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diff --git a/30627.txt b/30627.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6d3b918 --- /dev/null +++ b/30627.txt @@ -0,0 +1,23442 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of In the Heart of a Fool, by William Allen White + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: In the Heart of a Fool + +Author: William Allen White + +Release Date: December 8, 2009 [EBook #30627] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN THE HEART OF A FOOL *** + + + + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +IN THE HEART OF A FOOL + + + + +BY WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE + + THE REAL ISSUE + THE COURT OF BOYVILLE + STRATAGEMS AND SPOILS + IN OUR TOWN + A CERTAIN RICH MAN + THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH + GOD'S PUPPETS + THE MARTIAL ADVENTURES OF HENRY AND ME + IN THE HEART OF A FOOL + + + + +IN THE HEART OF A FOOL + +BY + +WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE + +Author of "In Our Town," "A Certain Rich Man," +"The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me," etc. + +New York + +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + +1918 + +All rights reserved + + + + +COPYRIGHT, 1918 + +BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + +Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1918. + + + + +CONTENTS + CHAPTER PAGE + I BEING STAGE DIRECTIONS, AND A CAST OF + CHARACTERS. 1 + II IN WHICH WE INTRODUCE THE FOOL AND HIS + LADY FAIR, AND WHAT HE SAID IN HIS + HEART--THE SAME BEING THE THEME AND + THESIS OF THIS STORY 4 + III IN WHICH WE CONSIDER THE LADIES--GOD + BLESS 'EM! 21 + IV THE ADAMS FAMILY BIBLE LIES LIKE A + GENTLEMAN 38 + V IN WHICH MARGARET MUeLLERs DWELLS IN + MARBLE HALLS AND HENRY FENN AND KENYON + ADAMS WIN NOTABLE VICTORIES 47 + VI ENTER THE BEAUTY AND CHIVALRY OF + HARVEY; ALSO HEREIN WE BREAK OUR FINEST + HEART 63 + VII IN WHICH WE SEE HOW LIFE TRANSLATES + ITSELF INTO THE MATERIALISM AROUND IT 69 + VIII CAPTAIN MORTON ACTS AS COURT HERALD AND + MORTY SANDS AND GRANT ADAMS HEAR SAD + NEWS 80 + IX WHEREIN HENRY FENN TRIES AN INTERESTING + EXPERIMENT 89 + X IN WHICH MARY ADAMS TAKES A MUCH NEEDED + REST 98 + XI WHEREIN A FOOL GROPES FOR A SPIRIT AND + CAN FIND ONLY DUST 103 + XII IN WHICH WE LEARN THAT LOVE IS THE + LEVER THAT MOVES THE WORLD 114 + XIII IN WHICH WE OBSERVE THE INTERIOR OF A + DESERTED HOUSE 126 + XIV IN WHICH OUR HERO STROLLS OUT WITH THE + DEVIL TO LOOK AT THE HIGH MOUNTAIN 135 + XV WHEREIN WE WELCOME IN A NEW YEAR AND + CONSIDER A SERIOUS QUESTION 152 + XVI GRANT ADAMS IS SOLD INTO BONDAGE AND + MARGARET FENN RECEIVES A SHOCK 163 + XVII A CHAPTER WHICH INTRODUCES SOME + POSSIBLE GODS 180 + XVIII OUR HERO RIDES TO HOUNDS WITH THE + PRIMROSE HUNT 187 + XIX HEREIN CAPTAIN MORTON FALLS UNDER + SUSPICION AND HENRY FENN FALLS FROM + GRACE 200 + XX IN WHICH HENRY FENN FALLS FROM GRACE + AND RISES AGAIN 209 + XXI IN WHICH WE SEE A FAT LITTLE RASCAL ON + THE RACK 219 + XXII IN WHICH TOM VAN DORN BECOMES A + WAYFARING MAN ALSO 232 + XXIII HERE GRANT ADAMS DISCOVERS HIS INSIDES 241 + XXIV IN WHICH THE DEVIL FORMALLY TAKES THE + TWO HINDERMOST AND CLOSES AN ACCOUNT IN + HIS LEDGER 252 + XXV IN WHICH WE SEE TWO TEMPLES AND THE + CONTENTS THEREOF 264 + XXVI DR. NESBIT STARTS ON A LONG UPWARD BUT + DEVIOUS JOURNEY 277 + XXVII IN WHICH WE SEE SOMETHING COME INTO + THIS STORY OUTSIDE OF THE MATERIAL WORLD 288 + XXVIII WHEREIN MORTY SANDS MAKES A FEW + SENSIBLE REMARKS IN PUBLIC 298 + XXIX BEING NOT A CHAPTER BUT AN INTERLUDE 309 + XXX GRANT ADAMS PREACHING A MESSAGE OF LOVE + RAISES THE VERY DEVIL IN HARVEY 320 + XXXI IN WHICH JUDGE VAN DORN MAKES HIS BRAGS + AND DR. NESBIT SEES A VISION 337 + XXXII WHEREIN VIOLET HOGAN TAKES UP AN OLD + TRADE AND MARGARET VAN DORN SEEKS A + HIGHER PLANE 350 + XXXIII IN WHICH THE ANGELS SHAKE A FOOT FOR + HENRY FENN 365 + XXXIV A SHORT CHAPTER, YET IN IT WE EXAMINE + ONE CANVAS HEAVEN, ONE REAL HEAVEN, AND + TWO SNUG LITTLE HELLS 379 + XXXV THE OLD SPIDER BEGINS TO DIVIDE HIS + FLIES WITH OTHERS AND GEORGE BROTHERTON + IS PUZZLED TWICE IN ONE NIGHT 388 + XXXVI A LONG CHAPTER BUT A BUSY ONE, IN WHICH + KENYON ADAMS AND HIS MOTHER HAVE A + STRANGE MEETING, AND LILA VAN DORN + TAKES A NIGHT RIDE 403 + XXXVII IN WHICH WE WITNESS A CEREMONY IN THE + TEMPLE OF LOVE 423 + XXXVIII GRANT ADAMS VISITS THE SONS OF ESAU 431 + XXXIX BEING NO CHAPTER AT ALL BUT AN + INTERMEZZO BEFORE THE LAST MOVEMENT 441 + XL HERE WE HAVE THE FELLOW AND THE GIRL + BEGINNING TO PREPARE FOR THE LAST + CHAPTER 444 + XLI HERE WE SEE GRANT ADAMS CONQUERING HIS + THIRD AND LAST DEVIL 454 + XLII A CHAPTER WHICH IS CONCERNED LARGELY + WITH THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF "THE FULL + STRENGTH OF THE COMPANY" 468 + XLIII WHEREIN WE FIND GRANT ADAMS CALLING + UPON KENYON'S MOTHER, AND DARKNESS + FALLS UPON TWO LOVERS 496 + XLIV IN WHICH WE SUFFER LITTLE CHILDREN, + WITH GEORGE BROTHERTON, AND IN GENERAL + CONSIDER THE HABITANTS OF THE KINGDOM 515 + XLV IN WHICH LIDA BOWMAN CONSIDERS HER + UNIVERSE AND TOM VAN DORN WINS ANOTHER + VICTORY 527 + XLVI WHEREIN GRANT ADAMS PREACHES PEACE AND + LIDA BOWMAN SPEAKS HER MIND 543 + XLVII IN WHICH GRANT ADAMS AND LAURA VAN DORN + TAKE A WALK DOWN MARKET STREET AND MRS. + NESBIT ACQUIRES A LONG LOST + GRANDSON-IN-LAW 561 + XLVIII WHEREIN WE ERECT A HOUSE BUILT UPON A + ROCK 575 + XLIX HOW MORTY SANDS TURNED AWAY SADLY AND + JUDGE VAN DORN UNCOVERED A SECRET 582 + L JUDGE VAN DORN SINGS SOME MERRY SONGS + AND THEY TAKE GRANT ADAMS BEHIND A + WHITE DOOR 597 + LI IN WHICH WE END AS WE BEGAN AND ALL + LIVE HAPPILY EVER AFTER 609 + LII NOT EXACTLY A CHAPTER BUT RATHER A + Q. E. D. OR A HIC FABULA DOCET 613 + + + + +IN THE HEART OF A FOOL + + + + +CHAPTER I + +BEING STAGE DIRECTIONS, AND A CAST OF CHARACTERS + + +Sunshine and prairie grass--well in the foreground. For the background, +perhaps a thousand miles away or more than half a decade removed in +time, is the American Civil War. In the blue sky a meadow lark's love +song, and in the grass the boom of the prairie chicken's wings are the +only sounds that break the primeval silence, excepting the lisping of +the wind which dimples the broad acres of tall grass--thousand upon +thousand of acres--that stretch northward for miles. To the left the +prairie grass rises upon a low hill, belted with limestone and finally +merges into the mirage on the knife edge of the far horizon. To the +southward on the canvas the prairie grass is broken by the heavy green +foliage above a sluggish stream that writhes and twists and turns +through the prairie, which rises above the stream and meets another +limestone belt upon which the waving ripples of the unmowed grass wash +southward to the eye's reach. + +Enter R. U. E. a four-ox team hauling a cart laden with a printing press +and a printer's outfit; following that are other ox teams hauling carts +laden with tents and bedding, household goods, lumber, and provisions. A +four-horse team hauling merchandise, and a span of mules hitched to a +spring wagon come crashing up through the timber by the stream. Men and +women are walking beside the oxen or the teams and are riding in the +covered wagons. They are eagerly seeking something. It is the equality +of opportunity that is supposed to be found in the virgin prairies of +the new West. The men are nearly all veterans of the late war, for the +most part bearded youngsters in their twenties or early thirties. The +women are their fresh young wives. As the procession halts before the +canvas, the men and women begin to unpack the wagons and to line out on +each side of an imaginary street in the prairie. The characters are +discovered as follows: + +Amos Adams, a red-bearded youth of twenty-nine and Mary Sands, his wife. +They are printers and begin unpacking and setting up the printing +material in a tent. + +Dr. James Nesbit and Bedelia Satterthwaite, his wife, in the tent beside +the Adamses. + +Captain Ezra Morton, and Ruth his wife; he is selling a patent, +self-opening gate. + +Ahab Wright, in side whiskers, white necktie, flannel shirt and +carefully considered trousers tucked in shiny boots. + +Daniel Sands, Jane, his young wife, and Mortimer, her infant stepson. +Daniel owns the merchandise in the wagon. + +Casper Herdicker, cobbler, and Brunhilde Herdicker, his wife. + +Herman Mueller, bearded, coarse-featured, noisy; a Pennsylvania Dutchman, +his faded, rope-haired, milk-eyed, sickly wife and Margaret, their baby +daughter. + +Kyle Perry, owner of the horses and spring wagon. + +Dick Bowman, Ira Dooley, Thomas Williams, James McPherson, Dennis Hogan, +a boy, laborers. + +As other characters enter during the early pages of the story they shall +be properly introduced. + +As the actors unload their wagons the spectators may notice above their +heads bright, beautiful and evanescent forms coming and going in and out +of being. These are the visions of the pioneers, and they are vastly +more real than the men and women themselves. For these visions are the +forces that form the human crystal. + +Here abideth these three: sunshine and prairie grass and blue sky, cloud +laden. These for ages have held domain and left the scene unchanged. +When lo--at Upper Middle Entrance,--enter love! And love witched the +dreams and visions of those who toiled in the sunshine and prairie grass +under the blue sky cloud laden. And behold what they visioned in the +witchery of love, took form and spread upon the prairie in wood and +stone and iron, and became a part of the life of the Nation. Blind men +in other lands, in other times looked at the Nation and saw only wood +and stone and iron. Yet the wood and stone and iron should not have +symbolized the era in America. Rather should the dreams and visions of +the pioneers, of those who toiled under the sunshine and in the prairie +grass have symbolized our strength. For half a century later when the +world was agonizing in a death grapple with the mad gods of a crass +materialism, mankind saw rising from the wood and stone and iron that +had seemed to epitomize this Nation, a spirit which had lain hidden yet +dormant in the Nation's life--a beautiful spirit of idealism strong, +brave and humbly wise; the child of the dreams and visions and the love +of humanity that dwelled in the hearts of the pioneers of that earlier +time. + +But this is looking forward. So let us go back to scene one, act one, in +those days before the sunshine was shaded, the prairie grass worn off, +and the blue sky itself was so stained and changed that the meadow-lark +was mute! + +And now we are ready for the curtain: and--music please. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +IN WHICH WE INTRODUCE THE FOOL AND HIS LADY FAIR AND WHAT HE SAID IN HIS +HEART--THE SAME BEING THE THEME AND THESIS OF THIS STORY + + +A story is a curious thing, that grows with a kind of consciousness of +its own. Time was, in its invertebrate period of gestation when this +story was to be Amos Adams's story. It was to be the story of one who +saw great visions that were realized, who had from the high gods +whispers of their plans. What a book it would have been if Amos and Mary +could have written it--the story of dreams come true. But alas, the high +gods mocked Amos Adams. Mary's clippings from the Tribune--a great +litter of them, furnished certain dates and incidents for the story. +Often when the Tribune was fresh from the press Mary and Amos would sit +together in the printing office and Mary eaten with pride would clip +from the damp paper the grandiloquent effusions of Amos that seemed to +fit into other items that were to remind them of things which they could +not print in their newspaper but which would be material for their book. +What a bundle of these clippings there is! And there was the diary, or +old-fashioned Memory Book of Mary Adams. What a pile of neatly folded +sheets covered with Mary Adams' handwriting are there on the table by +the window! What memories they revive, what old dead joys are brought to +life, what faded visions are repainted. This is to be the Book--the book +that they dreamed of in their youth--even before little Kenyon was born, +before Jasper was born, indeed before Grant was born. + +But now the years have written in many things and it will not be even +their story. Indeed as life wrote upon their hearts its mysterious +legend--the legend that erased many of their noble dreams and put iron +into their souls, there is evidence in what they wrote that they thought +it would be Grant's story. Most parents think their sons will be heroes. +But their boy had to do his part in the world's rough work and before +the end the clippings and the notes in the Memory Book show that they +felt that a hero in blue overalls would hardly answer for their Book. +Then there came a time when Amos alone in his later years thought that +it might be Kenyon's story; for Kenyon now is a fiddler of fame, and +fiddlers make grand heroes. But as the clippings and the notes show +forth still another story, the Book that was to be their book and story, +may not be one man's or one woman's story. It may not be even the story +of a town; though Harvey's story is tragic enough. (Indeed sometimes it +has seemed that the story of Harvey, rising in a generation out of the +sunshine and prairie grass, a thousand flued hell, was to be the story +of the Book.) But now Harvey seems to be only a sign of the times, a +symptom of the growth of the human soul. So the Book must tell the tale +of a time and a place where men and women loved and strove and joyed or +suffered and lost or won after the old, old fashion of our race; with +only such new girdles and borders and frills in the record of their work +and play as the changing skirts of passing circumstance require. The +Book must be more than Amos Adams's or his son's or his son's son's +story or his town's, though it must be all of these. It must be the +story of many men and many women, each one working out his salvation in +his own way and all the threads woven into the divine design, carrying +along in its small place on the loom the inscrutable pattern of human +destiny. But most of all it should be the story which shall explain the +America that rose when her great day came--exultant, triumphant to the +glorious call of an ideal, arose from sordid things environing her body +and soul, and consecrated herself without stint or faltering hand to the +challenge of democracy. + +In the old days--the old days when Amos Adams was young--he printed the +Harvey _Tribune_ on a hand press. Mary spread the ink upon the +types; he pulled the great lever that impressed each sheet; and as they +worked they sang about the coming of the new day. As a soldier--a +commissioned officer he had fought in the great Civil War for the truth +that should make men free. And he was sure in those elder days that the +new day was just dawning. And Mary was sure too; so the readers of the +Tribune were assured that the dawn was at hand. The editor knew that +there were men who laughed at him for his hopes. But he and Mary, his +wife, only laughed at men who were so blind that they could not see the +dawn. So for many years they kept on rallying to whatever faith or +banner or cause seemed surest in its promise of the sunrise. +Green-backers, Grangers, Knights of Labor, Prohibitionists--these two +crusaders followed all of the banners. And still there came no sunrise. +Farmers' Alliance, Populism, Free Silver--Amos marched with each +cavalcade. And was hopeful in its defeat. + +And thus the years dragged on and made decades and the decades marshaled +into a generation that became an era, and a city rose around a mature +man. And still in his little office on a rickety side street, the +_Tribune_, a weekly paper in a daily town, kept pointing to the +sunrise; and Amos Adams, editor and proprietor, an old fool with the +faith of youth, for many years had a book to write and a story to +tell--a story that was never told, for it grew beyond him. + +He printed the first edition of the _Tribune_ in his tent under an +elm tree in a vast, unfenced meadow that rose from the fringe of timber +that shaded the Wahoo. Volume one, number one, told a waiting world of +the formation of the town company of Harvey with Daniel Sands as +president. It was one of thousands of towns founded after the Civil +War--towns that were bursting like mushrooms through the prairie soil. +After that war in which millions of men gave their youth and myriads +gave their lives for an ideal, came a reaction. And in the decades that +followed the war, men gave themselves to an orgy of materialism. Harvey +was a part of that orgy. And the Ohio crowd, the group that came from +Elyria--the Sandses, the Adamses, Joseph Calvin, Ahab Wright, Kyle +Perry, the Kollanders[1] and all the rest except the Nesbits--were so +considerable a part of Harvey in the beginning, that probably they were +as guilty as the rest of the country in the crass riot of greed that +followed the war. They brought Amos Adams to Harvey because he was a +printer and in those halcyon days all printers were supposed to be able +to write; and he brought Mary--but did he bring Mary? He was never sure +whether he brought her or she brought him. For Mary Sands--dear, dear +Mary Sands--she had a way with her. She was not Irish for nothing, God +bless her. + +Amos always tried to be fair with Daniel Sands because he was Mary's +brother; even though there was a time after he came home a young soldier +from the war and found that Daniel Sands who hired a substitute and +stayed at home, had won Esther Haley, who was pledged to Amos,--a time +when Amos would have killed Daniel Sands. That passed, Mary, Daniel's +sister, came; and for years Amos Adams bore Daniel Sands no grudge. What +has all his money done for Daniel. It has ground the joy out of him--for +one thing. And as for Esther, somewhere about Elyria, Ohio, the grass is +growing over her grave and for forty years only Mortimer, her son, with +her eyes and mouth and hair, was left in the world to remind Amos of the +days when he was stark mad; and Mary, dear, dear, Irish Mary Sands, +caught his heart upon the bounce and made him happy. + +So let us say that Mary brought Amos to Harvey with the Ohio crowd, as +Daniel Sands and his followers were known, The other early settlers came +to grow up with the country and to make their independent fortunes; but +Mary and Amos came to see the sunrise. For they were sure that men and +women starting in a new world having found equality of opportunity, +would not make this new world sordid, unfair and cruel as the older +world was around them in those days. + +Amos and Mary took up their homestead just south of the town on the +Wahoo, and started the Tribune, and Mary hoped the high hopes of the +Irish while Amos wrote his part of the news, set his share of the type, +ran the errands for the advertising and bragged of the town in their +editorial columns with all the faith of an Irishman by marriage. + +What a fairy story the history of Harvey would be if it should be +written only as it was. For one could even begin it once upon a time. +Once upon a time, let us say, there was a land of sunshine and prairie +grass. And then great genii came and set in little white houses and new +unpainted barns, thumbed in faint green hedgerows and board fences, that +checkered in the fields lying green or brown or loam black by the +sluggish streams that gouged broad, zigzag furrows in the land. And upon +a hill that overlooked a rock-bottomed stream the genii, the spirit of +the time, sat a town. It glistened in the sunshine and when the town was +over a year old, it was so newly set in, that its great stone +schoolhouse all towered and tin-corniced, beyond the scattered outlying +residences, rose in the high, untrodden grass. The people of Harvey were +vastly proud of that schoolhouse. The young editor and his wife used to +gaze at it adoringly as they drove to and from the office morning and +evening; and they gilded the town with high hopes. For then they were in +their twenties. The population of Harvey for the most part those first +years was in its twenties also, when gilding is cheap. But thank Heaven +the gilding of our twenties is lasting. + +It was into this gilded world that Grant Adams was born. Suckled behind +the press, cradled in the waste basket, toddling under hurrying feet, +Grant's earliest memories were of work--work and working lovers, and +their gay talk as they worked wove strange fancies in his little mind. + +It was in those days that Amos Adams and his wife, considering the +mystery of death, tried to peer behind the veil. For Amos tables tipped, +slates wrote, philosophers, statesmen and conquerors flocked in with +grotesque advice, and all those curious phenomena that come from the +activities of the abnormal mind, appeared and astounded the visionaries +as they went about their daily work. The boy Grant used to sit, a +wide-eyed, freckled, sun-browned little creature, running his skinny +little hands through his red hair, and wondering about the unsolvable +problems of life and death. + +But soon the problems of a material world came in upon Grant as the +child became a boy: problems of the wood and field, problems of the +constantly growing herd at play in water, in snow, on the ice and in the +prairie; and then came the more serious problems of the wood box, the +stable and farm. Thus he grew strong of limb, quick of hand, firm of +foot and sure of mind. And someway as he grew from childhood into +boyhood, getting hold of his faculties--finding himself physically, so +Harvey seemed to grow with him. All over the town where men needed money +Daniel Sands's mortgages were fastened--not heavily (nothing was heavy +in that day of the town's glorious youth) but surely. Dr. Nesbit's gay +ruthless politics, John Kollander's patriotism, leading always to the +court house and its emoluments, Captain Morton's inventions that never +materialized, the ever coming sunrise of the Adams--all these things +became definitely a part of the changeless universe of Harvey as Grant's +growing faculties became part of his consciousness. + +And here is a mystery: the formation of the social crystal. In that +crystal the outer facets and the inner fell into shape--the Nesbits, the +Kollanders, the Adamses, the Calvins, the Mortons, and the Sandses, +falling into one group; and the Williamses, the Hogans, the Bowmans, the +McPhersons, the Dooleys and Casper Herdicker falling into another group. +The hill separated from the valley. The separation was not a matter of +moral sense; for John Kollander and Dan Sands and Joseph Calvin touched +zero in moral intelligence; and it could not have been business sense, +for Captain Morton for all his dreams was a child with a dollar, and Dr. +Nesbit never was out of debt a day in his life; without his salary from +tax-payers John Kollander would have been a charge on the county. In the +matter of industry Daniel Sands was a marvel, but Jamie McPherson +toiling all day used to come home and start up his well drill and its +clatter could be heard far into the night, and often he started it hours +before dawn. Nor could aspirations and visions have furnished the line +of cleavage; for no one could have hopes so high for Harvey as Jamie, +who sank his drill far into the earth, put his whole life, every penny +of his earnings and all his strength into the dream that some day he +would bring coal or oil or gas to Harvey and make it a great city. Yet +when he found the precious vein, thick and rich and easy to mine, Daniel +Sands and Joseph Calvin took his claim from him by chicanery as easily +as they would have robbed a blind man of a penny, and Jamie went to work +in the mines for Daniel Sands grumbling but faithful. Williams and +Dooley and Hogan and Herdicker bent at their daily tasks in those first +years, each feeling that the next day or the next month or at most the +next year his everlasting fortune would be made. And Dick Bowman, cohort +of Dr. Nesbit, many a time and oft would wash up, put on a clean suit, +and go out and round up the voters in the Valley for the Doctor's cause +and scorn his task with a hissing; for Dick read Karl Marx and dreamed +of the day of the revolution. Yet he dwelled with the sons of Essua, who +as they toiled murmured about their stolen birthright. When a decade had +passed in Harvey the social crystal was firm; the hill and the valley +were cast into the solid rock of things as they are. No one could say +why; it was a mystery. It is still a mystery. As society forms and +reforms, its cleavages follow unknown lines. + +It was on a day in June--late in the morning, after Grant and Nathan +Perry--son of the stuttering Kyle of that name, had come from a cool +hour in the quiet pool down on the Wahoo and little Grant, waiting like +a hungry pup for his lunch, that was tempting him in the basket under +the typerack, was counting the moments and vaguely speculating as to +what minutes were--when he looked up from the floor and saw what seemed +to him a visitor from another world.[2] + +The creature was talking to Amos Adams sitting at the desk; and Amos was +more or less impressed with the visitor's splendor. He wore exceedingly +tight trousers--checked trousers, and a coat cut grandly and +extravagantly in its fullness, a high wing collar, and a soup dish hat. +He was such a figure as the comic papers of the day were featuring as +the exquisite young man of the period. + +Youth was in his countenance and lighted his black eyes. His oval, +finely featured face, his blemishless olive skin, his strong jaw and his +high, beautiful forehead, over which a black wing of hair hung +carelessly, gave him a distinction that brought even the child's eyes to +him. He was smiling pleasantly as he said, + +"I'm Thomas Van Dorn--Mr. Adams, I believe?" he asked, and added as he +fastened his fresh young eyes upon the editor's, "you scarcely will +remember me--but you doubtless remember the day when father's hunting +party passed through town? Well--I've come to grow up with the country." + +The editor rose, roughed his short, sandy beard and greeted the youth +pleasantly. "Mr. Daniel Sands sent me to you, Mr. Adams--to print a +professional card in your paper," said the young man. He pronounced them +"cahd" and "papuh" and smiled brightly as his quick eyes told him that +the editor was conscious of his eastern accent. While they were talking +business, locating the position of the card in the newspaper, the editor +noticed that the young man's eyes kept wandering to Mary Adams, +typesetting across the room. She was a comely woman just in her thirties +and Amos Adams finally introduced her. When he went out the Adamses +talked him over and agreed that he was an addition to the town. + +Within a month he had formed a partnership with Joseph Calvin, the +town's eldest lawyer; and young Henry Fenn, who had been trying for a +year to buy a partnership with Calvin, was left to go it alone. So Henry +Fenn contented himself with forming a social partnership with his young +rival. And when the respectable Joseph Calvin was at home or considering +the affairs of the Methodist Sunday School of which he was +superintendent, young Mr. Fenn and young Mr. Van Dorn were rambling at +large over the town and the adjacent prairie, seeking such diversion as +young men in their exceedingly early twenties delight in: Mr. Riley's +saloon, the waters of the Wahoo, by moonlight, the melliferous strains +of "Larboard watch," the shot gun, the quail and the prairie chicken, +the quarterhorse, and the jackpot, the cocktail, the Indian pony, the +election, the footrace, the baseball team, the Sunday School picnic, the +Fourth of July celebration, the dining room girls at the Palace Hotel, +the cross country circus and the trial of the occasional line fence +murder case--all were divertissements that engaged their passing young +attention. + +If ever the world was an oyster for a youth the world of Harvey and the +fullness thereof was an oyster to Thomas Van Dorn. He had all that the +crude western community cherished: the prestige of money, family, +education, and that indefinable grace and courtesy of body and soul that +we call charm. And Harvey people seemed to be made for him. He liked +their candor, their strength, their crass materialism, their bray and +bluster, their vain protests of democracy and their unconscious regard +for his caste and culture. So whatever there was of egoism in his nature +grew unchecked by Harvey. He was the young lord of the manor. However +Harvey might hoot at his hat and gibe at his elided R's and mock his +rather elaborate manners behind his back; nevertheless he had his way +with the town and he knew that he was the master. While those about him +worked and worried Tom Van Dorn had but to rub lightly his lamp and the +slave appeared and served him. Naturally a young man of his conspicuous +talents in his exceedingly early twenties who has the vast misfortune to +have a lamp of Aladdin to rub, asks genii first of all for girls and +girls and more girls. Then incidentally he asks for business and perhaps +for politics and may be as an afterthought and for his own comfort he +may pray for the good will of his fellows. Tom Van Dorn became known in +the vernacular as a "ladies man." It did not hurt his reputation as a +lawyer, for he was young and youth is supposed to have its follies so +long as its follies are mere follies. No one in that day hinted that Tom +Van Dorn was anything more dangerous than a butterfly. So he flitted +from girl to girl, from love affair to love affair, from heart to heart +in his gay clothes with his gay manners and his merry face. And men +smiled and women and girls whispered and boys hooted and all the world +gave the young lord his way. But when he included the dining room girls +at the Palace Hotel in his list of conquests, Dr. Nesbit began squinting +seriously at the youth and, late at night coming from his professional +visits, when the doctor passed the young fellow returning from some +humble home down near the river, the Doctor would pipe out in the night, +"Tut, tut, Tom--this is no place for you." + +But the Doctor was too busy with his own affairs to assume the +guardianship of Tom Van Dorn. As Mayor of Harvey the Doctor made the +young man city attorney, thereby binding the youth to the Mayor in the +feudal system of politics and attaching all the prestige and charm and +talent of the boy to the Doctor's organization. + +For Dr. Nesbit in his blithe and cock-sure youth was born to politics as +the sparks fly upward. Men looked to him for leadership and he blandly +demanded that they follow him. He was every man's friend. He knew the +whole county by its first name. The men, the women, the children, the +dogs, the horses knew him and he knew and loved them all. But in return +for his affection he expected loyalty. He was a jealous leader who +divided no honors. Seven months in the year he wore white linen clothes +and his white clad figure bustling through a crowd on Market Street on +Saturday or elbowing its way through a throng at any formal gathering, +or jogging through the night behind his sorrel mare or moving like a +pink-faced cupid, turned Nemesis in a county convention, made him a +marked man in the community. But what was more important, his +distinction had a certain cheeriness about it. And his cheeriness was +vocalized in a high, piping, falsetto voice, generally gay and nearly +always soft and kindly. It expressed a kind of incarnate good nature +that disarmed enmity and drew men to him instinctively. And underneath +his amicability was iron. Hence men came to him in trouble and he healed +their ills, cured their souls, went on their notes and took their hearts +for his own, which carried their votes for his uses. So he became calif +of Harvey. + +Even deaf John Kollander who had political aspirations of a high order +learned early that his road to glory led through obedience to the +Doctor. So John went about the county demanding that the men who had +saved the union should govern it and declaring that the flag of his +country should not be trailed in the dust by vandal hands--meaning of +course by "vandal hands" the opposition candidate for register of deeds +or county clerk or for whatever county office John was asking at that +election; and at the convention John's old army friends voted for the +Doctor's slate and in the election they supported the Doctor's ticket. +But tall, deaf John Kollander in his blue army clothes with their brass +buttons and his campaign hat, always cut loose from Dr. Nesbit's +paternal care after every election. For the Doctor, after he had tucked +John away in a county office, asked only to appoint John's deputies and +that Mrs. Kollander keep out of the Doctor's office and away from his +house. + +"I have no objections," the Doctor would chirrup at the ample, +good-natured Rhoda Kollander who would haunt him during John's periods +of political molting, pretending to advise with the Doctor on her +husband's political status, "to your society from May until November +every two years, Rhody, but that's enough. Now go home! Go home, woman," +he commanded, "and look after your growing family." + +And Rhoda Kollander would laugh amiably in telling it and say, "Now I +suppose some women would get mad, but law, I know Doc Jim! He doesn't +mean a thing!" Whereupon she would settle down where she was stopping +until meal time and reluctantly remain to eat. As she settled +comfortably at the table she would laugh easily and exclaim: "Now isn't +it funny! I don't know what John and the boys will have. There isn't a +thing in the house. But, law, I suppose they can get along without me +once in a lifetime." Then she would laugh and eat heartily and sit +around until the crisis at home had passed. + +But the neighbors knew that John Kollander was opening a can of +something, gathering the boys around him and as they ate, recounting the +hardships of army life to add spice to an otherwise stale and +unprofitable meal. Afterward probably he would go to some gathering of +his comrades and there fight, bleed and die for his country. For he was +an incorrigible patriot. The old flag, his country's honor, and the +preservation of the union were themes that never tired him. He organized +his fellow veterans in the town and county and helped to organize them +in the state and was forever going to other towns to attend camp fires +and rallies and bean dinners and reunions where he spoke with zeal and +some eloquence about the danger of turning the country over to the +southern brigadiers. He had a set speech which was greatly admired at +the rallies and in this speech it was his wont to reach for one of the +many flags that always adorned the platform on such occasions, tear it +from its hanging and wrapping it proudly about his gaunt figure, recite +a dialogue between himself and the angel Gabriel, the burden of which +was that so long as John Kollander had that flag about him at the +resurrection, no question would be asked at Heaven's gate of one of its +defenders. Now the fact was that John Kollander was sent to the war of +the rebellion a few weeks before the surrender of Lee at Appomattox, as +Daniel Sands's paid substitute and his deafness was caused by firing an +anvil at the peace jubilee in Cincinnati, the powder on the anvil being +the only powder John Kollander ever had smelled. But his descriptions of +battle and the hardships and horrors of war were none the less vivid and +harrowing because he had never crossed the Ohio. + +Those were the days when the _Tribune_ was at its zenith--the days +when Jared Thurston was employed as its foreman and Lizzie Coulter, +pretty, blue-eyed, fair-haired Lizzie Coulter helped Mary Adams to set +the type. It was not a long Day of Triumph, but while it lasted Mary and +Amos made the most of it and spoke in a grand way about "the office +force." They even had vague notions of starting a daily and many a night +Jared and Amos pored over the type samples in the advertising in Rounds +Printer's Cabinet, picked out the type they would need and the other +equipment necessary for the new venture. But it was only a dream. For +gradually Jared found Lizzie's eyes and he found more to interest him +there than in the type-book, and so the dream faded and was gone. + +Also as Lizzie's eyes began to glow in his sky, Jared let his interest +lag in the talk at Casper Herdicker's shoe shop, though it was tall +talk, and Jared sitting on a keg in a corner with little Tom Williams, +the stone mason, beside him on a box, and Denny Hogan near him on a +vacant work bench and Ira Dooley on the window ledge would wrangle until +bed time many a night as Dick Bowman, wagging a warlike head, and Casper +pegging away at his shoes, tore society into shreds, smashed idols and +overturned civilization. Up to this point there was complete agreement +between the iconoclasts. They went so far together that they had no +quarrel about the route of the mob down Fifth Avenue in New York--which +Dick knew only as a legend but which Casper had seen; and they were one +in the belief that Dan Sands's bank and Wright & Perry's store should +fall early in the sack of Market Street. But when it came to +reconstructing society there was a clash that mounted to a cataclysm. +For Dick, shaking his head violently, demanded a government that should +regulate everything and Casper waving a vicious, flat-nosed hammer, +battered down all government and stood for the untrammeled and +unhampered liberty of the individual. Night after night they looted +civilization and stained the sky with their fires and the ground with +the oppressor's blood, only to sink their claws and tusks into each +other's vitals in mortal combat over the spoil. + +About the time that Jared Thurston found the new stars that had ranged +across his ken, Tom Van Dorn, the handsome, cheerful, exquisite Tom Van +Dorn began to find the debates between Casper and Dick Bowman diverting. +So many a night when the society of the softer sex was either cloying or +inconvenient, the dapper young fellow would come dragging Henry Fenn +with him, to sit on a rickety chair and observe the progress of the +revolution and to enjoy the carnage that always followed the downfall of +the established order. He used to sit beside Jared Thurston who, being a +printer, was supposed to belong to the more intellectual of the crafts +and hence more appreciative than Williams or Dooley or Hogan, of his +young lordship's point of view; and as the debate waxed warm, Tom was +wont to pinch the lean leg of Mr. Thurston in lieu of the winks Tom +dared not venture. But a time came when Jared Thurston sat apart from +Van Dorn and stared coldly at him. And as Tom and Henry Fenn walked out +of the human slaughter house that Dick and Casper had made after a +particularly bloody revolt against the capitalistic system, Henry Fenn +walked for a time beside his friend looking silently at the earth while +Van Dorn mooned and star-gazed with wordy delight. Henry lifted his +face, looked at Tom with great, bright, sympathetic eyes and cut in: + +"Tom--why are you playing with Lizzie Coulter? She is not in your class +or of your kind. What's your idea in cutting in between Jared and her; +you'll only make trouble." + +A smile, a gay, happy, and withal a seductive smile lit up the handsome, +oval face of young Mr. Van Dorn. The smile became a laugh, a quiet, +insinuating, good-natured, light-hearted laugh. As he laughed he +replied: + +"Lizzie's all right, Henry--don't worry about Lizzie." Again he laughed +a gentle, deep-voiced chuckle, and held up his hand in the moonlight. A +brown scab was lined across the back of the hand and as Henry saw it Van +Dorn spoke: "Present from Lizzie--little pussy." Again he chuckled and +added, "Nearly made the horse run away, too. Anyway," he laughed +pleasantly, "when I left her she promised to go again." + +But Henry Fenn returned to his point: "Tom," he cried, "don't play with +Lizzie--she's not your kind, and it's breaking Jared's heart. Can't you +see what you're doing? You'll go down there a dozen times, make love to +her, hold her hand and kiss her and go away and pick up another girl. +But she's the whole world and Heaven to boot for Jared. She's his one +little ewe lamb, Tom. And she'd be happy with Jared if--" + +"If she wants Jared she can have him. I'm not holding her," interrupted +the youth. "And anyway," he exclaimed, "what do I owe to Jared and what +do I owe to her or to any one but myself!" + +Fenn did not answer at once. At length he broke the silence. "Well, you +heard what I said and I didn't smile when I said it." + +But Tom Van Dorn did smile as he answered, a smile of such sweetness, +and of such winning grace that it sugar-coated his words. + +"Henry," he cried in his gay, deep voice with the exuberance of youth +ringing in it, "the world is mine. You know what I think about this +whole business. If Lizzie doesn't want me to bother her she mustn't have +such eyes and such hair and such lips. In this life I shall take what I +find that I can get. I'm not going to be meek nor humble nor patient, +nor forgiving and forbearing and I'm not going to refrain from a mutton +roast because some one has a ewe lamb." + +He put a warm, kind, brotherly hand on the shoulder beside him. +"Shocked, aren't you, Henry?" he asked, laughing. + +Henry Fenn looked up with a gentle, glowing smile on his rather dull +face and returned, "No, Tom. Maybe you can make it go, but I couldn't." + +"Well, I can. Watch me," he cried arrogantly. "Henry, I want the +advantage of my strength in this world and I'm not going to go puling +around, golden-ruling and bending my back to give the weak and worthless +a ride. Let 'em walk. Let 'em fall. Let 'em rot for all I care. I'm not +afraid of their God. There is no God. There is nature. Up to the place +where man puts on trousers it's a battle of thews and teeth. And nature +never intended pants to mark the line where she changes the order of +things. And the servile, weakling, groveling, charitable, cowardly +philosophy of Christ--it doesn't fool me, Henry. I'm a pagan and I want +the advantage of all the force, all the power, that nature gave me, to +live life as a dangerous, exhilarating experience. I shall live life to +the full--live it hard--live it beautifully, but live it! live it! +Henry, live it like a gentleman and not like an understrapper and +bootlicker! I intend to command, not obey! Rule, not serve! I shall take +and not give--not give save as it pleases me to have my hand licked now +and then! As for Lizzie and Jared," young Mr. Van Dorn waved a gay hand, +"let them look out for themselves. They're not my worries!" + +"But, Tom," remonstrated Henry as he looked at the ground, "it's nothing +to me of course, but Lizzie--" + +"Ah, Henry," Van Dorn laughed gayly, "I'm not going to hurt Lizzie. +She's good fun: that's all. And now look here, Mr. Preacher--you come +moralizing around me about what I'm doing to some one else, which after +all is not my business but hers; and I'm right here to tell you, what +you're doing to yourself, and that's your business and no one's else. +You're drinking too much. People are talking about it. Quit it! Whisky +never won a jury. In the Morse case you loaded up for your speech and I +beat you because in all your agonizing about the wrong to old man Mueller +and his 'pretty brown-eyed daughter' as you called her, you forgot slick +and clean the flaw in Morse's deed." + +"I suppose you're right, Tom. But I was feeling kind of off that day, +mother'd been sick the night before and--" + +"And so you filled up with a lot of bad whisky and driveled and wept and +stumbled through the case and I beat you. I tell you, Henry, I keep +myself fit. I have no time to look after others. My job is myself and +you'll find that unless you look after yourself no one else will, at +least whisky won't. If I find girling is beating me in my law cases I +quit girling. But it doesn't. Lord, man, the more I know of human +nature, the more I pick over the souls of these country girls and blow +open the petals of their pretty hearts, the wiser I am." + +"But the girls, Tom--the girls--" protested the somber-eyed Mr. Fenn. + +"Ah, I don't hurt 'em and they like it. And so long as your whisky +hamestrings you and my girls give me what I need in my business--don't +talk to me." + +Tom Van Dorn left Fenn at his mother's door and as Fenn saw his friend +turn toward the south he called, "Aren't you going to your room?" + +"Why, it's only eleven o'clock," answered Van Dorn. To the inquiring +silence Van Dorn called, "I'm going down to see Lizzie." + +Henry Fenn stood looking at his friend, who explained: "That's all +right. I said I'd be down to-night and she'll wait." + +"Well--" said Fenn. But Van Dorn cut him short with "Now, Henry, I can +take care of myself. Lizzie can take care of herself--and you're the +only one of us who, as I see it, needs careful nursing!" And with that +he went striding away. + +And three hours later when the moon was waning in the west a girl +sitting by her window gazed at the red orb and dreamed beautiful dreams, +such as a girl may dream but once, of the prince who had come to her so +gloriously. While the prince strolled up the street with his coat over +his arm, his hat in his hand, letting the night wind flutter the raven's +wing of hair on his brow, and as he went he laughed to himself softly +and laughed and laughed. For are we not told of old to put not our trust +in princes! + +[Footnote 1: The reader may be interested in seeing one of Mary Adams's +clippings with a note attached. Here is one concerning Mrs. John +Kollander. The clipping from the Harvey _Tribune_ of June, 1871, +reads: + +"Mrs. Rhoda Byrd Kollander arrived to-day from Elyria, Ohio. It is her +first visit to Harvey and she was greeted by her husband, Hon. John +Kollander, Register of Deeds of Greeley County, with a handsome new home +in Elm Street." + +Then under it is this note: + +"Of all the women of the Elyria settlers, Rhoda Kollander would not come +with us and face the hardships of pioneer life; but she made John come +out, get an office and build her a cabin before she would come. Rhoda +will not be happy as an angel unless they have rocking chairs in +Heaven."] + +[Footnote 2: Let us read Mary Adams's clipping and note on the arrival +of young Thomas Van Dorn in Harvey. The clipping which is from the local +page of the paper reads: + +"Thomas Van Dorn, son of the late General Nicholas Van Dorn of +Schenectady, New York, has located in Harvey for the practice of law and +his advertising card appears elsewhere. Mr. Van Dorn is a Yale man and a +law graduate of that school as well as an alumnus of the college. As a +youth with his father young Thomas stopped in Harvey the day the town +was founded. He was a member of the hunting party organized by Wild Bill +which under General Van Dorn's patronage escorted the Russian Grand Duke +Alexis over this part of the state after buffalo and wild game. Mr. +Thomas Van Dorn remembers the visit well, and old settlers will recall +the fact that Daniel Sands that day sold for $100 in gold to the General +the plot now known as Van Dorn's addition to Harvey. Mr. Thomas Van Dorn +still has the deed to the plot and will soon put the lots on the market. +He was a pleasant caller at the _Tribune_ office this week. Come +again, say we." + +And upon a paper whereon the clipping is pasted is this in Mary Adams's +hand: + +"The famous Van Dorn baby! How the years have flown since the scandal of +his mother's elopement and his father's duel with Sir Charles shook two +continents. What an old rake the General was. And the boy's mother after +two other marriages and a sad period on the variety stage died alone in +penury! And Amos says that the General was so insolent to his men in the +war, that he dared not go into action with them for fear they would +shoot him in the back. Yet the boy is as lovely and gentle a creature as +one could ask to meet. This is as it should be."] + + + + +CHAPTER III + +IN WHICH WE CONSIDER THE LADIES--GOD BLESS 'EM! + + +During those years in the late seventies and the early eighties, the +genii on the Harvey job grunted and grumbled as they worked, for the +hours were long and tedious and the material was difficult to handle. +Kyle Perry's wife died, and it was all the genii could do to find him a +cook who would stay with him and his lank, slab-sided son, and when the +genii did produce a cook--the famous Katrina, they wished her on Kyle +and the boy for life, and she ruled them with an iron rod. And to even +things up, they let Kyle stutter himself into a partnership with Ahab +Wright--though Kyle was trying to tell Ahab that they should have a +partition in their stable. But partition was too much of a mouthful and +poor Kyle fell to stuttering on it and found himself sold into bondage +for life by the genii, dispensing nails and cod-fish and calico as +Ahab's partner, before Kyle could get rid of the word partition. + +The genii also had to break poor Casper Herdicker's heart--and he had +one, and a big one, despite his desire for blood and plunder; and they +broke it when his wife Brunhilde deserted the hearthstone back of the +shoe-shop, rented a vacant store room on Market Street and went into the +millinery way of life. And it wasn't enough that the tired genii had to +gouge out the streets of Harvey; to fill in the gulleys and ravines; to +dab in scores of new houses; to toil and moil over the new hotel, +witching up four bleak stories upon the prairie. It wasn't enough that +they had to cast a spell on people all over the earth, dragging +strangers to Harvey by trainloads; it wasn't enough that the overworked +genii should have to bring big George Brotherton to town with the +railroad--and he was load enough for any engine; his heart itself +weighed ten stone; it wasn't enough that they had to find various and +innumerable contraptions for Captain Morton to peddle, but there was Tom +Van Dorn's new black silk mustache to grow, and to be oiled and curled +daily; so he had to go to the Palace Hotel barber shop at least once +every day, and passing the cigar counter, he had to pass by Violet +Mauling--pretty, empty-faced, doll-eyed Violet Mauling at the cigar +stand. And all the long night and all the long day, the genii, working +on the Harvey job, cast spells, put on charms, and did their deepest +sorcery to take off the power of the magic runes that young Tom's black +art were putting upon her; and day after day the genii felt their +highest potencies fail. So no wonder they mumbled and grumbled as they +bent over their chores. For a time, the genii had tried to work on Tom +Van Dorn's heart after he dropped Lizzie Coulter and sent her away on a +weary life pilgrimage with Jared Thurston, as the wife of an itinerant +editor; but they found nothing to work on under Tom's cigar holder--that +is, nothing in the way of a heart. There was only a kind of public +policy. So the genii made the public policy as broad and generous as +they could and let it go at that. + +Tom Van Dorn and Henry Fenn rioted in their twenties. John Hollander +saved a bleeding country, pervaded the courthouse and did the housework +at home while Rhoda, his wife, who couldn't cook hard boiled eggs, +organized the French Cooking Club. Captain Ezra Morton spent his mental +energy upon the invention of a self-heating molasses spigot, which he +hoped would revolutionize the grocery business while his physical energy +was devoted to introducing a burglar proof window fastener into the +proud homes that were dotting the tall grass environs of Harvey. Amos +Adams was hearing rappings and holding-high communion with great spirits +in the vasty deep. Daniel Sands, having buried his second wife, was +making eyes at a third and spinning his financial web over the town. Dr. +and Mrs. Nesbit were marvelling at the mystery of a child's soul, a +maiden's soul, reaching out tendril after tendril as the days made +years. The Dick Bowman's were holding biennial receptions to the little +angels who came to the house in the Doctor's valise--and welcomed, +hilariously welcomed babies they were--welcomed with cigars and free +drinks at Riley's saloon by Dick, and in awed silence by Lida, his +wife--welcomed even though the parents never knew exactly how the +celestial guests were to be robed and harped; while the Joe Calvins of +proud Elm Street, opulent in an eight room house, with the town's one +bath tub, scowled at the angels who kept on coming nevertheless--for +such is the careless and often captious way of angels that come to the +world in the doctor's black bag--kept on coming to the frowning house of +Calvin as frequently and as idly as they came to the gay Bowmans. +Looking back on those days a generation later, it would seem as if the +whole town were a wilderness of babies. They came on the hill in Elm +Street, a star-eyed baby named Ann even came to the Daniel Sandses, and +a third baby to the Ezra Mortons and another to the Kollanders (which +gave Rhoda an excuse for forming a lifelong habit of making John serve +her breakfast in bed to the scorn of Mrs. Nesbit and Mrs. Herdicker who +for thirty years sniffed audibly about Rhoda's amiable laziness) and the +John Dexters had one that came and went in the night. But down by the +river--there they came in flocks. The Dooleys, the McPhersons, the +Williamses and the hordes of unidentified men and women who came to saw +boards, mix mortar, make bricks and dig--to them the kingdom of Heaven +was very near, for they suffered little children and forbade them not. +And also, because the kingdom was so near--so near even to homes without +sewers, homes where dirt and cold and often hunger came--the children +were prone to hurry back to the Kingdom discouraged with their little +earthly pilgrimages. For those who had dragged chains and hewed wood and +drawn water in the town's first days seemed by some specific gravity of +the social system to be holding their places at those lower +levels--always reaching vainly and eagerly, but always reaching a little +higher and a little further from them for that equality of opportunity +which seemed to lie about them that first day when the town was born. + +In the upper reaches of the town Henry Fenn's bibulous habits became +accepted matters to a wider and wider circle and Tom Van Dorn still had +his way with the girls while the town grinned at the two young men in +gay reproval. But Amos Adams through his familiar spirits got solemn, +cryptic messages for the young men--from Tom's mother and Henry's +father. Amos, abashed, but never afraid, used to deliver these messages +with incidental admonitions of his own--kind, gentle and gorgeously +ineffective. Then he would return to his office with a serene sense of a +duty well done, and meet and feast upon the eyes of Mary, his wife, +keen, hungry eyes, filled with more or less sinful pride in his +strength. + +No defeat that ever came to Amos Adams, and because he was born out of +his time, defeat was his common portion, and no contumely ever was his +in a time when men scorned the evidence of things not seen, no failure, +no apparent weakness in her husband's nature, ever put a tremor in her +faith in him. For she knew his heart. She could hear his armor clank and +see it shine; she could feel the force and the precision of his lance +when all the world of Harvey saw only a dreamer in rusty clothes, +fumbling with some stupid and ponderous folly that the world did not +understand. The printing office that Mary and Amos thought so grand was +really a little pine shack, set on wooden piers on a side street. Inside +in the single room, with the rough-coated walls above the press and +type-cases covered with inky old sale bills, and specimens of the +_Tribune's_ printing--inside the office which seemed to Mary and +Amos the palace of a race of giants, others saw only a shabby, inky, +little room, with an old fashioned press and a jobber among the type +racks in the gloom to the rear. Through the front window that looked +into a street filled with loads of hay and wood, and with broken wagons, +and scrap iron from a wheelwright's shop, Amos Adams looked for the +everlasting sunrise, and Mary saw it always in his face. + +But this is idling; it is not getting on with the Book. A score of men +and women are crowding up to these pages waiting to get into the story. +And the town of Harvey, how it is bursting its bounds, how it is +sprawling out over the white paper, tumbling its new stores and houses +and gas mains and water pipes all over the table; with what a clatter +and clamor and with what vain pride! Now the pride of those years in +Harvey came with the railroad, and here, pulling at the paper, stands +big George Brotherton with his ten stone heart. He has been sputtering +and nagging for a dozen pages to swing off the front platform of the +first passenger car that came to town. He was a fat, overgrown youth in +his late teens, but he wore the uniform of a train newsboy, and any +uniform is a uniform. His laugh was like the crash of worlds--and it is +to-day after thirty years. When the road pushed on westward Brotherton +remained in Harvey and even though the railroad roundhouse employed five +hundred men and even though the town's population doubled and then +trebled, still George Brotherton was better than everything else that +the railroad brought. He found work in a pool and billiard hall; but +that was a pent-up Utica for him and his contracted powers sent him to +Daniel Sands for a loan of twenty-five dollars. The unruffled exterior, +the calm impudence with which the boy waived aside the banker's request +for a second name on George's note, and the boy's obvious eagerness to +be selling something, secured the money and established him in a cigar +store and news stand. Within a year the store became a social center +that rivaled Riley's saloon and being near the midst of things in +business, attracted people of a different sort from those who frequented +Casper Herdicker's debating school in the shoe shop. To the cigar stand +by day came Dr. Nesbit with his festive but guileful politics, Joe +Calvin, Amos Adams, stuttering Kyle Perry, deaf John Kollander, +occasionally Dick Bowman, Ahab Wright in his white necktie and formal +garden whiskers, Rev. John Dexter and Captain Morton; while by night the +little store was a forum for young Mortimer Sands, for Tom Van Dorn, for +Henry Fenn, for the clerks of Market Street and for such gay young +blades as were either unmarried or being married were brave enough to +break the apron string. For thirty years, nearly a generation, they have +been meeting there night after night and on rainy days, taking the world +apart and putting it together again to suit themselves. And though +strangers have come into the council at Brotherton's, Captain Morton +remains dean. And though the Captain does not know it, being corroded +with pride, there still clings about the place a tradition of the day +when Captain Morton rode his high wheeled bicycle, the first the town +ever had seen, in the procession to his wife's funeral. They say it was +the Captain's serene conviction that his agency for the +bicycle--exclusive for five counties--would make him rich, and that it +was no lack of love and respect for his wife but rather an artist's +pride in his work as the distributor of a long-felt want which perched +Ezra Morton on that high wheel in the funeral procession. For Mary Adams +who knew, who was with the stricken family when death came, who was in +the lonely house when the family came home from the cemetery, says that +Ezra's grief was real. Surely thirty years of singlehearted devotion to +the three motherless girls should prove his love. + +Those were gala days for Captain Morton; the whole universe was +flowering in his mind in schemes and plans and devices which he hoped to +harness for his power and glory. And the forensic group at Mr. +Brotherton's had much first hand information from the Captain as to the +nature of his proposed activities and his prospective conquests. And +while the Captain in his prime was surveying the world that was about to +come under his domain the house of Adams, little and bleak and poor, +down near the Wahoo on the homestead which the Adamses had taken in the +sixties became in spite of itself, a gay and festive habitation. +Childhood always should make a home bright and there came a time when +the little house by the creek fairly blossomed with young faces. The +children of the Kollanders, the Perrys, the Calvins, the Nesbits, and +the Bowmans--girls and boys were everywhere and they knew all times and +seasons. But the red poll and freckled face of Grant Adams was the +center of this posy bed of youth. + +Grant was a shrill-voiced boy, impulsive and passionately generous and +all but obsessed with a desire to protect the weak. Whether it was bug, +worm or dog, or hunted animal or bullied child or drunken man, +fly-swarmed and bedeviled of boys in the alley, or a little girl teased +by her playmates, Grant--fighting mad, came rushing in to do battle for +the victim. Yet he was no anemic child of ragged nerves. His fist went +straight when he fought, and landed with force. His eyes saw accurately +and his voice carried terror in it. + +He was a vivid youth, and without him the place down by the river would +have been bleak and dreary. But because Grant was in the world, the +rusty old phaeton in which Amos and Mary rode daily from the farm to +their work, gradually bedecked itself with budding childhood blooming +into youth, and it was no longer drab and dusty, but a veritable chariot +of life. When Grant was a sturdy boy of eight, little Jasper Adams came +into this big bewildering world. And after Grant and his gardenful of +youth were gone, Jasper's garden followed. And there was a short season +when the two gardens were growing together. It was in that season while +Grant was just coming into shoeblacking and paper collars, that in some +indefinite way, Laura Nesbit, daughter of the Doctor and Bedelia +Satterthwaite, his blue blooded Maryland wife, separated herself from +the general beauty of the universe and for Grant, Laura became a +particular person. In Mary Adams's note book she writes with maternal +pride of his fancy for Laura: "It is the only time in Grant's life when +he has looked up instead of down for something to love." And the mother +sets down a communication from Socrates through the planchette to Amos, +declaring that "Love is a sphere center"--a message which doubtless the +fond parents worked into tremendous import for their child. Though a +communication from some anonymous sage called the Peach Blow +Philosopher, who began haunting Amos as a familiar spirit about this +time recorded the oracle, also carefully preserved by Mary in her book +among the prophecies for Grant that, "Carrots, while less fragrant than +roses, are better for the blood." And while the cosmic forces were +wrestling with these problems for Grant and Laura, the children were +tripping down their early teens all innocent of the uproar they were +making among the sages and statesmen and conquerors who flocked about +the planchette board for Amos every night. For Laura, Grant carved tiny +baskets from peach-pits and coffee beans; for her he saved red apples +and candy globes that held in their precious insides gorgeous pictures; +for her he combed his hair and washed his neck; for her he scribbled +verses wherein eyes met skies, and arts met hearts, and beams met dreams +and loves the doves. + +The joy of first love that comes in early youth--and always it does come +then, though it is not always confessed--is a gawky and somewhat guilty +joy that spends itself in sighs and blushes and Heaven knows what of +self-discovery. Thus Grant in Laura's autograph album after all his +versifying on the kitchen table could only write "Truly Yours" and leave +her to define the deep significance of the phrase so obviously inverted. +And she in his autograph album could only trust herself--though +naturally being female she was bolder--to the placid depths of "As ever +your friend." Though in lean, hungry-eyed Nathan Perry's book she burst +into glowing words of deathless remembrance and Grant wrote in Emma +Morton's album fervid stanzas wherein "you" rimed with "the wandering +Jew" and "me" with "eternity." At school where the subtle wisdom of +childhood reads many things not writ in books, the names of Grant and +Laura were linked together, in the innocent gossip of that world. + +They say that modern thought deems these youthful experiences dangerous +and superfluous; and so probably they will end, and the joy of this +earliest mating season will be bottled up and stored for a later +maturity. God is wise and good. Doubtless some new and better thing will +take the place of this first moving of the waters of life in the heart; +but for us of the older generation that is beginning to fade, we are +glad that untaught and innocent, our lips tasted from that spring when +in the heart was no knowledge of the poison that might come with the +draft. + +A tall, shy, vivid girl, but above everything else, friendly, was Laura +Nesbit in her middle teens; and though Grant in later years remembered +her as having wonderful gray eyes, the elder town of Harvey for the most +part recollects her only as a gay and kindly spirit looking out into the +world through a happy, inquiring face. But the elder town could not in +the nature of things know Laura Nesbit as the children knew her. For the +democracy of childhood has its own estimates of its own citizens and the +children of Harvey--the Dooleys and the Williamses and the Bowmans as +well as the Calvins, the Mortons, the Sandses and the Kollanders, +remember Laura Nesbit for something more than her rather gawky body. To +the children, she was a bright soul. They remember--and the Bowmans +better than any one else--that Laura Nesbit shared what she had with +every one. She never ate a whole stick of candy in her life. From her +school lunch-basket, the Dooleys had their first oranges and the +Williamses their first bananas. Apples for the Bowmans and maple +sugar--a rare delicacy on the prairies in those days--for every one came +from her wonderful basket. And though her mother kept Laura in white +aprons when the other girls were in ginghams and in little red and black +woolen, though the child's wonderful yellow hair, soft and wavy like her +father's plumey roach, was curled with great care and much pride, it was +her mother's pride--the grim Satterthwaite demand for caste in any +democracy. But even with those caste distinctions there was the face +that smiled, the lips that trembled in sympathy, the heart that felt the +truth. + +"Jim," quoth the mother on a day when the yard was full of Dooleys and +Bowmans and Calvins--Calvins, whom Mrs. Nesbit regarded as inferior even +to the Dooleys because of the vast Calvin pretense--"Jim, Laura has +inherited that common Indiana streak of yours. I can't make her a +Satterthwaite--she's Indiana to the bone. Why, when I go to town with +her, every drayman and ditch digger and stableman calls to her, and the +yard is always full of their towheaded children. I'll give her up." + +And the Doctor gurgled a chuckle and gave her up also. + +She always came with her father to the Adamses on Sunday afternoons, and +while the Doctor and Amos Adams on the porch went into the matter of the +universe as either a phantasm superinduced by the notion of time, or the +notion of time as an hallucination of those who believed in space, down +by the creek Grant and Laura sitting under the oak near the silent, +green pool were feeling their way around the universe, touching shyly +and with great abasement the cords that lead from the body to the soul, +from material to the spiritual, from dust to God. + +It is a queer world, a world that is past finding out. Here are two +children, touching souls in the fleetest, lightest way in the world, and +the touch welds them together forever. And along come two others, and +even as the old song has it, "after touch of wedded hands," they are +strangers yet. No one knows what makes happiness in love. Certainly +marriage is no part of it. Certainly it is not first love, for first +lovers often quarrel like cats. Certainly it is not separation, for +absence, alas, does not make the heart grow fonder; nor is it +children--though the good God knows that should help; for they are love +incarnate. Certainly it is not respect, for respect is a stale, cold +comforter, and love is deeper than respect, and often lives without +it--let us whisper the truth in shame. What, then, is this irrational +current of the stuff of life, that carries us all in its sway, that +brings us to earth, that guides our destiny here--makes so vastly for +our happiness or woe, gives us strength or makes us weak, teaches us +wisdom or leads us into folly unspeakable, and all unseen, unmeasured +and infinitely mysterious? + +There was young Tom Van Dorn. Love was a pleasurable emotion, and +because it put a joyous fever in his blood, it enhanced his life. But he +never defined love; he merely lived on it. Then there was Ahab Wright +who regarded love as a kind of sin and when he married the pale, +bloodless, shadowy bookkeeper in Wright & Perry's store, he regarded the +charivari prepared by Morty Sands and George Brotherton as a shameful +rite and tried for an hour to lecture the crowd in his front yard on the +evils of unseemly conduct before he gave them an order on the store for +a bucket of mixed candy. If Ahab had defined love he would have put +cupid in side whiskers and a white necktie and set the fat little god to +measuring shingle nails, cod-fish and calico on week days and sitting +around in a tail coat and mouse-colored trousers on Sunday, reading the +_Christian Evangel_ and the _Price Current_. And again there +was Daniel Sands who married five women in a long and more or less +useful life. He would have defined love as the apotheosis of comfort. +Finally there was Henry Fenn to whom love became the compelling force of +his being. Love is many things: indeed only this seems sure. Love is the +current of our lives, and like minnows we run in schools through it, +guided by instinct and by herd suggestions; and some of us are washed +ashore; some of us are caught and devoured, and others fare forth in joy +and reach the deep. + +One rainy day when the conclave in Brotherton's cigar store was weary of +discussing the quarrel of Mr. Conklin and Mr. Blaine and the +eccentricities of the old German Kaiser, the subject of love came before +the house for discussion. Dr. Nesbit, who dropped in incidentally to buy +a cigar, but primarily to see George Brotherton about some matters of +state in the Third ward, found young Tom Van Dorn stroking his new silky +mustache, squinting his eyes and considering himself generally in the +attitude of little Jack Horner after the plum episode. + +"Speaking broadly," squeaked the Doctor, breaking irritably into the +talk, "touching the ladies, God bless 'em--from young Tom's angle, +there's nothing to 'em. Broad is the petticoat that leadeth to +destruction." The Doctor turned from young Van Dorn, and looked +critically at some obvious subject of Van Dorn's remarks as she picked +her way across the muddy street, showing something more than a wink of +striped stockings, "Tom, there's nothing in it--not a thing in the +world." + +"Oh,--I don't know," returned the youth, wagging an impudent, though +good-natured head at the Doctor; "what else is there in the world if not +in that? The world's full of it--flowers, trees, birds, beasts, men and +women--the whole damn universe is afire with it. It's God; there is no +other God--just nature building and propagating and perpetuating +herself." + +"I suppose," squeaked the Doctor with a sigh, as he reached for his +morning paper, "that if I had nothing else to do for a living except +practice law with Joe Calvin on the side and just be twenty-five years +old three hundred days in the year, and no other chores except to help +old man Sands rib up his waterworks deal, I would hold some such general +views myself. But when I was twenty-five, young man, Bedelia and I were +running a race with the meal ticket, and our notions as to the moral +government of the universe came hard and were deepset, and we can't +change them now." + +George Brotherton, Henry Fenn, Captain Morton and Amos Adams came in +with a kind of Greek chorus of general agreement with the Doctor. Van +Dorn cocked his hat over his eyes and laughed, and then the Doctor went +on in his high falsetto: + +"It's all right, Tom; go it while you're young. But that kind of love's +young dream generally ends in a nightmare." He hesitated a minute, and +then said: "Well, so long as we're all here in the family, I'll tell you +about a case I had last night. There's an old fellow--old Dutchman to be +exact, down in Spring township; he came here with us when we founded the +town; husky old boy, that is, he used to be fifteen years ago. And he +had Tom's notion about the ladies, God bless 'em, when he was Tom's age. +When I first knew him his notion was causing him trouble, and had +settled in one leg, and last night he died of the ladies, God bless +'em." + +The Doctor's face flinched with pain, and his treble voice winced as he +spoke: "Lord, but he suffered, and to add to his physical torment, he +knew that he had to leave his daughter all alone in the world--and +without a mother and without a dollar; but that isn't the worst, and he +knew it--at the last. This being twenty-five for a living is the hardest +job on earth--when you're sixty, and the old man knew that. The girl has +missed his blood taint; she's not scarred nor disfigured. It would be +better if she were; but he gave her something worse--she's his child!" +For a moment the Doctor was silent, then he sighed deeply and shut his +eyes as he said: "Boys, for a year and more he's been seeing all that he +was, bud like a glorious poison in his daughter." + +Van Dorn smiled, and asked casually, "Well, what's her name?" The rest +of the group in the store looked down their noses and the Doctor, with +his paper under his arm, obviously ignored the question and only stopped +in the door to pipe out: "This wasn't the morning to talk to me of the +ladies--God bless 'em." + +The men in the store watched him as he started across the street, and +then saw Laura skip gayly toward him, and the two, holding hands, +crossed the muddy street together. She was laughing, and the joy of her +soul--a child's soul, shone like a white flame in the dull street and +George Brotherton, who saw the pair in the street, roared out: "Well, +say--now isn't that something worth looking at? That beats Niagara Falls +and Pike's Peak--for me." + +Captain Morton looked at the gay pair attentively for a moment and +spoke: "And I have three to his one; I tell you, gentlemen--three to his +one; and I guess I haven't told you gentlemen about it, but I got the +exclusive agency for seven counties for Golden's Patent Self-Opening +Fruit Can, an absolute necessity for every household, and in another +year my three will be wearing their silks and diamonds!" He smiled +proudly around the group and added: "My! that doesn't make any +difference. Silk or gingham, I know I've got the best girls on +earth--why, if their mother could just see 'em--see how they're +unfolding--why, Emma can make every bit as good hash as her mother," a +hint of tears stood in his blue eyes. "Why--men, I tell you sometimes I +want to die and go right off to Heaven to tell mother all the fine news +about 'em--eh?" Deaf John Kollander, with his hand to his less affected +ear, nodded approval and said, "That's what I always said, James G. +Blaine never was a true friend of the soldier!" + +Van Dorn had been looking intently at nothing through the store window. +When no one answered Captain Morton, Van Dorn addressed the house rather +impersonally: + +"Man is the blindest of the mammals. You'd think as smart a man as Dr. +Nesbit would see his own vices. Here he is mayor of Harvey, boss of the +town. He buys men with Morty's father's money and sells 'em in politics +like sheep--not for his own gain; not for his family's gain; but just +for the joy of the sport; just as I follow the ladies, God bless 'em; +and yet he stands up and reads me a lecture on the wickedness of a +little more or less innocent flirting." The young man lighted his cigar +at the alcohol flame on the counter. "Morty," he continued, squinting +his eyes and stroking his mustache, and looking at the boy with vast +vanity, "Morty, do you know what your old dad and yon virtuous Nesbit +pasha are doing? Well, I'll tell you something you didn't learn at +military school. They're putting up a deal by which we've voted one +hundred thousand dollars' worth of city bonds as bonus in aid of a +system of city water works and have given them to your dad outright, for +putting in a plant that he will own and control; and that he will build +for seventy-five thousand dollars." Van Dorn smiled a placid, malevolent +smile at the group and went on: "And the sheik of the village there +helped Daniel Sands put it through; helped him buy me as city attorney, +with your father's bank's legal business; helped buy Dick Bowman, poor +devil with a houseful of children for a hundred dollars for his vote in +the council, helped work George here for his vote in the council by +lending money to him for his business; and so on down the line. The Doc +calls that politics, and regards it as one of his smaller vices; but +me?" scoffed the young man, "when I go gamboling down the primrose path +of dalliance with a lady on each arm--or maybe more, I am haled before +the calif and sentenced to his large and virtuous displeasure. +Man,"--here young Mr. Van Dorn drummed his fingers on the showcase and +considered the universe calmly through the store window--"man is the +blindest of mammals." After which smiling deliverance, Thomas Van Dorn +picked up his morning paper, and his gloves, and stalked with some +dignity into the street. + +"Well, say,"--Brotherton was the first to speak--"rather cool--" + +"Shame, shame!" cried John Kollander, as he buttoned up his blue coat +with its brass buttons. "Where was Blaine when the bullets were +thickest? Answer me that." No one answered, but Captain Morton began: + +"Now, George, why, that's all right. Didn't the people vote the bonds +after you fellows submitted 'em? Of course they did. The town wanted +waterworks; Daniel Sands knew how to build 'em--eh? The people couldn't +build 'em themselves, could they?" asked the Captain triumphantly. +Brotherton laughed; Morty Sands grinned,--and, shame be to Amos Adams, +the rugged Puritan, who had opposed the bonds in his paper so boldly, he +only shook a sorrowful head and lifted no voice in protest. Such is the +weakness of our thunderers without their lightning! Brotherton, who +still seemed uneasy, went on: "Say, men, didn't that franchise call for +a system of electric lights and gas in five years and a telephone system +in ten years more--all for that $100,000; I'm right here to tell you we +got a lot for our money." + +Again Amos Adams swallowed his Adam's apple and cut in as boldly as a +man may who thinks with his lead pencil: "And don't forget the street +car franchises you gave away at the same time. Water, light, gas, +telephone and street car franchises for fifty years and one hundred +thousand to boot! It seemed to me you were giving away a good deal!" + +But John Kollander's approving nod and George Brotherton's great laugh +overcame the editor, and the talk turned to other things. + +There came a day in Harvey when men, looking back at events from the +perspective of another day, believed that in those old days of Harvey, +Daniel Sands was master and Dr. Nesbit was servant. And there was much +evidence to indicate that Daniel's was the master spirit of those early +times. But the evidence was merely based on facts, and facts often are +far from the truth. The truth is that Daniel Sands was the beneficiary +of much of the activity of Doctor Nesbit in those days, but the truth is +also that Doctor Nesbit did what he did--won the county seat for Harvey, +secured the railroad, promoted the bond election, which gave Daniel +Sands the franchises for the distribution of water, gas and +electricity--not because the Doctor had any particular regard for Daniel +Sands but because, first of all, the good of the town, as the Doctor saw +it, seemed to require him to act as he acted; and second, because his +triumph at any of these elections meant power, and he was greedy for +power. But he always used his power to make others happy. No man ever +came to the Doctor looking for work that he could not find work for that +man. Men in ditches, men on light poles, men in the court house, men at +Daniel Sands's furnaces, men grading new streets, men working on city or +county contracts knew but one source of authority in Harvey, and that +was Doctor James Nesbit. Daniel Sands was a mere money grubbing incident +of that power. Daniel could have won no one to vote with him; the county +seat would have gone to a rival town, the railroad would not have veered +five miles out of its way to reach Harvey, and a dozen promoters would +have wrangled for a dozen franchises but for Dr. Nesbit. + +And if Dr. Nesbit made it his business to see that Dick Bowman had work, +it was somewhat because he knew how badly the little Bowmans needed +food. And if he saw to it that Dick's vote in the council occasionally +yielded him a substantial return from those whom that vote benefited so +munificently, it was partly because the Doctor felt how sorely Lida +Bowman, silently bending over her washtub, needed the little comforts +which the extra fifty-dollar bill would bring that Dick sometimes found +in his monthly pay envelope. And if the Doctor saw to it that Ira Dooley +was made foreman of the water works gang, or that Tom Williams had the +contract for the stone work on the new court house, it was largely in +payment for services rendered by Ira and Tom in bringing in the Second +Ward for John Kollander for county clerk. The rewards of Ira and Tom in +working for the Doctor were virtue's own; and if re-marking a hundred +ballots was part of that blessed service, well and good. And also it +must be recorded that the foremanship and the stone contract were +somewhat the Doctor's way of showing Mrs. Dooley and Mrs. Williams that +he wished them well. + +Doctor Nesbit's scheme of politics included no punishments for his +enemies, and he desired every one for his friend. The round, pink face, +the high-roached, yellow hair, the friendly, blue eyes, had no place for +hate in them, and in the high-pitched, soft voice was no note of terror +to evil doers. His countenance did not betray his power; that was in his +tireless little legs, his effective hands, and his shrewd brain motived +by a heart too kind for the finer moral distinctions that men must make +who go far in this world. Yet because he had a heart, a keen mind, even +without much conscience, and a vision larger than those about him, Dr. +Nesbit was their leader. He did not move in a large sphere, but in his +small sphere he was the central force, the dominating spirit. And off in +a dark corner, Daniel Sands, who was hunger incarnate and nothing more, +spun his web, gathered the dust and the flies and the weaker insects and +waxed fat. To say that his mind ruled Dr. Nesbit's, to say that Daniel +Sands was master and Dr. Nesbit servant in those first decades of +Harvey--whatever the facts may seem in those later days--is one of those +ornately ridiculous travesties upon the truth that facts sometimes are +arranged to make. But how little did they know what they were building! +For they and their kind all over America working in the darkness of +their own selfish desires, were laying footing stones--quite substantial +yet necessary--for the structure of a growing civilization which in its +time, stripped of its scaffolding and extraneous debris, was to stand +among the nations of the earth as a tower of righteousness in a stricken +world. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE ADAMS FAMILY BIBLE LIES LIKE A GENTLEMAN + + +How light a line divides comedy from tragedy! When the ass speaks, or +the man brays, there is comedy. Yet fate may stop the mouth of either +man or ass, and in the dumb struggle for voice, if fate turns the screws +of destiny upon duty, there is tragedy. Only the consequences of a day +or a deed can decide whether it shall have the warm blessing of our +smiles or the bitter benediction of our tears. + +This, one must remember in reading the chapter of this story that shall +follow. It is the close of the story to which Mary Adams, with her +memory book and notes and clippings, has contributed much. For of the +pile of envelopes all numbered in their order; the one marked "Margaret +Mueller" was the last envelope that she left. Now the package that +concerns Margaret Mueller may not be transcribed separately but must be +woven into the woof of the tale. The package contains a clipping, a +dozen closely written pages, and a photograph--a small photograph of a +girl. The photograph is printed on the picture of a scroll, and the +likeness of the girl does not throb with life as it did thirty years ago +when it was taken. Then the plump, voluptuous arm and shoulders in the +front of the picture seemed to exude life and to bristle with the +temptation that lurked under the brown lashes shading her big, innocent, +brown eyes. And her hair, her wonderful brown hair that fell in a great +rope to her knees, in this photograph is hidden, and only her frizzes, +covering a fine forehead, are emphasized by the picture maker. One may +smile at the picture now, but then when it was taken it told of the red +of her lips and the pink of her flesh, and the dimples that forever went +flickering across her face. In those days, the old-fashioned picture +portrayed with great clearness the joy and charm and impudence of that +beautiful face. But now the picture is only grotesque. It proves rather +than discloses that once, when she was but a young girl, Margaret Mueller +had wonderfully molded arms and shoulders, regular features and +enchanting eyes. But that is all the picture shows. In the photograph is +no hint of her mellow voice, of her eager expression and of the +smoldering fires of passion, ambition and purpose that smoked through +those gay, bewitching eyes. The old-fashioned frizzled hair on her +forehead, the obvious pose of her hand with its cheap rings, the curious +cut of her dress, made after that travesty of the prevailing mode which +country papers printed in their fashion columns, the black court-plaster +beauty spot on her cheek and the lace fichu draped over her head and +bare shoulders, all stand out like grinning gargoyles that keep much of +the charm she had in those days imprisoned from our eyes to-day. So the +picture alone is of no great service. Nor will the clipping tell much. +It only records: + + "Miss Margaret Mueller, daughter of the late Herman Mueller of + Spring Township, this county, will teach school in District 18, + the Adams District in Prospect Township, this fall and winter. + She will board with the family of ye editor." + +Now the reader must know that Margaret Mueller's eyes had been turned to +Harvey as to a magnet for three years. She had chosen the Adams district +school in Prospect Township, because the Adams district school was +nearer than any other school district to Harvey; she had gone to the +Adamses to board because the little bleak house near the Wahoo was the +nearest house in the district to Harvey and to a social circle which she +desired to enter--the best that Harvey offered. + +She saw Grant, a rough, ruddy, hardy lad, of her own time of life, +moving in the very center of the society she cherished in her dreams, +and Margaret had no gay inadvertence in her scheme of creation. So when +the lank, strapping, red-headed boy of a man's height, with a man's +shoulders and a child's heart, started to Harvey for high school every +morning, as she started to teach her country school, he carried with +him, beside his lunch, a definite impression that Margaret was a fine +girl. Often, indeed, he thought her an extraordinarily fine girl. Tales +of prowess he brought back from the Harvey High School, and she listened +with admiring face. For they related to youths whose names she knew as +children of the socially elect. + +A part of her admiration for Grant was due to the fact that Grant had +leaped the social gulf--deep even then in Harvey--between those who +lived on the hill, and the dwellers in the bottoms near the river. + +This instinctively Margaret Mueller knew, also--though perhaps +unconsciously--that even if they lived in the bottoms, the Adamses were +of the aristoi; because they were friends of the Nesbits, and Mrs. +Nesbit of Maryland was the fountain head of all the social glory of +Harvey. Thus Margaret Mueller of Spring Township came to camp before +Harvey for a lifetime siege, and took her ground where she could aim +straight at the Nesbits and Kollanders and Sandses and Mortons and +Calvins. With all her banners flying, banners gaudy and beautiful, +banners that flapped for men and sometimes snapped at women, she set her +forces down before Harvey, and saw the beleaguered city through the +portals of Grant's fine, wide, blue eyes, within an easy day's walk of +her own place in the world. So she hovered over Grant, played her brown +eyes upon him, flattered him, unconsciously as is the way of the female, +when it would win favor, and because she was wise, wiser than even her +own head knew, she cast upon the youth a strange spell. + +Those were the days when Margaret Mueller came first to early bloom. They +were the days when her personality was too big for her body, so it +flowed into everything she wore; on the tips of every ribbon at her +neck, she glowed with a kind of electric radiance. A flower in her hair +seemed as much a part of her as the turn of her cleft chin. A bow at her +bosom was vibrant with her. And to Grant even the things she touched, +after she was gone, thrilled him as though they were of her. + +Now the pages that are to follow in this chapter are not written for him +who has reached that grand estate where he may feel disdain for the +feverish follies of youth. A lad may be an ass; doubtless he is. A maid +may be as fitful as the west wind, and in the story of the fitfulness +and folly of the man and the maid, there is vast pathos and pain, from +which pathos and pain we may learn wisdom. Now the strange part of this +story is not what befell the youth and the maid; for any tragedy that +befalls a youth and a maid, is natural enough and in the order of +things, as Heaven knows well. The strange part of this story is that +Mary and Amos Adams were, for all their high hopes of the sunrise, like +the rest of us in this world--only human; stricken with that +inexplicable parental blindness that covers our eyes when those we love +are most needing our care. + +Yet how could they know that Grant needed their care? Was he not in +their eyes the fairest of ten thousand? They enshrined him in a kind of +holy vision. It seems odd that a strapping, pimple-faced, freckled, +red-headed boy, loudmouthed and husky-voiced, more or less turbulent and +generally in trouble for his insistent defense of his weaker +playmates--it seems odd that such a boy could be the center of such +grand dreams as they dreamed for their boy. Yet there was the boy and +there were the dreams. If he wrote a composition for school that pleased +his parents, they were sure it foretold the future author, and among her +bundle of notes for the Book, his mother has cherished the manuscript +for his complete works. If at school Friday afternoon, he spoke a piece, +"trippingly on the tongue," they harkened back over his ancestry to find +the elder Adams of Massachusetts who was a great orator. When he drove a +nail and made a creditable bobsled, they saw in him a future architect +and stored the incident for the Romance that was to be biography. When +he organized a baseball club, they saw in him the budding leadership +that should make him a ruler of men. Even Grant's odd mania to take up +the cause of the weak--often foolish causes that revealed a kind of +fanatic chivalry in him--Mary noted too; and saw the youth a mailed +knight in the Great Battle that should precede and usher in the sunrise. + +Jasper was a little boy and his parents loved him dearly; but Grant, the +child of their honeymooning days, held their hearts. And so their vanity +for him became a kind of mellow madness that separated them from a +commonsense world. And here is a curious thing also--the very facts that +were making Grant a leader of his fellows should have warned Mary and +Amos that their son was setting out on his journey from the heart of his +childish paradise. He was growing tall, strong, big-voiced, with hands, +broad and muscular, that made him a baseball catcher of a reputation +wider than the school-grounds, yet he had a child's quick wit and merry +heart. Such a boy dominated the school as a matter of course, yet so +completely had his parents daubed their eyes with pride that they could +not see that his leadership in school came from the fact that a man was +rising in him--the far-casting shadow of a virility deep and significant +as destiny itself. They could not see the man's body; they saw only the +child's heart. It was natural that they should ask themselves what honor +could possibly come to the house of Adams or to any house, for that +matter, further than that which illumined it when Grant came home to +announce that he had been elected President of the senior class in the +Harvey High School and would deliver the valedictory address at +commencement. When Mary and Amos learned that news, they had indeed +found the hero for their book. After that, even his cousin, Morty Sands, +home from college for a time, little, wiry, agile, and with a face half +ferret and half angel, even Morty, who had an indefinite attachment for +glowing exuberant Laura Nesbit, felt that so long as Grant held her +attention--great, hulking, noisy, dominant Grant--even Morty arrayed in +his college clothes, like Solomon, would have to wait until the fancy +for Grant had passed. So Morty backed Grant with all his pocket money as +a ball player while he fluttered rather gayly about Ave Calvin--and +always with an effect of inadvertence. + +Now if a lad is an ass--and he is--how should a poor jack be supposed to +know of the wisdom of the serpent? For we must remember that early youth +has been newly driven from the heart of that paradise wherein there is +no good and evil. He gropes in darkness as he comes nearer the gates of +his paradise, through an unchartered wilderness. But to Mary and Amos, +Grant seemed to be wandering in the very midst of his Eden. They did not +realize how he was groping and stumbling, nor could they know what a +load he carried--this ass of a lad coming toward the gate of the Garden. +In those times when he sat in his room, trying to show his soul +bashfully to Laura Nesbit as he wrote to her in Maryland at school, +Grant felt always, over and about him, the consciousness of the spell of +Margaret Mueller, yet he did not know what the spell was. He wrestled +with it when finally he came rather dimly to sense it, and tried with +all the strength of his ungainly soul to be loyal to the choice of his +heart. His will was loyal, yet the smiles, the eyes, the soft tempting +face of Margaret always were near him. Furious storms of feeling swayed +him. For youth is the time of tempest. In our teens come those floods of +soul stuff through the gates of heredity, swinging open for the last +time in life, floods that bring into the world the stores of the +qualities of mind and heart from outside ourselves; floods stored in +Heaven's reservoir, gushing from the almost limitlessly deep springs of +our ancestry; floods which draw us in resistless currents to our +destinies. And so the ass, laden with this relay of life from the source +of life, that every young, blind ass brings into the world, floundered +in the flood. + +Grant thought his experience was unique. Yet it is the common lot of +man. To feel his soul exposed at a thousand new areas of sense; to see a +new heaven and a new earth--strange, mysterious, beautiful, unfolding to +his eyes; to smell new scents; to hear new sounds in the woods and +fields; to look open-eyed and wondering at new relations of things that +unfold in the humdrum world about him, as he flees out of the blind +paradise of childhood; to dream new dreams; to aspire to new heights, to +feel impulses coming out of the dark that tremble like the blare of +trumpets in the soul,--this is the way of youth. + +With all his loyalty for Laura Nesbit--loyalty that enshrined her as a +comrade and friend, such is the contradiction of youth that he was madly +jealous of every big boy at the country school who cast eyes at Margaret +Mueller. And because she was ages older than he, she knew it; and it +pleased her. She knew that she could make all his combs and crests and +bands and wattles and spurs glisten, and he knew in some deep instinct +that when she sang the emotion in her voice was a call to him that he +could not put into words. Thus through the autumn, Margaret and Grant +were thrown together daily in the drab little house by the river. Now a +boy and a girl thrown together commonly make the speaking donkeys of +comedy. Yet one never may be sure that they may not be the dumb +struggling creatures of the tragic muse. Heaven knows Margaret Mueller +was funny enough in her capers. For she related her antics--her grand +pouts, her elaborate condescensions, her crass coquetry and her hidings +and seekings--into what she called a "case." In the only wisdom she +knew, to open a flirtation was to have a "case." So Margaret ogled and +laughed and touched and ran and giggled and cried and played with her +prey with a practiced lore of the heart that was far beyond the boy's +knowledge. Grant did not know what spell was upon him. He did not know +that his great lithe body, his gripping hands, his firm legs and his +long arms that had in their sinews the power that challenged her to +wrestle when she was with him--he did not know what he meant to the girl +who was forever teasing and bantering him when they were alone. For it +was only when Margaret and Grant were alone or when no one but little +Jasper was with them, that Margaret indulged in the joys of the chase. +Yet often when other boys came to see her--the country boys from the +Prospect school district perhaps, or lorn swains trailing up from Spring +Township--Margaret did not conceal her fluttering delight in them from +Mary Adams. So the elder woman and the girl had long talks in which +Margaret agreed so entirely with Mary Adams that Mary doubted the +evidence of her eyes. And Amos in those days was much interested in +certain transcendental communications coming from his Planchette board +and purporting to be from Emerson who had recently passed over. So Amos +had no eyes for Margaret and Mary was fooled by the girl's fine speech. +Yet sometimes late at night when Margaret was coming in from a walk or a +ride with one of her young men, Mary heard a laugh--a high, hysterical +laugh--that disquieted Mary Adams in spite of all Margaret's fair +speaking. But never once did Mary connect in her mind Margaret's wiles +with Grant. Such is the blindness of mothers; such is the deep wisdom of +women! + +All the while Grant floundered more hopelessly into the quicksand of +Margaret's enchantment, and when he tried to write to Laura Nesbit, +half-formed shames fluttered and flushed across his mind. So often he +sat alone for long night hours in his attic bedroom in vague agonies and +self accusations, pen in hand, trying to find honest words that would +fill out his tedious letter. Being a boy and being not entirely outside +the gate of his childish paradise, he did not understand the shadow that +was clouding his heart. + +But there came one day when the gate closed and looking back, he saw the +angel--the angel with the flaming sword. Then he knew. Then he saw the +face that made the shadow and that day a great trembling came into his +soul, a blackness of unspeakable woe came over him, and he was ashamed +of the light. After that he never wrote to Laura Nesbit. + +In May Margaret's school closed, and the Adamses asked her to remain +with them for the summer, and she consented rather listlessly. The busy +days of the June harvest combined with the duties of printing a +newspaper made their Sunday visits with the Nesbits irregular. It was in +July that Mrs. Nesbit asked for Margaret, and Mary Adams remembered that +Margaret, whose listlessness had grown into sullenness, had found some +excuse for being absent whenever the Nesbits came to spend the afternoon +with the Adamses. Then in August, when Amos came home one night, he saw +Margaret hurry from the front porch. He went into the house and heard +Mary and Grant sobbing inside and heard Mary's voice lifted in prayer, +with agony in her voice. It was no prayer for forgiveness nor for mercy, +but for guidance and strength, and he stepped to the bedroom and saw the +two kneeling there with Margaret's shawl over the chair where Mary +knelt. There he heard Mary tell the story of her boy's shame to her God. + +Death and partings have come across that threshold during these three +decades. Amos Adams has known anguish and has sat with grief many times, +but nothing ever has cut him to the heart like the dead, hopeless woe in +Mary's voice as she prayed there in the bedroom with Grant that August +night. A terrible half-hour came when Mary and Amos talked with +Margaret. For over their shame at what their son had done, above their +love for him, even beyond their high hope for him, rose their sense of +duty to the child who was coming. For the child they spent the passion +of their shame and love and hope as they pleaded with Margaret for a +child's right to a name. But she had hardened her heart. She shook her +head and would not listen to their pleadings. Then they sent Grant to +her. It is not easy to say which was more dreadful, the impudent smile +which she turned to the parents as she shook her head at them, or the +scornful laugh they heard when Grant sat with her. That was a long and +weary night they spent and the sun rose in the morning under a cloud +that never was lifted from their hearts. + +In the six or seven sordid, awful weeks that followed before Kenyon was +born, they turned for comfort and for help to Dr. Nesbit. They made his +plan to save the child's good name, their plan. Of course--the Adamses +were selfish. They felt a blight was on their boy's life. They could not +understand that in Heaven there is neither marriage nor giving in +marriage; that when God sends a soul through the gates of earth it comes +in joy even though we greet it in sorrow. Their gloom should have been +lighted; part of its blackness was their own vain pride in Grant. Yet +they were none the less tender with Margaret, and when she went down +into the valley of the shadow, Mary went with her and stood and +supported the girl in the journey. + +When Doctor Nesbit was climbing into the buggy at the gate, Grant, +standing by the hitching-post, said: "Doctor--sometime--when we are +both older--I mean Laura--" He got no further. The Doctor looked at the +boy's ashen face, and knew the cost of the words he was speaking. He +stopped, reached his hand out to Grant and touched his shoulder. "I +think I know, Grant--some day I shall tell her." He got into the buggy, +looked at the lad a moment and said in his high, squeaky voice: "Well, +Grant, boy, you understand after all it's your burden--don't you? Your +mother has saved Margaret's good name. But son--son, don't you let the +folks bear that burden." He paused a moment further and sighed: "Well, +good-by, kid--God help you, and make a man of you," and so turning his +cramping buggy, he drove away in the dusk. + +Thus came Kenyon Adams, recorded in the family Bible as the third son of +Mary and Amos Adams, into the wilderness of this world. