(2 of 3)
With the Times. By 1921 her husband was making $10,000 a year. The Vanderlips were neighbors; the children went to the Vanderlips' progressive school. From the porch of the house in Scarborough Louise "could look off across the Hudson deep into orange hills." Honeysuckle smothered the rickety porch railing. There were white birches in the yard, a ginkgo tree by the windows. But misfortune followed so relentlessly it might have been planned. Once the Japanese butler at the Vanderlips' swimming pool asked her: "Why your little boy, he lie at bottom of pool so long for?" Rodney was two hours getting the water pumped out.
One day Louise, the younger daughter, could not get out of bed. The doctor said first that it was just a swollen ankle, then, as her mother was relaxing in relief: "Suddenly a thought stabbed me. . . . There was no more laughing. Just low voices, talking, talking. . . . My husband stood looking out of the window. I felt queer. As if a burden had been lifted from me. . . . Dr. George Draper . . . said infantile paralysis was a strange disease. ... 'At present she has only the use of her left arm,' he said. 'Prognosis for life is fair.' "
By the time the three older children had recovered completely from infantile paralysis, and Louise enough to be able to use crutches, the '20s were in full swing and the hectic community life boiled over. Mrs. Pierson was in all of it. Most of it rubbed the social nerves raw — provocative speeches by liberals to Tories; provocative shows by the amateur theater; acrobatic dancing; folk singing. One day her husband came home from the National City Bank and said, "It's Charlie Mitchell. ... I got the ax along with 33 others. We got two hours to clear out." He sat with his head in his hands. Louise's insistent bravery in the face of trouble jarred him. " 'If I died,' he said, 'you'd just regard it as another way to develop your character.' That hit home."
With the Brakes Off. The remainder of Roughly Speaking, covering Louise's divorce and second marriage, poverty, bankruptcy, psychoanalysis, racketeering, operating a nightclub, campaigning for Roosevelt, races through the depression with the speed of a runaway train. Her second husband, an easygoing Canadian cavalry officer, operated a greenhouse outside New York City. When the impending depression closed down, the children sold flowers and food at a roadside stand and temporarily saved the family. Imperceptibly the roadside stand grew into a business, where the children waited on tables, the parents cooked, and the daily cash intake disguised their poverty. Counting the money on Sunday night, Louise planned to enlarge the restaurant to support the greenhouse. The greenhouse failed, with liabilities of $72,000. The Piersons bought a soda fountain on Cape Cod, built it into a nightclub. One Saturday night at one minute past 12, it was raided.
"Do you know what day this is?" the sergeant asked Louise.
"No."
"It's the Lord's Day."
"I lived in New York so long I didn't know the Lord had a day," said Louise.
"In Massachusetts," said the sergeant, "He not only has a day, He has a department."