Grandpa's Sign

by RUTH McKENNEY

MY Grandpa Flannigan had six daughters, but in their opinion he never did anything at all to help them get married, at least to the right people. My mother and her sisters favored refined young men who wore straw boaters, went to law school, and played the mandolin. Grandpa, on the other hand, had an extremely poor opinion of lawyers. He told one of my mother’s most serious admirers, an embryo barrister named Ronald, to stop being a tool of Wall Street and take up something honest, such as bricklaying. Afterwards Grandpa claimed he was just being fatherly to Ronald, but Mother was outraged — Ronald never came back for any more kindly advice.

Grandpa was a disciple of Robert Ingersoll, too, and very enthusiastic about atheism. The first time my future Uncle Robert came to Sunday dinner Grandpa got embroiled in a brisk debate on religion with Great-aunt Minnie. Great-aunt Minnie belonged to the not-a-sparrow-shall-fall school, and when she claimed that the Heavenly Father had sent the moles on her double chin, just to test her spiritual fortitude, Grandpa became annoyed. He rose dramatically from his chair, brandished the carving knife at the ceiling, and sonorously dared God to strike him dead. Aunt Minnie and the other Flannigans were used to Grandpa inviting lightning bolts and paid little attention, but Uncle Robert, a Methodist, was paralyzed with terror. The fork and knife clattered from his limp fingers, and, speechless, he closed his eyes, waiting for the end.

“Papa’s just joking,” Aunt Kate explained, with an anguished giggle.

Uncle Robert, madly infatuated, actually came back again to the Flannigan house, but lots of less determined young men did not. Grandpa was not only interested in Robert Ingersoll’s atheism, he was also a hotheaded partisan of Edward Bellamy’s Utopian Socialism, Henry George’s Single Tax, the Sinn Fein rebellion, the Democratic Party, and various other heresies. The Flannigan girls found Grandpa was a staggering handicap. For instance, in the Flannigan front parlor hung a large picture of an obscure and melancholy Irishman, draped in heavy black crepe; on the opposite wall, facing this photograph of the martyred dead, was an immense placard announcing, “Irish BLOOD cries out for VENGEANCE.”

The young ladies Flannigan pleaded endlessly with their papa to take down this sign. Other people, they said, did not have signs on their parlor walls.

“Pah,” Grandpa always said when he heard about, other people.

“You’ll be sorry,” my mother replied furiously. “We’ll be old maids. All six of us.”

Grandpa did not consider this very likely, he said — there were altogether too many mandolin players cluttering up the back parlor and tenderly making fudge in the kitchen. “Dull, spiritless fellows, these lads of yours, Maggie. Like that pipsqueak of a cr-r-reature, the one with the cane and the mental palsy, what was his name? The tool —”

“Ronald was not a tool,” Mother cried.

Grandpa laughed heartlessly. “He had a mind like a little child. Or a bird. That you can’t deny, Maggie. You’d never have been after wanting to marry him, Maggie?”

2

MOTHER was too exasperated to argue, and besides, two weeks after the Tool had disappeared, Mother met Father at a college dance. In those days, Father was a very prissy and refined young man, and cautious, too, but he was instantly dazzled by the Flannigan black curls and bright blue eyes. He asked permission to call, after the second waltz. Mother thought it over and decided Father was safe. Father was a mechanical engineer. In an excess of optimism, influenced no doubt by Father’s snappy two-step and his genteel white gloves, my mother wound up by inviting her new admirer to dinner.

Grandpa promised (somewhat sullenly) not to ask God to strike him dead at the supper table and Mother had high hopes for the evening. At the last moment, however, Grandpa came home from the office with two Irish revolutionists fresh over from the old country.

“Mama!” my mother said desperately, out in the kitchen. “Please!”

Grandma banged the oven door so hard the Yorkshire pudding fell, as indeed it usually did. Grandma was not a very good cook, at best, but she went all to pieces under the stress of the Irish question. For although Grandpa, a man of mighty passions, loved Ireland fiercely, Grandma was English — and not just born in Derbyshire, either. Grandma was Cromwell English, Disraeli English, Churchill English. She spat on the Irish (except Grandpa) — “dirty creatures,” Grandma said. It was Grandma’s considered opinion that nothing better had ever happened to Ireland than the English occupation. “Benighted savages, full of Popery,” Grandma often remarked, in her strong Derbyshire accent. “Cromwell brought them as much of civilization as they could bear.” Which was not much, Grandma felt.