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +IN WHICH MARGARET MUeLLER DWELLS IN MARBLE HALLS AND HENRY FENN AND +KENYON ADAMS WIN NOTABLE VICTORIES + + +The world into which Kenyon Adams came was a busy and noisy and ruthless +world. The prairie grass was leaving Harvey when Grant Adams came, and +the meadow lark left in the year that Jasper came. When Kenyon entered, +even the blue sky that bent over it was threatened. For Dr. Nesbit +returning from the Adamses the evening that Kenyon came to Harvey found +around the well-drill at Jamey McPherson's a great excited crowd. Men +were elbowing each other and craning their necks, and wagging their +heads as they looked at the core of the drill. For it contained +unmistakably a long worm of coal. And that night saw rising over Harvey +such dreams as made the angels sick; for the dreams were all of money, +and its vain display and power. And when men rose after dreaming those +dreams, they swept little Jamey McPherson away in short order. For he +had not the high talents of the money maker. He had only persistence, +industry and a hopeful spirit and a vague vision that he was discovering +coal for the common good. So when Daniel Sands put his mind to bear upon +the worm of coal that came wriggling up from the drilled hole on Jamey's +lot, the worm crawled away from Jamey and Jamey went to work in the +shaft that Daniel sank on his vacant lot near the McPherson home. The +coal smoke from Daniel Sands's mines began to splotch the blue sky above +the town, and Kenyon Adams missed the large leisure and joyous +comraderie that Grant had seen; indeed the only leisurely person whom +Kenyon saw in his life until he was--Heaven knows how old--was Rhoda +Kollander. The hum and bustle of Harvey did not ruffle the calm waters +of her soul. She of all the women in Harvey held to the early custom of +the town of going out to spend the day. + +"So that Margaret's gone," she was saying to Mary Adams sometime during +a morning in the spring after Kenyon was born. "Law me--I wouldn't have +a boarder. I tell John, the sanctity of the home is invaded by boarders +these days; and her going out to the dances in town the way she does, I +sh'd think you'd be glad to be alone again, and to have your own little +flock to do for. And so Grant's going to be a carpenter--well, well! He +didn't take to the printing trade, did he? My, my!" she sighed, and +folded her hands above her apron--the apron which she always put on +after a meal, as if to help with the dishes, but which she never soiled +or wrinkled--"I tell John I'm so thankful our little Fred has such a +nice place. He waits table there at the Palace, and gets all his +meals--such nice food, and can go to school too, and you wouldn't +believe it if I'd tell you all the nice men he meets--drummers and +everything, and he's getting such good manners. I tell John there's +nothing like the kind of folks a boy is with in his teens to make him. +And he sees Tom Van Dorn every day nearly and sometimes gets a dime for +serving him, and now, honest, Mary, you wouldn't believe it, but Freddie +says the help around the hotel say that Mauling girl at the cigar stand +thinks Tom's going to marry her, but law me--he's aiming higher than the +Maulings. The old man is going to die--did you know it? They came for +John to sit up with him last night. John's an Odd Fellow, you know. But +speaking of that Margaret, you know she's a friend of Violet's and slips +into the cigar stand sometimes and Violet introduces Margaret to some +nice drummers. And I heard John say that when Margaret gets this term of +school taught here, the Spring Township people have made Doc Jim get her +a job in the court house--register of deeds office. But I tell John--law +me, you men are the worst gossips! Talk about women!" + +Little Kenyon in his crib was restless, and Mary Adams was clattering +the dishes, so between the two evils, Mrs. Kollander picked up the +child, and rocked him and patted him and then went on: "I was over and +spent the day with the Sandses the other day. Poor woman, she's real +puny. Ann's such a pretty child and Mrs. Sands says that Morty's not +goin' back to college again. And she says he just moons around Laura +Nesbit. Seems like the boy's got no sense. Why, Laura's just a +child--she's Grant's age, isn't she--not more than eighteen or nineteen, +and Morty must be nearly twenty-three. My--how they have sprung up. I +tell John--why, I'll be thirty-six right soon now, and here I've worked +and slaved my youth away and I'll be an old woman before we know it." +She laughed good naturedly and rocked the fretting child. "Law me, Mary +Adams, I sh'd think you'd want Grant to stay with George Brotherton +there in the cigar stand, instead of carpentering. Such elegant people +he can meet there, and such refined influences since Mr. Brotherton's +put in books and newspapers, and he could work in the printing office +and deliver the Kansas City and St. Louis and Chicago dailies for Mr. +Brotherton, and do so much better than he can carpentering. I tell John, +if we can just keep our boy among nice people until he's twenty-five, +he'll stay with 'em. Now look at Lide Bowman. Mary Adams, we know she +was a smart woman until she married Dick and now just see her--living +down there with the shanty trash and all those ignorant foreigners, and +she's growing like 'em. She's lost two of her babies, and that seems to +be weighing on her mind, and I can't persuade her to pick up and move +out of there. It's like being in another world. And Mary Adams--let me +tell you--Casper Herdicker has gone into the mine. Yes, sir, he closed +his shop and is going to work in the mine, because he can make three +dollars a day. But law me! you'll not see Hildy Herdicker moving down +there. She'll keep her millinery store and live with the white folks." + +The dishes were put away, and in the long afternoon Mary Adams sat +sewing as Rhoda Kollander rambled on. For the third time Rhoda came back +to comment upon the fact that Grant Adams had quit working in the +printing office--a genteel trade, and had stopped delivering papers for +Mr. Brotherton's newspaper stand--a rather high vocation, and was +degrading himself by learning the carpenter's trade, when Mary Adams cut +into the current of the stream of talk. + +"Well, my dear, it was this way. There are two reasons why Grant is +learning the carpenter's trade. In the first place, the boy has some +sort of a passion to cast his lot among the poor. He feels they are +neglected and--well, he has a sort of a fierce streak in him to fight +for the under dog, and--" + +"Well, law me, Mary--don't I know that? Hasn't Freddie told me time and +again how Grant used to fight for Freddie when he was a little boy and +the big boys plagued him. Grant whipped the whole school for teasing a +little half-witted boy once--did you know that?" Mary Adams shook her +head. "Well, he did, and--well now, isn't that nice. I can see just how +he feels!" And she could. Never lived a more sympathetic soul than +Rhoda. And as she rocked she said: "Of course, if that's the reason--law +me, Mary, you never can tell how these children are going to turn out. +Why, I tell John--" + +"And the other reason is, Rhoda, that he is earning two dollars a day as +a carpenter's helper, and since Kenyon came we seem to be miserably hard +pushed for money." Mary Adams stopped and then went on as one carefully +choosing her words: "And since Margaret has gone to board over at the +other side of the school district, and we don't have her board +money--why of course--" + +"Why of course," echoed Mrs. Kollander, "of course. I tell John he's +been in a county office now twenty years, drawing all the way from a +thousand to three thousand a year--and what have we got to show for it? +I scrimp and pinch and save, and John does too--but law me--it seems +like the way times are--" Amos Adams, standing at the door, heard her +and cut in: + +"I was talking the other night with George Washington about the times, +and they're coming around all right." The man fumbled his sandy beard, +closed his eyes as if to remember something and went on: "Let's see, he +wrote: 'Peas and potatoes preserve the people,' and the next day, +everything in the market dropped but peas and potatoes." He nodded a +wise head. "They think that planchette is nonsense, but how do they +account for coincidences like that! And now tell me some news for the +_Tribune_." The two sat talking well into the twilight and when +Rhoda pulled up her chair to the supper table, the editor's notebook was +full. + +Grant appeared, an ox-shouldered, red-haired, bass-voiced boy with +ham-like hands; Jasper came in from school full of the town's adventure +into coal and the industries, and his chatter trickled into the powerful +but slowly spoken insistence of Mrs. Kollander's talk and was lost and +swept finally into silence. After supper Grant retired to a book from +the Sea-side Library, borrowed of Mr. Brotherton from stock--"Sesame and +Lilies" was its title. Jasper plunged into his bookkeeping studies and +by the wood stove in the sitting-room Rhoda Kollander held her levee +until bedtime sent her home. + +During the noon hour the next day in Mr. Brotherton's cigar store and +news stand, the walnut bench was filled that he had just installed for +the comfort of his customers. At one end, was Grant Adams who had +hurried up from the mines to buy a paperbound copy of Carlyle's "French +Revolution"; next to him sat deaf John Kollander smoking his noon cigar, +and beside Kollander sat stuttering Kyle Perry, thriftily sponging his +morning Kansas City _Times_ over Dr. Nesbit's shoulder. The absent +brother always was on the griddle at Mr. Brotherton's amen corner, and +the burnt offering of the moment was Henry Fenn. He had just broken over +a protracted drouth--one of a year and a half--and the group was shaking +sad heads over the county attorney's downfall. The doctor was saying, +"It's a disease, just as the 'ladies, God bless 'em' will become a +disease with Tom Van Dorn if he doesn't stop pretty soon--a nervous +disease and sooner or later they will both go down. Poor Henry--Bedelia +and I noticed him at the charity ball last night; he was--" + +"A trifle polite--a wee bit too punctilious for these latitudes," +laughed Brotherton from behind the counter. + +"I was going to say decorative--what Mrs. Nesbit calls ornate--kind of +rococco in manner," squeaked the doctor, and sighed. "And yet I can see +he's still fighting his devil--still trying to keep from going clear +under." + +"It's a sh-sh-sh-a-ame that ma-a-an should have th-that kind of a +d-d-d-devil in him--is-isis-n't it?" said Kyle Perry, and John +Kollander, who had been smoking in peace, blurted out, "What else can be +expected under a Democratic administration? Of course, they'll return +the rebel flags. They'll pension the rebel soldiers next!" He looked +around for approval, and the smiles of the group would have lured him +further but Tom Van Dorn came swinging through the door with his +princely manner, and the Doctor rose to go. He motioned George +Brotherton to the rear of the room and said gently: + +"George--old man Mauling died an hour ago; John Dexter and I were there +at the last. And John sent word for me to have you get your choir +out--so I'll notify Mrs. Nesbit. Dexter said he was a lodge member with +you--what lodge, George?" + +"Odd Fellow," returned the big man, then asked, "Pall-bearer?" + +"Yes," returned the Doctor. "There's no one else much but the lodge in +his case. You will sing him to sleep with your choir and tuck him in as +pall-bearer as you've been doing for the dead folks ever since you came +to town." The Doctor turned to go, "Meet to-night at the house for choir +practice, I suppose?" + +Brotherton nodded, and turned to take a bill from Tom Van Dorn, who had +pocketed a handful of cigars and a number of papers. + +"We were just talking about Henry, Tom," remarked Mr. Brotherton, as he +handed back the change. + +"He's b-back-sl-slidden," prompted Perry. + +"Oh, well--it's all right. Henry has his weaknesses--we all have our +failings. But drunk or sober he danced a dozen times last night with +that pretty school teacher from Prospect Township." Grant looked up from +his book, as Van Dorn continued, "Gorgeous creature--" he shut his eyes +and added: "Don't pity Henry when he can get a woman like that to favor +him!" + +As John Kollander thundered back some irrelevant comment on the moment's +politics, Van Dorn led Brotherton to the further end of the counter and +lowering his voice said: + +"You know that Mauling girl at the Palace cigar counter?" + +As Brotherton nodded, Van Dorn, dropping his voice to a whisper, said: +"Her father's dead--poor child--she's been spending her money--she +hasn't a cent. I know; I have been talking to her more or less for a +year or so. Which one of your lodges does the old man belong to, +George?" + +When the big man said: "Odd Fellows," Van Dorn reached into an inner +coat pocket, brought out some bills and slipping them to Brotherton, so +that the group on the bench in the corner could not see, Van Dorn +mumbled: + +"Tell her folks this came from the lodge--poor little creature, she's +their sole support." + +As Van Dorn lighted his cigar at the alcohol burner Henry Fenn turned +into the store. Fenn stood among them and smiled his electric smile, +that illumined his lean, drawn face and said, "Here," a pause, then, "I +am," another pause, and a more searching smile, "I am again!" + +Mr. Brotherton looked up from the magazine counter where he was sorting +out _Centurys_, and _Harpers_ and _Scribners_ from a +pile: "Say--" he roared at the newcomer, "Well--say, Henry--this won't +do. Come--take a brace; pull yourself together. We are all for you." + +"Yes," answered Fenn, smiling out of some incandescence in his heart, +"that's just it: You're all for me. The boys over at Riley's saloon are +all for me. Mother--God bless her, down at the house is for me so strong +that she never flinches or falters. I can get every vote in the +delegation, but my own!" + +"Oh, Henry, why these tears?" sneered Van Dorn. "We've all got to have +our fun." + +"I presume, Tom," snapped Fenn, "that you've got your little affairs of +the heart so that you can take 'em or let 'em alone!" But to the group +in the amen corner, Fenn lifted up his head in shame. He looked like a +whipped dog. One by one the crowd disappeared, all but Grant, who was +bending over his book, and deaf John Kollander. + +Fenn and Brotherton went back to Brotherton's desk and Fenn asked, "Did +I--George, was it pretty bad last night? God she--she--that Mueller +girl--what a wonderful woman she is. George, do you suppose--" Fenn +caught Grant's eyes wandering toward them. The name of Margaret Mueller +had reached his ears. But Fenn went on, lowering his voice: "I honestly +believe she could, if any one could." Fenn put his lean, tapering hand +upon Brotherton's broad fat paw, and smiled a quaint, appreciative +smile, frank and gentle. It was one of those smiles that carried +agreement with what had been said, and with everything that might be +said. Brotherton took up the hallelujah chorus for Margaret with: "Fine +girl--bright, keen--well say, did you know she's buying the books here +of me for the chautauqua course and is trying for a degree--something in +her head besides hairpins--well, say!" + +He stopped in the middle of the sentence, and brought down his great +hand on his knee. "Well, say--observe me the prize idiot! Get the blue +ribbon and pin it on your Uncle George. Look here at me overlooking the +main bet. Well, say, Henry--here are the specifications of one large +juicy plan. Funeral to-morrow--old man Mauling; obliging party to die. +Uncle George and the angel choir to officiate with Uncle George doubling +in brass as pall-bearer. The new Mrs. Sands, our bell-voiced contralto, +is sick: also obliging party to be sick. Need new contralto: Mueller girl +has voice like morning star, or stars, as the case may be." Fenn flashed +on his electric smile, and rose, looking a question. + +"That's the idea, Henry, that finally wormed its way into my master +mind," cried Brotherton, laughing his big laugh. "That's what I said +before I spoke. You are to drive into Prospect Township this +evening--Hey, Grant," called Brotherton to the boy on the bench in the +Amen corner, "Does that pretty school ma'am board with you people?" And +when Grant shook his head, Brotherton went on: "Yes--she's moved across +the district I remember now. Well, anyway, Henry, you're to drive into +Prospect Township this evening and produce one large, luscious brunette +contralto for choir practice at General Nesbit's piano at eight o'clock +sharp." He stood facing Fenn whose eyes were glowing. The lurking devil +seemed to slink away from him. Brotherton, seeing the change, again +burst into his laugh and bringing Fenn to the front of the store roared: +"Well, say--Hennery--are there any flies on your Uncle George's scheme?" + +Grant began buttoning his coat. Fenn, free for the moment of his devil, +was happy, and Brotherton looked at the two and cried, "Now get out of +here--the both of you: you're spiling trade. And say," called Brotherton +to Fenn, "bring her up to the Palace Hotel for supper, and we'll fill +her full of rich food, so's she can sing--well, say!" + +That evening going home Grant met Margaret and Fenn at a turn of the +road, and before they noticed him, he saw a familiar look in her eyes as +she gazed at the man, saw how closely they were sitting in the buggy, +saw a score of little things that sent the blood to his face and he +strode on past them without speaking. That night he slipped into the +room where the baby lay playing with his toes, and there, standing over +the little fellow, the youth's eyes filled with tears and for the first +time he felt the horror of the baby lifting from him. He did not touch +the child, but tiptoed from the room ashamed to be seen. + +To Margaret Mueller, the baby's mother, that night opened a new world. To +begin with, it marked her entrance through the portals of the Palace +Hotel as a guest. She had sometimes flitted into the office with its +loose, tiled floors and shabby, onyx splendor to speak to Miss Mauling +of the news stand; then she came as a fugitive and saw things only +furtively. But this night Margaret walked in through the "Ladies +Entrance," sat calmly in the parlor, while Mr. Fenn wrote her name upon +the register, and after some delirious moments of grand conversation +with Mr. Fenn in the gilded hall of pleasure with its chenille draperies +and its apoplectic furniture all puffed to the bursting point, she had +walked with Mr. Fenn through the imposing halls of the wonderful +edifice, like a rescued princess in a fairy tale, to the dining room, +there to meet Mr. Brotherton, and the eldest Miss Morton, who recently +had been playing the cabinet organ at funerals to guide Mr. Brotherton's +choir. Now the eldest Miss Morton was not antique, being only a scant +fifteen in short dresses and pig tails. But at the urgent request of Mr. +Brotherton, and "to fill out the table, and to take the wrinkles out of +her apron by a square meal at the Palace," as Mr. Brotherton explained +to the Captain, she had been primped and curled and scared by her +sisters and her father, and sent along with Mr. Brotherton--possibly in +his great ulster pocket, and she sat breathing irregularly and looking +steadily into her lap in great awe and trepidation. + +Margaret Mueller, in the dining-room whose fame had spread to the +outposts of Spring township and to the fastnesses of Prospect, behaved +with scarcely less constraint than the eldest Miss Morton. She gazed at +the beamed ceiling, the high wainscoting, the stenciled walls, the +frescoes upon the panels, framed by the beams, the wide sideboard, the +glittering glass and the plated silver service, and if her eyes had not +been so beautiful they would have betrayed her wonder and admiration. As +it was, they showed an ecstasy of delight that made them shine and when +Henry Fenn saw them he looked at Mr. Brotherton, and Mr. Brotherton +looked at Mr. Fenn, and the moon in Mr. Brotherton's face beamed a +lively approval. Moreover the cigar salesman from Leavenworth and a +hardware drummer from St. Louis and a dry-goods salesman from Chicago +and a travelling auditor for the Midland saw Margaret's eyes and they +too looked at one another and gave their unqualified approval. In other +years--in later years--when she was at Bertolini's Grand Palace in +Naples or in some of the other Grand Palaces of other effete and +luxurious capitals of Europe, Margaret used to think of that first meal +at the Palace house in Harvey and wonder what in the world really did +become of the dozen fried oysters that she so innocently ordered. She +could see them looming up, a great pyramid of brown batter, garnished +with cress, and she knew that she had blundered. But she did not see the +wink that Mr. Brotherton gave Mr. Fenn nor the glare that Mr. Fenn gave +Mr. Brotherton; so she faced it out and whether she ate them or left +them, she never could recall. + +But it was a glorious occasion in spite of the fried oysters. What +though the tiles of the floor of the Palace were cracked; what though +the curtains sagged, and the furniture was shabby, and the walls were +faded and dingy; what though the great beams in the dining-room were +dirty and the carpets in the halls bedraggled, and the onyx gapping in +great cracks upon the warped walls of the office; what though the paint +had faded and the varnish cracked all over the house! To Margaret Mueller +and also to the eldest Miss Morton, who only managed to breathe below +her locket when they were under the stars, it was a dream of marble +halls, and the frowsy Freddie Kollander and the other waiter who brought +in the food on thick, cracked oblong dishes were vassals and serfs by +their sides. + +When they started up Sixth Avenue, the eldest Miss Morton was trying to +think of everything that had happened to tell the younger Misses Morton, +Martha and Ruth--what they ate and what Miss Mueller wore, and what +Freddie Kollander who waited on them, and also went to high school, did +when he saw her, and how Mr. Fenn acted when Miss Mueller got the big +platter of oysters, and what olives tasted like and if anything had been +cooked in the Peerless Cooker that father had just sold Mr. Paxton and +in general why the spirit of mortal should be proud. + +But Miss Mueller entertained no such thoughts. She was treading upon the +air of some elysium, and she took and held Mr. Fenn's arm with an +unnecessary tightness and began humming the tune that told of the girl +who dreamed she dwelt in marble halls; and then, as they left the thick +of the town and were walking along the board sidewalks that lead to Elm +Crest on Elm Street, they all fell to singing that tune; and as one good +tune deserved another, and as they were going to practice the funeral +music that evening, they sang other tunes of a highly secular nature +that need not be enumerated here. And as Miss Mueller had a substantial +dinner folded snugly within her, and the ambition of her life was +looming but a few blocks ahead of her, she walked closer to Mr. Fenn, +county attorney in and for Greeley county, than was really necessary. So +when Mr. Brotherton walked alongside with the eldest Miss Morton +stumbling intermittently over the edge of the sidewalk and walking in +the dry weeds beside it, Miss Mueller put some feeling into her singing +voice and they struck what Mr. Brotherton was pleased to call a +barbershop chord, and held it to his delight. And the frosty air rang +with their voices, and the rich tremulous voice of the young woman +thrilled with passion too deep for words. So deep was it that it might +have stirred the hovering soul of the dead whose dirges they were to +sing and brought back to him the time when he too had thrilled with +youth and its inexpressible joy. + +Up the hill they go, arm in arm, with fondling voices uttering the +unutterable. And now they turn into a long, broad avenue of elms, of +high, plumey elms trimmed and tended, mulched and cultivated for nearly +twenty years, the apple of one man's eye; great elms set in blue grass, +branching only at the tops, elms that stand in a grove around an +irregular house, elms that shade a broad stone walk leading up to a +wide, hospitable door. The young people ring. There is a stirring in the +house, Margaret Mueller's heart is a-flutter--and the eldest Miss Morton +wonders whether Laura or the hired girl will open the door, and in a +moment--enter Margaret Mueller into the home of the Nesbits. + +As the wide door opens, a glow of light and life falls upon the young +people. Standing in the broad reception room is Doctor Nesbit, with his +finger in a book--a poetry book if you please--and before him with his +arm about her and her head beneath his chin stands his daughter. Coming +down the stairs is Mrs. Bedelia Satterthwaite Nesbit--of the Maryland +Satterthwaites--tall, well-upholstered, with large features and a Roman +nose and with the makings of a double chin, if she ever would deign to +bend her queenly head, and finally with the pomp of a major general in +figure and mien. + +She ignores the debris of the carpenters who have been putting in the +hardwood floors, without glancing at it, and walking to her guests, +welcomes them with regal splendor, receiving Miss Mueller with rather +obvious dignity. Mrs. Nesbit in those days was a woman of whom the +doctor said, "There is no foolishness about Bedelia." The jovial Mr. +Brotherton attempts some pleasant hyperbole of speech, which the hostess +ignores and the Doctor greets with a smile. Mrs. Nesbit leads the way to +the piano, being a woman of purpose, and whisks the eldest Miss Morton +upon a stool and has the hymn book opened in less time than it takes to +tell how she did it. The Doctor and Laura stand watching the company, +and perhaps they stand awkwardly; which prompts Mr. Brotherton in the +goodness of his heart to say, "Doctor, won't you sit and hear the +music?" + +Mrs. Nesbit looks around, sees the two figures standing near the fire +and replies, "No, the Doctor won't." + +To which he chirps a mocking echo--"No, the Doctor won't." + +Mr. Brotherton glances at Mr. Fenn, and the Doctor sees it. "That's all +right, boys--that's all right; I may be satrap of Harvey and have the +power of life and death over my subjects, but that's down town. Out +here, I'm the minority report." + +Mrs. Nesbit opens the hymn book, smooths the fluttering leaves and says +without looking toward the Doctor: "I suppose we may as well begin now." +And she begins beating the time with her index finger and marking the +accents with her foot. + +As they sing they can hear the gentle drone of the Doctor's soft voice +in the intervals in the music, reading in some nearby room to his +daughter. They are reading Tennyson's "Maud" and sometimes in the +emotional passages his voice breaks and his eyes fill up and he cannot +go on. At such times, the daughter puts her head upon his shoulder and +often wipes her tears away upon his coat and they are silent until he +can begin again. When his throat cramps, she pats his cheek and they sit +dreaming for a time and the dreams they dream and the dreams they read +differ only in that the poetry is made with words. + +It is a proud night for Margaret Mueller. She has come into a new +world--the world of her deep desire. Mrs. Nesbit sees the girl's +wandering eyes, taking note of the furniture, as one making an +inventory. No article of the vast array of vases and jars and plaques +and jugs and statuettes and grotesque souvenirs of far journeys across +the world, nor etchings nor steel engravings nor photographs of Roman +antiquities nor storied urns nor animated busts escapes the wandering, +curious brown eyes of the girl. But in her vast wonderment, though her +eyes wander far and wide, they never are too far to flash back betimes +at Henry Fenn's who drinks from the woman's eyes as from a deep and +bewitching well. He does not see that she is staring. But as the minutes +speed, he knows that he is electrified with alternating currents from +her glowing face and that they bring to him a rapture that he has never +known before. + +But you may be sure of one thing: Mrs. Nesbit--she that was +Satterthwaite of the Maryland Satterthwaites--she sees what is in the +wind. She is not wearing gold-rimmed nose glasses for her health. Her +health is exceptionally good. And what is more to the point, as they are +singing, Mrs. Nesbit gives George Brotherton a look--one of the genuine +old Satterthwaite looks that speak volumes, and in effect it tells him +that if he has any sense, he will take Henry Fenn home before he makes a +fool of himself. And the eldest Miss Morton, swinging her legs under the +piano stool and drumming away to Mrs. Nesbit's one- and two- and +three- and four-ands, peeps out of the corners of her eyes and sees Miss +Mueller gobbling Mr. Fenn right down without chewing him, and whoopee but +Mrs. Nesbit is biting nails, and Mr. Brotherton, he can't hardly keep his +face straight from laughing at all, and if Ruth and Martha ever tell she +will never tell them another thing in the world. And she mustn't forget +to ask Mrs. Nesbit if she's used the Peerless Cooker and if she has, +will she please say something nice about it to Mrs. Ahab Wright, for +Papa is so anxious to sell one to the Wrights! + +It is nearly nine o'clock. Mr. Fenn has been eaten up these twenty +times. The wandering eyes have caressed the bric-a-brac over and over. +Mrs. Nesbit's tireless index finger has marked the time while the great +hands of the tall hall clock have crept around and halfway around again. +They are upon the final rehearsal of it. + +"Other refuge have I none," says the voice and the eyes say even more +and are mutely answered by another pair of eyes. + +"Hangs my helpless soul on thee," says the deep passionate voice, and +the eyes say things even more tender to eyes that falter only because +they are faint with joy. In the short interval the moving finger of Mrs. +Nesbit goes up, and then comes a rattling of the great front door. A +moment later it is opened and the flushed face of Grant Adams is seen. +He is collarless, and untidy; he rushes into the room crying, "O, +doctor--doctor, come--our baby--he is choking." The youth sees Margaret, +and with passion cries: "Kenyon--Kenyon--the baby, he is dying; for +God's sake--Mag, where is the Doctor?" + +In an instant the little figure of the Doctor is in the room. He stares +at the red-faced boy, and quick as a flash he sees the open mouth, the +dazed, gaping eyes, the graying face of Margaret as she leans heavily +upon George Brotherton. In another instant the Doctor sees her rally, +grapple with herself, bring back the slow color as if by main strength, +and smile a hard forced smile, as the boy stands in impotent anguish +before them. + +"I have the spring wagon here, Doctor--hurry--hurry please," +expostulates the youth, as the Doctor climbs into his overcoat, and then +looking at Margaret the boy exclaims wildly--"Wouldn't you like to go, +too, Maggie? Wouldn't you?" + +She has hold of herself now and replies: "No, Grant, I don't think your +mother will need me," but she almost loses her grip as she asks weakly, +"Do you?" + +In another second they are gone, the boy and the Doctor, out into the +night, and the horse's hoofs, clattering fainter and fainter as they +hurry down the road, bring to her the sound of a little heart beating +fainter and fainter, and she holds on to her soul with a hard hand. + +Before long Margaret Mueller and Henry Fenn are alone in a buggy driving +to Prospect township. + +She sees above her on the hill the lights in the great house of her +desire. And she knows that down in the valley where shimmers a single +light is a little body choking for breath, fighting for life. + +"Hangs my helpless soul on thee," swirls through her brain, and she is +cold--very cold, and sits aloof and will not talk, cannot talk. Ever the +patter of the horse's feet in the valley is borne upward by the wind, +and she feels in her soul the faltering of a little heart. She dares not +hope that it will start up again; she cannot bear the fear that it will +stop. + +So she leaves the man who knew her inmost soul but an hour ago; hardly a +word she speaks at parting; hardly she turns to him as she slips into +the house, cold and shivering with the sound of every hoof-beat on the +road in the night, bringing her back to the helpless soul fluttering in +the little body that once she warmed in hers. + +Thus the watchers watched the fighting through the night, the child +fighting so hard to live. For life is dear to a child--even though its +life perpetuates shame and brings only sorrow--life still is dear to +that struggling little body there under that humble roof, where even +those that love it, and hover in agony over it in its bed of torture, +feel that if it goes out into the great mystery from whence it came, it +will take a sad blot from the world with it. And so hope and fear and +love and tenderness and grief are all mingled in the horror that it may +die, in the mute question that asks if death would not be merciful and +kind. And all night the watchers watched, and the watcher who was absent +was afraid to pray, and as the daylight came in, wan and gray, the child +on the rack of misery sank to sleep, and smiled a little smile of peace +at victory. + +Then in the pale dawn, a weary man, trudging afoot slowly up the hill +into Harvey, met another going out into the fields. The Doctor looked up +and was astonished to see Henry Fenn, with hard drawn features, +trembling limbs, hollow eyes and set lips. He too had been fighting hard +and he also had won his victory. The Doctor met the man's furtive, +burning eyes and piped out softly: + +"Stick to it, Henry--by God, stick hard," and trudged on into the +morning gloaming. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +ENTER THE BEAUTY AND CHIVALRY OF HARVEY; ALSO HEREIN WE BREAK OUR FIRST +HEART + + +Towns are curiously like individuals. They take their character largely +from their experiences, laid layer upon layer in their consciousnesses, +as time moves, and though the experiences are seemingly forgotten, the +results of those experiences are ineffaceably written into the towns. +Four or five towns lie buried under the Harvey that is to-day, each one +possible only as the other upholds it, and all inexorably pointing to +the destiny of the Harvey that is, and to the many other Harveys yet to +rise upon the townsite--the Harveys that shall be. There was, of course, +heredity before the town was; the strong New England strain of blood +that was mixed in the Ohio Valley and about the Great Lakes and changed +by the upheaval of the Civil War. Then came the hegira across the +Mississippi and the infant town in the Missouri Valley--the town of the +pioneers--the town that only obeyed its call and sought instinctively +the school house, the newspaper, orderly government, real estate +gambling and "the distant church that topt the neighboring hill." In the +childhood of the town the cattle trail appeared and with the cattle +trade came wild days and sad disorder. But the railroad moved westward +and the cattle trail moved with the railroad and then in the early +adolescence of the town came coal and gas and oil. And suddenly Harvey +blossomed into youth. + +It was a place of adventure; men were made rich overnight by the blow of +a drill in a well. Then was the time for that equality of opportunity to +come which the pioneers sought if ever it was coming. But alas, even in +matters of sheer luck, the fates played favorites. In those fat years it +began raining red-wheeled buggies on Sundays, and smart traps drawn by +horses harnessed gaudily in white or tan appeared on the streets. Morty +Sands often hired a band from Omaha or Kansas City, and held high revel +in the Sands opera house, where all the new dances of that halcyon day +were tripped. The waters of the Wahoo echoed with the sounds of boating +parties--also frequently given by Morty Sands, and his mandolin +twittered gayly on a dozen porches during the summer evenings of that +period. It was Morty who enticed Henry Fenn into the second suit of +evening clothes ever displayed in Harvey, though Tom Van Dorn and George +Brotherton appeared a week later in evening clothes plus white gloves +and took much of the shine from Henry and Morty's splendor. Those were +the days when Nate Perry and young Joe Calvin and Freddie Kollander +organized the little crowd--the Spring Chickens, they called +themselves--and the little crowd was wont to ape its elders and peek +through the fence at the grandeur of the grown-ups. But alas for the +little crowd, month by month it was doomed to see its little girls +kidnaped to bloom in the upper gardens. Thus Emma Morton went; thus Ave +Calvin disappeared, and so Laura Nesbit vanished from the Spring +Chickens and appeared in Morty Sands's bower! Doctor Nesbit in those +days called Morty the "head gardener in the 'rosebud garden of girls!'" +And a lovely garden it was. Of course, it was more or less democratic; +for every one was going to be rich; every one was indeed just on the +verge of riches, and lines of caste were loosely drawn. For wealth was +the only line that marked the social differences. So when Henry Fenn, +the young county attorney, in his new evening clothes brought Margaret +Mueller of the Register of Deeds office to Morty Sands's dances, Margaret +had whatever social distinction her wits gave her; which upon the whole +was as much distinction as Rhoda Kollander had whose husband employed +Margaret. The press of the social duties in that day weighed heavily +upon Rhoda, who was not the woman to neglect her larger responsibilities +to so good a husband as John Kollander, by selfishly staying at home and +keeping house for him. She had a place in society to maintain, that the +flag of her country might not be sullied by barring John from a county +office. + +The real queen-rose in the garden was Laura Nesbit. How vivid she was! +What lips she had in those days of her first full bloom, and what frank, +searching eyes! And her laugh--that chimed like bells through the +merriment of the youth that always was gathered about her--her laugh +could start a reaction in Morty Sands's heart as far as he could hear +the chime. It was a matter of common knowledge in the "crowd," that +Morty Sands had one supreme aim in life: the courtship of Laura Nesbit. +For her he lavished clothes upon himself until he became known as the +iridescent dream! For her he bought a high-seated cart of great price, +drawn by a black horse in white kid harness! For her he learned a whole +concert of Schubert's songs upon the mandolin and organized a serenading +quartette that wore the grass smooth under her window. For her candy, +flowers, books--usually gift books with padded covers, or with +handpainted decorations, or with sumptuous engravings upon them or in +them, sifted into the Nesbits' front room, and lay in a thick coating +upon the parlor table. + +Someway these votive offerings didn't reach the heart of the goddess. +She rode beside him in his stanhope, and she wore his bouquets and read +his books, such as were intended for reading; and alas for her figure, +she ate his candy. But these things did not prosper his suit. She was +just looking around in the market of life. Pippa was forever passing +through her heart singing, "God's in his heaven--all's right with the +world." She did not blink at evil; she knew it, abhorred it, but +challenged it with love. She had a vague idea that evil could be +vanquished by inviting it out to dinner and having it in for tea +frequently and she believed if it still refused to transform itself into +good, that the thing to do with evil was to be a sister to it. + +The closest she ever came to overcoming evil with evil was when she +spanked little Joe Calvin for persisting in tying cans to the Morton +cat's tail, whereupon Morty Sands rose and gave the girl nine rahs, +exhibiting an enthusiasm that inspired him for a year. So Laura thought +that if the spanking had not helped much the soul of little Joe, it had +put something worth while into Morty Sands. The thought cheered her. For +Morty was her problem. During the first months after her return from +boarding school, she had broken him--excepting upon minor moonlight +relapses--of trying to kiss her, and she had sufficiently discouraged +his declarations of undying devotion, so that they came only at +weddings, or after other mitigating circumstances which, after pinching +his ear, she was able to overlook. + +But she could not get him to work for a living. He wouldn't even keep +office hours. Lecturing settled nothing. Lecturing a youth in a black +and gold blazer, duck trousers and a silk shirt and a red sash, with +socks and hat to match his coat, lecturing a youth who plays the +mandolin while you talk, and looks at you through hazel eyes with all +the intelligence of an affectionate pup, lecturing a youth who you know +would be kissing you at the moment if you weren't twenty pounds heavier +and twice as strong--someway doesn't arouse enthusiasm. So Morty Sands +remained a problem. + +Now an affair of the heart when a man is in his twenties and a girl is +just passing out of her teens, is never static; it is dynamic and always +there is something doing. + +It was after one of Morty's innumerable summer dances in the Sands Opera +House, that Fate cast her dies for the final throw. Morty had filled +Laura Nesbit's program scandalously full. Two Newports, three military +schottisches, the York, the Racket--ask grandpa and grammer about these +dances, ye who gyrate in to-day's mazes--two waltz quadrilles and a +reel. And when you have danced half the evening with a beautiful girl, +Fate is liable to be thumping vigorously on the door of your heart. So +Morty walking home under a drooping August moon with Laura Nesbit that +night determined to bring matters to a decision. As they came up the +walk to the Nesbit home, the girl was humming the tune that beat upon +his heart, and almost unconsciously they fell to waltzing. At the +veranda steps they paused, and his arm was around her. She tried to move +away from him, and cuffed him as she cried: "Now Morty--you know--you +know very well what I've always--" + +"Laura--Laura--" he cried, as he held her hand to his face and tried to +focus her soul with his brown eyes, "Laura," he faltered, then words +deserted him: the fine speech he had planned melted into, "O, my +dear--my dear!" But he kept her hand. The pain and passion in his voice +cut into the girl's heart. She was not frightened. She did not care to +run. She did not even take his persisting arm from about her. She let +him kiss her hand reverently, then she sat with him on the veranda step +and as they sat she drew his arm from her waist until it was hooked in +her arm, and her hand held his. + +"Oh, I'm in earnest to-night, Laura," said Morty, gripping her hand. +"I'm staking my whole life to-night, Laura. I'm deadly--oh, quite deadly +serious, Laura, and oh--" + +"And I'm serious too, Morty," said the girl--"just as serious as you!" +She slipped her hand away from his and put her hand upon his shoulder +gently, almost tenderly. But the youth felt a certain calmness in her +touch that disheartened him. + +In a storm of despair he spoke: "Laura--Laura, can't you see--how can +you let me go on loving you as I do until I am mad! Can't you see that +my soul is yours and always has been! You can call it into heights it +will never know without you! You--you--O, sometimes I feel that I could +pray to you as to God!" He turned to her a face glowing with a white and +holy passion, and dropped her hand from his shoulder and did not touch +her as he spoke. Their eyes met steadfastly in a silence. Then the girl +bowed her head and sobbed. For she knew, even in her teens, she knew +with the intuitions that are old as human love upon the planet that she +was in the naked presence of an adoring soul. When she could speak she +picked up the man's soft white hand, and kissed it. She could not have +voiced her eternal denial more certainly. And Morty Sands lifted an +agonized face to the stars and his jaws trembled. He had lighted his +altar fire and it was quenched. The girl, still holding his hand, said +tenderly: + +"I'm so sorry--so sorry, Morty. But I can't! I never--never--never can!" +She hesitated, and repeated, shaking her head sadly, "I never, never can +love you, Morty--never! And it's kind--" + +"Yes, yes," he answered as one who realizes a finality. "It's kind +enough--yes, I know you're kind, Laura!" He stopped and gazed at her in +the moonlight--and it was as if a flame on the charred altar of his +heart had sprung up for a second as he spoke: "And I never--never +shall--I never shall love any one else--I never, never shall!" + +The girl rose. A moment later the youth followed her. Back into its +sheath under his countenance his soul slipped, and he stood before the +girl smiling a half deprecatory smile. But the girl's face was racked +with sorrow. She had seen tragedy. Her pain wounded him and he winced in +his heart. Wherefore he smiled quite genuinely, and stepped back, and +threw a kiss at the girl as he said: "It's nothing, Laura! Don't mind! +It's nothing at all and we'll forget it! Won't we?" + +And turning away, he tripped down the walk, leaving her gazing after him +in the moonlight. At the street he turned back with a gay little +gesture, blew a kiss from his white finger tips and cried, "It's nothing +at all--nothing at all!" And as she went indoors she heard him call, +"It's nothing at all!" + +She heard him lift his whistle to the tune of the waltz quadrille, but +she stood with tears in her eyes until the brave tune died in the +distance. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +IN WHICH WE SEE HOW LIFE TRANSLATES ITSELF INTO THE MATERIALISM AROUND +IT + + +Coal and oil and gas and lead and zinc. The black sprite, the brown +sprite, the invisible sprite, the two gray sprites--elemental sprites +they were--destined to be bound servants of man. Yet when they came +rushing out of the earth there at Harvey, man groveled before them, and +sold his immortal soul to these trolls. Naturally enough Daniel Sands +was the high priest at their altar. It was fitting that a devil worship +which prostrated itself before coal and oil and gas and lead and zinc +should make a spider the symbol of its servility. So the spider's web, +all iron and steel in pipes below ground, all steel and iron and copper +in wires and rails above ground, spread out over the town, over the +country near the town, and all the pipes and tubes and rails and wires +led to the dingy little room where Daniel Sands sat spinning his web. He +was the town god. Even the gilded heifer of Baal was a nobler one. And +the curious thing about this orgy of materialism, was that Harvey and +all the thousands of Harveys great and small that filled America in +those decades believed with all their hearts--and they were essentially +kind hearts--that quick, easy and exorbitant profits, really made the +equality of opportunity which every one desired. They thought in terms +of democracy--which is at bottom a spiritual estate,--and they acted +like gross materialists. So they fooled the world, while they deceived +themselves. For the soul of America was not reflected in that debauch of +gross profit making. The soul of America still aspired for justice; but +in the folly of the day, believed quite complacently because a few men +got rich quick (stupid men too,) and many men were well-to-do, that +justice was achieved, and the world ready for the millennium. But there +came a day when Harvey, and all its kind saw the truth in shame. + +And life in Harvey shaped itself into a vast greedy dream. A hard, +metallic timbre came into the soft, high voice of Dr. James Nesbit, but +did not warn men of the metallic plate that was galvanizing the Doctor's +soul; nor did it disturb the Doctor. Amos Adams saw the tinplate +covering, heard the sounding brass, and Mary his wife saw and heard too; +but they were only two fools and the Doctor who loved them laughed at +them and turned to the healing of the sick and the subjugation of his +county. So men sent him to the state Senate. Curiously Mrs. Nesbit--she +whom George Brotherton always called the General--she did not shake the +spell of the trolls from her heart. They were building wings and ells +and lean-tos on the house that she called her home, and she came to love +the witchery of the time and place and did not see its folly. Yet there +walked between these two entranced ones, another who should have +awakened. For she was young, fresh from the gods of life. Her eyes, +unflinching, glorious eyes, should have seen through the dream of that +day. But they were only a girl's eyes and were happy, so they could not +see beyond the spell that fell around them. And alas, even when the +prince arrived, his kiss was poisoned too. + +When young Thomas Van Dorn came to the Nesbit house on a voyage of +exploration and discovery--came in a handsome suit of gray, with hat and +handkerchief to match, and a flowing crepe tie, black to harmonize with +his flowing mustache and his wing of fine jet black hair above his ivory +tinted face, Laura Nesbit considered him reflectively, and catalogued +him. + +"Tom," explained the daughter to her father rather coldly one morning, +after the young man had been reading Swinburne in his deep, mellow +pipe-organ of a voice to the family until bedtime the night before, "Tom +Van Dorn, father, is the kind of a man who needs the influence of some +strong woman!" + +Mrs. Nesbit glanced at her husband furtively and caught his grin as he +piped gayly: + +"Who also must carry the night key!" + +The three laughed but the daughter went on with the cataloguing: "He is +a young man of strong predilections, of definite purpose and more than +ordinary intellectual capacity." + +"And so far as I have counted, Laura," her father interrupted again, "I +haven't found an honest hair in his handsome head; though I haven't +completed the count yet!" The father smiled amiably as he made the final +qualification. + +The girl caught the mother's look of approval shimmering across the +table and laughed her gay, bell-like chime. "O, you've made a bad guess, +mother." + +Again she laughed gayly: "It's not for me to open a school for the +Direction of Miscalculated Purposes. Still," this she said seriously, "a +strong woman is what he needs." + +"Not omitting the latch-key," gibed her father, and the talk drifted +into another current. + +The next Sunday afternoon young Tom Van Dorn appeared with Rossetti +added to his Swinburne, and crowded Morty Sands clear out of the hammock +so that Morty had to sleep in a porch chair, and woke up frequently and +was unhappy. While the gilded youth slept the Woman woke and listened, +and Morty was left disconsolate. + +The shadows were long and deep when Tom Van Dorn rose from the hammock, +closed his book, and stood beside the girl, looking with a gentle +tenderness from the burning depths of his black eyes into her eyes. He +paused before starting away, and held up a hand so that she could see, +wound about it, a flaxen hair, probably drawn from the hammock pillow. +He smiled rather sadly, dropped his eyes to the book closed in his +hands, and quoted softly: + + "'And around his heart, one strangling golden hair!'" + +He did not speak again, but walked off at a great stride down the stone +path to the street. The next day Rossetti's sonnets came to Laura Nesbit +in a box of roses. + +The Sunday following Laura Nesbit made it a point to go with her parents +to spend the day with the Adamses down by the river on their farm. But +not until the Nesbits piled into their phaeton to leave did Grant +appear. He met the visitors at the gate with a great bouquet of woods +flowers, saying, "Here, Mrs. Nesbit--I thought you might like them." But +they found Laura's hands, and he smiled gratefully at her for taking +them. As they drove off, leaving him looking eagerly after them, Dr. +Nesbit said when they were out of hearing, "I tell you, girls--there's +the makings of a man--a real man!" + +That night Laura Nesbit in her room looking at the stars, rose and +smelled the woods flowers on her table beside some fading roses. + +As her day dreams merged into vague pictures flitting through her drowsy +brain, she heard the plaintive, trembling voice of Morty Sands's +mandolin, coming nearer and nearer, and his lower whistle taking the +tune while the E string crooned an obligato; he passed the house, went +down the street to the Mortons' and came back and went home again, still +trilling his heart out like a bird. As the chirping faded into the night +sounds, the girl smiled compassionately and slept. + +As she slept young Thomas Van Dorn walked alone under the elm trees that +plumed over the sidewalks in those environs with hands clasped behind +him, occasionally gazing into the twinkling stars of the summer night, +considering rather seriously many things. He had come out to think over +his speech to the jury the next day in a murder case pending in the +court. But the murderer kept sinking from his consciousness; the speech +would not shape itself to please him, and the young lawyer was forever +meeting rather squarely and abruptly the vision of Laura Nesbit, who +seemed to be asking him disagreeable and conclusive questions, which he +did not like to answer. Was she worth it--the sacrifice that marriage +would require of him? Was he in love with her? What is love anyway? +Wherein did it differ from certain other pleasurable emotions, to which +he was not a stranger? And why was the consciousness of her growing +larger and larger in his life? He tried to whistle reflectively, but he +had no music in his soul and whistling gave him no solace. + +It was midnight when he found himself walking past the Nesbit home, +looking toward it and wondering which of the open windows was nearest to +her. He flinched with shame when he recollected himself before other +houses gazing at other windows, and he unpursed his lips that were wont +to whistle a signal, and went down the street shuddering. Then after an +impulse in which some good angel of remorse shook his teeth to rouse his +soul, he lifted his face to the sky and would have cried in his heart +for help, but instead he smiled and went on, trying to think of his +speech and resolving mightily to put Laura Nesbit out of his heart +finally for the night. He held himself to his high resolve for four or +five minutes. It is only fair to say that the white clad figure of the +Doctor coming clicking up the street with his cane keeping time to a +merry air that he hummed as he walked distracted the young man. His +first thought was to turn off and avoid the Doctor who came along +swinging his medicine case gayly. But there rushed over Van Dorn a +feeling that he would like to meet the Doctor. He recognized that he +would like to see any one who was near to Her. It was a pleasing +sensation. He coddled it. He was proud of it; he knew what it meant. So +he stopped the preoccupied figure in white, and cried, "Doctor--we're +late to-night!" + +"Well, Tom, I've got a right to be! Two more people in Harvey to-night +than were here at five o'clock this afternoon because I am a trifle +behindhand. Girl at your partner's--Joe Calvin's, and a boy down at Dick +Bowman's!" He paused and smiled and added musingly, "And they're as +tickled down at Dick's as though he was heir to a kingdom!" + +"And Joe--I suppose--not quite--" + +"Oh, Joe, he's still in the barn, I dropped in to tell him it was a +girl. But he won't venture into the house to see the mother before noon +to-morrow! Then he'll go when she's asleep!" + +"Dick really isn't more than two jumps ahead of the wolf, is he, +Doctor?" + +"Well," grinned the elder man, "maybe a jump-and-a-half or two jumps." + +The young man exclaimed, "Say, Doctor! I think it would be a pious act +to make the fellows put up fifty dollars for Dick to-night. I'll just go +down and raid a few poker games and make them do it." + +The Doctor stopped him: "Better let me give it to Dick if you get it, +Tom!" Then he added, "Why don't you keep Christian hours, boy? You can't +try that Yengst case to-morrow and be up all night!" + +"That's just what I'm out here for, Doctor--to get my head in shape for +the closing speech." + +"Well," sniffed the Doctor, "I wish you no bad luck, but I hope you +lose. Yengst is guilty, and you've no business--" + +"Doctor," cut in Van Dorn, "there's not a penny in the Yengst case for +me! He was a poor devil in trouble and he came to my office for help! Do +you consider the morals of your sick folks--whether they have lived +virtuous and upright lives when they come to you stricken and in pain? +They're just sick folks to you in your office, and they're just poor +devils in trouble for me." + +The Doctor cocked his head on one side, sparrow-wise, looked for a +moment at the young man and piped, "You're a brassy pup, aren't you!" + +A second later the Doctor was trudging up the street, homeward, humming +his bee-like song. Van Dorn watched him until his white clothes faded +into the shades of the night, then he turned and walked slowly townward, +with his hands behind him and his eyes on the ground. He forgot the +Yengst case, and everything else in the universe except a girl's gray +eyes, her radiant face, and the glory of her aspiring soul. It was +calling with all its power to Tom Van Dorn to rise and shine and take up +the journey to the stars. And when one hears that call, whether it come +from man or maid, from friend or brother, or sweetheart or child, or +from the challenge within him of the holy spirit, when he heeds its +call, no matter where he is while he hears, he walks with God! + +So it came to pass the next day that Thomas Van Dorn went before the +jury and pleaded for the murderer in the Yengst case with the tongue of +men and of angels. For he knew that Dr. Nesbit was loitering in the +clerk's office, adjoining the courtroom to listen to the plea. Every +faculty of his mind and every capacity of his body was awake, and they +said around the court house that it was "the speech of Tom's life!" The +Doctor on the front steps of the courthouse met the young man in the +daze that follows an oratorical flight, munching a sandwich to relieve +his brain, while the multitude made way for him as he went to his +office. + +"Well, Tom--" piped the Doctor as he grasped the sweaty, cold hands of +the young orator, "if Yengst had been innocent do you suppose you could +have done as well?" + +Van Dora, gave his sandwich to a passing dog, and took the Doctor's arm +as they walked to their common stairway. Before they had walked a dozen +steps the Doctor had unfolded a situation in local politics that needed +attention, and Van Dorn could not lead the elder man back to further +praises of his speech. Yet the young lawyer knew that he had moved the +Doctor deeply. + +That night in his office Tom Van Dorn and Henry Fenn sat with their feet +in the window sill, looking through the open window into the moon. In +their discourse they used that elaborate, impersonal anonymity that +youth engages to carry the baggage of its intimate confidences. + +"I've got to have a pretty woman, Henry," quoth the lawyer to his +friend, while the moon blushed behind a cloud. "She must have beauty +above everything, and after that good manners, and after that good +blood." + +The moon came out and smiled at Henry. "Tom, let me tell you something, +I don't care! I used to think I'd be pickey and choosey. But I know my +own heart. I don't care! I'm the kind of fellow, I guess, who just gets +it bad and comes down all broken out with it." He turned his glowing +smile into Tom Van Dorn's face, and finding no quick response smiled +whimsically back at the moon. + +"Some fellows are that way, Henry," assented Van Dorn, "but not I! I +couldn't love a servant girl no matter how pretty she was--not for +keeps, and I couldn't love an ugly princess, and I'd leave a +bluestocking and elope with a chorus girl if I found the bluestocking +crocked or faded in the wash! Yet a beautiful woman, who remained a +woman and didn't become a moral guide--" he stared brazenly at the moon +and in the cloud that whisked by he saw a score of fancies of other +women whose faces had shone there, and had passed. He went on: "Oh, she +could hold me--she could hold me--I think!" + +The street noises below filled the pause. Henry rose, looked eagerly +into the sky and wistfully at the moon as he spoke, "Hold me? Hold me?" +he cried. "Why, Tom, though I'd fall into hell myself a thousand +times--she couldn't lose me! I'd still--still," he faltered, "I'd +still--" He did not finish, but sat down and putting his hand on the arm +of his friend's chair, he bent forward, smiled into the handsome young +face in the moonlight and said: "Well--you know the kind of a fool I am, +Tom--now!" + +"That's what you say, Henry--that's what you say now." Van Dorn turned +and looked at his friend. "You're sticking it out all right, +Henry--against the rum fiend--I presume? When does your sentence +expire?" + +"Next October," answered Fenn. + +"Going to make it then?" + +"That's the understanding," returned Fenn. + +"And you say you've got it bad," laughed Van Dorn. "And yet--say, +Henry--why didn't you do better with the jury this afternoon in the +Yengst case? Doesn't it--I mean that tremendous case you have on with +the Duchess of Mueller--doesn't it put an edge on you? What was the +matter with you to-day?" + +Fenn shook his head slowly and said: "It's different with me. I just +couldn't help feeling that if I was worth any woman's giving +herself--was worth anything as a man, I'd want to be dead square with +that Yengst creature--and I got to thinking, maybe in his place, drunk +and hungry--well, I just couldn't, Tom--because--because of--well, I +wanted her to marry a human being first--not a county attorney!" + +"You're a damn fool!" retorted Van Dorn. "Do you think you'll succeed in +this world on that basis! I tell you if I was in love with a woman I'd +want to take that Yengst case and lay it before her as a trophy I'd +won--lay it before her like a dog!" + +Fenn hesitated. He disliked to give pain. But finally he said, "I +suppose, Tom, I'd like to lay it before her--like a man!" + +"Hell's delight!" sneered Van Dorn, and they turned off the subject of +the tender passion, and went to considering certain stipulations that +Van Dorn was asking of the county attorney in another matter before the +court. + +The next day young Thomas Van Dorn began rather definitely to prepare +his pleading in still another suit in another court, and before the +summer's end, Morty Sands's mandolin was wrapped in its chamois skin bag +and locked in its mahogany case. Sometimes Morty, whistling softly and +dolefully, would pass the Nesbit home late at night, hoping that his +chirping might reach her heart; at times he made a rather formal call +upon the entire Nesbit family, which he was obviously encouraged to +repeat by the elders. But Morty was inclined to hide in the thicket of +his sorrow and twitter his heart out to the cold stars. Tom Van Dorn +pervaded the Nesbit home by day with his flowers and books and candy, +and by night--as many nights a week as he could buy, beg or steal--by +night he pervaded the Nesbit home like an obstinate haunt. + +He fell upon the whole family and made violent love to the Doctor and +Mrs. Nesbit. He read Browning to the Doctor and did his errands in +politics like a retrieving dog. Mrs. Nesbit learned through him to her +great joy that the Satterthwaite, who was the maternal grandfather of +the Tory governor of Maryland, was not descended from the same Satterlee +hanged by King John in his war with the barons, but from the Sussex +branch of the family that remained loyal to the Crown. But Tom Van Dorn +wasted no time or strength in foolishness with the daughter of the +house. His attack upon her heart was direct and unhalting. He fended off +other suitors with a kind of animal jealousy. He drove her even from so +unimportant a family friend as Grant Adams. + +Gradually, as the autumn deepened into winter and Tom Van Dorn found +himself spending more and more time in the girl's company he had +glimpses of his own low estate through the contrast forced upon him +daily by his knowledge of what a good woman's soul was. The +self-revelation frightened him; he was afraid of what he saw inside +himself in those days, and there can be no doubt that for a season his +soul was wrestling with its doom for release. No make-believe passion +was it that spurred him forward in his attack upon the heart of Laura +Nesbit. Within him, there raged the fierce battle between the spirit of +the times--crass, material and ruthless--and the spirit of things as +they should be. It was the old fight between compromise and the ideal. + +As for the girl, she was in that unsettled mind in which young women in +their first twenties often find themselves when sensing by an instinct +new to them the coming of a grown-up man with real matrimonial +intentions. Given a girl somewhat above the middle height, with a slim, +full-blown figure, with fair hair, curling and blowing about a pink and +white face, and with solemn eyes--prematurely gray eyes, her father +called them--with red lips, with white teeth that flashed when she +smiled, and with a laugh like the murmur of gay waters; given a more +than usual amount of inherited good sense, and combine that with a world +of sentiment that perfect health can bring to a girl of twenty-two; then +add one exceptionally fascinating man of thirty--more or less--a +handsome young man; a successful man as young men go, with the +oratorical temperament and enough of a head to be a good consulting +lawyer as well as a jury lawyer with more than local reputation; add to +the young man that vague social iridescence, or aura or halo that young +men wear in glamor, and that old men wear in shame--a past; and then let +public opinion agree that he is his own worst enemy and declare that if +he only had some strong woman to take hold of him--and behold there are +the ingredients of human gunpowder! + +Doctor Nesbit smelled the burning powder. Vainly he tried to stamp out +the fire before the explosion. + +"Bedelia," said the Doctor one day, as the parents heard the girl +talking eagerly with the young man, "what do you make out of this +everlasting 'Tom, Tom, Tom,' out there in the living room?" + +Mrs. Nesbit rocked in her chair and shook an ominous head. Finally she +said: "I wish he'd Tom himself home and stay there, Doctor." The wife +spoke as an oracle with emphasis and authority. "You must speak to the +child!" + +The little man puckered his loose-skinned face into a sad, absurdly +pitiful smile and shrilled back: + +"Yes--I did speak to her. And she--" he paused. + +"Well?" demanded the mother. + +"She just fed me back all the decent things I have said of Tom when he +has done my errands." He drummed his fingers helplessly on his chair and +sighed mournfully: "I wonder why I said those things! I really wonder!" + +But the voices of the young people rose gayly and disturbed his musings. + +It is easy now after a quarter of a century has unfolded its events for +us to lay blame and grow wise in retrospect. It is easy to say that what +happened was foredoomed to happen; and yet here was a man, walking up +and down the curved verandahs that Mrs. Nesbit had added to the house at +odd times, walking up and down, and speaking to a girl in the moonlight, +with much power and fire, of life and his dreams and his aspirations. + +Over and over he had sung his mating song. Formerly he had made love as +he tried lawsuits, exhibiting only such fervor as the case required. +There can be no doubt, however, that when he made love to Laura Nesbit, +it was with all the powers of his heart and mind. If he could plead with +a jury for hire, if he could argue with the court and wrangle with +council, how could he meet reason, combat objections, and present the +case of his soul and make up the brief for his own destiny? + +He did not try to shield himself when he wooed Laura Nesbit, but she saw +all that he could be. A woman has her vanity of sex, her elaborate, +prematernal pride in her powers, and when man appeals to a woman's +powers for saving him, when he submits the proofs that he is worth +saving, and when he is handsome, with an education in the lore of the +heart that gives him charm and breaks down reserves and barriers--but +these are bygones now--bygones these twenty-five years and more. What +was to be had to be, and what might have been never was, and what their +hopes and high aims were, whose hearts glowed in the fires of life in +Harvey so long ago--and what all our vain, unfruited hopes are worth, +only a just God who reads us truly may say. And a just God would give to +the time and the place, the spirit of the age, its share in all that +followed. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +CAPTAIN MORTON ACTS AS COURT HERALD AND MORTY SANDS AND GRANT ADAMS HEAR +SAD NEWS + + +Spring in Mrs. Nesbit's garden, even in those days when a garden in +Harvey meant chiefly lettuce and radishes and peas, was no casual event. +Spring opened formally for the Nesbits with crocuses and hyacinths; +smiled genially in golden forsythia, bridal wreath and tulips, preened +itself in flags and lilacs before glowing in roses and peonies. Now the +spring is always wise; for it knows what the winter only hopes or fears. +Events burst forth in spring that have been hidden since their seedtime. +And it was with the coming of the first crocuses that Dr. Nesbit found +in his daughter's eyes a joyous look, new and exultant--a look which +never had been inspired by the love he lavished upon her. It was not +meant for him. Yet it was as truly a spring blossom as any that blushed +in the garden. When it came and when the father realized that the mother +also saw it, they feared to speak of it--even to themselves and by +indirection. + +For they knew their winter conspiracies had failed. In vain was the trip +to Baltimore; in vain was the week with grand opera in New York, and +they both knew that the proposed trip to Europe never would occur. When +the parents saw that look of triumphant joy in their daughter's face, +when they saw how it lighted up her countenance like a flame when Tom +Van Dorn was near or was on his way to her, they knew that from the +secret recesses of her heart, from the depths of her being, love was +springing. They knew that they could not uproot it, and they had no +heart to try. For they accepted love as a fact of life, and felt that +when once it has seeded and grown upon a heart, it is a part of that +heart and only God's own wisdom and mercy may change the destiny that +love has written upon the life in which love rests. So in the wisdom of +the spring, the parents were mute and sad. + +There was no hint of anger in their sorrow. They realized that if she +was wrong, and they were right, she needed them vastly more than if they +were wrong and she was right, and so they tried to rejoice with her--not +of course expressly and baldly, but in a thousand ways that lay about +them, they made her as happy as they could. Their sweet acquiescence in +what she knew was cutting the elders to the quick, gave the girl many an +hour of poignant distress. Yet the purpose of her heart was not moved. +The Satterthwaite in her was dominant. + +"Doctor," spoke the wife one morning as they sat alone over their +breakfast, "I think--" She stopped, and he knew she was listening to the +daughter, who was singing in an undertone in the garden. + +"Yes," he answered, "so do I. I think they have settled it." + +The man dropped his glance to the table before him, where his hands +rested helplessly and cried, "Bedelia--I don't--I don't like it!" + +The color of her woe darkened Mrs. Nesbit's face as her features +trembled for a second, before she controlled herself. "No, Jim--no--no! +I don't--I'm afraid--afraid, of I don't know what!" + +"Of course, he's of excellent family--the very best!" the wife ventured. + +"And he's making money--and has lots of money from his people!" returned +the father. + +"And he's a man among men!" added the mother. + +"Oh, yes--very much that,--and he's trying to be decent! Honestly, +Bedelia, I believe the fellow's got a new grip on himself!" The Doctor's +voice had regained its timbre; it was just a little hard, and it broke +an instant later as he cried: "O Lord, Lord, mother--we can't fool +ourselves; let's not try!" They looked into the garden, where the girl +stood by the blooming lilacs with her arms filled with blossoms. + +At length the mother spoke, "What shall we do?" + +"What can we do?" the Doctor echoed. "What can any human creatures do in +these cases! To interfere does no good! The thing is here. Why has it +come? I don't know." He repeated the last sentence piteously, and went +on gently: + +"'They say it was a stolen tide--the Lord who sent it, He knows all!' +But why--why--why--did it wash in here? What does it mean? What have we +done--and what--what has she done?" + +The little Doctor looked up into the strong face of his wife rather +helplessly, then the time spirit that is after all our sanity--touched +them, and they smiled. "Perhaps, Jim," the smile broke into something +almost like a laugh, "father said something like that to mother the day +I stood among the magnolias trying to pluck courage with the flowers to +tell him that I was going with you!" + +They succeeded in raising a miserable little laugh, and he squeezed her +hand. + +The girl moved toward the house. The father turned and put on his hat as +he went to meet her. She was a hesitant, self-conscious girl in pink, +who stopped her father as he toddled down the front steps with his +medicine case, and she put her hand upon him, saying: + +"Father," she paused, looking eagerly at him, then continued, "there's +the loveliest yellow flag over here." The father smiled, put his arm +about the girl and piped: "So the pink rosebud will take us to the +yellow flag!" They walked across the garden to the flower and she +exclaimed: "Oh, father--isn't it lovely!" + +The father looked tenderly into her gray eyes, patted her on the +shoulder and with his arm still about her, he led her to a seat under +the lilacs before the yellow flower. He looked from the flower to her +face and then kissed her as he whispered: "Oh my dear, my dear." She +threw her arms about him and buried her face, all flushed, upon his +shoulder. He felt her quiver under the pressure of his arm and before +she could look at him, she spoke: + +"Oh, father! Father! You--you won't--you won't blame--" Then she lifted +up her face to his and cried passionately: "But all the world could not +stop it now--not now! But, oh, father, I want you with me," and she +shook his arm. "You must understand. You must see Tom as I see him, +father." She looked the question of her soul in an anxious, searching +glance. Her father reached for one of her hands and patted it. He gazed +downward at the yellow iris, but did not see it. + +"Yes, dear, I know--I understand." + +"I was sure that you would know without my spelling it all out to you. +But, oh, father," she cried, "I don't want you and mother to feel as you +do about Tom, for you are wrong. You are all--all wrong!" + +The Doctor's fat hand pressed the strong hand of the girl. "Well," he +began slowly, his high-keyed voice was pitched to a soft tone and he +spoke with a woman's gentleness, "Tom's quite a man, but--" he could +only repeat, "quite a man." Then he added gently: "And I feel that he +thinks it's genuine now--his--love for you, daughter." The Doctor's face +twitched, and he swallowed a convulsive little sob as he said, +"Laura--child--can't you see, it really makes no difference about +Tom--not finally!" He blinked and gulped and went on with renewed +courage. "Can't you see, child--you're all we've got--mother and I--and +if you want Tom--why--" his face began to crumple, but he controlled it, +and blurted out, "Why by johnnie you can have him. And what's more," his +voice creaked with emotion as he brought his hand down on his knee, "I'm +going to make Tom the best father-in-law in the whole United States." +His body rocked for a moment as he spurred himself to a last effort. +Then he said: "And mother--mother'll be--mother will--she'll make him--" +he could get no further, but he felt the pressure of her hand, and knew +that she understood. "Mother and I just want you to be happy and if it +takes Tom for that--why Tom's what it takes, I guess--and that's all we +want to know!" + +The girl felt the tears on his face as she laid her cheek against his. + +Then she spoke: "But you don't know him, father! You don't understand +him! It's beautiful to be able to do what I can do--but," she shuddered, +"it's so awful--I mean all that devil that used to be in him. He is so +ashamed, so sorry--and it's gone--all gone--all, every bit of it gone, +father!" She put her father's hand to her flaming cheek and whispered, +"You think so, don't you, father?" + +The father's eyes filled again and his throat choked. "Laura," he said +very gently, "my professional opinion is this: You've a fighting chance +with Tom Van Dorn--about one in ten. He's young. You're a strong, +forceful woman--lots of good Satterthwaite in you, and precious little +of the obliging Nesbits. Now I'll tell you the truth, Laura; Tom's got a +typical cancer on his soul. But he's young; and you're young, and just +now he's undergoing a moral regeneration. You are new blood. You may +purify him. If the moral tissue isn't all rotten, you may cure him." + +The girl gripped her father's hand and cried: "But you think I +can--father, you think I can?" + +"No," piped the little man sadly, "no, daughter, I don't think you can. +But I hope you can; and if you'd like to know, I'm going to pray the God +that sent me to your mother to give you the sense and power He gave +her." The Doctor smiled, withdrew his arm, and started for the street. +He turned, "And if you do save him, Laura, I'll be mighty proud of you. +For," he squeaked good naturedly, "it's a big job--but when you've done +it you'll have something to show for it--I'll say that for him--you'll +certainly have something to show for it," he repeated. He did not +whistle as he walked down the street and the daughter thought that he +kept his eyes upon the ground. As he was about to pass from her view, he +turned, waved his hand and threw her a kiss, and with it she felt a +blessing. + +But curiously enough she saw only one of the goodly company of Doctor +Nesbits that trudged down the hill in his white linen suit, under his +broad-brimmed panama hat. Naturally she hardly might be expected to see +the conscienceless boss of Hancock and Greely counties, who handled the +money of privilege seekers and bought and sold men gayly as a part of +the day's work. Nor could she be expected to see the helpless little man +whose face crumpled, whose heart sank and whose courage melted as he +stood beside her in the garden, the sad, hopeless little man who, as he +went down the hill was captain of the groups that walked under his hat +that hour. The amiable Doctor, who was everybody's friend and was loyal +to those who served him, the daughter neglected that day; and the State +Senator did not attract her. She saw only a gentle, tender, +understanding father, whose love shone out of his face like a beacon and +who threw merry kisses as he disappeared down the hill--a ruddy-faced, +white phantom in a golden spring day! + +Some place between his home and Market Street the father retired and the +politician took command of Dr. Nesbit's soul. And he gave thought to the +Nesbit machine. The job of the moment before the machine was to make +George Brotherton, who had the strength of a man who belonged to all the +lodges in town, mayor of Harvey. "Help Harvey Hump" was George's +alliterative slogan, and the translation of the slogan into terms of +Nesbitese was found in a rather elaborate plan to legalize the issuance +of bonds by the coal and oil towns adjacent to Harvey, so that Daniel +Sands could spin out his web of iron and copper and steel,--rails and +wires and pipes into these huddles of shanties that he might sell them +light and heat and power and communication and transportation. + +Even the boss--even Old Linen Pants--was not without his sense of humor, +nor without his joyous moments when he relished human nature in large, +raw portions. As he walked down the hill there flashed across his mind a +consciousness of the pride of George Brotherton in his candidacy. That +pride expressed itself in a feud George had with Violet Mauling who, +having achieved stenography, was installed in the offices of Calvin & +Van Dorn as a stenographer--the stenographer in fact. She on her part +was profoundly proud of her job and expressed her pride in overhanging +and exceeding mischievous looking bangs upon her low and rather narrow +brow. In the feud between George and Violet, it was her consecrated task +to keep him waiting as long as possible before admitting him to Van +Dorn's inner room, and it was Mr. Brotherton's idea never to call her by +her right name, nor by any name twice in succession. She was Inez or +Maude or Mabel or Gwendolyn or Pet or Sweetheart or Dearest, in rapid +succession, and in return for his pseudonymnal attentions, Mr. +Brotherton always was sure of receiving from Miss Mauling upon leaving +the office, an elaborately turned-up nose. For Miss Mauling was peevish +and far from happy. She had been conscious for nearly a year that her +power over young Mr. Van Dorn was failing, or that her charms were +waning, or that something was happening to clog or cloy her romance. On +a certain May morning she had sat industriously writing, "When in the +course of human events," "When in the course of human events it becomes +necessary," "When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for +a people to separate--" upon her typewriter, over and over and over +again, while she listened to Captain Morton selling young Mr. Van Dorn a +patent churn, and from the winks and nods and sly digs and nudges the +Captain distributed through his canvass, it was obvious to Miss Mauling +that affairs in certain quarters had reached a point. + +That evening at Brotherton's Amen corner, where the gay young blades of +the village were gathered--Captain Morton decided that as court herald +of the community he should proclaim the banns between Thomas Van Dorn +and Laura Nesbit. Naturally he desired a proper entrance into the +conversation for his proclamation, but with the everlasting ting-aling +and tym-ty-tum of Nathan Perry's mandolin and the jangling accompaniment +of Morty's mandolin, opening for the court herald was not easy. Grant +Adams was sitting at the opposite end of the bench from the Captain, +deep in one of Mr. Brotherton's paper bound books--to-wit, "The Stones +of Venice," and young Joe Calvin sadly smoking his first stogy, though +still in his knickerbockers, was greedily feasting his eyes upon a copy +of the pink Police _Gazette_ hanging upon a rack above the counter. +Henry Fenn and Mr. Brotherton were lounging over the cigar case, +discussing matters of state as they affected a county attorney and a +mayor, when the Captain, clearing his throat, addressed Mr. Brotherton +thus: + +"George--I sold two patent churns to two bridegrooms to-day--eh?" As the +music stopped the Captain, looking at Henry Fenn, added reflectively: +"Bet you four bits, George, you can't name the other one--what say?" No +one said and the Captain took up his solo. "Well--it's this-away: I see +what I see next door. And I hear what my girls say. So this morning I +sashays around the yard till I meets a certain young lady a standing by +the yaller rose bush next to our line fence and I says: 'Good morning +madam,' I says, 'from what I see and hear and cogitate,' I says, 'it's +getting about time for you to join my list of regular customers.' And +she kind of laughs like a Swiss bellringer's chime--the way she laughs; +and she pretended she didn't understand. So I broadens out and says, 'I +sold Rhody Kollander her first patent rocker the day she came to town to +begin housekeeping with. I sold your pa and ma a patent gate before they +had a fence. I sold Joe Calvin's woman her first apple corer, and I +started Ahab Wright up in housekeeping by selling him a Peerless cooker. +I've sold household necessities to every one of the Mrs. Sandses' and 'y +gory, madam,' I says, 'next to the probate court and the preacher, I'm +about the first necessity of a happy marriage in this man's town,' I +says, 'and it looks to me,' I says, 'it certainly looks to me--' And I +laughs and she laughs, all redded up and asts: 'Well, what are you +selling this spring, Captain?' And I says, 'The Appomattox churn,' and +then one word brought on another and she says finally, 'You just tell +Tom to buy one for the first of our Lares and Penates,' though I got the +last word wrong and tried to sell him Lares and spuds and then Lares and +Murphies before he got what I was drivin' at. But I certainly sold the +other bridegroom, Henry--eh?" + +A silence greeted the Captain's remarks. In it the "Stones of Venice" +grew bleak and cold for Grant Adams. He rose and walked rather aimlessly +toward the water cooler in the rear of the store and gulped down two +cups of water. When he came back to the bench the group there was busy +with the Captain's news. But the music did not start again. Morty Sands +sat staring into the pearl inlaid ring around the hole in his mandolin, +and his chin trembled. The talk drifted away from the Captain's +announcement in a moment, and Morty saw Grant Adams standing by the +door, looking through a window into the street. Grant seemed a tower of +strength. For a few minutes Morty tried to restore his soul by thrumming +a tune--a sweet, tinkly little tune, whose words kept dinging in his +head: + + "Love comes like a summer sigh, softly o'er us stealing; + Love comes and we wonder why, at love's shrine we're kneeling!" + +But that only unsteadied his chin further. So he tucked his mandolin +under his arm, and moved rather stupidly over to Grant Adams. To Morty, +Grant Adams, even though half a dozen years his junior, represented +cousinship and fellowship. As Morty rose Grant stepped through the open +door into the street and stood on the curb. Morty came tiptoeing up to +the great rawboned youth and whispered: + +"Grant--Grant--I'm so--so damned unhappy! You don't mind my telling +you--do you?" Grant felt the arm of his cousin tighten around his own +arm. Grant stared at the stars, and Morty gazed at the curb; presently +he drew a deep sigh and said: "Thank you, Grant." He relaxed his hold of +the boy's arm and walked away with his head down, and disappeared around +the corner into the night. Slowly Grant followed him. Once or twice or +perhaps three times he heard Morty trying vainly to thrum the sad little +tune about the waywardness of love. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +WHEREIN HENRY FENN MAKES AN INTERESTING EXPERIMENT + + +The formal announcement of the engagement of Laura Nesbit and Thomas Van +Dorn came when Mrs. Nesbit began tearing out the old floors on the +second story of the Nesbit home and replacing them with hardwood floors. +Having the carpenters handy she added a round tower with which to +impress the Schenectady Van Dorns with the importance of the Maryland +Satterthwaites. In this architectural outburst the town read the news of +the engagement. The town was so moved by the news that Mrs. Hilda +Herdicker was able to sell to the young women of her millinery +suzerainty sixty-three hats, which had been ordered "especially for +Laura Nesbit," at prices ranging from $2.00 to $57. Each hat was +carefully, indeed furtively, brought from under the counter, or from the +back room of the shop or from a box on a high shelf and secretly +exhibited and sold with injunctions that the Nesbits must not be told +what Mrs. Herdicker had done. One of these hats was in reach of Violet +Mauling's humble twenty dollars! Poor Violet was having a sad time in +those days. No candy, no soda water, no ice cream, no flowers; no buggy +rides, however clandestine, nor fervid glances--nothing but hard work +was her unhappy lot and an occasional clash with Mr. Brotherton. Thus +the morning after the newly elected Mayor had heard the formal +announcement of the engagement, he hurried to the offices of Calvin & +Van Dorn to congratulate his friend: + +"Hello, Maudie," said Mr. Brotherton. "Oh, it isn't Maudie--well then, +Trilby, tell Mr. Van Dorn the handsome gentleman has came." + +Hearing Brotherton's noise Van Dorn appeared, to summon his guest to the +private office. + +"Well, you lucky old dog!" was Mr. Brotherton's greeting. "Well, +say--this is his honor, the Mayor, come up to collect your dog tax! +Well, say!" As he walked into the office all the secret society pins and +charms and signets--the Shriners' charm, the Odd Fellows' links, the +Woodmen's ax, the Elks' tooth, the Masons' square and compass, the +Knights Templars' arms, were glistening upon his wrinkled front like a +mosaic of jewels! + +Mr. Brotherton shook his friend's hand, repeating over and over, "Well, +say--" After the congratulatory ceremony was finished Mr. Brotherton +cried, "You old scoundrel--I'd rather have your luck than a license to +steal in a mint!" Then with an eye to business, he suggested: "I'll just +about open a box of ten centers down at my home of the letters and arts +for you when the boys drop around!" He backed out of the room still +shaking Mr. Van Dorn's hand, and still roaring, "Well, say!" In the +outer office he waved a gracious hand at Miss Mauling and cried, "Three +sugars, please, Sadie--that will do for cream!" and went laughing his +seismic laugh down the stairs. + +That evening the cigar box stood on the counter in Brotherton's store. +It was wreathed in smilax like a votive offering and on a card back of +the box Mr. Brotherton had written these pious words: + + "In loving memory of the late Tom Van Dorn, + Recently engaged. + For here, kind friends, we all must lie; + Turn, Sinner, turn before ye die! + _Take_ one." + +Seeing the box in the cloister and the brotherhood assembled upon the +walnut bench Dr. Nesbit, who came in on a political errand, sniffed, and +turned to Amos Adams. "Well, Amos," piped the Doctor, "how's Lincoln +this evening?" + +The editor looked up amiably at the pudgy, white-clad figure of the +Doctor, and replied casually though earnestly, "Well, Doc Jim, I +couldn't seem to get Lincoln to-day. But I did have a nice chat with +Beecher last night and he said: 'Your friend, Dr. Nesbit, I observe, is +a low church Congregationalist.' And when I asked what he meant Beecher +replied, 'High church Congregationalists believe in New England; low +church Congregationalists believe in God!' Sounds like him--I could just +see him twitching his lips and twinkling his eyes when it came!" Captain +Morton looked suspiciously over his steel-bowed glasses to say testily: + +"'Y gory, Amos--that thing will get you yet--what say?" he asked, +turning for confirmation to the Doctor. + +Amos Adams smiled gently at the Captain, but addressed the Doctor +eagerly, as one more capable of understanding matters occult: "And I'll +tell you another thing--Mr. Left is coming regularly now." + +"Mr. Left?" sniffed the Captain. + +"Yes," explained the editor carefully, "I was telling the Doctor last +week that if I go into a dark room and blindfold myself and put a pencil +in my left hand, a control who calls himself Mr. Left comes and writes +messages from the Other Side." + +"Any more sense to 'em than your crazy planchette?" scoffed Captain +Morton. + +The editor closed his eyes in triumph. "Read our editorial this week on +President Cleveland and the Money Power?" he asked. The Captain nodded. +"Mr. Left got it without the scratch of a 't' or the dot of an 'i' from +Samuel J. Tilden." He opened his eyes to catch the astonishment of the +listeners. + +"Humph!" snorted the Doctor in his high, thin voice, "Old Tilden seems +to have got terribly chummy with Karl Marx in the last two years." + +"Well, I didn't write it, and Mary says it's not even like my handwrite. +And that reminds me, Doctor, I got to get her prescription filled again. +That tonic you give her seems to be kind of wearing off. The baby you +know--" he stopped a moment vaguely. "Someway she doesn't seem strong." + +Only the Doctor caught Grant's troubled look. + +The Doctor snapped his watch, and looked at Brotherton. The Doctor was +not the man to loaf long of an autumn evening before any election, and +he turned to Amos and said: "All right, Amos--we'll fix up something for +Mary a little later. Now, George--get out that Fourth Ward voters' list +and let's get to work!" + +The group turned to the opening door and saw Henry Fenn, resplendent in +a high silk hat and a conspicuously Sunday best suit, which advertised +his condition, standing in the open door. "Good evening, gentlemen," he +said slowly. + +A look of common recognition of Fenn's case passed around the group in +the corner. Fenn saw the look as he came in. He was walking painfully +straight. "I may," he said, lapsing into the poetry that came welling +from his memory and marked him for a drunken fool, "I may," opening his +ardent eyes and glancing affectionately about, "have been toying with +'lucent syrups tinct with cinnamon' and my feet may be 'uncertain, coy +and hard to please,'" he grinned with wide amiability, "but my head is +clear as a bell." His eyes flashed nervously about the shop, resting +upon nothing, seeing everything. He spied Grant, "Hello, Red," exclaimed +Mr. Fenn, "glad to see you back again. 'M back again myself. Ye crags +'n' peaks 'm with you once again." As he nourished his silk hat he saw +the consternation on Brotherton's big, moon face. Walking behind the +counter he clapped both hands down on Brotherton's big shoulders. +"Georgy, Georgy," he repeated mournfully: + +"Old story, Georgy. Fight--fight, fight, then just a little, just a very +little surrender; not going to give in, but just a nip for old sake's +sake. Whoo-oo-oo-oo-p the skyrocket blazes and is gone, and then just +another nip to cool the first and then a God damn big drink and--and--" + +He laughed foolishly and leaned forward on the counter. As his arm +touched the counter it brushed the smilax covered cigar box and sent the +box and the cigars to the floor. + +"Henry, you fool--you poor fool," cried Brotherton; but his voice was +not angry as he said: "If you must mess up your own affairs for Heaven's +sake have some respect for Tom's!" + +"Tom's love affairs and mine," sneered the maudlin man. "'They grew in +beauty side by side.' But don't you fool yourself," and Fenn wagged a +drunken head, "Tom's devil isn't, dead, she sleepeth, that's what she +does. The maiden is not dead she sleepeth, and some day she'll wake up +and then Tom's love affair will be where my love affair is." His eyes +met the doctor's. Fenn sighed and laughed fatuously and then he +straightened up and said: "Mr. George Brotherton, most worshipful +master, Senior Warden, Grand High Potentate, Keeper of the Records and +Seals--hear me. I'm going out to No. 826 Congress Street to see the +fairest of her sex--the fairest of her sex." Then he smiled like the +flash of a burning soul and continued: + + "'The cold, the changed, perchance the dead anew, + The mourned, the loved, the lost.'" + +And sighing a deep sigh, and again waving his silk hat in a profound +bow, he was gone. The group in the store saw him step lightly into a +waiting hack, and drive away out of their reach. Brotherton stood at the +door and watched the carriage turn off Market Street, then came back, +shaking a sorrowful head. He looked up at the Doctor and said: "She's +bluffing--say, Doctor, you know her, what do you think?" + +"Bluffing," returned the Doctor absently, then added quickly: "Come now, +George, get your voters' list! It's getting late!" + +George Brotherton looked blankly at the group. In every face but the +Doctor's a genuine sorrow for their friend was marked. "Doc," Brotherton +began apologetically, "I guess I'll just have to get you to let me off +to-night!" He hesitated; then as he saw the company around him backing +him up, "Why, Doc, the way I feel right now I don't care if the whole +county ticket is licked! I can't work to-night, Doc--I just can't!" + +The Doctor's face as he listened, changed. It was as though another soul +had come upon the deck of his countenance. He answered softly in his +piping voice, "No man could, George--after that!" Then turning to Grant +the Doctor said gently, as one reminded of a forgotten purpose: + +"Come along with me, Grant." They mounted the stairs to the Doctor's +office and when the door was closed the Doctor motioned Grant to a chair +and piped sharply: "Grant, Kenyon is wearing your mother's life out. +I've just been down to see her. Look here, Grant, I want to know about +Margaret? Does she ever come to see you folks--how does she treat +Kenyon?" + +Looking at the floor, Grant answered slowly, "Well she rode down on her +wheel on his first birthday--slipped in when we were all out but mother, +and cried and went on about her poor child, mother said, and left him a +pair of little knit slippers. And she wrote him a birthday card the +second time, but we didn't hear from her this time." He paused. "She +never looks at him on the street, and she's just about quit speaking to +me. But last winter, she came down and cried around one afternoon. +Mother sent for her, I think." + +"Why!" asked the Doctor quickly. + +"Well," hesitated Grant, "it was when mother was first taken sick. I +think father and mother thought maybe Maggie might see things +different--well, about Kenyon." He stopped. + +"Maggie and you?" prompted the Doctor. + +"Well, something like that, perhaps," replied the boy. + +The Doctor pushed back in his chair abruptly and cut in shrilly, "They +still think you and Margaret should marry on account of Kenyon?" Grant +nodded. "Do you want to marry her?" The Doctor leaned forward in his +chair, watching the boy. The Doctor saw the flash of revulsion that +spread over the youth's face before Grant raised his head, and met the +Doctor's keen gaze and answered soberly, "I would if it was best." + +"Well," the Doctor returned as if to himself. "I suppose so." To the +younger man, he said: "Grant, she wouldn't marry you. She is after +bigger game. As far as reforming Henry Fenn's concerned, she's bluffing. +It doesn't interest her any more than Kenyon's lack of a mother." + +The Doctor rose and Grant saw that the interview was over. The Doctor +left the youth at the foot of the stairway and went out into the autumn +night, where the stars could blink at all his wisdom. Though he, poor +man, did not know that they were winking. For often men who know good +women and love them well, are as unjust to weak women as men are who +know only those women who are frail. + +That night Margaret Mueller sat on the porch, where Henry Fenn left her, +considering her problem. Now this problem did not remotely concern the +Adamses--nor even Kenyon Adams. Margaret Mueller's problem was centered +in Henry Fenn, County Attorney of Greeley County; Henry Fenn, who had +visited her gorgeously drunk; Henry Fenn on whose handsome shoulder she +had enjoyed rather keenly shedding some virtuous tears in chiding him +for his broken promise. Yet she knew that she would take him back. And +she knew that he knew that he might come back. For she had moved far +forward in the siege of Harvey. She was well within the walls of the +beleaguered city, and was planning for the larger siege of life and +destiny. + +About all there is in life is one's fundamental choice between the +spiritual and the material. After that choice is made, the die of life +is cast. Events play upon that choice their curious pattern, bringing +such griefs and joys, such calamities and winnings as every life must +have. For that choice makes character, and character makes happiness. +Margaret Mueller sitting there in the night long after the last step of +Henry Fenn had died away, thought of her lover's arms, remembered her +lover's lips, but clearer and more moving than these vain things, her +mind showed her what his hands could bring her and if her soul waved a +duty signal, for the salvation of Henry Fenn, she shut her eyes to the +signal and hurried into the house. + +She was one of God's miracles of beauty the next day as she passed Grant +Adams on the street, with his carpenter's box on his arm, going from the +mine shaft to do some work in the office of the attorney for the mines. +She barely nodded to Grant, yet the radiance of her beauty made him turn +his head to gaze at her. Doctor Nesbit did that, and Captain Morton, and +Dick Bowman,--even John Kollander turned, putting up his ear trumpet as +if to hear the glory of her presence; the whole street turned after her +as though some high wind had blown human heads backward when she passed. +They saw a lithe, exquisite animal figure, poised strongly on her feet, +walking as in the very pride of sex, radiating charms consciously, but +with all the grace of a flower in the breeze. Her bright eyes, her +masses of dark hair, her dimpled face and neck, her lips that flamed +with the joy of life, the enchantment of her whole body, was so complete +a thing that morning, that she might well have told her story to the +world. The little Doctor knew what her answer to Henry Fenn had been and +always would be. He knew as well as though she had told him. In spite of +himself, his heart melted a little and he had consciously to stop +arguing with himself that she had done the wise thing; that to throw +Henry over would only hasten an end, which her powerful personality +might finally avert. But George Brotherton--when he saw the light in her +eyes, was sad. In the core of him, because he loved his friend, he knew +what had happened to that friend. He was sad--sad and resentful, vaguely +and without reason, at the mien and bearing of Margaret Mueller as she +went to her work that morning. + +Brotherton remembered her an hour later when, in the back part of the +bookstore Henry Fenn sat, jaded, haggard, and with his dull face drawn +with remorse,--a burned-out sky rocket. Brotherton was busy with his +customers, but in a lull, and between sales as the trade passed in and +out, they talked. Sometimes a customer coming in would interrupt them, +but the talk went on as trade flowed by. It ran thus: + +"Yes, George, but it's my salvation. She's the only anchor I have on +earth." + +"But she didn't hold you yesterday." + +"I know, but God, George, it was terrific, the way that thing grabbed me +yesterday. But it's all gone now." + +"I know, Henry, but it will come back--can't you see what you'll be +doing to her?" + +Fenn, gray of face, with his straight, colorless hair, with his staring +eyes, with his listless form, sat head in hands, gazing at the floor. He +did not look up as he replied: "George, I just can't give her up; I +won't give her up," he cried. "I believe, after the depths of love she +showed me in her soul last night, I'd take her, if I knew I was taking +us both to hell. Just let me have a home, George,--and her and +children--George, I know children would hold me--lots of children--I can +make money. I've got money--all I need to marry on, and we'll have a +home and children and they will hold me--keep me up." + +In Volume XXI of the "Psychological Society's Publications," page 374, +will be found a part of the observations of "Mr. Left," together with +copious notes upon the Adams case by an eminent authority. The excerpt +herewith printed is attributed by Mr. Left to Darwin or Huxley or +perhaps one of the Brownings--it is unimportant to note just which one, +for Mr. Left gleaned from a wide circle of intellects. The interesting +thing is that about the time these love affairs we are considering were +brewing, Mr. Left wrote: "If the natural selection of love is the +triumph of evolution on this planet, if the free choice of youth and +maiden, unhampered by class or nationality, or wealth, or age, or +parental interference, or thought of material advantage, is the greatest +step taken by life since it came mysteriously into this earth, how much +of the importance of the natural selection of youth in love hangs upon +full and free access to all the data necessary for choice." + +What irony was in the free choice of these lovers here in Harvey that +day when Mr. Left wrote this. What did Henry Fenn know of the heart or +the soul of the woman he adored? What did Laura Nesbit know of her lover +and what did he know of her? They all four walked blindfolded. Free +choice for them was as remote and impossible as it would have been if +they had been auctioned into bondage. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +IN WHICH MARY ADAMS TAKES A MUCH NEEDED REST + + +The changing seasons moved from autumn to winter, from winter to spring. +One gray, wet March day, Grant Adams stood by the counter asking Mr. +Brotherton to send to the city for roses. + +"White roses, a dozen white roses." Mr. Brotherton turned his broad back +as he wrote the order, and said gently: "They'll be down on No. 11 +to-night, Grant; I'll send 'em right out." + +As Grant stood hesitating, ready to go, but dreading the street, Dr. +Nesbit came in. He pressed the youth's hand and did not speak. He bought +his tobacco and stood cleaning his pipe. "Could your father sleep any +after--when I left, Grant?" asked the Doctor. + +The young man shook his head. "Mrs. Nesbit is out there, isn't she?" the +Doctor asked again. + +"Yes," replied the youth, "she and Laura came out before we had +breakfast. And Mrs. Dexter is there." + +"Has any one else come?" asked the Doctor, looking up sharply from his +pipe, and added, "I sent word to Margaret Mueller." + +Grant shook his head and the Doctor left the shop. At the doorway he met +Captain Morton, and seemed to be telling him the news, for the Captain's +face showed the sorrow and concern that he felt. He hurried in and took +Grant's hand and held it affectionately. + +"Grant, your mother was with my wife her last night on earth; I wish I +could help you, son. I'll run right down to your father." + +And the Captain left in the corner of the store the model of a patent +coffee pot he was handling at the time and went away without his morning +paper. Mr. Van Dorn came in, picked up his paper, snipped off the end of +his cigar at the machine, lighted the cigar, considered his fine raiment +a moment, adjusted his soft hat at a proper angle, pulled up his tie, +and seeing the youth, said: "By George, young man, this is sad news I +hear; give the good father my sympathy. Too bad." + +When Grant went home, the silence of death hung over the little house, +in spite of the bustling of Mrs. Nesbit. And Grant sat outside on a +stone by his father under the gray sky. + +In the house the prattle of the child with the women made the house seem +pitifully lonesome. Jasper was expressing his sorrow by chopping wood +down in the timber. Jasper was an odd sheep in the flock; he was a Sands +after Daniel's own heart. So Grant and his father sat together mourning +in silence. Finally the father drew in a deep broken breath, and spoke +with his eyes on the ground: + +"'These also died in the faith, without having received the promise!'" +Then he lifted up his face and mourned, "Mary--Mary--" and again, "Oh, +Mary, we need--" The child's voice inside the house calling fretfully, +"Mother! mother!" came to the two and brought a quick cramp to the older +man's throat and tears to his eyes. Finally, Amos found voice to say: + +"I was thinking how we--you and I and Jasper need mother! But our need +is as nothing compared with the baby's. Poor--lonely little thing! I +don't know what to do for him, Grant." He turned to his son helplessly. + +Again the little voice was lifted, and Laura Nesbit could be heard +hushing the child's complaint. Not looking at his father, Grant spoke: +"Dr. Nesbit said he had let Margaret know--" + +The father shook his head and returned, "I presumed he would!" He looked +into his son's face and said: "Maggie doesn't see things as we do, son. +But, oh--what can we do! And the little fellow needs her--needs some +one, who will love him and take care of him. Oh, Mary--Mary--" he cried +from his bewildered heart. "Be with us, Mary, and show us what to do!" + +Grant rose, went into the house, bundled up Kenyon and between showers +carried him and walked with him through the bleak woods of March, where +the red bird's joyous song only cut into his heart and made the young +man press closer to him the little form that snuggled in his arms. + +At night Jasper went to his room above the kitchen and the father turned +to his lonely bed. In the cold parlor Mary Adams lay. Grant sat in the +kitchen by the stove, pressing to his face his mother's apron, only +three days before left hanging by her own hands on the kitchen door. He +clung to this last touch of her fingers, through the long night, and as +he sat there his heart filled with a blind, vague, rather impotent +purpose to take his mother's place with Kenyon. From time to time he +rose to put wood in the stove, but always when he went back to his +chair, and stroked the apron with his face, the baby seemed to be +clinging to him. The thought of the little hands forever tugging at her +apron racked him with sobs long after his tears were gone. + +And so as responsibility rose in him he stepped across the border from +youth to manhood. + +They made him dress in his Sunday best the next morning and he was still +so close to that borderland of boyhood that he was standing about the +yard near the gate, looking rather lost and awkward when the Nesbits +drove up with Kenyon, whom they had taken for the night. When the others +had gone into the house the Doctor asked: + +"Did she come, Grant?" + +The youth lifted his face to the Doctor and looked him squarely in the +eye as man to man and answered sharply, "No." + +The Doctor cocked one eye reflectively and said slowly, "So--" and drove +away. + +It was nearly dusk when the Adamses came back from the cemetery to the +empty house. But a bright fire was burning in the kitchen stove and the +kettle was boiling and the odor of food cooking in the oven was in the +air. Kenyon was moving fitfully about the front room. Mrs. Dexter was +quietly setting the table. Amos Adams hung up his hat, took off his +coat, and went to his rocker by the kitchen door; Jasper sat stiffly in +the front room. Grant met Mrs. Dexter in the dining room, and she saw +that the child had hold of the young man's finger and she heard the baby +calling, "Mother--mother! Grant, I want mother!" with a plaintive little +cry, over and over again. Grant played with the child, showed the little +fellow his toys and tried to stop the incessant call of +"Mother--mother--where's mother!" At last the boy's eyes filled. He +picked up the child, knocking his own new hat roughly to the floor. He +drew up his chin, straightened his trembling jaw, batted his eyes so +that the moisture left them and said to his father in a hard, low +voice--a man's voice: + +"I am going to Margaret; she must help." + +It was dark when he came to town and walked up Congress Street with the +little one snuggled in his arms. Just before he arrived at the house, +the restless child had asked to walk, and they went hand in hand up the +steps of the house where Margaret Mueller lived. She was sitting alone on +the veranda--clearly waiting for some one, and when she saw who was +coming up the steps she rose and hurried to them, greeting them on the +very threshold of the veranda. She was white and her bosom was +fluttering as she asked in a tense whisper: + +"What do you want--quick, what do you want?" + +She stood before Grant, as if stopping his progress. The child's +plaintive cry, "Mother--Grant, I want mother!" not in grief, but in a +great question, was the answer. + +He looked into her staring, terror-stricken eyes until they drooped and +for a moment he dominated her. But she came back from some outpost of +her nature with reenforcements. + +"Get out of here--get out of here. Don't come here with your brat--get +out," she snarled in a whisper. The child went to her, plucked her +skirts and cried, "Mother, mother." Grant pointed to the baby and broke +out: "Oh, Maggie--what's to become of Kenyon?