severely. "Why, Ollie, Cecil Dodd doesn't know the first thing about politics! He'd never get to first base. In fact he'd never even get to bat He's never been in a campaign in his life. Cecil Dodd well, Cecil Dodd is what I call a sofa-sitter. But I've heard it expressed ex-pressed more forcibly and perhaps with more truth." "Oh, he's not so dumb," Olympia rose to the argument "He's chock-full chock-full of human appeal; full of adjectives; adjec-tives; why, he knows adjectives I've never even heard of! He's the loudest loud-est exponent of youth and beauty in Washington. Do you remember those articles he wrote when Sissy Graves was killed in an airplane accident? A dozen people were killed and some of them important but he wrote about Sissy with so much heart appeal that everybody forgot all about the rest of them and made it her exclusive fatality. I know it brought tears to my eyes." "I don't go in for tears in a campaign," cam-paign," he said, more on the defensive de-fensive than the girls had ever seen him. "There isn't going to be anything any-thing milksop about this campaign. It's going to be muddy." "He's a fine dancer; he rides horseback and plays tennis and golf and has taken prizes for swimming and diving. Del, try to forget your personal, political aspirations for once in your life, and think of these poor dear children! Don't you want them to have any amusement? Do you expect them to listen to you make speeches and shake hands for six months with no exercise, no fresh air and no no young companionship?" compan-ionship?" This put a different light on the matter. The Senator took off both pairs of glasses and set to wiping one. "That's so," he assented. "I didn't mean to be selfish, my dear. The children come first, of course . . . But I don't suppose we can get him. I don't think he could tear himself away from the sofas long enough." "We can get him," said Olympia. "I've already spoken to him just tentatively, you understand; asking why he didn't get into the political end of it and he said he wanted to but never got the breaks. We can get him." A happy smile rosied her face. "Wait till Len Hardesty hears this!" Len Hardesty was not long hearing hear-ing it. He dropped in on them the next night "Had to fly down," he said cheerfully. cheer-fully. "Got to fly back, too. The Governor's going tightwad on me." "I'm glad you came, Len," said Olympia heartily, almost fondly. "I want to ask your advice about something." some-thing." A guarded expression settled over his face. "Oh, you do eh? Then you're up to something I'm against' He braced himself to receive re-ceive it "All right Let's have it. It's deau wrong and you know it" Olympia laughed happily. "Oh, it's really nothing or I shouldn't be asking your advice. It's a mere detail. de-tail. It's about a publicity man for the campaign. You know those publicity pub-licity gangsters better than we do." Len, who had thought he was pre-i pre-i pared for anything, was genuinely I surprised. "Publicity man! Why. you dumb cluck, aren't you having Dave Coop- er? If you're not you'd better get him and get him quick. He's tops." "Don't be silly, Len. Of course we're having him . . . For the Senator Sen-ator . . . But we've got to have an assistant You see, there's going to be quite a cavalcade of us what with the trailer and the tent and the sound truck and three cars. We don't want anybody to work day and night for us. We're not lika some candidates, who expect a pool publicity man to live, move and have his being with seven brats and a trumpeting beldame." "I smell a rat" said Len Hardesty. Har-desty. "You never gave me an assistant" "But we're a much larger party this year, you silly dunce . . . No, definitely, I am for you laboring classes and I will not have poor old Dave imposed on and worked to death, not even for the Senator. Bui we'll expect his assistant chiefly to handle our end of it, mine and the girls', when the Senator and Dave are off on their flying junkets and we're cooped up in the trailer. We'll need someone rather young and fairly presentable, don't you think? So he can be a sort of companion to the girls when they're dancing and riding and swimming? And you know yourself, Len, that fairly presentable pre-sentable publicity men are hard to get. I don't know that I've ever seen one." "I'm sorry I spent the money to fly down," he said grimly. "If I'm to pick out a man for you, seems to me you ought to pay the bill out of your expense account" "Unfortunately we haven't a percentage per-centage club, like the Governor," she disclaimed quickly. "Besides, darling, I don't expect you to pick him out." "That's what I was afraid of," he admitted gloomily. "Now let's get this straight Ollie. You speak ol your cavalcade of cars. What's it to be? A campaign for re-election, or a specially conducted young ladies' la-dies' tour with a presentable escort?" es-cort?" "The election comes first, ol course. But after all, the Senator-Uncle Senator-Uncle Lancy and I cannot overlook our responsibility to these poor dear children. We must provide for them as best we can, even in the exigencies exigen-cies of a campaign. Who would you suggest?" "I wouldn't suggest anybody. I'd suggest putting the girls in jail till I get rid of the Governor. They don't need an escort Dave Cooper Coop-er can handle them. True, he's no Don Juan! He's forty and fat and married and chews tobacco. But he can give you all the publicity you need and more than you merit." "I was thinking of someone like well how about Cecil Dodd?" "Cecil Dodd! Lord, Ollie, if you upholster your trailer in purple du-vetyn du-vetyn and silken cushions you'll elect the Governor! . . . Cecil Dodd! . . . Ollie, we've had our occasional oc-casional differences but I've al-ways al-ways admired you as a straight shooting, shoulder-to-shoulder old trooper . . . Cecil Dodd! . . . Do you want to shatter a young man's fondest illusions? . . . Cecil tfc4 a t I1IIIP in "Do yon want to shatter a young man's fondest illusions?" Dodd! You're not taking him to play politics. You're taking him to gum up my works." "He writes very beautiful and touching articles, Len Hardesty, and you can't deny it . . . But I admit I want him especially as a sort of a companion a sort of chaperon for the girls . . When they do their playing ... I can't keep my mind on them every minute and run this campaign at the same time." "No! So you salve your calloused conscience by giving them this this silk pajamaed pariah as a watchdog . . . Well, if that's what you're up to, you count Adele out. She can't go. I put my foot down on that You can sick him onto your innocent Helen and trusting little Limpy if you like if that's your idea of Christian duty to young orphans or-phans but I've got King's X on Adele and she can't go." "Well, I'm glad you approve," said Olympia beamingly. "Have a drink, Len? Your sea' of approval relieves me a lot I wasn't quite sure about it in my own mind, but you've settled my doubts." "Aw, Ollie. be a sport! Give a fellow fel-low a break, won't you? Remember what pals we've always been! Remember Re-member the life I'm going to lead with the brats and the trumnel yawping at me from every arglel (TO Ui: COS I IM ED) |