It always seemed something of a minor miracle that Grandpa and Grandma achieved forty years and more of happy married life, in spite of the battle of Cromwell, which was not the less bitter because it was refought two hundred and fifty years later in the Flannigan front parlor. Of course Grandpa and Grandma loved each other very much — but affection never blinded them to the fatal defects in each other’s politics.

“Mama,” my mother said tearfully. “Just this once. He’s a mechanical engineer, Mama. PLEASE!”

Father, all aquiver at seeing the lovely Miss Flannigan again, arrived promptly at six. During the roast beef and sunken Yorkshire pudding stage of the evening, Father thought Miss Flannigan’s relatives were queer, but awfully jolly. At the head of the dinner table, Grandpa, with the two Sinn Feiners on either side of him, talked darkly about raising money to dynamite British arsenals in Dublin; at the foot of the table Grandma banged the dishes quite a bit, but kept her peace. The six Flannigan girls, including Mother, giggled hysterically and continuously, to drown out Grandpa. However, nothing terrible happened over the homemade ice cream, and Mother had just decided, nervously, that everything was going as well as could be expected, when Grandpa announced that everybody would now gather around the piano in the front parlor and sing. Mother did her best to show Father the sea-shell collection in the back parlor, but young Mr. McKenney was a little vain about his tenor. He supposed he would get a chance to harmonize soulfully (for Miss Flannigan’s edification) on “Juanita” or “Tenting Tonight.” When the McKenneys crowded around their upright, they also favored “My Old Kentucky Home,” and even, when they felt frivolous, “Come, Josephine, on My Flying Machine.”

My father discovered, as soon as Aunt Kate struck the first chord, that Flannigans were made of sterner musical stuff than McKenneys. The opening number was a ballad entitled “Kevin Barry.”

“SHOOT me like an I — rish SOLDIER, Do not HANG me like a dog!” Grandpa bellowed between sobs, “For I FOUGHT for I — rish FREEDOM. . . ”

Grandma did not join the family song-fest. She rattled the dishes as she cleared the dining-room table. In the front parlor, Grandpa got all choked up, explaining to Father about the last thing Irishmen heard as their ships weighed anchor and the long voyage to America began. “On the quay, the weeping mothers, the heartbroken sweethearts, and the lonely children sing as the ships move into the stream. Ah, I hear the sad music yet, in my dreams,” Grandpa declared, which was remarkable because he was born six miles off Ellis Island, almost, but not quite, an American citizen. However, prenatal influence was strong and Grandpa wept as he clarioned in his beautiful, strong tenor, “Come back to Erin, Mavoumeen, Mavourneen. . . .” Just at first Father was a little surprised by the Flannigan recital, but soon he got into the spirit of the evening. Aunt Kate, prompted by Grandpa, reluctantly banged the opening bars of “The Wearing of the Green.”

“Mr. McKenney,” Mother said, “wouldn’t you care to play ouija?”

But Father enjoyed singing. “O Paddy dear, an’ did ye hear, The NEWS that’s goin’ round?”

Mother gritted her teeth and hoped for the best. Grandma held out through the news that shamrocks were forbidden to bloom on Irish sod, but when Grandpa started off on the second verse, Grandma lost control — she could not, Mr. McKenney or no Mr. McKenney, allow the Union Jack to be insulted, under her own roof, too. Grandpa, his voice ringing out proudly, denounced “England’s CRU — EL Red. . . .” Grandma dropped a large stack of plates on the kitchen floor. Grandpa’s two Irish revolutionists came instantly to the alert; Father, when he heard this doomsday crash, turned pale. But Grandpa, ignoring the awful noise from the kitchen, tried to bluster his way through the second verse. However, Aunt Kate faltered at the piano and Grandma appeared at the parlor doors crying, “Rule, Britannia!”

Father had never before met people who took politics so seriously, and he was shaken by the debate which followed Grandma’s battle cry, “The King! God Save Him!” She challenged Grandpa and his Sinn Fein colleagues to name one battle when Irishmen hadn’t run backwards at the sight of England’s gallant (not cruel) red.

“We were outnumbered,” Grandpa bawled.

“Outnumbered! Paltry talk! When Cromwell landed, he had only a handful against the savage Irish hordes.”

“Mama!” my mother and her sisters cried, but it was much too late — Grandpa always took offense at the word “savage.”

“Bloody oppressors!” Grandpa thundered. “ WE WILL BE REVENGED.”