--what can I do! He's only +got you now. Oh, Maggie, won't you come?" He saw fear flit across her +face in a tense second before she answered. Then fear left and she +crouched at him trembling, red-eyed, gaping, mouthed, the embodiment of +determined hate; swiping the child's little hands away from her, she +snapped: + +"Get out of here!--leave! quick!" He stood stubbornly before her and +only the child's voice crying, "Grant, Grant, I want to go home to +mother," filled the silence. Finally she spoke again, cutting through +the baby's complaint. "I shall never, never, never take that child; I +loathe him, and I hate you and I want both of you always to keep away +from me." + +Without looking at her again, he caught up the toddling child, lifted it +to his shoulder and walked down the steps. As they turned into the +street they ran into Henry Fenn, who in his free choice of a mate was +hurrying to one who he thought would give him a home--a home and +children, many children to stand between him and his own insatiate +devil. Henry greeted Grant: + +"Why, boy--oh, yes, been to see Maggie? I wish she could help you, +Grant." + +And from the veranda came a sweet, rich voice, crying: + +"Yes, Henry--do you know where they can get a good nurse girl?" + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +HERE OUR FOOL GROPES FOR A SPIRIT AND CAN FIND ONLY DUST + + +Henry Fenn and Margaret Mueller sat naming their wedding day, while Grant +Adams walked home with his burden. Henry Fenn had been fighting through +a long winter, against the lust for liquor that was consuming his flesh. +At times it seemed to him that her presence as he fought his battle, +helped him; but there were phases of his fight, when she too fashioned +herself in his imagination as a temptress, and she seemed to blow upon +the coals that were searing his weak flesh. + +At such times he was taciturn, and went about his day's work as one who +is busy at a serious task. He smiled his amiable smile, he played his +man's part in the world without whimpering, and fought on like a +gentleman. The night he met Grant and the child at the steps of the +house where Margaret lived, he had called to set the day for their +marriage. And that night she glowed before him and in his arms like a +very brand of a woman blown upon by some wind from another world. When +he left her his throat grew parched and dry and his lips quivered with a +desire for liquor that seemed to simmer in his vitals. But he set his +teeth, and ran to his room, and locked himself in, throwing the key out +of the window into the yard. He sat shivering and whimpering and +fighting, by turns conquering his devil, and panting under its weight, +but always with the figure and face of his beloved in his eyes, +sometimes beckoning him to fight on, sometimes coaxing him to yield and +stop the struggle. But as the day came in he fell asleep with one more +battle to his credit. + +In Harvey for many years Henry Fenn's name was a byword; but the pitying +angels who have seen him fight in the days of his strength and +manhood--they looked at Henry Fenn, and touched reverent foreheads in +his high honor. Then why did they who know our hearts so well, let the +blow fall upon him, you ask. But there you trespass upon that old +question that the Doctor and Amos Adams have thrashed out so long. Has +man a free will, or has the illusion of time and space wound him up in +its predestined tangle, to act as he must and be what he is without +appeal or resistance, or even hope of a pardon? + +Doctor Nesbit and Amos Adams were trying to solve the mystery of human +destiny at the gate of the Adams' home the day after the funeral. Amos +had his foot on the hub of the Doctor's buggy and was saying: "But +Doctor, can't you see that it isn't all material? Suppose that every +atom of the universe does affect every other atom, and that the +accumulated effect of past action holds the stars in their courses, and +that if we knew what all the past was we should be able to foretell the +future, because it would be mathematically calculable--what of it? That +does not prove your case, man! Can't you see that in free will another +element enters--the spiritual, if you please, that is not amenable to +atomic action past or present?" Amos smiled deprecatingly and added +sadly: "Got that last night from Schopenhauer." The Doctor, clearly +unawed by Schopenhauer, broke out: "Aye, there I have you, Amos. Isn't +the brain matter, and doesn't the brain secrete consciousness?" + +"Does this buggy secrete distance, Jim? Go 'long with you, man." Before +the Doctor could reply, around the corner of the house, bringing little +Kenyon Adams in his best bib and tucker, came the lofty figure of Mrs. +Nesbit. With her came her daughter. Then up spoke Mrs. Bedelia +Satterthwaite Nesbit of the Maryland Satterthwaites, "Look here, Amos +Adams--I don't care what you say, I'm going to take this baby." There +was strong emphasis upon the "I'm," and she went on: "You can have him +every night, and Grant can take care of the child after supper when he +comes home from work. But every morning at eight I'm going to have this +baby." Further emphasis upon the first person. "I'm not going to see a +child turned over to a hired girl all day and me with a big house and no +baby and a daughter about to marry and leave me and a houseful of help, +if I needed it, which thank Heavens I don't." She put her lips together +sternly, and, "Not a word, Amos Adams," she said to Amos, who had not +opened his mouth. "Not another word. Kenyon will be home at six +o'clock." + +She put the child into the Doctor's submissive arms--helped her daughter +into the buggy, and when she had climbed in herself, she glared +triumphantly over her glasses and above her Roman nose, as she said: +"Now, Amos--have some sense. Doctor,--go on." And in a moment the buggy +was spinning up the hill toward the town. + +Thus it was that every day, rain or shine, until the day of her wedding, +Laura Nesbit drove her dog cart to the Adamses before the men went to +their work and took little Kenyon home with her and brought him back in +the evening. And always she took him from the arms of Grant--Grant, +red-headed, freckled, blue-eyed, who was hardening into manhood and +premature maturity so fast that he did not realize the change that it +made in his face. It grew set, but not hard, a woman's tenderness crept +into the features, and with that tenderness came at times a look of +petulant impatience. It was a sad face--a sadly fanatic face--yet one +that lighted with human feeling under a smile. + +Little by little, meeting daily--often meeting morning and evening, +Grant and Laura established a homely, wholesome, comfortable relation. + +One evening while Laura was waiting for Tom Van Dorn and Grant was +waiting for Kenyon she and Grant sitting upon the veranda steps of the +Nesbit home, looked into the serene, wide lawn that topped the hill +above the quiet town. They could look across the white and green of the +trees and houses, across the prosperous, solid, red roofs of the stone +and brick stores and offices on Market Street, into the black smudge of +smoke and the gray, unpainted, sprawling rows of ill-kept tenements +around the coal mines, that was South Harvey. They could see even then +the sky stains far down the Wahoo Valley, where the villages of Foley +and Magnus rose and duplicated the ugliness of South Harvey. + +The drift of the conversation was personal. The thoughts of youth are +largely personal. The universe is measured by one's own thumb in the +twenties. "Funny, isn't it," said Grant, playing with a honeysuckle vine +that climbed the post beside him, "I guess I'm the only one of the old +crowd who is outlawed in overalls. There's Freddie Kollander and Nate +Perry and cousin Morty and little Joe Calvin, all up town counterjumping +or working in offices. The girls all getting married." He paused. "But +as far as that goes I'm making more money than any of the fellows!" He +paused again a moment and added as he gazed moodily into the pillars of +smoke rising above South Harvey, "Gee, but I'll miss you when you're +gone--" + +The girl's silvery laugh greeted his words. "Now, Grant," she said, +"where do you think I'm going? Why, Tom and I will be only a block from +here--just over on Tenth Street in the Perry House." + +Grant grinned as he shook his head. "You're lost and gone forever, just +the same, Miss Clementine. In about three years I'll probably be that +'red-headed boss carpenter in the mine----let me see, what's his name?'" + +"Oh, Grant," scoffed the girl. She saw that his heart was sadder than +his face. + +She took courage and said: "Grant, you never can know how often I think +of you--how much I want you to win everything worth while in this world, +how much I want you to be happy--how I believe in you and--and--bet on +you, Grant--bet on you!" + +Grant did not answer her. Presently he looked up and over the broad +valley below them. The sun behind the house was touching the limestone +ledge far across the valley with golden rays. The smoke from South +Harvey on their right was lighted also. The youth looked into the smoke. +Then he turned his eyes back from the glowing smoke and spoke. + +"This is how I look at it. I don't mean you're any different from any +one else. What I was trying to say was that I'm the only one of our old +crowd in the High School you know that used to have parties and go +together in the old days--I'm the only one that's wearing overalls, and +my way is down there"; he nodded his head toward the mines and smelters +and factories in the valley. + +"Look at these hands," he said, solemnly spreading out his wide, +muscular hands on his knees; showing one bruised blue-black finger nail. +The hands were flinty and hairy and brown, but they looked effective +with an intelligence almost apart from the body which they served. + +"I'm cut out for work. It's all right. That's my job, and I'm proud of +it so far as that goes. I could get a place clerking if I wanted to, and +be in the dancing crowd in six months, and be out to the Van Dorns for +dinner in a year." He paused and looked into the distant valley and +cried. "But I tell you--my job is down there. And I'm not going to quit +them. God knows they're getting the rough end of it. If you knew," his +voice raised slightly and a petulant indignation tempered it. "If you +knew the gouging and pocket picking and meanness that is done by the +people up town to the people down there in the smoke, you'd be one of +those howling red-mouthed anarchists you read about." + +The girl looked at him silently and at length asked: "For +instance--what's just one thing?" + +"Well, for instance--in the mines where I work all the men come up grimy +and greasy and vile. They have to wash. In Europe we roughnecks know +that wash-houses are provided by the company, but here," he cried +excitedly, "the company doesn't provide even a faucet; instead the +men--father and son and maybe a boarder or two have to go home--into +those little one and two roomed houses the company has built, and strip +to the hide with the house full of children and wash. What if your +girlhood had been used to seeing things like that--could you laugh as +you laugh now?" He looked up at her savagely. "Oh, I know they're +ignorant foreigners and little better than animals and those things +don't hurt them--only if you had a little girl who had to be in and out +of the single room of your home when the men came home to wash up--" + +He broke off, and then began again, "Why, I was talking to a dago last +night at the shaft mouth going down to work on the graveyard shift and +he said that he came here believing he would find a free, beautiful +country in which his children could grow up self-respecting men and +women, and then he told me about his little girls living down there +where all the vice is scattered through the tenements, and--about this +washing up proposition, and now one of the girls is gone and they can't +find her." He threw out a despairing hand; "So I'm a roughneck, +Laura--I'm a jay, and I'm going to stay with them." + +"But your people," she urged. "What about them--your father and +brothers?" + +"Jap's climbing out. Father's too old to get in. And Kenyon--" he +flinched, "I hope to God I'll have the nerve to stay when the test on +him comes." He turned to the girl passionately: "But you--you--oh, +you--I want you to know--" He did not finish the sentence, but rose and +walked into the house and called: "Dad--Kenyon--come on, it's getting +late. Stars are coming out." + +Half an hour later Tom Van Dorn, in white flannels, with a red silk tie, +and with a white hat and shoes, came striding across the lawn. His black +silky mustache, his soft black hair, his olive skin, his shining black +eyes, his alert emotional face, dark and swarthy, was heightened even in +the twilight by the soft white clothes he wore. + +"Hello, popper-in-law," he cried. "Any room left on the veranda?" + +"Come in, Thomas," piped the older man. "The girls are doing the dishes, +Bedelia and Laura, and we'll just sit out two or three dances." + +The young man lolled in the hammock shaded by the vines. The elder +smoked and reflected. Then slowly and by degrees, as men who are feeling +their way to conversation, they began talking of local politics. They +were going at a high rate when the talk turned to Henry Fenn. "Doing +pretty well, Doctor," put in the younger man. "Only broke over once in +eighteen months--that's the record for Henry. Shows what a woman can do +for a man." He looked up sympathetically, and caught the Doctor's +curious eyes. + +The Doctor puffed, cleaned out his pipe, absently put it away, then rose +and deliberately pulled his chair over to the hammock: "Tom--I'm a +generation older than you--nearly. I want to tell you something--" He +smiled. "Boy--you've got the devil's own fight ahead of you--did you +know it--I mean," he paused, "the--well, the woman proposition." + +Van Dorn fingered his mustache, and looked serious. + +"Tom," the elder man chirped, "you're a handsome pup--a damn handsome, +lovable pup. Sometimes." He let his voice run whimsically into its +mocking falsetto, "I almost catch myself getting fooled too." + +They laughed. + +"Boy, the thing's in your blood. Did you realize that you've got just as +hard a fight as poor Henry Fenn? It's all right now--for a while; but +the time will come--we might just as well look this thing squarely in +the face now, Tom--the time will come in a few years when the devil will +build the same kind of a fire under you he is building under Henry +Fenn--only it won't be whisky; it will be the woman proposition. Damn +it, boy," cried the elder man squeakily, "it's in your blood; you've let +it grow in your very blood. I've known you ten years now, and I've seen +it grow. Tom--when the time comes, can you stand up and fight like Henry +Fenn--can you, Tom? And will you?" he cried with a piteous fierceness +that stirred all the sympathy in the young man's heart. + +He rose to the height of the Doctor's passion. Tears came into Van +Dorn's bright eyes. His breast expanded emotionally and he exclaimed: "I +know what I am, oh, I know it. But for her--you and I together--you'll +help and we'll stand together and fight it out for her." The father +looked at the mobile features of his companion, and sensed the thin +plating of emotion under the vain voice. Whereupon the Doctor heaved a +deep, troubled sigh. + +"Heigh-ho, heigh-ho." He put his arm upon the broad, handsome, young +shoulder. "But you'll try to be a good boy, won't you--" he repeated. +"Just try hard to be a good boy, Tom--that's all any of us can do," and +turning away he whistled into the house and a girlish trill answered +him. + +After the Doctor had jogged down the hill behind his old horse making +his evening professional visits, Mrs. Nesbit came out and made a show of +sitting with the young people for a time. And not until she left did +they go into those things that were near their hearts. + +When Mrs. Nesbit left the veranda the young man moved over to the girl +and she asked: "Tom, I wonder--oh, so much and so often--about the soul +of us and the body of us--about the justice of things." She was speaking +out of the heart that Grant had touched to the quick with his outburst +about the poor. But Tom Van Dorn could not know what was moving within +her and if he had known, perhaps he would have had small sympathy with +her feeling. Then she said: "Oh, Tom, Tom, tell me--don't you suppose +that our souls pay for the bodies that we crush--I mean all of us--all +of us--every one in the world?" + +The man looked at her blankly. Then he put his arm tenderly about her +and answered: "I don't know about our souls--much--" He kissed her. "But +I do know about you--your wonderful eyes--and your magic hair, and your +soft cheek!" He left her in no doubt as to her lover's mood. + +Vaguely the girl felt unsatisfied with his words. Not that she doubted +the truth of them; but as she drew back from him she said softly: "But +if I were not beautiful, what then?" + +"Ah, but you are--you are; in all the world there is not another like +you for me." In the rapture that followed, her soul grew in a wave of +joy, yet she spoke shyly. + +"Tom," she said wistfully, "how can you fail to see it--this great, +beautiful truth that makes me glad: That the miracle of our love proves +God." + +He caressed her hands and pressed closer to her. "Call it what you will, +little girl: God if it pleases you, I call it nature." + +"Oh, it's bigger than that, Tom," and she shook a stubborn Satterthwaite +head, "and it makes me so happy and makes me so humble that I want to +share it with all the world." She laid an abashed cheek on his hands +that were still fondling hers. + +But young Mr. Van Dorn spoke up manfully, "Well, don't you try sharing +it. I want all of it, every bit of it." He played with her hair, and +relaxed in a languor of complete possession of her. + +"Doesn't love," she questioned, "lift you? Doesn't it make you love +every living thing?" she urged. + +"I love only you--only you in all the world--your eyes thrill me; when +your body is near I am mad with delight; when I touch you I am in +heaven. When I close my eyes before the jury I see you and I put the +bliss of my vision into my voice, and," he clinched his hands, "all the +devils of hell couldn't win that jury away from me. You spur me to my +best, put springs in every muscle, put power in my blood." + +"But, Tom, tell me this?" Still wistfully, she came close to him, and +put her chin on her clasped hands that rested on his shoulder. "Love +makes me want to be so good, so loyal, so brave, so kind--isn't it that +way with you? Isn't love the miracle that brings the soul out into the +world through the senses." She did not wait for his answer. She clasped +her hands tighter on his shoulder. "I feel that I'm literally stealing +when I have a single thought that I do not bring to you. In every thrill +of my heart about the humblest thing, I find joy in knowing that we +shall enjoy it together. Let me tell you something. Grant Adams and his +father were here to-day for dinner. Well, you know Grant is in a kind of +obsession of love for that little motherless child Mrs. Adams left; +Grant mothers him and fathers him and literally loves him to +distraction. And Grant's growing so manly, and so loyal and so strong in +the love of that little boy--he doesn't realize it; but I can see it in +him. Oh, Tom, can you see it in me?" + +Before her mood had changed she told him all that Grant Adams had said; +and her voice broke when she retold the Italian's story. Tears were in +her eyes when she finished. And young Mr. Van Dorn was emotionally +touched also, but not in sympathy with the story the girl was telling. +She ended it: + +"And then I looked at Grant's big rough hands--bony and hairy, and Tom, +they told me the whole story of his destiny; just as your soft, +effective, gentle white hands prophesy our destiny. Oh, why--why--I am +beginning to wonder why, Tom, why things must be so. Why do some of us +have to do all the world's rough, hard, soul-killing work, and others of +us have lives that are beautiful, aspiring, glorious? How can we let +such injustices be, and not try to undo them!" + +In his face an indignation was rising which she could not comprehend. +Finally he found words to say: + +"So that's what that Adams boy is putting in your head! Why do you want +to bother with such nonsense?" + +But the girl stopped him: "Tom, it's not nonsense. They do work and dig +and grind down there in a way which we up here know nothing about. It's +real--this--this miserable unfair way things are done in the world. O my +dear, my dear, it's because I love you so, it's because I know now what +love really is that it hurts to see--" He took her face in his hands +caressingly, and tried to put an added tenderness into his voice that +his affection might blunt the sharpness of his words. + +"Well, it's nonsense I tell you! Look here, Laura, if there is a God, +he's put those dagos and ignorant foreigners down there to work; just as +he's put the fish in the sea to be caught, and the beasts of the field +to be eaten, and it's none of my business to ask why! My job is +myself--myself and you! I refuse to bear burdens for people. I love you +with all the intensity of my nature--but it's my nature--not human +nature--not any common, socialized, diluted love; it's individual and +it's forever between you and me! What do I care for the rest of the +world! And if you love me as you will some day, you'll love me so that +they can't set you off mooning about other people's troubles. I tell +you, Laura, I'm going to make you love me so you can't think of anything +day or night but me--and what I am to you! That's my idea of love! It's +individual, intimate, restricted, qualified and absolutely personal--and +some day you'll see that!" + +As he tripped down the hill from the Nesbit home that spring night, he +wondered what Laura Nesbit meant when she spoke of Grant Adams, and his +love for the motherless baby. The idea that this love bore any sort of +resemblance to the love of educated, cultivated people as found in the +love that Laura and her intended husband bore toward each other, puzzled +the young lawyer. Being restless, he turned off his homeward route, and +walked under the freshly leaved trees. Over and over again the foolish +phrases and sentences from Laura Nesbit's love making, many other nights +in which she seemed to assume the unquestioned truth of the hypothesis +of God, also puzzled him. Whatever his books had taught him, and +whatever life had taught him, convinced him that God was a polite word +for explaining one's failure. Yet, here was a woman whose mind he had to +respect, using the term as a proved theorem. He looked at the stars, +wheeling about with the monstrous pulleys of gravitation and attraction, +and the certain laws of motion. A moment later he looked southward in +the sky to that flaming, raging, splotched patch where the blue and +green and yellow flames from the smelters and the belching black smoke +from the factories hid the low-hanging stars and marked the seething +hell of injustice and vice and want and woe that he knew was in South +Harvey, and he held the glowing cigarette stub in his hand and laughed +when he thought of God. "Free will," says "Mr. Left" in one of his +rather hazy and unconvincing observations, "is of limited range. Man +faces two buttons. He must choose the material or the spiritual--and +when he has chosen fate plays upon his choice the grotesque variation of +human destiny. But when the cloth of life is finished, the pattern of +the passing events may be the same in either choice, riches or poverty, +misery or power, only the color of the cloth differs; in one piece, +however rich, the pattern is drab with despair, the other cloth sheens +in happiness." Which Mr. Van Dorn in later life, reading the +_Psychological Journal_, turned back to a second time, and threw +aside with a casual and unappreciative, "Oh hell," as his only comment. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +IN WHICH WE LEARN THAT LOVE IS THE LEVER THAT MOVES THE WORLD + + +Mrs. Nesbit tried to put the Doctor into his Sunday blacks the day of +her daughter's wedding, but he would have none of them. He appeared on +Market Street and went his rounds among the sick in his linen clothes +with his Panama hat and his pleated white shirt. He did not propose to +have the visiting princes, political and commercial, who had been +summoned to honor the occasion, find him in his suzerainty without the +insignia of his power. For it was "Old Linen Pants," not Dr. James +Nesbit, who was the boss of the northern district and a member of the +State's triumvirate. So the Doctor in the phaeton, drawn by his amiable, +motherly, sorrel mare, the Doctor, white and resplendent in a suit that +shimmered in the hot June sun, flaxed around town, from his office to +the hotel, from the hotel to the bank, from the bank to South Harvey. As +a part of the day's work he did the honors of the town, soothed the woes +of the weary, healed the sick, closed a dying man's eyes, held a +mother's hands away from death as she brought life into the world, made +a governor, paid his overdue note, got a laborer work, gave a lift to a +fallen woman, made two casual purchases: a councilman and a new silk +vest, with cash in hand; lent a drunkard's wife the money for a sack of +flour, showed three Maryland Satterthwaites where to fish for bass in +the Wahoo, took four Schenectady Van Dorns out to lunch, and was +everywhere at once doing everything, clicking his cane, whistling gently +or humming a low, crooning tune, smiling for the most part, keeping his +own counsel and exhibiting no more in his face of what was in his heart +than the pink and dimpled back of a six-months' baby. + +To say that the Doctor was everywhere in Harvey is inexact. He was +everywhere except on Quality Hill in Elm Street. There, from the big, +bulging house with its towers and minarets and bow windows and lean-tos, +ells and additions, the Doctor was barred. There was chaos, and the +spirit that breathed on the face of the waters was the Harvey +representative of the Maryland Satterthwaites, with her crimping pins +bristling like miniature gun barrels, and with the look of command upon +her face, giving orders in a firm, cool voice and then executing the +orders herself before any one else could turn around. She could call the +spirits from the vasty deep of the front hall or the back porch and they +came, or she knew the reason why. With an imperial wave of her hand she +sent her daughter off to some social wilderness of monkeys with all the +female Satterthwaites and Van Dorns and Mrs. Senators and Miss Governors +and Misses Congressmen, and with the offices of Mrs. John Dexter, Mrs. +Herdicker, the ladies' hatter, and two Senegambian slaveys, Mrs. Nesbit +brought order out of what at one o'clock seemed without form and void. + +It was late in the afternoon, almost evening, though the sun still was +high enough in the heavens to throw cloud shadows upon the hills across +the valley when the Doctor stabled his mare and came edging into the +house from the barn. He could hear the clamor of many voices; for the +Maryland Satterthwaites had come home from the afternoon's festivity. He +slipped into his office-study, and as it was stuffy there he opened the +side door that let out upon the veranda. He sat alone behind the vines, +not wishing to be a part of the milling in the rooms. His heart was +heavy. He blinked and sighed and looked across the valley, and crooned +his old-fashioned tune while he tried to remember all of the life of the +little girl who had come out of the mystery of birth into his life when +Elm Street was a pair of furrows on a barren, wind-swept prairie hill; +tried to remember how she had romped in girlhood under the wide sunshine +in the prairie grass, how her little playhouse had sat where the new +dining-room now stood, how her dolls used to litter the narrow porch +that grew into the winding, serpentine veranda that belted the house, +how she read his books, how she went about with him on his daily rounds, +and how she had suddenly bloomed into a womanhood that made him feel shy +and abashed in her presence. He wondered where it was upon the way that +he had lost clasp of her hand: where did it drop from him? How did the +little fingers that he used to hold so tightly, slip into another's +hand? Her life's great decision had been made without consulting him; +when did he lose her confidence? She had gone her way an independent +soul--flown like a bird from the cage, he thought, and was going a way +that he felt would be a way of pain, and probably sorrow, yet he could +not stop her. All the experience of his life was worthless to her. All +that he knew of men, all that he feared of her lover, were as chaff in +the scales for her. + +The Doctor, the boss, the friend, the man, withdrew from his +consciousness as he sat behind the vines and he became the impersonal, +universal father, wondering at the mystery of life. As he sat musing, he +heard a step behind him, and saw his daughter coming across the porch to +greet him. "Father," she said, "I have just this half hour that's to be +ours. I've planned for it all day. Mother has promised to keep every one +away." + +The father's jaw began to tremble and his cherubic face to wrinkle in an +emotional pucker. He put the girl's arm about his neck, and rubbed her +hand upon his cheek. Then the father said softly: + +"I never felt poor before until this minute." The girl looked +inquiringly at him and was about to protest. He stopped her: "Money +wouldn't do you much good--not all the money in the world." + +"Well, father, I don't want money: we don't need it," said the girl. +"Why, we have a beautiful home and Tom is making--" + +"It's not that, my dear--not that." He played with her hand a moment +longer. "I feel that I ought to give you something better than money; +my--my--well, my view of life--what they call philosophy of life. It's +the accumulation of fifty years of living." He fumbled in his pocket for +his pipe. "Let me smoke, and maybe I can talk." + +"Laura--girl--" He puffed bashfully in a pause, and began again: +"There's a lot of Indiana--real common Eendiany," he mocked, "about your +father, and I just some way can't talk under pressure." He caressed the +girl's hand and pulled at his pipe as one giving birth to a system of +philosophy. Yet he was dumb as he sat before the warm glow of the +passing torch of life which was shining from his daughter's face. +Finally he burst forth, piping impatience at his own embarrassment. + +"I tell you, daughter, it's just naturally hell to be pore." The girl +saw his twitching mouth and the impotence of his swimming eyes; but +before she could protest he checked her. + +"Pore! Pore!" he repeated hopelessly. "Why, if we had a million, I would +still be just common, ornery, doless pore folks--tongue-tied and +helpless, and I couldn't give you nothin--nothin!" he cried, "but just +rubbish! Yet there are so many things I'd like to give you, Laura--so +many, many things!" he repeated. "God Almighty's put a terrible +hog-tight inheritance tax on experience, girl!" He smiled a crooked, +tearful little smile--looked up into her eyes in dog-like wistfulness as +he continued: "I'd like to give you some of mine--some of the wisdom +I've got one way and another--but, Lord, Lord," he wailed, "I can't. The +divine inheritance tax bars me." He patted her with one hand, holding +his smoldering pipe in the other. Then he shrilled out in the impotence +of his pain: "I just must give you this, Laura: Whatever comes and +whatever goes--and lots of sad things will come and lots of sad things +will go, too, for that matter--always remember this: Happiness is from +the heart out--not from the world in! Do you understand, child--do you?" + +The girl smiled and petted him, but he saw that he hadn't reached her +consciousness. He puffed at a dead pipe a moment, then he cried as he +beat his hands together in despair: "I suppose it's no use. It's no use. +But you can at least remember these words, Laura, and some time the +meaning will get to you. Always carry your happiness under your bonnet! +It's the only thing I can give you--out of all my store!" + +The girl put her arm about him and pressed closely to him, and they +rose, as she said: "Why, father--I understand. Of course I understand. +Don't you see I understand, father?" + +She spoke eagerly and clasped her arms tighter about the pudgy little +figure. They stood quietly a moment, as the father looked earnestly, +dog-wise, up into her face, as if trying by his very gaze to transmit +his loving wisdom. Then, as he found voice: "No, Laura, probably you'll +need fifty years to understand; but look over on the hill across the +valley at the moving cloud shadows. They are only shadows--not +realities. They are just unrealities that prove the real--just trailing +anchors of the sun!" He had pocketed his pipe and his hand came up from +his pocket as he waved to the distant shadows and piped: +"Trouble--heartaches--all the host of clouds that cover life--are +only--only--" he let his voice drop gently as he sighed: "only anchors +of the sun; Laura, they only prove--just prove--" + +She did not let him finish, but bent to kiss him and she could feel the +shudder of a smothered sob rack him as she touched his cheek. + +Then he smiled at her and chirped: "Just Eendiany--sis'. Just pore, dumb +Eendiany! Hi, ho! Now run and be a good girl! And here's a jim-crack +your daddy got you!" + +From his pocket he drew out a little package, and dangled a sparkling +jewel in his hands. He saw a flash of pleasure on her face. But his +heart was full, and he turned away his head as he handed the gift to +her. Her eyes were upon the sparkling jewel, as he led her into the +house, saying with a great sigh: "Come on, my dear--let's go in." + +At nine o'clock that night, the great foundry of a house, with its half +a score of chimneys, marking its various epochs of growth, literally was +stuffed with smilax, ferns, roses, orange blossoms, and daisy chains. In +the mazes of these aisles of verdure, a labyrinth of Van Dorns and +Satterthwaites and visiting statesmen with highly powdered womankind was +packed securely. George Brotherton, who was born a drum major, wearing +all of his glittering insignia of a long line of secret societies, moved +as though the welding humanity were fluid. He had presided at too many +funerals not to know the vast importance of keeping the bride's kin from +the groom's kin, and when he saw that they were ushered into the wedding +supper, in due form and order, it was with the fine abandon of a grand +duke lording it over the populace. Senators, Supreme Court justices, +proud Satterthwaites, haughty Van Dorns, Congressmen, governors, local +gentry, were packed neatly but firmly in their proper boxes. + +The old families of Harvey--Captain Morton and his little flock, the +Kollanders, Ahab Wright with his flaring side-whiskers, his white +necktie and his shadow of a wife; Joseph Calvin and his daughter in +pigtails, Mrs. Calvin having written Mrs. Nesbit that it seemed that she +just never did get to go anywhere and be anybody, having said as much +and more to Mr. Calvin with emphasis; Mrs. Brotherton, mother of George, +beaming with pride at her son's part; stuttering Kyle Perry and his +hatchet-faced son, the Adamses all starched for the occasion, Daniel +Sands, a widower pro tem. with a broadening interest in school teachers, +Mrs. Herdicker, the ladies' hatter, classifying the Satterthwaites and +the Van Dorns according to the millinery of their womenkind; Morty Sands +wearing the first white silk vest exhibited in Harvey and making violent +eyes at a daughter of the railroad aristocracy--either a general +manager's daughter or a general superintendent's, and for the life of +her Mrs. Nesbit couldn't say; for she had not the highest opinion in the +world of the railroad aristocracy, but took them, president, first, +second and third vice, general managers, ticket and passenger agents, +and superintendents, as a sort of social job-lot because they came in +private cars, and the Doctor desired them, to add to his trophies of the +occasion,--Henry Fenn, wearing soberly the suit in which he appeared +when he rode the skyrocket, and forming part of the bridal chorus, +stationed in the cigar-box of a sewing-room on the second floor to sing, +"Oh, Day So Dear," as the happy couple came down the stairs--the old +families of Harvey were all invited to the wedding. And the old and the +new and most of the intermediary families of no particular caste or +standing, came to the reception after the ceremony. But because she had +the best voice in town, Margaret Mueller sang "Oh, Promise Me," in a +remote bedroom--to give the effect of distant music, low and sweet, and +after that song was over, and after Henry Fenn's great pride had been +fairly sated, Margaret Mueller mingled with the guests and knew more of +the names and stations of the visiting nobility from the state house and +railroad offices than any other person present. And such is the +perversity of the male sex that there were more "by Georges," and more +"Look--look, looks," and more faint whistles, and more "Tch--tch tchs," +and more nudging and pointing among the men when Margaret appeared than +when the bride herself, pink and white and beautiful, came down the +stairs. Even the eyes of the groom, as he stood beside the bride, tall, +youthful, strong, and handsome as a man may dare to be and earn an +honest living, even his eyes sometimes found themselves straying toward +the figure and face of the beautiful girl whom he had scarcely noticed +while she worked in the court house. But this may be said for the groom, +that when his eyes did wander, he pulled them back with an almost +irritated jerk, and seemed determined to keep them upon the girl by his +side. + +As for the wedding ceremony itself--it was like all others. The women +looked exultant, and the men--the groom, the bride's father, the +groomsmen, and even Rev. John Dexter, had a sort of captured look and +went through the service as though they wished that marriages which are +made in Heaven were celebrated there also. But after the service was +actually accomplished, after the bride and groom had been properly +congratulated, after the multitude had been fed in serried ranks +according to social precedence, after the band on the lawn outside had +serenaded the happy couple, and after further interminable handshaking +and congratulations, from those outside, after the long line of invited +guests had filed past the imposing vista of pickle dishes, cutlery, +butter dishes and cake plates, reaching around the walls of three +bedrooms,--to say nothing of an elaborate wax representation of nesting +cupids bearing the card of the Belgian Society from the glass works and +sent, according to the card, to "Mlle. Lille'n'en Pense"; after the +carriage, bedecked and bedizened with rice and shoes and ribbons, that +was supposed to bear away the bride and groom, had gone amid the +shouting and the tumult of the populace, and after the phaeton and the +sorrel mare had actually taken the bride and groom from the barn to the +railway station, after the fiddle and the bassoon and the horn and the +tinkling cymbal at Morty Sands's dance had frayed and torn the sleep of +those pale souls who would sleep on such a night in Harvey, Grant Adams +and his father, leaving Jasper to trip whatever fantastic toes he might +have, in the opera house, drove down the hill through the glare of the +furnaces, the creaking of the oil derricks and the smell of the straw +paper mill through the heart of South Harvey. + +They made little talk as they rode. Their way led them through the +street which is shaded and ashamed by day, and which glows and flaunts +itself by night. Men and women, gambling, drinking, carousing, rioted +through the street, in and out of doors that spilled puddles of yellow +light on the board sidewalks and dirt streets; screaming laughter, +hoarse calls, the stench of liquor, the muffled noises of gambling, +sputter of electric lights and the flash of glimmering reflections from +bar mirrors rasped their senses and kept the father and son silent as +they rode. When they had passed into the slumbering tenements, the +father spoke: "Well, son, here it is--the two kinds of playing, and here +we have what they call the bad people playing. The Van Dorns and the +Satterthwaites will tell you that vice is the recreation of the poor. +And it's more or less true." The elder man scratched his beard and faced +the stars: "It's a devilish puzzle. Character makes happiness; I've got +that down fine. But what makes character? Why is vice the recreation of +the poor? Why do we recruit most of our bad boys and all of our wayward +girls from those neighborhoods in every city where the poor live? Why +does the clerk on $12 a week uptown crowd into Doctor Jim's wedding +party, and the glass blower at $4 a day down here crowd into 'Big Em's' +and 'Joe's Place' and the 'Crescent'? Is poverty caused by vice; or is +vice a symptom of poverty? And why does the clerk's wife move in 'our +best circles' and the miner's wife, with exactly the same money to +spend, live in outer social darkness?" + +"I've asked myself that question lots of times," exclaimed the youth. "I +can't make it work out on any theory. But I tell you, father," the son +clinched the hand that was free from the lines, and shook it, "it's +wrong--some way, somehow, it's wrong, way down at the bottom of +things--I don't know how nor why--but as sure as I live, I'll try to +find out." + +The clang of an engine bell in the South Harvey railroad yards drowned +the son's answer. The two were crossing the track and turning the corner +that led to the South Harvey station. The midnight train was about due. +As the buggy came near the little gray box of a station a voice called, +"Adams--Adams," and a woman's voice, "Oh, Grant." + +"Why," exclaimed the father, "it's the happy couple." Grant stopped the +horse and climbed out over the sleeping body of little Kenyon. "In a +moment," replied Grant. Then he came to a shadow under the station eaves +and saw the young people hiding. "Adams, you can help us," said Van +Dorn. "We slipped off in the Doctor's phaeton, to get away from the +guying crowd and we have tried to get the house on the 'phone, and in +some way they don't answer. The horse is tied over by the lumber yard +there. Will you take it home with you to-night, and deliver it to the +Doctor in the morning--whatever--" But Grant cut in: + +"Why, of course. Glad to have the chance." He was awkward and ill at +ease, and repeated, "Why, of course, anything." But Van Dorn +interjected: "You understand, I'll pay for it--" Grant Adams stared at +him. "Why--why--no--" stammered Grant in confusion, while Van Dorn +thrust a five-dollar bill upon him. He tried to return it, but the bride +and groom ran to the train, leaving the young man alone and hurt in his +heart. The father from the buggy saw what had happened. In a few minutes +they were leading the Doctor's horse behind the Adams buggy. "I didn't +want their money," exclaimed Grant, "I wanted their--their--" + +"You wanted their friendship, Grant--that's what you wanted," said the +father. + +"And he wanted a hired man," cried Grant. "Just a hired man, and +she--why, didn't she understand? She knew I would have carried the old +horse on my back clear to town, if she'd let me, just to hear her laugh +once. Father," the son's voice was bitter as he spoke, "why didn't she +understand----why did she side with him?" + +The father smiled. "Perhaps, on your wedding trip, Grant, your wife will +agree with you too, son." + +As they rode home in silence, the young man asked himself over and over +again, what lines divided the world into classes; why manual toil shuts +off the toilers from those who serve the world otherwise. Youth is +sensitive; often it is supersensitive, and Grant Adams saw or thought he +saw in the little byplay of Tom Van Dorn the caste prod of society +jabbing labor back into its place. + +"Tom," said the bride as they watched Grant Adams unhitch the horse by +the lumber yard, "why did you force that money on Grant----he would have +much preferred to have your hand when he said good-by." + +"He's not my kind of folks, Laura," replied Van Dorn. "I know you like +him. But that five will do him lots more good than my shaking his hand, +and if that youth wasn't as proud as Lucifer he'd rather have five +dollars than any man's hand. I would----if it comes to that." + +"But, Tom," answered the girl, "that wasn't pride, that was +self-respect." + +"Well, my dear," he squeezed her gloved hand and in the darkness put his +arm about her, "let's not worry about him. All I know is that I wanted +to square it with him for taking care of the horse and five dollars +won't hurt his self-respect. And," said the bridegroom as he pressed the +bride very close to his heart, "what is it to us? We have each other, so +what do we care----what is all the world to us?" + +As the midnight train whistled out of South Harvey Grant Adams sitting +on a bedside was fondly unbuttoning a small body from its clothes, ready +to hear a sleepy child's voice say its evening prayers. In his heart +there flamed the love for the child that was beckoning him into love for +every sentient thing. And as Laura Van Dorn, bride of Thomas of that +name, heard the whistle, her being was flooded with a love high and +marvelous, washing in from the infinite love that moves the universe and +carrying her soul in aspiring thrills of joy out to ride upon the +mysterious currents that we know are not of ourselves, and so have +called divine. + +In the morning, in the early gray of morning, when Grant Adams rose to +make the fire for breakfast, he found his father, sitting by the kitchen +table, half clad as he had risen from a restless bed. Scrawled sheets of +white paper lay around him on the floor and the table. He said sadly: + +"She can't come, Grant--she can't come. I dreamed of her last night; it +was all so real--just as she was when we were young, and I thought--I +was sure she was near." He sighed as he leaned back in his chair. "But +they've looked for her--all of them have looked for her. She knows I'm +calling--but she can't come." The father fumbled the papers, rubbed his +gray beard, and shut his fine eyes as he shook his head, and whispered: +"What holds her--what keeps her? They all come but her." + +"What's this, father?" asked Grant, as a page closely written in a fine +hand fluttered to the floor. + +"Oh, nothing--much--just Mr. Left bringing me some message from Victor +Hugo. It isn't much." + +But the Eminent Authority who put it into the Proceedings of the +Psychological Society laid more store by it than he did by the scraps +and incoherent bits of jargon which pictured the old man's lonely grief. +They are not preserved for us, but in the Proceedings, on page 1125, we +have this from Mr. Left: + +"The vice of the poor is crass and palpable. It carries a quick and +deadly corrective poison. But the vices of the well-to-do are none the +less deadly. To dine in comfort and know your brother is starving; to +sleep in peace and know that he is wronged and oppressed by laws that we +sanction, to gather one's family in contentment around a hearth, while +the poor dwell in a habitat of vice that kills their souls, to live +without bleeding hearts for the wrong on this earth--that is the vice of +the well-to-do. And so it shall come to pass that when the day of +reckoning appears it shall be a day of wrath. For when God gives the +poor the strength to rise (and they are waxing stronger every hour), +they will meet not a brother's hand but a glutton's--the hard, dead hand +of a hard, dead soul. Then will the vicious poor and the vicious +well-to-do, each crippled by his own vices, the blind leading the blind, +fall to in a merciless conflict, mad and meaningless, born of a sad, +unnecessary hate that shall terrorize the earth, unless God sends us +another miracle of love like Christ or some vast chastening scourge of +war, to turn aside the fateful blow." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +IN WHICH WE OBSERVE THE INTERIOR OF A DESERTED HOUSE + + +An empty, lonely house was that on Quality Hill in Elm Street after the +daughter's marriage. It was not that the Doctor and Mrs. Nesbit did not +see their daughter often; but whether she came every day or twice a week +or every week, always she came as a visitor. No one may have two homes. +And the daughter of the house of Nesbit had her own home;--a home +wherein she was striving to bind her husband to a domesticity which in +itself did not interest him. But with her added charm to it, she +believed that she could lure him into an acceptance of her ideal of +marriage. So with all her powers she fell to her task. Consciously or +unconsciously, directly or by indirection, but always with the joy of +adventure in her heart, whether with books or with music or with +comradeship, she was bending herself to the business of wifehood, so +that her own home filled her life and the Nesbit home was lonely; so +lonely was it that by way of solace and diversion, Mrs. Nesbit had all +the woodwork downstairs "done over" in quarter-sawed oak with elaborate +carvings. Ferocious gargoyles, highly excited dolphins, improper, +pot-bellied little cupids, and mermaids without a shred of character, +seemed about to pounce out from banister, alcove, bookcase, cozy corner +and china closet. + +George Brotherton pretended to find resemblances in the effigies to +people about Harvey, and to the town's echoing delight he began to name +the figures after their friends, and always saluted the figures +intimately, as Maggie, or Henry, or the Captain, or John Kollander, or +Lady Herdicker. But through the wooden menagerie in the big house the +Doctor whistled and hummed and smoked and chirruped more or less +drearily. To him the Japanese screens, the huge blue vases, the +ponderous high-backed chairs crawly with meaningless carvings, the +mantels full of jars and pots and statuettes, brought no comfort. He was +forever putting his cane over his arm and clicking down the street to +the Van Dorn home; but he felt in spite of all his daughter's efforts to +welcome him--and perhaps because of them--that he was a stranger there. +So slowly and rather imperceptibly to him, certainly without any +conscious desire for it, a fondness for Kenyon Adams sprang up in the +Doctor's heart. For it was exceedingly soft in spots and those spots +were near his home. He was domestic and he was fond of home joys. So +when Mrs. Nesbit put aside the encyclopedia, from which she was getting +the awful truth about Babylonian Art for her paper to be read before the +Shakespeare Club, and going to the piano, brought from the bottom of a +pile of yellow music a tattered sheet, played a Chopin nocturne in a +rolling and rather grand style that young women affected before the +Civil War, the Doctor's joy was scarcely less keen than the child's. +Then came rare occasions when Laura, being there for the night while her +husband was away on business, would play melodies that cut the child's +heart to the quick and brought tears of joy to his big eyes. It seemed +to him at those times as if Heaven itself were opened for him, and for +days the melodies she played would come ringing through his heart. Often +he would sit absorbed at the piano when he should have been practicing +his lesson, picking out those melodies and trying with a poignant +yearning for perfection to find their proper harmonies. But at such +times after he had frittered away a few minutes, Mrs. Nesbit would call +down to him, "You, Kenyon," and he would sigh and take up his scales and +runs and arpeggios. + +Kenyon was developing into a shy, lovely child of few noises; he seemed +to love to listen to every continuous sound--a creaking gate, a +waterdrip from the eaves, a whistling wind--a humming wire. Sometimes +the Doctor would watch Kenyon long minutes, as the child listened to the +fire's low murmur in the grate, and would wonder what the little fellow +made of it all. But above everything else about the child the Doctor was +interested in watching his eyes develop into the great, liquid, soulful +orbs that marked his mother. To the Doctor the resemblance was rather +weird. But he could see no other point in the child's body or mind or +soul whereon Margaret Mueller had left a token. The Doctor liked to +discuss Kenyon with his wife from the standpoint of ancestry. He took a +sort of fiendish delight--if one may imagine a fiend with a seraphic +face and dancing blue eyes and a mouth that loved to pucker in a pensive +whistle--in Mrs. Nesbit's never failing stumble over the child's eyes. + +Any evening he would lay aside his Browning----even in a knotty passage +wherein the Doctor was wont to take much pleasure, and revert to type +thus: + +"Yes, I guess there's something in blood as you say! The child shows it! +But where do you suppose he gets those eyes?" His wife would answer +energetically, "They aren't like Amos's and they certainly are not much +like Mary's! Yet those eyes show that somewhere in the line there was +fine blood and high breeding." + +And the Doctor, remembering the kraut-peddling Mueller, who used to live +back in Indiana, and who was Kenyon's great-grandfather, would shake a +wise head and answer: + +"Them eyes is certainly a throw-back to the angel choir, my dear--a sure +and certain throw-back!" + +And while Mrs. Nesbit was climbing the Sands family tree, from Mary +Adams back to certain Irish Sandses of the late eighteenth century, the +Doctor would flit back to "Paracelsus," to be awakened from its spell +by: "Only the Irish have such eyes! They are the mark of the Celt all +over the world! But it's curious that neither Mary nor Daniel had those +eyes!" + +"It's certainly curious like," squeaked the Doctor amicably--"certainly +curious like, as the treetoad said when he couldn't holler up a rain. +But it only proves that blood always tells! Bedelia, there's really +nothing so true in this world as blood!" + +And Mrs. Nesbit would ask him a moment later what he could find so +amusing in "Paracelsus"? She certainly never had found anything but +headaches in it. + +Yet there came a time when the pudgy little stomach of the Doctor did +not shake in merriment. For he also had his problem of blood to solve. +Tom Van Dorn was, after all, the famous Van Dorn baby! + +One evening in the late winter as the Doctor was trudging home from a +belated call, he saw the light in Brotherton's window marking a yellow +bar across the dark street. As he stepped in for a word with Mr. +Brotherton about the coming spring city election, he saw quickly that +the laugh was in some way on Tom Van Dorn, who rose rather guiltily and +hurried out of the shop. + +"Seegars on George!" exclaimed Captain Morton; then answered the +Doctor's gay, inquiring stare: "Henry bet George a box of Perfectos Tom +wouldn't be a year from his wedding asking 'what's her name' when the +boys were discussing some girl or other, and they've laid for Tom ever +since and got him to-night, eh?" + +The Captain laughed, and then remembering the Doctor's relationship with +the Van Dorns, colored and tried to cover his blunder with: "Just boys, +you know, Doc--just their way." + +The Doctor grinned and piped back, "Oh, yes--yes--Cap--I know, boys will +be dogs!" + +Toddling home that night the Doctor passed the Van Dorn house. He saw +through the window the young couple in their living-room. The doctor had +a feeling that he could sense the emotions of his daughter's heart. It +was as though he could see her trying in vain to fasten the steel +grippers of her soul into the heart and life of the man she loved. Over +and over the father asked himself if in Tom Van Dorn's heart was any +essential loyalty upon which the hooks and bonds of the friendship and +fellowship of a home could fasten and hold. The father could see the +handsome young face of Van Dorn in the gas light, aflame with the joy of +her presence, but Dr. Nesbit realized that it was a passing flame--that +in the core of the husband was nothing to which a wife might anchor her +life; and as the Doctor clicked his cane on the sidewalk vigorously he +whispered to himself: "Peth--peth--nothing in his heart but peth." + +A day came when the parents stood watching their daughter as she went +down the street through the dusk, after she had kissed them both and +told them, and after they had all said they were very happy over it. But +when she was out of sight the hands of the parents met and the Doctor +saw fear in Bedelia Nesbit's face for the first time. But neither spoke +of the fear. It took its place by the vague uneasiness in their hearts, +and two spectral sentinels stood guard over their speech. + +Thus their talk came to be of those things which lay remote from their +hearts. It was Mrs. Nesbit's habit to read the paper and repeat the news +to the Doctor, who sat beside her with a book. He jabbed in comments; +she ignored them. Thus: "I see Grant Adams has been made head carpenter +for all the Wahoo Fuel Companies mines and properties." To which the +Doctor replied: "Grant, my dear, is an unusual young man. He'll have ten +regular men under him--and I claim that's fine for a boy in his +twenties--with no better show in life than Grant has had." But Mrs. +Nesbit had in general a low opinion of the Doctor's estimates of men. +She held that no man who came from Indiana and was fooled by men who +wore cotton in their ears and were addicted to chilblains, could be +trusted in appraising humanity. + +So she answered, "Yes," dryly. It was her custom when he began to bestow +knighthood upon common clay to divert him with some new and irrelevant +subject. "Here's an item in the _Times_ this morning I fancy you +didn't read. After describing the bride's dress and her beauty, it says, +'And the bride is a daughter of the late H. M. Von Mueller, who was an +exile from his native land and gave up a large estate and a title +because of his participation in the revolution of '48. Miss Mueller might +properly be called the Countess Von Mueller, if she chose to claim her +rightful title!'--what is there to that?" + +The Doctor threw back his head and chuckled: + +"Pennsylvania Dutch for three generations--I knew old Herman Mueller's +father--before I came West--when he used to sell kraut and cheese around +Vincennes before the war, and Herman's grandfather came from +Pennsylvania." + +"I thought so," sniffed Mrs. Nesbit. And then she added: "Doctor, that +girl is a minx." + +"Yes, my dear," chirped the Doctor. "Yes, she's a minx; but this isn't +the open season for minxes, so we must let her go. And," he added after +a pause, during which he read the wedding notice carefully, "she may put +a brace under Henry--the blessed Lord knows Henry will need something, +though he's done mighty well for a year--only twice in eighteen months. +Poor fellow--poor fellow!" mused the Doctor. Mrs. Nesbit blinked at her +husband for a minute in sputtering indignation. Then she exclaimed: +"Brace under Henry!" And to make it more emphatic, repeated it and then +exploded: "The cat's foot--brace for Henry, indeed--that piece!" + +And Mrs. Nesbit stalked out of the room, brought back a little dress--a +very minute dress--she was making and sat rocking almost imperceptibly +while her husband read. Finally, after a calming interval, she said in a +more amiable tone, "Doctor Nesbit, if you've cut up all the women you +claim to have dissected in medical school, you know precious little +about what's in them, if you get fooled in that Margaret woman." + +"The only kind we ever cut up," returned the Doctor in a mild, +conciliatory treble, "were perfect--all Satterthwaites." + +And when the Doctor fell back to his book, Mrs. Nesbit spent some time +reflecting upon the virtues of her liege lord and wondering how such a +paragon ever came from so common a State as Indiana, where so far as any +one ever knew there was never a family in the whole commonwealth, and +the entire population as she understood it carried potatoes in their +pockets to keep away rheumatism. + +The evening wore away and Dr. and Mrs. Nesbit were alone by the ashes in +the smoldering fire in the grate. They were about to go up stairs when +the Doctor, who had been looking absent-mindedly into the embers, began +meditating aloud about local politics while his wife sewed. His +meditation concerned a certain trade between the city and Daniel Sands +wherein the city parted with its stock in Sands's public utilities with +a face value of something like a million dollars. The stocks were to go +to Mr. Sands, while the city received therefor a ten-acre tract east of +town on the Wahoo, called Sands Park. After bursting into the Doctor's +political nocturne rather suddenly and violently with her feminine +disapproval, Mrs. Nesbit sat rocking, and finally she exclaimed: "Good +Lord, Jim Nesbit, I wish I was a man." + +"I've long suspected it, my dear," piped her husband, + +"Oh, it isn't that--not your politics," retorted Mrs. Nesbit, "though +that made me think of it. Do you know what else old Dan Sands is doing?" + +The Doctor bent over the fire, stirred it up and replied, "Well, not in +particular." + +"Philandering," sniffed Mrs. Nesbit. + +"Again?" returned the Doctor. + +"No," snapped Mrs. Nesbit--"as usual!" + +The Doctor had no opinion to express; one of the family specters was +engaging his attention at the moment. Presently his wife put down her +paper and sat as one wrestling with an impulse. The specter on her side +of the hearth was trying to keep her lips sealed. They sat while the +mantel clock ticked off five minutes. + +"What are you thinking?" the Doctor asked. + +"I'm thinking of Dan Sands," replied the wife with some emotion in her +voice. + +The foot tap of Mrs. Nesbit became audible. She shook her head with some +force and exclaimed: "O Jim, wouldn't I like to have that man--just for +one day." + +"I've noticed," cut in the Doctor, "regarding such propositions from the +gentler sex, that the Lord generally tempers the wind to the shorn +lamb." + +"The shorn lamb--the shorn lamb," retorted Mrs. Nesbit. "The shorn +tom-cat! I'd like to shear him." Wherewith she rose and putting out the +light led the Doctor to the stairs. + +Both knew that the spectral sentinels had used Daniel Sands and his +amours only as a seal upon their lips. + +The parents could speak in parables about what they felt or fancied +because there was so little that was tangible and substantial for them +to see. Of all the institutions man has made--the state, the church, his +commerce, his schools,--the home is by far the most spiritual. Its +successes and its failures are never material. They are never evidenced +in any sort of worldly goods. Only in the hearts of those who dwell in a +home, or of those to whom it is dear, do its triumphs and its defeats +register themselves. But in Tom Van Dorn's philosophy of life small +space was left for things of the spirit alone, to register. He was +trying with all his might to build a home upon material things. So above +all he built his home around a beautiful woman. Then he lavished upon +her and about the house wherein she dwelled, beautiful objects. He was +proud of their cost. Their value in dollars and cents gave these objects +their chief value in his balance sheet of gain or less in footing up his +account with his home. And because what he had was expensive, he prized +it. Possibly because he had bought his wife's devotion, at some material +sacrifice to his own natural inclinations toward the feminine world, he +listed her high in the assets of the home; and so in the only way he +could love, he loved her jealously. She and the rugs and pictures and +furniture--all were dear to him, as chattels which he had bought and +paid for and could brag about. And because he was too well bred to brag, +the repression of that natural instinct he added to the cost of the +items listed,--rugs, pictures, wife, furniture, house, trees, lot, and +blue grass lawn. So when toward the end of the first year of his +marriage, he found that actually he could turn his head and follow with +his eyes a pretty petticoat going down Market Street, and still fool his +wife; when he found he could pry open the eyes of Miss Mauling at the +office again with his old ogle, and still have the beautiful love which +he had bought with self-denial, its value dropped. + +And his wife, who felt in her soul her value passing in the heart she +loved, strove to find her fault and to correct it. Daily her devotion +manifested itself more plainly. Daily she lived more singly to the +purpose of her soul. And daily she saw that purpose becoming a vain +pursuit. + +Outwardly the home was unchanged as this tragedy was played within the +two hearts. The same scenery surrounded the players. The same voices +spoke, in the same tones, the same words of endearment, and the same +hours brought the same routine as the days passed. Yet the home was +slowly sinking into failure. And the specters that sealed the lips of +the parents who stood by and mutely watched the inner drama unfold, +watched it unfold and translate itself into life without words, without +deeds, without superficial tremor or flinching of any kind--the specters +passed the sad story from heart to heart in those mysterious silences +wherein souls in this world learn their surest truths. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +IN WHICH OUR HERO STROLLS OUT WITH THE DEVIL TO LOOK AT THE HIGH +MOUNTAIN + + +The soup had come and gone; great platters of fried chicken had +disappeared, with incidental spinach and new peas and potatoes. A bowl +of lettuce splashed with a French dressing had been mowed down as the +grass, and the goodly company was surveying something less than an acre +of strawberry shortcake at the close of a rather hilarious dinner--a +spring dinner, to be exact. Rhoda Kollander was reciting with enthusiasm +an elaborate and impossible travesty of a recipe for strawberry +shortcake, which she had read somewhere, when the Doctor, in his +nankeens, putting his hands on the table cloth as one who was about to +deliver an oracle, ran his merry eyes down the table, gathering up the +Adamses and Mortons and Mayor Brotherton and Morty Sands; fastened his +glance upon the Van Dorns and cut in on the interminable shortcake +recipe rather ruthlessly thus in his gay falsetto: + +"Tom, here--thinks he's pretty smart. And George Brotherton, Mayor of +all the Harveys, thinks he is a pretty smooth article; and the Honorable +Lady Satterthwaite here, she's got a Maryland notion that she has second +sight into the doings of her prince consort." He chuckled and grinned as +he beamed at his daughter: "And there is the princess imperial--she +thinks she's mighty knolledgeous about her father--but," he cocked his +head on one side, enjoying the suspense he was creating as he paused, +drawling his words, "I'm just going to show you how I've got 'em all +fooled." + +He pulled from his pocket a long, official envelope, pulled from the +envelope an official document, and also a letter. He laid the official +document down before him and opened the letter. + +"Kind o' seems to be signed by the Governor of the State," he drolled: +"And seems like the more I look at it the surer I am it's addressed to +Tom Van Dorn. I'm not much of an elocutionist and never could read at +sight, having come from Eendiany, and I guess Rhody here, she's kind of +elocutionary and I'll jest about ask her to read it to the ladies and +gentlemen!" He handed Mrs. Kollander the letter and passed the sealed +document to his son-in-law. + +Mrs. Kollander read aloud: + +"I take pleasure in handing you through the kindness of Senator James +Nesbit your appointment to fill the vacancy in your judicial district +created to-day by the resignation of Judge Arbuckle of your district to +fill a vacancy in the Supreme Court of this State created there by the +resignation of Justice Worrell." + +Looking over his wife's shoulder and seeing the significance of the +letter, John Kollander threw back his head and began singing in his +roaring voice, "For we'll rally round the flag, boys, we'll rally once +again, shouting the battle cry of freedom," and the company at the table +clapped its hands. And while George Brotherton was bellowing, +"Well--say!" Judge Thomas Van Dorn kissed his wife and beamed his +satisfaction upon the company. + +When the commotion had subsided the chuckling little man, all a-beam +with happiness, his pink, smooth face shining like a headlight, +explained thus: + +"I jest thought these Maryland Satterthwaites and Schenectady Van Dorns +was a-gittin' too top-lofty, and I'd have to register one for the Grand +Duke of Griggsby's Station, to sort of put 'em in their place!" He was +happy; and his vernacular, which always was his pose under emotional +stress, was broad, as he went on: "So I says to myself, the Corn Belt +Railroad is mighty keen for a Supreme Court decision in the Missouri +River rate case, and I says, Worrell J., he's the boy to write it, but I +says to the Corn Belt folks, says I, 'It would shatter the respect of +the people for their courts if Worrell J. should stay on the bench after +writing the kind of a decision you want, so we'll just put him in your +law offices at twelve thousand per, which is three times what he is +getting now, and then one idear brought on another and here's Tom's +commission and three men and a railroad all made happy!" He threw back +his head and laughed silently as he finished, "and all the justices +concurring!" After the hubbub of congratulations had passed and the +guests had moved into the parlor of the Nesbit home, the little Doctor, +standing among them, regaled himself thus: + +"Politics is jobs. Jobs is friends. Friends is politics. The reason why +the reformers don't get anywhere is that they have no friends in +politics. They regard the people as sticky and smelly and low. Bedelia +has that notion. But I love 'em! Love 'em and vote 'em!" + +Amos Adams opened his mouth to protest, but the Doctor waved him into +silence. "I know your idear, Amos! But when the folks get tired of +politics that is jobs and want politics that is principles, I'll open as +fine a line of principles as ever was shown in this market!" + +After the company had gone, Mrs. Nesbit faced her husband with a +peremptory: "Well--will you tell me why, Jim Nesbit?" And he sighed and +dropped into a chair. + +"To save his self-respect! Self-respect grows on what it feeds on, my +dear, and I thought maybe if he was a judge"--he looked into the anxious +eyes of his wife and went on--"that might hold him!" He rested his head +on a hand and drew in a deep breath. "'Vanity, vanity,' saith the +Preacher--'all is vanity!' And I thought I'd hitch it to something that +might pull him out of the swamp! And I happened to know that he had a +sneaking notion of running for Judge this fall, so I thought I'd slip up +and help him." + +He sighed again and his tone changed. "I did it primarily for Laura," he +said wearily, and: "Mother, we might as well face it." + +Mrs. Nesbit looked intently at her husband in understanding silence and +asked: "Is it any one in particular, Jim--" + +He hesitated, then exclaimed: "Oh, I may be wrong, but somehow I don't +like the air--the way that Mauling girl assumes authority at the office. +Why, she's made me wait in the outer office twice now--for nothing +except to show that she could!" + +"Yes, Jim--but what good will this judgeship do? How will it solve +anything?" persisted the wife. The Doctor let his sigh precede his +words: "The office will make him realize that the eyes of the community +are on him, that he is in a way a marked man. And then the place will +keep him busy and spur on his ambition. And these things should help." + +He looked tenderly into the worried face of his wife and smiled. +"Perhaps we're both wrong. We don't know. Tom's young and--" He ended +the sentence in a "Ho--ho--ho--hum!" and yawned and rose, leading the +way up stairs. + +In the Van Dorn home a young wife was trying to define herself in the +new relation to the community in which the evening's news had placed +her. She had no idea of divorcing the judgeship from her life. She felt +that marriage was a full partnership and that the judgeship meant much +to her. She realized that as a judge's wife her life and her duties--and +she was eager always to acquire new duties--would be different from her +life and her duties as a lawyer's wife or a doctor's wife or a +merchant's wife, for example. For Laura Van Dorn was in the wife +business with a consuming ardor, and the whole universe was related to +her wifehood. To her marriage was the development of a two-phase soul +with but one will. As the young couple entered their home, the wife was +saying: + +"Tom, isn't it fine to think of the good you can do--these poor folk in +the Valley don't really get justice. And they're your friends. They +always help you and father in the election, and now you can see that +they have their rights. Oh, I'm so glad--so glad father did it. That was +his way to show them how he really loves them." + +The husband smiled, a husbandly and superior smile, and said absently, +"Oh, well, I presume they don't get much out of the courts, but they +should learn to keep away from litigation. It's a rich man's game +anyway!" He was thinking of the steps before him which might lead him to +a higher court and still higher. His ambition vaulted as he spoke. +"Laura, Father Jim wouldn't mind having a son-in-law on the United +States Supreme Court, and I believe we can work together and make it in +twenty years more!" + +As the young wife saw the glow of ambition in his fine, mobile face she +stifled the altruistic yearnings, which she had come to feel made her +husband uncomfortable, and joined him as he gazed into the crystal ball +of the future and saw its glistening chimera. + +Perhaps the preceding dialogue wherein Dr. James Nesbit, his wife, his +daughter and his son-in-law have spoken may indicate that politics as +the Doctor played it was an exceedingly personal chess game. We see him +here blithely taking from the people of his state, their rights to +justice and trading those rights cheerfully for his personal happiness +as it was represented in the possible reformation of his daughter's +husband. He thought it would work--this curious bartering of public +rights for private ends. He could not see that a man who could accept a +judgeship as it had come to Tom Van Dorn, in the nature of things could +not take out an essential self-respect which he had forfeited when he +took the place. The Doctor was as blind as Tom Van Dorn, as blind as his +times. Government was a personal matter in that day; public place was a +personal perquisite. + +As for the reformation of Tom Van Dorn, for which all this juggling with +sacred things was done, he had no idea that his moral regeneration was +concerned in the deal, and never in all the years of his service did the +vaguest hint come to him that the outrage of justice had been +accomplished for his own soul's good. + +The next morning Tom Van Dorn read of his appointment as Judge in the +morning papers, and he pranced twice the length of Market Street, up one +side and down the other, to let the populace congratulate him. Then with +a fat box of candy he went to his office, where he gave the candy and +certain other tokens of esteem to Miss Mauling, and at noon after the +partnership of Calvin & Van Dorn had been dissolved, with the +understanding that the young Judge was to keep his law books in Calvin's +office, and was to have a private office there--for certain intangible +considerations. Then after the business with Joseph Calvin was +concluded, the young Judge in his private office with his hands under +his coattails preened before Miss Mauling and talked from a shameless +soul of his greed for power! The girl before him gave him what he could +not get at home, an abject adoration, uncritical, unabashed, +unrestrained. + +The young man whom the newly qualified Judge had inherited as court +stenographer was a sadly unemotional, rather methodical, old maid of a +person, and Tom Van Dorn could not open his soul to this youth, so he +was wont to stray back to the offices of Joseph Calvin to dictate his +instructions to juries, and to look over the books in his own library in +making up his decisions. The office came to be known as the Judge's +Chambers and the town cocked a gay and suspicious eye at the young +Judge. Mr. Calvin's practice doubled and trebled and Miss Mauling lost +small caste with the nobility and gentry. And as the summer deepened, +Dr. James Nesbit began to see that vanity does not build self-respect. + +When the young Judge announced his candidacy for election to fill out +the two years' unexpired term of his predecessor, no one opposed Van +Dorn in his party convention; but the Doctor had little liking for the +young man's intimacy in the office of Joseph Calvin and less liking for +the scandal of that intimacy which arose when the rich litigants in the +Judge's court crowded into Calvin's office for counsel. The Doctor +wondered if he was squeamish about certain matters, merely because it +was his own son-in-law who was the subject of the disquieting gossip +connected with Calvin's practice in Van Dorn's court. Then there was the +other matter. The Doctor could notice that the town was having its +smile--not a malicious nor condemning smile, but a tolerant, amused +smile about Van Dorn and the Mauling girl; and the Doctor didn't like +that. It cut deeply into the Doctor's heart that as the town's smile +broadened, his daughter's face was growing perceptibly more serious. The +joy she had shown when first she told him of the baby's coming did not +illumine her face; and her laughter--her never failing well of +gayety--was in some way being sealed. The Doctor determined to talk with +Tom on the Good of the Order and to talk man-wise--without feeling of +course but without guile. + +So one autumn afternoon when the Doctor heard the light, firm step of +the young man in the common hallway that led to their offices over the +Traders' Bank, the Doctor tuned himself up to the meeting and cheerily +called through his open door: + +"Tom--Tom, you young scoundrel--come in here and let's talk it all +over." + +The young man slipped a package into his pocket, and came lightly into +the office. He waved his hand gayly and called: "Well--well, pater +familias, what's on your chest to-day?" His slim figure was clad in +gray--a gray suit, gray shirt, gray tie, gray shoes and a crimson rose +bud in his coat lapel. As he slid into a chair and crossed his lean legs +the Doctor looked him over. The young Judge's corroding pride in his job +was written smartly all over his face and figure. "The fairest of ten +thousand, the bright and morning star, Tom," piped the Doctor. Then +added briskly, "I want to talk to you about Joe Calvin." The young man +lifted a surprised eyebrow. The Doctor pushed ahead as he pulled the +county bar docket from his desk and pointed to it. "Joe Calvin's +business has increased nearly fifty per cent. in less than six months! +And he has the money side of eighty per cent. of the cases in your +court!" + +"Well--" replied Van Dorn in the mushy drawl that he used with juries, +"that's enough! Joe couldn't ask more." Then he added, eying the Doctor +closely, "Though I can't say that what you tell me startles me with its +suddenness." + +"That's just my point," cried the Doctor in his high, shrill voice. +"That's just my point, Thomas," he repeated, "and here's where I come +in. I got you this job. I am standing for you before the district and I +am standing for you now for this election." The Doctor wagged his head +at the young man as he said, "But the truth is, Tom, I had some trouble +getting you the solid delegation." + +"Ah?" questioned the suave young Judge. + +"Yes, Tom--my own delegation," replied the Doctor. "You see, Tom, there +is a lot of me. There is the one they call Doc Jim; then there's Mrs. +Nesbit's husband and there's your father-in-law, and then there's Old +Linen Pants. The old man was for you from the jump. Doc Jim was for you +and Mrs. Nesbit's husband was willing to go with the majority of the +delegation, though he wasn't strong for you. But I'll tell you, Tom," +piped the Doctor, "I did have the devil of a time ironing out the +troubles of your father-in-law." + +The Doctor leaned forward and pointed a fat, stern finger at his +son-in-law. "Tom," the Doctor's voice was shrill and steely, "I don't +like your didos with Violet Mauling!" The face above the crimson flower +did not flinch. + +"I don't suppose you're making love to her. But you have no business +fooling around Joe Calvin's office on general principles. Keep out, and +keep away from her." And then the Doctor's patience slipped and his +voice rose: "What do you want to give her the household bills for? Pay +'em yourself or let Laura send her checks!" The Doctor's tones were +harsh, and with the amiable cast off his face his graying blond +pompadour hair seemed to bristle militantly. The effect gave the Doctor +a fighting face as he barked, "You can't afford it. You must stop it. +It's no way to do. I didn't think it of you, Tom!" + +After Van Dorn had touched his black wing of hair, his soft mustache and +the crimson flower on his coat, he had himself well in hand and had +planned his defense and counter attacks. He spoke softly: + +"Now, Father Jim--I'm not--" he put a touch of feeling in the "not," +"going to give up the Mauling girl. When I'm elected next month, I'm +going to make her my court stenographer!" He looked the Doctor squarely +in the face and paused for the explosion which came in an excited, +piping cry: + +"Why, Tom, are you crazy! Take her all over the three counties of this +district with you? Why, boy--" But Judge Van Dorn continued evenly: "I +don't like a man stenographer. Men make me nervous and self-conscious, +and I can't give a man the best that's in me. And I propose to give my +best to this job--in justice to myself. And Violet Mauling knows my +ways. She doesn't interpose herself between me and my ideas, so I am +going to make her court stenographer next month right after the +election." + +When the Doctor drew in a breath to speak, Van Dorn put out a hand, +checked the elder man and said blandly and smilingly, "And, Father Jim, +I'm going to be elected--I'm dead sure of election." + +The Doctor thought he saw a glint of sheer malicious impudence in Van +Dorn's smile as he finished speaking: "And anyway, pater, we mustn't +quarrel right now--Just at this time, Laura--" + +"You're a sly dog, now, ain't you! Ain't you a sly dog?" shrilled the +Doctor in sputtering rage. Then the blaze in his eyes faded and he cried +in despair: "Tom, Tom, isn't there any way I can put the fear of God +into you?" + +Van Dorn realized that he had won the contest. So he forbore to strike +again. + +"Doctor Jim, I'm afraid you can't jar me much with the fear of God. You +have a God that sneaks in the back door of matter as a kind of a divine +immanence that makes for progress and Joe Calvin in there has a God with +whiskers who sits on a throne and runs a sort of police court; but one's +as impossible as the other. I have no God at all," his chest swelled +magnificently, "and here's what happens": + +He was talking against time and the Doctor realized it. But his scorn +was crusting over his anger and he listened as the young Judge amused +himself: "I've defended gamblers and thugs--and crooks, some rich, some +poor, mostly poor and mostly guilty. And Joe has been free attorney for +the law and order league and has given the church free advice and +entertained preachers when he wasn't hiding out from his wife. And he's +gone to conference and been a deacon and given to the Lord all his life. +And now that it's good business for him to have me elected, can he get a +vote out of all his God-and-morality crowd? Not a vote. And all I have +to do is to wiggle my finger and the whole crowd of thugs and blacklegs +and hoodlums and rich and poor line up for me--no matter how pious I +talk. I tell you, Father Jim--there's nothing in your God theory. It +doesn't work. My job is to get the best out of myself possible." But +this was harking back to Violet Mauling and the young Judge smiled with +bland impertinence as he finished, "The fittest survive, my dear pater, +and I propose to keep fit--to keep fit--and survive!" + +The Doctor's anger cooled, but the pain still twinged his heart, the +pain that came as he saw clearly and surely that his daughter's life was +bound to the futile task of making bricks without straw. Deep in his +soul he knew the anguish before her and its vain, continual round of +fallen hopes. As the young Judge strutted up and down the Doctor's +office, the father in the elder man dominated him and a kind of +contemptuous pity seized him. Pity overcame rage, and the Doctor could +not even sputter at his son-in-law. "Fit and survive" kept repeating +themselves over in Dr. Nesbit's mind, and it was from a sad, hurt heart +that he spoke almost kindly: "Tom--Tom, my boy, don't be too sure of +yourself. You may keep fit and you may survive--but Tom, Tom--" the +Doctor looked steadily into the bold, black eyes before him and fancied +they were being held consciously from dropping and shifting as the +Doctor cried: "For God's sake, Tom, don't let up! Keep on fighting, son, +God or no God--you've got a devil--keep on fighting him!" + +The olive cheeks flushed for a fleeting second. Van Dorn laughed an +irritated little laugh. "Well," he said, turning to the door, "be over +to-night?--or shall we come over? Anything good for dinner?" + +A minute later he came swinging into his own office. He pulled a package +from his pocket. "Violet," he said, going up to her writing desk and +half sitting upon it, as he put the package before her, "here's the +candy." + +He picked up her little round desk mirror, smiled at her in it, and +played rather idly about the desk for a foolish moment before going to +his own desk. He sat looking into the street, folding a sheet of blank +paper. When it became a wad he snapped it at the young woman. It hit her +round, beautiful neck and disappeared into her square-cut bodice. + +"Get it out for you if you want it?" He laughed fatuously. + +The girl flashed quick eyes at him, and said, "Oh, I don't know," and +went on with her work. He began to read, but in a few minutes laid his +book down. + +"How'd you like to be a court stenographer?" The girl kept on writing. +"Honest now I mean it. If I win this election and get this job for the +two years of unexpired term, you'll be court stenographer--pays fifteen +hundred a year." The girl glanced quickly at him again, with fire in her +eyes, then looked conspicuously down at the keyboard of the writing +machine. + +"I couldn't leave home," she said finally, as she pulled out a sheet of +paper. "It wouldn't be the thing--do you think so?" + +He put his feet on the desk, showing his ankles of pride, and fingering +his mustache, smiling a squinty smile with his handsome, beady eyes as +he said: "Oh, I'd take care of you. You aren't afraid of me, are you?" + +They both laughed. And the girl came over with a sheet of paper. "Here +is that Midland Valley letter. Will you sign it now?" + +He managed to touch her hand as she handed him the sheet, and again to +touch her bare forearm as he handed it back after signing it. For which +he got two darts from her eyes. + +A client came in. Joseph Calvin hurried in and out, a busy little rat of +a man who always wore shiny clothes that bagged at the knees and elbows. +George Brotherton crashed in through the office on city business, and so +the afternoon wore away. At the end of the day, Thomas Van Dorn and Miss +Mauling locked up the office and went down the hall and the stairs to +the street together. He released her arm as they came to the street, and +tipped his hat as she rounded the corner for home. He saw the white-clad +Doctor trudging up the low incline that led to Elm Street. + +Dr. Nesbit was asking the question, Who are the fit? Who should survive? +His fingers had been pinched in the door of the young Judge's philosophy +and the Doctor was considering much that might be behind the door. He +wondered if it was the rich and the powerful who should survive. Or he +thought perhaps it is those who give themselves for others. There was +Captain Morton with his one talent, pottering up and down the town +talking all kinds of weather, and all kinds of rebuffs that he might +keep the girls in school and make them ready to serve society; yet +according to Tom's standards of success the Captain was unfit; and there +was George Brotherton, ignorant, but loyal, foolishly blind, of a tender +heart, yet compared with those who used his ignorance and played upon +his blindness (and the Doctor winced at his part in that game) Mr. +Brotherton was cast aside among the world's unfit; and so was Henry +Fenn, fighting with his devil like a soldier; and so was Dick Bowman +going into the mines for his family, sacrificing light and air and the +joy of a free life that the wife and children might be clad, housed and +fed and that they might enjoy something of the comforts of the great +civilization which his toil was helping to build up around them; yet in +his grime Dick was accounted exceedingly unfit. Dick only had a number +on the company's books and his number corresponded to a share of stock +and it was the business of the share of stock to get as much out of Dick +and give him back as little, and to take as much from society in passing +for coal as it could, and being without soul or conscience or feeling of +any kind, the share of stock put the automatic screws on Dick--as their +numbers corresponded. And for squeezing the sweat out of him the share +was accounted unusually fit, while poor Dick--why he was merely a number +on the books and was called a unit of labor. Then there was Daniel +Sands. He had spread his web all over the town. It ran in the pipes +under ground that brought water and gas, and the wires above ground, +that brought light and power and communication. The web found its way +into the earth--through deep cuts in the earth, worming along caverns +where it held men at work; then the web ran into foul dens where the +toilers were robbed of their health and strength and happiness and even +of the money the toilers toiled for, and the web brought it all back +slimey and stinking from unclean hands into the place where the spider +sat spinning. And there was his son and daughter; Mr. Sands had married +at least four estimable ladies with the plausible excuse that he was +doing it only to give his children a home. Mr. Sands had given his son a +home, to be sure; but his son had not taken a conscience from the +home--for who was there at home to give it? Not the estimable ladies who +had married Mr. Sands, for they had none or they would have been +somewhere else, to be sure; not Mr. Sands himself, for he was busy with +his web, and conscience rips such webs as his endways, and Daniel would +have none of that. And the servants who had reared the youth had no +conscience to give him; for it was made definite and certain in that +home that they were paid for what they did, so they did what they were +paid for, and bestowing consciences upon young gentlemen is no part of +the duty of the "help" in a home like that. + +As for his daughter, Anne, again one of God's miracles was wrought. +There she was growing in the dead atmosphere of that home--where she had +known two mothers before she was ten and she saw with a child's shrewd +eyes that another was coming. Yet in some subsoil of the life about her +the roots of her life were finding a moral sense. Her hazel eyes were +questioning so curiously the old man who fathered her that he felt +uncomfortable when she was near him. Yet for all the money he had won +and all that money had made him, he was reckoned among the fit. Then +there was the fit Mr. Van Dorn and the fit Mr. Calvin. Mr. Calvin never +missed a Sunday in church, gave his tithe, and revered the law. He +adjusted his halo and sang feelingly in prayer meeting about his cross +and hoped ultimately for his crown as full and complete payment and +return, the same being the legal and just equivalent for said +hereinbefore named cross as aforesaid, and Mr. Calvin was counted among +the fit, and the Doctor smiled as he put him in the list. And Mr. Van +Dorn had confessed that he was among the fit and his fitness consisted +in getting everything that he could without being caught. + +But these reflections were vain and unprofitable to Dr. Nesbit, and so +he turned himself to the consideration of the business in hand: namely, +to make his calling and reelection sure to the State Senate that +November. So he went over Greeley County behind his motherly sorrel +mare, visiting the people, telling them stories, prescribing for their +ailments, eating their fried chicken, cream gravy and mashed potatoes, +and putting to rout the forces of the loathed opposition who maintained +that the Doctor beat his wife, by sometimes showing said wife as exhibit +"A" without comment in those remote parts of the county where her proud +figure was unknown. + +In November he was reelected, and there was a torchlight procession up +the aisle of elms and all the neighbors stood on the front porch, +including the Van Dorns and the Mortons and John Kollander in his blue +soldier clothes, carrying the flag into another county office, and the +Henry Fenns, while the Doctor addressed the multitude! And there was +cheering, whereupon Mr. Van Dorn, Judge pro tem and Judge-elect, made a +speech with eloquence and fire in it; John Kollander made his well-known +flag speech, and Captain Morton got some comfort out of the election of +Comrade Nesbit, who had stood where bullets were thickest and as a boy +had bared his breast to the foe to save his country, and drawing the +Doctor into the corner, filed early application to be made +sergeant-at-arms of the State Senate and was promised that or Something +Equally Good. The hungry friends of the new Senator so loaded him with +obligations that blessed night that he again sold his soul to the devil, +went in with the organization, got all the places for all his people, +and being something of an organizer himself, distributed the patronage +for half the State. + +Ten days later--or perhaps it may have been two weeks later, at half +past five in the evening--the Judge-elect was sitting at his desk, +handsomely dressed in black--as befitting the dignity of his office. He +and his newly appointed court stenographer had returned the hour before +from an adjoining county where they had been holding court. The Judge +was alone, if one excepts the young woman at the typewriting desk, +before whom he was preening, as though she were a mere impersonal +mirror. During the hour the Judge had visited the tailor's and had +returned to his office wearing a new, long-tailed coat. His black silk +neck-scarf was resplendently new, his large, soft, black hat--of a type +much favored by statesmen in that day--was cocked at a frivolous angle, +showing the raven's wing of black hair upon his fine forehead. A black +silk watchguard crossed his black vest; his patent leather shoes shone +below his trim black silk socks, and he rubbed his smooth, olive cheek +with the yellow chrysanthemum upon his coat lapel. + +"Gee, but you're swell," said Miss Mauling. "You look good enough to +eat." + +"Might try a bite--if you feel that way about it," replied the Judge. He +put his hands in his pockets, tried them under his long coat tails, +buttoned the coat and thrust one hand between the buttons, put one hand +in a trousers' pocket, letting the other fall at his side, put both +hands behind him, and posed for a few minutes exchanging more or less +fervent glances with the girl. A step sounded in the hallway. The man +and woman obviously listened. It was a heavy tread; it was coming to the +office door. The man and woman slipped into Judge Van Dorn's private +office. When the outer door opened, and it was apparent that some one +was in the outer office, Miss Mauling appeared, note book in hand, quite +brisk and businesslike with a question in her good afternoon. + +"Where's Van Dorn?" The visitor was tall, rawboned, and of that physical +cast known as lanky. His face was flinty, and his red hair was untrimmed +at the neck and ears. + +"The Judge is engaged just now," smiled Miss Mauling. "Will you wait?" +She was careful not to ask him to sit. Grant Adams looked at the girl +with a fretful stare. He did not take off his hat, and he shook his head +toward Van Dorn's office door as he said brusquely, "Tell him to come +out. It's important." The square shoulders of the tall man gave a lunge +or hunch toward the door. "I tell you it's important." + +Miss Mauling smiled. "But he can't come out just now. He's busy. Any +message I can give him?" + +The man was excited, and his voice and manner showed his temper. + +"Now, look here--I have no message; tell Van Dorn I want him quick." + +"What name, please?" responded Miss Mauling, who knew that the visitor +knew she was playing. + +"Grant Adams--tell him it's his business and not mine--except--" + +But the girl had gone. It was several minutes before Tom Van Dorn moved +gracefully and elegantly into the room. "Ah," he began. Grant glared at +him. + +"I've just driven down from Nesbit's with Kenyon, and Mrs. Nesbit says +to tell you Laura's there--came over this morning, and you're to come +just as quick as you can. They tried to get you on the 'phone, but you +weren't here. Do you understand? You're to come quick, and I've left my +horse out here for you. Kenyon and I'll catch a car home." + +The pose with one hand in his trousers pocket and the other hanging +loosely suited the Judge-elect as he answered: "Is that all?" Then he +added, as his eyes went over the blue overalls: "I presume Mrs. Nesbit +advised you as to the reason for--for, well--for haste?" + +Grant saw Van Dorn's eyes wander to the girl's for approval. "I shall +not need your horse, Adams," Van Dorn went on without waiting for a +reply to his question. Then again turning his eyes to the girl, he +asked: "Adams, anything I can do to repay your kindness?" + +"No--" growled Adams, turning to go. + +"Say, Adams," called Van Dorn, rubbing his hands and still smiling at +the girl, "you wouldn't take a cigar in--in anticipation of the happy--" + +Adams whirled around. His big jaw muscles worked in knots before he +spoke; his blue eyes were set and raging. But he looked at the floor an +instant before crying: + +"You go to hell!" And an instant later, the lank figure had left the +room, slamming the door after him. Grant heard the telephone bell +ringing, and heard the girl's voice answering it, then he went to the +doctor's office. As he was writing the words "At Home" on the slate on +the door, he could hear Miss Mauling at the telephone. + +"Yes," and again, "Yes," and then, "Is there any message," and finally +she giggled, "All right, I'll call him." Then Grant stalked down the +stairs. The receiver was hanging down. The Doctor at the other end of +the wire could hear a man and a woman laughing. Van Dorn stepped to the +instrument and said: "Yes, Doctor." + +Then, "What--well, you don't say!" + +And still again, "Yes, he was just here this minute; shall I call him +back?" And before hanging up the receiver, he said, "Why, of course, +I'll come right out." + +The Judge-elect turned gracefully around, smiling complacently: "Well, +Violet--it's your bet. It's a girl!" + +The court stenographer poked a teasing forefinger at him and whittled it +with another in glee. Then, as if remembering something, she asked: +"How's your wife?" + +Van Dorn's face was blank for an instant. "By George--that's so. I +forgot to ask." He started to pick up the telephone receiver, but +checked himself. He pulled his broad-brimmed hat over his eyes, and +started for the door, waving merrily and rubbing his chin with his +flower. + +"Ta ta," he called as he saw the last of her flashing smile through the +closing door. + +And thus into a world where only the fittest survive that day came Lila +Van Dorn,--the child of a mother's love. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +WHEREIN WE WELCOME IN A NEW YEAR AND CONSIDER A SERIOUS QUESTION + + +The journey around the sun is a long and tumultuous one. Many of us jolt +off the earth as we ride, others of us are turned over and thrown into +strange and absurd positions, and a few of us sit tight and edge along, +a little further toward the soft seats. But as we whirl by the stations, +returning ever and again to the days that are precious in our lives, to +the seasons that give us greatest joy, we measure our gains, on the long +journey, in terms of what we love. "A little over a year ago to-night, +my dear," chirruped Dr. Nesbit, pulling a gray hair from his temple +where hairs of any kind were becoming scarce enough. "A year, a month, +and a week and a day ago to-night the town and the Harvey brass band +came out here and they tramped up the blue grass so that it won't get +back in a dozen years. + +"Well," he mused, as the fire burned, "I got 'em all their jobs, I got +two or three good medical laws passed, and I hope I have made some +people happy." + +"Yes, my dear," answered his wife. "In that year little Lila has come +into short dresses, and Kenyon Adams has learned to play on the piano, +and is taking up the violin." + +"How time has flown since election a year ago," said Captain Morton to +his assembled family as they sat around the base burner smoldering in +the dining-room. "And I've put the patent window fastener into forty +houses and sold Henry Fenn the burglar alarm to go with his." And the +eldest Miss Morton spoke up and said: + +"My good land, I hope we'll have a new principal by this time next year. +Another year under that man will kill me--pa, I do wish you'd run for +the school board." + +And the handsome Miss Morton added, "My goodness, Emma Morton, if I +didn't have anything to do but draw forty dollars every month for +yanking a lot of little kids around and teaching them the multiplication +tables, I wouldn't say much. Why, we've come through algebra into +geometry and half way through Cicero, while you've been fussing with +that old principal--and Mrs. Herdicker's got a new trimmer, and we girls +down at the shop have to put up with her didoes. Talk of trouble, gee!" + +"Martha, you make me weary," said the youngest Miss Morton, eating an +apple. "If you'd had scarlet fever and measles the same year, and your +old dress just turned and your same old hat, you'd have something to +talk about." + +"Well," remarked His Honor the Mayor to Henry Fenn and Morty Sands as +they sat in the Amen Corner New Year's eve, looking at the backs of a +shelf of late books and viewing several shelves of standard sets with +highly gilded backs, "it's more'n a year since election--and well, +say--I've got all my election bets paid now and am out of debt again, +and the book store's gradually coming along. By next year this time I +expect to put four more shelves of copyrighted books in and cut down the +paper backs to a stack on the counter. But old Lady Nicotine is still +the patron of the fine arts--say, if it wasn't for the 'baccy little +Georgie would be so far behind with his rent that he would knock off a +year and start over." + +Young Mr. Sands rolled a cigarette and lighted it and said: "It's a +whole year--and Pop's gone a long time without a wife; it'll be two +years next March since the last one went over the hill who was brought +out to make a home for little Morty, and I saw Dad peeking out of the +hack window as we were standing waiting for the hearse, and wondered +which one of the old girls present he'd pick on. But," mused Morty, "I +guess it's Anne's eyes. Every time he edges around to the subject of our +need of a mother, Anne turns her eyes on him and he changes the +subject." Morty laughed quietly and added: "When Anne gets out of her +'teens she'll put father in a monastery!" + +"Honeymoon's kind of waning--eh, Henry?" asked Judge Van Dorn, who +dropped in for a magazine and heard the conversation about the passing +of the year. He added: "I see you've been coming down here pretty +regularly for three or four months!" Henry looked up sadly and shook his +head. "You can't break the habit of a dozen years. And I got to coming +here back in the days when George ran a pool and billiard hall, and I +suppose I'll come until I die, and then George will bring his wheezy old +quartette around and sing over me, and probably act as pall-bearer +too--if he doesn't read the burial service of the lodge in addition." + +"Well, a year's a year," said the suave Judge Van Dorn. "A year ago you +boys were smoking on me as the new judge of this judicial district. All +hail Thane of Cawdor--" He smiled his princely smile, taking every one +in with his frank, bold eyes, and waved himself into the blustery night. +There he met Mr. Calvin, who, owing to a turn matters had taken at home, +was just beginning another long period of exile from the hearthstone. He +walked the night like a ghost, silent and grim. His thin little neck, +furrowed behind by the sunken road between his arteries, was adorned by +two tufts of straggling hair, and as his overcoat collar was rolled and +wrinkled, he had an appearance of extreme neglect and dejection. "Did +you realize that it's over a year since election?" said Van Dorn. "We +might as well begin looking out for next year, Joe," he added, "if +you've got nothing better to do. I wish you'd go down the row to-night +and see the boys and tell them I want to talk to them in the next ten +days or so; a man never can be too early in these things; and say--if +you happen in the Company store down there and see Violet Mauling, slip +her a ten and charge it to me on the books; I wonder how she's doing--I +haven't heard of her for three months. Nice girl, Violet." + +And Mrs. Herdicker hadn't heard of Miss Mauling for some time, and +sitting in her little office back of the millinery store, sorting over +her old bills, she came to a bill badly dog-eared with Miss Mauling's +name on it. The bill called for something like $75 and the last payment +on it had been made nearly half a year ago. So she looked at that bill +and added ten dollars to Mrs. Van Dorn's bill for the last hat she +bought, and did what she could to resign herself to the injustices of a +cruel world. But it had been a good year for Mrs. Herdicker. New wells +in new districts had come gushing gas and oil into Harvey in great +geysers and the work on the new smelter was progressing, and the men in +the mines had been kept steadily at work; for Harvey coal was the best +in the Missouri Valley. So the ladies who are no better than they should +be and the ladies who are much better than they should be, and the +ladies who will stand for a turned ribbon, and a revived feather, and +are just about what they may be expected to be, all came in and spent +their money like the princesses that they were. And Mrs. Herdicker +figured in going over her stock just which hat she could sell to Mrs. +Nesbit as a model hat from the Paris exhibit at the World's Fair, and +which one she could put on Mrs. Fenn as a New York sample, and as she +built her castles the loss of the $75 to Miss Mauling had its +compensating returns, and she smiled and thought that just a year ago +she had offered that same World's Fair Model to the wife of the newly +elected State Senator and she must put on a new bunch of flowers and +bend down the brim. + +The Dexters were sitting by the stove in the living-room with Amos +Adams; they had come down to the lonely little home to prepare a good +dinner for the men. "A year ago to-day," said the minister to the group +as he put down the newspaper, "Kenyon got his new fiddle." + +"The year has brought me something--I tell you," Jasper said. "I've +bought a horse with my money I earned as page in the State Senate and +I've got a milk route, and have all the milk in the neighborhood to +distribute. That's what the year has done for me." + +"Well," reflected the minister, "we've got the mission church in South +Harvey on a paying basis, and the pipe organ in the home church paid +for--that's some comfort. And they do say," his eyes twinkled as he +looked at his wife, "that the committee is about to settle all the choir +troubles. That's pretty good for a year." + +"Another year," sighed Amos Adams, and the wind blew through the gaunt +branches of the cottonwood trees in the yard, and far down in the valley +came the moaning as of many waters, and the wind played its harmonies in +the woodlot. The old man repeated the words: "Another year," and asked +himself how many more years he would have to wait and listen to the +sighing of the moaning waters that washed around the world. And Kenyon +Adams, lying flushed and tousled and tired upon a couch near by, heard +the waters in his dreams and they made such music that his thin, little +face moved in an eyrie smile. + +"Mag," said a pale, nervous girl with dead, sad eyes as she looked +around at the new furniture in the new house, and avoided the rim of +soft light that came from the electric under the red shade, "did you +think I was cheeky to ask you all those questions over the 'phone--about +where Henry was to-night, and what you'd be doing?" The hostess said: +"Why, no, Violet, no--I'm always glad to see you." + +There was a pause, and the girl exclaimed: "That's what I come out for. +I couldn't stand it any longer. Mag, what in God's name have I done? +Didn't you see me the other day on Market Street? You were looking right +at me. It's been nearly a year since we've talked. You used to couldn't +get along a week without a good talk; but now--say, Mag, what's the +matter? what have I done to make you treat me like this?" There was a +tremor in the girl's voice. She looked piteously at the wife, radiant in +her red house gown. The hostess spoke. "Look here, Violet Mauling, I did +see you on Market Street, and I did cut you dead. I knew it would bring +you up standing and we'd have this thing out." + +The girl looked her question, but flushed. Then she said, "You mean the +old man?" + +"I mean the old man. It's perfectly scandalous, Violet; didn't you get +your lesson with Van Dorn?" returned the hostess. "The old man won't +marry you--you don't expect that, do you?" The girl shook her head. The +woman continued, "Well, then drop it. You can't afford to be seen with +him." + +"Mag," returned the visitor, "I tell you before God I can't afford not +to. It's my job. It's all I've got. Mamma hasn't another soul except me +to depend on. And he's harmless--the old coot's as harmless as a child. +Honest and true, Mag, if I ever told the truth that's it. He just stands +around and is silly--just makes foolish breaks to hear himself +talk--that's all. But what can I do? He keeps me in the company store, +and Heaven knows he doesn't kill himself paying me--only $8 a week, as +far as that goes, and then he talks and talks and talks about Judge Van +Dorn, and snickers and drops his front false teeth--ugh!