Chapter 5
Chapter 5 of But Gentleman Mary Burnett's by Anita Luce. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by Jen Broda. Chapter 5. Well, Dorothy had the opportunity to settle down and forget the past in a small-sized
city where life is pure and people's thoughts are wholesome without contamination. And when they arrived there at San Diego, the deputy sheriff escorted Doc to jail while his mother escorted Dorothy to their old family residence. And when they reached it, it turned out to be a very beautiful large wooden house of the impressive type, with six-pointed cupolas on the roof built out of fancy scalloped shingles
by their ancestors. And when Dorothy was shown to her room, it had one of the cupolas in a corner for a large bay window with dotted Swiss ruffle curtains and there were roses all over the wallpaper and an antique whatnot with a picture of George Washington saying his prayers in a snowdrift over an old original walnut bedstead.
But when the deputy sheriff's mother left her alone in it, Dorothy says the atmosphere of that room made a girl wish that somebody would mail her a pie with a file and a rope ladder in it. Well, finally a servant girl called Emma knocked on the door and asked Dorothy if she could help her unpack.
So Dorothy invited her in and while they were unpacking, Dorothy started to ask her quite a few questions. Well, it turned out that Emma was a graduate of the detention home because the deputy sheriff loved nothing so much as giving immoral girls a new start and keeping in touch with their cases.
But Emma said that someday he was going to keep in touch with her case just once too often. And when she said it, quite a dark expression came over her countenance. So Emma did not cheer Dorothy up so much and Dorothy would have given anything if she had not promised Curly her word of honor that she would stick it out for a year.
Well, when Dorothy went downstairs, she found out that the deputy sheriff's mother had just as little to say when she had an opportunity to say it as when the deputy sheriff would not let her get a word in edgewise because living with a prominent son had zapped her vitality. And finally it came dinner time and the deputy sheriff arrived home with a guest he had invited.
And this guest was a bleach blonde secretary of quite a middle age who had started out in his office years ago when she was only a typewriter. And it seems that in the beginning there had been a romance. And even after the romance was over, they kept on going through quite a few things together. Like one time when he constructed some city construction and put decomposed granite where
he should have put marble, this secretary had kept all of his books on the subject and And she was so full of information that he really felt as if he could hardly get along without her. And he never dared to do anything much unless he told his secretary about it first and found out what he had to do in return for being allowed to do it.
So he knew that he had to consult her on the subject of Dorothy and he decided to grit his teeth and get the introduction over as soon as possible. Well, it seems that this secretary disapproved of Dorothy from the start. And after dinner, she and the deputy sheriff went out into the front parlor and closed the folding doors and her disapproval finally became so loud that the deputy sheriff had
to take her out for a spin. So Dorothy tried to drown her feelings in a magazine, but even the Baptist Beacon could not keep the tears from coming. But from the time that the deputy sheriff came back from his spin, he really was quite changed in his attitude toward Dorothy.
I mean, he behaved as if he had some great mental strain on his mind and all his good cheer had practically vanished. And all he dared to do to Dorothy was look at her out of the corner of one eye and keep his distance. But he did not neglect Dorothy's education, for he had his mother escort her to a very
exclusive school for girls only, where she could get educated up to what she was going to become. And for the first time in her life, Dorothy had the opportunity to mix with refined Christian girls of family life and learn both truth and honesty. But Dorothy really did not pick up either truth or honesty.
For the very first day in school, she got into trouble, because a girl who sat in front of her asked for the loan of a lead pencil, and Dorothy had a box full, so she gave the girl half of them. Well the girls had all been warned to be suspicious of Dorothy on account of the low environment of a carnival company that she came from.
So this girl reported to the teacher that Dorothy was giving away lead pencils, so the teacher told Dorothy to remain after school and held an investigation, but she found out that Dorothy did not steal them after all. So then the teacher explained to Dorothy that the appearance of evil is just as much to be avoided, and she should try to do better in the future.
And Dorothy says that while she was in that school, she was reported just like a murder trial. And the climax came one day when she was in the yard with some of the girls, and they started talking risque, as usual. Only those girls did not tell risque stories that had a plot, and came to some cute point
that was amusing, but they loved to talk risque, just for the sake of being surreptitious. While Dorothy soon got enough of that kind of conversation, but they seemed to be enjoying themselves so highly, that Dorothy says she thought it would be a treat to tell them a story that was really funny. But much to her surprise, it shocked the girls very much to make light of such a subject.
So they reported Dorothy to the teacher for removing the bloom off of things that young girls ought not to mention. So Dorothy was sent to the principal's office, and he told her that he would have to expel her if pure girls from Christian homes got their thoughts contaminated. And he asked Dorothy if she had not learned what it meant to be a Christian since arriving
at San Diego. So Dorothy said that, as far as she could gather, it meant everything was okay, so long as you don't admit you enjoy it. Well, then the principal told Dorothy to wait in his office while he went downstairs to talk her morals over with the whole class.
But as he went out of the door, he looked back and shook his finger at Dorothy and threw her a smile and said, you little heathen. So I think he really would have liked to work up a small flirtation if he had the virility. Well the principal went down to Dorothy's class and told all the girls that Dorothy had not had the advantage of a pure home, so they must form themselves into a little
committee and help her not to stray. And after that, Dorothy really became the center of attraction until one of the girls took a false step with a visiting football team and Dorothy lost her novelty. But Dorothy really took no interest in her opportunities and she finally started in to play hooky and wander around the city zoo where the perfume made her remember the carnival
company and the animals took her mind off of native San Diegans. And things finally began to get worse in the home because Emma started giving the deputy sheriff darker and darker looks accompanied by low-voiced remarks to herself that could be overheard. And what Emma principally mumbled about was the injustice when a girl like Dorothy lived
in luxury in a delightful bedroom and had beautiful clothes while Emma had not only endured the deputy sheriff but was expected to be an experienced chambermaid in addition. And it finally reached a point where the deputy sheriff would really have given Emma her notice it on account of the way that chambermaids talk. And the deputy sheriff got practically no relief when he dropped in at his office and
had to listen to his bleach blonde secretary make unpleasant remarks about city constructions he had constructed and about an act called the Man Act that he had indulged in with her once by traveling from one state to another. But things really could not go on forever and gradually the deputy sheriff started in to get used to his great mental strain.
And little by little he began to cast eyes at Dorothy and be himself again. And finally one evening he threw off all care and decided to hear Dorothy say her prayers in a nightgown. So Dorothy had to do it and after she got through the deputy sheriff decided to tuck her in and sit on the bedside and talk about the purity of girlhood.
But his actions started to belie his words and Dorothy was just getting ready to jump up and holler out of the cupola when the deputy sheriff suddenly began to look peculiar and fell over in a lurch on account of some poison that Emma had put in his coffee. Well they sent for the doctor and when the deputy sheriff started in to feel better the first thing he did was to tell everybody to keep their mouths shut and say he was taken
down with a bad case of pneumonia. But he used his magnanimity on Emma for he did not arrest her and he only sent her back to the detention home to keep the publicity from breaking out at a trial. But when the deputy sheriff's secretary found out what had occurred she decided to nurse him back to health and nothing could stop her.
So she moved into the house, bag and baggage, and used so much authority that everything went under her thumb. I mean everything except Dorothy because she really started in to encourage Dorothy to look for trouble on the outside and it did not take Dorothy long to find it. End of chapter 5