The Irish revolutionists took the dispute nearly as hard as Father, who did not stay to play ouija, but left with the visiting Sinn Feiners; they were muttering about having fallen into a den of British thieves. Grandpa feared that his friends thought he was an English spy, harboring, as he did, a partisan of Cromwell, right in his own house. Mother was brokenhearted. She was convinced that her latest beau must think her family very peculiar — she was perfectly right, too. It took father three days to pull himself together; then he cautiously asked Mother to a football game. He would have to call for her, to be sure, and bring her home again, but if he played his cards right, and carefully avoided Flannigan family sings, he felt pretty certain of himself.

3

MOTHER was anxious about the weather, but the Saturday afternoon turned out clear and crisp, a lovely October day, exactly right for her colossal new velvet hat and Aunt Kate’s fur neckpiece. All the Flannigan womenfolk, even Grandma, gathered in Mother’s bedroom to give advice and assistance on final touches.

Grandpa also thought the weather was very nice. Happily he caroled “Kathleen Mavourneen” as he nailed a large sign across the railing of the front porch. The sign said in very large letters, clearly visible from the street, “I AM A DEMOCRAT.”

“Papa’s hammering something,” Aunt Kate reported from the bedroom window.

Mother was now seated at the big mirror, absorbed in a delicate task — anchoring the hat on her pompadour. “What’s he hammering?” she asked.

Aunt Kate leaned out the upstairs window. “It’s a sign,” she said, after a moment.

“A sign!” Mother was instantly alarmed. She didn’t want anything to go wrong, the second time that refined young Mr. McKenney called. “You go see, Bess.”

Bessie, aged eight, the youngest of the Flannigan maidens, left the heady atmosphere of the boudoir with extreme reluctance. She was back almost immediately. “It’s just some old politics sign. For the election, I guess,” Bessie said carelessly. “Papa said Mr. Healy, the motorman, told him there was going to be a parade today, so Papa got the sign painter, and it was finished just in time, the paint’s still wet. Papa’s getting it on his trousers, Mama. Anyway it’s a big sign and it cost $5.40. Are you going to put on powder this time, Maggie?”

“POWDER!” Grandma cried. “Margaret Flannigan, have you been using POWDER?”

“Now, Mama— ” my mother began nervously, forgetting all about politics and signs and parades.

In the meantime, while Grandpa blithely nailed his sign across the front porch, while my mother passionately argued the ethics of just a little talcum powder for a shiny nose, my father, sat stiffly on a Kinsman Road streetcar, speeding nearer and nearer to the Flannigan house. Father was modishly attired in a brand-new gray derby and a brandnew tweed raglan topcoat; he had a huge yellow mum, tied with the Case School of Engineering colors, clasped in one respectably gloved hand. Did he dare to hope that the beautiful Miss Flannigan would allow him, personally, to pin the mum on her suit coat? Dreamily, tenderly, but a little nervously too, Father considered strategy. His mood, on this splendid Saturday afternoon in late October, was, everything considered, profoundly a-political. He heard, without the least curiosity, the noise of a brass band; from the streetcar window, he watched idly as the Fifth Ward Republican Club marched from the side street into Kinsman Road. Father was a Republican, and he intended to cast his very first vote, in November, for William Howard Taft, that prince of American statesmen; on the other hand, father was not interested in the Fifth Ward Republican parade. Father’s mind was on Mother that day, not the 1908 election.

But Father was not a lucky man. The motorman at the helm of Father’s trolley car was not bemused, like Father, with the finer things of life. Mr. O’Flaherty was deeply interested in the 1908 election, and he was not in the least Republican. Moreover, this Mr. O’Flaherty was a craftsman who sincerely loved his work. He was outraged by having his streetcar tracks cluttered up, even temporarily, by a brass band and a lot of Republican ward leaders in silk hats. Mr. O’Flaherty made his schedule through rain and sleet and dark of night. Why should ho throw on the brakes for a lot of ruffians who intended to vote for Taft? If Mr. O’Flaherty had only held his peace, Father might have taken Mother to the football game. Unfortunately, however, Mr. O’Flaherty was a man of mettlesome temperament. He leaned out the front window of his streetcar and bawled, “We shall NOT be crucified on a cross of gold! NEVER!” Then he nipped four minor Republicans and a piccolo player with the cowcatcher.