--and drivels. +But, Mag, he's harmless as a baby." + +"Well," returned the hostess, "Henry says every one is talking about it, +and you're a common scandal, Violet Mauling, and you ought to know it. I +can't hold you up, as you well know--no one can." + +Then there followed a flood of tears, and after it had subsided the two +women were sitting on a couch. "I want to tell you about Tom Van Dorn, +Mag--you never understood. You thought I used to chase him. God knows I +didn't, Mag--honest, honest, honest! You knew as well as anything all +about it; but I never told you how I fought and fought and all that and +how little by little he came closer and closer, and no one ever will +know how I cried and how ashamed I was and how I tried to fight him off. +That's the God's truth, Mag--the God's truth if you ever heard it." + +The girl sobbed and hid her face. "Once when papa died he sent me a +hundred dollars through Mr. Brotherton, and mamma thought it came from +the Lodge; but I knew better. And, O Mag, Mag, you'll never know how I +felt to bury papa on that kind of money. And I saved for nearly a year +to pay it back, and of course I couldn't, for he kept getting me +expensive things and I had to get things to go with 'em and went in +debt, and then when I went there in the office it was all so--so close +and I couldn't fight, and he was so powerful--you know just how big and +strong, and--O Mag, Mag, Mag--you'll never know how I tried--but I just +couldn't. Then he made me court reporter and took me over the district." +The girl looked up into the great, soft, beautiful eyes of Margaret +Fenn, and thought she saw sympathy there. That was a common mistake; +others made it in looking at Margaret's eyes. The girl felt encouraged. +She came closer to her one-time friend. "Mag," she said, "they lied +awfully about how I lost my job. They said Mrs. Van Dorn made a row. +Honest, Mag, there's nothing to that. She never even dreamed anything +was--well--was--don't you know. She wasn't a bit jealous, and is as nice +as she can be to me right now. It was this way. You know when I sent +mamma away last May for a visit, and the Van Dorns asked me over there +to stay?" Mrs. Fenn nodded. "Well," continued Violet, "one day in +court--you know when they were trying that bond case--the city bonds and +all--well, the Judge scribbled a note on his desk and handed it to me. +It said my room door creaked, and not to shut it." She stopped and put +her head in her hand and rocked her body. "I know, Mag, it was awful, +but some way I just couldn't help it. He is so strong, and--you know, +Mag, how we used to say there's some men when they come about you just +make you kind of flush all over and weak--well, he's that way. And, +anyway, like a fool I dropped that note and one of the jurors--a farmer +from Union township--picked it up and took it straight to Doctor Jim." + +The girl hid her face in her friend's dress. "It was awful." She spoke +without looking up. "But, O Mag--Doctor Jim was fine--so gentle, so +kind. The Judge thought he would cuss around a lot, but he didn't--not +even to him--the Judge said. And the Doctor came to me as bashful +and--as--well, your own father couldn't have been better to you. So I +just quit, and the Judge got me the job in the Company store and the +Doctor drops in and she--yes, Mag, the Judge's wife comes with the +Doctor sometimes, and now it's been five months to-day since I left the +court reporter's work and I have hardly seen the Judge to speak to him +since. But they all know, I guess, but mamma, and I sometimes think +folks try to talk to her; and that old man Sands comes snooping and +snickering around like an old dog hunting a buried bone, and he's my +job, and I don't know what to do." + +Neither did Margaret know what to do, so she let her go and let her +stay, and knew her old friend no more. For Margaret was rising in the +world, and could have no encumbrances; and Miss Mauling disappeared in +South Harvey and that New Year's Eve marked the sad anniversary of the +break in her relations with Mrs. Fenn. And it is all set down here on +this anniversary to show what a jolty journey some of us make as we jog +around the sun, and to show the gentle reader how the proud Mr. Van Dorn +hunts his prey and what splendid romances he enjoys and what a fair +sportsman he is. + +But the old year is restless. It has painted the sky of South Harvey +with the smoke of a score of smelter chimneys; it has burned in the drab +of the dejected-looking houses, and it has added a few dozen new ones +for the men and their families who operate the smelter. + +Moreover, the old year has run many new, strange things through a little +boy's eyes as he looks sadly into a queer world--a little, black-eyed +boy, while a grand lady with a high head sits on a piano bench beside +the child and plays for him the grand music that was fashionable in her +grand day. The passing year pressed into his little heart all that the +music told him--not of the gray misery of South Harvey, not of the +thousands who are mourning and toiling there, but instead the old year +has whispered to the child the beautiful mystic tales of great souls +doing noble deeds, of heroes who died that men might live and love, of +beauty and of harmony too deep for any words of his that throb in him +and stir depths in his soul to high aspiration. It has all gone through +his ears; for his eyes see little that is beautiful. There is, of +course, the beauty of the homely hours he spends with those who love him +best, hours spent at school and joyous hours spent by the murmuring +creek, and there is what the grand lady at the piano thinks is a marvel +of beauty in the ornate home upon the hill. But the most beautiful thing +he sees as the old year winds the passing panorama of life for his eyes +is the sunshine and prairie grass. This comes to him of a Sunday when he +walks with Grant--brother Grant, out in the fields far away from South +Harvey--where the frosty breath of autumn has turned the grass to +lavender and pale heliotrope, and the hills roll away and away like +silent music and the clouds idling lazily over the hillsides afar off +cast dark shadows that drift in the lavender sea. Now the smoke that the +old year paints upon the blue prairie sky will fade as the year passes, +and the great smelters may crumble and men may plow over the ground +where they stand so proudly even to-day; but the music in the boy's +heart, put there by the passing year, and the glory of the sunshine and +the prairie grass with the meadow lark's sad evening song as it quivers +for a moment in the sunset air,--these have been caught in the child's +soul and have passed through the strange alchemy of God's great mystery +of human genius into an art that is the heritage of the race. For into +the mind of that child--that eyrie, large-eyed, wondering, silent, +lonely-seeming child--the signals of God were passing. When he grew into +his man's estate and could give them voice, the winds of the prairie, +low and gentle, the soft lisping of quiet waters, the moving passion of +the hurricane, the idle dalliance of the clouds whose purple shadows +combed the rolling hills, and all the ecstasy of the love cry of +solitary prairie birds, found meaning and the listening world heard, +through his music, God speaking to His children. + +So the year moved quickly on. Its tasks were countless. It had another +child to teach another message. There was a little girl in the town--a +small girl with the bluest eyes in the world and tiny curls--yellow +curls that wound so softly around her mother's fingers that you would +think that they were not curls at all but golden dreams of curls that +had for the moment come true and would fade back into fairyland whence +they came. And the passing year had to prop the child at a window while +the dusk came creeping into the quiet house. There she sat waiting, +watching, hoping that the proud, handsome man who came at twilight down +the way leading to the threshold, would smile at her. She was not old +enough to hope he would take her in his arms where she could cuddle and +be loved. So the passing year had to take a fine brush and paint upon +the small, wistful face a fleeting shadow, the mere ghost of a sadness +that came and went as she watched and waited for the father love. + +And Judge Thomas Van Dorn, the punctilious, gay, resistless, young Tom +Van Dorn was deaf to the deeper voices that called to him and beckoned +him to rest his soul. And soon upon the winds that roam the world and +carry earth dreams back to ghosts, and bring ghosts of what we would be +back to our dreams--the roaming winds bore away the passing year, but +they could not take the shadows that it left upon the child's tender +heart. + +Now, when the old year with all its work lay down in the innumerable +company of its predecessors, and the bells rang and the whistles blew in +South Harvey to welcome in the new year, the midnight sky was blazoned +with the great torches from the smelter chimneys, and the pumps in the +oil wells kept up their dolorous whining and complaining, like great +insects battening upon an abandoned world. In South Harvey the lights of +the saloons and the side of the dragon's spawn glowed and beckoned men +to death. Money tinkled over the bars, and whispered as it was crumpled +in the claws of the dragon. For money the scurrying human ants hurried +along the dark, half-lighted streets from the ant hills over the mines. +For money the cranes of the pumps creaked their monody. For money the +half-naked men toiled to their death in the fumes of the smelter. So the +New Year's bells rang a pean of welcome to the money that the New Year +would bring with its toll of death. + +"Money," clanged the church bells in the town on the hill. "Money makes +wealth and since we have banished our kings and stoned our priests, +money is the only thing in our material world that will bring power and +power brings pleasure and pleasure brings death." + +"And death? and death? and death?" tolled the church bells that glad New +Year, and then ceased in circling waves of sound that enveloped the +world, still inquiring--"and death? and death?" fainter and fainter +until dawn. + +The little boy who heard the bells may have heard their plaintive +question; for in the morning twilight, sitting in his nightgown on his +high chair looking into the cheerful mouth of the glowing kitchen stove, +while the elders prepared breakfast, the child who had been silent for a +long time raised his face and asked: + +"Grant--what is death?" The youth at his task answered by telling about +the buried seed and the quickening plant. The child listened and shook +his head. + +"Father," he asked, addressing the old man, who was rubbing his chilled +hands over the fire, "what is death?" The old man spoke, slowly. He ran +his fingers through his beard and then addressing the youth who had +spoken rather than the child, replied: + +"Death? Death?" and looked puzzled, as if searching for his words. +"Death is the low archway in the journey of life, where we all--high and +low, weak and strong, poor and rich, must bow into the dust, remove our +earthly trappings, wealth and power and pleasure, before we rise to go +upon the next stage of our journey into wider vistas and greener +fields." + +The child nodded his head as one who has just appraised and approved a +universe, replying sagely, "Oh," then after a moment he added: "Yes." +And said no more. + +But when the sun was up, and the wheels scraped on the gravel walk +before the Adams home, and the silvery, infectious laugh of a young +mother waked the echoes of the home, as she bundled up Kenyon for his +daily journey, the old man and the young man heard the child ask: "Aunty +Laura--what is death?" The woman with her own child near in the very +midst of life, only laughed and laughed again, and Kenyon laughed and +Lila laughed and they all laughed. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +GRANT ADAMS IS SOLD INTO BONDAGE AND MARGARET FENN RECEIVES A SHOCK + + +Perhaps the sound of their laughter drowned the mournful voices of the +bells in Grant Adams's heart. But the bells of the New Year left within +him some stirring of their eternal question. For as the light of day +sniffed out, Grant in a cage full of miners, with Dick Bowman and one of +his boys standing beside him, going down to the second level of the +mine, asked himself the question that had puzzled him: Why did not these +men get as much out of life as their fellows on the same pay in the town +who work in stores and offices? He could see no particular difference in +the intelligence of the men in Harvey and the workers in South Harvey; +yet there they were in poorer clothes, with, faces not so quick, clearly +not so well kept from a purely animal standpoint, and even if they were +sturdier and physically more powerful, yet to the young man working with +them in the mine, it seemed that they were a different sort from the +white-handed, keen-faced, smooth-shaven, well-groomed clerks of Market +Street, and that the clerks were getting the better of life. And Grant +cried in his heart: "Why--why--why?" + +Then Dick Bowman said: "Red--penny for your thoughts?" The men near by +turned to Grant and he said: "Hello, Dick--" Then to the boy: "Well, +Mugs, how are you?" He spoke to the others, Casper and Barney and Evans +and Hugh and Bill and Dan and Tom and Lew and Gomer and Mike and +Dick--excepting Casper Herdicker, mostly Welsh and Irish, and they +passed around some more or less ribald greetings. Then they all stepped +upon the soft ground and stood in the light of the flickering oil +torches that hung suspended from timbers. + +Stretching down long avenues these flickering torches blocked out the +alleys of the mine in either direction from the room, perhaps fifty by +forty feet, six or seven feet high, where they were standing. A car of +coal drawn by forlorn mules and pushed by a grinning boy, came creaking +around a distant corner, and drew nearer to the cage. A score of men +ending their shift were coming into the passageways from each end, +shuffling along, tired and silent. They met the men going to work with a +nod or a word and in a moment the room at the main bottom was empty and +silent, save for the groaning car and the various language spoken by the +grinning boy to the unhappy mule. Grant Adams turned off the main +passage to an air course, where from the fans above cold air was rushing +along a narrow and scarcely lighted runway about six feet wide and lower +than the main passage. Down this passage the new mule barn was building. +Grant went to his work, and just outside the barn, snuffed a sputtering +torch that was dripping burning oil into a small oily puddle on the damp +floor. The room was cold. Three men were with him and he was directing +them, while he worked briskly with them. Occasionally he left the barn +to oversee the carpenters who were timbering up a new shaft in a lower +level that was not yet ready for operation. Fifty miners and carpenters +were working on the third level, clearing away passages, making shaft +openings, putting in timbers, constructing air courses and getting the +level ready for real work. On the second level, in the little rooms, off +the long, gloomy passages lighted with the flaring torches hanging from +the damp timbers that stretched away into long vistas wherein the +torches at the ends of the passage glimmered like fireflies, men were +working--two hundred men pegging and digging and prying and sweating and +talking to their "buddies," the Welsh in monosyllables and the Irish in +a confusion of tongues. The cars came jangling along the passageways +empty and went back loaded and groaning. Occasionally the piping voice +of a boy and the melancholy bray of a mule broke the deep silence of the +place. + +For sound traveled slowly through the gloom, as though the torches +sapped it up and burned it out in faint, trembling light to confuse the +men who sometimes came plodding down the galleries to and from the main +bottom. At nine o'clock Grant Adams had been twice over the mine, on the +three levels and had thirty men hammering away for dear life. He sent a +car of lumber down to the mule barn, while he went to the third level to +direct the division of an air shaft into an emergency escape. On one +side of this air shaft the air came down and there was a temporary hoist +for the men on the third level and on the other side a wooden stairway +was to be built up seventy feet toward the second level. + +At ten o'clock Grant came back to the second level by the hoist in the +air shaft and as he started down the low air course branching off from +the main passage and leading to the new mule barn, he smelled burning +pine; and hurrying around a corner saw that the boy who dumped the pine +boards for the mule barn had not taken the boards into the barn, nor +even entirely to the barn, but had dumped them in the passage to the +windward of the barn, under the leaky torch, and Grant could see down +the air course the ends of the boards burning brightly. + +The men working in the barn could not smell the fire, for the wind that +rushed down the air course was carrying the smoke and fumes away from +them. Grant ran down the course toward the fire, which was fanned by the +rushing air, came to the lumber, which was not all afire, jumped through +the flames, slapping the little blazes on his clothes with his hat as he +came out, and ran into the barn calling to the men to help him put out +the fire. They spent two or three minutes trying to attach the hose to +the water plug there, but the hose did not fit the plug; then they tried +to turn the plug to get water in their dinner pails and found that the +plug had rusted and would not turn. While they worked the fire grew. It +was impossible to send a man back through it, so Grant sent a man +speeding around the air course, to get a wrench from the pump room, or +from some one in the main bottom to turn on the water. In the meantime +he and the other two men worked furiously to extinguish the fire by +whipping it with their coats and aprons, but always the flames beat them +back. Helplessly they saw it eating along the mine timbers far down the +vacant passage. Little red devils of flame that winked maliciously two +hundred feet away, and went out, then sprang up again, then blazed +steadily. Grant and the two men tugged frantically at the burning +boards, trying to drag them out of the passageway into the barn, but +only here and there could an end be picked up, and it took five minutes +to get half a dozen charred boards into the barn. While they struggled +with the charred boards the flames down the passage kept glowing +brighter and brighter. The men were conscious that the flames were +playing around the second torch below the barn. Although they realized +that the man they sent for the wrench had nearly half a mile to go and +come by the roundabout way, they asked one another if he was making the +wrench! + +Men began poking their heads into the course and calling, "Need any help +down there," and Grant cried, "Yes, go to the pump in the main balcony +with your buckets and get water." The man sent for the wrench appeared +down the long passage. Grant yelled, + +"Hurry--hurry, man!" But though he came running, the fire seemed to be +going faster than he was. They could hear men calling and felt that +there was confusion at the end of the air course where it turned into +the main passage ahead of the flames. A second torch exploded, +scattering the fire far down the course. The man, breathless and +exhausted, ran up with the wrench. Then they felt the air in the air +course stop moving. They looked at one another. "Yes," said the man with +the wrench, "I told 'em to reverse the fans and when we got the water +turned on we'd hold the fire from going to the other end of the +passage." He said this between gasps as he tugged at the water plug with +the wrench. He hit it a vicious blow and the cap broke. + +The fan had reversed. The air was rushing back, bringing the flames to +the barn. They beat the fire madly with their coats, but in two minutes +the roaring air had brought the flames upon them. The loose timber and +shavings in the barn were beginning to blaze and the men ran for their +lives down the air course. As they ran for the south passage, the smoke +followed them and they felt it in their eyes and lungs. The lights +behind them were dimmed, and those in front grew dim. They reached the +passage in a cloud of smoke, but it was going up the air shaft and did +not fill the passage. "Mugs," yelled Grant to a boy driving an ore car, +"run down this passage and tell the men there's a fire--where's your +father?" + +"He's up yon way," called the boy, pointing in the opposite direction as +he ran. "You tell him." The fire was roaring down the air course behind +them, and Grant and the three men knew that in a few minutes the reverse +air would be sucking the flames up the air shaft, cutting off the +emergency escape for the men on the first and second levels. + +Grant knew that the emergency escape was not completed for the third +level, but he knew that they were using the air chute for a temporary +hoist for the men from the third level and that the main shaft was not +running to the third level. + +"Run down this passage, Bill," called Grant. "Get all those fellows. +Evans, you call the first level; I'll skin down this rope to the men +below." In an instant, as the men were flying on their errands, his red +head disappeared down the rope into the darkness. At the bottom of the +hoist in the third level Grant found forty or fifty men at work. They +were startled to see him come down without waiting for the bucket to go +up and he called breathlessly as his feet touched the earth: "Boys, +there's a fire above on the next level--I don't know how bad it is; but +it looks bad to me. They may get it out with a hose from the main +bottom--if they've got hose there that will reach any place." + +"Let's go up," cried one of the men. As they started toward him, Grant +threw up his hand. + +"Hold on now, boys--hold on. The fans will be blowing that fire down +this air shaft in a few minutes. How far up have you got the ladders?" +he asked. + +Some one answered: "Still twelve feet shy." There was a scramble for the +buckets, but no one offered to man the windlass and hoist them up the +air shaft. Grant was only a carpenters' boss. The men around the buckets +were miners. But he called: "Get out of there, Hughey and Mike--none of +that. We must make that ladder first--get some timbers--put the rungs +three feet apart, and work quick." + +He pointed at the timbers to be used for the ladders, stepped to the +windlass and cried: + +"Here, Johnnie--you got no family--get hold of this windlass with me. +Ready now--family men first--you, Sam--you, Edwards--you, Lewellyn." + +Then he bent to the wheel and the men in the bucket started up the +shaft. The others pounded at the ladder, and those who could find no +work clambered up the stairs to the bottom of the gap that separated +them from the second level. As the men in the buckets were nearly up to +the second level, where the hoist stopped, Grant heard one of them call: +"Hurry, hurry--here she comes," and a second later a hot, smoky wind +struck his face and he knew the fan was turned again and soon would be +blowing fire down the air course. + +The men had the ladder almost finished. The men above on the stairs +smelled the smoke and began yelling. The bucket reached the top and was +started down. Grant looked up the air shaft and saw the fire--little +flickering flames lighting up the shaft near the second level. The air +rushing down was smoky and filled with sparks. The ladder was ready and +the men made a rush with it up the stairway. Most of their lamps were +put out and it was dark in the stairway. The men were uttering +hysterical, foolish cries as they rushed upward in their panic. The +ladder jolting against the sides of the chamber knocked the men off +their feet and there was tumbling and swearing and tripping and +struggling. + +Grant grabbed the ladder from the men and held it above his head, and +called out: + +"You men go up there in order. You'll not get the ladder till you +straighten up." + +The emergency-passage was filling with smoke. The men were coughing and +gasping. + +Up and down the stairs men called: + +"Brace up, that's right." + +"Red's right." + +"We'll all go if we don't straighten up." + +In a moment there was some semblance of order, and Grant wormed his way +to the top holding the ladder above him. He put one end of it on a +landing and nailed the foot of the ladder to the landing floor. Then he +stood on the landing, a great, powerful man with blazing eyes, and +called down: "Now come; one at a time, and if any man crowds I'll kill +him. Come on--one at a time." One came and went up; when he was on the +third rung of the ladder, Grant let another man pass up, and so three +men were on the ladder. + +As the top man raised the trapdoor above, Grant and those upon the +ladder could see the flames and a great gust of smoke poured down. The +man at the top hesitated. On the other side of the partition in the air +chute the smoke was pouring and the fire was circling the top of the +emergency escape through which the men must pass. + +"Go ahead or jump down," yelled Grant. + +Those on the ladder and on the landing who could see up cried: + +"Quick, for God's sake! Hurry!" + +And in another second the first man had scrambled through the hole, +letting the trapdoor fall upon the head of the scrambling man just under +him. He fell, but Grant caught him, and shoved him into the next turn +upon the ladder. + +After that they learned to lift their hands up and catch the trapdoor, +but they could see the flames burning the timbers and dropping sparks +and blowing smoke down the emergency shaft. Ten men went up; the fire in +the flume along the stairs below them was beginning to whip through the +board partition. The fan was pumping the third level full of smoke; it +was carried out of the stairway by the current. But the men were calling +below. Little Ira Dooley tried to go around Grant ahead of his turn at +the ladder. The cheater felt the big man's hand catch him and hold him. +The men below saw Grant hit the cheater upon the point of the jaw and +throw him half conscious under the ladder. The men climbed steadily up. +Twenty-five went through the trapdoor into the unknown hell raging +above. Again and again the ladder emptied itself, as the flames in the +shaft grew longer, and the circle of fire above grew broader. The men +passed through the trapdoor with scorching clothes. + +The ladder was filling for the last time. The last man was on the first +rung. Grant reached under the ladder, caught Dooley about the waist and +started up with him. On the ladder Dooley regained consciousness, and +Grant shoved him ahead and saw Dooley slip through the trapdoor and then +stop in the smoke and fire and stand holding up the door for Grant. The +two men smiled through the smoke, and as Grant came through with his +clothes afire, he and Dooley looked quickly about them. Their lights +were out; but the burning timbers above gave them their directions. They +headed down the south passage, but even as they entered it the flames +barred them there. Then they turned to go up the passage, and could hear +men calling and yelling far down in the dark alley. The torches were +gone. Far ahead through the stifling smoke that swirled about the damp +timbers overhead, they could see the flickering lights of men running. +They started to follow the lamps. Dooley, who was a little man, slowly +dropped back. Grant caught his hand and dragged him. Soon they came up +to the others, who paused to give them lights. Then they all started to +run again, hoping to come out of that passage into the main bottom by +the main shaft in another quarter of a mile. Occasionally a man would +begin to lag, but some one always stopped to give him a hand. Once Grant +passed two men, Tom Williams and Evan Davis, leaning against a timber, +Davis fagged, Williams fanning his companion with his cap. + +From some cross passage a group of men who worked on the second level +came rushing to them. They had no lights and were lost. Down the passage +they all ran together, and at the end they saw something cluttering it +up. The opening seemed to be closed. The front man tumbled and fell; a +dozen men fell over him. Three score men were trapped there, struggling +in a pile of pipes and refuse timber that all but filled the passage +into the main bottom. Five minutes were lost there. Then by twos they +crawled into the main bottom. There men were working with hose, trying +to put out the fire in the air course leading to the mule stables. They +did not realize that the other end of the mine was in flames. + +Coal was still going up in the cages. The men in the east and west +passages were still at work. Smoke thickened the air. The entrance to +the air course was charred, and puffing smoke. The fans relaxed for a +moment upon a signal to cease until the course was explored. A hose was +playing in the course, but no man had ventured down it. When Grant came +out he called to the men with the cage boss: "Where's Kinnehan--where's +the pit boss?" No one knew. Some little boys--trimmers and drivers--were +begging to go up with the coal. Finally the cage boss let them ride up. + +While they were wrangling, Grant said: "Lookee here--this is a real +fire, men; stop spitting on that air course with the hose and go turn +out the men." + +The men from the third level were clamoring at the cage boss to go up. + +Grant stopped them: "Now, here--let's divide off, five in a squad and go +after the men on this level, and five in a squad go up to the next level +and call the men out there. There's time if we hurry to save the whole +shift." He tolled them off and they went down the glimmering passages, +that were beginning to grow dim with smoke. As he left the main bottom +he saw by his watch under a torch that it was nearly eleven o'clock. He +ran with his squad down the passage, calling out the men from their +little rooms. Three hundred yards down the smoke grew denser. And he met +men coming along the passage. + +"Are they all out back of you?" he called to the men as they passed. +"Yes," they cried, "except the last three or four rooms." + +Grant and his men pushed forward to these rooms. As they went they +stumbled over an unconscious form in the passage. The men behind +Grant--Dooley, Hogan, Casper Herdicker, Williams, Davis, Chopini--joined +him. Their work was done. They had been in all the rooms. They picked up +the limp form, and staggered slowly back down the passage. The smoke +gripped Grant about the belly like a vise. He could not breathe. He +stopped, then crawled a few feet, then leaned against a timber. Finally +he rose and came upon the swaying group with the unconscious man. +Another man was down, and three men were dragging two. + +The smoke kept rolling along behind them. It blackened the passage ahead +of them. Most of the lights the men carried were out. Grant lent a hand, +and the swaying procession crawled under the smoke. They went so slowly +that one man, then two on their hands and knees, then three more caught +up with them and they were too exhausted to drag the senseless man with +them. At a puddle in the way they soused the face of the prostrated man +in the water. That revived him. They could hear and feel another man +across the passage calling feebly for help. Grant and Chopini, speaking +different languages, understood the universal call of distress, and +together crawled in the dark and felt their way to the feeble voice. +Chopini reached the voice first. Grant could just distinguish in the +darkness the powerful movement of the Italian, with his head upon the +ground like a nosing dog's as he wormed under the fallen body and got it +on his back and bellied over to the group that was slowly moving down +the passage toward the glimmering light. As they passed the rooms +vacated by the miners, sometimes they put their heads in and got +refreshing air, for the smoke moved in a slow, murky current down the +passage and did not back into the rooms at first. + +Grant and Chopini crawled on all fours into a room, and found the air +fresh. They rose, holding each other's hands. They leaned together +against the dark walls and breathed slowly, and finally their diaphragms +seemed to be released and they breathed more deeply. By a hand signal +they agreed to start out. At the door they crouched and crawled. A few +yards further they found the little group of a dozen men feebly pushing +on. Seven were trying to drag five. Further down the passage they could +hear the shrill cries of the men in the main bottom, as they came +hurrying from the other runways, and far back up the dark passage behind +them they could hear the roar of flames. They saw that they were +trapped. Behind them was the fire. Before them was the long, impossible +stretch to the main bottom, with the smoke thickening and falling lower +every second. So thick was the smoke that the light ahead winked out. +Death stood before them and behind them. + +"Boys--" gasped Grant, "in here--let's get in one of these rooms and +wall it up." + +The seven looked at him and he crawled to a room; sticking his head in +he found it murky. He tried another. The third room was fresh and cool, +and he called the men in. + +Then all nine dragged one after another of the limp bodies into the room +and they began walling the door into the passage. There were two lights +on a dozen caps. Grant put out one lamp and they worked by the glimmer +of a single lamp. Gradually, but with a speed--slow as it had to +be--inspired by deadly terror, the wall went up. They daubed it with mud +that seemed to refresh itself from a pool that was hollowed in the +floor. After what seemed an age of swiftly accurate work, the wall was +waist high; the smoke bellied in, in a gust, and was suddenly sucked out +by an air current, and the men at the wall tapping some spring of +unknown energy bent frantically to their task. Three of the six men were +coming to life. They tried to rise and help. Two crawled forward, and +patted the mud in the bottom crevices. The fierce race with death called +out every man's reserves of body and soul. + +Then, when the wall was breast high, some one heard a choking cry in the +passage. Grant was in the rear of the room, wrestling with a great rock, +and did not hear the cry; but Chopini was over the wall, and Dooley +followed him, and Evans followed him in an instant. They disappeared +down the passage, and when Grant returned, carrying the huge rock to the +speeding work at the wall, he heard a voice outside call: + +"We've got 'em." + +And then, after a silence, as the workmen hurried with the wall, there +came a call for help. Williams and Dennis Hogan followed Grant through +the hole now nearing the roof of the room, out into the passage. The air +was scorching. Some current was moving it rapidly. The second party came +upon the first struggling weakly with Dick Bowman and his son. Father +and son were unconscious and one of the rescuing party had fainted. +Again the vise gripped Grant's abdomen, and he put his face upon the +damp earth and panted. Slowly the three men in the darkness bellied +along until they felt the wall, then in an agony of effort raised +themselves and their burden. Up the wall they climbed to their knees, to +their feet, and met the hands of those inside who took the burden from +them. One, two, three whiffs of clean air as they stuck their heads in +the room, and they were gone--and another two men from the room followed +them. They came upon the first party working their gasping, fainting +course back to the wall, with their load, rolling a man before them. And +they all pulled and tugged and pushed and some leaned heavily upon +others and all looked death squarely in the face and no man whimpered. +The panic was gone; the divine spark that rests in every human soul was +burning, and life was little and cheap in their eyes, compared with the +chance they had to give it for others. + +Flicks of fire were swirling down the passage, and the roar of the +flames came nearer and Grant fancied he could hear the crackle of it. +Chopini was on his knees clutching at the crevices in the wall; Hogan +and Dooley dug with their hands into the chinks, then four men were on +their feet, with the burden, and in the blackness, hands within the wall +reached out and took the man from those outside. The hands reached out +and felt other hands and pulled them up, and five, six men stood upon +their feet and were pulled, scrambling and trembling and reeling, into +the room. The blackness outside became a lurid glare. The flickering +lamp inside showed them that one man was outside. Grant Adams stood +faint and trembling, leaning against a wall of the room; the room and +the men whirled about him and he grew sick at the stomach. But with a +powerful effort he gathered himself, and lunged to the hole in the +rising wall. He was trying to pull himself up when Dooley pulled him +down, and went through the hole like a cat. Hogan followed Dooley and +Evans followed Hogan. "Here he is, right at the bottom," called Hogan, +and in an instant the feet of Casper Herdicker, then the sprawling legs, +then the body and then the head with the closed eyes and gaping mouth +came in, and then three men slowly followed him. Grant, revived by the +water from the puddle under him, stood and saw the last man--Dennis +Hogan--crawl in. Then Grant, seeing Hogan's coat was afire, looked out +and saw flames dancing along the timbers, and a spark with a gust of +smoke was sucked into the room by some eddy of the current outside. In a +last spurt of terrible effort the hole in the wall was closed and +plastered with mud and the men were sealed in their tomb. + +It was but a matter of minutes before the furnace was raging outside. +The men in the room could hear it crackle and roar, and the mud in the +chinks steamed. The men daubed the chinks again and again. + +As the fire roared outside, the men within the room fancied--and perhaps +it was the sheer horror of their situation that prompted their +fancy--that they could hear the screams of men and mules down the +passage toward the main bottom. After an hour, when the roar ceased, +they were in a great silence. And as the day grew old and the silence +grew deep and the immediate danger past, they began to wait. As they +waited they talked. At times they heard a roaring and a crash and they +knew that the timbers having burned away, the passages and courses were +caving in. By their watches they knew that the night was upon them. And +they sat talking nervously through the night, fearing to sleep, dreading +what each moment might bring. Lamp after lamp burned out in turn. And +still they sat and talked. Here one would drowse--there another lose +consciousness and sink to the ground, but always men were talking. The +talk never ceased. They were ashamed to talk of women while they were +facing death, so they kept upon the only other subjects that will hold +men long--God and politics. The talk droned on into morning, through the +forenoon, into the night, past midnight, with the thread taken from one +man sinking to sleep by another waking up, but it never stopped. The +water that seeped into the puddle on the floor moistened their lips as +they talked. There was no food save in two lunch buckets that had been +left in the room by fleeing miners, and thus went the first day. + +The second day the Welsh tried to sing--perhaps to stop the continual +talk of the Irish. Then the Italian sang something, Casper Herdicker +sang the "Marseillaise" and the men clapped their hands, in the twilight +of the last flickering lamp that they had. After that Grant called the +roll at times and those who were awake felt of those who were asleep and +answered for them, and a second day wore into a third. + +By the feeling of the stem of Grant Adams's watch as he wound it, he +judged that they had lived nearly four days in the tomb. Little Mugs +Bowman was crying for food, and his father was trying to comfort him, by +giving him his shoe leather to chew. Others rolled and moaned in their +sleep, and the talk grew unstable and flighty. + +Some one said, "Hear that?" and there was silence, and no one heard +anything. Again the talk began and droned unevenly along. + +"Say, listen," some one else called beside the first man who had heard +the sound. + +Again they listened, and because they were nervous perhaps two or three +men fancied they heard something. But one said it was the roar of the +fire, another said it was the sound of some one calling, and the third +said it was the crash of a rock in some distant passageway. The talk did +not rise again for a time, but finally it rose wearily, punctuated with +sighs. Then two men cried: + +"Hear it! There it is again!" + +And breathless they all sat, for a second. Then they heard a voice +calling, "Hello--hello?" And they tried to cheer. + +But the voice did not sound again, and a long time passed. Grant tried +to count the minutes as they ticked off in his watch, but his mind would +not remain fixed upon the ticking, so he lost track of the time after +three minutes had passed. And still the time dragged, the watch kept +ticking. + +Then they heard the sound again, clearer; and again it called. Then Dick +Bowman took up a pick, called: + +"Watch out, away from the wall, I'm going to make a hole." + +He struck the wall and struck it again and again, until he made a hole +and they cried through it: + +"Hello--hello--We're here." And they all tried to get to the hole and +jabber through it. Then they could hear hurrying feet and voices +calling, and confusion. The men called, and cried and sobbed and cheered +through the hole, and then they saw the gleam of a lantern. Then the +wall crumbled and they climbed into the passage. But they knew, who had +heard the falling timbers and the crashing rocks, for days, that they +were not free. + +The rescuers led the imprisoned miners down the dark passage; Grant +Adams was the last man to leave the prison. As he turned an angle of the +passage, a great rock fell crashing before him, and a head of dirt +caught him and dragged him under. His legs and body were pinioned. +Dennis Hogan in front heard the crash, saw Grant fall, and stood back +for a moment, as another huge rock slid slowly down and came to rest +above the prostrate man. For a second no one moved. Then one man--Ira +Dooley--slowly crept toward Grant and began digging with his hands at +the dirt around Grant's legs. Then Casper Herdicker and Chopini came to +help. As they stood at Grant's head, quick as a flash, the rock fell and +the two men standing at Grant's head were crushed like worms. The roof +of the passage was working wickedly, and in the flickering light of the +lanterns they could see the walls shudder. Then Dick Bowman stepped out. +He brought a shovel from a room opening on the passage, and Evan Davis +and Tom Williams and Jamey McPherson with shovels began working over +Grant, who lay white and frightened, watching the squirming wall above +and blowing the dropping dirt from his face as it fell. + +"Mugs, come here," called Dick Bowman. "Take that shovel," commanded the +father, "and hold it over Grant's face to keep the dirt from smothering +him." The boy looked in terror at the roof dropping dirt and ready to +fall, but the father glared at the son and he obeyed. No one spoke, but +four men worked--all that could stand about him. They dug out his body; +they released his legs, they freed his feet, and when he was free they +helped him up and hurried him down the passage which he had traversed +four days ago. Before they turned into the main bottom room, he was sick +with the stench. And as he turned into that room, where the cage landed, +he saw by the lantern lights and by the flaring torches held by a dozen +men, a great congregation of the dead--some piled upon others, some in +attitudes of prayer, some shielding their comrades in death, some +fleeing and stricken prone upon the floor, some sitting, looking the foe +in the face. Men were working with the bodies--trying to sort them into +a kind of order; but the work had just begun. + +The weakened men, led by their rescuers, picked their way through the +corpses and went to the top in a cage. Far down in the shaft, the +daylight cut them like a knife. And as they mounted higher and higher, +they could hear the murmur of voices above them, and Grant could hear +the sobs of women and children long before he reached the top. The word +that men had been rescued passed out of the shaft house before they +could get out of the cage, and a great shout went up. + +The men walked out of the shaft house and saw all about them, upon flat +cars, upon the dump near the shaft, upon buildings around the shaft +house, a great crowd of cheering men and women, pale, drawn, dreadful +faces, illumined by eager eyes. Grant lifted his eyes to the crowd. +There in a carriage beside Henry Fenn, Grant saw Margaret staring at +him, and saw her turn pale and slide down into her husband's arms, as +she recognized Grant's face among those who had come out of death. Then +he saw his father and little Kenyon in the crowd and he dashed through +the thick of it to them. There he held the boy high in the air, and +cried as the little arms clung about his neck. + +The great hoarse whistles roared and the shrill siren whistles screamed +and the car bells clanged and the church bells rang. But they did not +roar and scream and peal and toll for money and wealth and power, but +for life that was returned. As for the army of the dead below, for all +their torture, for all their agony and the misery they left behind for +society to heal or help or neglect--the army of the dead had its requiem +that New Year's eve, when the bells and whistles and sirens clamored for +money that brings wealth, and wealth that brings power, and power that +brings pleasure, and pleasure that brings death--and death?--and death? + +The town had met death. But no one even in that place of mourning could +answer the question that the child heard in the bells. And yet that +divine spark of heroism that burns unseen in every heart however high, +however low--that must be the faltering, uncertain light which points us +to the truth across the veil through the mists made by our useless +tears. + +And thus a New Year in Harvey began its long trip around the sun, with +its sorrows and its joys, with its merry pantomime and its mutes +mourning upon the hearse, with its freight of cares and compensations +and its sad ironies. So let us get on and ride and enjoy the journey. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +A CHAPTER WHICH INTRODUCES SOME POSSIBLE GODS + + +When Grant Adams had told and retold his story to the reporters and had +eaten what Dr. Nesbit would let him eat, it was late in the afternoon. +He lay down to sleep with the sun still shining through the shutters in +his low-ceiled, west bed room. Through the night his father sat or slept +fitfully beside him and when the morning sun was high, and still the +young man slept on, the father guarded him, and would let no one enter +the house. At noon Grant rose and dressed. He saw the Dexters coming +down the road and he went to the door to welcome them. It seemed at +first that the stupor of sleep was not entirely out of his brain. He was +silent and had to be primed for details of his adventure. He sat down to +eat, but when his meal was half finished, there came bursting out of his +soul a flame of emotion, and he put down his food, turned half around +from the table, grasped the edges of the board with both hands and cried +as a fanatic who sees a vision: + +"Oh, those men,--those men--those wonderful, beautiful souls of men I +saw!--those strong, fearless. Godlike men!--there in the mine, I mean. +Evan Davis, Dick Bowman, Pat McCann, Jamey McPherson, Casper Herdicker, +Chopini--all of them; yes, Dennis Hogan, drunk as he is sometimes, and +Ira Dooley, who's been in jail for hold-ups--I don't care which +one--those wonderful men, who risked their lives for others, and Casper +Herdicker and Chopini, who gave their lives there under the rock for me. +My God, my God!" + +His voice thrilled with emotion, and his arms trembled as his hands +gripped the table. Those who heard him did not stop him, for they felt +that from some uncovered spring in his being a section of personality +was gushing forth that never had seen day. He turned quietly to the +wondering child, took him from his chair and hugged him closely to a +man's broad chest and stroked the boyish head as the man's blue eyes +filled with tears. Grant sat for a moment looking at the floor, then +roughed his red mane with his fingers and said slowly and more quietly, +but contentiously: + +"I know what you don't know with all your religion, Mr. Dexter; I know +what the Holy Ghost is now. I have seen it. The Holy Ghost is that +divine spark in every human soul--however life has smudged it over by +circumstance--that rises and envelopes a human creature in a flame of +sacrificial love for his kind and makes him joy to die to save others. +That's the Holy Ghost--that's what is immortal." + +He clenched his great hickory fist and hit the table and lifted his face +again, crying: "I saw Dennis Hogan walk up to Death smiling that Irish +smile. I saw him standing with a ton of loose dirt hanging over him +while he was digging me out! I saw Evan Davis--little, bow-legged Evan +Davis--go out into the smoke alone--alone, Mr. Dexter, and they say Evan +is a coward--he went out alone and brought back Casper Herdicker's limp +body hugged to his little Welsh breast like a gorilla's--and saved a +man. I saw Dick Bowman do more--when the dirt was dropping from the +slipping, working roof into my mouth and eyes, and might have come down +in a slide--I lay there and watched Dick working to save me and I heard +him order his son to hold a shovel over my face--his own boy." Grant +shuddered and drew the child closer to him, and looked at the group near +him with wet eyes. "Ira Dooley and Tom Williams and that little Italian +went on their bellies, half dead from the smoke, out into death and +brought home three men to safety, and would have died without batting an +eye--all three to save one lost man in that passage." He beat the table +again with his fist and cried wildly: "I tell you that's the Holy Ghost. +I know those men may sometimes trick the company if they can. I know Ira +Dooley spends lots of good money on 'the row'; I know Tom gambles off +everything he can get his hands on, and that the little Dago probably +would have stuck a knife in an enemy over a quarter. But that doesn't +count." + +The young man's voice rose again. "That is circumstance; much of it is +surroundings, either of birth or of this damned place where we are +living. If they cheat the company, it is because the company dares them +to cheat and cheats them badly. If they steal, it is because they have +been taught to steal by the example of big, successful thieves. I've had +time to think it all out. + +"Father--father!" cried Grant, as a new wave of emotion surged in from +the outer bourne of his soul, "you once said Dick Bowman sold out the +town and took money for voting for the Harvey Improvement bond steal. +But what if he did? That was merely circumstance. Dick is a little man +who has had to fight for money all his life--just enough money to feed +his hungry children. And here came an opportunity to get hold of--what +was it?--a hundred dollars--" Amos Adams nodded. "Well, then, a hundred +dollars, and it would buy so much, and leading citizens came and told +him it was all right--men we have educated with our taxes and our +surplus money in universities and colleges. And we haven't educated +Dick; we've just taught him to fight--to fight for money, and to think +money will do everything in God's beautiful world. So Dick took it. That +was the Dick that man and Harvey and America made, father, but I saw the +Dick that God made!" He stopped and cried out passionately, "And some +day, some day all the world must know this man--this great-souled, +common American--that God made!" + +Grant's voice was low, but a thousand impulses struggled across his +features for voice and his eyes were infinitely sad as he gazed at the +curly, brown hair of the child in his arms playing with the buttons on +his coat. + +The minister looked at his wife. She was wet-faced and a-tremble, and +had her hands over her eyes. Amos Adams's old, frank face was troubled. +The son turned upon him and cried: + +"Father--you're right when you say character makes happiness. But what +do you call it--surroundings--where you live and how you live and what +you do for a living--environment! That's it, that's the +word--environment has lots and lots to do with character. Let the +company reduce its dividends by giving the men a chance at decent living +conditions, in decent houses and decent streets, and you'll have another +sort of attitude toward the company. Quit cheating them at the store, +and you'll have more honesty in the mines; quit sprinkling sour beer and +whiskey on the sawdust in front of the saloons to coax men in who have +an appetite, and you'll have less drinking--but, of course, Sands will +have less rents. Let the company obey the law--the company run by men +who are pointed out as examples, and there'll be less lawlessness among +the men when trouble comes. Why, Mr. Dexter, do you know as we sat down +there in the dark, we counted up five laws which the company broke, any +one of which would have prevented the fire, and would have saved ninety +lives. Trash in the passage leading to the main shaft delayed notifying +the men five minutes--that's against the law. Torches leaking in the +passageway where there should have been electric lights--that's against +the law. Boys--little ten-year-olds working down there--cheap, cheap!" +he cried, "and dumping that pine lumber under a dripping torch--that's +against the law. Having no fire drill, and rusty water plugs and hose +that doesn't reach--that's against the law. A pine partition in an +air-chute using it as a shaft--that's against the law. Yet when trouble +comes and these men burn and kill and plunder--we'll put the miners in +jail, and maybe hang them, for doing as they are taught a thousand times +a week by the company--risking life for their own gain!" + +Grant Adams rose. He ran his great, strong, copper-freckled hands +through his fiery hair and stood with face transfigured, as the face of +one staring at some phantasm. "Oh, those men--they risked their +lives--Chopini and Casper Herdicker gave their lives for me. Father," he +cried, "I am bought with a price. These men risked all and gave all for +me. I am theirs. I have no other right to live except as I serve them." +He drew a deep breath; set his jaw and spoke with all the force he could +put into a quiet voice: "I am dedicated to men--to those great-souled, +brave, kind men whom God has sent here for man to dwarf and ruin. They +have bought me. I am theirs." + +The minister put the question in their minds: + +"What are you going to do, Grant?" + +The fervor that had been dying down returned to Grant Adams's face. + +"My job," he cried, "is so big I don't know where to take hold. But I'm +not going to bother to tell those men who sweat and stink and suffer +under the injustices of men, about the justice of God. I've got one +thing in me bigger'n a wolf--it's this: House them--feed them, clothe +them, work them--these working people--and pay them as you people of the +middle classes are housed and fed and paid and clad, and crime won't be +the recreation of poverty. And the Lord knows the work of the men who +toil with their hands is just as valuable to society as preaching and +trading and buying and selling and banking and editing and lawing and +doctoring, and insuring and school teaching." + +He stood before the kitchen stove, a tall, awkward, bony, +wide-shouldered, loose-wired creature in the first raw stage of +full-blown manhood. The red muscles of his jaw worked as his emotions +rose in him. His hands were the hands of a fanatic--never still. + +"I've been down into death and I've found something about life," he went +on. "Out of the world's gross earnings we're paying too much for +superintendence, and rent and machines, and not enough for labor. +There's got to be a new shake-up. And I'm going to help. I don't know +where nor how to begin, but some way I'll find a hold and I'm going to +take it." + +He drew in a long breath, looked around and smiled rather a ragged, ugly +smile that showed his big teeth, all white and strong but uneven. + +"Well, Grant," said Mrs. Dexter, "you have cut out a big job for +yourself." The young man nodded soberly. + +"Well, we're going to organize 'em, the first thing. We talked that over +in the mine when we had nothing else to talk about--but God and our +babies." + +In the silence that followed, Amos Adams said: "While you were down +there of course I had to do something. So after the paper was out, I got +to talking with Lincoln about things. He said you'd get out. Though," +smiled the old man sheepishly and wagged his beard, "Darwin didn't think +you would. But anyway, they all agreed we should do something for the +widows." + +"They have a subscription paper at George Brotherton's store--you know, +Grant," said Mr. Dexter. + +"Well--we ought to put in something, father,--all we've got, don't you +think?" + +"I tried and tried to get her last night to know how she felt about it," +mused Amos. "I've borrowed all I can on the office--and it wouldn't sell +for its debts." + +"You ought to keep your home, I think," put in Mrs. Dexter quickly, who +had her husband's approving nod. + +"They told me," said the father, "that Mary didn't feel that way about +it. I couldn't get her. But that was the word she sent." + +"Father," said Grant with the glow in his face that had died for a +minute, "let's take the chance. Let's check it up to God good and hard. +Let's sell the house and give it all to those who have lost more than +we. We can earn the rent, anyway." + +Mrs. Dexter looked significantly at Kenyon. + +"No, that shouldn't count, either," said Grant stubbornly. "Dick Bowman +didn't let his boy count when I needed help, and when hundreds of +orphaned boys and girls and widows need our help, we shouldn't hold back +for Kenyon." + +"Grant," said the father when the visit was ended and the two were +alone, "they say your father has no sense--up town. Maybe I haven't. I +commune with these great minds; maybe they too are shadows. But they +come from outside of me." He ran his fingers through his graying beard +and smiled. "Mr. Left brings me things that are deeper and wiser than +the things I know--it seems to me. But they all bear one testimony, +Grant; they all tell me that it's the spiritual things and not the +material things in this world that count in the long run, and, Grant, +boy," the father reached for his son's strong hand, "I would rather have +seen the son that has come back to me from death, go back to death now, +if otherwise I never could have seen him. They told me your mother was +with you. And now I know some way she touched your heart out there in +the dark--O Grant, boy, while you spoke I saw her in your face--in your +face I saw her. Mary--Mary," cried the weeping old man, "when you sent +me back to the war you looked as he looked to-day, and talked so." + +"Father," said Grant, "I don't know about your Mr. Left. He doesn't +interest me, as he does you, and as for the others--they may be true or +all a mockery, for anything I know. But," he exclaimed, "I've seen God +face to face and I can't rest until I've given all I +am--everything--everything to help those men!" + +Then the three went out into the crisp January air--father and son and +little Kenyon bundled to the chin. They walked over the prairies under +the sunshine and talked together through the short winter afternoon. At +its close they were in the timber where the fallen leaves were beginning +to pack against the tree trunks and in the ravines. The child listened +as the wind played upon its harp, and the rhythm of the rising and +falling tide of harmony set his heart a-flutter, and he squeezed his +father's fingers with delight. A redbird flashing through the gray and +brown picture gave him joy, and when it sang far down the ravine where +the wind organ seemed to be, the child's eyes brimmed and he dropped +behind the elders a few paces to listen and be alone with his ecstasy. +And so in the fading day they walked home. The quail piped for the +child, and the prairie chicken pounded his drum, and in the prairie +grass the slanting sun painted upon the ripples across the distant, +rolling hills many pictures that filled the child's heart so full that +he was still, as one who is awed with a great vision. And it was a great +vision that filled his soul: the sunset with its splendors, the twilight +hovering in the brown woods, the prairie a-quiver with the caresses of +the wind, winter-birds throbbing life and ecstasy into the picture, and +above and around it all a great, warm, father's heart symbolizing the +loving kindness of the infinite to the child's heart. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +OUR HERO RIDES TO HOUNDS WITH THE PRIMROSE HUNT + + +Going home from the Adamses that afternoon, John Dexter mused: +"Curious--very curious." Then he added: "Of course this phase will pass. +Probably it is gone now. But I am wondering how fundamental this state +of mind is, if it will not appear again--at some crisis later in life." + +"His mother," said Mrs. Dexter, "was a strong, beautiful woman. She +builded deep and wide in that boy. And his father is a wise, earnest, +kindly man, even if he may be impractical. Why shouldn't Grant do all +that he dreams of doing?" + +"Yes," returned the minister dryly. "But there is life--there are its +temptations. He is of the emotional type, and the wrong woman could bend +him away from any purpose that he may have now. Then, suppose he does +get past the first gate--the gate of his senses--there's the temptation +to be a fool about his talents if he has any--if this gift of tongues +we've seen to-day should stay with him--he may get the swelled head. And +then," he concluded sadly, "at the end is the greatest temptation of +all--the temptation that comes with power to get power for the sake of +power." + +The next morning Amos Adams and Grant went in to Market Street to sell +their home. Grant seemed a stranger to that busy mart of trade: the week +of his absence had taken him so far from it. His eyes were caught by two +tall figures, a man and a woman, walking and talking as they crossed the +street--the man in a heavy, long, brown ulster, the woman in a flaring +red, outer garment. He recognized them as Margaret Fenn and Thomas Van +Dorn. They had met entirely by chance, and the meeting was one of +perhaps half a dozen chance meetings which they had enjoyed during the +winter, and these meetings were so entirely pleasurable that the man was +beginning rather vaguely to anticipate them--to hope for another meeting +after the last. Grant was in an exalted mood that morning, and the sight +of the two walking together struck him only as a symbol and epitome of +all that he was going into the world to fight--in the man intellect +without moral purpose, in the woman materialism, gross and carnal. The +Adamses went the rounds of the real estate dealers trying to sell their +home, and in following his vision Grant forgot the two tall figures in +the street. + +But the two figures that had started Grant's reverie continued to +walk--perhaps a trifle slower than was the wont of either, down Market +Street. They walked slowly for two reasons: For her part, she wished to +make the most of a parade on Market Street with so grand a person as the +Judge of the District Court, and the town's most distinguished citizen; +and for his part, he dawdled because life was going slowly with him in +certain quarters: he felt the lack of adventure, and here--at least, she +was a stunning figure of a woman! "Yes," she said, "I heard about them. +Henry has just told me that Mr. Brotherton said the Adamses are going to +sell their home and give it to the miners' widows. Isn't it foolish? +It's all they've got in the world, too! Still, really nothing is strange +in that family. You know, I boarded with them one winter when I taught +the Prospect School. Henry says they want to do something for the +laboring people," she added naively. + +As she spoke, the man's eyes wandered over her figure, across her face, +and were caught by her eyes that looked at him with something in them +entirely irrelevant to the subject that her lips were discussing. His +eyes caught up the suggestion of her eyes, and carried it a little +further, but he only said: "Yes--queer folks--trying to make a +whistle--" + +"Out of a pig's tail," she laughed. But her eyes thought his eyes had +gone just a little too far, so they drooped, and changed the subject. + +"Well, I don't know that I would say exactly a pig's tail," he returned, +bracketing his words with his most engaging smile, "but I should say out +of highly refractory material." + +His eyes in the meantime pried up her eyelids and asked what was wrong +with that. And her eyes were coy about it, and would not answer +directly. + +He went on speaking: "The whole labor trouble, it seems to me, lies in +this whistle trade. A smattering of education has made labor +dissatisfied. The laboring people are trying to get out of their place, +and as a result we have strikes and lawlessness and disrespect for +courts, and men going around and making trouble in industry by 'doing +something for labor.'" + +"Yes," she replied, "that is very true." + +But her eyes--her big, liquid, animal eyes were saying, "How handsome +you are--you man--you great, strong, masterful man with your brown +ulster and brown hat and brown tie, and silken, black mustache." To +which his eyes replied, "And you--you are superb, and such lips and such +teeth," while what he trusted to words was: + +"Yes--I believe that the laborer in the mines, for instance, doesn't +care so much about what we would consider hardship. It's natural to him. +It would be hard for us, but he gets used to it! Now, the smelter men in +that heat and fumes--they don't seem to mind it. The agonizing is done +largely by these red-mouthed agitators who never did a lick of work in +their lives." + +Their elbows touched for a moment as they walked. He drew away politely +and her eyes said: + +"That's all right: I didn't mind that a bit." But her lips said: "That's +what I tell Mr. Fenn, and, anyway, the work's got to be done and +cultivated people can't do it. It's got to be done by the ignorant and +coarse and those kind of people." + +His eyes flinched a little at "those kind" of people and she wondered +what was wrong. But it was only for a moment that they flinched. Then +they told her eyes how fine and desirable she looked, and she replied +eyewise with a droop such as the old wolf might have used in replying to +Red Riding Hood, "The better to eat you, my child." Then his voice +spoke; his soft, false, vain, mushy voice, and asked casually: "By the +way, speaking of Mr. Fenn--how is Henry? I don't see him much now since +he's quit the law and gone into real estate." + +His eyes asked plainly: Is everything all right in that quarter? Perhaps +I might-- + +"Oh, I guess he's all right," and her eyes said: That's so kind of you, +indeed; perhaps you might-- + +But he went on: "You ought to get him out more--come over some night and +we'll make a hand at whist. Mrs. Van Dorn isn't much of a player, but +like all poor players, she enjoys it." And the eyes continued: But you +and I will have a fine time--now please come--soon--very soon. + +"Yes, indeed--I don't play so well, but we'll come," and the eyes +answered: That is a fair promise, and I'll be so happy. Then they +flashed quickly: But Mrs. Van Dorn must arrange it. He replied: "I'll +tell Mrs. Van Dorn you like whist, and she and you can arrange the +evening." + +Then they parted. He walked into the post office, and she walked on to +the Wright & Perry store. But instead of returning to his office, he +lounged into Mr. Brotherton's and sat on a bench in the Amen Corner, +biting a cigar, waiting for traffic to clear out. Then he said: "George, +how is Henry Fenn doing--really?" + +His soft, brown hat was tipped over his eyes and his ulster, unbuttoned, +displayed his fine figure, and he was clearly proud of it. Brotherton +hesitated while he invoiced a row of books. + +"Old trouble?" prompted Judge Van Dorn. + +"Old trouble," echoed Mr. Brotherton--"about every three months since +he's been married; something terrible the last time. But say--there's a +man that's sorry afterwards, and what he doesn't buy for her after a +round with the joy-water isn't worth talking about. So far, he's been +able to square her that way--I take it. But say--that'll wear off, and +then--" Mr. Brotherton winked a large, mournful, devilish wink as one +who was hanging out a storm flag. Judge Van Dorn twirled his mustache, +patted his necktie, jostled his hat and smiled, waiting for further +details. Instead, he faced a question: + +"Why did Henry quit the law for real estate, Judge--the old trouble?" + +Judge Van Dorn echoed, and added: "Folks pretty generally know about it, +and they don't trust their law business in that kind of hands. Poor +Henry--poor devil," sighed the young Judge, and then said: "By the way, +George, send up a box of cigars--the kind old Henry likes best, to my +house. I'm going to have him and the missus over some evening." + +Mr. Brotherton's large back was turned when the last phrase was uttered, +and Mr. Brotherton made a little significant face at his shelves, and +the thought occurred to Mr. Brotherton that Henry Fenn was not the only +man whom people pretty generally knew about. After some further talk +about Fenn and his affairs, Van Dorn primped a moment before the mirror +in the cigar cutter and started for the door. + +"By the by, your honor, I forgot about the Mayor's miners' relief fund. +How is it now?" asked Van Dorn. + +"Something past ten thousand here in the county." + +"Any one beat my subscription?" asked Van Dorn. + +Brotherton turned around and replied: "Yes--Amos Adams was in here five +minutes ago. He has mortgaged his place and so long as he and Grant +can't find kith or kin of Chopini, and Mrs. Herdicker would take +nothing--Amos has put $1,500 into the fund. Done it just now--him and +Grant." + +The Judge took the paper, looked at the scrawl of the Adamses, and +scratching out his subscription, put two thousand where there had been +one thousand. He showed it to Brotherton, and added with a smile: + +"Who'll call that--I wonder." + +And wrapping his ulster about him and cocking his hat rakishly, he went +with some pride into the street. He was thirty-four years old and was +accounted as men go a handsome dog, with a figure just turning from the +litheness of youth into a slight rotundity of very early middle age. He +carried his shoulders well, walked with a firm, straight gait--perhaps a +little too much upon his toes for candor, but, with all, he was a +well-groomed animal and he knew it. So he passed Margaret Fenn again on +the street, lifted his hat, hunted for her eyes, gave them all the +voltage he had, and the smile that he shot at her was left over on his +face for half a block down the street. People passing him smiled back +and said to one another: + +"What a fine, good-natured, big-hearted fellow Tom Van Dorn is!" + +And Mr. Van Dorn, not oblivious to the impression he was making, smiled +and bowed and bowed and smiled, and hellowed Dick, and howareyoued +Hiram, and goodmorninged John, down the street, into his office. There +he found his former partner busy with a laudable plan of defending a +client. His client happened to be the Wahoo Fuel Company, which was +being assailed by the surviving relatives of something like one hundred +dead men. So Mr. Calvin was preparing to show that in entering the mine +they had assumed the ordinary risks of mining, and that the neglect of +their fellow servants was one of those ordinary risks. And as for the +boy ten years old being employed in the mines contrary to law, there +were some details of a trip to Austria for that boy and his parents, +that had to be arranged with the steamship company by wire that very +morning. The Judge sat reading the law, oblivious--judicially--to what +was going on, and Joseph Calvin fell to work with a will. But what the +young Judge, who could ignore Mr. Calvin's activities, could not help +taking judicial notice of in spite of his law books, were those eyes out +there on the street. They were indeed beautiful eyes and they said so +much, and yet left much to the imagination--and the imagination of Judge +Van Dorn was exceedingly nimble in those little matters, and in many +other matters besides. Indeed, so nimble was his imagination that if it +hadn't been for the fact that at Judge Van Dorn's own extra-judicial +suggestion, every lawyer in town, excepting Henry Fenn, who had retired +from the law practice, had been retained by the Company an hour after +the accident, no one knows how many holes might have been found in Mr. +Joseph Calvin's unaided brief. + +As the young Judge sat poring over his law book, Captain Morton came in +and after the Captain's usual circumlocution he said: + +"What I really wanted to know, Judge, was about a charter. I want to +start a company. So I says to myself, Judge Tom, he can just about start +me right. He'll get my company going--what say?" Answering the Judge's +question about the nature of the company, the Captain explained: "You +see, I had the agency for the Waverly bicycle here a while back, and I +got one of their wheels and was fooling with it like a fellow will on a +wet day--what say?" He smiled up at the Judge a self-deprecatory smile, +as if to ask him not to mind his foolishness but to listen to his story. +"And when I got the blame thing apart, she wouldn't go together--eh? So +I had to kind of give up the agency, and I took a churn that was filling +a long-felt want just then. Churns is always my specialty and I forgot +all about the bicycle--just like a fellow will--eh? But here a while +back I wanted to rig up a gearing for the churn and so I took down the +wreck of the old wheel, and dubbing around I worked out a ball-bearing +sprocket joint--say, man, she runs just like a feather. And now what I +want is a patent for the sprocket and a charter for the company to put +it on the market. Henry Fenn's going to the capital for me to fix up the +charter; and then whoopee--the old man's coming along, eh? When I get +that thing on the market, you watch out for me--what say?" + +The eyes of Margaret Fenn danced around the Captain's sprocket. So the +Judge, thinking to get rid of the Captain and oblige the Fenns with one +stroke, sent the Captain away with twenty-five dollars to pay Henry Fenn +for getting the patent for the sprocket and securing the charter for the +company. + +As the Captain left the office of the Judge he greeted Mrs. Van Dorn +with an elaborate bow. + +And now enter Laura Van Dorn. And she is beautiful, too--with candid, +wide-open gray eyes. Maturity has hardly reached her, but through the +beauty of line and color, character is showing itself in every feature; +Satterthwaite and Nesbit, force and sentiment are struggling upon her +features for mastery. The January air has flushed her face and her +frank, honest eyes glow happily. But when one belongs to the ancient, +though scarcely Honorable Primrose Hunt, and rides forever to the hounds +down the path of dalliance, one's wife of four years is rather stale +sport. One does not pry up her eyelashes; they have been pried; nor does +one hold dialogues with her under the words of conventional speech. The +rules of the Hunt require one to look up at one's wife--chiefly to find +out what she is after and to wonder how long she will inflict herself. +And when one is hearing afar the cry of the pack, no true sportsman is +diverted from the chase by ruddy, wifely cheeks, and beaming, wifely +eyes, and an eager, wifely heart. So when Laura his wife came into the +office of the young Judge she found his heart out with the Primrose Hunt +and only his handsome figure and his judicial mind accessible to her. +"Oh, Tom," she cried, "have you heard about the Adamses?" The young +Judge looked up, smiled, adjusted his judicial mind, and answered +without emotion: "Rather foolish, don't you think?" + +"Well, perhaps it's foolish, but you know it's splendid as well as I. +Giving up everything they had on earth to soften the horror in South +Harvey--I'm so proud of them!" + +"Well," he replied, still keeping his chair, and letting his wife find a +chair for herself, "you might work up a little pride for your husband +while you're at it. I gave two thousand. They only gave fifteen +hundred." + +"Well--you're a dear, too." She touched him with a caressing hand. "But +you could afford it. It means for you only the profits on one real +estate deal or one case of Joe Calvin's in the Federal Court, where you +can still divide the fees. But, Tom--the Adamses have given +themselves--all they have--themselves. It's a very inspiring thing; I +feel that it must affect men in this town to see that splendid faith." + +"Laura," he answered testily, "why do you still keep up that foolish +enthusiasm for perfectly unreasonable things? There was no sense in the +Adamses giving that way. It was a foolish thing to do, when the old man +is practically on the town. His paper is a joke. Sooner or later we will +all have to make up this gift a dollar at a time and take care of him." + +He turned to his law book. "Besides, if you come to that--it's money +that talks and if you want to get excited, get excited over my two +thousand. It will do more good than their fifteen hundred--at least five +hundred dollars more. And that's all there is to it." + +Her face twitched with pain. Then from some depths of her soul she +hailed him impulsively: + +"Tom, I don't believe that, and I don't believe you do, either--it isn't +the good the money does those who receive; it's the good it does the +giver. And the good it does the giver is measured by the amount of +sacrifice--the degree of himself that he puts into it--can't you +understand, Tom? I'd give my soul if you could understand." + +"Well, I can't understand, Laura," impatiently; "that's your father's +sentimental side. Of all the fool things," the Judge slapped the book +sheet viciously, "that the old man has put into your head--sentiment is +one of the foolest. I tell you, Laura, money talks. There are ten +languages spoken in South Harvey, and money talks in all of them, and +one dollar does as much as another, and that's all there is to it." + +She rose with a little sigh. "Well," she said gently, "we won't +quarrel." The wife looked intently at the husband, and in that flash of +time from beneath her consciousness came renewed strength. Something +primeval--the eternal uxorial upon which her whole life rested, +possessed her and she smiled, and touched her husband's thick, black +hair gently. For she felt that if the spiritual ties for the moment had +failed them, she must pick up some other tie. She was the nest builder +indomitable. If the golden thread should drop--there is the string--the +straw--the horse hair--the twig. So Laura Van Dorn picked up an appeal +to her husband's affections and continued her predestined work. + +"Tom," she said, with her smile still on her face, "what I really and +truly wanted to tell you was about Lila." The mention of the child's +name brought quick light to the mother's face. "Lila--think of +it, Tom--Lila," the mother repeated with vast pride. "You must come right +out and see her. About an hour ago, she sat gazing at your picture on my +dresser, and suddenly without a word from me, she whispered 'Daddy,' and +then was as shy for a moment, then whispered it again, and then spoke it +out loud, and she is as proud as Punch, and keeps saying it over and +over! Tom--you must come out and hear it." + +Perhaps it was a knotty point of law that held his mind, or perhaps it +was the old beat of the hoofs on the turf of the Primrose Hunt that +filled his ears, or the red coat of the fox that filled his eyes. + +He smiled graciously and replied absently: "Well--Daddy--" And repeated +"Daddy--don't you think father is--" He caught the cloud flashing across +her face, and went on: "Oh, I suppose daddy is all right to begin with." +He picked up his law book and the woman drew nearer to him. She put her +hand over the page and coaxed: + +"Come on, Tom--just for a little minute--come on out and see her. I know +she is waiting for you--I know she is just dying to show off to you--and +besides, the new rugs have come for the living-room, and I just couldn't +unpack them without you. It would seem so--old--old--old marriedy, and +we aren't going to be that." She laughed and tried to close the law +book. + +Their eyes met and she thought for a moment that she was winning her +contest. But he put her hand aside gently and answered: "Now, Laura, I'm +busy, exceedingly busy. This mine accident is bound to come before me in +one form or another soon, and I must be ready for it, and it is a +serious matter. There will be all kinds of attacks upon the property." + +"The property?" she asked, and he answered: + +"Why, yes--legal attacks upon the mine--to bleed the owners, and I must +be ready to guard them against these assaults, and I just can't jump and +run every time Lila coos or you cut a string on a package. I'll be out +to-night and we'll hear Lila and look at the rugs." To the +disappointment upon her face he replied: "I tell you, Laura, sentiment +is going to wreck your life if you don't check it." + +The man looked into his book without reading. He had come to dislike +these little scenes with his wife. He looked from his book out of the +window, into the snowy street. He remembered his morning walk. There was +no talk of souls in those eyes, no hint of higher things from those +lips, no covert taunt of superiority in that face. + +Laura did not wince. But her eyes filled and her voice was husky as she +spoke: "Tom, I want your soul again--the one that used to speak to me in +the old days." She bent over him, and rubbed her cheek against his and +there she left him, still looking into the street. + +That evening at sunset, Judge Van Dorn, with his ulster thrown back to +show his fine figure, walked in his character of town Prince homeward up +the avenue. His face was amiable; he was gracious to every one. He spoke +to rich and poor alike, as was his wont. As he turned into his home +yard, he waved at a little face in the window. In the house he was the +spirit of good nature itself. He was full of quips and pleasantries and +happy turns of speech. But Laura Van Dorn had learned deep in her heart +to fear that mood. She was ashamed of her wisdom--degraded by her doubt, +and she fought with it. + +And yet a man and a woman do not live together as man and wife and +parents without learning much that does not come from speech and is not +put into formulated conviction. The signs were all for trouble, and in +the secret places of her heart she knew these signs. + +She knew that this grand manner, this expansive mood, this keying up of +attentions to her were the beginnings of a sad and sordid story--a story +that she did not entirely understand; would not entirely translate, but +a story that sickened her very soul. To keep the table talk going, she +said: "Tom, it's wonderful the way Kenyon is taking to the violin. He +has a real gift, I believe." + +"Yes," answered the husband absently, and then as one who would plunge +ahead, began: "By the by--why don't you have your father and mother and +some of the neighbors over to play cards some evening--and what's the +matter with the Fenns? Henry's kind of down on his luck, and I'll need +him in my next campaign, and I thought if we could have them over some +evening--well, what's the matter with to-morrow evening? They'd enjoy +it. You know Mrs. Fenn--I saw her down town this morning, and George +Brotherton says Henry's slipping back to his old ways. And I just +thought perhaps--" + +But she knew as well as he what he "thought perhaps," and a cloud +trailed over her face. + +When Thomas Van Dorn left his home that night, striding into the lights +of Market Street, his heart was hot with the glowing coals of an old +wrong revived. For to Judge Van Dorn, home had become a trap, and the +glorious eyes that had beamed upon him in the morning seemed beacons of +liberty. + +As gradually those eyes became fixed in his consciousness, through days +and weeks and months, a mounting passion for Margaret Fenn kindled in +his heart. And slowly he went stone-blind mad. The whole of his world +was turned over. Every ambition, every hope, every desire he ever had +known was burned out before this passion that was too deep for desire. +Whatever lust was in his blood in those first months of his madness grew +pale. It seemed to the man who went stalking down the street past her +house night after night that the one great, unselfish passion of his +life was upon him, loosening the roots of his being, so that any +sacrifice he could make, whether of himself or of any one or anything +about him, would give him infinite joy. When he met Henry Fenn, Van Dorn +was always tempted and often yielded to the temptation to rush up to +Fenn with some foolish question that made the sad-eyed man stare and +wonder. But just to be that near to her for the moment pleased him. +There was no jealousy for Fenn in Van Dorn's heart; there was only a +dog-like infatuation that had swept him away from his reason and seated +a fatuous, chattering, impotent, lecherous ape where his intellect +should have been. And he knew he was a fool. He knew that he was stark +mad. Yet what he did not know was that this madness was a culmination, +not a pristine passion new born in his heart. For the maggot in his +brain had eaten out a rotten place wherein was the memory of many +women's yieldings, of many women's tears. One side of his brain worked +with rare cunning. He wound the evidence against the men in the mine, +taken at the coroner's hearing, through the labyrinth of the law, and +snared them tightly in it. That part of his brain clicked with automatic +precision. But sitting beside him was the ape, grinning, leering, ready +to rise and master him. So many a night when he was weary, he lay on the +couch beside his desk, and the ape came and howled him to a troubled +sleep. + +But while Judge Van Dorn tried to fight his devil away with his law +book, down in South Harvey death still lingered. Death is no respecter +of persons, and often vaunts himself of his democracy. Yet it is a sham +democracy. In Harvey, when death taps on a door and enters the house, he +brings sorrow. But in South Harvey when he crosses a threshold he brings +sorrow and want. And what a vast difference lies between sorrow, and +sorrow with want. For sometimes the want that death brings is so keen +that it smothers sorrow, and the poor may not mourn without shame--shame +that they feel the self-interest in their sorrow. So when Death entered +a hundred homes in South Harvey that winter day at the beginning of the +new year, with him came hunger, with him came cold, with him came the +harlot's robe and the thief's mask, and the blight of ignorance, and the +denial of democratic opportunity to scores of children. With death that +day as he crossed the dreary, unpainted portals of the poor came horror +that overshadows grief among the poor and makes the boast of the +democracy of death a ruthless irony. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +HEREIN CAPTAIN MORTON FALLS UNDER SUSPICION AND HENRY FENN FALLS FROM +GRACE + + +On Market Street nearly opposite the Traders' National Bank during the +decades of the eighties and nineties was a smart store front upon which +was fastened a large, black and gold sign bearing the words "The Paris +Millinery Company" and under these words in smaller letters, "Mrs. +Brunhilde Herdicker, Prop." If Mr. George Brotherton and his Amen Corner +might be said to be the clearing house of public opinion in Harvey, the +establishment of Mrs. Brunhilde Herdicker, Prop., might well be said to +be the center of public clamor. For things started in this +establishment--by things one means in general, trouble; variegated of +course as to domestic, financial, social, educational, amatory, and at +times political. Now the women of Harvey and South Harvey and of Greeley +county--and of Hancock and Seymour counties so far as that goes--used +the establishment of "The Paris Millinery Company, Mrs. Brunhilde +Herdicker, Prop.," as a club--a highly democratic club--the only place +this side of the grave, in fact, where women met upon terms of something +like equality. + +And in spring when women molt and change their feathers, the +establishment of "Mrs. Brunhilde Herdicker, Prop." at its opening rose +to the dignity of a social institution. It was a kind of folk-mote. Here +at this opening, where there was music and flowers and bonbons, women +assembled en masse. Mrs. Nesbit and Mrs. Fenn, Mrs. Dexter and Violet +Hogan, she that was born Mauling met, if not as sisters at least in what +might be called a great step-sisterhood; and even the silent Lida +Bowman, wife of Dick, came from her fastness and for once in a year met +her old friends who knew her in the town's early days before she went to +South Harvey to share the red pottage of the Sons of Esau! + +But her friends had little from Mrs. Bowman more than a smile--a cracked +and weather-beaten smile from a broken woman of nearly forty, who was a +wife at fifteen, a mother at seventeen, and who had borne six children +and buried two in a dozen years. + +"There's Violet," ventured Mrs. Bowman to Mrs. Dexter. "I haven't seen +her since her marriage." + +To a question Mrs. Bowman replied reluctantly, "Oh--as for Denny Hogan, +he is a good enough man, I guess!" + +After a pause, Mrs. Bowman thought it wise to add under the wails of the +orchestra: "Poor Violet--good hearted girl's ever lived; so kind to her +ma; and what with all that talk when she was in Van Dorn's office and +all the talk about the old man Sands and her in the Company store, I +just guess Vi got dead tired of it all and took Denny and run to cover +with him." + +Violet Hogan in a black satin,--a cheap black satin, and a black hat--a +cheap black hat with a red rose--a most absurdly cheap red rose in it, +walked about the place picking things over in a rather supercilious way, +and no one noticed her. Mrs. Fenn gave Violet an eyebrow, a beautifully +penciled eyebrow on a white marble forehead, above beaming brown eyes +that were closed just slightly at the moment. And Mrs. Van Dorn who had +kept track of the girl, you may be sure, went over to her and holding +out her hand said: "Congratulations, Violet,--I'm so glad to hear--" But +Mrs. Denny Hogan having an eyebrow to spare as the gift of Mrs. Fenn +passed it on to Mrs. Van Dorn who said, "Oh--" very gently and went to +sit on a settee beside Mrs. Brotherton, the mother of the moon-faced Mr. +Brotherton and Mrs. Ahab Wright, who always seemed to seek the shade. +And then and there, Mrs. Van Dorn had to listen to this solo from Mrs. +Brotherton: + +"George says Judge Van Dorn is running for Judge again: really, Laura, I +hope he'll win. George says he will. George says Henry Fenn is the only +trouble Mr. Van Dorn will have, though I don't see as Henry could do +much. Though George says he will. George says Henry is cranky and mean +about the Judge someway and George says Henry is drinking like a fish +this spring and his legs is hollow, he holds so much; though he must +have been joking for I have heard of hollow horn in cattle, but I never +heard of hollow legs, though they are getting lots of new diseases." + +By the time Mrs. Brotherton found it necessary to stop for breath, Laura +Van Dorn had regained the color that had dimmed as she heard the +reference to Henry Fenn. And when she met Mrs. Margaret Fenn at a turn +of the aisle, Mrs. Margaret Fenn was the spirit of joy and it seemed +that Mrs. Van Dorn was her long lost sister; so Mrs. Margaret Fenn began +fumbling her over to find the identifying strawberry mark. At least that +is what Mrs. Herdicker, Prop., told Mrs. Nesbit as she sold Mrs. Nesbit +the large one with the brown plume. + +Mrs. Herdicker, Prop., made it a rule never to gossip, as every one who +frequented her shop was told, but as between old friends she would say +to Mrs. Nesbit that if ever one woman glued herself to another, and +couldn't be boiled or frozen, or chopped loose, that woman was Maggie +Fenn sticking to Laura Van Dorn. And Mrs. Herdicker, Prop., closed her +mouth significantly, and Mrs. Nesbit pretended with a large obvious, +rather clumsy pretense, that she read no meaning in Mrs. Herdicker's +words. The handsome Miss Morton, with her shoe tops tiptoeing to her +skirts, who was in the shop and out of school for the rush season, +listened hard, but after that they whispered and the handsome Miss +Morton turned her attention to the youngest Miss Morton who was munching +bonbons and opening the door for all of Harvey and South Harvey and the +principalities around about to enter and pass out. After school came the +tired school teachers from the High School, her eldest sister, Emma +Morton, among them, with their books and reports pressed against their +sides. But Margaret Fenn did not see the school teachers, nor even the +fifth Mrs. Sands towed about by her star-eyed stepdaughter Anne, though +Margaret Fenn's eyes were busy. But she was watching the women; she was +looking for something as though to ward it off, always glancing ahead of +her to see where she was going, and who was in her path; always +measuring her woman, always listening under the shriek of the +clarionettes, always quick with a smile--looking for +something--something that she may have felt was upon its way, something +that she dreaded to see. But all the shoulders she hobnobbed with that +day were warm enough--indifferently warm, and that was all she asked. So +she smiled and radiated her fine, animal grace, her feline beauty, her +superfemininity, and was as happy as any woman could be who had arrived +at an important stage of her journey and could see a little way ahead +with some degree of clearness. + +Let us look at her as she stands by the door waiting to overhaul Mrs. +Nesbit. A fine figure of a woman, Margaret Fenn makes there--in her late +twenties, with large regular features, big even teeth, clear brown +eyes--not bold at all, yet why do they seem so? Perhaps because she is +so sure and firm and unhesitating. Her skin is soft and fair as a +child's, bespeaking health and good red blood. The good red blood shows +in her lips--red as a wicked flower, red and full and as shameless as a +dream. Taller than Mrs. Nesbit she stands, and her clothes hang to her +in spite of the fullness of the fashion, in most suggestive lines. She +seems to shine out of her clothes a lustrous, shimmering figure, female +rather than feminine, and gorgeous rather than lovely. Margaret Fenn is +in full bloom; not a drooping petal, not a bending stamen, not a wilted +calyx or bruised leaf may be seen about her. She is a perfect flower +whose whole being--like that of a flower at its full--seems eager, +thrilling, burning with anticipation of the perfect fruit. + +She puts out her hands--both of her large strong hands, so well-gloved +and well-kept, to Mrs. Nesbit. Surely Mrs. Fenn's smile is not a +make-believe smile; surely that is real pleasure in her voice; surely +that is real joy that lights up her eyes. And why should they not be +real? Is not Mrs. Nesbit the one person in all Harvey that Margaret Fenn +would delight to honor? Is not Mrs. Nesbit the dowager empress of +Harvey, and the social despot of the community? And is not Mrs. Nesbit +smiling at the eldest Miss Morton, she of the Longfellow school, who is +trying on a traveling hat, and explaining that she always wanted a +traveling hat and suit alike so that she could go to the Grand Canyon if +she could ever save up enough money, but she could never seem to afford +it? Moreover is not Mrs. Nesbit in a beneficent frame of mind? + +"Well," smiles the eyes and murmurs the voice, and glows the face of the +young woman, and she puts out her hand. "Mrs. Nesbit--so glad I'm sure. +Isn't it lovely here? Mrs. Herdicker is so effective." + +"Mrs. Fenn,--" this from the dowager, and the eyebrow that Mrs. Fenn +gave to Mrs. Hogan, and Mrs. Hogan gave to Mrs. Van Dorn and Mrs. Van +Dorn gave to Mrs. Brotherton and Mrs. Brotherton gave to Mrs. Calvin +who, George says, is an old cat, and Mrs. Calvin gave to Mrs. Nesbit for +remarks as to the biennial presence of Mr. Calvin in the barn (repeated +to Mrs. Calvin), the eyebrow having been around the company comes back +to Mrs. Fenn. + +After which Mrs. Nesbit moves with what dignity her tonnage will permit +out of the perfumed air, out of the concord of sweet sounds into the +street. Mrs. Fenn, who was looking for it all the afternoon, that thing +she dreaded and anticipated with fear in her heart's heart, found it. It +was exceedingly cold--and also a shoulder of some proportions. And it +chilled the flowing sap of the perfect flower so that the flower +shivered in the breeze made by the closing door, though the youngest +Miss Morton presiding at the door thought it was warm, and Mrs. +Herdicker thought it was warm and Mrs. Violet Hogan said to Mrs. Bowman +as they went through the same door and met the same air: "My land, +Bowman, did you ever see such an oven?" and then as the door closed she +added: + +"See old Mag Fenn there? I just heard something about her to-day. I bet +it's true." + +Thus the afternoon faded and the women went home to cook their evening +meals, and left Mrs. Herdicker, Prop., with a few late comers--ladies of +no particular character who had no particular men folk to do for, and +who slipped in after the rush to pay four prices for what had been left. +Mrs. Herdicker, Prop., was straightening up the stock and snapping +prices to the girls who were waiting upon the belated customers. She +spent little of her talent upon the sisterhood of the old, old trade, +and contented herself with charging them all she could get, and making +them feel she was obliging them by selling to them at all. It was while +trade sagged in the twilight that Mrs. Jared Thurston, Lizzie Thurston +to be exact, wife of the editor of the South Harvey _Derrick_ came +in. Mrs. Herdicker, Prop., knew her of old. She was in to solicit +advertising, which meant that she was needing a hat and it was a swap +proposition. So Mrs. Herdicker told Mrs. Thurston to write up the +opening and put in a quarter page advertisement beside and send her the +bill, and Mrs. Thurston looked at a hat. No time was wasted on her +either--nor much talent; but as Mrs. Thurston was in a business way +herself, Mrs. Herdicker, Prop., stopped to talk to her a moment as to an +equal--a rare distinction. They sat on a sofa in the alcove that had +sheltered the orchestra behind palms and ferns and Easter lilies, and +chatted of many things--the mines, the new smelter, the new foreman's +wife at the smelter, the likelihood that the Company store in South +Harvey would put in a line of millinery--which Mrs. Herdicker, Prop., +denied with emphasis, declaring she had an agreement with the old devil +not to put in millinery so long as she deposited at his bank. Mrs. +Herdicker, Prop., had taken the $500 which the Company had offered for +the life of poor Casper and had filed no lawsuit, fearing that a suit +with the Company would hurt her trade. But as a business proposition +both women were interested in the other damage suits pending against the +Company for the mine accident. "What do they say down there about it?" +asked the milliner. + +"Well, of course," returned Mrs. Thurston, who was not sure of her +ground and had no desire to talk against the rich and powerful, "they +say that some one ought to pay something. But, of course, Joe Calvin +always wins his suits and the Judge, of course, was the Company's +attorney before he was the Judge--" + +"And so the claim agents are signing 'em up for what the Company will +give," cut in the questioner. + +"That's about it, Mrs. Herdicker," responded Mrs. Thurston. "Times are +hard, and they take what they can get now, rather than fight for it. And +the most the Company will pay is $400 for a life, and not all are +getting that." + +"Tom Van Dorn--he's a smooth one, Lizzie--he's a smooth one." Mrs. +Herdicker, Prop., looked quickly at Mrs. Thurston and got a smile in +reply. That was enough. She continued: + +"You'd think he'd know better--wouldn't you?" + +"Well, I don't know--it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks," was the +non-committal answer of Mrs. Thurston, still cautious about offending +the powers. + +Mrs. Herdicker, Prop., brushed aside formalities. "Yes--stenographers +and hired girls, and biscuit shooters at the Palace and maybe now and +then an excursion across the track; but this is different; this is in +his own class. They were both here this afternoon, and you should have +seen the way she cooed and billed over Laura Van Dorn. Honest, Lizzie, +if I'd never heard a word, I'd know something was wrong. And you should +have seen old lady Nesbit give her the come-uppins." + +Mrs. Herdicker, Prop., dropped her voice to a confidential tone. +"Lizzie?" a pause; "They say you've seen 'em together." + +The thought of the quarter page advertisement overcame whatever scruples +Mrs. Thurston may have had, and so long as she had the center of the +stage she said her lines: "Why I don't know a single thing--only this: +that for--maybe a month or so every few days along about five or six +o'clock when the roads are good I've seen him coming one way on his +wheel, and go down in the country on the Adams road, and about ten +minutes later from another way she'd come riding along on her wheel and +go down the Adams road into the country following him. Then in an hour +or so, they come back, sometimes one of them first--sometimes the other, +but I've really never seen them together. She might be going to the +Adamses; she boarded there once years ago." + +"Yes,--and she hates 'em!" snapped Mrs. Herdicker derisively, and then +added, "Well, it's none of my business so long as they pay for their +hats." + +"Well, my land, Mrs. Herdicker," quoth Lizzie, "it's a comfort to hear +some one talk sense. For two months now we've been hearing nothing but +that fool Adams boy's crazy talk about unions, and men organizing to +help their fellows, and--why did you know he's quit his job as boss +carpenter in the mine? And for why--so that he can be a witness against +the company some say; though there won't be any trial. Tom Van Dorn will +see to that. He's sent word to the men that they'd better settle as the +law is against them. But that Grant Adams quit his job any way and is +going about holding meetings every night, and working on construction +work above ground by day and talking union, union, union till Jared and +I are sick of it. I tell you the man's gone daft. But a lot of the men +are following him, I guess." + +Being a methodical woman Mrs. Herdicker, Prop., wrote the copy for her +advertisement and let Mrs. Thurston go in peace. She went into the +gathering twilight, and hurried to do a few errands before returning to +South Harvey. + +At the court house Mrs. Thursston met Henry Fenn coming out of the +register of deeds office where he had been filing a deed to some +property he had sold, and at Mr. Brotherton's Amen Corner, she saw Tom +Van Dorn smoking upon the bench. The street was filled with bicycles, +for that was a time when the bicycle was a highly respectable vehicle of +business and pleasure. Mrs. Thurston left Market Street and a dozen +wheels passed her. As she turned into her street to South Harvey a bell +tinkled. She looked around and saw Margaret Fenn making rapidly for the +highway. Mrs. Thurston was human; she waited! And in five minutes Tom +Van Dorn came by and went in the same direction! + +An hour later Margaret Fenn came pedaling into the town from the country +road, all smiling and breathless and red lipped, and full of color. As +she turned into her own street she met her husband, immaculately +dressed. He bowed with great punctiliousness and lifting his hat high +from his head smiled a search-light of a smile that frightened his wife. +But he spoke no word to her. Five minutes later, as Tom Van Dorn wheeled +out of Market Street, he also saw Henry Fenn, standing in the middle of +the crossing leering at him and laughing a drunken, foolish, noisy +laugh. Van Dorn called back but Fenn did not reply, and the Judge saw +nothing in the figure but his drunken friend standing in the middle of +the street laughing. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +IN WHICH HENRY FENN FALLS FROM GRACE AND RISES AGAIN + + +This chapter must devote itself chiefly to a bargain. In the bargain, +Judge Thomas Van Dorn is party of the first part, and Margaret Fenn, +wife of Henry Fenn, is party of the second part, and the devil is the +broker. + +Tom Van Dorn laid hungry eyes upon Margaret Fenn; Margaret Fenn looked +ravenously upon all that Van Dorn had; his talent, his position, his +worldly goods, estates and chattels. He wanted what she had. He had what +she wanted, and by way of commission in negotiating the bargain, the +devil took two souls--not such large souls so far as that goes; but +still the devil seems to have been the only one in the transaction who +profited. + +June came--June and the soft night wind, and the warm stars; June with +its new, deep foliage and its fragrant grass and trees and flowers; June +with a mocking bird singing through the night to its brooding mate; June +came with its poets leaning out of windows into the night hearing love +songs in the rhythmic whisper of lagging feet strolling under the shade +of elms. And under cover of a June night, breathing in the sensuous +meaning of the time like a charmed potion, Judge Van Dorn, who +personated justice to twenty-five thousand people, went forth a +slinking, cringing beast to woo! + +Here and there a lamp blinked through the foliage. The footfalls of late +homecomers were heard a long way off; the voices of singers--a +serenading party out baying at the night--was heard as the breeze +carried the music upon its sluggish ebb and flow. To avoid belated +homecomers, Judge Van Dorn crossed the street; the clanging electric +car did not find him with its search-light, though he felt shielded by +its roar as he stepped over the iron railing about the Fenn home and +came softly across the lawn upon the grass. + +On the verandah, hidden by summer vines, he sat a moment alone, panting, +breathless, though he had come up but four steps, and had mounted them +gently. A rustle of woman's garments, the creaking of a screen door, the +perfume that he loved, and then she stood before him--and the next +moment he had her in his arms. For a minute she surrendered without +struggling, without protest, and for the first time their lips met. Then +she warded him off. + +"No--no, Tom. You sit there--I'll have this swing," and she slipped into +a porch swing and finally he sat down. + +"Now, Tom," she said, "I have given you everything to-night. I am +entirely at your mercy; I want you to be as good to me as I have been to +you." + +"But, Margaret," he protested, "is this being good to me, to keep me a +prisoner in this chair while you--" + +"Tom," she answered, "there is no one in the house. I've just called +Henry up by long distance telephone at the Secretary of State's office +in the capitol building. I've called him up every hour since he got +there this afternoon, to make him remember his promise to me. He hasn't +taken a thing on this trip--I'm sure; I can tell by his voice, for one +thing." The man started to speak. She stopped him: "Now listen, Tom. +He'll have that charter for the Captain's company within half an hour +and will start home on the midnight train. That will give us just an +hour together--all alone, Tom, undisturbed." + +She stopped and he sprang toward her, but she fended him off, and gave +him a pained look and went on as he sank moaning into his chair: "Tom, +dear, how should we spend the first whole hour we have ever had in our +lives alone together? I have read and re-read your beautiful letters, +dear. Oh, I know some of them by heart. I am yours, Tom--all yours. Now, +dear," he made a motion to rise, "come here by my chair, I want to touch +you. But--that's all." + +They sat close together, and the woman went on: "There are so many +things I want to say, Tom, to-night. I wonder if I can think of any of +them. It is all so beautiful. Isn't it?" she asked softly, and felt his +answer in every nerve in his body, though his lips did not speak. It was +the woman who broke the silence. "Time is slipping by, Tom. I know +what's in your mind, and you know what's in mine. Where will this thing +end? It can't go on this way. It must end now, to-night--this very +night, Tom, dear, or we must know where we are coming out. Do you +understand?" + +"Yes, Margaret," replied the man. He gripped his arm about her, and +continued passionately, "And I'm ready." In a long minute of ecstasy +they were dumb. He went on, "You have good cause--lots of cause--every +one knows that. But I--I'll make it somehow--Oh, I can make it." He set +his teeth fiercely, and repeated, "Oh, I'll make it, Margaret." + +The night sounds filled their deaf ears, and the pressure of their +hands--all so new and strange--filled them with joy, but the joy was +shattered by a step upon the sidewalk, and until it died away they were +breathless. Then they sat closer together and the woman whispered: + + "'And I'd turn my back upon things eternal + To lie on your breast a little while.'" + +A noise in the house, perhaps of the cat moving through the room behind +them, startled them again. The man shook and the woman held her breath; +then they both smiled. "Tom--Tom--don't you see how guilty we are? We +mustn't repeat this; this is our hour, but we must understand each other +here and now." The man did not reply. He who had taken recklessly and +ruthlessly all of his life had come to a place where he must give to +take. His fortunes were tied up in his answer, so he replied: "Margaret, +you know the situation--down town?" + +"The judgeship?" she asked. + +"Yes." + +"But that will be settled in November. After that is time enough. Oh, +eternity is time enough, Tom--I can wait and wait and wait--only if it +is to be for eternity, we must not reckon with it now." + +"Oh, Margaret, Margaret, Margaret--my soul's soul--I want you. I know no +peace but to look into your eyes; I know no heaven but your smile--no +God but your possession, no hell but--but--this!" He pressed her hand to +his lips and moaned a kind of human bellow of unrequited love--some long +suppressed man's courting note that we had in the forest, and he grasped +her in a flood of passionate longing. She slipped away from him and +stood up before him and said: "No,--No, no, my dear--my dear--I love +you--Oh, I do love you, Tom--but don't--don't." + +He started after her but she pushed him back with her powerful arms and +held him. "Tom, don't touch me. Tom," she panted, "Tom." Her big +meaningful eyes met his and she held him for a moment silent. He stepped +back and she smiled and kissed his forehead when he had dropped into a +chair. + +"Now, Tom, time is slipping by. It's nearly midnight. We've got to talk +sensibly and calmly. Sit here by me and be as sane as you can. We know +we love one another. That's been said and resaid; that's settled. Now +shall I first break for liberty--or will you? That must all be settled +too. We can't just let things drift. I'm twenty-seven. You're +thirty-five. Life is passing. Now when?" + +They shrank before the light of a street car rounding the corner, that +gleamed into their retreat. When it had gone, the man bowed his fine, +proud, handsome head, and spoke with his eyes upon the ground: + +"You go first--you have the best cause!" She looked upon his cowardly, +sloping shoulders, and thought a moment. It was the tigress behind the +flame who stooped over him, pondering, feeling her way through events +that she had been going over and over in her imagination for weeks. The +feline caution that guided her, told her, as it had always told her, +that his letters were enough to damn him, but maybe not enough to hold +him. She was not sure of men. Their standards might not be severe enough +to punish him; he, knowing this, might escape. All this--this old query +without answer went hurrying through her mind. But she was young; the +spirit of adventure was in her. Henry Fenn, weak, vacillating, +chivalrous, adoring Henry Fenn, had not conquered her; and the fire in +her blood, and the ambition in her brain, came over her as a spell. She +slipped to her knees, putting her head upon her lover's breast, and +cried passionately in a guttural murmur--"Yes, I'll go first, Tom--now, +for God's sake, kiss me--kiss me and run." Then she sprang up: "Now, +go--go--go, Tom--run before I take it back. Don't touch me again," she +cried. "Go." + +She slipped back into the door, then turned and caught him again and +they stood for a terrible moment together. She whirled into the house, +clicked the door after her and left him standing a-tremble, gaping and +mad in the night. But she knew her strength, and knew his weakness and +was not afraid. + +She let him moan a wordless lovesong, very low and terrible in the night +alone before the door, and did not answer. Then she saw him go softly +down the steps, look up and down the street, move guiltily across the +yard, hiding behind a bush at a distant footfall, and slip slowly into +the sidewalk and go hurrying away from the house. In half an hour she +was waiting for Henry Fenn as a cat might wait at a rat hole. + +The next day little boys followed Henry Fenn about the streets laughing; +Henry Fenn, drunken and debased, whose heart was bleeding. It was late +in the afternoon when he appeared in the Amen Corner. His shooting stars +were all exploded from their rocket and he was fading into the charred +papier-mache of the reaction that comes from over exhilaration. So he +sat on the walnut bench, back of the newspaper counter with his hands on +his knees and his eyes staring at the floor while traffic flowed through +the establishment oblivious to his presence. Mr. Brotherton watched Fenn +but did not try to make him talk. There came a time when trade was slack +that Fenn looked for a minute fixedly at Mr. Brotherton, and finally +said, shaking his head sadly: + +"She says I've got to quit!" A pause and another sigh, then: "She says +if I ever get drunk again, she'll quit me like a dog." Another +inspection of the floor; more lugubrious head-shaking followed, after +which the eyes closed and the dead voice spoke: + +"Well, here's her chance. Say, George," he tried to smile, but the light +only flickered in his leaden eyes. "I guess I'm orey-eyed enough now to +furnish a correct imitation of a gentleman in his cups?" + +Fenn got up, took Brotherton back among the books at the rear of the +store. The drunken man took from his pocket a fountain pen incased in a +silver mounting. He held the silver trinket up and said: + +"Damn his soul to hell!" + +"Let me see it--whose is it, Henry?" asked Brotherton. Fenn answered, +"That's my business." He paused; then added "and his business." Another +undecided moment, and then Fenn concluded: "And none of your business." + +Suddenly he took his hands off the big man, and said, "I'm going home. +If she means business, here's her chance." + +Brotherton tried to stop him, but Fenn was insistent. Customers were +coming in, and so Brotherton let the man go. But all the evening he was +worried about his friend. Absentmindedly he went over his stock, +straightening up _Puck_ and _Judge_ and _Truth_ and +_Life_, and putting the magazines in their places, sorting the new +books into their shelf, putting the standard pirated editions of English +authors in their proper place and squaring up the long rows of "The +Bonnie Brier Bush" and "A Hazard of New Fortunes" where they would catch +the buyers' eyes upon the counter, in freshly jostled ranks, even and +inviting, after the day's havoc in Harvey's literary circles. But always +Fenn's face was in Brotherton's mind. The chatter of the evening passed +without Brotherton realizing what it was all about. As for instance, +between Grant Adams and Captain Morton over a sprocket which the Captain +had invented and Henry Fenn had patented for the Captain. Grant on the +other hand kept trying to tell the Captain about his unions organizing +in the Valley, and neither was interested in what the other said, yet +each was bursting with the importance of what he was saying. But even +that comic dialogue could not take Mr. Brotherton's mind from the search +of the sinister connection it was trying to discover, between the +fountain pen and Henry Fenn. + +So Brotherton, worried with the affairs of Fenn, was not interested and +the Captain peddled his dream in other marts. With Fenn's ugly face on +his mind, Brotherton saw young Judge Van Dorn swing in lightly, go +through his daily pantomime, all so smoothly, so well oiled, so polished +and polite, so courtly and affable, that for the moment Brotherton laid +aside his fears and abandoned his suspicions. Then Van Dorn, after +playing with his cigar, went to the stationery counter and remarked +casually, "By the by, George, do you keep fountain pens?" + +Mr. Brotherton kept fountain pens, and Judge Van Dorn said: "There--that +one over by the ink eraser--yes, that one--the one in the silver +casing--I seem to have mislaid mine. Yale men gave it to me at the +reunion in '91, as president of the class--had my initials on it--ten +years--yes," he looked at the pen offered by the store keeper. "That +will do." Mr. Brotherton watched the Judge as he put the pen in his vest +pocket, after it had been filled. + +The Judge picked up a Chicago paper, stowed it away with "Anglo-Saxon +Supremacy" in his green bag. Then he swung gracefully out of the shop +and left Mr. Brotherton wondering where and how Henry Fenn got that pen, +and why he did not return it to its owner. + +The air of mystery and malice--two unusual atmospheres for Henry Fenn to +breathe--which he had put around the pen, impressed his friend with the +importance of the thing. + +"A mighty smooth proposition," said Grant Adams, sitting in the Amen +Corner reading "A Hazard of New Fortunes," when Van Dorn had gone. + +"Well, say, Grant," returned Mr. Brotherton, pondering on the subject of +the lost pen. "Sometimes I think Tom is just a little too oleaginous--a +little too oleaginous," repeated Mr. Brotherton, pleased with his big +word. + +That June night Henry Fenn passed from Congress Street and walked with a +steady purpose manifest in his clicking heels. It was not a night's bat +that guided his feet, no festive orgy, but the hard, firm footfall of a +man who has been drunk a long time--terribly mean drunk. And terribly +mean drunk he was. His eyes were blazing, and he mumbled as he walked. +Down Market Street he turned and strode to the corner where the Traders' +National Bank sign shone under the electrics. He looked up, saw a light +burning in the office above, and suddenly changed his gait to a tip-toe. +Up the stairs he crept to a door, under which a light was gleaming. He +got a firm hold of the knob, then turned it quickly, thrust open the +door and stepped quietly into the room. He grinned meanly at Tom Van +Dorn who, glancing up over his shoulder from his book, saw the white +face of Fenn leering at him. Van Dorn knew that this was the time when +he must use all the wits he had. + +"Why, hello--Henry--hello," said Van Dorn cheerfully. He coughed, in an +attempt to swallow the saliva that came rushing into his mouth. Fenn did +not answer, but stood and then began to walk around Van Dorn's desk, +eyeing him with glowing-red eyes as he walked. Van Dorn tipped back his +chair easily, put his feet on the desk before him, and spoke, "Sit down, +Henry--make yourself at home." He cleared his throat nervously. +"Anything gone wrong, Henry?" he asked as the man stood over him glaring +at him. + +"No," replied Fenn. "No, nothing's gone wrong. I've just got some +exhibits here in a law suit. That's all." + +He stood over Van Dorn, peering steadfastly at him. First he laid down a +torn letter. Van Dorn shuddered almost imperceptibly as he recognized in +the crumpled, wrenched paper his writing, but smiled suavely and said, +"Well?" + +"Well," croaked Fenn passionately. "That's exhibit 'A'. I had to fight a +hell-cat for it; and this," he added as he lay down the silver-mounted +pen, "this is exhibit 'B'. I found that in the porch swing this morning +when I went out to get my drink hidden under the house." He cackled and +Van Dorn's Adam's apple bobbed like a cork upon a wave. + +"And this," cried Fenn, as he pulled a revolver, "God damn you, is +exhibit 'C'. Now, don't you budge, or I'll blow you to hell--and," he +added, "I guess I'll do it anyway." + +He stood with the revolver at Van Dorn's temple--stood over his victim +growling like a raging beast. His finger trembled upon the trigger, and +he laughed. "So you were going to have a convenient, inexpensive lady +friend, were you, Tom!" Fenn cuffed the powerless man's jaw with an open +hand. + +"Private snap?" he sneered. "Well, damn your soul--here's a lady friend +of mine," he poked the cold barrel harder against the trembling man's +temple and cried: "Don't wiggle, don't you move." Then he went on: "Kiss +her, you damned egg-sucking pup--when you've done flirting with this, +I'm going to kill you." + +He emphasized the "you," and prodded the man's face with the barrel. + +"Henry," whispered Van Dorn, "Henry, for God's sake, let me talk--give +me a show, won't you?" + +Fenn moved the barrel of the revolver over between the man's eyes and +cried passionately: "Oh, yes, I'll give you a show, Tom--the same show +you gave me." + +He shifted the revolver suddenly and pulled the trigger; the bullet +bored a hole through the book on "Anglo-Saxon Supremacy" on the desk. + +Fenn drew in a deep breath. With the shot he had spilled some vial of +wrath within him, though Van Dorn could not see the change that was +creeping into Fenn's haggard face. + +"You see she'll shoot, Tom," said Fenn. + +Holding the smoking revolver to the man's head, Fenn reached for a chair +and sat down. His rage was ebbing, and his mind was clear. He withdrew +the weapon a few inches, and cried: + +"Don't you budge an inch." + +His hand was limp and shaking, but Van Dorn could not see it. "Tom, +Tom," he cried. "God help me--help me." He repeated twice the word "me," +then he went on: + +"For being what I am--only what I am--" he emphasized the "I." + +"For giving in to your devil as I give into mine--for falling as I have +fallen--on another road--I was going to kill you." + +The revolver slipped from his hands. He picked it up by the barrel. He +rose crying in a weak voice, + +"Oh, Tom, Tom, Tom," Van Dorn was lifting up in his chair, "Tom, Tom, +God help us both poor, hell-cursed men," sobbed Fenn, and then with a +fearful blow he brought the weapon down and struck the white, false +forehead that gleamed beneath Fenn's wet face. + +He stood watching the man shudder and close his eyes, watching the blood +seep out along a crooked seam, then gush over the face and fine, black +hair and silken mustache. A bloody flood streamed there while he +watched. Then Fenn wiped dry the butt of his revolver. He felt of the +gash in the forehead, and found that the bone was not crushed. He was +sober, and an unnatural calm was upon his brain. He could feel the tears +in his eyes. He stood looking at the face of the unconscious man a long, +dreadful minute as one who pities rather than hates a foe. Then he +stepped to the telephone, called Dr. Nesbit, glanced at the fountain pen +and the crumpled letter, burst into a spasm of weeping, and tiptoed out +of the room. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +IN WHICH WE SEE A FAT LITTLE RASCAL ON THE RACK + + +A year and a month and a day, an exceedingly hot day, after Judge Thomas +Van Dorn had fallen upon the stair leading to his office and had cut +that gash in his forehead which left the white thread of a scar upon his +high, broad brow, Judge Van Dorn sat in chambers in his office in the +court house, hearing an unimportant matter. Because the day was hot, the +Judge wore a gray silk coat, without a vest, and because the matter was +unimportant, no newspaper reporters were called in. The matter in hand +was highly informal. The Judge, tilted back in his easy chair, toyed +with his silken mustache, while counsel for defendant, standing by the +desk before which the Judge's chair was swinging, handled the papers +representing the defendant's answer, to the plaintiff's pleadings. The +plaintiff herself, dressed in rather higher sleeves than would have been +thought possible to put upon a human form and make them stand erect, +with a rather larger hat than one would have said might be carried by a +single human neck without bowing it; the plaintiff above mentioned was +rattling the court's paper knife. + +Plaintiff's counsel, a callow youth from the law offices of Joseph +Calvin, to be exact, Joseph Calvin, Jr., sat meekly on the edge of a +small chair in the corner and being a chip of the old block, had little +to say. The court and said hereinbefore described plaintiff talked +freely between whiles as the counsel for said defendant, Henry Fenn, ran +over his papers, looking for particular phrases, statements or exhibits +which he desired to present to the court. + +It appeared from the desultory reading of the papers by the attorney for +the said defendant, Henry Fenn, that he had no desire to impose upon the +plaintiff, as above described, any hardships in the matter and that the +agreement reached by counsel as to the disposition of the joint property +should be carried out as indicated in the answer submitted to the +court--see folio No. 3. Though counsel for defendant smilingly told the +court that if the counsel were Henry Fenn, he should not give up +property worth at least five thousand dollars in consideration of the +cause of action being made cruelty and inhuman treatment rather than +drunkenness, but, as counsel explained and as the court agreed when a +man gets to going by the booze route he hasn't much sense--referring, of +course, to said defendant, Henry Fenn, not present in person. + +When counsel for the said defendant had finished, and had put all his +papers upon the desk in front of the court, the court reached into his +desk, and handed the counsel for defendant a cigar, which with proper +apologies to the hereinabove and before described plaintiff, counsel +lighted, and said: + +"That's certainly a good one." + +But as the court was writing upon the back of one of the papers, the +court did not respond for a moment, but finally said absently, +"Yes,--glad you think so; George Brotherton imports them for me." + +And went on writing. Still writing the court said without looking up, "I +don't know of anything else." + +And the counsel for defendant said he didn't either and putting on his +hat, smiling at the plaintiff aforesaid, counsel for said defendant +Henry Fenn departed, and after a minute the court ceased writing, folded +and blotted the back of the paper, handed it to young Joe Calvin, +sitting meekly on the edge of the chair, saying: "Here Joey, take this +to the clerk and file it," and Joey got up from the edge of the chair +and vanished, closing the door behind him. + +"Well?" said the plaintiff. + +"Well?" echoed the court. + +"Well," reiterated the plaintiff, gazing into the eyes of the court with +somewhat more eagerness than the law requires under statute therefore +made and provided. + +"So it's all over," she continued, and added: "My part." + +She rose--this plaintiff hereinbefore mentioned, came to the desk, stood +over him a moment, and said softly, much more softly than the code +prescribes, "Tom--I hope yours won't be any harder." + +Whereupon the court, then and there being as herein above set forth, did +with premeditation, and much show of emotion look up into the eyes of +said plaintiff, said eyes being tear-dimmed and extraordinarily +beautiful as to their coloring to-wit: brown, as to their expression +to-wit: sad and full of love, and furthermore the court did with +deliberation and after for a moment while he held the heavy bejeweled +hand of said plaintiff above mentioned, and did press said hand to his +lips and then did draw the said plaintiff closer and whisper: + +"God--God, Margaret, so do I hope so--so do I." + +And perhaps the court for a second thought of a little blue-eyed, +fair-haired girl and a gentle woman who lived for him alone in all the +world, and perhaps not; for this being a legal paper may set down only +such matters as are of evidence. But it is witnessed and may be +certified to that the court did drop his eyes for a second or two, that +the white thread of a scar upon the forehead of the court did redden for +a moment while he held the heavy bejewelled hand of plaintiff, +hereinbefore mentioned, and that he did draw a deep breath, and did look +out of the window, set high up in the court house, and that he did see +the elm trees covering a home which, despite all his perfidy and neglect +was full of love for him--love that needed no high sleeves nor great +plumy hats, nor twinkling silver bangles, nor jangling gold chatelaines, +to make it beautiful. But let us make it of record and set it down here, +in this instrument that the court rose, looked into the great brown eyes +and the fair face, and seeing the rich, shameless mouth and blazing +color upon the features, did then and there fall down in his heart and +worship that mask, and did take the hand that he held in both of his and +standing before the woman did cry in a deep voice, full of agony: + +"For God's sake, Margaret, let me come to you now--soon." And she--the +plaintiff in this action gazed at the man who had been the court, but +who now was man, and replied: + +"Only when you may honestly--legally, Tom--it's best for both of us." + +They walked to the door. The court pressed a button as she left, +smiling, and when a man appeared with a note book the court said: "I +have something to dictate," and the next day young Joseph Calvin handed +the following news item to the _Harvey Times_ and to the _South +Harvey Derrick_. + +"A divorce was granted to-day by Judge Thomas Van Dorn of the district +court in chambers to Mrs. Margaret Mueller Fenn, from Henry Fenn. Charges +of cruel and inhuman treatment filed by the attorneys for Mrs. Fenn were +not met by Mr. Fenn and the court granted the decree and it was made +absolute. It is understood that a satisfactory settlement of the joint +property has been made. Mrs. Fenn will continue to hold the position she +has held during the year past as chief clerk in the office of the +superintendent of the Harvey Improvement Company. Mr. Fenn is former +county attorney and is now engaged in the insurance business, having +sold his real estate business to Joseph Calvin this morning." + +And thus the decree of divorce between Henry Fenn and Margaret, his +wife, whom God had joined together, was made absolute, and further +deponent sayeth not. + +But the town of Harvey had more or less to say about the divorce and +what the town said, more or less concerned Judge Thomas Van Dorn. For +although Henry Fenn sober would not speak of the divorce, Henry Fenn +drunk, babbled many quotations about the "rare and radiant maiden, who +was lost forever more." He was also wont to quote the line about the +lover who held his mistress "something better than his dog, a little +dearer than his horse." + +As for the Judge, his sensitive mind felt the disapproval of the +community. But the fighting blood in him was roused, and he fought a +braver fight than the cause justified. That summer he went to all the +farmers' picnics in his district, spoke wherever he was invited to +speak, and spoke well; whatever charm he had he called to his aid. When +the French of South Harvey celebrated the Fall of the Bastille, Judge +Van Dorn spoke most beautifully of liberty, and led off when they sung +the _Marseillaise_; on Labor Day he was the orator of the occasion, +and made a great impression among the workers by his remarks upon the +dignity of labor. He quoted Carlyle and Ruskin and William Morris, and +wept when he told them how the mob had crucified the Carpenter, who was +labor's first prophet. + +But one may say this for Judge Van Dorn: that with all his desire for +the approval of his fellows, even in South Harvey, even at the meetings +of men who he knew differed with him, he did not flinch from attacking +on every occasion and with all his eloquence the unions that Grant Adams +was promoting. The idea of mutual help upon which they rested seemed to +make Van Dorn see red, and he was forever going out of his way to combat +the idea. So bitter was his antagonism to the union idea that in the +Valley he and Grant Adams became dramatized in the minds of the men as +opponents. + +But in Harvey, where men regarded Grant Adams's activities with tolerant +indifference and his high talk of bettering industrial conditions as the +madness of youth, Judge Van Dorn was the town's particular idol. + +A handsome man he was as he stood out in the open under the bower made +by the trees, and with the grace and charm of true oratory, spoke in his +natural voice--a soft, penetrating treble that reached to the furthest +man in the crowd; tall, well-built, oval-faced, commanding--a judge +every inch of him, even if a young judge--was Tom Van Dorn. And when he +had finished speaking at the Harvest Home Picnic, or at the laying of +the corner stone of the new Masonic Temple, or at the opening of the +Grant County fair, men said: + +"Well, I know they say Tom Van Dorn is no Joseph, but all the same I'm +here to tell you--" and what they were there to tell you would +discourage ladies and gentlemen who believe that material punishments +always follow either material or spiritual transgressions. + +So the autumn wore into winter, and the State Bar Association promoted +Judge Van Dorn; he appeared as president of that dignified body, and +thereby added to his prestige at home. He appeared regularly at church +with Mrs. Van Dorn--going the rounds of the churches punctiliously--and +gave liberally when a subscription paper for any cause was presented. +But for all this, he kept hearing the bees of gossip buzzing about him, +and often felt their sting. + +Day after day, through it all he never slept until in some way, by some +device, through some trumped up excuse that seemed plausible enough in +itself, he had managed to see and speak to Margaret Fenn. Whether in her +office in the Light, Heat & Power Company's building upon a business +errand, and he made plenty of such, or upon the street, or in the court +house, where she often went upon some business of her chief, or walking +home at evening, or coming down in the morning, or upon rare occasions +meeting her clandestinely for a moment, or whether at some social +function where they were both present--and it of necessity had to be a +large function in that event--for the town could register its +disapproval of the woman more easily than it could put its opprobrium +upon the man; or whether he spoke to her just a word from the sidewalk +as he passed her home, always he managed to see her. Always he had one +look into her eyes, and so during all the day, she was in his thoughts. +It seems strange that a man of great talents could keep the machinery of +his mind going and still have an ever present consciousness of a guilty +intrigue. Yet there it was. Until he had seen her and spoken to her, it +was his day's important problem to devise some way to bring about the +meeting. So with devilish caution and ponderous circumlocution and craft +he went about his daily work, serene in the satisfaction that he was +being successful in his elaborate deceit; rather gloating at times in +the iniquity of one in his position being in so low a business. He +wondered what the people would say if they really knew the depths of his +infamy, and when he sentenced a poor devil for some minor crime, he +would often watch himself as a third party and wonder if he would ever +stand up and take his sentence. But he had no fear of that. The little +drama between Judge Van Dorn, the prisoner at the bar, and the lover of +Margaret Fenn, was for his diversion, rather than for his instruction, +and he enjoyed it as an artistic travesty upon the justice he was +dispensing. + +Thomas Van Dorn believed that the world was full of a number of +exceedingly pleasant things that might be had for the taking, and no +questions asked. So when he felt the bee sting of gossip, he threw back +his head, squared his face to the wind, put an extra kink of elegance +into his raiment, a tighter crimp into his smile and an added ardor into +his hale greeting, did some indispensable judicial favor to the old +spider of commerce back of the brass sign at the Traders National, +defied the town, and bade it watch him fool it. But the men who drove +the express wagons knew that whenever they saw Judge Van Dorn take the +train for the capital they would be sure to have a package from the +capital the next day for Mrs. Fenn; sometimes it would be a milliner's +box, sometimes a jeweler's, sometimes a florist's, sometimes a dry-goods +merchant's, and always a candy maker's. + +At last the whole wretched intrigue dramatized itself in one culminating +episode. It came in the spring. Dr. Nesbit had put on his white linens +just as the trees were in their first gayety of foliage and the spring +blooming flowers were at their loveliest. + +After a morning in the dirt and grime and misery and injustice and +wickedness that made the outer skin over South Harvey and Foley and +Magnus and the mining and smelter towns of the valley, the Doctor came +driving into the cool beauty of Quality Hill in Harvey with a middle +aged man's sense of relief. South Harvey and its neighbors disheartened +him. + +He had seen Grant Adams, a man of the Doctor's own caste by birth, +hurrying into a smelter on some organization errand out of overalls in +his cheap, ill-fitting clothes, begrimed, heavy featured, dogged and +rapidly becoming a part of the industrial dregs. Grant Adams in the +smelter, preoccupied with the affairs of that world, and passing +definitely into it forever, seemed to the Doctor symbolic of the passing +of the America he understood (and loved), into an America that +discouraged him. But the beauty and the calm and the restful +elm-bordered lawns of Harvey always toned up his spirits. Here, he said +to himself was the thing he had helped to create. Here was the town he +had founded and cherished. Here were the people whom he really +loved--old neighbors, old friends, dear in associations and sweet in +memories. + +It was in a cherubic complaisance with the whole scheme of the universe +that the white-clad Doctor jogged up Elm Street behind his maternal +sorrel in the phaeton, to get his noon day meal. He passed the Van Dorn +home. Its beauty fitted into this mood and beckoned to him. For the +whole joy of spring bloomed in flower and shrub and vine that bordered +the house and clambered over the wide hospitable porch. The gay color of +the spring made the house glow like a jewel. The wide lawn--the stately +trees, the gorgeous flowers called to his heart, and seeing his daughter +upon the piazza, the Doctor surrendered, drew up, tied the horse and +came toddling along the walk to the broad stone steps, waving his hands +gayly to her as he came. Little Lila, coming home from kindergarten and +bleating through the house lamb-wise: "I'm hungry," saw her grandfather, +and ran down the steps to meet him, forgetting her pangs. + +He lifted her high to his shoulder, and came up the porch steps +laughing: "Here come jest and youthful jollity, my dear," and stooping +with his grandchild in his arms, kissed the beautiful woman before him. + +"Some one is mighty sweet this morning," and then seeing a package +beside her asked: "What's this--" looking at the address and the +sender's name. "Some one been getting a new dress?" + +The child pulling at her mother's skirts renewed her bleat for food. +When Lila had been disposed of Laura sat by her father, took his fat, +pudgy hand and said: + +"Father, I don't know what to do; do you mind talking some things over +with me. I suppose I should have been to see you anyway in a few days. +Have we time to go clear to the bottom of things now?" + +She looked up at him with a serious, troubled face, and patted his hand. +He felt instinctively the shadow that was on her heart, and his face may +have winced. She saw or knew without seeing, the tremor in his soul. + +"Poor father--but you know it must come sometime. Let us talk it all out +now." + +He nodded his head. He did not trust his voice. + +"Well, father dear," she said slowly. She nodded at the package--a long +dress box beside the porch post. + +"That was sent to Margaret Fenn. It came here by mistake--addressed to +me. There were some express charges on it. I thought it was for me; I +thought Tom had bought it for me yesterday, when he was at the capital, +so I opened it. There is a dress pattern in it--yellow and black--colors +I never could wear, and Tom has an exquisite eye for those things, and +also there is a pair of silk stockings to match. On the memoranda pinned +on these, they are billed to Mrs. Fenn, but all charged to Tom. I hadn't +opened it when I sent the expressman to Tom's office for the express +charges, but when he finds the package has been delivered here--we shall +have it squarely before us." The daughter did not turn her eyes to her +father as she went on after a little sigh that seemed like a catch in +her side: + +"So there we are." + +The Doctor patted his foot in silence, then replied: + +"My poor, poor child--my poor little girl," and added with a heavy sigh: +"And poor Tom--Laura--poor, foolish, devil-ridden Tom." She assented +with her eyes. At the end of a pause she said with anguish in her voice: + +"And when we began it was all so beautiful--so beautiful--so wonderful. +Of course I've known for a long time--ever since before Lila came that +it was slipping. Oh, father--I've known; I've seen every little giving +of the tie that bound us, and in my heart deep down, I've known +all--all--everything--all the whole awful truth--even if I have not had +the facts as you've had them--you and mother--I suppose." + +"You're my fine, brave girl," cried her father, patting her trembling +hand. But he could speak no further. + +"Oh, no, I'm not brave--I'm not brave," she answered. "I'm a coward. I +have sat by and watched it all slip away, watched him getting further +and further from me, saw my hold slipping--slipping--slipping, and saw +him getting restless. I've seen one awful--" she paused, shuddered, and +cried, "Oh, you know, father, that other dreadful affair. I saw that +rise, burn itself out and then this one--" she turned away and her body +shook. + +In a minute she was herself: "I'm foolish I suppose, but I've never +talked it out before. I won't do it again. I'm all right now." She took +his hands and continued: + +"Now, then, tell me--is there any way out? What shall we do to be +saved--Tom and Lila and I?" She hesitated. "I'm afraid--Oh, I know, I +know I don't love Tom any more. How could I--how could I? But some way I +want to mother him. I don't want to see him get clear down. I know this +woman. I know what she means. Let me tell you, father. For two years +she's been playing with Tom like a cat. I knew it when she began. I +can't say how I knew it; but I felt it--felt it reflected in his moods, +saw him nervous and feverish. She's been torturing him, father--she's +strong. Also she's--she's hard. Tom hasn't--well, I mean she's always +kept the upper hand. I know that in my soul. And he's stark, raving mad +somewhere within him." A storm of emotion shook her and then she cried +passionately, "And, oh, father, I want to rescue him--not for myself. +Oh, I don't love him any more. That's all gone. At least not in the old +way, I don't, but he's so sensitive--so easy to hurt. And she's slowly +burning him alive. It's awful." + +The little pink face of the Doctor began to harden. His big blue eyes +began to look through narrow slits in his eyelids, and the pudgy, +white-clad figure stood erect. The daughter's voice broke and as she +gripped herself the father reached his bristling pompadour and cried in +wrath, "Let him burn--let him burn, girl--hell's too good for him!" + +His voice was high and harsh and merciless. It restored the woman's +poise and she shook her head sorrowfully as she resumed: + +"I can't bear to see it; I--I want to shield him--I must--if I can." A +tremor ran through her again. She caught hold of herself, then went on +more calmly. "But things can't go on this way. Here is this box--" + +"Child--child," cried the Doctor angrily, "you come right home--right +home," he piped with rising wrath. "Right home to mother and me." + +The wife shook her head and replied: "No, father, that's the easy road. +I must take the hard road." Her father's mobile face showed his pain and +the daughter cried: "I know, father--I know how you would have stopped +me before I chose this way. But I did choose and now here is Lila, and +here is a home--a home--our home, father, and I mustn't leave it. Here +is my duty, here in this home, and I must not ran away. I must work out +my life as it is--as before God and Lila--and Tom--yes, Tom, father, as +before all three, I have my responsibility. I must not put away Tom--no +matter--no matter how I feel--no matter what he has done. I won't," she +repeated. "I won't." + +The father turned an impatient face to his daughter, and retorted, "You +won't--you won't leave that miserable cur--that--that woman hunting +dog--won't leave--" + +The father's rage sputtered on his lips, but the daughter caught his +hand as it was beating his cane on the floor. "Stop, father," she said +gently, "it's something more than women that's wrong with Tom. Women are +merely an outward and visible sign--it's what he believes--and what he +does, living his creed--always following the material thing. As a judge +I thought he would see his way--must see his way to bring justice +here--" She looked into the fume stained sky above South Harvey, and +Foley and Magnus, far down the valley, and tightened her grip on her +father's hands. "But no--no," she cried, "Tom doesn't know justice--he +only sees the law, the law and profits, and prosperity--only the eternal +material. He sits by and sees the company settle for four and five +hundred dollars for the lives of the men it wasted in the mine--yes, +more than sits by--he stands at the door of justice and drives the +widows and children into a settlement like an overseer. And he and Joe +Calvin have some sort of real estate partnership--Oh--I know it's +dishonest, though I don't know how. But it branches so secretly into the +law and it all reaches down into politics. And the whole order here, +father--Daniel Sands paying for politics, paying for government that +makes the laws, paying for mayors and governors that enforce the laws +and paying the judges to back them up--and all that poverty and +wretchedness and wickedness down there and all this beauty and luxury +and material happiness up here. It's all, all wrong, father." Her voice +broke again in sobs, and tears were running down her cheeks as she +continued. "How can we blame Tom for violating his vows to me? Where are +all our vows to God to deal justly with His people--the widows and +orphans and helpless ones, father?" She looked at her father through her +tears, at her father, whose face was agape! He was staring into the +wistaria vines as one who saw his world quaking. A quick bolt of +sympathy shot through the daughter's heart. She patted his limp hands +and said softly, "So--father--I mustn't leave Tom. He's a poor, weak +creature--a rotten stick--and because I know it--I must stay with him!" + + * * * * * + +Behind the screen of matter, the lusty fates were pulling at the screws +of the rack. "Pull harder," cried the first fate; "the little old +pot-bellied rascal--make him see it: make him see how he warned her +against the symptoms, but not the disease that was festering her lover's +soul!" + +"Turn yourself," cried the second, "make the forehead sweat as he sees +how he has been delivering laws in a basket to grind iniquity through +Tom Van Dorn's mill! Turn--turn, turn you lout!" + +"And you," cried the third fate at the screw to the first, "twist that +heart-string, twist it hard when he sees his daughter's broken face and +hears her sobbing!" + +But the angels, the pitying angels, loosened the cords of the rack with +their gentle tears. + + * * * * * + +As the taut threads of the rack slackened, he heard the soft voice of +his daughter saying: "But of course, the most important thing is +Lila--not that she means a great deal to him now. He doesn't care much +for children. He doesn't want them--children." + +She turned upon her father and with anguished voice and with all her +denied motherhood, she cried: "O, father--I want them--lots of +them--arms full of them all the time." + +She stretched out her arms. "Oh, it's been so hard, to feel my youth +passing, and only one child--I wanted a whole house full. I'm strong; I +could bear them. I don't mind anything--I just want my babies--my babies +that never have come." + +And then the pitiless fates turned the screws of the rack again and the +father burst forth in his vain grief, with his high, soft, woman's +voice. "I wonder--I wonder--I wonder, what God has in waiting for you to +make up for this?" + +Before she could answer, the telephone bell rang. The wife stepped to +the instrument. "Well," she said when she came back. "The hour has +struck; the expressman went to Tom for the express charges; he knows the +package is here and," she added after a sigh, "he knows that I know all +about it." She even smiled rather sadly, "So he's coming out--on his +wheel." + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +IN WHICH TOM VAN DORN BECOMES A WAYFARING MAN ALSO + + +The father rose. His head was cast down. He poked a vine curling about +the porch floor with his cane. + +"I wonder, my dear," he spoke slowly, and with great gentleness, "if +maybe I shouldn't talk with Tom--before you see him." + +He continued to poke the vine, and looked up at the daughter sadly. "Of +course there's Lila; if it is best for her--why that's the thing to +do--I presume." + +"But father," broke in the daughter, "Tom and I can--" + +But he entreated, "Won't you let me talk with Tom? In half an hour--I'll +go. You and Lila slip over to mother's for half an hour--come back at +half past twelve. I'll tell him where you are." + +The mother and child had disappeared around the corner of the house when +the click of Van Dorn's bicycle on the curbing told the Doctor that the +young man was upon the walk. The package from the capital still lay +beside the porch column. The Doctor did not lift his eyes from it as the +younger man came hurrying up the steps. He was flushed, bright-eyed, a +little out of breath, and his black wing of hair was damp. On the top +step, he looked up and saw the Doctor. + +"It's all right, Tom--I understand things." The Doctor's eyes turned to +the parcel on the floor between them. + +The Doctor's voice was soft; his manner was gentle, and he lifted his +blue, inquiring eyes into the young Judge's restless black ones. Dr. +Nesbit put a fatherly hand on the young man's arm, and said: "Shall we +sit down, Tom, and take stock of things and see where we stand? Wouldn't +that be a good idea?" + +They sat down and the younger man eyed the package, turned it over, +looked at the address nervously, pulled at his mustache as he sank back, +while the elder man was saying: "I believe I understand you, Tom--better +than any one else in the world understands you. I believe you have not a +better friend on earth than I right at this minute." + +The Judge turned around and said in a disturbed voice, "I am sure that's +the God's truth, Doctor Jim." Then after a sigh he added, "And this is +what I've done to you!" + +"And will keep right on doing to me as long as you live," piped the +elder man, twitching his mouth and nose contemptuously. + +"As long as I live, I fancy," repeated the other. In the pause the young +man put his hands to his hips and his chin on his breast as he slouched +down in the chair and asked: "Where's Laura?" + +"Over at her mother's," replied the father. "Nobody will interrupt +us--and so I thought we could get down to grass roots and talk this +thing out." + +The Judge crossed his handsome ankles and sat looking at his trim toes. + +"I suppose that idea is as good as any." He put one long, lean, hairy +hand on the short, fat knee beside him and said: "The whole trouble with +our Protestant religion is that we have no confessor. So some of us talk +to our lawyers, and some of us talk to our doctors, and in extreme +unction we talk to our newspapers." + +He grinned miserably, and went on: "But we all talk to some one, and now +I'm going to talk to you--talk for once, Doctor, right out of my +soul--if I have one." + +He rose nervously, obeying some purely physical impulse, and then sat +down again, with his hands in his thick, black hair, and his elbows on +his bony knees. + +"All right, Tom," piped the Doctor, "go ahead." + +"Well, then," he began as he looked at the floor before him, "do you +suppose I don't know that you know what I'm up to? Do you think I don't +know even what the town is buzzing about? Lord, man, I can feel it like +a scorching fire. Why," he exclaimed with emotion, "feeling the hearts +of men is my job. I've been at it for fifteen years--" + +He broke off and looked up. "How could I get up before a jury and feel +them out man by man as I talked if I wasn't sensitive to these things? +You've seen me make them cry when I was in the practice. How could I +make them cry if I didn't feel like crying myself. You're a doctor--you +know that. People forget what I am--what a thousand stringed instrument +I am. Now, Doctor Jim, let me tell you something. This is the bottom +hard pan of the truth: I never before really cared for these +women--these other women--when I got them. But I do care for the chase, +I do care for the risk of it--for the exhilaration of it--for the joy of +it!" + +The Doctor's mouth twitched and he took a breath as if about to speak. +Van Dorn stopped him: "Don't cut in, Doc Jim--let me say it all out. I'm +young. I love the moonlight and the stars and I never go through a wood +that I do not see trysting places there--and I never see a great stretch +of prairie under the sunshine that I do not put in a beautiful woman and +go following her--not for her--Doctor Jim, but for the joy of pursuit, +for the thrill of uncovering a bared, naked soul, and the overwhelming +danger of it. God--man, I've stood afraid to breathe, flattened against +a wall and heard the man-beast growl and sniff, hunting me. I love to +love and be loved; but not less do I love to hunt and be hunted. I've +hidden under trees, I've skulked in the shadows, I've walked boldly in +the sunlight with my life in my hand to meet a woman's eyes, to feel her +guilty shudder in my arms. Oh, Doctor Jim, you don't understand the riot +in my blood that the moon makes shining through the trees upon the +water, with great, shadowy glades, and the tinkle of cow bells far away, +and a woman afraid of me--and I afraid of her--and nothing but the stars +and the night between us." + +He rose and began pacing the piazza as he continued speaking. "It's +always been so with me--as early as my boyhood it was so. I often wake +in the lonely nights and think of them all over again--the days and +nights, the girls and women who have flashed bright and radiant into my +life. Over and over again, I repeat to my soul their names, over and +over I live the hours we have spent together, the dangers, the delights, +the cruel misery of it all and then at the turn of the street, at the +corner of a room, in the winking of an eye I see another face, it looks +a challenge at me and I am out on the high road of another romance. I've +got to go! It's part of my life; it's the pulse of my blood." + +He stood excited with his deep, beady, black eyes burning and his proud, +vain face flushed and his hands a-tremble. The Doctor saw that he was in +the midst of a physical and mental turmoil that could not be checked. + +Van Dorn went on: "And then you and my friends ask me to quit. Laura, +God help her--she naturally--" he exclaimed. "But is the moon to be +blotted out for me? Are the night winds to be muffled and mean no more +than the scraping of a dead twig against a rusty wire? Are flowers to +lose their scent, and grass and trees and birds to be blurred and turned +drab in my eyes? How do you think I live, man? How do you think I can go +before juries and audiences and make them thrill and clench their fists +and cry like children and breathe with my emotions, if I am to be stone +dead? Do you think a wooden man can do that? Try Joe Calvin with a +jury--what does he accomplish with all his virtue? He hasn't had an +emotion in twenty years. A pretty woman looking at Joe in a crowd +wouldn't say anything to him with her eyes and dilating nostrils and the +swish of her body. And when he gets before a jury he talks the law to +them, and the facts to them, and the justice of the case to them. But +when I used to stand up before them, they knew I was weak, human mud. +They had heard all the stories on me. They knew me, and some of them +despised me, and all of them were watching out for me, but when I +reached down in my heart and brought up the common clay of which we all +are made and molded it into a man or an event before their eyes, +then--by God they came to me. And yet you've been sitting there for +years, Doctor Jim Nesbit and saying 'Tom--Tom, why don't you quit?'" + +He was seated now, talking in a low, tense voice, looking the Doctor +deeply in the eyes, and as he paused, the perspiration stood out upon +his scarred forehead, and pink splotches appeared there and the veins of +his temples were big and blue. The Doctor turned away his eyes and said +coldly: "There's Laura--Tom--Laura and little Lila." + +"Yes," he groaned, rising. "There are Laura and Lila." + +He thrust his hands deeply into his pockets and looked down at the +Doctor and sneered. "There's the trap that snapped and took a paw, and +I'm supposed to lick it and love it and to cherish it." + +He shuddered, and continued: "For once I'll speak and tell it all. I'll +not be a hypocrite in this hour, though ever after I may lie and cringe. +There are Laura and Lila and here am I. And out beyond is the wind in +the elms and the sunshine upon the grass and the moving odor of +flowers--flowers that are blushing with the joy of nature in her great +perennial romance--and there's Laura and Lila and here am I." + +His passion was ebbing; his face was hardening into its wonted vain, +artificial contour, his eyes were losing their dilation, and he was +sitting rather limply in his chair, staring into space. The Doctor came +at him. + +"You're a fool. You had your fling; you're along in your thirties, +nearly forty now and it's time to stop." The younger man could not +regain the height, but he could hide under his crust. So he parried back +suavely, with insolence in his voice: + +"Why stop at thirty--or even forty? Why stop at all?" + +"Let me tell you something, Tom," returned the Doctor. "It's all very +fine to talk this way; but this thing has become a fixed habit, just +like the whiskey habit; and in fifteen or twenty years more you'll be a +chronic, physical, degenerate man. You'll lose your self-respect. You'll +lose your quick wits, and your whole mind and body will be burning up +with a slow fire." + +"Oh, you dear old fossil," replied Van Dorn in a hollow, dead voice, +rising and patting his tie and adjusting his coat and collar, "I'm no +fool. I know what I'm doing. I know how far to go, and when to stop. But +this game is interesting; and I'm only a man," he straightened up again, +patted his mustache, and again tipped his hat into a cockey angle over +his forehead, and went on, "not a monk." He smiled, pivoted on his heel +nervously and went on, "And what is more I can take care of myself." + +"Tom," cried the Doctor in his treble, with excitement in his voice, +"you can't take care of yourself. No man ever lived who could. You may +get away with your love affairs, and no one be the wiser; you may make a +crooked or dirty million on a stock deal and no one be the wiser; but +you'll bear the marks to the grave." + +"So," mocked the sneering voice of the young Judge, "I suppose you'll +carry the marks of all the men you've bought up in this town for twenty +years." + +"Yes, Tom," returned the Doctor pitifully, as he rose and stood beside +the preening young man, "I'll carry 'em to the grave with me, too; I've +had a few stripes to-day." + +"Well, anyway," retorted Van Dorn, pulling his hat over his eyes, +restlessly, "you're entitled to what you get in this life. And I'm going +to get all I can, money and fun, and everything else. Morals are for +sapheads. The preacher's God says I can't have certain things without +His cracking down on me. Watch me beat Him at his own game." It was all +a make-believe and the Doctor saw that the real man was gone. + +"Tom," sighed the Doctor, "here's the practical question--you realize +what all this means to Laura? And Lila--why, Tom, can't you see what +it's going to mean to her--to all of us as the years go by?" + +Their eyes met and turned to the parcel on the floor. "You can't +afford--well, that sort of thing," the Doctor punched the parcel +contemptuously with his cane. "It's all bad enough, Tom, but that way +lies hell!" + +Van Dorn turned upon the Doctor, and squared his jaw and said: "Well +then--that's the way I'm going--that way"--he nodded toward the +package--"lies romance for me! There is the road to the only joy I shall +ever know in this earth. There lies life and beauty and all that I live +for, and I'm going that way." + +The Judge met the father's beseeching face, with an angry glare--defiant +and insolent. + +The Doctor had no time to reply. There was a stir in the house, and a +child's steps came running through the hall. Lila stopped on the porch, +hesitating between the two men. The Doctor put out his arms for her. Van +Dorn casually reached out his hand. She ran to her father and cried, +"Up--Daddy--up," and jumped to his shoulder as he took her. The Doctor +walked down the steps as his daughter came out of the door. + +The man and the woman looked at one another, but did not speak. The +father put the child down and said: + +"Now, Lila, run with grandpa and get a cooky from granny while your +mother and I talk." + +She looked up at him with her blue eyes and her sadly puckered little +face, swallowed her disappointed tears and trudged down the steps after +the white-clad grandfather who was untying his horse. + +When the child and the grandfather were gone the wife said in a dead, +emotionless voice, looking at the parcel on the floor, "Well, Tom?" + +"Well, Laura," he repeated, "that's about the size of it--there it +is--and you know all about it. I shall not lie--this time. It's not +worth while--now." + +The woman sat in a porch chair. The man hesitated, and she said: "Sit +down, Tom. I don't know what to do or what to say," she began. "If there +were just you and me to consider, I suppose I'd say we'd have to quit. +But there's Lila. She is here and she does love you--and she has her +right--the greatest right in the world to--well, to us--to a home, and a +home means a father and a mother." The man rose. He put his hands in his +coat pockets and stood by the porch column, making no reply. + +The wife continued, "I can't even speak of what you have done to me, +Tom. But it will hurt when I'm an old woman--I want to hide my face from +every one--even from God--when I think of what you have used me for." + +He dropped into the chair beside her, looking at the floor. Her voice +had stirred some chord in his thousand-stringed heart. He reached out a +hand to her. + +"No, Tom," said the wife, "I don't want your pity." + +"No, Laura," the husband returned quickly, "no, you don't need my pity; +it's not pity that I am trying to give you. I only wished you to listen +to what I have to say." The wife looked at her husband for a second in +fear as she apprehended what he was about to utter. He turned his eyes +from her and went on: "It was a mistake, a very nightmare of a +mistake--my mistake--all my mistake--but still just an awful mistake. +We couldn't make life go. All this was foredoomed, Laura, and +now--now--" his eyes were upon the parcel on the floor, "here I am sure +I have found the thing my life needs. And it is my life--my life." He +saw his wife go pale, then flush; but he went on. "After all, it is +one's own life that commands him, and nothing else in the world. And now +I must follow my destiny." + +"But, Tom," asked the wife, "you aren't going to this woman? You aren't +going to leave us? You surely won't break up this home--not this home, +Tom?" + +The man hesitated before answering, then spoke directly: "I must follow +my destiny--work it out as I see it. You have no right, no one has any +right--even I have no right to compromise with my destiny. I live in +this world just once!" + +"But what is your destiny, Tom?" answered the wife. "Leave me out of it: +but aren't the roots you have put down in this home, this career you are +building; our child's normal girlhood with a father's care--aren't these +the big things in your destiny? Lila's life--growing up under the shame +that follows a child of parents divorced for such base reasons as these? +Lila's life is surely a part of your destiny. Surely, surely you have no +rights apart from her and hers!" + +His quick mind was ready. "I have my own life to live, my own destiny to +follow; my individual equation to solve, and for me nothing exists in +the universe. As for my career--I'll take care of that. That's mine +also!" + +The wife threw out an appealing hand. "Tom, I can't help wanting to pick +you up and shield you. It will be awful--awful--that thing you are +trying to go into. You've always chosen the material thing--the +practical thing--and she--she's a practical woman. Oh, Tom--I'm not +jealous--not a bit. If I thought she would enrich your soul--if I +thought she would give you what I've wanted to give you--what I've +prayed God night after night to let me give you--I'd take even Lila and +go away and give you your chance for a love such as I've had. Can you +see, Tom, I'm not jealous? I'm not even angry." + +He turned upon her suddenly and said: "You don't know what you're +talking about. Anyway--she suits me--she'll enrich me as you call it all +right. I'm sure of that." + +"No, Tom," said the wife quietly, "she'll not enrich you--not +spiritually. No one can do that--for any one. It must come from within. +I've poured my very heart over you, Tom, and you didn't want it--you +only wanted--oh, God--hide my shame--my shame--my shame." Her voice rose +for a moment and she muffled it with her face in her arms. + +"Tom--" she faltered, "Tom--I am going to make one last plea--for Lila's +sake won't you put it all away--won't you?" she shuddered. "It is +killing all my self-respect, Tom--but I must. Won't you--won't you +please for Lila's sake come back, break this off--and see if we can't +patch up life?" + +"No," he answered. + +Their eyes met; his shifting, beady eyes were held forcibly with many a +twitching, by her gray eyes. For two awful seconds they stood taking +farewell of each other. + +"No," he repeated, dropping his glance. + +Then he put out his hand with a gesture of finality, "I'm going now. I +don't know when--or--well, whether I'll come--" He picked up the +package. He was going down the steps with the package in his hands when +he heard the patter of little feet and a little voice calling: + +"Daddy--daddy--" and repeated, "daddy." + +He did not turn, but walked quickly to the sidewalk. As far as he could +hear, that childish voice called to him. + +And he heard the cry in his dreams. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +HERE GRANT ADAMS DISCOVERS HIS INSIDES + + +Laura Van Dorn stood watching her husband pass down the street. She +silenced the child by clasping her close in the tender motherly arms. No +tears rose in the wife's eyes, as she stood looking vacantly down the +street at the corner where her husband had turned. Gradually it came to +her consciousness that a crowd was gathering by her father's house. She +remembered then that she had seen a carriage drive up, and that three or +four men followed it on bicycles, and then half a dozen men got out of a +wagon. Even while she stared, she saw the little rattletrap of a buggy +that Amos Adams drove come tearing up to the curb by her father's house. +Amos Adams, Jasper and little Kenyon got out. Even amidst the turmoil of +her emotions, she moved mechanically to the street, to see better, then +she clasped Lila to her breast and ran toward her father's home. + +"What is it?" she cried to the first man she met at the edge of the +little group standing near the veranda steps. + +"Grant Adams--we're afraid he's killed." The man who spoke was Denny +Hogan. Beside him was an Italian, who said, "He's burned something most +awful. He got it saving des feller here," nodding and pointing to Hogan. + +Laura put down her child and hurried through the house to her father's +little office. The strong smell of an anesthetic came to her. She saw +Amos Adams standing a-tremble by the office door, holding Kenyon's hand. +Amos answered her question. + +"They think he's dying,--I knew he'd want to see Kenyon." + +Jasper, white and frightened, stood on the stairs. These details she saw +at a glance as she pushed open the office door. At first she saw great +George Brotherton and three or four white-faced, terrified working men, +standing in stiff helplessness, while like a white shuttle, among the +gloomy figures the Doctor moved quickly, ceaselessly, effectively. Then +her eyes met her father's. He said: + +"Come in, Laura--I need you. Now all of you go out but George and her." + +Then, as she came into the group, Laura saw Grant Adams, sitting with +agony upon his wet face. Her father bent over him and worked on a puffy, +pink, naked arm and shoulder, and body. The man was half conscious; his +face was twitching, and when she looked again she saw where his right +hand should be only a brown, charred stump. + +Not looking up the Doctor spoke: "You know where things are and what I +need--I can't get him clear under," Every motion he made counted; he +took no false steps; he made no turn of his body or twist of his hand +that was not full of conscious purpose. He only spoke to give orders, +and when Brotherton whispered to Laura: + +"White hot lead pig at the smelter--Grant saw it was going to kill Hogan +and grabbed it." + +The Doctor shook his head at Brotherton and for two hours that was all +Laura knew of the accident. Once when the Doctor stopped for a second to +take a deep breath, Brotherton asked, "Do you want another doctor?" the +little man shook his head again, and motioned with it at his daughter. + +"She's doing well enough." She kept her father's merciless pace, but +always the sense of her stricken life seemed to be hovering in the back +of her consciousness, and the hours seemed ages as she applied her +bandages, and helped with the gruesome work of the knife on the charred +stump of the arm. But finally it was over and she saw Brotherton and +Hogan lift Grant to a cot, under her father's direction, and carry him +to the bedroom she had used as a girl at home. While the Doctor and +Laura had been working in his office Mrs. Nesbit had been making the +bedroom ready. + +It was five o'clock, and the two fagged women were in Mrs. Nesbit's +room. The younger woman was pale and haggard and unable to relax. The +mother tried all of a mother's wiles to bring peace to the over-strung +nerves. But the daughter paced the floor silently, or if she spoke it +was to ask some trivial question about the household--about what +arrangements were made for the injured man's food, about Lila, about +Amos Adams and Kenyon. Finally, as she turned to leave the room, her +mother asked, "Where are you going?" The daughter answered, "Why, I'm +going home." + +"But Laura," the mother returned, "I believe your father is expecting +your help here--to-night. I am sure he will need you." The daughter +looked steadily, but rather vacantly at her mother for a moment, then +replied: "Well, Lila and I must go now. I'll leave her there with the +maid and I'll try to come back." + +Her hand was on the door-knob. "Well," hesitated her mother, "what about +Tom--?" + +The eyes of the two women met. "Did father tell you?" asked the +daughter's eyes. The mother's eyes said "Yes." Then rose the Spartan +mother, and put a kind, firm hand upon the daughter's arm and asked: +"But Laura, my dear, my dear, you are not going back again, to all--all +that, are you?" + +"I am going home, mother," the daughter replied. + +"But your self-respect, child?" quoted the Spartan, and the daughter +made answer simply: "I must go home, mother." + +When Laura Van Dorn entered her home she began the evening's routine, +somewhat from habit, and yet many things she did she grimly forced +herself to do. She waited dinner for her husband. She called his office +vainly upon the telephone. She and Lila ate alone; often they had eaten +alone before. And as the evening grew from twilight to dark, she put the +child to bed, left one of the maids in the child's room, lighted an +electric reading lamp in her husband's room, turned on the hall lamp, +instructed the maid to tell the Judge that his wife was with her father +helping him with a wounded man, and then she went out through the open, +hospitable door. + +But all that night, as she sat beside the restless man, who writhed in +his pain even under the drug, she went over and over her problem. She +recognized that a kind of finality had come into her relations with her +husband. In the rush of events that had followed his departure, a +period, definite and conclusive seemed to have been put after the whole +of her life's adventures with Tom Van Dorn. She did not cry, nor feel +the want of tears, yet there were moments when she instinctively put her +hands before her face as in a shame. She saw the man in perspective for +the first time clearly. She had not let herself take a candid inventory +of him before. But that night all her subconscious impressions rose and +framed themselves into conscious reflections. And then she knew that his +relation with her from the beginning had been a reflex of his view of +life--of his material idea of the scheme of things. + +As the night wore on, she kept her nurse's chart and did the things to +be done for her patient. For the time her emotions were spent. Her heart +was empty. Even for the shattered and suffering body before her, the +tousled red head, the half-closed, pain-bleared eyes, the lips that +shielded the clenched teeth--she felt none of that tenderness that comes +from deep sympathy and moving pity. At dawn she went home with her body +worn and weary, and after the sun was up she slept. + +Scarcely had the morning stir begun in the Nesbit household, before +Morty Sands appeared, clad in the festive raiment of the moment--white +ducks and a shirtwaist and a tennis racket, to be exact. He asked for +the Doctor and when the Doctor came, Morty cocked his sparrow like head +and paused a moment after the greetings of the morning were spoken. +After his inquiries for Grant had been satisfied, Morty still lingered +and cocked his head. + +"Of course, Doctor," Morty began diffidently, "and naturally you know +more of it than I--but--" he got no further for a second. Then he +gathered courage from the Doctor's bland face to continue: "Well, +Doctor, last night at Brotherton's, Tom came in and George and Nate +Perry and Kyle and Captain Morton and I were there; and Tom--well, +Doctor--Tom said something--" + +"He did--did he?" cut in the Doctor. "The dirty dog! So he broke the +news to the Amen Corner!" + +"Now, Doctor, we all know Tom," Morty explained. "We know Tom: but +George said Laura was helping with Grant, and I just thought, certainly +I have no wish to intrude, but I just thought maybe I could relieve her +myself by sitting up with Grant, if--" + +The Doctor's kindly face twitched with pain, and he cried: "Morty, +you're a boy in a thousand! But can't you see that just at this time if +I had half a dozen cases like Grant's, they would be a God's mercy for +her!" + +Morty could not control his voice. So he turned and tripped down the +steps and flitted away. As Morty disappeared, George Brotherton came +roaring up the hill, but no word of what Van Dorn had said in the Amen +Corner did Mr. Brotherton drop. He asked about Grant, inquired about +Laura, and released a crashing laugh at some story of stuttering Kyle +Perry trying to tell deaf John Kollander about the Venezuelan dispute. +"Kyle," said George, "pronounces Venezuela like an atomizer!" Captain +Morton rested from his loved employ, let the egg-beater of the hour +languish, and permitted stock in his new Company to slump in a weary +market while he camped on the Nesbit veranda during the day to greet and +disperse such visitors as Mrs. Nesbit deemed of sufficiently small +social consequence to receive the Captain's ministrations. At twilight +the Captain greeted Laura coming from her home for her night watch, and +with a rather elaborate scenario of amenities, told her how his +Household Horse company was prospering, how his egg beater was going, +and asked after Lila's health, omitting mention of the Judge with an +easy nonchalance which struck terror to the woman's heart--terror, lest +the Captain and through him all men should know of her trouble. + +But deeper than the terror in her heart at what the Captain might know +and tell was the pain at the thing she knew herself--that the home which +she loved was dead. However proudly it might stand before the world, for +the passing hour or day or year, she knew, and the knowledge sickened +her to her soul's death, that the home was doomed. She kept thinking of +it as a tree, whose roots were cut; a tree whose leaves were still +green, whose comeliness still pleased the eye but whose ugly, withered +branches soon must stand out to affront the world. And sorrowing for the +beauty that was doomed she went to her work. All night with her father +she ministered to the tortured man, but in the morning she slipped away +to her home again hoping her numb vain hope, through another weary +journey of the sun. + +The third night found Grant Adams restless, wakeful, anxious to talk. +The opiates had left him. She saw that he was fully himself, even though +conscious of his tortured body. "Laura," he cried in a sick man's feeble +voice, "I want to tell you something." + +"Not now, Grant," she returned quietly. "I'd rather hear it to-morrow." + +"No," he returned stubbornly, "I want to tell you now." + +He paused as if to catch his breath. "For I want you to know I'm the +happiest man in the world." He set his teeth firmly. The muscles of his +jaw worked, and he smiled up at her. He questioned her with his blue +eyes, and after some assent had come into her face--or he thought it +had, he went on: + +"There's a God in Israel, Laura--I know it way down in me and all +through me." + +A crash of pain stopped him. He grinned at the groan, which the pain +wrenched from him, and whispered, "There's a God in Israel--for He gave +me my chance. I saw the great white killing thing coming to do for Denny +Hogan. How I'd waited for that chance. Then when it came, I wanted to +run. But I didn't run. There's something in you bigger than fear. So +when God gave me my chance He put the--the--the--" pain wrenched him +again, and he said weakly, "the--I've got to say it, you'll +understand--He put the--the guts in me to take it." + +When she left him a few minutes later he seemed to be asleep. But when +Doctor Nesbit came into the room an hour later Grant was wide-eyed and +smiling, and seemed so much better that as a reward of merit the Doctor +brought in the morning paper and told Grant he could look at the +headings for five minutes. There it was that he first realized what a +lot of business lay ahead of him, learning to live as a one-armed man. +The Doctor saw his patient worrying with the paper, and started to help. + +"No, Doctor," said the young man, "I must begin sometime, and now's as +good a time as any." So he struggled with the unwieldy sheets of paper, +and finally managed to get his morning's reading done. When the time was +up, he handed back his paper saying, "I see Tom Van Dorn is going on his +vacation--does that mean Laura, too?" The Doctor shook his head; and by +way of taking the subject away from Laura he said: "Now about your +damages, Grant--you know I'll stand by you with the Company, don't +you--I'm no Van Dorn, if I am Company doctor. You ought to have good +damages--for--" + +"Damages! damages!" cried Grant, "why, Doctor, I can't get damages. I +wasn't working for the smelter when it happened. I was around organizing +the men. And I don't want damages. This arm," he looked lovingly at the +stump beside him, "is worth more in my business than a million dollars. +For it proves to me that I am not afraid to go clear through for my +faith, and it proves me to the men! Damages! damages?" he said grimly. +"Why, Doctor, if Uncle Dan and the other owners up town here only know +what this stump will cost them, they would sue me for damages! I tell +you those men in the mine there saved my life. Ever since then I've been +trying to repay them, and here comes this chance to turn in a little on +account, to bind the bargain, and now the men know how seriously I hold +the debt. Damages?" There was just a hint of fanaticism in his laugh; +the Doctor looked at Grant quickly, then he sniffed, "Fine talk, Grant, +fine talk for the next world, but it won't buy shoes for the baby in +this," and he turned away impatiently and went into a world of reality, +leaving Grant Adams to enjoy his Utopia. + +That morning after breakfast, when Laura had gone home, the Doctor and +his wife sitting alone went into the matter further. "Of course," said +the Doctor, "she'll see that he has gone away. But when should we tell +her what he has done?" + +"Doctor," said the mother, "you leave his letter here where I can get +it. I'm going over there and pack everything that rightfully may be +called hers--I mean her dresses and trinkets--and such things as have in +them no particular memory of him. They shall come home. Then I'll lock +up the house." + +The Doctor squinted up his eyes thoughtfully and said slowly, "Well, +that seems kind. I don't suppose you need read her the whole letter. +Just tell her he is going to ask for a divorce--tell her it's +incompatibility. But his letter isn't important." The Doctor sighed. + +"Grant ought really to stay here another week--maybe we can stretch it +to ten days--and let her have all the responsibility she'll take. It'll +help her over the first bridge. Kenyon is taking care of Lila--I +suppose?" The Doctor rose, stood by his wife and said as he found her +hand: + +"Poor Laura--poor Laura--and Lila! You know when I had her down town +with me yesterday, in the hallway leading to Joe Calvin's office, she +met Tom--" The Doctor looked away for a moment. "It was pretty +tough--her little heartbreak when he went by her without taking her up!" +The wife did not reply. The husband with his arm about her walked toward +the door. + +"You can't tell me, my dear, that Tom isn't paying--I know how that sort +of thing gets under his skin--he's too sensitive not to imagine all it +means to the child." Mrs. Nesbit's face hardened and her husband saw her +bitterness. "I know, my dear--I know how you feel--I feel all that, and +yet in my very heart I'm sorry for poor Tom. He's swapping substance for +shadow so recklessly--not only in this, not merely with Laura--but with +everything--everything." + +"Good Lord, Jim, I don't see how you can agonize over a wool-dyed +scoundrel like that--perhaps you have some tears for that Fenn hussy, +too!" + +"Well," squeaked the Doctor soberly--"I knew her father--a lecherous old +beast who brought her up without restraint or morals--with a greedy +philosophy pounded into her by example every day of her life until she +was seventeen years old. There's something to be said--even for her, my +dear--even for her." + +"Well, Jim Nesbit," answered his wife, "I'll go a long way with you in +your tomfoolery, but so long as I've got to draw the line somewhere I +draw it right there." + +The Doctor looked at the floor. "I suppose so--" he sighed, then lifted +his head and said: "I was just trying to think of all the sorrows that +come into the world, of all the tragedies I ever knew, and I have +concluded that this tragedy of divorce when it comes like this--as it +has come to our daughter--is the greatest tragedy in the world. To love +as she loved and to find every anchor to which she tied the faith of her +life rotten, to have her heart seared with faithlessness--to see her +child--her flesh and blood scorned, to have her very soul spat +upon--that's the essence of sorrow, my dear." + +He looked up into her eyes, bent to kiss her hand, and after he had +picked up his cane and his hat from the rack, toddled down the walk to +the street, a sad, thoughtful, worried little man, white-clad and serene +to outward view, who had not even a whistle nor a vagrant tune under his +breath to console him. + +That day, after her father's insistence, Laura Van Dorn changed from the +night watch to the day nurse, and from that day on for ten days, she +ministered to Grant Adams' wants. Mechanically she read to him from such +books as the house afforded--Tolstoi--Ibsen, Hardy, Howells,--but she +was shut away from the meaning of what she read and even from the +comments of the man under her care, by the consideration of her own +problems. For to Laura Van Dorn it was a time of anxious doubt, of sad +retrogression, of inner anguish. In some of the books were passages she +had marked and read to her husband; and such pages calling up his dull +comprehension of their beauty, or bringing back his scoffing words, or +touching to the quick a hurt place in her heart, taxed her nerves +heavily. But during the time while she sat by the injured man's bedside, +she was glad in her heart of one thing--that she had an excuse for +avoiding the people who called. + +As Grant grew stronger--as it became evident that he must go soon, the +woman's heart shrank from meeting the town, and she clung to each duty +of the man's convalescence hungrily. She knew she must face life, that +she must have some word for her friends about her tragedy. She felt that +in going away, in suing for the divorce himself, her husband had made +the break irrevocable. There was no resentment nor malice toward him in +her heart. Yet the future seemed hopelessly black and terrible to her. + +The afternoon before Grant Adams was to leave the Nesbit home he was +allowed to come down stairs, and he sat with her upon the side porch, +all screened and protected by vines that led to her father's office. +Laura's finger was in a book they had been reading--it was "The Pillars +of Society." The day was one of those exquisite days in mid-June, and +after a cooling rain the air was clear and seemed to put joy into one's +veins. + +"How modern he is--how American--how like Harvey," said the young man. +"Ibsen might have lived right here in this town, and written that," he +added. He started to raise his right arm, but a twinge of pain reminded +him that the stump was bound, so he raised his left and cried: + +"And I tell you, Laura--that's what I'm on earth to fight--the whole +infernal system of pocket-picking and poor-robbing, and public gouging +that we permit under the profit system." The woman's thoughts were upon +her own sorrow, but she called herself back to smile and reply: + +"All right, Grant--I'm with you. We may have to draft father and +commandeer George Brotherton, and start out as a pirate crew--but I'm +with you." + +"Let me tell you something," said the man. "I've not been loafing for +the past two years. I've got Harvey--the men in the mines and smelter, I +mean, fairly well unionized, but the unions are nothing--nothing +ultimate--they are only temporary." + +"Well," returned the woman, soberly, "that's something." + +The man made no answer. With his free hand he was ruffling his red hair, +and she could see the muscles of his jaw working, and she felt his great +mouth harden as he flashed his blue eyes upon her. "Laura," he cried, +"they may whip us this year. For a while they may scare the men into +voting for prosperity, but as sure as we both live we shall see these +times and these issues and these men who are promoting this devilish +conspiracy eternally damned--all of them--the issues, the times and the +men who are leading. And I don't want to hurt you, Laura, but," he added +solemnly, "your husband must take his punishment with the rest." + +They sat mute, then each heard the plaintive cry of a child running +through the house. "She is looking for me," said Laura. In a moment a +little wet-eyed girl was in her mother's arms, crying: + +"I want my daddy--my dear daddy--I want him to come home--where is he?" + +She sobbed in her mother's arms and held up her little face to look +earnestly into the beautiful face above her, as she cried, "Is he +gone--Annie Sands' new mamma says my papa's never coming back--Oh, I +want my daddy--I want to go home." + +She continued calling him and sobbing, and the mother rose to take the +child away. + +"Laura!" cried Grant, in a passionate question. He saw the weeping child +and the grief-stricken face of the mother. In an instant he held out his +bony left hand to her and said gently: "God help you--God help you." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +IN WHICH THE DEVIL FORMALLY TAKES THE TWO HINDERMOST AND CLOSES AN +ACCOUNT IN HIS LEDGER + + +Harvey tried sincerely to believe in Tom Van Dorn up to the very day +when it happened. For the town had accepted him gladly and unanimously +as its most distinguished citizen. But when the town read in the +_Times_ one November day after he had come home from his political +campaign through the east for sound money and the open mills--a campaign +in which Harvey had seen him through the tinted glasses of the Harvey +_Daily Times_ as one of the men who had saved the country--when the +town read that cold paragraph beginning: "A decree of divorce was issued +to-day to Judge Thomas Van Dorn, from his wife, Mrs. Laura Nesbit Van +Dorn, upon the ground of incompatibility of temperament by Judge protem +Calvin in the district court," and ending with these words: "Mrs. Van +Dorn declined through her attorney to participate in a division of the +property upon any terms and will live for the present with her daughter, +aged five, at the home of Dr. and Mrs. James Nesbit on Elm Street"--when +the town read that paragraph, Harvey closed its heart upon Thomas Van +Dorn. + +Only one other item was needed to steel the heart of Harvey against its +idol, and that item they found upon another page. It read, "Wanted, +pupils for the piano--Mrs. Laura Van Dorn, Quality Hill, Elm Street." + +Those items told the whole story of the deed that Thomas Van Dorn had +done. If he had felt bees sting before he got his decree, he should have +felt vipers gnawing at his vitals afterward. + +But he was free--the burden of matrimony was lifted. He felt that the +whole world of women was his now for the choosing, and of all that +world, he turned in wanton fancy to the beckoning arms of Margaret Fenn. +But the feeling of freedom, the knowledge that he could speak to any +woman as he chose and no one could gainsay him legally, the +consciousness that he had no ties which the law recognized--and with him +law was the synonym of morality--the exuberant sense of relief from a +bondage that was oppressive to him, overbore all the influence of the +town's spirit of wrath in the air about him. + +As for the morality of the town and what he regarded as its prudery--he +scorned it. He believed he could live it down; he said in his heart that +it was merely a matter of a few weeks, a few months, or a few years at +most, before they would have some fresh ox to gore and forget all about +him. He was sure that he could play upon the individual self-interest of +the leaders of the community to make them respect him and ignore what he +had done. But what he had done, did not bother him much. It was done. + +He seemed to be free, yet was he free? + +Now Thomas Van Dorn was thirty-eight years old that autumn. Whether he +loved the woman he had abandoned or not, she was a part of his life. +Counting the courtship during which he and this woman had been +associated closely, nearly ten years of his life, half of the years of +his manhood--and that half the most active and effective part, had been +spent with her. A million threads of memory in his brain led to her; +when he remembered any important event in his life during those ten +years, always the chain of associated thought led back to the image of +her. There she was, fixed in his life; there she smiled at him through +every hour of those ten years of their life, married or as lovers +together. + +For whom God had joined, not Joseph Calvin, not Joseph Calvin, sitting +as Judge protem, not Joseph Calvin vested with all the authority of the +great commonwealth in which he lived, could put asunder. That was +curious. At times Thomas Van Dorn was conscious of this phenomenon, that +he was free, yet bound, and that while there was no God, and the law was +the final word, in all considerable things, some way the brain, or the +mind that is fettered to the brain, or the soul that is built upon the +aspect of the mind fettered to the brain, held him tethered to the past. + +For our lives are not material, whatever our bodies may be. Our lives +are the accumulations of consciousness, the assembling of our memories, +our affections, our judgments, our aspirations, our weaknesses, our +strength--the vast sum of all our impressions, good or bad, made upon a +material plate called the brain. The brain is of the dust. The +picture--which is a human life--is of the spirit. And the spirit is of +God. And when by whatever laws of chance or greed, or high purpose or +low desire two lives are joined until the cement of years has united the +myriads of daily sensations that make up a segment of these lives, they +are thus joined in the spirit forever. + +Now Thomas Van Dorn went about his free life day by day, glorying in his +liberty. But strands of his old life, floating idly and unnoticed +through minutes of his hourly existence, kept tripping him and bothering +him. His meals, his clothes, his fixed habits of work, the manifold +creature comforts that he prized--all the associations of his life with +home--came to him a thousand, thousand times and cut little knife-edged +rents in the fabric of his new freedom. + +And he would have said a year before that it was physically impossible +for one child--one small, fair-haired child of five, with pleading face +and eager eyes--to meet a man so often in a given period of time, as +Lila met him. At first he had avoided her; he would duck into stores; +hurry up stairways, or hide himself in groups of men on the sidewalk +when he saw her coming. Then there came a time when he knew that the +little figure was slipping across the street to avoid him because his +presence shamed her with her playmates. + +He had never in his heart believed that the child meant much to him. She +was merely part of the chain that held him, and yet now that she was not +of him or his interests, it seemed to Thomas Van Dorn that she made a +piteous figure upon the street, and that the sadness that flitted over +her face when she saw him, in some way reproached him, and yet--what +right had she in him--or why should he let her annoy him, or disturb his +peace and the happiness that his freedom brought. Materially he noticed +that she was well fed, well dressed, and he knew that she was well +housed. What more could she have--but that was absurd. He couldn't wreck +his life for the mere chance that a child should be petted a little. +There was no sense in such a proposition. And Thomas Van Dorn's life was +regulated by sense--common sense--horse sense, he called it. + +It is curious--and scores of Tom Van Dorn's friends wondered at it then +and have marveled at it since, that in the six months which elapsed +between his divorce and his remarriage, he did not fathom the +shallowness and pretense of Margaret Fenn. But he did not fathom them. +Her glib talk taken mechanically from cheap philosophy about being what +you think you are, about shifting moral responsibility onto good +intentions, about living for the present and ignoring the past with the +uncertain future, took him in completely. She used to read books to him, +sitting in the glow of her red lamp-shade--a glow that brought out +hidden hints of her splendid feline body, books which soothed his vanity +and dulled his mind. In that day he fancied her his intellectual equal. +He thought her immensely strong-minded, and clear headed. He contrasted +her in thought with the wife he had put away, told Margaret that Laura +was always puling about duty and getting her conscience pinched and +whining about it. They agreed sitting there under the lamp, that they +had been mates in some far-off jungle, that they had been parted and had +been seeking one another through eons, and that when their souls met one +of the equations of the physical universe was solved, and that their +happiness was the adjustment of ages of wrong. She thought him the most +brilliant of men; he deemed her the most wonderful of women, and the +devil checked off two drunken fools in his inventory. + +It was in those halcyon days of his courtship of Margaret Fenn, when he +felt the pride of conquest of another soul and body strongly upon him, +that Judge Thomas Van Dorn began to acquire--or perhaps to exhibit +noticeably--the turkey gobbler gait, that ever afterward went with him, +and became famous as the Van Dorn Strut. It was more than mere knee +action--though knee action did characterize it prominently. The strut +properly speaking began at the tip of his hat--his soft, black hat that +sat so cockily upon his head. His head was thrown back as though he had +been pulled by a check-rein. His shoulders swung jauntily--more than +jauntily, call it insolently--as he walked, and his trunk swayed with +some stateliness as his proud hands and legs performed their grand +functions. But withal he bowed and smiled--with much condescension--and +lifted his hat high from his handsome head, and when women passed he +doffed it like a flag in a formal salute, and while his body spelled +complacence, his face never lost the charm and grace and courtesy that +drew men to him, and held them in spite of his faults. + +One bitter cold December day, when the wind was blowing sleet down +Market Street, and hardly a passer-by darkened the doors of the stores, +the handsome Judge sailed easily into the Amen Corner, fumbled over the +magazines, picked out a pocketful of cigars from the case, without +calling Mr. Brotherton who was in the rear of the store working upon his +accounts, lighted a cigar, and stood looking out of the frosted window +at the deserted gray windy street, utterly ignoring the presence of +Captain Morton who was pretending to be deeply buried in the _National +Tribune_, but who was watching the Judge and trying to summon courage +to speak. The Judge unbuttoned his modish gray coat that nearly reached +his heels and put his hands behind him for a moment, as he puffed and +pondered--apparently debating something. + +"Judge," said the Captain suddenly and then the Captain's courage fell +and he added, "Bad morning." + +"Yes," acquiesced the Judge from his abstraction. In a long pause that +followed, Captain Morton swallowed at least a peck of Adam's apples that +kept coming up to choke him, and then he cleared his throat and spoke: + +"Tom--Tom Van Dorn--look around here." He lowered his voice and went on, +"I want to talk to you." The Captain edged over on the bench. + +"Sit down here a minute--I've been wanting to see you for a month." +Captain Morton spoke all but in a whisper. The Adam's apple kept +strangling him. The Judge saw that the old man was wrestling with some +heavy problem. He turned, and looking down at the little wizened man, +asked: "Well, Captain?" + +The Captain moistened his lips, patted his toes on the floor, and +twirled his fingers. He took a deep breath and said: "Tom, I've known +you since you were twenty-one years old. Do you remember how we took you +in the first night you came to town--me and mother? before the hotel was +done, eh?" A smile on the Judge's face emboldened the Captain. "You've +got brains, Tom--lots of brains--I often say Tom Van Dorn will sit in +the big chair at the White House yet--what say? Well, Tom--" Now there +was the place to say it. But the Captain's Adam's apple bobbed +convulsively in a second silence. He decided to take a fresh start: +"Tom, you're a sensible man--? I says to myself I'm going to have a +plain talk to that man. He's smart; he'll appreciate it. Just the other +day--George back there, and John Kollander and Dick Bowman and old man +Adams, and Joe Calvin, and Kyle Perry were in here talking and I +says--Gentlemen, that boy's got brains--lots of brains--eh? and he's a +prince; 'y gory a prince, that's what Tom Van Dorn is, and I can go to +him--I can talk to him--what say?" The Captain was on the brink again. +Slowly there mantled over the face of the prince the gray scum of a +fear. And the scar on his forehead flashed crimson. The Captain saw that +he had been anticipated. He began patting his toes on the floor. Judge +Van Dorn's face was set in a cement of resistance. + +"Well?" barked the Judge. The little man's lips dried, he smiled weakly, +and licked his lips and said: "It was about my sprocket--my Household +Horse--I says, Tom Van Dorn understands it if you gentlemen don't and +some day him and me will talk it over and 'y gory--he'll buy some +stock--he'll back me." + +The Captain's nervous voice had lifted and he was talking so that the +clerk and Mr. Brotherton both in the back part of the store might hear. +The cement of the Judge's countenance cracked in a smile, but the gray +mantle of fear still fluttered across his eyes. + +"All right, Captain," he answered, "some other time--not now--I'm in a +hurry," and went strutting out into the storm. + +Mr. Brotherton with his moon face shining into the ledger laughed a +great clacking laugh and got up from his stool to come to the cigar +case, saying, "Well, say--Cap--if you'd a' went on with what you started +out to say, I'd a' give fi' dollars--say, I'd a' made it ten +dollars--say!" And he laughed again a laugh that seemed to set all the +celluloid in the plush covered, satin lined toilet cases on the new +counter a-flutter. He walked down the store with elephantine tread, as +he laughed, and then the door opened and Dr. Nesbit came in. Five months +had put a perceptible bow into his shoulders, and an occasional cast of +uncertainty into his twinkling eyes. + +Mr. Brotherton called half down the store, "Say, Doc--you should have +been here a minute ago, and seen the Captain bristle up to Tom Van Dorn +about his love affair and then get cold feet and try to sell him some +Household Horse stock." The Captain grinned sheepishly, the Doctor +patted the Captain affectionately on the shoulder and chirped. + +"So you went after him, did you, Ezry?" The loose skin of his face +twitched, "Poor Tom--packing up his career in a petticoat and going +forth to fuss with God--no sense--no sense," piped the Doctor, glancing +over the headlines in his _Star_. The Captain, still clinging to +the subject that had been too much for him, remarked: "Doc--don't you +think some one ought to tell him?" The Doctor put down his paper, +stroked his pompadour and looking over his glasses, answered: + +"Ezry--if some one hasn't told him--no one ever can. I tried to tell him +once myself. I talked pretty middlin' plain, Ezry." He was speaking +softly, then he piped out, "But what a man's heart doesn't tell him, his +friends can't. Still, Ezry, a strong friend is often a good tonic for a +weak heart." The Doctor looked at the Captain, then concluded: "That was +a brave, kind act you tried to do--and I warrant you got it to him--some +way. He's a keen one--Ezry--a mighty keen one; and he understood." + +Mr. Brotherton went back to his ledger; the Doctor plunged into the +_Star_, the Captain folded up his newspaper and began studying the +trinkets in the holiday stock in the show case under the new books. A +comb and brush with tortoise shell backs seemed to arrest his eyes. +"Doc," he mused, "Christmas never comes that I don't think +of--her--mother! I guess I'd just about be getting that comb and brush +for her." The Doctor casually looked through the show case and saw what +had attracted the Captain. "Doc," again the Captain spoke, bending over +the case with his face turned from his auditor: "You're a doctor and are +supposed to know lots. Tell me this: How does a man break it to a woman +when he wants to leave her--eh?" Without waiting for an answer the +Captain went on: "And this is what puzzles me--how does he get used to +another one--with that one still living? You tell me that. I'd think +he'd be scared all the time that he would do something the way his first +wife had trained him not to. Of course," meditated the Captain, "right +at first, I suppose a man may feel a little coltish and all. But, Doc, +honest and true, when mother first left I kind of thought--well, I used +to enjoy swearing a little before we was married, and I says to myself I +guess I may as well have a damn or two as I go along--but, Doc, I can't +do it. Eh? Every time I set off the fireworks--she fizzles; I can see +mother looking at me that way." The old man went on earnestly: "Tell me, +Doc, you're a smart man--how Tom Van Dorn can do it. What say? 'Y gory +I'd be scared--right now! And if I thought I had to get used all over +again to another woman, and her ways of doing things--say of setting her +bread Friday night, and having a hot brick for her feet and putting her +hair in her teeth when she done it up, and dosing the children with +sassafras tea in spring--I'd just naturally take to the woods, eh? And +as for learning over again all the peculiarities of a new set of kin and +what they all like to eat and died of, and how they all treated their +first wives, and who they married--Doc? Doc?" The Captain shook a +dubious and doleful head. "Fourteen years, Doc," sighed the Captain. +"Pretty happy years--children coming on,--trouble visiting us with the +rest; sorrow--happiness--skimping and saving; her a-raking and scraping +to make a good appearance, and make things do; me trying one thing and +another, to make our fortune and her always kind and encouraging, and +hopeful; death standing between us and both of us sitting there by the +kitchen stove trying to make up some kind of prayer to comfort the +other. Fourteen years of it, Doc--her and me, and her so patient, so +forbearing--Doc--you're a smart man--tell me, Doc, how did Tom Van Dorn +get around to actually doing it? What say?" + +The Doctor waved his folded paper in an impatient gesture at the +Captain. + +"We are all products of our yesterdays, Ezry; we are what we were, and +we will be what we were. Man is queer. Sometimes out of the depth of him +a god rises--sometimes it's a beast. I've sat by the bed and seen life +gasp into being; I've stood in the ranks and fought with men as you +have, and have seen them fight and then again have seen them turn tail +like cowards. I have sat by the bed and seen life sigh into the dust. +What is life--what is the God that quickens and directs us,--why and how +and whence?--Ezry Morton, man--I don't know. And as for Tom--into that +roaring hell of lust and lying and cheap parching pride where he is +plunging--why, Ezry, I could almost cry for the fool; the damned +beforehand fool!" + +As the Doctor went whistling homeward through the storm that winter +night he wondered how many more months the black spell of grief and +despair would cover his daughter. Five months had passed since that +summer day when her home had fallen. He knew how tragic her struggle was +to fit herself into her new environment. She was dwelling, but not +living in the Nesbit home. It was the Nesbit home; a kindly abode, but +not her home. Her home was gone. The severed roots of her life kept +stirring in her memory--in her heart, and outwardly, her spirit showed a +withered and unhappy being, trying to rebuild life, to readjust itself +after the shock that all but kills. The Doctor realized what an agony +the new growth was bringing, and that night, stirred somewhat to somber +meditation by Captain Morton's reflections, the Doctor's tune was a +doleful little tune as he whistled into the wind. Excepting Kenyon +Adams, who still came daily bringing his violin and was rapidly learning +all that she knew of the theory of music, Laura Van Dorn had no interest +in life outside of her family. When the Adamses came to dinner as +frequently they came--Laura seemed to feel no constraint with them. +Grant had even made her laugh with stories of Dick Bowman's struggles to +be a red card socialist, and to vote the straight socialist ticket and +still keep in ward politics in which he had been a local heeler for +nearly twenty years. Laura was interested in the organization of the +unions, and though the Doctor carped at it and made fun of Grant, it was +largely to stir up a discussion in which his daughter would take a vital +interest. + +Grant was getting something more than a local reputation in labor +circles as an agitator, and was in demand as an organizer in different +parts of the valley. He worked at his trade more or less, having rigged +up a steel device on the stump of his right forearm that would hold a +saw, a plane or a hammer. But he was no longer a boss carpenter at the +mines. His devotion to the men and in the work they were doing seemed to +the Nesbits to awaken in their daughter a new interest in life, and so +they made many obvious excuses to have the Adamses about the Nesbit +home. + +Kenyon was growing into a pale, dreamy child with wonderful eyes, +lustrous, deep, thoughtful and kind. He was music mad, and read all the +poetry in the Nesbit library--and the Doctor loved poetry as many men +love wine. Hero-tales and mythology, romances and legends Kenyon read +day after day between his hours of practice, and for diversion the boy +sat before the fire or in the sun of a chilly afternoon, retailing them +in such language as little Lila could understand. So in the black night +of sorrow that enveloped her, Laura Nesbit often spent an hour with +Grant Adams, and talked of much that was near her heart. + +He was strong, sometimes she thought him coarse and raw. He talked the +jargon of the agitator with the enthusiasm of a dervish and the +vernacular of the mine and the shop and the forge. But in him she could +see the fire of a mad consuming passion for humanity. + +During those days of shame and misery, when the old interests of life +were dying in her heart, interests upon which she had built since her +childhood--the interests of home, of children, of wifehood and +motherhood, to which in joy she had consecrated herself, she listened +often to Grant Adams. Until there came into her life slowly and feebly, +and almost without her conscious realization of it, a new vision, a new +hope, a new path toward usefulness that makes for the only happiness. + +As the Doctor went whistling into the storm that December night, he went +over in his mind rather seriously the meaning and the direction and the +final outcome of those small, unconscious buddings of interest in social +problems that he saw putting forth in his daughter's mind. Above +everything else, he was not a reformer. He hated the reformer type. But +he preferred to see her interested in the work of Grant Adams--even +though he considered Grant mildly cracked and felt that his growing +power in the valley was dangerous--rather than to see her under the +black pall that enveloped her. + +It was early in the evening as the Doctor went up the hill. He passed +Judge Van Dorn, striding along and saw him turn into Congress Street to +visit his lady love. The Judge carried a large roll of architect's plans +under his arm. The Doctor nodded to the Judge, and the Judge rather +proud that he was free and did not have to slink to his lady's bower, +returned a gracious good evening, and his tall, straight figure went +prancing down the street. When the Doctor entered his home, he found +Laura and Lila sitting by the open fire. The child was in her night gown +and they were discussing Santa Claus. Lila was saying: + +"Kenyon told me Santa Claus was your father?" + +Before the mother could reply the little voice went on: + +"I wonder if my Santa Claus will come this year--will he, mother?