The outrage, among the Republicans, was tremendous. Even Father was startled out of his dreams of love. The Fifth Ward attacked the streetcar with paving bricks. Mr. O’Flaherty at first held the upper hand. He threw on the power and charged. Some of the Republicans dodged just in time. The dispute now grew serious. Father’s streetcar was surrounded by a mass of paraders; in spite of Mr. O’Flaherty and his conductor, Mr. Jackson, the Republicans pulled the trolley arm off the overhead wire and left Mr. O’Flaherty fuming helplessly in the stalled car. The ward leaders now rallied their forces; quite a few wanted to turn the streetcar over, but wiser heads prevailed. The parade, in an aroused mood, marched up Kinsman Road.

It took Mr. O’Flaherty and Mr. Jackson ten minutes to get the car started again. Father fretted for fear he would be late, but at last he saw the Flannigan house. He also saw the Republican parade, which seemed to have disintegrated. Father, peering nervously out the window, rang the bell, Mr. O’Flaherty slammed on the brakes, and Father jumped down to the street. He took another look across Kinsman Road, and his heart lurched. The Republicans were attacking the home of his beloved Miss Flannigan; indeed, they appeared to be personally attacking Miss Flannigan’s father and, as he watched, horrified, the lovely Miss Flannigan herself.

4

THE riot had started, the police established later, when the Fifth Ward spotted Grandpa’s sign. The simple words, “I AM A DEMOCRAT,” brazenly displayed in a part of Cleveland where there were no Democrats (except Grandpa and some streetcar motormen), stung the Republicans to action. Breaking ranks, the Taft ruffians charged across the Flannigan front lawn to the front porch. They meant to capture and burn Grandpa’s bold challenge to their delicate sensibilities, but Grandpa, of course, was no man to strike his colors and retreat. On the contrary, he was always more than happy to do battle for a just cause; he met the enemy head-on. Leaning over the porch railing, he joyously slugged oncoming Republicans as he bawled, “Up Bryan! Up Bryan! Bryan Forever!”

At this point Mother rushed out the front door, crying, “Papa, how could you? Mr. McKenney’s coming any minute! Papa! Stop!”

The Fifth Ward probably did not mean to strike a respectable young lady, even if her father was a Democrat. No doubt, in all the confusion, my mother got hit by mistake. But Father, witnessing this affront, did not stop to consider.

“Miss Flannigan!” Father cried in an agony of fear, and still clutching the mum, he charged. His intentions were completely chivalrous; like the knights of old, he meant to do battle for the lady he loved. Instead, he got arrested. The police (Democrats all) arrived before Father managed to get through to the Flannigan front porch. Innocent as he was, Father did not, like the other Republicans present, start running when he heard the bells of the speeding Black Maria. The next thing he knew, a large policeman was hitting him with a night stick. Mother was so taken up by the damage to her new hat that she did not even notice Father being arrested. She finally heard his piteous voice from the inside of the police van.

“Miss Flannigan! Miss Flannigan!” Father was calling desperately. “HELP!” Mother tried to buttonhole the police riot squad, but it was too late. Father was taken to the police station, where he kept explaining that he was going to a football game.

“A likely story,” the desk sergeant sneered.

Grandpa was dispatched by my sobbing mother to the rescue of her unfortunate suitor. Grandpa had just arranged for Father’s honorable release from the 125th Street Precinct when my father’s own father arrived in an extremely truculent frame of mind and denied out of hand that his son was a Democrat. In later years my two grandfathers came to like each other, in a restrained way, but at their first meeting they very nearly resorted to fisticuffs — and in a police station, at that. Grandpa McKenney said that Father was the first in a long line of respectable, God-fearing Scotch-Irish Presbyterian McKenneys to be arrested; he blamed the entire unsavory episode on Grandpa Flannigan.

“It’s not enough you’re a Democrat! You even put up signs about it! No wonder Sid lost his head.”

“Will you be holding your tongue?” Grandpa Flannigan roared. “I say ‘tis innocent he is, this poor lad. A brave Democrat, fearless, like a lion, he was taking these black Republicans from the rear, when —”

“No McKenney” — Grandpa McKenney also raised his voice — “ever was, or ever will be, a Democrat.”

“Orangeman!” Grandpa Flannigan cried.

Father had to pay a twenty-five-dollar fine and plead guilty to disorderly conduct, after Grandpa Flannigan and Grandpa McKenney were separated by the desk sergeant. Mother felt, when Father timidly telephoned her next day, that love conquers all. Even Grandpa Flannigan admitted that Father had a lot of spirit — for a Republican. Grandma Flannigan said that for a man with six unmarried daughters, Grandpa ought to think twice before he put up signs on the front porch. But Grandpa was not in the least sorry about the sign; so far as he was concerned, he said, he was looking for a son-in-law who believed in the Single Tax,