--Why +doesn't father ever come to us, mother--why doesn't he play with me when +I see him?" + +Now there is the story of the absent one that parents tell--the legend +about God and Heaven and the angels--a beautiful and comforting legend +it is for small minds, and being merciful, God may in His own way bring +us to realize it, in deed and in truth. When the lonely father or the +broken hearted mother tells the desolate child that legend, childhood +finds surcease there for its sorrow. But when there is no God, no +Heaven, no angels to whom the absent one has gone, what then do deserted +mothers say?--or dishonored fathers answer? What surcease for its sorrow +has the little lonely, aching heart in that sad case? What then, "ye +merry gentlemen that nothing may dismay"? + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +IN WHICH WE SEE TWO TEMPLES AND THE CONTENTS THEREOF + + +It was an old complaint in Harvey that the Harvey _Tribune_ was too +much of a bulletin of the doings of the Adams family and their friends. +But when a man sets all the type on a paper, writes all the editorials +and gets all the news he may be pardoned if he takes first such news as +is near his hand. Thus in the May that followed events set down in the +last chapter we find in the _Tribune_ a few items of interest to +the readers of this narrative. We learn for instance that Captain Ezra +Morton who is introducing the Nonesuch Sewing Machine, paid his friends +in Prospect school district a visit; that Jasper Adams has been promoted +to superintendent of deliveries in Wright & Perry's store; that Kenyon +Adams entertained his friends in the Fifth Grade of the South Harvey +schools with a violin solo on the last day of school; that Grant Adams +had been made assistant to the secretary of the National Building Trades +Association in South Harvey; that Mr. George Brotherton with Miss Emma +Morton and Martha and Ruth had enjoyed a pleasant visit with the Adamses +Sunday afternoon and had resumed an enjoyable buggy ride after partaking +of a chicken dinner. In the editorial column were some reflections +evidently in Mr. Left's most lucid style and a closing paragraph +containing this: "Happiness and character," said the Peach Blow +Philosopher, "are inseparable: but how easy it is to be happy in a +great, beautiful house; or to be unhappy if it comes to that in a great, +beautiful house: Environment may influence character; but all the good +are not poor, nor all the rich bad. Therefore, the Peach Blow +Philosopher takes to the woods. He is willing to leave something to the +Lord Almighty and the continental congress. Selah!" + +As Dr. Nesbit sat reading the items above set forth upon the broad new +veranda of the residence that he was so proud to call his home, he +smiled. It was late afternoon. He had done a hard day's work--some of it +among the sick, some of it among the needy--the needy in the Doctor's +bright lexicon being those who tried to persuade him that they needed +political offices. "I cheer up the sick, encourage the needy, pray for +'em both, and sometimes for their own good have to lie to 'em all," he +used to say in that day when the duties of his profession and the care +of his station as a ruling boss in politics were oppressing him. Dr. +Nesbit played politics as a game. But he played always to win. + +"Old Linen Pants is a bland old scoundrel," declared Public Opinion, +about the corridors of the political hotel at the capital. "But he is as +ruthless as iron, as smooth as oil, and as bitter as poison when he sets +his head on a proposition. Buy?--he buys men in all the ways the devil +teaches them to sell--offices, power, honor, cash in hand, promises, +prestige--anything that a man wants, Old Linen Pants will trade for, and +then get that man. Humorous old devil, too," quoth Public Opinion. +"Laughs, quotes scripture, throws in a little Greek philosophy, and +knows all the new stories, but never forgets whose play it is, nor what +cards are out." Thus was he known to others. + +But as he remained longer and longer in the game, as his fourth term as +state Senator began to lengthen, the game here and there began to lose +in his mouth something of its earlier savor. That afternoon as he sat on +the veranda overlooking the lawn shaded by the elm trees of his greatest +pride, Dr. Nesbit was discoursing to Mrs. Nesbit, who was sewing and +paid little heed to his animadversions; it was a soliloquy rather than a +conversation--a soliloquy accompanied by an obligate of general mental +disagreement from the wife of his bosom, who expressed herself in sniffs +and snorts and scornful staccato interjections as the soliloquy ran on. +Here are a few bars of it transcribed for beginners: + +From the Doctor's solo: "Heigh-ho--ho hum--Two United States Senators, +one slightly damaged Governor, marked down, five congressmen and three +liars, one supreme court justice, also a liar, a working interest in a +second, and a slight equity in a third; organization of the Senate, +speaker of the house,--forty liars and thirty thieves--that's my +political assets, my dear." + +"I wish you'd quit politics, Doctor, and attend to your practice," this +by way of accompaniment from Mrs. Nesbit. The Doctor was in a playful +and facetious mood that pleasant afternoon. + +He leaned back in his chair, reached up in the air with outstretched +arms, clapped his hands three times, gayly, kicked his shoe-heels three +times at the end of his short little legs, smiled and proceeded: +"Liabilities of James Nesbit, dealer in public grief, licensed dispenser +of private joy, purveyor of Something Equally Good, item one, forty-nine +gentlemen who think they've been promised thirty-six jobs--but they are +mistaken, they have been told only that I'll do what I can for +them--which is true; item two, three hundred friends who want something +and may ask at any minute; item three, seventy-five men who will be or +have been primed up by the loathed opposition to demand jobs; item four, +Tom Van Dorn who is as sure as guns to think in about a year he has to +have a vindication, by running for another term; item five--" + +"He can't have it," from Mrs. Nesbit, and then the piping voice went on: + +"Item six, a big, husky fight in Greeley county for the maharaja of +Harvey and the adjoining provinces." A deep sigh rose from the Doctor, +then followed more clapping of hands and kicking of heels and some +slapping of suspenders, as the voices of Kenyon and Lila came into the +veranda from the lawn, and the Doctor cast up his accounts: "Let's see +now--naught's a naught and figure's a figure and carry six, and subtract +the profits and multiply the trouble and you have a busted community. +Correct," he piped, "Bedelia, my dear, observe a busted community. Your +affectionate lord and master, kind husband, indulgent father, good +citizen gone but not forgotten. How are the mighty fallen." + +"Doctor," snapped Mrs. Nesbit, "don't be a fool; tell me, James, will +Tom Van Dorn want to run again?" + +Making a basket with his hands for the back of his head the Doctor +answered slowly, "Ho-ho-ho! Oh, I don't know--I should say--yes. He'll +just about have to run--for a Vindication." + +"Well, you'll not support him! I say you'll not support him," Mrs. +Nesbit decided, and the Doctor echoed blandly: + +"Then I'll not support him. Where's Laura?" he asked gently. + +"She went down to South Harvey to see about that kindergarten she's been +talking of. She seems almost cheerful about the way Kenyon is getting on +with his music. She says the child reads as well as she now and plays +everything on the violin that she can play on the piano. Doctor," added +Mrs. Nesbit meditatively, "now about those oriental rugs we were going +to put upstairs--don't you suppose we could take the money we were going +to put there and help Laura with that kindergarten? Perhaps she'd take a +real interest in life through those children down there." The wife +hesitated and asked, "Would you do it?" + +The Doctor drummed his chair arm thoughtfully, then put his thumbs in +his suspenders. "Greater love than this hath no woman shown, my +dear--that she gives up oriental rugs for a kindergarten--by all means +give it to her." + +"James, Lila still grieves for her father." + +"Yes," answered the Doctor sadly, "and Henry Fenn was in the office this +morning begging me to give him something that would kill his thirst." + +The doctor brought his hands down emphatically on his chair arms. "Duty, +Bedelia, is the realest obligation in the world. Here are Lila and Henry +Fenn. What a miserable lot of tommy rot about soul-mating Tom and this +Fenn woman conjured up to get away from their duty to child and husband. +They have swapped a place with the angels for a right to wallow with the +hogs; that's what all their fine talking amounts to." The Doctor's +shrill voice rose. "They don't fool me. They don't fool any one; they +don't even fool each other. I tell you, my dear," he chirped as he rose +from his chair, "I never saw one of those illicit love affairs in life +or heard of it in literature that was not just plain, old fashion, +downright, beastly selfishness. Duty is a greater thing in life than +what the romance peddlers call love." + +The Doctor stood looking at his wife questioningly--waiting for some +approving response. She kept on sewing. "Oh you Satterthwaites with +hearts of marble," he cried as he patted the cast iron waves of her hair +and went chuckling into the house. + +Mrs. Nesbit was aroused from her reverie by the rattle of the Adams +buggy. When it drew up to the curb Laura and Grant climbed out and came +up the walk. Laura wore a simple summer dress that brought out all the +exquisite coloring of her skin, and made her light hair shine in a kind +of haloed glory. It had been months since the mother had seen in her +daughter's face such a smile as the daughter gave to the man beside +her--red-faced, angular, hard muscled, in his dingy blue carpenter's +working clothes with his measuring rule and pencil sticking from his +apron pocket, and with his crippled arm tipped by its steel tool-holder. + +"Grant is going to take that box of Lila's toys down to the +kindergarten, mother," she explained. + +When they had disappeared up the stairs Mrs. Nesbit could hear them on +the floor above and soon the heavy feet of the man carrying a burden +were on the stairs and in another minute the young woman was saying: + +"Leave them by the teacher's desk, Grant," and as he untied the horse, +she called, "Now you will get that door in to-night without fail--won't +you? I'll be down and we'll put in the south partition in the morning." +As she turned from the door she greeted her mother with a smile and +dropped wearily into a chair. + +"Oh mother," she cried, "it's going to be so fine. Grant has the room +nearly finished and he's interesting the wives of the union men in South +Harvey and George Brotherton is going to give us every month all the +magazines and periodicals that are not returnable and George brought +down a lot of Christmas numbers of illustrated papers, and we're cutting +the bright pictures out and pinning them on the wall and George himself +worked with us all afternoon. George says he is going to make every one +of his lodges contribute monthly to the kindergarten--he belongs to +everything but the Ladies of the G. A. R.--" she smiled and her mother +smiled with her,--"and Grant says the unions are going to pay half of +the salary of the extra teacher. That makes it easier." + +"Well, Laura, don't you think--" + +But her daughter interrupted her. "Now, mother," she went on, "don't you +stop me till I'm done--for this is the best yet. Morty Sands came down +to-day to help--" Laura laughed a little at her mother's surprised +glance, "and Morty promised to give us $200 for the kindergarten just as +soon as he can worm it out of his father for expense money." She drew in +a deep, tired breath, "There," she sighed, "that's all." + +Her own child came up and the mother caught the little girl and began +playing with her, tying her hair ribbon, smoothing out her skirts, +rubbing a dirt speck from her nose, and cuddling the little one +rapturously in her arms. When the two women were alone, Laura sat on the +veranda steps with her head resting upon her mother's knee. The mother +touched the soft hair and said: "Laura, you are very tired." + +"Yes, mother," the daughter answered. "The mothers are so hungry for +help down there in South Harvey, and," she added a little drearily--"so +am I; so we are speaking a common language." + +She nestled her head in the lap above her. "And I'm going to find +something worth doing--something fine and good." + +She watched the lazy clouds, "You know I'm glad about Morty Sands. Grant +thinks Morty sincerely wants to amount to something real--to help and be +more than a money grubber! If the old spider would just let him out of +the web!" The mother stared at her daughter a second. + +"Well, Laura, about the only money grubbing Morty seems to be doing is +grubbing money out of his father to maintain his race horse." + +The daughter smiled and the mother went on with her work. "Mother, did +you know that little Ruth Morton is going to begin taking vocal lessons +this summer?" The mother shook her head. "Grant says Mr. Brotherton's +paying for it. He thinks she has a wonderful voice." + +"Voice--" cut in Mrs. Nesbit, "why Laura, the child's only +fourteen--voice--!" + +Laura answered, "Yes, mother, but you've never heard her sing; she has a +beautiful, deep, contralto voice, but the treble above 'C' is a trifle +squeaky, and Mr. Brotherton says he's 'going to have it oiled'; so she's +to 'take vocal' regularly." + +On matters musical Mrs. Nesbit believed she had a right to know the +whole truth, so she asked: "Where does Mr. Brotherton come in, Laura?" + +"Oh, mother, he's always been a kind of god-father to those girls. You +know as well as I that Emma's been playing with that funeral choir of +yours and Mr. Brotherton's all these years, only because he got her into +it, and Grant says he's kept Mrs. Herdicker from discharging Martha for +two years, just by sheer nerve. Of course Grant gets it from Mr. +Brotherton but Grant says Martha is so pretty she's such a trial to Mrs. +Herdicker! I like Martha, but, mother, she just thinks she should be +carried round on a chip because of her brown eyes and red hair and dear +little snubby nose. Grant says Mr. Brotherton is trying to get the money +someway to float the Captain's stock company and put his Household Horse +on the market. I think Mr. Brotherton is a fine man, mother--he's always +doing things to help people." + +Mrs. Nesbit folded up her work, and began to rise. "George Brotherton, +Laura," said her mother as she stood at full length looking down upon +her child, "has a voice of an angel, and perhaps the heart of a god, but +he will eat onions and during the twenty years I've been singing with +him I've never known him to speak a correct sentence. Common, +Laura--common as dishwater." + +As Laura Van Dorn talked the currents of life eddying about her were +reflected in what she said. But she could not know the spirit that was +moving the currents; for with a neighborly shyness those who were +gathering about her were careful to seem casual in their kindness, and +she could not know how deeply they were moved to help her. Kindergartens +were hardly in George Brotherton's line; yet he untied old bundles of +papers, ransacked his shop and brought a great heap of old posters and +picture papers to her. Captain Morton brought a beloved picture of his +army Colonel to adorn the room, and deaf John Kollander, who had a low +opinion of the ignorant foreigners and the riff-raff and scum of +society, which Laura was trying to help, wished none the less to help +her, and came down one day with a flag for the schoolroom and insisted +upon making a speech to the tots about patriotism. He made nothing clear +to them but he made it quite clear to himself that they were getting the +flag as a charity, which they little deserved, and never would return. +And to Laura he conveyed the impression that he considered her mission a +madness, but for her and the sorrow which she was fighting, he had +appreciative tenderness. He must have impressed his emotions upon his +wife for she came down and talked elaborately about starting a cooking +school in the building, and after planning it all out, went away and +forgot it. The respectable iron gray side-whiskers of Ahab Wright once +relieved the dingy school room, when Ahab looked in and the next day +Kyle Perry on behalf of the firm of Wright & Perry came trudging into +the kindergarten with a huge box which he said contained a +p-p-p-p-p-pat-a-p-p-p-pppat-pat--here he swallowed and started all +over and finally said p-p-patent, and then started out on a long +struggle with the word swing, but he never finished it, and until Laura +opened the box she thought Mr. Perry had brought her a soda fountain. +But Nathan Perry, his son, who came wandering down to the place one +afternoon with Anne Sands, put up the swing, and suggested a half dozen +practical devices for the teacher to save time and labor in her work, +while Anne Sands in her teens looked on as one who observes a major god +completing a bungling job of the angels on a newly contrived world. + +Sometimes coming home from his day's work Amos Adams would drop in for a +chat with the tired teacher, and he refreshed her curiously with his +quiet manner and his unsure otherworldliness, and his tough, unyielding +optimism. He had no lectures for the children. He would watch them at +their games, try to play with them himself in a pathetic, old-fashioned +way, telling them fairy stories of an elder and a grimmer day than ours. +Sometimes Doctor Nesbit, coming for Laura in his buggy, would find Amos +in the school room, and they would fall to their everlasting debate upon +the reality of time and space with the Doctor enjoying hugely his +impious attempt to couch the terminology of abstract philosophy in his +Indiana vernacular. + +Lida Bowman bringing her little brood sometimes would sit silently +watching the children, and look at Laura as if about to speak, but she +always went away with her mind unrelieved. Violet Hogan, who brought her +beruffled and bedizened eldest, made up for Mrs. Bowman's reticence. +Moreover Violet brought other mothers and there was much talk on the +topics of the day--talk that revealed to Laura Nesbit a whole philosophy +that was new to her--the helpfulness of the poor to the poor. + +But if others brought to Laura Van Dorn material strength and spiritual +comfort in her enterprise, Grant Adams waved the wand of his steel claw +over the kindergarten and made it live. For he was a power in the Wahoo +Valley. Her friends knew that his word gave the kindergarten the +endorsement of every union there and thus brought to it mothers with +children and with problems as well as children, whom Laura Van Dorn +otherwise never could have reached. The unions made a small donation +monthly to the work which gave them the feeling of proprietorship in the +place and the mothers and children came in self-respect. But if Grant +gave life to the kindergarten, he got more than he gave. For the +restraining hand of Laura Van Dorn always was upon him, and his friends +in the Valley came to realize her friendship for them and their cause. +They knew that many a venture of Grant's Utopia would have been a wild +goose chase but for the wisdom of her counsel. And the two came to rely +upon each other unconsciously. + +So in the ugly little building near Dooley's saloon in South Harvey the +two towns met and worked together; and all to heal a broken heart, a +bruised life. From out of the unexplored realm where our dreams are +blooming into the fruit of reality one evening came Mr. Left with this +message: "Whoever in the joy of service gives part of himself to the +vast sum of sacrificial giving that has remained unspent, since man +began to walk erect, is adding to humanity's heritage, is building an +unseen temple wherein mankind is sheltered from its own inhumanity. This +sum of sacrificial giving is the temple not made with hands!" + +Now the foundations of that part of the temple not made with hands in +South Harvey, may be said to have been laid and the watertable set on +the day when Laura Van Dorn first laughed the bell-chime laugh of her +girlhood. And that day came well along in the summer. It was twilight +and the Doctor was sitting with his wife and daughter on their east +veranda when Morty Sands came flitting across the lawn like a striped +miller moth in a broad-banded outing suit. He waved gayly to the little +company in the veranda and came up the steps at two bounds, though he +was a man of thirty-eight and just the least bit weazened. + +"Well," he said, with his greetings scarcely off his lips, "I came to +tell you I've sold the colt!" + +The chorus repeated his announcement as a question. + +"Yes, sold the colt," solemnly responded Morty. And then added, "Father +just wouldn't! I tried to get that two hundred in various ways--adding +it to my cigar bill; slipping it in on my bill for raiment at Wright & +Perry's, but father pinned Kyle down, and he stuttered out the truth. I +tried to get the horse-doctor to charge the two hundred into his bill +and when father uncovered that--I couldn't wait any longer so I've sold +the colt!" + +"Well, Morty, what for in Heaven's name?" asked Laura. Morty began +fumbling in his pockets before he spoke. He did not smile, but as his +hand came out of an inside pocket, he said gently: "For two hundred and +seventeen dollars and a half! I fought an hour for that half dollar!" He +handed it to the Doctor, saying: "It's for the kindergarten. You keep it +for her, Doctor Jim!" + +When Morty had gone Mrs. Nesbit said: "What queer blood that Sands blood +is, Doctor. There is Mary Sands's heart in that boy, and Daniel has bred +nothing into him. They must have been a queer breed a generation or two +back!" + +The Doctor did not answer. He took the money which Morty had given to +him, handed it to Laura and said: "And now my dear, accept this token of +devotion from Sir Mortimer Sands, of the golden heart and wooden head!" +And then Laura laughed, not in derision, not in merriment even, but in +sheer joy that life could mean so much. And as she laughed the temple +not made with hands began to rise strong and beautiful in her heart and +in the hearts of all who touched her. + +How they would have sneered at Laura Van Dorn's niche in the temple, +those practical folk who helped her because they loved her. How George +Brotherton would have laughed; with what suspicion John Kollander would +have viewed the kindergarten, if he had been told that it was part of a +temple. For he had no sort of an idea of letting the rag-tag and +bob-tail of South Harvey into a temple; he knew very well they deserved +no temple. They were shiftless and wicked. How Wright & Perry would have +sniffed at any one who would have called the dreary little shack, where +Laura Van Dorn held forth, a temple. For they all pretended to see only +the earthly dimensions of material things. But in their hearts they knew +the truth. It is the American way to mask the beauty of our nobler +selves, or real selves under a gibing deprecation. So we wear the veneer +of materialism, and beneath it we are intense idealists. And woe to him +who reckons to the contrary! + +Perhaps the town's views on temples in general and Laura's temple in +particular, was summed up by Hildy Herdicker, Prop., when she read Mr. +Left's reflections in the _Tribune_. "Temples--eh?--temples not +made with hands--is it? Well, Miss Laura can get what comfort she can +out of her baby shop; but me? Every man to his trade as Kyle Perry said +when he tried to buy a dozen scissors and got a sewing machine--me?--I +get my heart balm selling hats, and if others gets theirs coddling +brats--'tis the good God's wisdom that makes us different and no +business of mine so long as they bring grist to the profit mill! The +trouble with their temples is that they don't pay taxes!" + +So in the matter of putting up temples--particularly in the matter of +erecting temples not made with hands, the town worked blindly. But so +far as Laura Van Dorn was concerned, while she was working on her part +of the temple, she had the vision of youth still in her heart. Youth +indeed is that part of every soul that life has not tarnished, and if we +keep our faith, hold ourselves true and bow to no circumstance however +arrogant it may be, youth still will abide in our hearts through many +years. Now Laura, who was born Nesbit and became Van Dorn, was taking up +life with that large charity that comes to every unconquered soul. She +held her illusions, she believed in herself, and youth shone like a +beacon from her face and glowed in her body. + +For Thomas Van Dorn, who had been her husband, she had trained herself +to hold no unkind thought. She even taught Lila--when the child asked +for him--to harbor no rancor toward him. So the child turned to her +father when they met, the natural face of a child; it was a sad little +face that he saw--though no one else ever saw it sad; but the child +smiled when she spoke and looked gently at him, in the hope that some +day he would come back to her. + +Now it happened that on the night when Laura's laugh first echoed +through her temple another rising temple witnessed a ceremony entirely +befitting its use. + +That night--late that night when a pale moon was climbing over the +valley below the town, Margaret and her lover stood alone in the great +unfinished house which they were building. + +Through the uncurtained windows the moonlight was streaming, making +white splashes upon the floors. Across the plank pathways they wandered +locating the halls, the great living-room, the spacious dining-room, the +airy, comfortable bedrooms exposed to the south, the library, the +kitchen, and the ballroom on the third floor. It was to be a grand +house--this house of Van Dorn. And in their fancy the man and the woman +called it the temple of love erected as an altar to the love god whom +they worshiped. They peopled it with many a merry company. They saw the +rich and the great in the dining-room. They pictured in this vision +pleasure capering through the ball room. They enshrined wisdom and +contentment in the library. In the great living-room they installed +elegance and luxury, and hospitality beckoned with ostentatious pride +for the coming of such of the nobility as Harvey and its environs and +the surrounding state and Nation could produce. A grand, proud temple, a +rich, beautiful temple, a strong, masterful temple would be this temple +of love. + +"And, dearest," said he--the master of the house, as he held her in his +arms at the foot of the stairway that swept down into the broad hall +like the ghost of some baronial grandeur, "dearest, what do we care what +they say! We have built it for ourselves--just for you, I want it--just +for you; not friends, not children, not any one but you. This is to be +our temple of love." + +She kissed him, and whined wordless assent. Then she whispered: "Just +you--you, you, and if man, woman or child come to mar our joy or to +lessen our love, God pity the intruder." And like a flaming torch she +fluttered in his arms. + +The summer breeze came caressingly through an unclosed window into the +temple. It seemed--the summer breeze which fell upon their cheeks--like +the benediction of some pagan god; their god of love perhaps. For the +grand house, the rich house, the beautiful, masterful temple of their +mad love was made for summer breezes. + +But when the rain came, and the storms fell and beat upon that house, +they found that it was a house built upon sand. But while it stood and +even when it fell there was a temple, a real temple, a temple made with +hands--a temple that all Harvey and all the world could understand! + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +DR. NESBIT STARTS ON A LONG UPWARD BUT DEVIOUS JOURNEY + + +The Van Dorns opened their new house without ostentation the day after +their marriage in October. There was no reception; the handsomest hack +in town waited for them at the railway station, as they alighted from +the Limited from Chicago. They rode down Market Street, up the Avenue to +Elm Crest Place, drove to the new house, and that night it was lighted. +That was all the ceremony of housewarming which the place had. The Van +Dorns knew what the town thought of them. They made it plain what they +thought of the town. They allowed no second rate people to crowd into +the house as guests while the first rate people smiled, and the third +rate people sniffed. The Judge had some difficulty keeping Mrs. Van Dorn +to their purpose. She was impatient--having nothing in particular to +think about, and being proud of her furniture. Naturally, there were +calls--a few. And they were returned with some punctiliousness. But the +people whom the Van Dorns were anxious to see did not call. In the +winter, the Van Dorns went to Florida for a fortnight, and put up at a +hotel where they could meet a number of persons of distinction whom they +courted, and whom the Van Dorns pressed to visit them. When she came +home from the winter's social excursion, Mrs. Van Dorn went straight to +the establishment of Mrs. Herdicker, Prop., and bought a hat; and +bragged to Mrs. Herdicker of having met certain New York social +dignitaries in Florida whose names were as familiar to the Harvey women +as the names of their hired girl's beaux! Then having started this tale +of her social prowess on its career, Margaret was more easily restrained +by her husband from offering the house to the Plymouth Daughters for an +entertainment. It was in that spring that Margaret began--or perhaps +they both began to put on what George Brotherton called the "Van Dorn +remnant sale." The parade passed down Market Street every morning at +eight thirty. It consisted of one handsome rather overdressed man and +one beautiful rather conspicuously dressed woman. On fair days they rode +in a rakish-looking vehicle known as a trap, and in bad weather they +walked through Market Street. At the foot of the stairs leading to the +Judge's office they parted with all the voltage of affection permitted +by the canons of propriety and at five in the evening, Mrs. Van Dorn +reappeared on Market Street, and at the foot of the stairs before the +Judge's office, the parade resumed its course. + +"Well--say," said George Brotherton, "right smart little line of staple +and fancy love that firm is carrying this season. Rather nice titles +too; good deal of full calf bindings--well, say--glancing at the +illustrations, I should like to read the text. But man--say--hear your +Uncle George! With me it's always a sign of low stock when I put it all +in the window and the show case! Well, say--" and he laughed like the +ripping of an earthquake. "It certainly looks to me as if they were +moving the line for a quick turnover at a small profit! Well say!" + +But without the complicated ceremony required to show the town that he +was pleased with his matrimonial bargain, the handsome Judge was a busy +man. Every time he saw Dr. Nesbit toddling up or down Market Street, or +through South Harvey, or in the remotenesses of Foley or Magnus, the +Judge whipped up his energies. For he knew that the Doctor never lost a +fight through overconfidence. So the Judge, alone for the first time in +his career, set out to bring about his nomination, where a nomination +meant an election. Now a judge who showed the courage of his +convictions, as Judge Van Dorn had shown his courage in forcing +settlements in the mine accident cases and in similar matters of +occasional interest, was rather more immediately needed by the mine +owners of Harvey than the political boss, who merely used the mine +owner's money to encompass his own ends, and incidentally work out the +owner's salvation. Daniel Sands played both sides, which was all that +Van Dorn could ask. But when the Doctor saw that Sands was giving secret +aid to Van Dorn, the Doctor's heart was hot within him. And Van Dorn +continued to rove the district day and night, like a dog, hunting for +its buried bone. + +It was in the courthouse that Van Dorn made his strongest alliance--in +the courthouse, where the Doctor was supposed to be in supreme command. +A capricious fate had arranged it so that nearly all the county officers +were running for their second terms, and a second term was a time +honored courtesy. Van Dorn tied himself up with them by maintaining that +his was a second term election also,--and a second regular four year +term it was. His appointment, and his election to fill out the remainder +of his predecessor's term, he waved aside as immaterial, and staged +himself as a candidate for his second term. The Doctor tried to break +the combination between the Judge and the second term county candidates +by ruthlessly bringing out their deputies against the second termers as +candidates. But the scheme provoked popular rebellion. The Doctor tried +bringing out one young lawyer after another against the Judge, but all +had retainers from the mine owners, and no one in the county would run +against Van Dorn, so the Doctor had to pick his candidate from outside +of the county, in a judicial convention wherein Greeley County had a +majority of the votes. But Van Dorn knew that for all the strategy of +the situation, the Doctor might be able to mass the town's disapproval +of Van Dorn, socially, into a political majority in the convention +against him. So the handsome Judge, with his matrimonial parade to give +daily, his political fortunes to consider every hour, and withal, a +court to hold, and a judicial serenity to maintain, was a busy young +man--a rather more than passing busy young man! + +As for the Doctor, he threw himself into the contest against Van Dorn +with no mixed motives. "There," quoth the Doctor, to the wide world +including his own henchmen, yeomen, heralds, and outriders, "is one +hound pup I am going to teach house manners!" And failing to break Van +Dorn's alliance in the courthouse, and failing to bulldoze Daniel Sands +out of a secret liaison with Van Dorn, failing to punish those of his +courthouse friends who permitted Van Dorn to stand with them on their +convention tickets in the primary, the Doctor went forth with his own +primary ticket, and announced that he proposed to beat Van Dorn in the +convention single handed and alone. + +And so quiet are the wheels of our government, that few heard them +grinding during the spring and early summer--few except the little +coterie of citizens who pay attention to the details of party politics. +Yet underneath and over the town, and through the very heart of it +wherever the web of the spider went, there was a cruel rending. Two men +with hate in their hearts were pulling at the web, wrenching its +filaments, twisting it out of shape, ripping its texture, in a desperate +struggle to control the web, and with that control to govern the people. + +Then Dr. Nesbit pushed his way into the very nest of the spider, and +bolted into Daniel Sands's office to register a final protest against +Sands's covert alliance with the Judge. He plunked angrily into the den +of the spider, shut the door, turned the spring lock, and looking around +saw not Sands, but Van Dorn himself. + +The Doctor burst out: "Well, young man! So you're here, eh!" Van Dorn +nodded pleasantly, and replied graciously: "Yes, Doctor, here I am, and +I believe we have met here before--at one time or another." + +The Doctor sat down and slapping a fat hand on a chair arm, cried +angrily: "Thomas, it can't be did--you can't cut 'er." + +Judge Van Dorn answered blandly, rather patronizingly: "Yes, Dr. Jim, it +can be done. And I shall do it." + +"Have you let 'em fool you--the fellows on the street?" asked the +Doctor. + +Judge Van Dorn tapped on the desk beside him meditatively, then answered +slowly: "No--I should say they mostly lied to me--they're not for +me--excepting, maybe, Captain Morton, who tried to say he was opposed to +me--but couldn't--quite. No--Doctor--no--Market Street didn't fool me." + +He was so suave about it, so naive, and yet so cock-sure of his success, +that the Doctor was impatient: "Tom," he piped, "I tell you, they're too +strong to bluff and too many to buy. You can't make it." + +The younger man shut one eye, knocked with his tongue on the roof of his +mouth, and then said as he looked insolently into the Doctor's face: + +"Well, to begin--what's your price?" + +The Doctor flushed; his loose skin twitched around his nostrils, and he +gripped his chair arms. He did not answer for nearly a minute, during +which the Judge tilted back in his chair beside the desk and looked at +the elder man with some show of curiosity, if not of interest. + +"My price," sneered the Doctor, "is a little mite low to-day. It's a +pelt--a hound pup's pelt and you are going to furnish it, if you'll stop +strutting long enough for me to skin you!" + +The two men glared at each other. Then Van Dorn, regaining his poise, +answered: "Well, sir, I'm going to win--no matter how--I'm going to win. +I've sat up with this situation every night for six months--Oh, for a +year. I know it backwards and forwards, and you can't trip me any place +along the line. I've counted you out." He went on smiling: + +"What have I done that is not absolutely legal? This is a government of +law, Doctor--not of hysteria. The trouble with you," the Judge settled +down to an upright position in his chair, "is that you're an old maid. +You're so--so" he drawled the "so" insolently, "damn nice. You're an old +maid, and you come from a family of old maids. I warrant your +grandmother and her mother before her were old maids. There hasn't been +a man in your family for five generations." The Doctor rose, Van Dorn +went on arrogantly, "Doctor James Nesbit, I'm not afraid of you. And +I'll tell you this: If you make a fight on me in this contest, when I'm +elected, we'll see if there isn't one less corrupt boss in this state +and if Greeley County can't contribute a pompadour to the rogues' +gallery and a tenor voice to the penitentiary choir." + +During the harangue of the Judge, the Doctor's full lips had begun to +twitch in a smile, and his eyes to twinkle. Then he chirped gaily: + +"Heap o' steam for the size of the load and weight of your biler, Tom. +Better hoop 'em up!" + +And with a laugh, shaking his little round stomach, he toddled out of +the room into the corridor, and began whistling the tune that tells what +will happen when Johnny comes marching home. + +So the Doctor whistled about his afternoon's work and did not realize +that the whistling was a form of nervousness. + +That evening the Doctor and Laura began to read their Browning where +they had left off the night before. They were in the midst of +"Paracelsus," when the father looked up and said: + +"Laura, you know I'm going to fight Tom Van Dorn for another term as +district judge?" + +"Why, of course you should, father--I didn't expect he'd ask it again!" +said the daughter. + +"We had a row this afternoon--a miserable, bickering row. He got on his +hind legs and snarled and snapped at me, and made me mad, I guess. So I +got to thinking why I should be against him, and it came to me that a +man who had violated the decencies as he has and whose decisions for the +old spider have been so raw, shouldn't be judge in this district. Lord, +what will young fellows think if we stand for him! So I have kind of +worked myself up," the Doctor smiled deprecatingly, "to a place where I +seem to have a sacred duty in the matter of licking him for the sake of +general decency. Anyway," he concluded in his high falsetto, "old +Browning's diver, here, fits me. He goes down a pauper and, with his +pearl, comes up a prince." + +"Festus," cried the Doctor, waving the book, "I plunge." + +Thus through the pique of pride, and through the sting of scorn, a force +of righteousness came into the world of Harvey. For our miracles of +human progress are not always done with prunes and prisms. The truth +does not come to men always, nor even, generally, as they are gazing in +joyful admiration at the good and the beautiful. Sudden conversions of +men to good causes are rare, and often unstable and sometimes worthless. +The good Lord would find much of the best work of the world undone if he +waited until men guided by purely altruistic motives and inspired by new +impulses to righteousness, did it. The world's work is done by ladies +and gentlemen who, for the most part, are largely clay, working in the +clay, for clay rewards, with just enough of the divine impulse moving +them to keep their faces turned forward and not back. + +Public opinion in the Amen Corner, voiced by Mr. Brotherton, spoke for +Harvey and said: "Well, say--what do you think of Old Linen Pants +bucking the whole courthouse just to get the hide of Judge Van Dora? Did +you ever see such a thing in your whole life?" emphasizing the word +"whole" with fine effect. + +Mr. Brotherton sat at his desk in the rear of his store, contemplating +the splendor of his possessions. Gradually the rear of the shop had been +creeping toward the alley. It was filled with books, stationery, cigars +and smoker's supplies. The cigars and smoker's supplies were crowded to +a little alcove near the Amen Corner, and the books--school books, +pirated editions of the standard authors, fancy editions of the +classics, new books copyrighted and gorgeously bound in the fashion of +the hour, were displayed prominently. Great posters adorned the vacant +spaces on the walls, and posters and enlarged magazine covers adorned +the bulletin boards in front of the store. Piles of magazines towered on +the front counters--and upon the whole, Mr. Brotherton's place presented +a fairly correct imitation of the literary tendencies of the period in +America just before the Spanish war. + +Amos Adams came in, with his old body bent, his hands behind him, his +shapeless coat hanging loosely from his stooped shoulders, his little +tri-colored button of the Loyal Legion in his coat lapel, being the only +speck of color in his graying figure. He peered at Mr. Brotherton over +his spectacles and said: "George--I'd like to look at Emerson's +addresses--the Phi Beta Kappa Address particularly." He nosed up to the +shelves and went peering along the books in sets. "Help yourself, Dad, +help yourself--Glad you like Emerson--elegant piece of goods; wrapped +one up last week and took it home myself--elegant piece of goods." + +"Yes," mused the reader, "here is what I want--I had a talk with Emerson +last night. He's against the war; not that he is for Spain, of course, +but Huxley," added Amos, as he turned the pages of his book, "rather +thinks we should fight--believes war lies along the path of greatest +resistance, and will lead to our greater destiny sooner." The old man +sighed, and continued: "Poor Lincoln--I couldn't get him last night: +they say he and Garrison were having a great row about the situation." + +The elder stroked his ragged beard meditatively. Finally he said: +"George--did you ever hear our Kenyon play?" + +The big man nodded and went on with his work. "Well, sir," the elder +reflected: "Now, it's queer about Kenyon. He's getting to be a wonder. I +don't know--it all puzzles me." He rose, put back the book on its shelf. +"Sometimes I believe I'm a fool--and sometimes things like this bother +me. They say they are training Kenyon--on the other side! Of course he +just has what music Laura and Mrs. Nesbit could give him; yet the other +day, he got hold of a piano score of Schubert's Symphony in B flat and +while he can't play it, he just sits and cries over it--it means so much +to the little fellow." + +The gray head wagged and the clear, old, blue eyes looked out through +the steel-rimmed glasses and he sighed: "He is going ahead, making up +the most wonderful music--it seems to me, and writing it down when he +can't play it--writing the whole score for it--and they tell me--" he +explained deprecatingly, "my friends on the other side, that the child +will make a name for himself." He paused and asked: "George--you're a +hardheaded man--what do you think of it? You don't think I'm crazy, do +you, George?" + +The younger man glanced up, caught the clear, kindly eye of Amos Adams +looking questioningly down. + +"Dad," said Mr. Brotherton, hammering his fat fist on the desk, +"'there's more things in Heaven and earth than are dreamed of in your +philosophy, Horatio'--well say, man--that's Shakespeare. We sell more +Shakespeares than all the other poets combined. Fine business, this +Shakespeare. And when a man holds the lead in the trade as this +Shakespeare has done ever since I went into the Red Line poets back in +the eighties--I'm pretty nearly going to stay by him. And when he says, +'Don't be too damn sure you know it all--' or words to that effect--and +holds the trade saying it--well, say, man--your spook friends are all +right with me, only say," Mr. Brotherton shuddered, "I'd die if one came +gliding up to me and asked for a chew of my eating tobacco--the way they +do with you!" + +"Well," smiled Amos Adams, "much obliged to you, George--I just wanted +your ideas. Laura Van Dorn has sent Kenyon's last piece back to Boston +to see if by any chance he couldn't unconsciously have taken it from +something or some one. She says it's wonderful--but, of course," the old +man scratched his chin, "Laura and Bedelia Nesbit are just as likely to +be fooled in music as I am with my controls." Then the subject drifted +into politics--the local politics of the town, the Van Dorn-Nesbit +contest. + +And at the end of their discussion Amos rubbed his bony, lean, hard, old +hands, and looked away through the books and the brick wall and the +whole row of buildings before him into the future and smiled. "I +wonder--I wonder if the country ever will come to see the economic and +social and political meaning of this politics that we have now--this +politics that the poor man gets through a beer keg the night before +election, and that the rich man buys with his 'barl.'" + +He shook his head. "You'll see it--you and Grant--but it will be long +after my time." Amos lifted up his old face and cried: "I know there is +another day coming--a better day. For this one is unworthy of us. We are +better than this--at heart! We have in us the blood of the fathers, and +their high visions too. And they did not put their lives into this +nation for this--for this cruel tangle of injustice that we show the +world to-day. Some day--some day," Amos Adams lifted up his face and +cried: "I don't know! May be my guides are wrong but my own heart tells +me that some day we shall cease feeding with the swine and return to the +house of our father! For we are of royal blood, George--of royal blood!" + +"Why, hello, Morty," cut in Mr. Brotherton. "Come right in and listen to +the seer--genuine Hebrew prophet here--got a familiar spirit, and says +Babylon is falling." + +"Well, Uncle Amos," said Morty Sands, "let her fall!" Old Amos smiled +and after Morty had turned the talk from falling Babylon to Laura Van +Dorn's kindergarten, Amos being reminded by Laura of Kenyon and his +music, unfolded his theory of the occult source of the child's musical +talent, and invited George and Morty to church to hear Kenyon play. + +So when Sunday came, with it came full knowledge that most members of +the congregation were to hear Kenyon Adams' new composition, which had +been rather widely advertised by his friends; and Rev. John Dexter, +feeling himself a fifth wheel, discarded his sermon and in humility and +contrition submitted some extemporaneous remarks on the passion for +humanity of "Christ and him crucified." + +A little boy was Kenyon Adams--a slim, great-eyed, serious faced, little +boy in an Eton jacket and knickerbockers--not so much larger than his +violin that he carried under his arm. His little hand shook, but Grant +caught his gaze and with a tender, earnest reassurance put sinews into +the small arms, and stilled an unsteady jaw. The organ was playing the +prelude, when the little hand with the bow went out in a wide, sure, +strong curve, and when the bow touched the strings, they sang from a +soul depth that no child's experience could know. + +It was the first public rendering of the now famous Adagio in C minor, +known sometimes as "The Prairie Wind," or perhaps better as the +Intermezzo between the second and third acts of the opera that made +Kenyon Adams' fame in Europe before he was twenty. It has been changed +but little since that first hearing there in John Dexter's church with +the Sands Memorial organ, built in the early eighties for Elizabeth Page +Sands, mother of Anne of that tribe. The composition is simplicity +itself--save for the mystical questioning that runs through it in the +sustained sevenths--a theme which Captain Morton said always reminded +him of a meadow lark's evening song, but which repeats itself over and +over plaintively and sadly as the stately music swells to its crescendo +and dies with that unanswered cry of heartbreak echoing in the last +faint notes of the closing bar. + +When it was finished, those who had ears heard and understood and those +who had not said, "Well," and waited for public opinion, unless they +were fools, in which case they said they would have preferred something +to whistle. But because the thing impressed itself upon hundreds of +hearts that hour, many in the congregation came forward to greet the +child. + +Among these, was a tall, stately young woman in pure white with a rose +upon her hat so deeply red that it seemed guilty of a shame. But her +lips were as red as the red of the rose and her eyes glistened and her +face was wrought upon by a great storm in her heart. Behind her walked a +proud gentleman, a lordly gentleman who elbowed his way through the +throng as one who touches the unclean. The pale child stood by Grant +Adams as they came. Kenyon did not see the beautiful woman; the child's +eyes were upon the man. He knew the man; Lila had poured out her soul to +the boy about the man and in his child's heart he feared and abhorred +the man for he knew not what. The man and woman kept coming closer. They +were abreast as they stepped into the pulpit where the child stood. By +his own music, his soul had been stirred and riven and he was nervous +and excited. As the woman beside the man stretched out her arms, with +her face tense from some inner turmoil, the child saw only the proud man +beside her and shrank back with a wild cry and hid in his father's +breast. The eyes of Grant and Margaret met, but the child only cuddled +into the broad breast before him and wept, crying, "No--no--no--" + +Then the proud man turned back, spurned but not knowing it, and the +beautiful woman with red shame in her soul followed him with downcast +face. In the church porch she lifted up her face as she said with her +fair, false mouth: "Tom, isn't it funny how those kind of people +sometimes have talent--just like the lower animals seem to have +intelligence. Dear me, but that child's music has upset me!" + +The man's heart was full of pride and hate and the woman's heart was +full of pride and jealousy. Still the air was sweet for them, the birds +sang for them, and the sun shone tenderly upon them. They even laughed, +as they went their high Jovian way, at the vanities of the world on its +lower plane. But their very laughter was the crackling of thorns under a +pot wherein their hearts were burning. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +IN WHICH WE SEE SOMETHING COME INTO THIS STORY OUTSIDE OF THE MATERIAL +WORLD + + +"Life," writes Mr. Left, using the pseudonym of the Peachblow +philosopher, "disheartens us because we expect the wrong things of it. +We expect material rewards for spiritual virtues, material punishments +for spiritual transgressions; when even in the material world, material +rewards and punishments do not always follow the acts which seem to +require them. Yet the only sure thing in the world is that our spiritual +lapses bring spiritual punishments, and our spiritual virtues have their +spiritual rewards." + +Now these observations of Mr. Left might well be taken for the thesis of +this story. Tom Van Dorn's spiritual transgressions had no material +punishments and the good that was in Grant Adams had no material reward. +Yet the spiritual laws which they obeyed or violated were inexorable in +their rewards and punishments. + +Once there entered the life of Judge Van Dorn, from the outside, the +play of purely spiritual forces, which looped him up and tripped him in +another man's game, and Tom, poor fellow, may have thought that it was a +special Providence around with a warrant looking after him. Now this +statement hangs on one "if,"--if you can call Nate Perry a man! "One +generation passeth and another cometh on," saith the Preacher. Perhaps +it has occurred to the reader that the love affairs of this book are +becoming exceedingly middle aged; some have only the dying glow of early +reminiscence. But here comes one that is as young as spring flowers; +that is--if Nate Perry is a man, and is entitled to a love affair at +all. Let's take a look at him: long legged, lean faced, keen eyed, razor +bodied, just back from College where he has studied mining engineering. +He is a pick and shovel miner in the Wahoo Fuel Company's mine, getting +the practical end of the business. For he is heir apparent of stuttering +Kyle Perry, who has holdings in the mines. Young Nate's voice rasps like +the whine of a saw and he has no illusions about the stuff the world is +made of. For him life is atoms flopping about in the ether in an +entirely consistent and satisfactory manner. Things spiritual don't +bother him. And yet it was in working out a spiritual equation in Nate +Perry's life that Providence tipped over Tom Van Dorn, in his race for +Judgeship. + +And now let us put Mr. Brotherton on the stand: + +"Showers," exclaims Mr. Brotherton, "showers for Nate and Anne,--why, +only yesterday I sent him and Grant Adams over to Mrs. Herdicker's to +borrow her pile-driver, and spanked him for canning a dog, and it hasn't +been more'n a week since I gave Anne a rattle when her father brought +her down town the day after the funeral, as he was looking over Wright & +Perry's clerks for the fourth Mrs. Sands--and here's showers! Well, say, +isn't time that blue streak! Showers! Say, I saw Tom Van Dorn's little +Lila in the store this morning--isn't she the beauty--bluest eyes, and +the sweetest, saddest, dearest little face--and say, man--I do believe +Tom's kind of figuring up what he missed along that line. He tried to +talk to her this morning, but she looked at him with those blue eyes and +shrank away. Doc Jim bought her a doll and a train of cars. That was +just this morning, and well, say--I wouldn't be surprised if when I come +down and unlock the store to-morrow morning, some one will be telling me +she's having showers. Isn't time that old hot-foot?" + +"Showers--kitchen showers and linen showers, and silver showers for +little Anne--little Anne with the wide, serious eyes, 'the home of +silent prayer';--well, say, do you know who said that? It was Tennyson. +Nice, tasty piece of goods--that man Tennyson. I've handled him in +padded leather covers; fancy gilt cloth, plain boards, deckle-edges, +wide margins, hand-made paper, and in thirty-nine cent paper--and he is +a neat, nifty piece of goods in all of them--always easy to move and no +come backs." After this pean to the poet, Mr. Brotherton turned again to +his meditations, "Little Anne--Why, it's just last week or such a matter +I wrapped up Mother Goose for her--just the other day she came in when +they sent her off to school, and I gave her a diary--and now it's +showers--" He shook his great head, "Well, say--I'm getting on." + +And while Mr. Brotherton mused the fire burned--the fire of youth that +glowed in the heart of Nathan Perry. When he wandered back from college +no one in particular had noticed him. But Anne Sands was no one in +particular. And as no one in particular was looking after Anne and her +affairs, as a girl in her teens she had focused her heart upon the +gangling youth, and there grew into life one of those matter-of-fact, +unromantic love affairs that encompass the whole heart. For they are as +commonplace as light and air and are equally vital. Because their course +is smooth, such affairs seem shallow. But let unhappy circumstance break +the even surface, and behold, from their depths comes all the beauty of +a great force diverted, all the anguish of a great passion curbed and +thwarted. + +In this democratic age, when deep emotional experiences are not the +privilege of the few, but the lot of many, heart break is almost +commonplace. We do not notice it as it may have been noted in those +chivalric days when only the few had the finer sensibilities that may +make great mental suffering possible. So here in the commonplace town of +Harvey, in their commonplace homes, amid their commonplace friends and +relatives, two commonplace hearts were aching all unsuspected by a +commonplace world. And it happened thus: + +Anne Sands had opinions about the renomination and reelection of Judge +Van Dorn. For Judge Van Dorn's divorce and remarriage had offended Anne +Sands. + +On the other hand, to Nathan Perry the aspirations of Judge Van Dorn +meant nothing but the ambition of a politician in politics. So when Anne +and he had fallen into the inevitable discussion of the Van Dorn case, +as a part of an afternoon's talk, indignation flashed upon indifference +and the girl saw, or thought she saw such a defect in the character of +her lover that, being what she was, she had to protest, and he being +what he was--he was hurt to the heart. Both lovers spoke plainly. The +thing sounded like a quarrel--their first; and coming from the Sands +house into the summer afternoon, Nate Perry decided to go to +Brotherton's. He reflected as he walked that Mr. Brotherton's remarks on +"showers," which had come to Anne and Nate, might possibly be premature. +And the reflection was immensely disquieting. + +A practical youth was Nathan Perry, with a mechanical instinct that +gloried in adjustment. He loved to tinker and potter and patch things +up. Now something was wrong with the gearing of his heart action. His +theory was that Anne was for the moment crazy. He could see nothing to +get excited about over the renomination and election of Judge Van Dorn. +The men in the mine where the youth was working as a miner hated Van +Dorn, the people seemed to distrust him as a man more or less, but if he +controlled the nominating convention that ended it with Nathan Perry. +The Judge's family affairs were in no way related to the nomination, as +the youth saw the case. Yet they were affecting the cams and cogs and +pulleys of young Mr. Perry's love affairs, and he felt the matter must +be repaired, and put in running order. For he knew that love affair was +the mainspring of his life. And the mechanic in him--the Yankee that +talked in his rasping, high-keyed tenor voice, that shone from his thin, +lean face, and cadaverous body, the Yankee in him, the dreaming, +sentimental Yankee, half poet and half tinker, fell upon the problem +with unbending will and open mind. + +So it came to pass that there entered into the affairs of Judge Thomas +Van Dorn, an element upon which he did not calculate. For he was dealing +only with the material elements of a material universe! + +When Nathan Perry came to Brotherton's he sat down in the midst of a +discussion of the Judgeship that began in rather etherial terms. For +Doctor Nesbit was saying: + +"Amos, I've got you cornered if you consider the visible universe. She +works like a watch; she's as predestined as a corn sheller. But let me +tell you something--she isn't all visible. There's something back of +matter--there's another side to the shield. I know mighty well there's a +time when my medicine won't help sick folks--and yet they get well. I've +seen a great love flame up in a man's heart or a woman's heart or a +child's in a bed of torture, and when medicine wouldn't take hold I've +seen love burn through the wall between the worlds, and I have seen help +come just as sure as you see the Harvey Hook and Ladder Company coming +rattling down Market Street! Funny old world--funny old world--seventy +rides around the sun--and then the fireworks." After puffing away to +revive his pipe he said: "I sort of got into this way of thinking +recently going over this judgeship fight." He smoked meditatively then +broke out, "Lord, Lord, what an iron-clad, hog-tight, rock-ribbed, +copper-riveted material proposition it is that Tom is putting up. He's +bound self-interest with self-interest everywhere. He and Joe Calvin +have roped old man Sands in, and every material interest in this whole +district is tied up in the Van Dorn candidacy. I'm a child in a cyclone +in this fight. The self-interest of the county candidates, of all the +deputies who hope two years from now to be county candidates, and all +their friends, every straw boss at the shops, in the smelters, in the +mines--and all the men who are near them and want to be straw bosses, +every merchant who is caught in the old spider's web with a ninety-day +note; every street-car conductor, every employee of the light company, +every man at the waterworks plant, every man at the gas plant, the +telephone linemen--every human being that dances in the great woof of +this little spider's web feels the pull of devilish material power." + +Amos Adams threw back his grizzled head in a laugh that failed to +vocalize. "Well, Jim, according to your account you're liable to get +burned and singed and disfigured until you're as useless in politics as +this old Amos Adams--the spook chaser!" + +There was no bitterness in Amos Adams's voice. "It's all right, Jim--I +have no complaint to make against life. Forty years ago Dan Sands got +the first girl I ever loved. I went to war; he paid his bounty and +married the girl. That was a long time ago. I often think of the +girl--it's no lack of faith to Mary. And I have the memory of the +war--of that Day at Peach Tree Creek with all the wonderful exulting joy +of that charge and what God gave me to do. This button," he put his +thumb under the Loyal Legion emblem in his warped coat lapel, "this +button is more fragrant than any flower on earth to my heart. Dan Sands +has had five wives; he missed the hardship of the war. He has a son by +her. Jim," said Amos Adams as he opened his eyes, "if you knew how it +has cut into my heart year by year to see the beautiful soul that Hester +Haley gave to Morty decay under the blight of his father--but you +can't." He sighed. "Yet there is still her soul in him--gentle, kind, +trying to do the right thing--but tied and hobbled by life with his +father. Grant may be wrong, Doctor," cried the father, raising his hand +excitedly, "he may be crazy, and I know they laugh at him up town +here--for a fool and the son of a fool; he certainly doesn't know how he +is going to do all the things he dreams of doing--but that is not the +point. The important thing is that he is having his dream! For by the +Eternal, Jim Nesbit, I'd rather feel that my boy was even a small part +of the life force of his planet pushing forward--I'd rather be the +father of that boy--I'd rather be old Amos Adams the spook chaser--than +Dan Sands with his million. I've been happier, Jim, with the memory of +my Mary than he with his five wives. I'd rather be on the point of the +drill of life and mangled there, than to have my soul rot in greed." + +The Doctor puffed on his pipe. "Well, Amos," he returned quietly, "I +suppose if a man wants to get all messed up as one of the points of the +drill of life, as you call it--it's easy enough to find a place for the +sacrifice. I admire Grant; but someway," his falsetto broke out, "I have +thought there was a little something in the bread-and-butter +proposition." + +"A little, Doctor Jim--but not as much as you'd think!" answered Amos. + +"Nevertheless in this fight here in Greeley County, I'm quietly lining +up a few county delegates, and picking out a few trusty friends who will +show up at the caucuses, and Grant has a handful of crazy Ikes that I am +going to use in my business, and if we win it will be a practical +proposition--my head against Tom's." + +The Doctor rose. Amos Adams stopped him with "Don't be too sure of that, +Jim; I got a writing from Mr. Left last night and he says--" + +"Hold on, Amos--hold on," squeaked the Doctor's falsetto; "until Mr. +Left is registered in the Third Ward--we won't bother with him until +after the convention." + +The Doctor left the place smiling at Amos and glancing casually at young +Mr. Perry. The dissertation had been a hard strain on the practical mind +of young Mr. Perry, and while he was fumbling his way through the mazes +of what he had heard, Amos Adams left the shop and another practical man +very much after Nathan Perry's own heart came in. Daniel Sands had no +cosmic problems on his mind with which to befuddle young Perry. Daniel +Sands was a seedy little old man of nearly three score years and ten; +his dull, fishy eyes framed in red lids looked shiftily at one as though +he was forever preoccupied in casting up sums in interest. His skin was +splotched and dirty, a kind of scale seemed to be growing over it, and +his long, thin nose stuck out of his shaggy, ill-kept whiskers like a +sharp snout, attenuated by rooting in money. When he smiled, which was +rarely, the false quality of his smile seemed expressed by his false +teeth that were forever falling out of place when he loosed his facial +muscles. He walked rather stealthily back to the desk where the +proprietor of the shop was working; but he spoke loud enough for Nate +Perry's practical ear to comprehend the elder man's mission. + +"George, I've got to be out of town for the next ten days, and the +county convention will meet when I'm gone." He stopped, and cleared his +throat. Mr. Brotherton knew what was coming. "I just called to say that +we're expecting you to do all you can for Tom." He paused. Mr. +Brotherton was about to reply when the old man smiled his false smile +and added: + +"Of course, we can't afford to let our good Doctor's family affairs +interfere with business. And George," he concluded, "just tell the boys +to put Morty on in my place. And George, you kind of sit by Morty, and +see that he gets his vote in right. Morty's a good boy, George--but he +someway doesn't get interested in things as I like to see him. He'll be +all right if you'll just fix his ballot in the convention and see that +he votes it." He blinked his dull, red eyes at the book seller and +dropped his voice. + +"I noticed your paper as I passed the note counter just now; some of it +will be due while I'm gone; I'll tell 'em to renew it if you want it." +He smiled again, and Mr. Brotherton answered, "Very well--I'll see that +Morty votes right, Mr. Sands," and solemnly went back to his ledger. And +thus the practical mind of Nathan Perry had its first practical lesson +in practical politics--a lesson which soon afterwards produced highly +practical results. + +Up and down Market Street tiptoed Daniel Sands that day, tightening his +web of business and politics. Busily he fluttered over the web, his +water pipes, his gas pipes, his electric wires. The pathway to the trade +of the miners and the men in the shops and smelters lay through his +door. Material prosperity for every merchant and every clerk in Market +Street lay in the paunch of the old spider, and he could spin it out or +draw it in as he chose. It was not usual for him to appear on Market +Street. Dr. Nesbit had always been his vicegerent. And often it had +pleased the Doctor to pretend that he was seeking their aid as friends +and getting it solely upon the high grounds of friendship. + +But as the Doctor stood by his office window that day and saw the old +spider dancing up and down the web, Dr. Nesbit knew the truth--and the +truth was wormwood in his mouth--that he had been only an errand boy +between greed in the bank and self-interest in the stores. In a flash, a +merciless, cynical flash, he looked into his life in the capital, and +there he saw with sickening distinctness that with all his power as a +boss, with his control over Senators and Governors and courts and +legislatures, he was still the errand boy--that he reigned as boss only +because he could be trusted by those who controlled the great +aggregations of capital in the state--the railroads, the insurance +companies, the brewers, the public service corporations. In the street +below walked a flashy youth who went in and out of the saloons in +obvious pride of being. His complacent smile, his evident glory in +himself, made Dr. Nesbit turn away and shut his eyes in shame. He had +loathed the youth as a person unspeakable. Yet the youth also was a +messenger--the errand boy of vice in South Harvey who doubtless thought +himself a person of great power and consequence. And the difference +between an errand boy of greed and the errand boy of vice was not +sufficient to revive the Doctor's spirits. So the Doctor, sadly sobered, +left the window. The gay enthusiasm of the diver plunging for the pearl +was gone from the depressed little white clad figure. He was finding his +pearl a burden rather than a joy. + +That evening Morty Sands, resplendent in purple and fine linen--the +purple being a gorgeous necktie, and the fine linen a most sumptuous +tailor-made shirt waist above a pair of white broadcloth trousers and +silk hose, and under a fifty dollar Panama hat, tripped into the +Brotherton store for his weekly armload of reading and tobacco. + +"Morty," said Mr. Brotherton, after the young man had picked out the +latest word in literature and nicotine, "your father was in here to-day +with instructions for me to chaperone you through the county convention +Saturday,--you'll be on the delegation." + +The young man blinked good naturedly. "I haven't got the intellect to go +through with it, George." + +"Oh, yes, you have, Morty," returned Mr. Brotherton, expansively. "The +Governor wants me to be sure you vote for Van Dorn--that's about all +there is in the convention. Old Linen Pants is to name the delegates to +the State and congressional conventions--they're trying to let the old +man down easy--not to beat him out of his State and congressional +leadership." + +The young man thought for a moment then smiled up into the big moon-face +of Brotherton--"All right, Georgie, I suppose I'll have to cast my +unfettered vote for Van Dorn, though as a sporting proposition my +sympathies are with the other side." + +"Well, say--you orter 'a' heard a talk I heard Doc Nesbit give this +afternoon. That old sinner will be shouting on the mourner's bench +soon--if he doesn't check up." + +Morty looked up from his magazine to say: "George--it's Laura. A man +couldn't go with her through all she's gone through without being more +of a man for it. When I took a turn in the mining business last spring I +found that the people down in South Harvey just naturally love her to +death. They'll do more or less for Grant Adams. He's getting the men +organized and they look up to him in a way. But they get right down on +their marrow bones and love Laura." + +Morty smiled reflectively: "I kind of got the habit myself once--and I +seem someway never to have got over it--much! But, she won't even look +my way. She takes my money--for her kindergarten. But that is all. She +won't let me take her home in my trap, nor let me buy her lunch--why she +pays more attention to Grant Adams with his steel claw than to my strong +right arm! About all she lets me do is distribute flower seeds. George," +he concluded ruefully, "I've toted around enough touch-me-nots and +coxcomb seeds this spring for that girl to paint South Harvey ringed, +streaked and striped." + +There the conversation switched to Captain Morton's stock company, and +the endeavor to get the Household Horse on the market. The young man +listened and smiled, was interested, as George Brotherton intended he +should be. But Morty went out saying that he had no money but his +allowance--which was six months overdrawn--and there the matter rested. + +In a few days, a free people arose and nominated their delegates to the +Greeley County convention and the night before the event excitement in +Harvey was intense. There could be no doubt as to the state of public +sentiment. It was against Tom Van Dorn. But on the other hand, no one +seriously expected to defeat him. For every one knew that he controlled +the organization--even against the boss. Yet vaguely the people hoped +that their institutions would in some way fail those who controlled, and +would thus register public sentiment. But the night the delegates were +elected, it seemed apparent that Van Dorn had won. Yet both sides +claimed the victory. And among others of the free people elected to the +Convention to cast a free vote for Judge Van Dorn, was Nathan Perry. He +was put on the delegation to look after his father's interests. Van Dorn +was a practical man, Kyle Perry was a practical man and they knew Nate +Perry was a practical youth. But while Tom Van Dorn slept upon the +assurance of victory, Nate Perry was perturbed. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +WHEREIN MORTY SANDS MAKES A FEW SENSIBLE REMARKS IN PUBLIC + + +When Mortimer Sands came down town Saturday morning, two hours before +the convention met, he found the courthouse yard black with prospective +delegates and also he found that the Judge's friends were in a majority +in the crowd. So evident was their ascendancy that the Nesbit forces had +conceded to the Judge the right to organize the convention. At eleven +o'clock the crowd, merchants, clerks, professional men, working men in +their Sunday clothes, delegates from the surrounding country towns, and +farmers--a throng of three hundred men, began to crowd into the hot +"Opera House." So young Mr. Sands, with his finger in a book to keep his +place, followed the crowd to the hall, and took his seat with the Fourth +Ward delegation. Having done this he considered that his full duty to +God and man had been performed. He found Nathan Perry sitting beside him +and said: + +"Well, Nate, here's where Anne's great heart breaks--I suppose?" + +Nathan nodded and asked: "I presume it's all over but the shouting." + +"All over," answered the elder young man as he dived into his book. As +he read he realized that the convention had chosen Captain Morton--a +partisan of the Judge--for chairman. The hot, stifling air of the room +was thick with the smoke of cheap tobacco. Morty Sands grew nervous and +irritated during the preliminary motions of the organization. Even as a +sporting event the odds on Van Dorn were too heavy to promote +excitement. He went out for a breath of air. When he reentered Judge Van +Dorn was making the opening speech of the convention. It was a fervid +effort; the Spanish war was then in progress so the speech was full of +allusions to what the Judge was pleased to call "libertah" and "our +common countrah" and our sacred "dutah" to "humanitah." Naturally the +delegates who were for the Judge's renomination displayed much +enthusiasm, and it was a noisy moment. When the Judge closed his +remarks--tearfully of course--and took his seat as chairman of the +Fourth Ward delegation, which was supposed to be for him unanimously as +it was his home ward, Morty noticed that while the Judge sat grand and +austere in the aisle seat with his eyes partly closed as one who is +recovering from a great mental effort, his half-closed eyes were +following Mr. Joseph Calvin, who was buzzing about the room distributing +among the delegates meal tickets and saloon checks good for food for man +and beast at the various establishments of public entertainment. + +Morty learned from George Brotherton that as the county officers were to +be renominated without opposition, and as the platform had been agreed +to the day before, and as the county central committeemen had been +chosen the night before at the caucuses, the convention was to be a +short horse soon curried. Of course, Captain Morton as permanent +chairman made a speech--with suitable eulogies to the boys who wore the +blue. It was the speech the convention had heard many times before, but +always enjoyed--and as he closed he asked rather grandly, "and now what +is the further pleasure of the convention?" + +It was Mr. Calvin's pleasure, as expressed in a motion, that the +secretary be instructed to cast the vote of the convention for the +renomination of the entire county ticket, and further that Senator James +Nesbit, in view of his leadership of the party in the State, be +requested to name the delegates to the State and congressional +conventions and that Judge Thomas Van Dorn--cheers led by Dick +Bowman--Thomas Van Dorn be requested to name the delegates to the +judicial district convention. Cheers and many cries of no, no, no, +greeted the Calvin motion. It was seconded and stated by the chair and +again cheered and roared at. Dr. Nesbit rose, and in his mild, treble +voice protested against the naming of the delegates to the State and +congressional and judicial conventions. He said that while it had been +the practice in the past, he was of the opinion that the time had come +to let the Convention itself choose by wards and precincts and townships +its delegates to these conventions. He said further that as for the +State and congressional delegates, they couldn't pick a delegation of +twenty men in the room if they tried, that would not contain a majority +which he could work with. At which there was cheering from the anti-Van +Dorn crowd--but it was clear that they were in the minority. No further +discussion seemed to be expected and the Captain was about to put the +motion, when from among the delegates from South Harvey there arose the +red poll of Grant Adams. From the Harvey delegates he met the glare of +distrust due from any crowd of merchants and clerks to any labor +agitator. Morty could see from the face of Dr. Nesbit that he was +surprised. Judge Van Dorn, who sat near young Sands, looked mildly +interested. After he was recognized, Grant in an impassioned voice began +to talk of the inherent right of the Nesbit motion, providing that each +precinct or ward delegation could name its own delegates to the State, +congressional and judicial conventions. + +If the motion prevailed, Judge Van Dorn would have a divided delegation +from Greeley county to the judicial convention, as some of the precincts +and wards were against him, though a majority of the united convention +was for him. Grant Adams, swinging his iron claw, was explaining this to +the convention. He was appealing passionately for the right of +proportional representation; holding that the minority had rights of +representation that the majority should not deny. + +Judge Van Dorn, without rising, had sneered across the room in a +snarling voice: "Ah, you socialist!" Once he had growled: "None of your +red mouthed ranting here!" Finally, as it was evident that Grant's +remarks were interesting the workmen on the delegations, Van Dorn, still +seated, called out: + +"Here, you--what right have you to address this convention?" + +"I am a regularly accredited delegate from South Harvey, holding the +proxy--" + +He got no further. + +The Van Dorn delegates roared, "Put him out. No proxies go," and began +hooting and jeering. It was obvious that Van Dorn had the crowd with +him. He let them roar at Grant, who stood quietly, demanding from time +to time that the chair should restore order. Captain Morton hammered the +table with his gavel, but the Van Dorn crowd continued to hoot and howl. +Finally Judge Van Dorn rose and with great elaborateness of +parliamentary form addressed the chair asking to be permitted to ask his +friend with a proxy one question. + +The two men faced each other savagely, like characters symbolizing +forces in a play; complaisance and discontent. Behind Grant was the +unrest and upheaval of a class coming into consciousness and +tremendously dynamic, while Van Dorn stood for those who had won their +fight and were static and self-satisfied. He twirled his mustache. Grant +raised his steel claw as if to strike; Van Dorn spoke, and in a barking, +vicious, raucous tone intended to annihilate his adversary, asked: + +"Will you tell this convention in the interest of fairness, what, if +any, personal and private motives you have in helping Dr. Nesbit inject +a family quarrel into public matters in this county?" + +A moment's silence greeted the lawyer's insolently framed question. +Mortimer Sands saw Dr. Nesbit go white, start to rise, and sit down, and +saw dawning on the face of Grant Adams the realization of what the +question meant. But before he could speak the mob broke loose; hisses, +cheers and the roar of partisan and opposition filled the room. Grant +Adams tried to speak; but no one would hear him. He started down the +aisle toward Van Dorn, his red hair flashing like a banner of wrath, +menacing the Judge with the steel claw upraised. Dr. Nesbit stopped +Grant. The insult had been so covert, so cowardly, that only in +resenting its implication would there be scandal. + +Mortimer Sands closed his book. He saw Judge Van Dorn laugh, and heard +him say to George Brotherton who sat beside young Sands: + +"I plugged that damn pie-face!" + +Nathan Perry, the practical young man sitting in the Fourth ward +delegation, heard the Judge and nudged Morty Sands. Morty Sands's +sporting blood rose in him. "The pup," he whispered to Nate. "He's +taking a shot at Laura." + +The crowd gradually grew calm. There being no further discussion, +Captain Morton put the motion of Joseph Calvin to let the majority of +the convention name all delegates to the superior conventions. The roar +of ayes overwhelmed the blat of noes. It was clear that the Calvin +motion had carried. The Doctor was defeated. But before the chair +announced the vote the pompadour of the little man rose quickly as he +stood in the middle aisle and asked in his piping treble for a vote by +wards and precincts. + +In the moment of silence that followed the Doctor's suggestion, Nathan +Perry's face, which gradually had been growing stony and hard, cracked +in a mean smile as he leaned over to Morty and whispered: + +"Morty, can you stand for that--that damned hound's snap at Laura Van? +By grabby I can't--I won't!" + +"Well, let's raise hell, Nate--I'm with you. I owe him nothing," said +the guileless and amiable Morty. + +Judge Van Dorn rose grandly and with great elegance of diction agreed +with the Doctor's "excellent suggestion." So tickets were passed about +containing the words yes and no, and hats were passed down delegation +lines and the delegates put the ballots in the hats and the chairmen of +delegations appointed tellers and so the ballots were counted. When the +Fourth ward balloting was finished, Judge Van Dorn looked puzzled. He +was three votes short of unanimity. His vanity was pricked. He believed +he had a solid delegation and proposed to have it. When in the roll call +the Fourth ward delegation was reached (it was the fourth precinct on +the secretary's roll) the Judge, as chairman of the Fourth warders, +rose, blandly and complacently, and announced: "Ward Four casts +twenty-five votes 'yes' and three votes 'no.' I demand a poll of the +delegation." + +George Brotherton rose when the clerk of the convention called the roll +and voted a weak, husky 'no' and sat down sheepishly under the Judge's +glare. + +Down the list came the clerk reading the names of delegates. Finally he +called "Mortimer Sands," and the young man rose, smiling and calm, and +looking the Judge fairly in the eye cried, "I vote no!" + +Then pandemonium broke loose. The convention was bedlam. The friends of +the Judge were confounded. They did not know what it meant. + +The clerk called Nathan Perry. + +"No," he cried as he looked maliciously into the Judge's beady eyes. + +Then there was no doubt. For the relations of Wright & Perry were so +close to Daniel Sands that no one could mistake the meaning of young +Perry's vote, and then had not the whole town read of the "showers" for +Anne Sands? Those who opposed the Judge were whispering that the old +spider had turned against the Judge. Men who were under obligations to +the Traders' Bank were puzzled but not in doubt. There was a general +buzzing among the delegations. The desertion of Mortimer Sands and +Nathan Perry was one of those wholly unexpected events that sometimes +make panics in politics. The Judge could see that in one or two cases +delegations were balloting again. "Fifth ward," called the clerk. + +"Fifth ward not ready," replied the chairman. + +"Hancock township, Soldier precinct," called the clerk. + +"Soldier precinct not ready," answered the chairman. + +The next precinct cast its vote No, and the next precinct cast its vote +7 yes and 10 no and a poll was demanded and the vote was a tie. The +power of the name of Sands in Greeley county was working like a yeast. + +"Well, boys," whispered Mr. Brotherton to Morty as two townships were +passed while they were reballoting, "Well, boys--you sure have played +hell." He was mopping his red brow, and to a look of inquiry from Morty +Mr. Brotherton explained: "You've beaten the Judge. They all think that +it's your father's idea to knife him, and the foremen of the mines who +are running these county delegations and the South Harvey contingent are +changing their votes--that's how!" + +In another instant Morty Sands was on his feet. He stood on a seat above +the crowd, a slim, keen-faced, oldish figure. When he called upon the +chairman a hush fell over the crowd. When he began to speak he could +feel the eyes of the crowd boring into him. "I wish to state," he said +hesitatingly, then his courage came, "that my vote against this +resolution, was due entirely to the inferential endorsement of Judge +Thomas Van Dorn," this time the anti-Van Dorn roar was overwhelming, +deafening, "that the resolution contained." + +Another roar, it seemed to the Judge as from a pit of beasts, greeted +this period. "But I also wish to make it clear," continued the young +man, "that in this position I am representing only my own views. I have +not been instructed by my father how to cast this ballot. For you know +as well as I how he would vote." The roar from the anti-Van Dorn crowd +came back again, stronger than ever. The convention had put its own +interpretation upon his words. They knew he was merely making it plainer +that the old spider had caught Judge Van Dorn in the web, and for some +reason was sucking out his vitals. Morty sat down with the sense of duty +well done, and again Mr. Brotherton leaned over and whispered, "Well, +you did a good job--you put the trimmings on right--hello, we're going +to vote again." Again the young man jumped to his feet and cried amid +the noise, which sank almost instantly as they saw who was trying to +speak: "I tell you, gentlemen, that so far as I know my father is for +Judge Van Dorn," but the crowd only laughed, and it was evident that +they thought Morty was playing with them. As Morty Sands sat down Nathan +Perry rose and in his high, strong, wire-edged tenor cried: "Men, I'm +voting only myself. But when a man shows doghair as Judge Van Dorn +showed it to this convention in that question to Grant Adams--all hell +can't hold me to--" But the roar of the crowd drowned the close of the +sentence. The mob knew nothing of the light that had dawned in Nathan +Perry's heart. The crowd knew only that the son and the future +son-in-law of the old spider had turned on Van Dorn, and that he was +marked for slaughter so it proceeded with the butchering which gave it +great personal felicity. Men howled their real convictions and Tom Van +Dorn's universe tottered. He tried to speak, but was howled down. + +"Vote--vote, vote," they cried. The Fourth ward balloted again and the +vote stood "Yes, fifteen, no, twelve," and the proud face of the suave +Judge Van Dorn turned white with rage, and the red scar flickered like +lightning across his forehead. The voting could not proceed. For men +were running about the room, and Joseph Calvin was hovering over the +South Harvey delegation like a buzzard. Morty Sands suspected Calvin's +mission. The young man rose and ran to Dr. Nesbit and whispered: +"Doctor, Nate's got seven hundred dollars in the bank--see what Calvin +is doing? I can get it up here in three minutes. Can you use it to +help?" + +The Doctor ran his hand over his graying pompadour and smiled and shook +his head. In the din he leaned over and piped. "Touch not, taste not, +handle not, Morty--I've sworn off. Teetotler," he laughed excitedly. +Young Sands saw a bill flash in Mr. Calvin's hands and disappear in Dick +Bowman's pockets. + +"No law against it," chirped the Doctor, "except God Almighty's, and He +has no jurisdiction in Judge Tom's district." + +As they stood watching Calvin peddle his bills the convention saw what +he was doing. A fear seized the decent men in the convention that all +who voted for Van Dorn would be suspected of receiving bribes. The +balloting proceeded. In five minutes the roll call was finished. Then +before the result was announced George Brotherton was on his feet +saying, "The Fourth ward desires to change her vote," and while +Brotherton was announcing the complete desertion of the Fourth ward +delegation, Judge Van Dorn left the hall. Men in mob are cruel and mad, +and the pack howled at the vain man as he slunk through the crowd to the +door. + +After that, delegation after delegation changed its vote and before the +result was announced Mr. Calvin withdrew his motion, and the spent +convention only grunted its approval. Then it was that Mugs Bowman +crowded into the room and handed Nathan Perry this note scrawled on +brown butcher's paper in a hand he knew. "I have this moment learned +that you are a delegate and must take a public stand. Don't let a word I +have said influence you. I stand by you whatever you do. Use your own +judgment; follow your conscience and 'with God be the rest.'" "A. S." + +Nathan Perry folded the note, and as he put it in his vest pocket he +felt the proud beat of his heart. Fifteen minutes later when the +convention adjourned for noon, Nathan and Morty Sands ran plumb into +Thomas Van Dorn, sitting in the back room of the bank, wet eyed and +blubbering. The Judge was slumped over the big, shining table, his jaws +trembling, his hands fumbling the ink stands and paper weights. His eyes +were staring and nervous, and beside him a whiskey bottle and glass told +their story. The man rose, holding the table, and shrieked: + +"You damned little fice dog, you--" this to Morty, "you--you--" Morty +dashed around the table toward the Judge, but before he could reach the +man to strike, the Judge was moving his jaws impotently, and grasping +the thin air. His mouth foamed as he fell and he lay, a shivering, +white-eyed horror, upon the floor. The bank clerks lifted the figure to +a leather couch, and some one summoned Doctor Nesbit. + +The Doctor saw the whiskey bottle half emptied and saw the white faced, +prostrate figure. The Doctor sent the clerks from the room as he worked +with the unconscious man, and piped to Morty as he worked, "Nothing +serious--heat--temper, whiskey--and vanity and vexation of spirit; +'vanity of vanities--all is vanity--saith the preacher.'" Morty and +Nathan left the room as the man's eyes opened and the Doctor with a +woman's tenderness brought the wretched, broken, shattered bundle of +pride back to consciousness. + +For years this became George Brotherton's favorite story. He first told +it to Henry Fenn thus: + +"Say, Henry, lemme tell you about old man Sands. He come in here the day +after he got back from Chicago to wrestle with me for letting Morty vote +against Tom. Well--say--I'm right here to tell you that was some do--all +right, all right! You know he thought I got Morty and Nate to vote that +way and the old spider came hopping in here like a granddaddy long-legs +and the way he let out on your humble--well, say--say! Holler--you'd +orto heard him holler! Just spat pizen--wow! and as for me who'd got the +lad into the trouble--as for me," Mr. Brotherton paused, folded his hand +over his expansive abdomen and sighed deeply, as one who recalls an +experience too deep for language. "Well, say--I tried to tell him I +didn't have anything to do with it, but he was wound up with an +eight-day spring! I knew it was no use to talk sense to him while he was +batting his lights at me like a drunk switchman on a dark night, but +when he was clean run down I leans over the counter and says as polite +as a pollywog, 'Most kind and noble duke,' says I, 'you touch me deeply +by your humptious words!' says I, 'let me assure you, your kind and +generous sentiments will never be erased from the tablets of my most +grateful memory'--just that way. + +"Well, say--" and here Mr. Brotherton let out his laugh that came down +like the cataract at Ladore, "pretty soon Morty sails in fresh as a +daisy and asks: + +"'Father been in here?' + +"'Check one father,' says I. + +"'Raising hell?' he asks. + +"'Check one hell,' says I. + +"'Well, sir,' says he, 'I'm exceedingly sorry.' + +"'One sorrow check,' says I. + +"'Sincerely and truly sorry, George,' he repeats and 'Two sorrows +check,' I repeats and he goes on: 'Look here, George, I know father, and +until I can get the truth into him, which won't be for a week or two, I +suppose he may try to ruin you!' + +"'Check one interesting ruin,' says I. + +"But he brought down his hand on the new case till I shuddered for the +glass, and well, say--what do you think that boy done? He pulls out a +roll of money big enough to choke a cow and puts it on the case and +says: 'I sold my launch and drew every dollar I had out of the bank +before father got home. Here, take it; you may need it in your business +until father calms down.' + +"Wasn't that white! I couldn't get him to put the roll back and along +comes Cap Morton, and when I wouldn't take it the old man glued on to +him, and I'm a goat if Morty didn't lend it to the Captain, with the +understanding I could have it any time inside of six months, and the +Captain could use it afterward. That's where the Captain got his money +to build his shop." + +It cost Daniel Sands five thousand dollars in hard earned money, not +that he earned the money, but it was hard-earned nevertheless, to undo +the work of that convention, and nominate and elect Thomas Van Dorn +district Judge upon an independent ticket. And even when the work was +done, the emptiness of the honor did not convince the Judge that this is +not a material world. He hugged the empty honor to his heart and made a +vast pretense that it was real. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +BEING NOT A CHAPTER BUT AN INTERLUDE + + +Here and now this story must pause for a moment. It has come far from +the sunshine and prairie grass where it started. Tall elm trees have +grown from the saplings that were stuck in the sod thirty years before, +and they limit the vision. No longer can one see over the town across +the roofs of Market Street into the prairie. No longer even can one see +from Harvey the painted sky at night that marks South Harvey and the +industrial towns of the Wahoo Valley. Harvey is shut in; we all are +sometimes by our comforts. The dreams of the pioneers that haloed the +heads of those who came to Harvey in those first days--those dreams are +gone. Here and there one is trapped in brick or wood or stone or iron; +and another glows in a child or walks the weary ways of man as a custom +or an institution or as a law that brought only a part of the blessings +which it promised. + +And the equality of opportunity for which these pioneers crossed the +Mississippi and came into the prairie uplands of the West--where is that +evanescent spirit? Certainly it touched Daniel Sands's shoulder and he +followed it; it beckoned Dr. Nesbit and he followed it a part of the +journey. Surely Kyle Perry saw it for years, and Captain Morton was +destined to find it, gorgeous and iridescent. Amos Adams might have had +it for the asking, but he sought it only for others. It never came to +Dooley and Hogan, and Williams and Bowman and those who went into the +Valley. Did it die, one may ask; or did it vanish like a prairie stream +under the sand to flow on subterranean and appear again strong, purified +and refreshed, a powerful current to carry mankind forward? The world +that was in the flux of dreams that day when Harvey began, had hardened +to reality thirty years after. Men were going their appointed ways +working out in circumstances the equation of their life's philosophy. + +And now while the story waits, we may well look at three pictures. They +do not speed the narrative; they hardly point morals to adorn this tale. +But they may show us how living a creed consistently colors one's life. +For after all the realities of life are from within. Events, +environment, fortune good or bad do not color life, or give it richness +and form and value. But in living a creed one makes his picture. So let +us look at Thomas Van Dorn, who boasted that he could beat God at his +own game, and did. For all that he wanted came to him, wealth and fame +and power, and the women he desired. + +Judge and Mrs. Van Dorn and her dog are riding by in their smart rubber +tired trap, behind a highly checked horse and with the dog between them. +They are not talking. The man is looking at his gloved hands, at the +horse, at the street,--where occasionally he bows and smiles and never +by any chance misses bowing and smiling to any woman who might be +passing. His wife, dressed stiffly and smartly, is looking straight +ahead, with as weary a face as that of the Hungarian Spitz beside her. +Time, in the Temple of Love on the hill has not worn her bloom off; it +is all there--and more; but the additional bloom, the artificial bloom, +is visible. When she smiles, as she sometimes smiles at the men friends +of the Judge who greet the pair, it is an elaborately mechanical smile, +with a distinct beginning, climax, and ending. Some way it fails to +convince one that she has any pleasure in it. The smile still is +beautiful, exceedingly beautiful--but only as a picture. When the smile +is garnished with words the voice is low and musical--but too low and +too obviously musical. It does not reveal the soul of Margaret Van +Dorn--the soul that glowed in the girl who came to Prospect Township +fifteen years before, with banners flying to lay siege to Harvey. The +soul that glowed through those wonderful eyes upon Henry Fenn--where is +it? She has not been crossed in any desire of her life. She has enjoyed +every form of pleasure that money could buy for her; she is delving into +books that make the wrinkles come between her eyebrows, and is rubbing +the wrinkles out and the ideas from the books as fast as they come. She +is droning a formula for happiness, learned of the books that make her +head ache, and is repeating over and over, "God is good, and I am God," +as one who would plaster truth upon his consciousness by the mere +repetition of it. But the truth does not help her. So she sits beside +her husband, a wax work figure of a woman, and he seems to treat her as +a wax figure. For he is clearly occupied with his own affairs. + +When he is not bowing and smiling, a sneer is on his face. And when he +speaks to the horse his voice is harsh and mean. He holds an unlighted +cigar in his mouth as a terrier might hold a loathed rat; working the +muscles of his lips at times viciously but saying nothing. The soft, +black hat of his youthful days is replaced by a high, stiff, squarely +sawed felt hat which he imagines gives him great dignity. His clothes +have become so painfully scrupulous in their exact conformation to the +mode that he looks wooden. He has given so much thought to the subject +of "wherewithal shall ye be clothed," that the thought in some queer +spiritual curdling has appeared in the unyielding texture of his +artificial tailored skin, that seems to be a part of another +consciousness than his own. + +Moreover, those first days he spent after the convention have chipped +the suavity from his countenance, and have written upon the bland, +complacent face all the cynicism of his nature. Triumph makes cynicism +arrogant, so the man is losing his mask. His nature is leering out of +his eyes, snarling out of his mouth, and where the little, lean lines +have pared away the flesh from his nose, a greedy, self-seeking pride is +peering from behind a great masterful nose. Thomas Van Dorn should be in +the adolescence of maturity; but he is in the old age of adolescence. +His skin has no longer the soft olive texture of youth; it is brown and +mottled and leathery. His lips--his lips once full and red, are pursing +and leadening. + +Thus the pair go through the May twilight; and when the electric lights +begin to flash out at the corners, thus the Van Dorns ride before the +big black mass of the temple of love that looms among the young trees +upon the lawn. The woman alights from the trap. She pauses a moment upon +the stone block at the curbing. The man makes no sign of moving. She +takes the dog from the seat, and puts it on the ground. The man gathers +the reins tightly in his hands, then drops them again, lights his cigar, +and says behind his hands: "I'm going back downtown." + +"Oh, you are?" echoes the woman. + +"Yes, I am," replies the man sharply. + +The woman is walking up the wide parking, with the dog. She makes no +reply. The man looks at her a second or two, and drives away, cutting +the horse to a mad speed as he rounds the corner. + +Through the wide doors into the broad hall, up the grand staircase, +through the luxurious rooms goes the high Priestess of the Temple of +Love. It is a lonely house. For it is still in a state of social siege. +So far as Harvey is concerned, no one has entered it. So they live +rather quiet lives. + +On that May evening the mistress of the great house sits in her bed room +by the mild electric, trying book after book, and putting each down in +disgust. Philosophy fails to hold her attention--poetry annoys her; +fiction--the book of the moment, which happened to be "The Damnation of +Theron Ware," makes her wince, and so she reaches under the reading +stand, and brings out from the bottom of a pile of magazines a salacious +novel filled with stories of illicit amours. This she reads until her +cheeks burn and her lips grow dry and she hears the roll of a buggy down +the street, and knows that it must be nearly midnight and that her mate +is coming. She slips the book back into its place of concealment, picks +up "The Harmonious Universe," and walks with some show of grandeur in +her trailing garments down the stairs to greet her lord. + +"You up?" he asks. He glances at the book and continues: "Reading that +damn trash? Why don't you read Browning or Thackeray or--if you want +philosophy Emerson or Carlyle? That's rot." + +He puts what scorn he can into the word rot, and in her sweetest, +falsest, baby voice the woman answers: + +"My soul craves communion with the infinite and would seek the deeper +harmonies. I just love to wander the wide wastes between the worlds like +I've been doing to-night." + +The man grabs the book from her, and finding her finger in a place far +beyond the end of the cut leaves, he looks at her, and sneers a profane +sneer and passes up the stairs. She stares after him as he slowly +mounts, without joy in his tread, and she follows him lightly as he goes +to his room. She pauses before the closed door for a lonely moment and +then sighs and goes her way. She mumbles, "God is good and I am God," +many times to herself, but she lies down to sleep wondering whimperingly +in a half-doze if Pelleas and Melisande found things so dreadfully +disillusioning after all they suffered for love and for each other. As a +footnote to this picture may we not ask: + +Is the thing called love worth having at the cost of character? The +trouble with the poets is that they take their ladies and gentlemen of +pliable virtue and uncertain rectitude, only to the altar. One may ask +with some degree of propriety if the duplicity they practiced, the lying +they did and justified by the sacredness of their passion, the crimes +they committed and the meannesses they went through to attain their ends +were after all worth while. Also one may ask if the characters they +made--or perhaps only revealed, were not such as to make them wholly +miserable when they began to "live happily ever after"? A symposium +entitled "Is Love Really Worth It?" by such distinguished characters as +Helen of Troy, Mrs. Potiphar and Cleopatra, might be improving reading, +if the ladies were capable of telling the truth after lives of +dissimulation and deceit. + +But let us leave philosophy and look at another picture. This time we +have the Morton family. + +The Captain's feet are upon the shining fender. There is no fire in the +stove. It is May. But it is the Captain's habit to warm his feet there +when he is in the house at night, and he never fails to put them upon +the fender and go through his evening routine. First it is his paper; +then it is his feet; then it is his apple, and finally a formal +discussion of what they will have for breakfast, with the Captain always +voting for hash, and declaring that there are potatoes enough left over +and meat enough unused to make hash enough for a regiment. But before he +gets to the hash question, the Captain this evening leads off with this: + +"Curious thing about spring." The world of education, reading its +examination papers, concurs in silence. The worlds of fashion and of the +fine arts also assenting, the Captain goes on: "Down in South Harvey +to-day; kind o' dirty down there; looks kind of smoky and tin cannery, +and woe-begone, like that class of people always looks, but 'y gory, +girls, it's just as much spring down there as it is up here, only more +so! eh? I says to Laura, looking like a full bloom peach tree herself in +her kindergarten, says I, 'Laura, it's terrible pretty down here when +you get under the smoke and the dirt. Every one just a lovin',' says I, +'and going galloping into life kind of regardless. There's Nate and +Anne, and there's Violet and Hogan, and there's a whole mess of fresh +married couples in Little Italy, and the Huns and Belgians are all broke +out with the blamedest dose of love y' ever see! And they's whole rafts +of 'em to be married before June!' Well, Laura, she laughed and if it +wasn't like pouring spring itself out of a jug. Spring," he mused, +"ain't it curious about spring!" + +Champing his apple the Captain gesticulates slowly with his open pocket +knife, "Love"--he reflects; then backs away from his discussion and +begins anew: "Less take--say Anne and Nate, a happy couple--him a lean, +eagle-beaked New England kind of a man; her--a little quick-gaited, +big-eyed woman and sping! out of the Providence of Goddlemighty comes a +streak of some kind of creepy, fuzzy lightning and they're struck dumb +and blind and plumb crazy--eh?" + +He champs for a time on the apple, "Eighteen sixty-one--May, +sixty-one--me a tidy looking young buck--girl--beautiful girl with +reddish brown hair and bluest eyes in the world. Sping! comes the +lightning, and melts us together and the whole universe goes pink and +rose-colored. No sense--neither of us--no more'n Anne and Nate, just one +idea. I can't think of nothing but her--war isn't much; shackles on four +millions slaves--no consequence; the Colonel caught us kissing in his +tent the day I left for the army; union forever--mere circumstance in +the lives of two crazy people--in a world mostly eyes and lips and soft +hands and whispers and flowers, eh--and--" The Captain does not finish +his sentence. + +He rises, puts his apple core on the table, and says after a great sigh: +"And so we bloomed and blossomed and come to fruit and dried up and +blowed away, and here they are--all the rest of 'em--ready to bloom--and +may God help 'em and keep 'em." He pauses, "Help 'em and keep 'em and +when they have dried up and blowed away--let 'em remember the perfume +clean to the end!" He turns away from the girls, wipes his eyes with his +gnarled fingers, and after clearing his throat says: "Well, girls, how +about hash for breakfast--what say?" + +The wheels of the Judge's buggy grate upon the curbing nearby and the +Captain remarks: "Judge Tom gets in a little later every night now. I +heard him dump her in at eight, and here it is nearly eleven--pretty +careless,--pretty careless; he oughtn't to be getting in this late for +four or five years yet--what say?" Public opinion again is divided. +Fashion and the fine arts hold that it is Margaret's fault and that she +is growing to be too much of a poseur; but the schools, which are the +bulwarks of our liberties, maintain that he is just as bad as she. And +what is more to the point--such is the contention of the eldest Miss +Morton of the fourth grade in the Lincoln school, he has driven around +to the school twice this spring to take little Lila out riding, and even +though her mother has told the teachers to let the child go if she cared +to, the little girl would not go and he was mean to the principal and +insolent, though Heaven knows it is not the principal's fault, and if +the janitor hadn't been standing right there--but it really makes little +difference what would have happened; for the janitor in every school +building, as every one knows, is a fierce and awesome creature who keeps +more dreadful things from happening that never would have happened than +any other single agency in the world. + +The point which the eldest Miss Morton was accenting was this, that he +should have thought of Lila before he got his divorce. + +Now the worlds of fashion and the fine arts and the schools themselves, +bulwarks that they are, do not realize how keenly a proud man's heart +must be touched if day by day he meets the little girl upon the street, +sees her growing out of babyhood into childhood, a sweet, bright, +lovable child, and he yearns for something sincere, something that has +no poses, something that will love him for himself. So he swallows a +lump of pride as large as his handsome head, and drives to the school +house to see his child--and is denied. In the Captain's household they +do not know what that means. For in the Captain's household which +includes a six room house--not counting the new white painted bathroom, +the joint product of the toil of the handsome Miss Morton and the eldest +Miss Morton, and not counting the basket for the kitten christened +Epaminondas, and maintained by the youngest Miss Morton over family +protests--in the Captain's household there is peace and joy, if one +excepts the numbing fear of a "step" that sometimes prostrates the +eldest Miss Morton and her handsome sister; a fear that shelters their +father against the wily designs of their sex upon a meek and defenseless +and rather obliging gentleman. So they cannot put themselves in the +place of the rich and powerful neighbors next door. The Mortons hear the +thorns crackling under the pot, but they cannot appreciate the heat. + +And now we come to the last picture. + +It is still an evening in May! + +"Well, how is the missionary to South Harvey," chirrups the Doctor as he +mounts the steps, and sees his daughter, waiting for him on the veranda. +She looks cool and fresh and beautiful. Her eyes and her skin glow with +health and her face beams upon him out of a soul at peace. + +"She's all right," returns the daughter, smiling. "How's the khedive of +Greeley county?" + +As the Doctor mounts the steps she continues: "Sit down, father--I've +something on my mind." To her father's inquiring face she replied, "It's +Lila. Her father has been after her again. She just came home crying as +though her little heart would break. It's so pitiful--she loves him; +that is left over from her babyhood; but she is learning +someway--perhaps from the children, perhaps from life--what he has +done--and when he tries to attract her--she shrinks away from him." + +"And he knows why--he knows why, Laura." The Doctor taps the floor +softly with his cane. "It isn't all gone--Tom's heart, I mean. +Somewhere deep in his consciousness he is hungering for affection--for +respect--for understanding. You haven't seen Tom's eyes recently?" The +daughter makes no reply. "I have," he continues. "They're burned +out--kind of glassy--scummed over with the searing of the hell he +carries in his heart--like the girls' eyes down in the Row. For he is +dying at the heart--burning out with everything he has asked for in his +hands, yet turning to Lila!" + +"Father," she says with her eyes brimming, "I'm not angry with Tom--only +sorry. He hasn't hurt me--much--when it's all figured out. I still have +my faith--my faith in folks--and in God! Really to take away one's faith +is the only wrong one can do to another!" + +The father says, "The chief wrong he did you was when he married you. It +was nobody's fault; I might have stopped it--but no man can be sure of +those things. It was just one of the inevitable mistakes of youth, my +dear, that come into our lives, one way or another. They fall upon the +just and the unjust--without any reference to deserts." + +She nods her assent and they sit listening to the sounds of the closing +day--to the vesper bell in the Valley, to the hum of the trolley +bringing its homecomers up from the town; to the drone of the five +o'clock whistles in South Harvey, to the rattle of homebound buggies. +Twice the daughter starts to speak. The second time she stops the Doctor +pipes up, "Let it come--out with it--tell your daddy if anything is on +your mind." She smiles up into his mobile face, to find only sympathy +there. So she speaks, but she speaks hesitatingly. + +"I believe that I am going to be happy--really and truly happy!" She +does not smile but looks seriously at her father as she presses his hand +and pats it. "I am finding my place--doing my work--creating +something--not the home that I once hoped for--not the home that I would +have now, but it is something good and worth while. It is self respect +in me and self respect in those wives and mothers and children in South +Harvey. All over the place I find its roots--the shrivelled parching +roots of self-respect, and the aspiration that grows with self respect. +Sometimes I see it in a geranium flowering in a tomato can, set in a +window; oftentimes in a cheap lace curtain; occasionally in a +struggling, stunted yellow rose bush in the hard-beaten earth of a +dooryard; or in a second hand wheezy cabinet organ in some front +bedroom--in a thousand little signs of aspiration, I find America +asserting itself among these poor people, and as I cherish these things +I find happiness asserting itself in my life. So it's my job, my +consecrated job in this earth--to water the geranium, to prune the rose, +to mulch the roots of self-respect among these people, and I am happy, +father, happier every day that I walk that way." + +She looks wistfully into her father's face. "Father, you won't quite +understand me when I tell you that the tomato cans with their geraniums +behind those gray lace curtains, that make Harvey people smile, are +really not tomato cans at all. They are social dynamite bombs that one +day will blow into splinters and rubbish the injustices, the cruel +injustices of life that the poor suffer at the hands of their +exploiters. The geranium is the flower, the spring flower of the divine +discontent, which some day shall bear great and wonderful fruit." + +"Rather a swift pace you're setting for a fat man, Laura," pipes the +Doctor, adding earnestly: "There you go talking like Grant Adams! Don't +let Grant Adams fool you, child: the end of the world isn't here. +Grant's a good boy, Laura, and I like him; but he's getting a kind of +Millerite notion that we're about to put on white robes and go straight +up to glory, politically and socially and every which way, in a few +years, and there's nothing to it. Grant's a good son, and a good +brother, and a good friend and neighbor, but"--the Doctor pounds his +chair arm vehemently, "there are bats, my dear, bats in his belfry just +the same. Don't get excited when you see Grant mount his haystack to +jump into the crack o' doom for the established order!" + +The daughter smiles at him, but she answers: + +"Perhaps Grant is touched--touched with the mad impatience of God's +fools, father. I don't always follow Grant. He goes his way and I go +mine. But I am sure of this, that the thing which will really start +South Harvey, and all the South Harveys in the world out of their dirt +and misery, and vice, is not our dreams for them, but their dreams for +themselves. They must see the vision. They must aspire. They must feel +the impulse to sacrifice greatly, to consecrate themselves deeply, to +give and give and give of themselves that their children may know better +things. And it is my work to arouse their dreams, to inspire their +visions, to make them yearn for better living. I am trying to teach them +to use and to love beautiful things, that they may be restless among +ugly things. I think beauty only serves God as the handmaiden of +discontent! And, father, way down deep in my heart--I know--I know +surely that I must do this--that it is my reason for being--now that +life has taken the greater joy of home from me. So," she concludes +solemnly; "these people whom I love, they need me, but father, God and +you only know how I need them. I don't know about Grant,--I mean why he +is going his solitary way, but perhaps somewhere in his heart there is a +wound! Perhaps all of God's fools--those who live queer, unnormal +self-forgetting lives, are the broken and rejected pieces of life's +masonry which the builder is using in his own wise way. As for the plan, +it is not ours. Grant and I, broken spawl in the rising edifice, we and +thousands like us, odd pieces that chink in yet hold the strain--we must +be content to hold the load and know always--always know that after all +the wall is rising! That is enough." + +And now we must put aside the pictures and get on with the story. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +GRANT ADAMS PREACHING A MESSAGE OF LOVE RAISES THE VERY DEVIL IN HARVEY + + +The most dramatic agency in life is time--time that escapes the staged +drama. The passing years, the ceaseless chiselling of continuous events +upon a soul, the reaction of a creed upon the material routine of the +days, the humdrum living through of life that brings to it its final +color and form--these things shape us and guide us, make us what we are, +and alas, the story and the stage may only mention them. It is all very +fine to say that as the years of work and aspiration passed, Grant +Adams's channel of life grew narrower. But what does that tell? Does it +tell of the slow, daily sculpturing upon his character of the three big, +emotional episodes of his life? To be a father in boyhood, a father +ashamed, yet in duty bound to love and cherish his child; to face death +in youth horribly and escape only when other men's courage save him; to +react upon that experience in a great spiritual awakening that all but +touched madness; and to face unspeakable pain and terror and possible +death to justify one's fanatic consecration. Then day by day to renounce +ambition, to feel no desire for those deeper things of the heart that +gather about a home and the joys of a home; to be atrophied where others +are quick and to be supersensitive and highstrung where others are dull; +these are facts of Grant Adams's life, but the greater facts are hidden; +for they pass under the slow and inexorably moving current of life. They +are that part of the living through of life that may not be staged nor +told. + +But something of the living through is marked on the man. Here he stands +toward the close of the century that bore him--a tall, spare, +red-haired, flint-visaged, wire-knit man, prematurely middle-aging in +late youth. Under his high white forehead are restless blue eyes--deep, +clear, challenging, combative blue eyes, a big nose protrudes from under +the eyes that marks a willful, uncompromising creature and a big strong +mouth, not finely cut, but with thick, hard lips, often chapped, that +cover large irregular teeth. The face is determined and dogged--almost +brutal sometimes when at rest; but when a smile lights it, a charm and +grace from another being illumines the solemn countenance and Grant +Adams's heart is revealed. The face is Puritan--all Adams, dour New +England Adams, and the smile Irish--from the joyous life of Mary Sands. + +We may only see the face: here and there on it is the mark of the +sculptor's tool: now and then a glare or a smile reveals what deep +creases and gashes the winds of the passing years have made in the soul +behind the mask. Here and there, as a rising strident voice in +passionate exhortation lifts, we may hear the roar of the narrowing +channel into which his life is rushed with augmented force as he hurries +forward into his destiny. In that tumult, family, home, ambition, his +very child itself that was his first deep wellspring of love, are +slipping from him into the torrent. The flood washes about him; his one +idea dominates him. He is restless under it--restless even with the +employment of the hour. The unions, for which he has been working for +more than half a decade, do not satisfy him. His aim is perfection and +mortality irritates him, but does not discourage him. For even vanity is +slipping from him in the erosion of the waters rushing down their +narrowing groove. + +But it is only his grim flint face we see; only his high strident, but +often melodiously sympathetic voice we hear; only his wiry, lank body +with its stump of a right arm that stands before us. The minutes--awful +minutes some of them--the hours, painful wrestling hours, the days, +doubt-ridden days, and the long monotonous story of the years, we may +not know. For the living through of life still escapes us, and only +life's tableau of the moment is before us. + + * * * * * + +Now whatever gloss of gayety Dr. Nesbit might put upon his opinion of +Grant Adams and his work in the world, it was evident that the Doctor's +opinion of that work was not high. But it was comparatively high; for +Harvey's opinion of Grant Adams and his work was abysmal in its depth. +He was running his life on a different motor from the motor which moved +Harvey; the town was moving after a centripetal force--every one was for +himself, and the devil was entitled to the hindermost. Grant Adams was +centrifugal; he was not considering himself particularly and was +shamelessly taking heed of the hindermost which was the devil's by +right. And so men said in their hearts, if this man wins, there will be +the devil to pay. For Grant was going about the district spreading +discontent. He was calling attention to the violation of the laws in the +mines; he was calling attention to the need of other laws to further +protect the miners and smelter men. He was going about from town to town +in the Valley building up the unions and urging the men to demand more +wages, either in actual money or in shorter hours, improved labor +conditions, and cheaper rent and better houses from the company which +housed the families of the workers. + +"Why," he asked, "should labor bear the burden of industry and take its +leavings?" + +"Why," he demanded, "should capital toil not nor spin and be clothed as +Solomon in his glory?" + +"Why," he argued, "should the profits of toil be used to buy more tools +for toil and not more comforts for toil?" + +"Why, why--" he challenged Market Street, "is the partnership of +society, not a partnership, but a conspiracy?" + +Now Market Street had long been wrathful at that persistent Why. + +But when it became known that John Dexter had invited Grant Adams to +occupy the pulpit of the Congregational Church one Sunday evening to +state his case, Market Street's wrath choked it. For several years John +Dexter had been preaching sermons that made the choir the only possible +theme of conversation between him and Ahab Wright. John Dexter had been +crucified a thousand times by the sordid greed of man in Harvey, and had +cried out in the wilderness of his pulpit against it; but his cries fell +upon deaf ears, or in dumb hearts. + +The invitation to Grant to speak at John Dexter's Sunday evening service +was more of a challenge to Harvey than Harvey comprehended. But even if +the town did not entirely realize the seriousness of the challenge, at +least the minister found himself summoned by Market Street to a meeting +to discuss the wisdom of his invitation. Whereupon John Dexter accepted +the invitation and, girding up his loins, went as a strong man rejoicing +to run a race. + +To what a judgment seat they summoned John Dexter! First, up spake +Commerce. "Dr. Dexter," said Commerce--Commerce always referred to John +Dexter as Doctor, though no Doctor was he and he knew it well, "Dr. +Dexter, we feel that your encouragement--hum--uhm--well, your patronage +of this man Adams, in his--well, shall we say incendiary--" a harsh word +is incendiary, so Commerce stopped and touched its graying side whiskers +reverently and patted its immaculate white necktie, and then went on: +"--well perhaps indiscreet will do!" With Commerce indeed there is no +vast difference between the indiscreet and the incendiary. "--indiscreet +agitation against the--well--uhm--the way we have to conduct business, +is--is regrettable,--at least regrettable!" + +"Why?" interrupted John Dexter sharply, throwing Commerce sadly out of +balance. But the Law, which is the palladium of our liberties, answered +for Commerce in a slow snarling, "because he is preaching discontent." + +"But Mr. Calvin," returned John Dexter quickly, "if any one would come +to town preaching discontent to Wright & Perry, showing them how to make +more money, to enlarge their profits, to rise among their fellow +merchants--would you refuse to give him audience in a pulpit?" The Law +did not deign to answer the preacher and then Industry took heart to +say, pulling its military goatee vigorously, and clearing its dear old +throat for a passage at arms: "'Y gory man, there's always been a +working class and they've always had to work like sixty and get the +worst of it, I guess, and they always will--what say? You can't improve +on the way the world is made. And when she's made, she's made--what say? +I tell you now, you're wasting your time on that class of people." + +The antagonists looked into each other's kindly eyes. Industry +triumphing in its logic, the minister hunting in his heart for the soft +answer that would refute the logic without hurting its author. +"Captain," he said, "there was once a wiser than we who went about +preaching a new order, spreading discontent with injustice, whose very +mother was of the lowest industrial class." + +"Yes--and you know what happened to Him," sneered the Courts, which are +the keystones of government in the structure of civilization. "And," +continued the Courts, in a grand and superior voice, "you can't drag +business into religion, sir. Religion is one thing and I respect +it,"--titters from the listening angels, "--and business is another +thing, and we think, sir, that you are trying to mix the insoluble, and +as business men who have our own deep religious convictions--" inaudible +guffaws from the angels, "--we feel the sacrilege of asking this +blatherskite Adams to speak on any subject in so sacred a place as our +consecrated pulpit, sir." Hoarse hoots from the angels. + +No soft benignity beamed in the preacher's face as he turned to the +Courts. "My pulpit, Judge," answered John Dexter sternly, "first of all +stands for the gospel of Justice between man and man. It will afford +sanctuary for the thief and the Magdalene, but only the penitent thief +and the weeping Magdalene!" And John Dexter brought down a resounding +fist on the table before him. "I believe that the first duty of religion +is to preach shame on the wicked, that they may quit their wickedness, +and if," John Dexter's voice rose as he went on, "in the light of our +widening intelligence we see that employers are organized wickedly to +rob their workers of justice in one way or another, I stand with those +who would make the thief disgorge for his own soul's sake, incidentally, +but chiefly that justice may come into an evil world and men may not +mock the mercy and goodness of God by pointing at the evil men do +unrebuked in His name, and under His servants' noses. My pulpit is a +free pulpit, sir. When it is not that, I shall leave it. And even though +I do not agree sometimes with a man's message, so long as my pulpit is +free, any man who desires to cry stop thief, in the darkness of this +world, may lift his voice there, and no man shall say him nay! Have you +gentlemen anything further to offer?" + +Commerce ceased rubbing its hands. Its alter ego, Business, was +obviously getting ready to say something, but was only whistling for the +station, and the crowd knew it would be a minute before his stuttering +speech should arrive. Patriotism was leaning forward with its hands back +of its ears, smiling pleasantly at what he did not understand, and +Industry, who saw the strings in which his world was wrapped up for +delivery, cut, and the world sprawled in confusion before him by the +preacher's defiance, was pulling his military goatee solemnly when +Science toddled in, white-clad, pink-faced, smoking his short pipe and +clicking his cane rather more snappily than usual. He saw that he had +punctuated an embarrassed situation. Only Religion and Patriotism were +smiling. Science brought his cane down with a whack and piped out: + +"So you are going to muzzle John Dexter, are you--you witch-burning old +pharisees. I heard of your meeting, and I just thought I'd come around +to the bonfire! What are you trying to do here, anyway?" + +At last Business which had been whistling for the station was ready to +pull in; so it unloaded itself thus: "We are p-protesting, Doc, at +th-th-th-th m-m-m-man Adams--this l-l-labor sk-sk-skate and +s-s-socialist occupying J-J-John Dexter's p-pulp-p-pit!" + +Science looked at Business a grave moment, then burst out, "What are you +all afraid of! Here you are, a lot of grown men with fat bank accounts +sitting around in a blue funk because Grant Adams does a little more or +less objectionable talking. I don't agree with Grant much more than you +do. But you're a lot of old hens, cackling around here because Grant +Adams invades the roost to air his views. Let him talk. Let 'em all +talk. Talk is cheap; otherwise we wouldn't have free speech." He grinned +cynically as he asked, "Haven't you any faith in the Constitution of the +fathers? They were smart enough to know that free speech was a safety +valve; let 'em blow off. Then go down and organize and vote 'em +afterwards according to the dictates of your own conscience. Politics is +the antidote for free speech!" The Doctor glared at the Courts, smiled +amiably at Business and winked conspicuously at Religion. Religion +blushed at the blasphemy and as there seemed to be nothing further +before the house the Doctor and John Dexter left the room. + +But the honest indignation of Market Street that an agitator should +appear in a pulpit--that an agitator for anything, should appear in any +pulpit--waxed strong. For it was assumed that religion had nothing to do +with social conduct; religion was solely a matter of individual +salvation. Religion was a matter concerned entirely with getting to +heaven oneself, and not at all a matter of getting others to heaven +except as they took the narrow and individual path. The idea that +environment affects character and that society through politics and +social and economic institutions may change a man's environments and +thus affect the characters and the chances for Heaven of whole sections +of the population, was an idea which had not been absorbed by Market +Street in Harvey. So Market Street raged. + +That evening when Grant Adams returned from work he received two +significant notes. One was from John Dexter and ran: + +"Dear Grant: Fearing that you may hear of the comment my invitation to +you to speak in my pulpit is causing and fearing that you may either +decide at the last minute not to come or that you will modify your +remarks out of consideration for me, I write to say that while of course +I may not agree with everything you advocate, yet my pulpit is a free +pulpit and I cannot consent that you restrict its freedom in saying your +full say as a man, any more than I could consent to have my own freedom +restricted. Yours in the faith--J. D." + +The other note ran: "Father says to tell you to tone it down. I have +delivered his message. I say here is your chance to get the truth where +it is most needed, and even if for the most part it falls on stony +ground--you still must sow it.--L. N. VD." + +Sunday evening saw a large congregation in the pews of the Rev. John +Dexter's church. In the front and middle portion of the church were the +dwellers on the Hill, those whose lines fell in pleasant places. They +were the "Haves" of the town,--conspicuous and highly respectable with +rustle of silks and flutter of ribbons. + +And back of these sat a score of men and women from South Harvey, the +"Have-nots," the dwellers in the dreary valley. There was Denny Hogan, +late of the mines, but now of the smelter--with his curly hair plastered +over his forehead, and with his wife, she that was Violet Mauling +holding a two-year-old baby with sweaty, curly red hair to her breast +asleep; there was Ira Dooley, also late of the mines, but now proprietor +of a little game of chance over the Hot Dog Saloon; there was Pat +McCann, a pit boss and proud of it, with Mrs. McCann--looking her eyes +out at Mrs. Nesbit's hat. There was John Jones, in his Sunday best, and +Evan Hughes and Tom Williams, the wiry little Welsh miners who had faced +death with Grant Adams five years before. They were with him that night +at the church with all the pride in him that they could have if he were +one of the real nobility, instead of a labor agitator with a little more +than local reputation. And there were Dick and his boy Mugs and the +silent Mrs. Bowman and Bennie her youngest and Mary the next to the +youngest. And Mrs. Bowman in the South Harvey colony was a person of +consequence, for she nodded to the Nesbits and the Mortons and to Laura +and to Mrs. Calvin and to all the old settlers of Harvey--rather +conspicuously. She had the gratification of noting that South Harvey saw +the nobility nod back. With the South Harvey people came Amos Adams in +his rough gray clothes and rough gray beard. Jasper Adams, in the +highest possible collar, and in the gayest possible shell-pink necktie +and under the extremest clothes that it might be possible for the +superintendent of a Sunday School to wear, shared a hymnal, when the +congregation rose to sing, with the youngest Miss Morton. There were +those who thought the singing was merely a duet between young Mr. Adams +and the youngest Miss Morton--so much feeling did they put into the +music. Mr. Brotherton was so impressed, that he marked young Adams for a +tryout at the next funeral where there was a bass voice needed, making +the mental reservation that no one needed to look at the pimples of a +boy who could sing like that. + +When the congregation sat down after the first hymn John Dexter formally +presented Grant Adams to the congregation. The young man rose, walked to +the chancel rail and stood for a moment facing his audience without +speaking. The congregation saw a tall, strong featured, uncouth man with +large nose and a big mouth--clearly masculine and not finely chiselled. +In these features there was something almost coarse and earthy; but in +the man's eyes and forehead, there lurked the haunting, fleeting shadow +of the eternal feminine in his soul. His eyes were deep and blue and +tender, and in repose always seemed about to smile, while his forehead, +high and broad, topped by a shock of red hair, gave him a kind of +intellectual charity that made his whole countenance shine with +kindness. Yet his clothes belied the promise of his brow. They were +ill-fitting, with an air of Sunday-bestness that gave him an incongruous +scarecrow effect. It was easy to see why Market Street was beginning to +call him that "Mad Adams." As he lifted his glance from the floor, his +eyes met Laura Van Dorn's, then flitted away quickly, and the smile she +should have had for her own, he gave to his audience. He began speaking +with his arms behind him to hide the crippled arm which was tipped with +a gloved iron claw. His voice was low and gentle, yet his hearers felt +its strength in reserve. + +"I suppose," he began slowly, "every man has his job in the world, and I +presume my job seems rather an unnecessary one to some of my friends, +and I can hardly blame them. For the assumption of superiority that it +may seem to require upon the whole must be distasteful to them. For as a +professional apostle of discontent, urging men to cease the worship of +things as they are, I am taking on myself a grave burden--that of +leading those who come with me, into something better. In the end +perhaps, you will not be proud of me. For my vision may be a delusion. +Time may leave me naked to the cold truth of life, and I may awaken from +my dreaming to reality. That is possible. But now I see my course; now I +feel the deep call of a duty I cannot resist." He was speaking softly +and in hardly more than a conversational tone, with his hand at his side +and his gloved claw behind him. He lifted his hand and spoke in a deeper +tone. + +"I have come to you--to those of you who lead sheltered lives of +comfort, amid work and scenes you love, to tell you of your neighbors; +to call to you in their name, and in the name of our common God for +help. I have come from the poor--to tell you of their sorrows, to beg of +you to come over into Macedonia and help us; for without you we are +helpless. True--God knows how true--the poor outnumber you by ten to +one. True, they have the power within them to rise, but their strength +is as water in their hands. They need you. They need your neighborly +love." + +As he spoke something within him, some power of his voice or of his +presence played across the congregation like a wind. The wind which at +first touched a few who bent forward to hear him, was moving every one. +Faces gradually set in attention. He went on: + +"How wonderful is this spirit of life that has come rolling in through +the eons, rolling in from some vast illimitable sea of life that we call +God. For ages and ages on this planet life could only give to new life +the power to feed and propagate, could only pass on to new life the +heritage of instinct; then another impulse of the outer sea washed in +and there came a day when life could imitate, could learn a little, +could pass on to new life some slight power of growth. And then came +welling in from the unknown bourne another wave, and lo! life could +reason, and God heard men whisper, Father, and deep called unto deep. +Since then through the long centuries, through the gray ages, life +slowly has been rising, slowly coming in from the hidden sea that laves +the world. Millions and millions of men are doomed to know nothing of +this life that gives us joy; millions are held bound in a social +inheritance that keeps them struggling for food, over outworn paths, +mere creatures of primal instinct, whose Godhood is taken from them at +birth; by you--by you who get what you do not earn from those who earn +what they do not get." + +He turned to the group near the rear of the room, looked at them and +continued: + +"The poor need your neighborly sacrifice, and in that neighborly love +and sacrifice you will grow in stature more than they. What you give you +will keep; what you lose you will gain. The brotherhood you build up +will bless and comfort you. + +"The poor," he exclaimed passionately, "need you, but how, before God +you need them! For only a loving understanding of your neighbors' lives +will soften your calloused hearts. Long benumbing hours of grimy work, +sordid homes amid daily and hourly scenes of filth and shame!" He leaned +forward and cried: "Listen to me, Ahab Wright," and he thrust forward +his iron claw toward the merchant while the congregation gasped, "what +if you had to strip naked and bathe in a one-roomed hut before your +family every night when you came home, dirty and coal-stained from your +day's work! the beggar and the harlot and the thief nearby." He moved +his accusing claw and the startled eyes of the crowd followed it as it +pointed to Daniel Sands and Grant exclaimed: "Listen, Uncle Dan Sands, +how would you like to have your daughter see the things the children see +who live in your tenements next to the Burned District, which is your +property also! Poisoned food, cheap, poisoned air, cheap, poisoned +thoughts--all food and air and ideas, the cast-off refuse of your daily +lives who live in these sheltered homes. You have a splendid sewer +system up here; but it flows into South Harvey and the Valley towns, a +great open ravine, because you people sitting here who own the property +down there won't tax yourselves to enclose those sewers that poison us!" +A faint--rather dazed smile ran over the congregation like a wraith of +smoke. He felt that the smoke proved that he had struck fire. He went +on: "Love, great aspiring love of fathers and mothers and sisters and +brothers, love stifled by fell circumstance, by cruel events, and love +that winces in agony at seeing children and father and brother go down +in the muck all around them--that is the heritage of poverty. + +"Hear me, Kyle Perry and John Kollander. I know you think poverty is the +social punishment of the unfit. But I tell you poverty is not the +punishment of the weak. Poverty is a social condition to which millions +are doomed and from which only hundreds escape when the doom of birth is +sealed. What has Ahab Wright given to Harvey more than James McPherson, +who discovered coal here? What has Daniel Sands done for Harvey more +than Tom Williams, who has spent his life at hard work mining coal? Is +not his coal as valuable as Uncle Daniel's interest? Friends--think of +these things!" + +The wraith of smoke that had appeared when Grant first began speaking +personally to the men of Harvey, in a minute had grown to a surer +evidence of fire. The smiling ceased. Angry looks began flashing over +the faces before Grant, like darts of flame. And after these looks came +a great black cloud of wrath that was as perceptible as a gust of smoke. +He felt that soon the fire would burst forth. But he hurried on with his +message: "Poverty is not the social punishment of the weak, I repeat it. +Poverty is a social inheritance of the many, a condition which holds men +hard and fast--a condition that you may change, you who have so much. +All this coal and oil and mineral have profited you greatly, oh, men of +Harvey. You are rich, Daniel Sands. You are prosperous, Ahab Wright. You +have every comfort around you and yours, John Kollander, and you, Joseph +Calvin, are rearing your children in luxury compared with Dick Bowman's +children. Hasn't he worked as hard as you? Here are Ira Dooley and Denny +Hogan. They started as equals with you up here and have worked as hard +and have lived average lives. Yet if their share is a fair share of the +earnings of this community, you have an unfair share. How did you get +it?" He leaned out over the chancel rail, pointed a bony, accusing +finger at the congregation and glared at the eyes before him angrily. +Quickly he recovered his poise but brought his steel claw down on the +pulpit beside him with a sharp clash as he cried again, "How did you get +it?" + +Then it was that the flame of indignation burst forth. It came first in +a hiss and another and a third--then a crackling fire of hisses greeted +his last sentence. When the hissing calmed, his voice rose slightly. He +went on: + +"We of the middle classes--we have risen above the great mass below us: +we are permitted to learn--a little--to imitate and expand somewhat. But +above us, thank God, is another group in the social organization. Here +at the top stand the blessed, privileged few who are the world's +prophets and dreamers and seers--they know God; they drink deep of the +rising tide of everlasting life that is booming in, flooding the world +with mercy and love and brotherhood; and what they see in one +century--and die for disclosing--we all see in the next century and +fight to hold it fast!" He stood looking at the floor, then opened wide +his glaring eyes, a fanatic's mania blazing in them, lifted his arms and +cried with a great voice like a trumpet: "You--you--you who have known +God's mercy and his goodness and his love--why, in the dead Christ's +name do you sit here and let the flood of life be dammed away from your +brothers, stealing the waters of life like thieves from your brethren by +your cruel laws and customs and the chains of social circumstance!" + +They tried to hiss again but he hurried on as one possessed of a demon: +"A little love, a little sacrifice, a little practical brotherly care +from each of you each day would help. We don't want your alms, we want +justice. Thousands of babies--loved just as yours are loved--are +slaughtered every month through poisoned food that comes from commercial +greed. Thousands of fathers and brothers over this land are killed every +year because it is cheaper to kill them than to protect them by +machinery guarded and watched. Their blood is upon you--for by your +laws, by your middle class courts you could stop its flowing. Thousands +of mothers die every week from poor housing--you could stop that if you +would. They are stopping it by laws in other lands. Millions of girls +the world over are led like sheep to shameful lives because of +industrial conditions that your vote and voice could change; and yet," +his voice lost its accusing tone and he spoke gently, even tenderly, "as +babies they cuddled in their mothers' arms and roused all the hope and +inspired all the love that a soft little body may bring. Millions and +millions of mothers who clasp their children to them in hope, must see +those children go into life to be broken and crushed by the weight from +above." + +As Grant was speaking he noticed that Morty Sands was nodding his head +off in gorgeous approval. Then without thinking how his words might cut, +he cried, "And look at our good friend Morty Sands who enjoys every +luxury and is arrayed as the lilies of the field! What does Morty give +to society that he can promise the girl who marries him, comfort and +ease and all the happiness that physical affluence may bring? And then +there sits Mugs Bowman. What can Mugs offer his girl except a life of +hard, grinding work, a houseful of children and a death perhaps of slow +disease? Yet Mugs must have his houseful of children for they must all +work to support Morty. Where is the justice in a society organized like +this? + +"For Christ's living sake," cried the man as his face glowed in his +emotion, "let life wash in from its holy source to these our brothers. +Shame on you--you greedy ones, you dollar worshipers--you dam the +stream, you muddy the waters, you poison the well of +life--shame--shame!" he cried and then paused, gloated perhaps in his +pause, for the storm he saw gathering in the crowd, to break. His face +was transfigured by the passion in his heart and seemed illumined with +wrath. + +"The flag--the flag!" bawled deaf John Kollander, rising, "He is +desecrating Old Glory!" + +Then fire met fire and the conflagration was past control. It raged over +the church noisily. + +"Look-a here, young man," called Joseph Calvin, standing in his seat. + +"The flag--will no one defend the flag!" bellowed John Kollander, while +Rhoda, his wife, looked on with amiable approval. + +"P-put him out," stuttered Kyle Perry, and his clerks and understrappers +joined the clamor. + +"Well, say, men," cried George Brotherton in the confusion of hissing +and groaning, "can't you let the man talk? Is free speech dead in this +town?" His great voice silenced the crowd, and John Dexter was in the +pulpit holding out his hands. As he spoke the congregation grew silent, +and they heard him say: + +"This is a free pulpit; this man shall not be disturbed." But Joseph +Calvin stamped noisily out of the church. John Kollander and his wife +marched out behind him with military tread and Kyle Perry and Ahab +Wright with their families followed, amid a shuffling of feet and a +clamor of voices. The men from South Harvey kept their places. There was +a whispering among them and Grant, fearing that they would start +trouble, called to them sternly: + +"My friends must respect this house. Let property riot--poverty can +wait. It has waited a long time and is used to it." + +When Market Street was gone, the speaker drew a deep breath and said in +a low, quiet voice charged with pent-up emotion: "Now that we are alone, +friends,--now that they are gone whose hearts needed this message, let +me say just this: God has given you who live beautiful lives the keeping +of his treasure. Let us ask ourselves this: Shall we keep it to share it +with our brethren in love, or shall we guard it against our brethren in +hate?" + +He walked back to the rear of the room and sat, with his head bowed +down, beside his friends, spent and weary while the services closed. + +At the church door Laura Van Dorn saw the despair that was somewhat a +physical reaction from weariness. So she cut her way through the group +and went to him, taking his arm and drawing him aside into the homebound +walk, as quickly as she could. He remained grim and spoke only in answer +to challenge or question from Laura. It was plain to her that he felt +that his speech was a failure; that he had not made himself understood; +that he had overstated his case. She was not sure herself that he had +not lost more ground than he had gained in the town. But she wrapped him +about in a garment of kindness--an almost maternal tenderness that was +balm to his heart. She did not praise his speech but she let him know +that she was proud of him, that her heart was in all that he had said, +even if he felt definitely that there were places in his adventure where +her head was not ready to go. She held no check upon the words that came +to her lips, for she felt, even deeper and surer than she felt her own +remoteness from the love which her girlhood had known, that in him it +was forever dead. No touch of his hand; no look of his eye, no quality +of his voice had come to her since her childhood, in which she could +find trace or suggestion that sex was alive in him. The ardor that +burned so wildly upon his face, the fire in his eyes that glowed when he +spoke of his work and his problems, seemed to have charred within him +all flower and beauty of romance. But they left with him a hunger for +sympathy. A desire to be mothered and a longing for a deep and sweet +understanding which made Laura more and more necessary to him as he went +into his life's pilgrimage. As they reached a corner, he left her with +her family while he turned away for a night walk. + +As he walked, he was continually coming upon lovers passing or meeting +him in the night; and Grant seeing them felt his sense of isolation from +life renewed, but was not stirred to change his course. For hours he +wandered through the town and out of it into the prairies, with his +heart heavy and wroth at the iniquities of men which make the inequities +of life. For his demon kept him from sleep. If another demon, and +perhaps a gentler, tried to whisper to him that night of another life +and a sweeter, tried to turn him from his course into the normal walks +of man, tried to break his purpose and tempt him to dwell in the comely +tents of Kedar--if some gentler angels that would have saved him from a +harsher fate had beckoned to him and called him that night, through +passing lovers' arms and the murmur of loving voices, his eyes were +blind and his ears were deaf and his heart was hot with another passion. + +Amos Adams was in bed when Grant came into the house. On the table was a +litter of writing paper. Grant sat down for a minute under the lamp. His +father in the next room stirred, and asked: + +"What kept you?" And then, "I had a terrific time with Mr. Left +to-night." The father appeared in the doorway. "But just look there what +I got after a long session." + +On the page were these words written in a little round, old-fashioned +hand, some one's interminably repeated prayer. "Angels guide him--angels +strengthen him; angels pray for him." These words were penned clear +across the page and on the next line and the next and the next to the +very bottom of the page, in a weary monotony, save that at the bottom of +the sheet the pen had literally run into the paper, so heavily was the +hand of the writer bearing down! Under that, written in the fine hand +used by Mr. Left was this: + +"Huxley:--On earth I wrote that I saw one angel--'the strong, calm angel +playing for love.' Now I see the forces of good leading the world +forward, compelling progress; all are personal--just as the Great All +Encompassing Force is personal, just as human consciousness is personal. +The positive forces of life are angels--not exact--but the best figure. +So it is true that was written, 'there is more joy in Heaven'--and 'the +angels sang for joy.' This also is only a figure--but the best I can get +through to you. Angels guide us, angels strengthen us, angels pray for +us." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +IN WHICH JUDGE VAN DORN MAKES HIS BRAGS AND DR. NESBIT SEES A VISION + + +It was the last day of the last year of the Nineteenth Century--and a +fair, beautiful day it was. The sun shone over Harvey in spite of the +clouds from the smelter in South Harvey, and in spite of the clouds that +were blown by the soft, south wind up the Wahoo Valley from other +smelters and other coal mines, and a score of great smoke stacks in +Foley and Magnus and Plain Valley, where the discovery of coal and oil +and gas, within the decade that was passing, had turned the Valley into +a straggling town almost twenty miles long. So high and busy were the +chimneys that when the south wind blew toward the capital of this +industrial community, often the sun was dimmed in Harvey by a haze. But +on this fair winter's day the air was dry and cold and even in Harvey +shadows were black and clear, and the sun's warmth had set the redbirds +to singing in the brush and put so much joy into the world that Judge +Thomas Van Dorn had ventured out with his new automobile--a chugging, +clattering wonder that set all the horses of Greeley County on their +hind feet, making him a person of distinction in the town far beyond his +renown as a judge and an orator and a person of more than state-wide +reputation. But the Judge's automobile was frail and prone to err--being +not altogether unlike its owner in that regard. Thus many a time when it +chugged out of his barn so proudly, it came limping back behind a span +of mules. And so it happened on that bright, beautiful, December day +that the Judge was sitting upon a box in Captain Morton's shop, while +the Captain at his little forge was welding some bits of metal together +and discoursing upon the virtues of his Household Horse, which he was +assembling in small quantities--having arranged with a firm in South +Chicago to cast the two iron pieces that were needed. + +"Now, for instance, on a clothes wringer," the Captain was saying: "It's +a perfect wonder on a clothes wringer: I have the agency of a clothes +wringer that is making agents rich all over the country. But women don't +like clothes wringers; why? Because they require such hard work. All +right--hitch on my Household Horse, and the power required is reduced +three-fifths and a day's wash may be put on the line as easy as a girl +could play The Maiden's Prayer on a piano--eh? Or, say, put it on a +churn--same Horse--one's all that's needed to a house. Or make it an ice +cream freezer or a cradle or a sewing machine, or anything on earth that +runs by a crank--and 'y gory, man, you make housework a joy. I sold +Laura one--traded her one for lessons for Ruth, and she says wash-day at +the Doctor's is like Sunday now--what say? Lila's so crazy about it they +can't keep her out of the basement while the woman works,--likes to +dabble in the water you know like all children, washing her doll +clothes, what say?" + +But the Judge said nothing. The Captain tinkered with the metal, and +dipped it slowly in and out of a tub of dirty water to temper it, and as +he tried it in the groove where it belonged upon the automobile backed +up to the shop, he found that it was not exactly true, and went to work +to spring it back into line. The Judge looked around the shop--a barny, +little place filled with all sorts of wheels and pulleys and levers and +half-finished inventions that wouldn't work, and that, even if they +would work, would be of little consequence. There was an attempt to make +a self-oiler for buggy wheels, a half-finished contrivance that was +supposed to keep cordwood stacked in neat rows; an automatic contraption +to prevent coffeepots from burning; a cornsheller that would all but +work; a molasses faucet with an alcohol burner which was supposed to +make the sirup flow faster--but which instead sometimes blew up and +burned down grocery stores, and there were steamers and churns and +household contrivances which the Captain had introduced into the homes +of Harvey in past years, not of his invention, to be sure, but +contrivances that had inspired his eloquence, and were mute witnesses to +his prowess--trophies of the chase. Above the forge were rows of his +patent sprockets, all neatly wrapped in brown paper, and under this row +of merchandise was a clipping from the _Times_ describing the +Captain's invention, and predicting--at five cents a line--that it would +revolutionize the theory of mechanics and soon become a household need +all over the world. + +As the Judge looked idly at the Captain's treasures while the Captain +tinkered with the steel, he took off his hat, and the Captain, peering +through his glasses, remarked: + +"Getting kind of thin on top, Tom--eh? Doc, he's leaning a little hard +on his cane. Joe Calvin, he's getting rheumatic, and you're getting +thin-haired. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away." + +"So you believe the Lord runs things here in Harvey, do you, Cap?" asked +the Judge, who was playing with a bit of wire. + +"Well--I suppose if you come right down to it," answered the Captain, "a +man's got to have the consolation of religion in some shape or other or +he's going to get mighty discouraged--what say?" + +"Why," scoffed the Judge, "it's a myth--there's nothing to it. Look at +my wife--I mean Margaret--she changes religion as often as she changes +dogs. Since we've been married she's had three religions. And what good +does it do her?" + +The Captain, sighting down the edge of the metal, shook his head, and +the Judge went on: "What good does any religion do? I've broken the ten +commandments, every one of them--and I get on. No one bothers me, +because I keep inside the general statutes. I've beat God at his own +game. I tell you, Cap, you can do what you please just so you obey the +state and federal laws and pay your debts. This God-myth amuses me." + +Captain Morton did not care to argue with the Judge. So he said, by way +of making conversation for a customer, and neighbor and guest: + +"I hear, well, to be exact, George Brotherton was telling me and the +girls the other night that the Company is secretly dropping out the +members of the unions that Grant Adams has been organizing down in South +Harvey." + +"Yes--that Adams is another one of your canting, God-and-morality +fellows. Always watch that kind. I tell you, Captain," barked the Judge, +"about the only thing my wife and I have agreed on for a year is that +this Adams fellow is a sneaking, pharisaical hound. Lord, how she hates +him! Sometimes I think women hate hard enough to compete with your God, +who according to the preachers, is always slipping around getting even +with fellows for their sins. God and women are very much alike, anyway," +sneered the Judge. In the silence that followed, both men were attracted +by a noise behind them--the rustling of straw. They looked around and +saw the figure of a little girl--a yellow-haired, blue-eyed, shy, little +girl, trying to slip out of the place. She had evidently been in the +loft gathering eggs, for her apron was full, and she had her foot on the +loft ladder. + +"Why, Lila, child," exclaimed the Captain, "I clean forgot you being up +there--did you find any eggs? Why didn't you come down long ago?" + +"Come here, Lila," called the Judge. The child stood by the ladder +hesitatingly, holding her little apron corners tightly in her teeth +basketing the eggs--too embarrassed now that she was down the ladder, to +use her hands. + +"Lila," coaxed the Judge, reaching his hand into his pocket, "won't you +let Papa give you a dollar for candy or something. Come on, daughter." +He put out his hands. She shook her head. She had to pass him to get to +the door. "You aren't afraid of your Papa are you, Lila--come--here's a +dollar for you--that's a good girl." + +Her mouth quivered. Big tears were dropping down her cheeks. The +Captain's quick eye saw that something had hurt her. He went over to +her, put his arm about her, took the eggs from her apron, fondled her +gently without speaking. The Judge drew nearer "Lila--come--that's a +good girl--here, take the money. Oh Lila, Lila," he cried, "won't you +take it for Papa--won't you, my little girl?" + +The child looked up at him with shy frightened eyes, and suddenly she +put down her head and ran past him. He tried to hold her--to put the +silver into her hand, but she shrank away and dropped the coin before +him. + +"Shy child, Judge--very shy. Emma let her gather the eggs this morning, +she loves to hunt eggs," chuckled the Captain, "and she went to the loft +just before you came in. I clean forgot she hadn't come down." + +The Captain went on with his work. + +"I suppose, Cap," said Van Dorn quietly, "she heard more or less of what +I said." The Captain nodded. + +"How much did she understand?" the Judge asked. + +"More'n you'd think, Judge--more'n you'd think. But," added Captain +Morton after a pause, "I know the little skite like a top, Judge--and +there's one thing about her: She's a loyal little body. She'll never +tell; you needn't be worrying about that." + +The Judge sighed and added sadly: "It wasn't that, Cap--it was--" But +the Judge left his sentence in the air. The mending was done. The Judge +paid the old man and gave him a dollar more than he asked, and went +chugging off in a cloud of smoke, while the Captain, thinking over what +the Judge had said, sighed, shook his head, and bending over his work, +cackled in an undertone, snatches of a tune that told of a land that is +fairer than day. He had put together three sprockets and was working on +the fourth when he looked up and saw his daughter Emma sitting on the +box that the Judge had vacated. The Captain put his hand to his back and +stood up, looking at his eldest daughter with loving pride. + +"Emma," he said at length, "Judge Tom says women are like God." He stood +near her and smoothed her hair, and patted her cheek as he pressed her +head against his side. "I guess he's right--eh? Lila was in the loft +getting eggs and she overheard a lot of his fool talk." The daughter +made no reply. The Captain worked on and finally said: "It kind of hit +Tom hard to have Lila hear him; took the tuck out of him, eh?" + +Emma still waited. "My dear, the more I know of women the better I think +of God, and the surer I am of God, the better I think of women--what +say?" He sat on the box beside her and took her hand in his hard, +cracked, grimy hand, "'Y gory, girl, I tell you, give me a line on a +man's idea of God and I can tell you to a tee what he thinks of +women--eh?" The Captain dropped the hand for a moment and looked out of +the door into the alley. + +"Well, Father, I agree with you in general about women but in particular +I don't care about Mrs. Herdicker and I wish Martha had another job, +though I suppose it's better than teaching school." The daughter sighed. +"Honest, father, sometimes when I've been on my feet all day, and the +children have been mean, and the janitor sticks his head in and grins, +so I'll know the superintendent is in the building and get the work off +the board that the rules don't allow me to put on, or one of the other +girls sends a note up to watch for my spelling for he's cranky on +spelling to-day, I just think, 'Lordee, if I had a job in some one's +kitchen, I'd be too happy to breathe.' But then--" + +"Yes--yes, child--I know it's hard work now--but 'y gory, Emmy, when I +get this sprocket introduced and going, I'll buy you six superintendents +in a brass cage and let you feed 'em biled eggs to make 'em sing--eh?" +He smiled and patted his daughter's hair and rose to go back to work. +The girl plucked at his coat and said: "Now sit down, father, I want to +talk to you," she hesitated. "It's about Mr. Brotherton. You know he's +been coming out here for years and I thought he was coming to see me, +and now Martha thinks he comes to see her, and Martha always stays there +and so does Ruth, and if he is coming to see me--" she stopped. Her +father looked at her in astonishment. "Why, father," she went on,--"why +not? I'm twenty-five, and Martha's twenty-two and even Ruth is +seventeen--he might even be coming to see Ruth," she added bitterly. + +"Yes, or Epaminondas--the cat--eh?" cut in the old man. Then he added, +indignantly, "Well, how about this singing Jasper Adams--who's he coming +to see? Or Amos--he comes around here sometimes Saturday night after G. +A. R. meeting, with me--what say? Would you want us all to clear out and +leave you the front room with him?" demanded the perturbed Captain. + +Then the father put his arm about his child tenderly: "Twenty-five years +old--twenty-five years--why, girl, in my time a girl was an old maid +laid on the shelf at twenty-five--and here you are," he mused, "just +thinking of your first beau and here I am needing your mother worse than +I ever did in my life. Law-see' girl--how do I know what to do--what +say?" But he did know enough to draw her to him and kiss her and sigh. +"Well--maybe I can do something--maybe--we'll see." And then she left +him and he went to his work. And as he worked the thought struck him +suddenly that if he could put one of his sprockets in the Judge's +automobile where he had seen a chain, that it would save power and stop +much of the noise. So as he worked he dreamed that his sprocket was +adopted by the makers of the new machines, and that he was +rich--exceedingly rich and that he took the girls to visit the Ohio kin, +and that Emma had her trip to the Grand Canyon, that Martha went to +Europe and that Ruthie "took vocal" of a teacher in France whose name he +could not pronounce. + +As he hammered away at his bench he heard a shuffling at the door and +looking up saw Dr. Nesbit in the threshold. + +"Come in, Doctor; sit down and talk," shrilled the Doctor before the +Captain could speak, and when the Doctor had seated himself upon the box +by the workbench, the Captain managed to say: "Surely--come right in, +I'm kind of lonesome anyhow." + +"And I'm mad," cried the Doctor. "Just let me sit here and blow off a +little to my old army friend." + +"Well--well, Doctor, it's queer to see you hot under the collar--eh?" +The Doctor began digging out his pipe and filling it, without speaking. +The Captain asked: "What's gone wrong? Politics ain't biling? what say?" + +"Well," returned the Doctor, "you know Laura works at her kindergarten +down there in South Harvey, and she got me to pass that hours-of-service +law for the smelter men at the extra session last summer. Good law! +Those men working there in the fumes shouldn't work over six hours a +day--it will kill them. I managed by trading off my hide and my chances +of Heaven to get a law through, cutting them down to eight hours in +smelter work. Denny Hogan, who works on the slag dump, is going to die +if he has to do it another year on a ten-hour shift. He's been up and +down for two years now--the Hogans live neighbors to Laura's school and +I've been watching him. Well," and here the Doctor thumped on the floor +with his cane, "this Judge--this vain, strutting peacock of a Judge, +this cat-chasing Judge that was once my son-in-law, has gone and knocked +the law galley west so far as it affects the slag dump. I've just been +reading his decision, and I'm hot--good and hot." + +The Captain interrupted: + +"I saw Violet Hogan and the children--dressed like princesses, walking +out to-day--past the Judge's house--showing it to them--what say? My, +how old she looks, Doctor!" + +"Well--the damned villain--the infernal scoundrel--" piped the Doctor. +"I just been reading that decision. The men showed in their lawsuit that +the month before the law took effect the company, knowing the law had +been passed, went out and sold their switch and sold the slag dump, to a +fake railroad company that bought a switch engine and two or three cars, +and incorporated as a railroad, and then--the same people owning the +smelter and the railroad, they set all the men in the smelter that they +could working on the slag dump, so the men were working for the railroad +and not for the smelter company and didn't come within the eight hour +law. And now the Judge stands by that farce; he says that the men +working there under the very chimney of the smelter on the slag dump +where the fumes are worst, are not subject to the law because the law +says that men working for the smelters shall not work more than eight +hours, and these men are working for a cheating, swindling subterfuge of +a railroad. That's judge-made law. That's the kind of law that makes +anarchists. Law!" snorted the Doctor, "Law!--made by judges who have +graduated out of the employ of corporations--law!--is just what the +Judge on the bench dares to read into the statute. I tell you, Cap, if +the doctors and engineers and preachers were as subservient to greed and +big money as the lawyers are, we would soon lose our standing. But when +a lawyer commits some flagrant malpractice like that of Tom Van +Dorn's--the lawyers remind us that the courts are sacred institutions." + +The Doctor's pipe was out and in filling it again, he jabbed viciously +at the bowl with his knife, and in the meantime the Captain was saying: + +"Well, I suppose he found the body of the decisions leaning that way, +Doc--you know Judges are bound by the body of the law." + +"The body of the law--yes, damn 'em, I've bought 'em to find the body of +the law myself." + +The Doctor sputtered along with his pipe and cried out in his high +treble--"I never had any more trouble buying a court than a Senator. And +lawyers have no shame about hiring themselves to crooks and notorious +lawbreakers. And some lawyers hire themselves body and soul to great +corporations for life and we all know that those corporations are merely +evading the laws and not obeying them; and lawyers--at the very top of +the profession--brazenly hire out for life to that kind of business. +What if the top of the medical profession was composed of men who +devoted themselves to fighting the public welfare for life! We have that +kind of doctors--but we call them quacks. We don't allow 'em in our +medical societies. We punish them by ostracism. But the quack lawyers +who devote themselves to skinning the public--they are at the head of +the bar. They are made judges. They are promoted to supreme courts. A +damn nice howdy-do we're coming to when the quacks run a whole +profession. And Tom Van Dorn is a quack--a hair-splitting, owl-eyed, +venal quack--who doles out the bread pills of injustice, and the +strychnine stimulants of injustice and the deadening laudanum of +injustice, and falls back on the body of the decisions to uphold him in +his quackery. Justice demands that he take that fake corporation, made +solely to evade the law, and shake its guts out and tell the men who put +up this job, that he'll put them all in jail for contempt of court if +they try any such shenanigan in his jurisdiction again. That would be +justice. This--this decision--is humbug and every one knows it. What's +more--it may be murder. For men can't work on that slag dump ten hours a +day without losing their lives." + +The captain tapped away at his sprocket. He had his own ideas about the +sanctity of the courts. They were not to be overthrown so easily. The +Doctor snorted: "Burn their bodies, and blear their minds, and then wail +about our vicious lower classes--I'm getting to be an anarchist." + +He prodded his cane among the debris on the floor and then he began to +twitch the loose skin of his lower face and smiled. "Thank you, Cap," he +chirped. "How good and beautiful a thing it is to blow off steam in a +barn to your old army friend." + +The Captain looked around and smiled and the Doctor asked: "What was +that you were saying about Violet Hogan?" + +"I said I saw her to-day and she looked faded and old--she's not so much +older than my Emma--eh?" + +"Still," said the Doctor, "Violet's had a tough time--a mighty tough +time; three children in six years. The last one took most of her teeth; +young horse doctor gave her some dope that about killed her; she's done +all the cooking, washing, scrubbing and made garden for the family in +that time--up every morning at five, seven days in the week to get +breakfast for Dennis--Emma would look broken if she'd had that." The +Doctor paused. "Like her mother--weak--vain--puts all of Denny's wages +on the children's backs--Laura says Violet spends more on frills for +those kids than we spend for groceries--and Violet goes around herself +looking like the Devil before breakfast." The Doctor rested his chin on +his cane. "Remember her mother--Mrs. Mauling--funny how it breeds that +way. The human critter, Cap, is a curious beast--but he does breed +true--mostly." The Doctor loafed, whistling, around the work shop, +prodding at things with his cane, and wound up leaning against one end +of the bench. + +"Last day of the century," he piped, "makes a fellow pause and study. +I've seen fifty-three years of the old century--seen the electric light, +the telephone, the phonograph, the fast printing press, the +transcontinental railroad, the steam thresher, the gasoline engine--and +all its wonders clear down to Judge Tom's devil wagon. That's a good +deal for one short life. I've seen industry revolutionized--leaving the +homes of the people, and herding into the great factories. I've seen +steam revolutionize the daily habits of men, and distort their thoughts; +one man can't run a steam engine; it takes more than one man to own one. +So have I seen capital rise in the world until it is greater than kings, +greater than courts, greater than governments--greater than God himself +as matters stand, Cap--I'm terribly afraid that's true." + +The Doctor was serious. His high voice was calm, and he smoked a while +in peace. "But," he added reflectively--"Cap, I want to tell you +something more wonderful than all; I've seen seven absolutely honest men +elected this year to the State Senate--I've sounded them, felt them out, +had all kinds of reports from all kinds of people on those seven men. +Each man thinks he's alone, and there are seven." + +The Doctor leaned over to the Captain and said confidentially, "Cap--we +meet next week. Listen here. I was elected without a dollar of the old +spider's money. He fought me for that smelter law on the quiet. Now look +here; you watch my smoke. I'm going to organize those seven, and make +eight and you're going to see some fighting." + +"You ain't going to fight the party, are you, Doc?" asked the amazed +Captain, as though he feared that the Doctor would fall dead if he +answered yes. But the Doctor grinned and said: "Maybe--if it fights me." + +"Well, Doc--" cried the Captain, "don't you think--" + +"You bet I think--that's what's the matter. The smelter lawsuit's made +me think. They want to control government so they can have a license to +murder. That's what it means. Watch 'em blight Denny Hogan's lungs down +on the dump; watch 'em burn 'em up and crush 'em in the mines--by +evading the mining laws; watch 'em slaughter 'em on the railroads; +murder is cheap in this country--if you control government and get a +slaughter license." + +The Doctor laughed. "That's the old century--and say, Cap--I'm with the +new. You know old Browning--he says: + + "It makes me mad + To think what men will do an' I am dead." + +The Doctor waved his cane furiously, and grinned as he threw back his +head, laughed silently, kicked out one leg, and stood with one eye +cocked, looking at the speechless Captain. "Well, Cap--speak up--what +are you going to do about it?" + +"'Y gory, Doc, you certainly do talk like a Populist--eh?" was all the +Captain could reply. The Doctor toddled to the door, and standing there +sang back: "Well, Cap--do you think the Lord Almighty laid off all the +angels and quit work on the world when he invented Tom Van Dorn's +automobile--that it is the last new thing that will ever be tried?" + +And with that, the Doctor went out into the alley and through his alley +gate into his house. But the Captain's mind was set going by the +Doctor's parting words. He was considering what might follow the +invention of Tom Van Dorn's automobile. There was that chain, and there +was his sprocket. It would work--he knew it would work and save much +power and much noise. But the sprocket must be longer, and stronger. +Then, he thought, if the wire spokes and the ball-bearing and rubber +tires of the bicycle had made the automobile possible, and now that they +were getting the gasoline engine of the automobile perfected so that it +would generate such vast power in such a small space--what if they could +conserve and apply that power through his invention--what if the +gasoline engine might not through his Household Horse some day generate +and use a power that would lift a man off the earth? What then? As he +tapped the bolts and turned the screws and put his little device +together, he dreamed big dreams of the future when men should fly, and +the boundaries of nations would disappear and tariffs would be +impossible. This shocked him, and he tried to figure out how to prevent +smuggling by flying machines; but as he could not, he dreamed on about +the time when war would be abolished among civilized men, because of his +invention. + +So while he was dreaming in matter--forming the first vague nebulae of +coming events, the infinite intelligence washing around us all, floating +this earth, and holding the stars in their courses, sent a long, thin +fleck of a wave into the mind of this man who stood working and dreaming +in the twilight while the old century was passing. And while he saw his +vision, other minds in other parts of the earth saw their visions. Some +of these myriad visions formed part of his, and his formed part of +theirs, and all were part of the great vision that was brooding upon the +bourne of time and space. And other visions, parts of the great vision +of the Creator, were moving with quickening life in other minds and +hearts. The disturbed vision of justice that flashed through the +Doctor's mind was a part of the vast cycle of visions that were hovering +about this earth. It was not his alone, millions held part of it; +millions aspired, they knew not why, and staked their lives upon their +faith that there is a power outside ourselves that makes for +righteousness. And as the waves of infinite, resistless, +all-encompassing love laved the world that New Year's night that cast +the new Century upon the strange shores of time, let us hope that the +dreams of strong men stirred them deeply that they might move wisely +upon that mysterious tide that is drawing humanity to its unknown goal. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + +WHEREIN VIOLET HOGAN TAKES UP AN OLD TRADE AND MARGARET VAN DORN SEEKS A +HIGHER PLANE + + +The new Century brought to Harvey such plenitude that all night and all +day the smelter fires painted the sky up and down the Wahoo Valley; all +night long and all day long the miners worked in the mines, and all +through the night and the long day the great cement factory and the +glass factories belched forth their lurid fumes. The trolley cars went +creaking and moaning around the curves through the mean, dirty, squalid, +little streets of the mining and manufacturing towns. They whined +impatiently as they sailed across the prairie grass under the befogged +sunshine between the settlements, but always they brought up with their +loads at Harvey. So Harvey grew to be a prosperous inland city, and the +Palace Hotel with its onyx and marble office, once the town's pride, +found itself with all its striving but a third-class hostelry, while the +three-story building of the Traders' Bank looked low and squatty beside +its six and seven storied neighbors. The tin cornices of Market Street +were wiped away, and yellow brick and terra cotta and marble took the +place of the old ornaments of which the young town had been so proud. +The thread of wires and pipes that made the web of the spider behind the +brass sign, multiplied and the pipes and the rails and the cables that +carried his power grew taut and strong. New people by thousands had come +into the town and gradually the big house, the Temple of Love on Hill +Crest, that had been deserted during the first years of its occupancy, +filled up. Judge Thomas Van Dorn and his handsome wife were seen in the +great hotels of New York and Boston, and in Europe more or less, though +the acquaintances they made in Europe and in the East were no longer +needed to fill their home. But the old settlers of Harvey maintained +their siege. It was at a Twelfth Night festivity when young people from +all over the Valley and from all over the West were masqueing in the +great house, that Judge Van Dorn, to please a pretty girl from Baltimore +whom the Van Dorns had met in Italy, shaved his mustache and appeared +before the guests with a naked lip. The pursed, shrunken, sensuous lips +of the cruel mouth showed him so mercilessly that Mrs. Van Dorn could +not keep back a little scream of horror the first time he stood before +her with his shaved lip. But she changed her scream to a baby giggle, +and he did not know how he was revealed. So he went about ever after, +preening himself that his smooth face gave him youth, and strutting +inordinately because some of the women he knew told him he looked like a +boy of twenty-five--instead of a man in his forties. He was always +suave, always creakingly debonaire, always, even in his meannesses, +punctilious and airy. + +So the old settlers sometimes were fooled by his attitude toward +Margaret, his wife. He bore toward her in public that shallow polish of +attention, which puzzled those who knew that they were never together by +themselves when he could help it, that he spent his evenings at the City +Club, and that often at the theater they sat almost back to back +unconsciously during the whole performance. But after the curtain was +down, the polite husband was the soul of attendance upon the beautiful +wife--her coat, her opera glasses, her trappings of various sorts flew +in and out of his eager hands as though he were a conjurer playing with +them for an audience. For he was a proud man, and she was a vain woman, +and they were striving to prove to a disapproving world that the bargain +they had made was a good one. + +Yet the old settlers of Harvey felt instinctively that the price of +their Judge's bargain was not so trifling a matter as at first the happy +couple had esteemed it. The older people saw the big house glow with +light as the town spread over the hill and prosperity blackened the +Valley. The older people played their quiet games of bridge, by night, +and said little. Judge Van Dorn polished the periods of his orations, +kept himself like a race horse, strutted like a gobbler, showed his +naked mouth, held himself always tightly in hand, kept his eye out for a +pretty face, wherever it might be found, drank a little too much at +night at the City Club; not much too much but a very little too much--so +much that he needed something to brighten his eyes in the morning. + +But whatever the Judge's views were on the chess game of the cosmos, +Margaret, his wife, had no desire to beat God at his own game. She was a +seeker, who always was looking for a new God. God after God had passed +in weary review before her. She was always ready to tune up with the +infinite, and to ignore the past--a most comfortable thing to do under +the circumstances. + +As she turned into Market Street one February morning of the New Year in +the New Century, leading her dachshund, she was revolving a deep problem +in her head. She was trying to get enough faith to believe that her +complexion did not need a renovation. She knew that the skin-thought she +kept holding was earth-bound and she had tried to shake it, but it +wouldn't shake. She had progressed far enough in the moment's cult to +overcome a food-thought when her stomach hurt her, by playing a stiff +game of bridge for a little stake. But the skin-thought was with her, +and she was nervous and irritable and upon the verge of tears for +nothing at all. Moreover, her dog kept pulling at his leash, so +altogether her cup was running over and she went into Mr. Brotherton's +store to ask him to try to find an English translation of a highly +improper German book with a pious title about which she had heard from a +woman from Chicago who had been visiting her. + +Now Mr. Brotherton had felt the impulse of the town's prosperity in his +business. The cigar stand was gone. In its place was a handsome plain +glass case containing expensive books--books bound in vellum, books in +hand-tooled leather, books with wide, ragged margins of heavy linen +paper around deep black types with illuminated initials at the chapter +heads; books filled with extravagant illustrations, books so beautiful +that Mr. Brotherton licked his chops with joy when he considered the +difference between the cost mark and the price mark. The Amen Corner was +gone--the legend that had come down from the pool room, "Better go to +bed lonesome than wake up in debt," had been carted to the alley. While +the corner formerly occupied by the old walnut bench still held a corner +seat, it was a corner seat with sharp angles, with black stain upon it, +and upholstered in rich red leather, and red leather pillows lounged +luxuriously in the corners of the seat; a black, angular table and a +red, angular shade over a green angular lamp sat where the sawdust box +had been. True--a green angular smoker's set also was upon the +table--the only masculine appurtenance in the corner; but it was clearly +a sop thrown out to offended and exiled mankind--a mere mockery of the +solid comfort of the sawdust box, filled with cigar stubs and ashes that +had made the corner a haven for weary man for nearly a score of years. +Above the black-stained seat ran a red dado and upon that in fine old +English script, where once the old sign of the Corner had been nailed, +there ran this legend: + + "'The sweet serenity of Books' and Wallpaper, + Stationery and Office Supplies." + +For Mr. Brotherton's commercial spirit could not permit him to withhold +the fact that he had enlarged his business by adding such household +necessities as wall paper and such business necessities as stationery +and office supplies. Thus the town referred ever after to Mr. +Brotherton's "Sweet serenity of Books and Wallpaper," and so it was +known of men in Harvey. + +When Mrs. Van Dorn entered, she was surprised; for while she had heard +casually of the changes in Mr. Brotherton's establishment, she was not +prepared for the effulgence of refined and suppressed grandeur that +greeted her. + +Mr. Brotherton, in a three buttoned frock coat, a rich black ascot tie +and suitable gray trousers, came forward to meet her. + +"Ah, George," she exclaimed in her baby voice, "really what a lit-ry," +that also was from her Chicago friend, "what a lit-ry atmosphere you +have given us." + +Mr. Brotherton's smile pleaded guilty for him. He waved her to a seat +among the red cushions. "How elegant," she simpered, "I just think it's +perfectly swell. Just like Marshall Field's. I must bring Mrs. +Merrifield in when she comes down--Mrs. Merrifield of Chicago. You know, +Mr. Brotherton," it was the wife of the Judge who spoke, "I think we +should try to cultivate those whose wide advantages make our association +with them a liberal education. What is it Emerson says about +Friendship--in that wonderful essay--I'm sure you'll recall it." + +And Mr. Brotherton was sure he would too, and indicated as much, for as +he had often said to Mr. Fenn in their literary confidences, "Emerson is +one of my best moving lines." And Mrs. Van Dorn continued +confidentially: "Now there's a book, a German book--aren't those Germans +candid--you know I'm of German extraction, and I tell the Judge that's +where I get my candor. Well, there's a German book--I can't pronounce +it, so I've written it out--there; will you kindly order it?" Mr. +Brotherton took the slip and went to the back of the store to make a +memorandum of the order. He left the book counter in charge of Miss +Calvin--Miss Ave Calvin--yes, Miss Ave Maria Calvin, if you must know +her full name, which she is properly ashamed of. But it pleased her +mother twenty years before and as Mr. Calvin was glad to get into the +house on any terms when the baby was named, it went Ave Maria Calvin, +and Ave Maria Calvin stood behind the counter reading the _Bookman_ +and trying to remember the names of the six best sellers so that she +could order them for stock. + +Mrs. Van Dorn, who kept Mrs. Calvin's one card conspicuously displayed +in her silver card case in the front hall, saw an opportunity to make a +little social hay, so she addressed Miss Calvin graciously: "Good +morning, Ave--how is your dear mother? What a charming effect Mr. +Brotherton has produced!" Then Mrs. Van Dorn dropped the carefully +modulated voice a trifle lower: "When the book comes that I just +ordered, kindly slip it to one side; I wouldn't have Mr. Brotherton--he +might misunderstand. But you can read it if you wish--take it home over +night. It's very broadening." + +When Mr. Brotherton returned the baby voice prattled at him. The voice +was saying, "I was just telling Ave how dead swell it is here. I just +can't get over it--in Harvey--dear old Harvey; do you remember when I +was a little school teacher down in the Prospect schoolhouse and you +used to order Chautauqua books--such an innocent little school +girl--don't you remember? We wouldn't say how long ago that was, would +we, Mr. Brotherton? Oh, dear, no. Isn't it nice to talk over old times? +Did you know the Jared Thurstons have left Colorado and have moved to +Iowa where Jared has started another paper? Lizzie and I used to be such +chums--she and Violet and I--where is Violet now, Mr. Brotherton? Oh, +yes, I remember Mrs. Herdicker said she lives next door to the +kindergarten--down in South Harvey. Isn't it terrible the way Anne Sands +did--just broke her father's heart. And Nate Perry quarrelling with ten +million dollars. Isn't this a strange world, Mr. Brotherton?" + +Mr. Brotherton confessed for the world and Mrs. Van Dorn shook her +over-curled head sadly. She made some other talk with Mr. Brotherton +which he paraphrased later for Henry Fenn and when Mrs. Van Dorn went +out, Mr. Brotherton left the door open to rid the room of the scent of +attar of roses and said to Miss Calvin: + +"Well, s--," but checked himself and went on in his new character of +custodian of "The Sweet Serenity of Books and Wall Paper," but he added +as a compromise: + +"'And for bonnie Annie Laurie' I certainly would make a quick get-away!" + +After which reflection, Mr. Brotherton walked down the long store room +to his dark stained desk, turned on the electric under the square copper +shade, and began to figure up his accounts. But a little social problem +kept revolving in his head. It was suggested by Mrs. Van Dorn and by +something she had said. Beside Mrs. Van Dorn in her tailored gown and +seal-skin, with her spanking new midwinter hat to match her coat, +dragging the useless dog after her, he saw the picture of another woman +who had come in the day before--a woman no older than Margaret Van +Dorn--yet a broken woman, with rounded shoulders who rarely smiled, +wishing to hide her broken teeth, who wheeled one baby and led another, +and shooed a third and slipped into the corner near the magazine counter +and thumbed over the children's fashions in the _Delineator_ +eagerly and looked wistfully at the beautiful things in the store. Her +red hands and brown skin showed that she had lived a rough, hard life, +and that it had spent her and wasted her and taken everything she +prized--and given her nothing--nothing but three overdressed children +and a husband whose industrial status had put its heavy mark on her. + +Mr. Brotherton's memory went back ten years, and recalled the two girls +together--Violet and Margaret. Both were light-headed and vain; so far +as their relations with Van Dorn were concerned, one was as blamable as +the other. Yet one had prospered and the other had not--and the one who +had apparently suffered most had upon the whole lived the cleaner, more +normal life--and Mr. Brotherton drummed his penholder upon the black +desk before him and questioned the justice of life. + +But, indeed, if we must judge life's awards and benefits from the +material side there is no justice in life. If there was any difference +between the two women whom Tom Van Dorn had wronged--difference in +rewards or punishments, it must have been in their hearts. It is +possible that in her life of motherhood and wifehood, in the sacrifices +that broke her body and scarred her face, Violet Mauling may have been +compensated by the love she bore the children upon whom she lavished her +life. For she had that love, and she did squander--in blind vain +folly--the strength of her body, afterwards the price of her soul--upon +her children. As for Margaret Van Dorn--Mr. Brotherton was no +philosopher. He could not pity her. Yet she too had given all. She had +given her mind--and it was gone. She had given her heart and it was gone +also, and she had given that elusive blending of the heart and mind we +call her soul--and that was gone, too. Mr. Brotherton could see that +they were gone--all gone. But he could not see that her loss was greater +than Violet's. + +That night when Dennis Hogan came in for his weekly _Fireside +Companion_ as he said, "for the good woman," Mr. Brotherton, for old +sake's sake, put in something in paper backs by Marie Corelli, and a +novel by Ouida; and then, that he might give until it hurt, he tied up a +brand new _Ladies' Home Journal_, and said, as he locked up the +store and stepped into the chill night air with Mr. Hogan: "Dennis--tell +Violet--I sent 'em in return for the good turns she used to do me when I +was mayor and she was in Van Dorn's office and drew up the city +ordinances--she'll remember." + +"Indeed she will, George Brotherton--that she will. Many's the night +she's talked me to sleep of them golden days of her splendor--indeed she +will." + +They walked on together and Hogan said: "Well--I turn at the next +crossin'. I'm goin' home and I'm glad of it. Up in the mornin' at five; +off on the six-ten train, climbin' the slag dump at seven, workin' till +six, home on the six-fifteen train, into the house at seven; to bed at +ten, up at five, eat and work and sleep--sleep and eat and work, +fightin' the dump by day and fightin' the fumes in me chist by +night--all for a dollar and sixty a day; and if we jine a union, we get +canned, and if we would seek dissipation, we're invited to go down to +the Company hall and listen to Tommy Van Dorn norate upon what he calls +the 'de-hig-nity of luh-ay-bor.' Damn sight of dignity labor has, lopin' +three laps ahead of the garnishee from one year's end to the other." + +He laughed a good-natured, creaking laugh, and said as he waved his hand +to part with Mr. Brotherton--"Well, annyhow, the good woman will thank +you for the extra readin'; not that she has time to read it, God knows, +but it gives the place a tone when Laura Nesbit drops in for a bit of a +word of help about the makin' of the little white things she's doin' for +the Polish family on 'D' Street these days." In another minute +Brotherton heard the car moaning at the curve, and saw Hogan get in. It +was nearly midnight when Hogan got to sleep; for the papers that +Brotherton sent brought back "the grandeur that was Greece," and he had +to hear how Mr. Van Dorn had made Mr. Brotherton mayor and how they had +both made Dr. Nesbit Senator, and how ungrateful the Doctor was to turn +against the hand that fed him, and many other incidents and tales that +pointed to the renown of the unimpeachable Judge, who for seven years +had reigned in the humble house of Hogan as a first-rate god. + +That night Hogan tossed as the fumes in his lungs burned the tissues and +at five he got up, made the fire, helped to dress the oldest child while +his wife prepared the breakfast. He missed the six-ten car, and being +late at work stopped in to take a drink at the Hot Dog, near the dump on +the company ground, thinking it would put some ginger into him for the +day's work. For two hours or so the whiskey livened him up, but as the +forenoon grew old, he began to yawn and was tired. + +"Hogan," called the dump-boss, "go down to the powder house and bring up +a box of persuaders." + +The slag was hard and needed blasting. Hogan looked up, said "What?" and +before the dump boss could speak again Hogan had started down and around +the dump to the powder house, near the saloon. He went into the powder +house, and then came out, carrying a heavy box. At the sidewalk edge, +Hogan, who was yawning, stumbled--they saw him stumble, two men standing +in the door of the Hot Dog saloon a block away, and they told the people +at the inquest that that was the last they saw. A great explosion +followed. The men about the dump huddled for a long minute under freight +cars, then crawled out, and the dump boss called the roll; Hogan was +missing. In an hour they came and took Mrs. Hogan to the undertaker's +room near the smelter--where so many women had stood beside death in its +most awful forms. She had her baby in her arms, with another plucking at +her skirts and she stood mutely beside the coffin that they would not +open. For she knew what other women knew about the smelter, knew that +when they will not open the coffin, it must not be opened. So the little +procession rode to the Hogan home, where Laura Van Dorn was waiting. +Perhaps it was because she could not see the face of the dead that it +seemed unreal to the widow. But she did not moan nor cry--after the +first scream that came when she knew the worst. Stolidly she went +through her tasks until after the funeral. + +Then she called Laura into the kitchen and said, as she pressed out her +black satin and tried to hide the threadbare seams that had been showing +for years: "Mrs. Van Dorn, I'm going to do something you won't like." To +Laura's questioning eyes Violet answered: "I know your ma, or some one +else has told you all about me--but," she shut her mouth tightly and +said slowly: + +"But no matter what they say--I'm going to the Judge; he's got to make +the railroad company pay and pay well. It's all I've got on earth--for +the children. We have three dollars in my pocketbook and will have to +wait until the fifteenth before I get his last month's wages, and I know +they'll dock him up to the very minute of the day--that day! I wouldn't +do it for anything else on earth, Mrs. Van Dorn--wild horses couldn't +drag me there--but I'm going to the Judge--for the children. He can +help." + +So, putting on her bedraggled black picture hat with the red ripped off, +Violet Hogan mounted the courthouse steps and went to the office of the +Judge. A sorry, broken, haggard figure she cut there in the Judge's +office. She would have told him her story--but he interrupted: "Yes, +Violet--I read it in the _Times_. But what can I do--you know I'm +not allowed to take a case and, besides, he was working for the +railroad, and you know, Violet, he assumed the risk. What do they offer +you?" + +"Judge--for God's sake don't talk that way to me. That's the way you +used to talk to those miners' wives--ugh!" she cried. "I remember it +all--that assumed risk. Only this--he was working ten hours a day on a +job that wouldn't let him sleep, and he oughtn't to be working but eight +hours, if they hadn't sneaked under the law. They've offered me five +hundred, Judge--five hundred--for a man, five hundred for our three +children--and me. You can make them do better--oh, I know you can. Oh, +please for the sake--oh!" + +She looked at him with her battered face, and as her mouth quivered, she +tried to hide her broken teeth. He saw she was about to give way to +tears. He dreaded a scene. He looked at her impatiently and finally +gripping himself after a decision, he said: + +"Now, Violet, take a brace. Five hundred is what they always give in +these cases." He smiled suavely at her and she noticed for the first +time that his lip was bare and started at the cruel mouth that leered at +her. + +"But," he added expansively, "for old sake's sake--I'm going to do +something for you." He rose and stood over her. "Now, Violet," he said, +strutting the diagonal of his room, and smiling blandly at her, "we both +know why I shouldn't give you my personal check--nor why you shouldn't +have any cash that you cannot account for. But the superintendent of the +smelter, who is also the general manager of the railroad, is under some +obligations to me, and I'll give you this note to him." He sat down and +wrote: + + "For good reasons I desire one hundred dollars added to your + check to the widow of Dennis Hogan who presents this, and to + have the same charged to my personal account on your books." + +He signed his name with a flourish, and after reading the note handed it +to the woman. + +She looked at him and her mouth opened, showing her broken, ragged +teeth. Then she rose. + +"My God, Tom Van Dorn--haven't you any heart at all! Six hundred dollars +with three little children--and my man butchered by a law you made--oh," +she cried as she shook her head and stood dry-eyed and agonized before +him--"I thought you were a man--that you were my friend way down deep in +your heart--I thought you were a man." + +She picked up the paper, and at the door turned and said: "And you could +get me thousands from the company for my hundreds by the scratch of your +pen--and I thought you were a man." She opened the door, looked at him +beseechingly, and repeating her complaint, turned away and left him. + +She heard the click of the door-latch behind her and she knew that the +man behind the door in whom she had put her faith was laughing at her. +Had she not seen him laugh a score of times in other years at the misery +of other women? Had they not sat behind this door, he and she, and made +sport of foolish women who came asking the disagreeable, which he +ridiculed as the impossible? Had she not sat with him and laughed at his +first wife, when she had gone away after some protest? The thought of +his mocking face put hate into her heart and she went home hardened +toward all the world. Laura Van Dorn was with the Hogan children, and +when Violet entered the house, she gathered them to her heart with a mad +passion and wept--a woman without hope--a woman spurned and mocked in +the only holy place she had in her heart. + +Laura saw the widowed mother hysterically fondling the children, madly +caressing them, foolishly chattering over them, and when Violet made it +clear that she wished to be alone, Laura left. But if she could have +heard Violet babbling on during the evening, of the clothes she would +buy for the youngsters, about the good times they would have with the +money, about the ways they were going to spend the little fortune that +was theirs, Laura Van Dorn--thrifty, frugal, shrewd Laura, might have +helped the thoughtless woman before it was too late. But even if Laura +had interfered, it would have been but for a few months or a few years +at most. + +The end was inevitable--whether it had been five hundred or six hundred +or five thousand or six thousand. For Violet was a prodigal bred and +born. At first she tried to get some work. But when she found she had to +leave the children alone in the house or in care of a neighbor or on the +streets, she gave up her job. For when she came home, she found the +foolish frills and starched tucks in which she kept them, dirty and +torn, and some way she felt that they were losing social caste by the +low estate of their clothes, so she bought them silks and fine linens +while her money lasted, and when it was gone in the spring--then they +were hungry, and needy; and she could not leave them by day. + +If the poor were always wise, and the rich were always foolish, if +hardship taught us sense, and indulgence made us giddy, what a fine +world it would be. How virtue would be rewarded. How vice would be +rebuked. But wisdom does not run with social rank, nor with commercial +rating. Some of us who are poor are exceedingly foolish, and some of +those who are rich have a world of judgment. And Violet Hogan,--poor and +mad with a mother love that was as insane as an animal's when she saw +her children hungry and needy, knew before she knew anything else that +she must live with them by day. So she went out at night--went out into +the streets--not of South Harvey--but over into the streets of Foley, +down to Magnus and Plain Valley--out into the dark places. There Violet +by night took up the oldest trade in the world, and came home by day a +mad, half crazed mothering animal who covers her young in dread and +fear. + +When Laura knew the truth--knew it surely in spite of Violet's studied +deceptions, and her outright falsehoods, the silver in the woman's laugh +was muffled for a long time. She tried to help the mad mother; but the +mother would not admit the truth, would not confess that she needed +help. Violet maintained the fiction that she was working in the night +shift at the glass factory in Magnus, and by day she starched and ironed +and pressed and washed for the overdressed children and as she said, +"tried to keep them somebody." Moreover, she would not let them play +with the dirty children of the neighborhood, but such is the fear of +social taint among women, that soon the other mothers called their +children home when the Hogan children appeared. + +When Violet discovered that her trade was branding her children--she +moved to Magnus and became part of the drab tide of life that flows by +us daily with its heartbreak unheeded, its sorrows unknown, its anguish +pent up and uncomforted. + +Now much meditation on the fate of Violet Hogan and upon the luck of +Margaret Van Dorn had made George Brotherton question the moral +government of the universe and, being disturbed in his mind, he +naturally was moved to language. So one raw spring day when no one was +in the Amen Corner but Mr. Fenn, in a moment of inadvertent sobriety, +Mr. Brotherton opened up his heart and spoke thus: + +"Say, Henry--what's a yogi?" Mr. Fenn refused to commit himself. Mr. +Brotherton continued: "The Ex was in here the other day and she says +that she thinks she's going to become a yogi. I asked her to spell it, +and I told her I'd be for her against all comers. Then she explained +that a yogi was some kind of an adept who could transcend space and +time, and--well say, I said 'sure,' and she went on to ask me if I was +certain we were not thinking matter instead of realizing it, and I says: + +"'I bite; what's the sell?' + +"And the Ex says--'Now, seriously, Mr. Brotherton, something tells me +that you have in your mind, if you would only search it out, vague +intimations, left-over impressions of the day you were an ox afield.' + +"And, well say, Henry, I says, 'No, madam, it is an ass that rises in me +betimes.' + +"And the Ex says, 'George Brotherton, you just never can talk sense.' + +"So while I was wrapping up 'Sappho' and ordering her a book with a +title that sounded like a college yell, she told me she was getting on a +higher plane, and I bowed her out. Say, Hen--now wouldn't that jar +you?--the Ex getting on a higher plane." + +Mr. Fenn grinned--a sodden grin with a four days' beard on it, and dirty +teeth, and heavy eyes, then looked stupidly at the floor and sighed and +said, + +"George, did you know I've quit?" To Mr. Brotherton's kindly smile the +other man replied: + +"Yes, sir, sawed 'er right off short--St. Patrick's Day. I thought I'd +ought to quit last Fourth of July--when I tried to eat a live pinwheel. +I thought I had gone far enough." He lifted up his burned-out eyes in +the faded smile that once shone like an arc light, and said: + +"Man's a fool to get tangled up with liquor. George, when I get my board +bill paid--I'm going to quit the auctioning line, and go back to law. +But my landlady's needing that money, and I'm a little behind--" + +Mr. Brotherton made a motion for his pocket. "No, I don't want a cent of +your money, George," Fenn expostulated. "I was just telling you how +things are. I knew you'd like to know." + +Mr. Brotherton came from behind the counter where he had been arranging +his stock for the night, and grasped Henry Fenn's hand. "Say, +Henry--you're all right. You're a man--I've always said so. I tell you, +Hen, I've been to lots of funerals in this town first and last as +pall-bearer or choir singer--pretty nearly every one worth while, but +say, I'm right here to tell you that I have never went to one I was +sorrier over than yours, Henry--and I'm mighty glad to see you're coming +to again." + +Henry Fenn smiled weakly and said: "That's right, George--that's right." + +And Mr. Brotherton went on, "I claim the lady give you the final +push--not that she needed to push hard of course; but a little pulling +might have held you." + +Mr. Fenn rose to leave and sighed again as he stood for a moment in the +doorway--"Yes, George, perhaps so--poor Maggie--poor Maggie." + +Mr. Brotherton looked at the man a moment--saw his round hat with +neither back nor front and only the wreck of a band around it, his +tousled clothes, his shoes with the soles curling at the sides and the +frowsy face, from which the man peered out a second and then slunk back +again, and Mr. Brotherton took to his book shelf, scratched his head and +indicated by his manner that life was too deep a problem for him. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + +IN WHICH THE ANGELS SHAKE A FOOT FOR HENRY FENN + + +The business of life largely resolves itself into a preparation for the +next generation. The torch of life moves steadily forward. For children +primarily life has organized itself to satisfy decently and in order, +the insatiate primal hungers that motive mankind. It was with a wisdom +deeper than he understood that George Brotherton spoke one day, as he +stood in his doorway and saw Judge Van Dorn hurrying across the street +to speak to Lila. "There," roared Mr. Brotherton to Nathan Perry, "well, +say--there's the substance all right, man." And then as the Judge turned +wearily away with slinking shoulders to avoid meeting the eyes of his +wife, plump, palpable, and always personable, who came around the +corner, Mr. Brotherton, with a haw-haw of appreciation of his obvious +irony, cried, "And there's the shadow--I don't think." But it was the +substance and the shadow nevertheless, and possibly the Judge knew them +as the considerations of his bargain with the devil. For always he was +trying to regain the substance; to take Lila to his heart, where +curiously there seemed some need of love, even in a heart which was +consecrated in the very temple of love. Without realizing that he was +modifying his habits of life, he began to drop in casually to see the +children's Christmas exercises, and Thanksgiving programs, and Easter +services at John Dexter's church. From the back seat where he always sat +alone, he sometimes saw the wealth of affection that her mother lavished +on Lila, patting her ribbons, smoothing her hair, straightening her +dress, fondling her, correcting her, and watching the child with eyes so +full of love that they did not refrain sometimes from smiling in kindly +appreciation into the eager, burning, tired eyes of the Judge. The +mother understood why he came to the exercises, and often she sent Lila +to her father for a word. The town knew these things, and the Judge knew +that the town knew, and even then he could not keep away. He had to +carry the torch of life, whether he would or not, even though sometimes +it must have scorched his proud, white hands. It was the only thing that +burned with real fire in his heart. + +With Laura Van Dorn the fact of her motherhood colored her whole life. +Never a baby was born among her poor neighbors in the valley that she +did not thrill with a keen delight at its coming, and welcome it with +some small material token of her joy. In the baby she lived over again +her own first days of maternity. But it was no play motherhood that +restored her soul and refilled her receptacle of faith day by day. The +bodily, huggable presence of her daughter continually unfolding some new +beauty kept her eager for the day's work to close in the Valley that she +might go home to drop the vicarious happiness that she brought in her +kindergarten for the real happiness of a home. + +Often Grant Adams, hurrying by on his lonely way, paused to tell Laura +of a needy family, or to bring a dirty, motherless child to her haven, +or to ask her to go to some wayward girl, newly caught in the darker +corners of the spider's web. + +Doggedly day by day, little by little, he was bringing the workmen of +the Valley to see his view of the truth. The owners were paying spies to +spy upon him and he knew it, and the high places of his satisfaction +came when, knowing a spy and marking him for a victim, Grant converted +him to the union cause. With the booming of the big guns of prosperity +in Harvey, he was a sort of undertone, a monotonous drum, throbbing +through the valley a menace beneath it all. Once--indeed, twice, as he +worked, he organized a demand for higher wages in two or three of the +mines, and keeping himself in the background, yet cautiously managing +the tactics of the demand, he won. He held Sunday meetings in such halls +as the men could afford to hire and there he talked--talked the religion +of democracy. As labor moved about in the world, and as the labor press +of the country began to know of Grant, he acquired a certain fame as a +speaker among labor leaders. And the curious situation he was creating +gave him some reputation in other circles. He was good for an occasional +story in a Kansas City or Chicago Sunday paper; and the _Star_ +reporter, sent to do the feature story, told of a lonely, indomitable +figure who was the idol of the laboring people of the Wahoo Valley; of +his Sunday meetings; of his elaborate system of organization; of his +peaceful demands for higher wages and better shop conditions; of his +conversion of spies sent to hinder him, of his never-ceasing effort, +unsupported by outside labor leaders, unvisited by the aristocracy of +the labor world, yet always respecting it, to preach unionism as a faith +rather than as a material means for material advancement. + +Generally the reporters devoted a paragraph to the question--what manner +of man is this?--and intimating more or less frankly that he was a man +of one idea, or perhaps broadening the suggestion into a query whether +or not a man who would work for years, scorning fame, scorning regular +employment and promotion, neglecting opportunities to rise as a labor +leader in his own world, was not just a little mad. So it happened that +without seeking fame, fame came to him. All over the Missouri Valley, +men knew that Grant Adams, a big, lumbering, red-polled, lusty-lunged +man with one arm burned off--and the story of the burning fixed the man +always in the public heart--with a curious creed and a freak gift for +expounding it, was doing unusual things with the labor situation in the +Harvey district. And then one day a reporter came from Omaha who +uncovered this bit of news in his Sunday feature story: + + "Last week the Wahoo district was paralyzed by the announcement + that Nathan Perry, the new superintendent of the Independent + mines had raised his wage scale, and had acceded to every change + in working conditions that the local labor organizations under + Adams had asked. Moreover, he has unionized his mine and will + recognize only union grievance committees in dealing with the + men. The effect of such an announcement in a district where the + avowed purpose of the mine operators is to run their own + business as they please, may easily be imagined. + + "Perry is a civil engineer from Boston Tech., a rich man's son, + who married a rich man's daughter, and then cut loose from his + father and father-in-law because of a political disagreement + over the candidacy of the famous Judge Thomas Van Dorn for a + judicial nomination a few years ago. Perry belongs to a new type + in industry--rather newer than Adams's type. Perry is a keen + eyed, boyish-looking young man who has no illusions about + Adams's democracy of labor. + + "'I am working out an engineering problem with men,' said Perry + to a reporter to-day. 'What I want is coal in the cage. I figure + that more wages will put more corn meal in a man's belly, more + muscle on his back, more hustle in his legs, and more blood in + his brain. And primarily I'm buying muscle and hustle and + brains. If I can make the muscle and hustle and brains I buy, + yield better dividends than the stuff my competitors buy, I'll + hold my job. If not, I'll lose it. I am certainly working for my + job.' + + "Of course the town doesn't believe for a moment what Perry + says. The town is divided. Part of the town thinks that Perry is + an Adams convert and a fool, the other half of the town believes + that the move is part of a conspiracy of certain eastern + financial interests to get control of the Wahoo Valley + properties by spreading dissension. Feeling is bitter and Adams + and Perry are coming in for considerable abuse. D. Sands, the + local industrial entrepreneur, has raised the black flag on his + son-in-law, and an interesting time looms ahead." + +But often at night in Perry's home in South Harvey, where Morty Sands +and Grant Adams loved to congregate, there were hot discussions on the +labor question. For Nathan Perry was no convert of Grant Adams. + +As the men wrangled, many an hour sat Anne Perry singing the nest song +as she made little things for the lower bureau drawer. Sometimes in the +evening, Morty would sit by the kitchen stove, sadly torn in heart, +between the two debaters, seeing the justice of Grant's side as an +ethical question, but admiring the businesslike way in which Nathan +waved aside ethical considerations, damned Grant for a crazy man, and +proclaimed the gospel of efficiency. + +Often Grant walked home from these discussions with his heart hot and +rebellious. He saw life only in its spiritual aspect and the logic of +Nathan Perry angered him with its conclusiveness. + +Often as he walked Kenyon was upon his heart and he wondered if Margaret +missed the boy; or if the small fame that the boy was making with his +music had touched her vanity with a sense of loss. He wondered if she +ever wished to help the child. The whole town knew that the Nesbits were +sending Kenyon to Boston to study music, and that Amos Adams and Grant +could contribute little to the child's support. Grant wondered, +considering the relations between the Van Dorns and Nesbits, whether +sometimes Margaret did not feel a twinge of irritation or regret at the +course of things. + +He could not know that even as he walked through the November night, +Margaret Van Dorn, was sitting in her room holding in her hand a tiny +watch, a watch to delight a little girl's heart. On the inside of the +back of the watch was engraved: + + "To Lila + from her + Father, for + Her 10th birthday." + +And opposite the inscription in the watch was pasted the photograph of +the unhappy face of the donor. Margaret sat gazing at the trinket and +wondering vaguely what would delight a little boy's heart as a watch +would warm the heart of a little girl. It was not a sense of loss, not +regret, certainly not remorse that moved her heart as she sat alone +holding the trinket--discovered on her husband's dresser; it was a weak +and footless longing, and a sense of personal wrong that rose against +her husband. He had something which she had not. He could give jeweled +watches, and she-- + +But if she only could have read life aright she would have pitied him +that he could give only jeweled watches, only paper images of a +dissatisfied face, only material things, the token of a material +philosophy--all that he knew and all that he had, to the one thing in +the world that he really could love. And as for Margaret, his wife, who +lived his life and his philosophy, she, too, had nothing with which to +satisfy the dull, empty feeling in her heart when she thought of Kenyon, +save to make peace with it in hard metal and stupid stones. Thus does +what we think crust over our souls and make us what we are. + +Grant Adams, plodding homeward that night, turned from the thought of +Margaret to the thought of Kenyon with a wave of joy, counting the days +and weeks and the months until the boy should return for the summer. At +home Grant sat down before the kitchen table and began a long talk that +kept him until midnight. He had undertaken to organize all the unions of +the place into a central labor council; the miners, the smeltermen, the +teamsters, the cement factory workers, the workers in the building +trades. It was an experimental plan, under the auspices of the national +union officers. Only a man like Grant Adams, with something more than a +local reputation as a leader, would have been intrusted with the work. +And so, after his day's toil for bread, he sat at his kitchen table, +elaborately working his dream into reality. + +That season the devil, if there is a devil who seeks to swerve us from +what we deem our noblest purposes, came to Grant Adams disguised in an +offer of a considerable sum of money to Grant for a year's work in the +lecture field. The letter bearing the offer explained that by going out +and preaching the cause of labor to the people, Grant would be doing his +cause more good than by staying in Harvey and fighting alone. The +thought came to him that the wider field of work would give him greater +personal fame, to be used ultimately for a wider influence. All one long +day as he worked with hammer and saw at his trade, Grant turned the +matter over in his mind. He could see himself in a larger canvas, +working a greater good. Perhaps some fleeting unformed idea came to him +of a home and a normal life as other men live; for at noon, without +consciously connecting her with his dream, he took his problem to Laura +Van Dorn at her kindergarten. That afternoon he decided to accept the +offer, and put much of his reason for acceptance upon Kenyon and the +boy's needs. That night he penned a letter of acceptance to the lecture +bureau and went to bed, disturbed and unsatisfied. Before he slept he +turned and twisted, and finally threshed himself to sleep. It was a +light fragmentary sleep, that moves in and out of some strange hypnoidal +state where the lower consciousness and the normal consciousness wrestle +for the control of reason. Then after a long period of half-waking +dreams, toward morning, Grant sank into a profound sleep. In that sleep +his soul, released from all that is material, rose and took command of +his will. + +When Grant awoke, it was still black night. For a few seconds he did not +know where he was--nor even who he was, nor what. He was a mere +consciousness. The first glimmer of identity that came to him came with +a roaring "No," that repeated itself over and over, "No--no," cried the +voice of his soul--"you are no mere word spinner; you are a fighter; you +are pledged, body and soul; you are bought with a price--no, no, no." + +And then he knew where he was and he knew surely and without doubt or +quaver of faith that he must not give up his place in the fight. When he +thought of Kenyon living on the bounty of the Nesbits, he thought also +of Dick Bowman, ordering his own son under the sliding earth to hold the +shovel over Grant's face in the mine. + +So Grant Adams bent his shoulders to this familiar burden. In the early +morning, before his father and Jasper were up, the gaunt, ungainly +figure hurried with his letter of refusal to the South Harvey Station +and put the letter on the seven-ten train for Chicago. + +That evening, sitting on their front porch, the Dexters talked over +Grant's decision. "Well," said John Dexter, looking up into the mild +November sky, and seeing the brown gray smudge of the smelter there, "so +Grant has sidled by another devil in his road. We have seen that women +won't stop him; it's plain that money nor fame won't stop him, though +they clearly tore his coat tails. I imagine from what Laura says he must +have decided once to accept." + +"Yes," answered his wife, "but it does seem to me, if my old father +needed care as his does, and my brother had to accept charity, I'd give +that particular devil my whole coat and see if I couldn't make a bargain +with him for a little money, at some small cost." + +"Mother Eve--Mother Eve," smiled the minister, "you women are so +practical--we men are the real idealists--the only dreamers who stand by +our dreams in this wicked, weary world." + +He leaned back in his chair. "There is still one more big black devil +waiting for Grant: Power--the love of power which is the lust of +usefulness--power may catch Grant after he has escaped from women and +money and fame. Vanity--vanity, saith the preacher--Heaven help Grant in +the final struggle with the big, black devil of vanity." + +Yet, after all, vanity has in it the seed of a saving grace that has +lifted humanity over many pitfalls in the world. For vanity is only +self-respect multiplied; and when that goes--when men and women lose +their right to lift their faces to God, they have fallen upon bad times +indeed. It was even so good a man as John Dexter himself, who tried to +put self-respect into the soul of Violet Hogan, and was mocked for it. + +"What do they care for me?" she cried, as he sat talking to her in her +miserable home one chill November day. "Why should I pay any attention +to them? Once I chummed with Mag Mueller, before she married Henry Fenn, +and I was as good as she was then--and am now for that matter. She knew +what I was, and I knew what she was going to be--we made no bones of it. +We hunted in pairs--as women like to. And I know Mag Mueller. So why +should I keep up for her?" + +The woman laughed and showed her hollow mouth and all the wrinkles of +her broken face, that the paint hid at night. "And as for Tom Van +Dorn--I was a decent girl before I met him, Mr. Dexter--and why in God's +name should I try to keep up for him?" + +She shuddered and would have sobbed but he stopped her with: "Well, +Violet--wife and I have always been your friends; we are now. The church +will help you." + +"Oh, the church--the church," she laughed. "It can't help me. Fancy me +in church--with all the wives looking sideways at all the husbands to +see that they didn't look too long at me. The church is for those who +haven't been caught! God knows if there is a place for any one who has +been caught--and I've been caught and caught and caught." She cried. +"Only the children don't know--not yet, though little Tom--he's the +oldest, he came to me and asked me yesterday why the other children +yelled when I went out. Oh, hell--" she moaned, "what's the use--what's +the use--what's the use!" and fell to sobbing with her head upon her +arms resting upon the bare, dirty table. + +It was rather a difficult question for John Dexter. Only one other +minister in the world ever answered it successfully, and He brought +public opinion down on Him. The Rev. John Dexter rose, and stood looking +at the shattered thing that once had been a graceful, beautiful human +body enclosing an aspiring soul. He saw what society had done to break +and twist the body; what society had neglected to do in the youth of the +soul--to guide and environ it right--he saw what poverty had done and +what South Harvey had done to cheat her of her womanhood even when she +had tried to rise and sin no more; he remembered how the court-made law +had cheated her of her rightful patrimony and cast her into the streets +to spread the social cancer of her trade; and he had no answer. If he +could have put vanity into her heart--the vanity which he feared for +Grant Adams, he would have been glad. But her vanity was the vanity of +motherhood; for herself she had spent it all. So he left her without +answering her question. Money was all he could give her and money seemed +to him a kind of curse. Yet he gave it and gave all he had. + +When she saw that he was gone, Violet fell upon the tumbled, unmade bed +and cried with all the vehemence of her unrestrained, shallow nature. +For she was sick and weary and hungry. She had given her last dollar to +a policeman the night before to keep from arrest. The oldest boy had +gone to school without breakfast. The little children were playing in +the street--they had begged food at the neighbors' and she had no heart +to stop them. At noon when little Tom came in he found his mother +sitting before a number of paper sacks upon the table waiting for him. +Then the family ate out of the sacks the cold meal she had bought at the +grocery store with John Dexter's money. + +That night Violet shivered out into the cold over her usual route. She +was walking through the railroad yards in Magnus when suddenly she came +upon a man who dropped stealthily out of a dead engine. He carried +something shining and tried to slip it under his coat when he saw her. +She knew he was stealing brass, but she did not care; she called as they +passed through the light from an arc lamp: + +"Hello, sweetheart--where you going?" + +The man looked up ashamed, and she turned a brazen, painted face at him +and tried to smile without opening her lips. + +Their eyes met, and the man caught her by the arm and cried: + +"God, Violet--is this you--have you--" She cut him off with: + +"Henry Fenn--why--Henry--" + +The brass fell at his feet. He did not pick it up. They stood between +the box cars in speechless astonishment. It was the man who found voice. + +"Violet--Violet," he cried. "This is hell. I'm a thief and you--" + +"Say it--say it--don't spare me," she cried. "That's what I am, Henry. +It's all right about me, but how about you, how about you, Henry? This +is no place for you! Why, you," she exclaimed--"why, you are--" + +"I'm a drunken thief stealing brass couplings to get another drink, +Violet." + +He picked up the brass and threw it up into the engine, still clutching +her arm so that she could not run away. + +"But, girl--" he cried, "you've got to quit this--this is no way for you +to live." + +She looked at him to see what was in his mind. She broke away, and +scrambled into the engine cab and put the brass where it could not fall +out. + +"You don't want that brass falling out, and them tracing you down here +and jugging you--you fool," she panted as she climbed to the ground. + +"Lookee here, Henry Fenn," she cried, "you're too good a man for this. +You've had a dirty deal. I knew it when she married you--the snake; I +know it--I've always known it." + +The woman's voice was shrill with emotion. Fenn saw that she was verging +on the hysterical, and took her arm and led her down the dark alley +between the cars. The man's heart was touched--partly by the wreck he +saw, and partly by her words. They brought back the days when he and she +had seen their visions. The liquor had left his head, and he was a +tremble. He felt her cold, hard hand, and took it in his own dirty, +shaken hand to warm it. + +"How are you living?" he asked. + +"This way," she replied. "I got my children--they've got to live +someway. I can't leave them day times and see 'em run wild on the +streets--the little girls need me." + +She looked up into his face as they hurried past an arc lamp, and she +saw tears there. + +"Oh, you got a dirty deal, Henry--how could she do it?" cried the woman. + +He did not answer and they walked up a dingy street. A car came howling +by. + +"Got car fare," he asked. She nodded. + +"Well, I haven't," he said, "but I'm going with you." + +They boarded the car. They were the only passengers. They sat down, and +he said, under the roar of the wheels: + +"Violet--it's a shame--a damn shame, and I'm not going to stand for it. +This a Market Street car?" he asked the conductor who passed down the +aisle for their fares. The woman paid. When the conductor was gone, +Henry continued: + +"Three kids and a mother robbed by a Judge who knew better--just to +stand in with the kept attorneys of the bar association. He could have +knocked the shenanigan, that killed Hogan, galley west, if he'd wanted +to, and no Supreme Court would have dared to set it aside. But no--the +kept lawyers at the Capital, and all the Capitals have a mutual +admiration society, and Tom has always belonged. So he turns you and all +like you on the street, and Violet, before God I'm going to try to help +you." + +She looked at the slick, greasy, torn stiff hat, and the dirty, shiny +clothes that years ago had been his Sunday best, and the shaggy face and +the sallow, unwashed skin; and she remembered the man who was. + +The car passed into South Harvey. She started to rise. "No," he said, +stopping her, "you come on with me." + +"Where are we going?" she asked. He did not answer. She sat down. +Finally the car turned into Market Street. They got off at the bank +corner. The man took hold of the woman's arm, and led her to the alley. +She drew back. + +He said: "Are you afraid of me--now, Violet?" They slinked down the +alley and seeing a light in the back room of a store, Fenn stopped and +went up to peer in. + +"Come on," he said. "He's in." + +Fenn tapped on the barred window and whistled three notes. A voice +inside cried, "All right, Henry--soon's I get this column added up." + +The woman shrank back, but Fenn held her arm. Then the door opened, and +the moon face of Mr. Brotherton appeared in a flood of light. He saw the +woman, without recognizing her, and laughed: + +"Are we going to have a party? Come right in, Marianna--here's the +moated Grange, all right, all right." + +As they entered, he tried to see her face, but she dropped her head. +Fenn asked, "Why, George--don't you know her? It's Violet--Violet +Mauling--who married Denny Hogan who was killed last winter." + +George Brotherton looked at the painted face, saw the bald attempt at +coquetry in her dress, and as she lifted her glazed, dead eyes, he knew +her story instantly. + +For she wore the old, old mask of her old, old trade. + +"You poor, poor girl," he said gently. Then continued, "Lord--but this +is tough." + +He saw the miserable creature beside him and would have smiled, but he +could not. Fenn began, + +"George, I just got tired of coming around here every night after +closing for my quarter or half dollar; so for two or three weeks I've +been stealing. She caught me at it; caught me stripping a dead engine +down in the yards by the round house." + +"Yes," she cried, lifting a poor painted face, "Mr. Brotherton--but you +know how I happened to be down there. He caught me as much as I caught +him! And I'm the worst--Oh, God, when they get like me--that's the end!" + +The three stood silently together. Finally Brotherton spoke: "Well," he +drew a long breath, "well, they don't need any hell for you two--do +they?" Then he added, "You poor, poor sheep that have gone astray. I +don't know how to help you." + +"Well, George--that's just it," replied Fenn. "No one can help us. But +by God's help, George, I can help her! There's that much go left in me +yet! Don't you think so, George?" he asked anxiously. "I can help her." + +The weak, trembling face of the man moved George Brotherton almost to +tears. Violet's instinct saw that Brotherton could not speak and she +cried: + +"George--I tell Henry he's had a dirty deal, too--Oh, such a dirty deal. +I know he's a man--he never cast off a girl--like I was cast off--you +know how. Henry's a man, George--a real man, and oh, if I could help +him--if I could help him get up again. He's had such a dirty deal." + +Brotherton saw her mouth in all its ugliness, and saw as he looked how +tears were streaking the bedaubed face. She was repulsive beyond words, +yet as she tried to hold back her tears, George Brotherton thought she +was beautiful. + +Fenn found his voice. "Now, here, George--it's like this: I don't want +any woman; I've washed most of that monkey business out of me with +whisky--it's not in me any more. And I know she's had enough of men. And +I've brought her here--we've come here to tell you that part is +straight--decent--square. I wanted you to know that--and Violet would, +too--wouldn't you, Violet?" She nodded. + +"Now, then, George--I'm her man! Do you understand--her man. I'm going +to see that she doesn't have to go on the streets. Why, when she was a +girl I used to beau her around, and if she isn't ashamed of a drunken +thief--then in Christ's name, I'm going to help her." + +He smiled out of his leaden eyes the ghost of his glittering, old, +self-deprecatory smile. The woman remembered it, and bent over and +kissed his dirty hand. She rose, and put her fingers gently upon his +head, and sobbed: + +"Oh, God, forgive me and make me worthy of this!" + +There was an awkward pause. When the woman had controlled herself Fenn +said: "What I want is to keep right on sleeping in the basement +here--until I can get ahead enough to pay for my room. I'm not going to +make any scandal for Violet, here. But we both feel better to talk it +out with you." + +They started for the back door. The front of the store was dark. +Brotherton saw the man hesitate, and look down the alley to see if any +one was in sight. + +"Henry," said Brotherton, "here's a dollar. You might just as well begin +fighting it out to-night. You go to the basement. I'll take Violet +home." + +The woman would have protested, but the big man said gently: "No, +Violet--you were Denny Hogan's wife. He was my friend. You are Henry's +ward--he is my friend. Let's go out the front way, Violet." + +When they were gone, and the lights were out in the office of the +bookstore, Henry Fenn slipped through the alley, went to the nearest +saloon, walked in, stood looking at the whiskey sparkling brown and +devilishly in the thick-bottomed cut glasses, saw the beer foaming upon +the mahogany board, breathed it all in deeply, felt of the hard silver +dollar in his pocket, shook as one in a palsy, set his teeth and while +the tears came into his eyes stood and silently counted one hundred and +another hundred; grinning foolishly when the loafers joked with him, and +finally shuffled weakly out into the night, and ran to his cellar. And +if Mr. Left's theory of angels is correct, then all the angels in heaven +had their harps in their hands waving them for Henry, and cheering for +joy! + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + +A SHORT CHAPTER, YET IN IT WE EXAMINE ONE CANVAS HEAVEN, ONE REAL +HEAVEN, AND TWO SNUG LITTLE HELLS + + +"The idea of hell," wrote the Peach Blow Philosopher in the Harvey +_Tribune_, "is the logical sequence of the belief that material +punishments must follow spiritual offenses. For the wicked go unscathed +of material punishments in this naughty world. And so the idea of Heaven +is a logical sequence of the idea that only spiritual rewards come to +men for spiritual services. Not that Heaven is needed to balance the +accounts of good men after death--not at all. Good men get all that is +coming to them here--whether it is a crucifixion or a crown--that makes +no difference; crowns and crosses are mere material counters. They do +not win or lose the game--nor even justly mark its loss or winning. + +"The reason why Heaven is needed in the scheme of a neighborly man," +said the Peach Blow Philosopher as he stood at his gate and reviewed the +procession of pilgrims through the wilderness, "is this: The man who +leads a decent life, is building a great soul. Obviously, this world is +not the natural final habitat of great souls; for they occur here +sporadically--though perhaps more and more frequently every trip around +the sun. But Heaven is needed in any scheme of general decency for +decency's sake, so that the decent soul for whose primary development +the earth was hung in the sky, may have a place to find further +usefulness, and a far more exceeding glory than may be enjoyed in this +material dwelling place. So as we grow better and kinder in this world, +hell sloughs off and Heaven is more real." + +There is more of this dissertation--if the reader cares to pursue it, +and it may be found in the files of the Harvey _Tribune_. It also +appears as a footnote to an article by an eminent authority on Abnormal +Psychology in a report on Mr. Left, Vol. XXXII, p. 2126, of the Report +of the Psychological Association. The remarks of the Peach Blow +Philosopher credited in the Report of the Proceedings above noted, to +Mr. Left, appeared in the Harvey _Tribune_ Jan. 14, 1903. They may +have been called forth by an editorial in the Harvey _Times_ of +January 9 of that same year. So as that editorial has a proper place in +this narrative, it may be set down here at the outset of this chapter. +The article from the _Times_ is headed: "A Successful Career" and +it follows: + +"To-day Judge Thomas Van Dorn retires from ten years of faithful service +as district judge of this district. He was appointed by the Governor and +has been twice elected to this position by the people, and feeling that +the honor should go to some other county in the district, the Judge was +not a candidate for a third nomination or election. During the ten years +of his service he has grown steadily in legal and intellectual +attainments. He has been president of the state bar association, +delegate from that body to the National Bar Association, member of +several important committees in that organization, and now is at the +head of that branch of the National Bar Association organized to secure +a more strict interpretation of the Federal Constitution, as a bulwark +of commercial liberty. Judge Van Dorn also has been selected as a member +of a subcommittee to draft a new state constitution to be submitted to +the legislature by the state bar association. So much for the +recognition of his legal ability. + +"As an orator he has won similar and enviable fame. His speech at the +dedication of the state monument at Vicksburg will be a classic in +American oratory for years. At the Marquette Club Banquet in Chicago +last month his oration was reprinted in New York and Boston with +flattering comment. Recently he has been engaged--though his term of +service has just ended--in every important criminal action now pending +west of the Mississippi. As a jury lawyer he has no equal in all the +West. + +"But while this practice is highly interesting, and in a sense +remunerative, the Judge feels that the criminal practice makes too much +of a drain upon his mind and body, and while he will defend certain +great lumber operators and will appear for the defense in the famous +Yarborrough murder case, and is considering accepting an almost +unbelievably large retainer in the Skelton divorce case with its +ramifications leading into at least three criminal prosecutions, and +four suits to change or perfect certain land titles, yet this kind of +practice is distasteful to the Judge, and he will probably confine +himself after this year to what is known as corporation practice. He has +been retained as general counsel for all the industrial interests in the +Wahoo Valley. The mine operators, the smelter owners, the cement +manufacturers, the glass factories have seen in Judge Van Dorn a man in +whom they all may safely trust their interests--amicably settling all +differences between themselves in his office, and presenting for the +Wahoo Valley an unbroken front in all future disputes--industrial or +otherwise. This arrangement has been perfected by our giant of finance, +Hon. Daniel Sands of the Traders' State Bank, who is, as every one +knows, heavily interested in every concern in the Valley--excepting the +Independent Coal Company, which by the way has preferred to remain +outside of the united commercial union, and do business under its own +flag--however dark that flag may be. + +"This new career of Judge Van Dorn will be highly gratifying to his +friends--and who is there who is not his friend? + +"Courteous, knightly, impetuous, gallant Tom Van Dorn? What a career he +has builded for himself in Harvey and the West. + +"Scorning his enemies with the quiet contempt of the intellectual +gladiator that he is, Tom Van Dorn has risen in this community as no +other man young or old since its founding. His spacious home is the +temple of hospitality; his magnificent talent is given freely, often to +the poor and needy to whom his money flows in a generous stream whenever +the call comes. His shrewd investment of his savings in the Valley have +made him rich; his beautiful wife and his widening circle of friends +have made him happy--his fine, active brain has made him great. + +"The _Times_ extends to the Judge upon his retirement from the +bench the congratulations of an admiring community, and best wishes for +future success." + +Now perhaps it was not this article that inspired the Peach Blow +Philosopher. It may have been another item in the same paper hidden away +in the want column. + +"Wanted--All the sewing and mending, quilt patching, sheet making, or +other plain sewing that the good women of Harvey have to give out. I +know certain worthy women with families, who need this work. Also +wood-sawing orders promptly filled by competent men out of work. I will +bring work and the workers together. H. Fenn, care Brotherton Book & +Stationery Co., 1127 Market Street." + +Or if it was not that item, perhaps it was this one from the South +Harvey _Derrick_ of January 7, that called forth the Peach Blow +Philosopher's remarks on Heaven: + +"Mrs. Violet Hogan and family have rented the rooms adjoining Mrs. Van +Dorn's kindergarten. Mrs. Hogan has made arrangements to provide ladies +of South Harvey and the Valley in general with plain sewing by the +piece. A day nursery for children has been fitted up by our genial +George Brotherton, former mayor of Harvey, where mothers sewing may +leave their children in an adjoining room." + +Now the Heaven of the Peach Blow Philosopher is not gained at one bound. +Even the painted, canvas Heaven of Thomas Van Dorn cost him +something--to be exact, $100, which he took in "stock" of the +_Times_ company--which always had stock for sale, issued by a Price +& Chanler Gordon job press whenever it was required. And the +negotiations for the Judge's painted Heaven made by his partner, Mr. +Joseph Calvin, of the renewed and reunited firm of Van Dorn & Calvin, +were not without their painful moments. As, for instance, when the +editor of the _Times_ complained bitterly at having it agreed that +he would have to mention in the article the Judge's "beautiful wife," +specifically and in terms, the editor was for raising the price to $150, +by reason of the laughing stock it would make of the paper, but +compromised upon the promise of legal notices from the firm amounting to +$100 within the following six months. Also there was a hitch in the +negotiations hereinbefore mentioned when the _Times_ was required +to refer to the National Bar Association meeting at all. For it was +notorious that the Judge's flourishing signature with "and wife" had +been photographed upon the register of a New York Hotel when he attended +that meeting, whereas every one knew that Mrs. Van Dorn was in Europe +that summer, and the photograph of the Judge's beautifully flourishing +signature aforesaid was one of the things that persuaded the Judge to +enter the active practice and leave the shades and solitudes of the +bench for more strenuous affairs. To allude to the Judge's wife, and to +mention the National Bar Association in the same article, struck the +editor of the _Times_ as so inauspicious that it required +considerable persuasion on the part of the diplomatic Mr. Calvin, to +arrange the matter. + +So the Judge's Heaven bellied on its canvas, full of vain east wind, and +fooled no one--not even the Judge, least of all his beautiful wife, who, +knowing of the Bar Association incident, laughed a ribald laugh. +Moreover, having abandoned mental healing for the Episcopalian faith and +having killed her mental healing dog with caramels and finding surcease +in a white poodle, she gave herself over to a riot of earth +thoughts--together with language thereunto appertaining of so plain a +texture that the Judge all but limped in his strut for several hours. + +But when the strut did come back, and the mocking echoes of the strident +tones of "his beautiful wife" were stilled by several rounds of Scotch +whisky at the Club, the Judge went forth into the town, waving his hands +right and left, bowing punctiliously to women, and spending an hour in +police court getting out of trouble some of his gambler friends who had +supported him in politics. + +He told every one that it was good to be off the bench and to be "plain +Tom Van Dorn" again, and he shook hands up and down Market Street. And +as "plain Tom Van Dorn" he sat down in the shop of the Paris Millinery +Company, Mrs. Herdicker, Prop., and talked to the amiable Prop. for half +an hour--casting sly glances at the handsome Miss Morton, who got behind +him and made faces over his back for Mrs. Herdicker's edification. + +But as Mrs. Herdicker, Prop., made it a point--and kept it--never to +talk against the cash drawer, "plain Tom Van Dorn" didn't learn the +truth from her. So he pranced up and down before his scenic +representation of Heaven in the _Times_, and did not know that the +whole town knew that his stage Heaven was the masque for as hot and cozy +a little hell as any respectable gentleman of middle years could endure. + +However clear he made it to the public, that he and Mrs. Van Dorn were +passionately fond of each other; however evident he intended it to be +that he was more than satisfied with the bargain that he had made when +he took her, and put away his first wife; however strongly he played the +card of the gallant husband and "dearied" her, and however she smirked +at him and "dawlinged" him in public when the town was looking, every +one knew the truth. + +"We may," says the Peach Blow Philosopher in one of his dissertations on +the Illusion of Time, "counterfeit everything in this world--but +sincerity." So Judge Thomas Van Dorn--"plain Tom Van Dorn," went along +Market Street, and through the world, handing out his leaden gratuities. +But people felt how greasy they were, how heavy they were, how soft they +were; and threw them aside, and sneered. + +As for the Heaven which the Peach Blow Philosopher may have found for +Henry Fenn and Violet Hogan, it was a different affair, but of slow and +uncertain growth. Henry Fenn went into the sewer gang the day after he +found Violet in the railroad yards, and for two weeks he worked ten +hours a day with the negroes and Mexicans in the ditch. It took him a +month to get enough money ahead to pay for a room. Leaving the sewer +gang, he was made timekeeper on a small paving contract. But every day +he sent through the mails to Violet enough to pay her rent and feed the +children--a little sum, but all he could spare. He did not see her. He +did not write to her. He only knew that the money he was making was +keeping her out of the night, so he bent to his work with a will. + +And at night,--it was not easy for Violet to stay in the house. She +needed a thousand little things--or thought she did. And there was the +old track and the easy money. But she knew what the pittance that came +from Henry Fenn meant to him, so in pride and in shame one night she +turned back home when she had slipped clear to the corner of the street +with her paint on. When she got home she threw herself upon the bed and +wept like a child in anguish. But the next night she did not even touch +the rouge pot, and avoided it as though it were a poison. Her idea was +the sewing room. She wrote it all out, in her stylish, angular hand to +Mr. Brotherton, told him what it would cost, and how she believed she +could make expenses for herself and help a number of other women who, +like her, were tempted to go the wrong road. She even sent him five +spoons--the last relic of the old Mauling decency, five silver spoons +dented with the tooth marks of the Mauling children, five spoons done up +in pink tissue that she had always told little Ouida Hogan should come +to her some day--she sent those spoons to Mr. Brotherton to sell to make +the start toward the sewing room. + +But Mr. Brotherton took the spoons to Mr. Ira Dooley's home of the fine +arts and crafts, and then and there, mounting a lookout stand, addressed +the crowd through the smoke in simple but effective language, showing +the spoons, telling the boys at the gaming tables that they all knew +Denny Hogan's wife and how about her; that she wanted to get in right; +that the spoons were sent to him to sell to the highest and best bidder +for cash in hand. He also said that chips would count at the market +price, and lo! he got a hat full of rattly red and white and blue chips +and jingly silver dollars and a wad of whispering five-dollar bills big +enough to cork a cannon. He went back to Harvey, spoons and all, +considering deeply certain statements that Grant Adams had made about +the presence of the holy ghost in every human heart. + +As for the bright particular Heaven of Mr. Fenn, as hereinbefore +possibly hinted at by the Peach Blow Philosopher, these are its +specifications: + +_Item One._ Job as storekeeper at the railroad roundhouse, from +which by specific order of the master mechanic two hours a day are +granted to Mr. Fenn, to take his hat in his hand and go marching over +the town, knocking at doors and soliciting sewing for women, and +wood-sawing or yard or furnace work for men; but + +_Item Two._ Being a generous man, Mr. Fenn is up before eight for +an hour of his work, and stays at it until seven, and thereby gets in +two or three extra hours on the job, and feels + +_Item Three._ That he is doing something worth while; + +_Item Four._ Upon the first of the month he has nothing; + +_Item Five._ Balancing his books at the last of the month he has +nothing, + +_Item Six._ And having no debt he is happy. But speaking of debt, +there is + +_Item Seven._ In Mr. Fenn's room a collection of receipts: + +(a) One from the Midland Railroad Company for brass as per statement +rendered. + +(b) One from the Harvey Transfer Co. for one box of cutlery marked +Wright & Perry, and + +(c) One--the hardest receipt of all to get--from Martha Morton for six +chickens as per account rendered. These receipts hang on a spindle in +the little room. Under the spindle is + +_Item Eight._ A bottle of whisky--full but uncorked. He is in his +room but little. Sometimes he comes in late at night, and does not light +the lamp to avoid seeing the bottle, but plunges into bed, and covers up +his head in fear and trembling. On the day when the Peach Blow +Philosopher printed his view on Heaven, Mr. Fenn, by way of personal +adornment, had purchased of Wright & Perry + +_Item Nine._ One new coat. He hoped and so indicated to the firm, +to be able to afford a vest in the spring and perhaps trousers by +summer, and because of the cutlery transaction above mentioned, the firm +indicated + +_Item Ten._ That Mr. Fenn's credit was good for the whole suit. But +Mr. Fenn waved a proud hand and said he had + +_Item Eleven._ No desire to become involved in the devious ways of +high finance, and took only the coat. + +But, nevertheless, no small part of his Heaven lies in the serene +knowledge that the whole suit is waiting for him, carefully put aside by +the head of the house until Mr. Fenn cares to call for it. That is +perhaps a material Heaven but it is a part of Mr. Fenn's Heaven, and as +he goes about from door to door soliciting for sewing, the knowledge +that if he should cease or falter four women might be on the street the +next night, keeps him happy, and not even when he was county attorney or +in the real estate business nor writing insurance, nor disporting +himself as an auctioneer was Mr. Fenn ever in his own mind a person of +so much use and consequence. So his Heaven needs no east wind to belly +it out. Mr. Fenn's Heaven is full and fat and prosperous--even on two +meals a day and in a three-dollar-a-month room. + +And now that we may balance up the Heaven account in these books, we +should come to some conclusion as to what Heaven is. Let us call it, for +the sake of our hypothesis, the most work one can do for the least +self-interest, and let it go at that and get on with the story. For this +story has to do with large and real affairs. It must not dally here with +the sordid affairs of a lady who certainly was no better than she should +be and of a gentleman who was as the hereinbefore mentioned receipts +will show, much worse than he might have been. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + +THE ODD SPIDER BEGINS TO DIVIDE HIS FLIES WITH OTHERS AND GEORGE +BROTHERTON IS PUZZLED TWICE IN ONE NIGHT + + +Now it was in the year of these minor conquests when Henry Fenn and +Violet Hogan were enjoying their little Heavens that great things began +to stir in Harvey and the Wahoo Valley. In May a young gentleman in a +high hat and a suit of exquisite gray twill cut with a long frock coat, +appeared at the Hotel Sands--and took the bridal suite on the second +floor. He brought letters to the Traders' Bank and from the Bank took +letters to the smelters, and with a notebook in hand the young man in +exquisite gray twill went about for three or four days smiling affably, +and asking many questions. Then he left and in due course--that is to +say, in a fortnight--Mr. Sands called the managing officials of all the +smelters into his back room and read them a letter from a New York firm +offering to trade stock in a holding company, taking over smelters of +the class and kind in the Wahoo Valley for the stocks and bonds of the +Harvey Smelters Company. The letterhead was so awe-inspiring and the +proposition was so convincing by reason of the terror inherent in the +letterhead that the smelters went into the holding company, and +thereafter the managing officials who had been men of power and +consequence in Harvey became clerks. About the same time the coal +properties went the same way, and the cement concerns saw their finish +as individual competing concerns. The glass factories were also gobbled +up. So when the Fourth of July came and the youngest Miss Morton, under +great protest, but at her father's stern command, wrapped an American +flag about her--and sang the "Star Spangled Banner" to the Veterans of +Persifer F. Smith Post of the G.A.R. in Sands' + +Park, the land of the free and the home of the brave in Harvey was +somewhat abridged. + +Daniel Sands felt the abridgement more than any one else. For a +generation he had been a spider, weaving his own web for his own nest. +All his webs and filaments and wires and pipes and cables went out and +brought back things for him to dispose of. He was the center of the +universe for himself and for Harvey. He was the beginning and the end. +His bank was the first and the last word in business and in politics in +that great valley. What he spun was his; what he drew into the web was +his. When he invited the fly into his parlor, it was for the delectation +of the spider, not to be passed on to some other larger web and fatter +spider. But that day as he sat, a withered, yellow-skinned, red-eyed, +rattle-toothed, old man with a palsied head that never stopped wagging, +as he sat under his skull cap, blinking out at a fat, little world that +always had been his prey, Daniel Sands felt that he had ceased to be an +end, and had become a means. + +His bank, his mines, his smelters, even his municipal utilities, all +were slipping from under his control. He could feel the pull of the rope +from the outside around his own foot. He could feel that he was not a +generator of power. He was merely a pumping station, gathering up all +the fat of the little land that once was his, and passing it out in +pipes that ran he knew not where, to go to some one else--he knew not +whom. True, his commissions came back, and his dividends came back, and +they were rich and sweet, and worth while. But--he was shocked when he +found courage to ask it--if they did not come back, what could he do? +He was part of a great web--a little filament in one obscure corner, and +he was spinning a fabric whose faintest plan he could not conceive. + +This angered him, and the spider spat in vain rage. The power he loved +was gone; he was the mere shell of a spider; he was dead. Some man might +come into the bank to-morrow and take even the semblance of his power +from him. They might, indeed, shut up every mill, close every mine, lock +every factory, douse the fire in every smelter in the Wahoo Valley, and +the man who believed he had opened the mills, dug the mines, builded the +factories and lighted the smelter fires with all but his own hands, +could only rage and fume, or be polite and pretend it was his desire. + +The town that he believed that he had made out of sunshine and prairie +grass, for all he could do, might be condemned as a bat roost, and the +wires and cables, that ran from his desk all over the Wahoo Valley, +might grow rusty and jangle in the prairie winds, while the pipes rotted +under the sunflowers and he could only make a wry face. Spiders must +have some instinctive constructive imagination to build their marvelous +webs; surely this old spider had an imagination that in Elizabeth's day +would have made him more than a minor poet. Yet in the beginning of the +Twentieth Century he felt himself a bound prisoner in his decaying web. +So he showed his blue mouth, and red eyelids in fury, and was silent +lest even his shadow should find how impotent a thing he was. + +But he knew that one man knew. "How about your politics down here?" +asked the affable young man in exquisite gray twill, when he closed the +gas-works deal. And Dan'l Sands said that until recently he and Dr. +Nesbit had been cronies, but that some way the Doctor had been getting +high notions, and hadn't been around the bank lately. The young man in +the exquisite gray twill asked a few questions, catalogued the Doctor, +and then said: + +"This man Van Dorn, it appears, is local attorney for all the mines and +smelters--he hasn't the reform bug, has he?" + +The old spider grinned and shook his head. + +"All right," said the polite young man in the exquisite gray twill, as +he picked up his gray, high hat, and flicked a speck of dust from his +exquisite gray frock coat, "I'll take matters of politics up with him." + +So the spider knew that the servant had been put over the master, and +again he opened his mouth in malice, but spoke no word. + +And thus it was that Judge Thomas Van Dorn formed a strong New York +connection that stood him in stead in after years. For the web that the +old spider of Market Street had been weaving all these years, was at its +strongest but a rope of sand compared with the steel links of the chain +that was wrapped about the town, with one end in the Judge's hand, but +with the chain reaching out into some distant, mysterious hawser that +moved it with a power of which even the Judge knew little or nothing. + +So he was profoundly impressed, and accordingly proud, and added half an +inch to the high-knee action of his strut. He felt himself a part of the +world of affairs--and he was indeed a part. He was one of a thousand men +who, whether they knew it or not, had been bought, body and soul--though +the soul was thrown in for good measure in the Judge's case--to serve +the great, greedy spider of organized capital at whatever cost of public +welfare or of private faith. He was indeed a man of affairs--was Thomas +Van Dorn--a part of a vast business and political cabal, that knew no +party and no creed but dividends and still more dividends, impersonal, +automatic, soulless--the materialization of the spirit of commerce. + +And strangely enough, just as Tom Van Dorn worshiped the power that +bought him, so the old spider, peering through the broken, rotting +meshes of what was once his web, felt the power to which it was +fastened, felt the power that moved him as a mere pawn in a game whose +direction he did not conceive; and Dan'l Sands, in spite of his silent +rage, worshiped the power like a groveling idolater. + +But the worm never lacks for a bud; that also is a part of God's plan. +Thus, while the forces of egoism, the powers of capital, were +concentrating in a vast organization of socialized individualism, the +other forces and powers of society which were pointing toward a +socialized altruism, were forming also. There was the man in the +exquisite gray twill, harnessing Judge Van Dorn and Market Street to his +will; and there was Grant Adams in faded overalls, harnessing labor to +other wheels that were grinding another grist. Slowly but persistently +had Grant Adams been forming his Amalgamation of the Unions of the +valley. Slowly and awkwardly his unwieldy machinery was creaking its way +round. In spite of handicaps of opposing interests among the men of +different unions, his Wahoo Valley Labor Council was shaping itself into +an effective machine. If the shares of stock in the mills and the mines +and the smelters all ran their dividends through one great hopper, so +the units of labor in the Valley were connected with a common source of +direction. God does not plant the organizing spirit in the world for one +group; it is the common heritage of the time. So the sinister power of +organized capital loomed before Market Street with its terrible threat +of extinction for the town if the town displeased organized capital; so +also rose in the town a dread feeling of uneasiness that labor also had +power. The personification of that power was Grant Adams. And when the +young man in exquisite gray twill had become only a memory, Tom Van Dorn +squarely faced Grant Adams. Market Street was behind the Judge. The +Valley was back of Grant. For a time there was a truce, but it was not +peace. The truce was a time of waiting; waiting and arming for battle. + +During the year of the truce, Nathan Perry was busy. Nathan Perry saw +the power that was organizing about him and the Independent mine among +the employers in the district, and intuitively he felt the +resistlessness of the power. But he did not shrink. He advised his +owners to join the combination as a business proposition. But his advice +was a dead fly fed to the old spider's senile vanity. For Daniel Sands +had been able to dictate as a part of his acceptance of the proposition, +this one concession: That the Independent mine be kept out of the +agreement. Nathan Perry suspected this. But most of his owners were game +men, and they decided not even to apply for admission to the +organization. They found that the young man's management of the mine was +paying well; that the labor problem was working satisfactorily; that the +safety devices, while expensive, produced a feeling of good-will among +the men that was worth more even in dividends than the interest on the +money. + +But after he had warned his employers of the wrath to come, Nathan Perry +did not spend much time in unavailing regret at their decision. He was, +upon the whole, glad they had made it. And having a serious problem in +philology to work out--namely, to discover whether Esperanto, Chinese or +Dutch is the natural language of man, through study of the +conversational tendencies of Daniel Kyle Perry, the young superintendent +of the Independent mine gave serious thought to that problem. + +Then, of course, there was that other problem that bothered Nathan +Perry, and being an engineer with a degree of B. S., it annoyed him to +discover that the problem wouldn't come out straight. Briefly and +popularly stated, it is this: If you have a boiler capacity of 200 +pounds per square inch and love a girl 200 pounds to the square inch, +and then the Doctor in his black bag brings one fat, sweaty, wrinkled +baby, and you see the girl in a new and sweeter light than ever before, +see her in a thousand ways rising above her former stature to a +wonderful womanhood beyond even your dreams--how are you going to get +more capacity out of that boiler without breaking it, when the load +calls for four hundred pounds? Now these problems puzzled the young man, +living at that time in his eight-room house with a bath, and he sat up +nights to work them. And some times there were two heads at work on the +sums, and once in a while three heads, but the third head talked a +various language, whose mild and healing sympathy stole the puzzle from +the problem and began chewing on it before they were aware. So Nathan +put the troubles of the mine on the hook whereon he hung his coat at +night, and if he felt uneasy at the trend of the day's events, his +uneasiness did not come to him at home. He had heard it whispered +about--once by the men and once in a directors' meeting--that the clash +with Grant Adams was about to come. If Nathan had any serious wish in +relation to the future, it was the ardent hope that the clash would come +and come soon. + +For the toll of death in the Wahoo Valley was cruel and inexorable. The +mines, the factories, the railroads, the smelters, all were death traps, +and the maimed, blind and helpless were cast out of the great industrial +hopper like chaff. Every little neighborhood had its cripple. From the +mines came the blind--whose sight was taken from them by cheap powder; +from the railroad yards came the maimed--the handless, armless, legless +men who, in their daily tasks had been crushed by inferior car +couplings; the smelters sent out their sick, whom the fumes had +poisoned, and sometimes there would come out a charred trunk that had +gone into the great molten vats a man. The factories took hands and +forearms, and sometimes when an accident of unusual horror occurred in +the Valley, it would seem like a place of mourning. The burden of all +this bloodshed and death was upon the laborers. And more than that,--the +burden of the widows and orphans also was upon labor. Capital charged +off the broken machinery, the damaged buildings, the worn-out equipment +to profit and loss with an easy conscience, while the broken men all +over the Valley, the damaged laborers, the worn-out workers, who were +thrown to the scrap heap in maturity, were charged to labor. And labor +paid this bill, chiefly because capital was too greedy to provide safe +machinery, or sanitary shops, or adequate tools! + +Nathan Perry, first miner, then pit-boss and finally superintendent, and +always member of Local Miners' Union No. 10, knew what the men were +vaguely beginning to see and think. When some man who had been to court +to collect damages for a killed or crippled friend, some man who had +heard the Judge talk of the assumed risk of labor, some man who had +heard lawyers split hairs to cheat working men of what common sense and +common justice said was theirs, when some such man cried out in hatred +and agony against society, Nathan Perry tried to counsel patience, tried +to curb the malice. But in his heart Nathan Perry knew that if he had +suffered the wrongs that such a man suffered, he too would be full of +wrath and class hatred. + +Sometimes, of course, men rose from the pit. Foremen became managers, +managers became superintendents, superintendents became owners, owners +became rich, and society replied--"Look, it is easy for a man to rise." +Once at lunch time, sitting in the shaft house, Nathan Perry with his +hands in his dinner bucket said something of the kind, when Tom +Williams, the little Welsh miner, who was a disciple and friend of Grant +Adams, cried: + +"Yes--that's true. It is easy for a man to rise. It was easy for a slave +to escape from the South--comparatively easy. But is it easy for the +class to rise? Was it easy for the slaves to be free? That is the +problem--the problem of lifting a whole class--as your class has been +lifted, young fellow, in the last century. Why, over in Wales a century +ago, a mere tradesman's son like you--was--was nobody. The middle +classes had nothing--that is, nothing much. They have risen. They rule +the world now. This century must see the rise of the laboring class; not +here and there as a man who gets out of our class and then sneers at us, +and pretends he was with us by accident--but we must rise as a class, +boy--don't you see?" + +And so, working in the mine, with the men, Nathan Perry completed his +education. He learned--had it ground into him by the hard master of +daily toil--that while bread and butter is an individual problem that no +laborer may neglect except at his peril, the larger problems of the +conditions under which men labor--their hours of service, their factory +surroundings, their shop rights to work, their relation to accidents and +to the common diseases peculiar to any trade--those are not individual +problems. They are class problems and must be solved--in so far as labor +can solve them alone, not by individual struggle but by class struggle. +So Nathan Perry came up out of the mines a believer in the union, and +the closed shop. He felt that those who would make the class problem an +individual problem, were only retarding the day of settlement, only +hindering progress. + +Rumor said that the truce in the Wahoo Valley was near an end. Nathan +Perry did not shrink from it. But Market Street was uneasy. It seemed to +be watching an approaching cyclone. When men knew that the owners were +ready to stop the organization of unions, the cloud of unrest seemed to +hover over them. But the clouds dissolved in rumor. Then they gathered +again, and it was said that Grant Adams was to be gagged, his Sunday +meetings abolished or that he was to be banished from the Valley. Again +the clouds dissolved. Nothing happened. But the cloud was forever on the +horizon, and Market Street was afraid. For Market Street--as a +street--was chiefly interested in selling goods. It had, of course, +vague yearnings for social justice--yearnings about as distinct as the +desire to know if the moon was inhabited. But as a street, Market Street +was with Mrs. Herdicker--it never talked against the cash drawer. Market +Street, the world over, is interested in things as they are. The +_statuo quo_ is God and _laissez faire_ is its profit! So +Market Street murmured, and buzzed--and then Market Street also +organized to worship the god of things as they are. + +But Mr. Brotherton of the Brotherton Book & Stationery Company held +aloof from the Merchants' Protective Association. Mr. Brotherton at odd +times, at first by way of diversion, and then as a matter of education +for his growing business, had been glancing at the contents of his +wares. Particularly had he been interested in the magazines. Moreover, +he was talking. And because it helped him to sell goods to talk about +them, he kept on talking. + +About this time he affected flowing negligee bow ties, and let his thin, +light hair go fluffy and he wrapped rather casually it seemed, about his +elephantine bulk, a variety of loose, baggy garb, which looked like a +circus tent. But he was a born salesman--was Mr. Brotherton. He +plastered literature over Harvey in carload lots. + +One day while Mr. Brotherton was wrapping up "Little Women" and a +"Little Colonel" book and "Children of the Abbey" that Dr. Nesbit was +buying for Lila Van Dorn, the Doctor piped, "Well, George, they say +you're getting to be a regular anarchist--the way you're talking about +conditions in the Valley?" + +"Not for a minute," answered Mr. Brotherton. "Why, man, all I said was +that if the old spider kept making the men use that cheap powder that +blows their eyes out and their hands off, and their legs off, they ought +to unionize and strike. And if it was my job to handle that powder I'd +tie the old devil on a blast and blow him into hamburger." Mr. +Brotherton's rising emotions reddened his forehead under his thin hair, +and pulled at his wind. He shook a weary head and leaned on a show case. +"But I say, stand by the boys. Maybe it will make a year of bad times or +maybe two; but what of that? It'll make better times in the end." + +"All right, George--go in. I glory in your spunk!" chirped the Doctor as +he put Lila's package under his arm. "Let me tell you something," he +added, "I've got a bill I'm going to push in the next legislature that +will knock a hole in that doctrine of the assumed risk of labor, you can +drive a horse through. It makes the owners pay for the accidents of a +trade, instead of hiding behind that theory, that a man assumes those +risks when he takes a job." + +The Doctor put his head to one side, cocked one eye and cried: "How +would that go?" + +"Now you're shoutin', Doc. Bust a machine, and the company pays for it. +Bust a man, the man pays for it or his wife and children or his friends +or the county. That's not fair. A man's as much of a part of the cost of +production as a machine!" + +The Doctor toddled out, clicking his cane and whistling a merry tune and +left Mr. Brotherton enjoying his maiden meditations upon the injustices +of this world. In the midst of his meditations he found that he had been +listening for five minutes to Captain Morton. The Captain was expounding +some passing dream about his Household Horse. Apparently the motor car, +which was multiplying rapidly in Harvey, had impressed him. He was +telling Mr. Brotherton that his Household Horse, if harnessed to the +motor car, would save much of the power wasted by the chains. He was +dreaming of the distant day when motor cars would be used in sufficient +numbers to make it profitable for the Captain to equip them with his +power saving device. + +But Mr. Brotherton cut into the Captain's musings with: "You tell the +girls to wash the cat for I'm coming out to-night." + +"Girls?--huh--girls?" replied the Captain as he looked over his +spectacles at Mr. Brotherton. "'Y gory, man, what's the matter with +me--eh? I'm staying out there on Elm Street yet--what say?" And he went +out smiling. + +When the Captain entered the house, he found Emma getting supper, Martha +setting the table and Ruth, with a candy box before her at the piano, +going over her everlasting "Ah-ah-ah-ah-ahs" from "C to C" as Emma +called it. + +Emma took her father's hat, put it away and said: "Well, father--what's +the news?" + +"Well," replied the Captain, with some show of deliberation, "a friend +of mine down town told me to tell you girls to wash the cat for he'll be +along here about eight o'clock." + +"Mr. Brotherton," scoffed Ruth. "It's up to you two," she cried gayly in +the midst of her eternal journey from "C" to "C." "He never wears his +Odd Fellows' pin unless he's been singing at an Odd Fellows' funeral, so +that lets me out to-night." + +"Well," sighed Emma, "I don't know that I want him even if he has on his +Shriner's pin. I just believe I'll go to bed. The way I feel to-night +I'm so sick of children I believe I wouldn't marry the best man on +earth." + +"Oh, well, of course, Emma," suggested the handsome Miss Morton, "if you +feel that way about it why, I--" + +"Now Martha--" cried the elder sister, "can't you let me alone and get +out of here? I tell you, the superintendent and the principal and the +janitor and the dratted Calvin kid all broke loose to-day and I'm liable +to run out doors and begin to jump and down in the street and scream if +you start on me." + +But after supper the three Misses Morton went upstairs, and did what +they could to wipe away the cares of a long and weary day. They put on +their second best dresses--all but Emma, who put on her best, saying she +had nothing else that wasn't full of chalk and worry. At seven +forty-five, they had the parlor illuminated. As for the pictures and +bric-a-brac--to-wit, a hammered brass flower pot near the grate, and +sitting on an onyx stand a picture of Richard Harding Davis, the +contribution of the eldest Miss Morton's callow youth, also a brass +smoking set on a mission table, the contribution of the youngest Miss +Morton from her first choir money--as for the pictures and bric-a-brac, +they were dusted until they glistened, and the trap was all set, waiting +for the prey. + +They heard the gate click and the youngest Miss Morton said quickly: +"Well, if he's an Odd Fellow, I guess I'll take him. But," she sighed, +"I'll bet a cooky he's an Elk and Martha gets him." + +The Captain went to the door and brought in the victim to as sweet and +demure a trio of surprised young women and as patient a cat, as ever sat +beside a rat hole. After he had greeted the girls--it was Ruth who took +his coat, and Martha his hat, but Emma who held his hand a second the +longest, after she spied the Shriner's pin--Mr. Brotherton picked up the +cat. + +"Well, Epaminondas," he puffed as he stroked the animal and put it to +his cheek, "did they take his dear little kitties away from him--the +horrid things." + +This was Mr. Brotherton's standard joke. Ruth said she never felt the +meeting was really opened until he had teased them about Epaminondas' +pretended kittens. + +For the first hour the talk ranged with obvious punctility over a +variety of subjects--but never once did Mr. Brotherton approach the +subject of politics, which would hold the Captain for a night session. +Instead, Mr. Brotherton spun literary tales from the shop. Then the +Captain broke in and enlivened the company with a description of Tom Van +Dorn's new automobile, and went into such details as to cams and cogs +and levers and other mechanical fittings that every one yawned and the +cat stretched himself, and the Captain incidentally told the company +that he had got Van Dorn's permission to try the Household Horse on the +old machine before it went in on the trade. + +Then Ruth rose. "Why, Ruth, dear," said Emma sweetly, "where are you +going?" + +"Just to get a drink, dear," replied Ruth. + +But it took her all night to finish drinking and she did not return. +Martha rose, began straightening up the littered music on the piano, and +being near the door, slipped out. By this time the Captain was doing +most of the talking. Chiefly, he was telling what he thought the +sprocket needed to make it work upon an automobile. At the hall door of +the dining room two heads appeared, and though the door creaked about +the time the clock struck the half hour, Mr. Brotherton did not see the +heads. They were behind him, and four arms began making signs at the +Captain. He looked at them, puzzled and anxious for a minute or two. +They were peremptorily beckoning him out. Finally, it came to him, and +he said to the girls: "Oh, yes--all right." This broke at the wrong time +into something Mr. Brotherton was saying. He looked up astonished and +the Captain, abashed, smiled and after shuffling his feet, backed up to +the base burner and hummed the tune about the land that was fairer than +day. Emma and Mr. Brotherton began talking. Presently, the Captain +picked up the spitting cat by the scruff of the neck and held him a +moment under his chin. "Well, Emmy," he cut in, interrupting her story +of how Miss Carhart had told the principal if "he ever told of her +engagement before school was out in June, she'd just die," with: + +"I suppose there'll be plenty of potatoes for the hash?" + +And not waiting for answer, he marched to the kitchen with the cat, and +in due time, they heard the "Sweet Bye and Bye" going up the back +stairs, and then the thump, thump of the Captain's shoes on the floor +above them. + +The eldest Miss Morton, in her best silk dress, with her mother's cameo +brooch at her throat, and with the full, maidenly ripeness of +twenty-nine years upon her brow, with her hair demurely parted on said +brow, where there was the faintest hint of a wrinkle coming--which Miss +Morton attributed to a person she called "the dratted Calvin kid,"--the +eldest Miss Morton, hair, cameo, silk dress, wrinkle, the dratted Calvin +kid and all, did or did not look like a siren, according to the point of +view of the spectator. If he was seeking the voluptuous curves of the +early spring of youth--no: but if he was seeking those quieter and more +restful lines that follow a maiden with a true and tender heart, who is +a good cook and who sweeps under the sofa, yes. + +Mr. Brotherton did not know exactly what he desired. He had been coming +to the Morton home on various errands since the girls were little tots. +He had seen Emma in her first millinery store hat. He had bought Martha +her first sled; he had got Ruth her last doll. But he shook his head. He +liked them all. And then, as though to puzzle him more, he had noticed +that for two or three years, he had never got more than two consecutive +evenings with any of them--or with all of them. The mystery of their +conduct baffled him. He sometimes wondered indignantly why they worked +him in shifts? Sometimes he had Ruth twice; sometimes Emma and Martha in +succession--sometimes Martha twice. He like them all. But he could not +understand what system they followed in disposing of him. So as he sat +and toyed with his Shriner's pin and listened to the tales of a tepid +schoolmistress' romance that Emma told, he wondered if after all--for a +man of his tastes, she wasn't really the flower of the flock. + +"You know, George," she was old enough for that, and at rare times when +they were alone she called him George, "I'm working up a kind of sorrow +for Judge Van Dorn--or pity or something. When I taught little Lila he +was always sending her candy and little trinkets. Now Lila is in the +grade above me, and do you know the Judge has taken to walking by the +schoolhouse at recess, just to see her, and walking along at noon and at +night to get a word with her. He has put up a swing and a teeter-totter +board on the girls' playgrounds. This morning I saw him standing, gazing +after her, and he was as sad a figure as I ever saw. He caught me +looking at him and smiled and said: + +"'Fine girl, Emma,' and walked away." + +"Lord, Emma," said Mr. Brotherton, as he brought his big, baseball hands +down on his fat knees. "I don't blame him. Don't you just think children +are about the nicest things in this world?" + +Emma was silent. She had expressed other sentiments too recently. Still +she smiled. And he went on: + +"Oh, wow!--they're mighty fine to have around." + +But Mr. Brotherton was restless after that, and when the clock was +striking ten he was in the hall. He left as he had gone for a dozen +years. And the young woman stood watching him through the glass of the +door, a big, strong, handsome man--who strode down the walk with +clicking heels of pride, and she turned away sadly and hurried upstairs. + +"Martha," she asked, as she took down her hair, "was it ordained in the +beginning of the world that all school teachers would have to take +widowers?" + +And without hearing the answer, she put out the light. + +Mr. Brotherton, stalking--not altogether unconsciously down the walk, +turned into the street and as he went down the hill, he was aware that a +boy was overtaking him. He let the boy catch up with him. "Oh, Mr. +Brotherton," cried the boy, "I've been looking for you!" + +"Well, here I am; what's the trouble?" + +"Grant sent me," returned the boy, "to ask you if he could see you at +eight o'clock to-morrow morning at the store?" + +Brotherton looked the boy over and exclaimed: + +"Grant?" and then, "Oh--why, Kenyon, I didn't know you. You are +certainly that human bean-stalk, son. Let's take a look at you. Well, +say--" Mr. Brotherton stopped and backed up and paused for dramatic +effect. Then he exploded: "Say, boy, if I had you in an olive wood +frame, I could get $2.75 or $3.00 for you as Narcissus or a boy Adonis! +You surely are the angel child!" + +The boy's great black eyes shone up at the man with something wistful +and dream-like in them that only his large, sensitive mouth seemed to +comprehend. For the rest of the child's face was boy--boy in early +adolescence. The boy answered simply: + +"Grant said to tell you that he expects the break to-morrow and is +anxious to see you." + +Mr. Brotherton looked at the boy again--the eyes haunted the man--he +could not place them, yet they were familiar to him. + +"Where you been, kid?" he asked. "I thought you were in Boston, +studying." + +"It's vacation, sir," answered Kenyon. + +Brotherton pulled the lad up under the next corner electric lamp and +again gazed at him. Then Mr. Brotherton remembered where he had seen the +eyes. The second Mrs. Van Dorn had them. This bothered the man. + +The eyes of the boy that flashed so brightly into Mr. Brotherton's eyes, +certainly puzzled him and startled him. But not so much as the news the +boy carried. For then Mr. Brotherton knew that Market Street would be +buzzing in the morning and that the cyclone clouds that were lowering, +soon would break into storm. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + +A LONG CHAPTER BUT A BUSY ONE, IN WHICH KENYON ADAMS AND HIS MOTHER HAVE +A STRANGE MEETING, AND LILA VAN DORN TAKES A NIGHT RIDE + + +The next morning at eight o'clock, Grant Adams came hurrying into +Brotherton's store. As he strode down the long store room, Brotherton +thought that Grant in his street clothes looked less of a person than +Grant in his overalls. But the big man rose like a frisky mountain in +earthquake and called: + +"Hello there, Danton--going to shake down the furnace fires of +revolution this morning, I understand." + +Grant stared at Brotherton. Solemnly he said, as he stood an awkward +moment before sitting. "Well, Mr. Brotherton, the time has come, when I +must fight. To-day is the day!" + +"Yes," replied Brotherton, "I heard a few minutes ago that they were +going to run you out of the district to-day. The meeting in the +Commercial Club rooms is being called now." + +"Yes," said Grant, "and I've been asked to appear before them." + +"I guess they are going to try and bluff you out, Grant," said +Brotherton. + +"I got wind of it last night," said Grant, "when they nailed up the last +hall in the Valley against me. One after another of the public halls has +been closed to me during the past year. But to-day is to be our first +public rally of the delegates of the Wahoo Valley Trades Council. We +have rented office rooms in the second floor of the Vanderbilt House in +South Harvey, and are coming out openly as an established labor +organization, ready for business in the Valley, and we are going to have +a big meeting--somewhere--I don't know where now, but somewhere--" his +face turned grim and a fanatic flame lighted his eyes as he spoke. +"Somewhere the delegates of the Council will meet to-night, and I shall +talk to them--or--" + +"Soh, boss--soh, boss--don't get excited," counseled Mr. Brotherton. +"They'll blow off a little steam in the meeting this morning, and then +you go on about your business." + +"But you don't know what I know, George Brotherton," protested Grant as +he leaned forward. "I have converted enough spies--oh, no--not counting +the spies who were converted merely to scare me--but enough real spies +to know that they mean business!" He stopped, and sitting back in his +chair again, he said grimly, "And so do I--I shall talk to the men +to-night, or--" + +"All right, son; you'll talk or 'the boy, oh, where was he?' I'll tell +you what," cried Mr. Brotherton; "you'll fool around with the buzz saw +till you'll get killed. Now, look here, Grant--I'm for your revolution, +and six buckets of blood. But you can't afford to lose 'em! You're dead +right about the chains of slavery and all that sort of thing, but don't +get too excited about it. You live down there alone with your father and +he is talking to spooks, and you're talking to yourself; and you've got +a kind of ingrown idea of this thing. Give the Lord a little time, and +he'll work out this pizen in our social system. I'll help you, and maybe +before long Doc'll see the light and help you; but now you need a +regulator. You ought to have a wife and about six children to hook you +up to the ordinary course of nature! And see here, Grant," Mr. +Brotherton dropped a weighty hand on Grant's shoulder, "if you don't be +careful you'll furnish the ingredients of a public funeral, and where +will your revolution be then--and the boys in the Valley and your father +and Kenyon?" + +While Brotherton was speaking, Grant sat with an impassive face. But +when Kenyon's name was uttered he looked up quickly and answered: + +"That is why I am here this morning; it's about Kenyon. George +Brotherton, that boy is more than life to me." The fanatic light was +gone from Grant's eyes, and the soft glow in them revealed a man that +George Brotherton had not seen in years. "Mr. Brotherton," continued +Grant, "father is getting too old to do much for Kenyon. The Nesbits +have borne practically all the expense of educating him. But the Doctor +won't always be here." Again he hesitated. Then he went ahead as if he +had decided for the last time. "George Brotherton, if I should be +snuffed out, I want you to look after Kenyon--if ever he needs it. You +have no one, and--" Grant leaned forward and grasped Brotherton's great +hands and cried, "George Brotherton, if you knew the gold in that boy's +heart, and what he can do with a violin, and how his soul is unfolding +under the spell of his music. He's so dumb and tongue-tied and unformed +now; and yet--" + +"Well--say!" It came out of Mr. Brotherton with a crash like a falling +tree, "Grant--well, say! Through sickness and health, for better or for +worse, till death do us part--if that will satisfy you." He put his big +paw over and grabbed Grant's steel hook and jerked him to his feet. +"You've sure sold Kenyon into bondage. When I saw him last night--honest +to God, man--I thought I'd run into a picture roaming around out of +stock without a frame! Him and me together can do Ariel and Prospero +without a scratch of make-up." Grant beamed, but when Brotherton +exclaimed as an afterthought, "Say, man, what about that boy's eyes?" +Grant's features mantled and the old grim look overcast his face, as +Brotherton went on: "Why, them eyes would make a madonna's look like +fried eggs! Where did he get 'em--they're not Sands and they're not +Adams. He must take back to some Peri that blew into Massachusetts from +an enchanted isle." Brotherton saw that he was annoying Grant in some +way. Often he realized that his language was not producing the desired +effect; so he veered about and said gently, "You're not in any danger, +Grant; but so long as I'm wearing clothes that button up the +front--don't worry about Kenyon, I'll look after him." + +Five minutes later, Grant was standing in the front door of Brotherton's +store, gazing into Market Street. He saw Daniel Sands and Kyle Perry and +Tom Van Dorn walking out of one store and into the next. He saw John +Kollander in a new blue soldier uniform stalking through the street. He +saw the merchants gathering in small, volatile groups that kept forming +and re-forming, and he knew that Mr. Brotherton's classic language was +approximately correct when he said there was a hen on. Grant eyed the +crowd that was hurrying past him to the meeting like a hungry hound +watching a drove of chickens. Finally, when Grant saw that the last +straggler was in the hall, he turned and stalked heavily to the +Commercial Club rooms, yet he moved with the self-consciousness of one +urged by a great purpose. His head was bent in reflection. His hand held +his claw behind him, and his shoulders stooped. He knew his goal, but +the way was hard and uncertain, and he realized the peril of a strategic +misstep at the outset. Heavily he mounted the steps to the hall, +entered, and took a seat in the rear. He sat with his head bowed and his +gaze on the floor. He was aware that Judge Van Dorn was speaking; but +what the Judge was saying did not interest Grant. His mind seemed aloof +from the proceedings. Suddenly what he had prepared to say slipped out +of his consciousness completely, as he heard the Judge declare, "We deem +this, sir, a life and death struggle for our individual liberties; a +life and death struggle for our social order; a life and death struggle +for our continuance to exist as individuals." There was a long +repetition of the terms "life and death." They appealed to some tin-pan +rhythmic sense in the Judge's oratorical mind. But the phrase struck +fire in Grant Adams's heart. Life and death, life and death, rang +through his soul like a clamor of bells. "We have given our all," +bellowed the Judge, "to make this Valley an industrial hive, where labor +may find employment--all of our savings, all of our heritage of +Anglo-Saxon organizing skill, and we view this life and death struggle +for its perpetuity--" But all Grant Adams heard of that sentence was +"life and death," as the great bell of his soul clanged its alarm. "We +are a happy, industrial family," intoned the Judge, the suave Judge, who +was something more than owner; who was Authority without responsibility, +who was the voice of the absentee master; the voice, it seemed to Grant, +of an enchanted peacock squawking in the garden of a dream; the voice +that cried: "and to him who would overthrow all this contentment, all +this admirable adjustment of industrial equilibrium we offer the life +and death alternative that is given to him who would violate a peaceful +home." + +But all that Grant Adams sensed of his doom in the Judge's pronouncement +was the combat of death with life. Life and death were meeting for their +eternal struggle, and as the words resounded again and again in the +Judge's oratory, there rushed into Grant Adams's mind the phrase, "I am +the resurrection and the life," and he knew that in the life and death +struggle for progress, for justice, for a more abundant life on this +planet, it would be finally life and not death that would win. + +As he sat blindly glaring at the floor, there may have stolen into his +being some ember from the strange flame burning about our earth, whose +touch makes men mad with the madness that men have, who come from the +wildernesses of life, from the lowly walks and waste places--the madness +of those who feed on locusts and wild honey; who, like St. Francis and +Savonarola, go forth on hopeless quests for the unattainable ideal, or +like John Brown, who burn in the scorching flame all the wisdom of the +schools and the courts, and for one glorious day shine forth with their +burning lives a beacon by which the world is lighted to its own sad +shame. + +Grant never remembered what he said by way of introduction as he stood +staring at the crowd. It was a different crowd from audiences he knew. +To Grant it was the market place; merchants, professional men; clerks, +bankers,--well-dressed men, with pale, upturned faces stretched before +him to the rear of the hall. It was all black and white, and as his soul +cried "life and death" back of his conscious speech, the image came to +him that all these pale, black-clad figures were in their shrouds, and +that he was talking to the visible body of death--laid out stiffly +before him. + +What answer he made to Van Dorn does not matter. Grant Adams could not +recall it when he had finished. But ever as he spoke through his being +throbbed the electrical beat of the words, "I am the resurrection and +the life." And he was exultant in the consciousness that in the struggle +of "life and death," life would surely win. So he stood and spoke with a +tongue of flame. + +"If you have given all--and you have, we also have given all. But our +all is more vitally our all--than yours; for it is our bodies, our food +and clothing; our comfortable homes; our children's education, our +wives' strength; our babies' heritage; many of us have indeed given our +sons' integrity and our daughters' virtue. All these we have put into +the bargain with you. We have put them into the common hopper of this +industrial life, and you have taken the grain and we the chaff. It is +indeed a life and death struggle. And this happy family, this +well-balanced industrial adjustment, this hell of labor run through your +mills like grist, this is death; death is the name for all your wicked +system, that shrinks and cringes before God's ancient justice. 'I am the +resurrection and the life' was not spoken across the veil that rises +from the grave. It was spoken for men here in the flesh who shall soon +come into a more abundant life. Life and death, life and death are +struggling here this very hour, and you--you," he leaned forward shaking +his steel claw in their faces, "you and your greedy system of capital +are the doomed; you are death's embodiment." + +Then came the outburst. All over the house rose cries. Men jumped from +their chairs and waved their arms. But Judge Van Dorn quieted them. He +knew that to attack Grant Adams physically at that meeting would inflame +the man's followers in the Valley. So he pounded the gavel for quiet. To +Adams he thundered, "Sit down, you villain!" Still the crowd hissed and +jeered. A great six-footer in new blue overalls, whom Grant knew as one +of the recent spies, one of the sluggers sent to the Valley, came +crowding to the front of the room. But Judge Van Dorn nodded him back. +When the Judge had stilled the tumult, he said in his sternest judicial +manner, "Now, Adams--we have heard enough of you. Leave this district. +Get out of this Valley. You have threatened us; we shall not protect you +in life or limb. You are given two hours to leave the Valley, and after +that you stay here at your own peril. If you try to hold your labor +council, don't ask us, whom you have scorned, to surround you with the +protection of the society you would overthrow in bloodshed. Now, go--get +out of here," he cried, with all the fire and fury that an outraged +respectability could muster. But Grant, turning, twisted his hook in the +Judge's coat, held him at arm's length, and leaning toward the crowd, +with the Judge all but dangling from his steel arm, cried: "I shall +speak in South Harvey to-night. This is indeed a life and death +struggle, and I shall preach the gospel of life. Life," he cried with a +trumpet voice, "life--the life of society, and its eternal resurrection +out of the forces of life that flow from the everlasting divine spring!" + +After the crowd had left the hall, Grant hurried toward the street +leading to South Harvey. As he turned the corner, the man whom Grant had +seen in the hall met him, the man whom Grant recognized as a puddler in +one of the smelters. He came up, touched Grant on the shoulder and +asked: + +"Adams?" Grant nodded. + +"Are you going down to South Harvey?" + +Grant replied, "Yes, I'm going to hold a meeting there to-night." + +"Well, if you try," said the man, pushing his face close to Grant's, +"you'll get your head knocked off--that's all. We don't like your +kind--understand?" Grant looked at the man, took his measure physically +and returned: + +"All right, there'll be some one around to pick it up--maybe!" + +The man walked away, but turned to say: + +"Mind now--you show up in South Harvey, and we'll fix you right!" + +As Grant turned to board a South Harvey car, Judge Van Dorn caught his +arm, and said: + +"Wait a minute, the next car will do." + +The Judge's wife was with him, and Grant was shocked to see how +doll-like her face had become, how the lines of character had been +smoothed out, the eyelids stained, the eyebrows penciled, the lips +colored, until she had a bisque look that made him shudder. He had seen +faces like hers, and fancied that he knew their story. + +"I would like to speak with you just a minute. Come up to the office. +Margaret, dearie," said Van Dorn, "you wait for me at Brotherton's." In +the office, Van Dorn squared himself before Grant and said: + +"It's no use, sir. You can't hold a meeting there to-night--the thing's +set against you. I can't stop them, but I know the rough element there +will kill you if you try. You've done your best--why risk your head, +man--for no purpose? You can't make it--and it's dangerous for you to +try." + +Grant looked at Van Dorn. Then he asked: + +"You represent the Harvey Fuel Company, Judge?" + +"Yes," replied the Judge with much pride of authority, "and we--" + +Grant stopped him. "Judge," he said, "if you blow your horn--I'll ring +my bell and--If I don't hold my meeting to-night, your mines won't open +to-morrow morning." The Judge rose and led the way to the door. + +"Oh, well," he sneered, "if you won't take advice, there's no need of +wasting time on you." + +"No," answered Grant, "only remember what I've said." + +When Grant alighted from the car in South Harvey, he found his puddler +friend waiting for him. The two went into the Vanderbilt House, where +Grant greeted Mrs. Williams, the landlady, as an old friend, and the +puddler cried: "Say, lady--if you keep this man--we'll burn your house." + +"Well, burn it--it wouldn't be much loss," retorted the landlady, who +turned her back upon the puddler and said to Grant: "We've given you the +front room upstairs, Grant, for the committee. It has the outside +staircase. Your room is ready. You know the Local No. 10 boys from the +Independent are all coming around this afternoon--as soon as they learn +where the meeting is." + +The puddler walked away and Grant went out into the street; looked up at +the wooden structure with the stairway rising from the sidewalk and +splitting the house in two. Mounting the stairs, he found a narrow hall, +leading down a long line of bedrooms. He realized that he must view his +location as a general looks over a battlefield. + +The closing of the public halls to Grant and his cause had not +discouraged him. He knew that he still had the great free out-of-doors, +and he had thought that an open air meeting would give the cause +dramatic setting. He felt that to be barred from the halls of the Valley +helped rather than hurt his meeting. The barring proved to the workers +the righteousness of their demands. So Grant sallied forth to locate a +vacant lot; he shot out of his room full of the force of his enthusiasm, +but his force met another force as strong as his, and ruthless. God's +free out of doors, known and beloved of Grant from his boyhood, was +preempted: What he found in his quest for a meeting place was a large +red sign, "No trespassing," upon the nearest vacant lot, and a special +policeman parading back and forth in front of the lot on the sidewalk. +He found a score of lots similarly placarded and patrolled. He sent men +to Magnus and Foley scurrying like ants through the Valley, but no lot +was available. + +Up town in Harvey, the ants also were busy. The company was sending men +over Market Street, picking out the few individuals who owned vacant +lots, leasing them for the month and preparing to justify the placarding +and patrolling that already had been done. One of the ants that went +hurrying out of the Sands hill on this errand, was John Kollander, and +after he had seen Wright & Perry and the few other merchants who owned +South Harvey real estate, he encountered Captain Ezra Morton, who +happened to have a vacant lot, given to the Captain in the first flush +of the South Harvey boom, in return for some service to Daniel Sands. +John Kollander explained his errand to the Captain, who nodded wisely, +and stroked his goatee meditatively. + +"I got to think it over," he bawled, and walked away, leaving John +Kollander puzzled and dismayed. But Captain Morton spent no time in +academic debate. In half an hour he was in South Harvey, climbing the +stairs of the Vanderbilt House, and knocking at Grant Adams's door. +Throwing open the door Grant found Captain Morton, standing to attention +with a shotgun in his hands. The Captain marched in, turned a square +corner to a chair, but slumped into it with a relieved sigh. + +"Well, Grant--I heard your speech this morning to the Merchants' +Association. You're crazy as a bed bug--eh? That's what I told 'em all. +And then they said to let you go to it--you couldn't get a hall, and the +company could keep you off the lots all over the Valley, and if you +tried to speak on the streets they'd run you in--what say?" His old eyes +snapped with some virility, and he lifted up his voice and cried: + +"But 'y gory--is that the way to do a man, I says? No--why, that ain't +free speech! I remember when they done Garrison and Lovejoy and those +old boys that way before the war. I fit, bled and died for that, +Grant--eh? And I says to the girls this noon: 'Girls--your pa's got a +lot in South Harvey, over there next to the Red Dog saloon, that he got +way back when they were cheap, and now that the company's got all their +buildings up and don't want to buy any lots--why, they're cheaper +still--what say?' + +"And 'y gory, I says to the girls--'If your ma was living I know what +she'd say. She'd say, "You just go over there and tell that Adams boy +that lot's hisn, and if any one tries to molest him, you blow 'em to +hell"--that's what your ma'd say'--only words to that effect--eh? And so +by the jumping John Rogers, Grant--here I am!" + +He looked at the shotgun. "One load's bird shot--real fine and soft, +with a small charge of powder." He put his hand to his mouth sheepishly +and added apologetically, "I suppose I won't need it,--but I just put +the blamedest load of buck shot and powder in that right barrel you ever +saw--what say?" + +Grant said: "Well, Captain--this isn't your fight. You don't believe in +what I'm talking about--you've proved your patriotism in a great war. +Don't get into this, Captain." + +"Grant Adams," barked the Captain as if he were drilling his company, "I +believe if you're not a Socialist, you're just as bad. But 'y gory, I +fought for the right of free speech, and free meetings, and Socialist or +no Socialist, that's your right. I'm going to defend you on my own lot." +He rose again, straightened up in rheumatic pain, marched to the door, +saluted, and said: + +"I brought my supper along with me. It's in my coat pocket. I'm going +over to the lot and sit there till you come. I know this class of people +down here. They ain't worth hell room, Grant," admonished the Captain +earnestly. "But if I'm not there, the company will crowd their men in on +that lot as sure as guns, when they know you are to meet there. And I'm +going there to guard it till you come. Good day--sir." + +And with that he thumped limpingly down the narrow stairs, across the +little landing, out of the door and into the street. + +Grant stood at the top of the stairs and watched him out of sight. Then +Grant pulled himself together, and went out to see the gathering members +of the Labor Council in the hotel office and the men of Local No. 10 to +announce the place of meeting. Later in the afternoon he met Nathan +Perry. When he told Nathan of the meeting, the young man cried in his +rasping Yankee voice: + +"Good--you're no piker. They said they had scared the filling out of you +at the meeting this morning, and they've bragged they were going to beat +you up this afternoon and kill you to-night. You look pretty husky--but +watch out. They really are greatly excited." + +"Well," replied Grant grimly, "I'll be there to-night." + +"Nevertheless," returned Nathan, snapping off his words as though he was +cutting them with steel scissors, "Anne and I agreed to-day, that I must +come to Mrs. Williams's and take you to the meeting. They may get ugly +after dark." + +Half an hour later on the street, Grant was passing his cousin Anne, +wheeling Daniel Kyle Perry out to take the air. He checked his hurried +step when he caught her smile and said, "Well, Anne, Nate told me that +you wish to send him over to the meeting to-night, as my body guard. I +don't need a body guard, and you keep Nate at home." He smiled down on +his cousin and for a moment all of the emotional storm in his face was +melted by the gentleness of that smile. "Anne," he said--"what a brick +you are!" + +She laughed and gave him the full voltage of her joyous eyes and +answered: + +"Grant, I'd rather be the widow of a man who would stand by you and what +you are doing, than to be the wife of a man who shrank from it." She +lowered her voice, "And Grant, here's a curious thing: this second Mrs. +Van Dorn called me up on the phone a little bit ago, and said she knew +you and I were cousins and that you and Nate were such friends, but +would I tell Nate to keep you away from any meeting to-night? She said +she couldn't tell me, but she had just learned some perfectly awful +things they were going to do, and she didn't want to see any trouble. +Wasn't that queer?" + +Grant shook his head. "Well, what did you say?" he asked. + +"Oh, I said that while they were doing such perfectly awful things to +you, your friends wouldn't be making lace doilies! And she rang off. +What do you think of it?" she asked. + +"Just throwing a scare into me--under orders," responded the man and +hurried on. + +When Grant returned to the hotel at supper time, he found Mr. Brotherton +sitting in a ramshackle rocking chair in the upstairs bedroom, waiting. + +"I thought I'd come over and bring a couple of friends," explained Mr. +Brotherton, pointing to the corner, where two shotguns leaned against +the wall. + +"Why, man," exclaimed Grant, "that's good of you, but in all the time +I've been in the work of organization, I've never carried a gun, nor had +one around. I don't want a gun, Mr. Brotherton." + +"I do," returned the elder man, "and I'm here to say that moral force is +a grand thing, but in these latitudes when you poke Betsy Jane under the +nose of an erring comrade, he sees the truth with much more clearness +than otherwise. I stick to the gun--and you can go in hard for moral +suasion. + +"Also," he added, "I've just taken a survey of these premises, and told +the missus to bring the supper up here. There may be an early curtain +raiser on this entertainment, and if they are going to chase you out of +town to-night, I want a good seat at the performance." He grinned. "Nate +Perry will join us in a little quiet social manslaughter. I called him +up an hour ago, and he said he'd be here at six-thirty. I think he's +coming now." In another minute the slim Yankee figure of Nathan was in +the room. It was scarcely dusk outside. Mrs. Williams came up with a +tray of food. As she set it down she said: + +"There's a crowd around at the Hot Dog, you can see them through the +window." + +Nate and Grant looked. Mr. Brotherton went into the supper. "Crowd all +right," assented Nate. There was no mistaking the crowd and its +intention. There were new men from the day shift at the smelter, +imported by the company to oppose the unions. A thousand such men had +been brought into the district within a few months. + +"There's another saloon across the road here," said Mr. Brotherton, +looking up from his food. "My understanding is that they're going to +make headquarters across the street in Dick's Place. You know I got a +pipe-line in on the enemy through the Calvin girl. She gets it at home, +and her father gets it at the office. Our estimable natty little friend +Joe will be down here--he says to keep the peace. That's what he tells +at home. I know what he's coming for. Tom Van Dorn will sit in the back +room of that saloon and no one will know he's there, and Joseph will +issue Tom's orders. Lord," cried Mr. Brotherton, waving a triangle of +pie in his hand, "don't I know 'em like a book." + +While he was talking the crowd slowly was swelling in front of the Hot +Dog saloon. It was a drinking and noisy crowd. Men who appeared to be +leaders were taking other men in to the bar, treating them, then +bringing them out again, and talking excitedly to them. The crowd grew +rapidly, and the noise multiplied. Another crowd was gathering--just a +knot of men down the street by the Company's store, in the opposite +direction from the Hot Dog crowd. Grant and Nate noticed the second +crowd at the same time. It was Local No. 10. Grant left the window and +lighted the lamp. He wrote on a piece of paper, a few lines, handed it +to Nathan, saying: + +"Here, sign it with me." It read: + +"Boys--whatever you do, don't start anything--of any kind--no matter +what happens to us. We can take care of ourselves." + +Nathan Perry signed it, slipped down the stairs into the hall, and +beckoned to his men at the Company's store. The crowd at the Hot Dog saw +him and yelled, but Evan Evans came running for the note and took it +back. Little Tom Williams came up the stairs with Nathan, saying: + +"Well--they're getting ready for business. I brought a gun up to No. 3 +this afternoon. I'm with Grant in this." + +The little landlord went into No. 3, appeared with a rifle, and came +bobbing into the room. + +Grant at the window could see the crowd marching from the Hot Dog to +Dick's Place, yelling and cursing as it went. The group in the bedroom +over the street opened the street windows to see better and hear better. +An incandescent over the door of the saloon lighted the narrow street. +In front of the saloon and under the light the mob halted. The men in +the room with Grant were at the windows watching. Suddenly--as by some +prearranged order, four men with revolvers in their hands ran across the +street towards the hotel. Brotherton, Williams and Perry ran to the head +of the stairs, guns in hand. Grant followed them. There they stood when +the door below was thrown open, and the four men below rushed across the +small landing to the bottom of the stairs. It was dark in the upper +hall, but a light from the street flooded the lower hall. The men below +did not look up; they were on the stairs. + +"Stop," shouted Brotherton with his great voice. + +That halted them. They looked up into darkness. They could see no +faces--only four gun barrels. The men farthest up the stairs literally +fell into the arms of those below. Then the four men below scrambled +down the stairs as Mr. Brotherton roared: + +"I'll kill the first man who puts his foot on the bottom step again." + +With a cry of terror they rushed out. The crowd at the Company store +hooted, and the mob before the saloon jeered. But the four men scurried +across the street, and told the crowd what had happened. For a few +minutes no move was made. Then Grant, who had left the hallway and was +looking through the window, saw the little figure of Joseph Calvin +moving officiously among the men. He went into the saloon, and came out +again after a time. Then Grant cried to Brotherton at the head of the +stairs: + +"Watch out--they're coming; more of them this time." And half a dozen +armed men rushed across the street and appeared at the door of the +hallway. + +"Stop," yelled Brotherton--whose great voice itself sounded a terrifying +alarm in the darkened hallway. The feet of two men were on the first +steps of the stairs--they looked up and saw three gun barrels pointing +down at them, and heard Brotherton call "one--two--three," but before he +could say "fire" the men fell back panic stricken and ran out of the +place. + +The crowd left the sidewalk and moved into the saloon, and the street +was deserted for a time. Local No. 10 held its post down by the Company +Store. It seemed like an age to the men at the head of the stairs. Yet +Mr. Brotherton's easy running fire of ribaldry never stopped. He was +excited and language came from his throat without restraint. + +Then Grant's quick ear caught a sound that made him shudder. It was far +away, a shrill high note; in a few seconds the note was repeated, and +with it the animal cry one never mistakes who hears it--the cry of an +angry mob. They could hear it roaring over the bridge upon the Wahoo and +they knew it was the mob from Magnus, Plain Valley and Foley coming. On +it came, with its high-keyed horror growing louder and louder. It turned +into the street and came roaring and whining down to the meeting place +at the saloon. It filled the street. Then appeared Mr. Calvin following +a saloon porter, who was rolling a whiskey barrel from the saloon. The +porter knocked in the head, and threw tin cups to the crowd. + +"What do you think of that for a praying Christian?" snarled Mr. +Brotherton. No one answered Mr. Brotherton, for the whiskey soon began +to make the crowd noisy. But the leaders waited for the whiskey to make +the crowd brave. The next moment, Van Dorn's automobile--the old one, +not the new one--came chugging up. Grant, at the window, looked out and +turned deathly sick. For he saw the puddler who had bullied him during +the day get out of the car, and in the puddler's grasp was Kenyon--with +white face, but not whimpering. + +The men made way for the puddler, who hurried the boy into the saloon. +Grant did not speak, but stood unnerved and horror-stricken staring at +the saloon door which had swallowed up the boy. + +"Well, for God--" cried Brotherton. + +"A screen--they're going to use the boy as a shield--the damn cowards!" +rasped Nathan Perry. + +The little Welshman moaned. And the three men stood staring at Grant +whose eyes did not shift from the saloon door. He was rigid and his +face, which trembled for a moment, set like molten bronze. + +"If I surrender now, if they beat me here with anything less than my +death, the whole work of years is gone--the long struggle of these men +for their rights." He spoke not to his companions, but through them to +himself. "I can't give up--not even for Kenyon," he cried. "Tom--Tom," +Grant turned to the little Welshman. "You stood by and heard Dick Bowman +order Mugs to hold the shovel over my face! Did he shrink? Well, this +cause is the life and death struggle of all the Dicks in the Valley--not +for just this week, but for always." + +Below the crowd was hushed. Joe Calvin had appeared and was giving +orders in a low tone. The hulking figure of the puddler could be seen +picking out his men; he had three set off in a squad. The men in the +room could see the big beads of sweat stand out on Grant's forehead. +"Kenyon--Kenyon," he cried in agony. Then George Brotherton let out his +bellow, "Grant--look here--do you think I'm going to fire on--" + +But the next minute the group at the window saw something that made even +George Brotherton's bull voice stop. Into the drab street below flashed +something all red. It was the Van Dorn motor car, the new one. But the +red of the car was subdued beside the scarlet of the woman in the back +seat--a woman without hat or coat, holding something in her arms. The +men at the window could not see what those saw in the street; but they +could see Joe Calvin fall back; could see the consternation on his face, +could see him waving his hands to the crowd to clear the way. And then +those at the window above saw Margaret Van Dorn rise in the car and they +heard her call, "Joe Calvin! Joe Calvin--" she screamed, "bring my +husband out from behind that wine room door--quick--quick," she +shrieked, "quick, I say." + +The mob parted for her. The men at the hotel window could not see what +she had in her arms. She made the driver wheel, drive to the opposite +side of the street directly under the hotel window--directly in front of +the besieged door. In another instant Van Dorn, ghastly with rage, came +bare-headed out of the saloon. He ran across the street crying: + +"You she devil, what do you--" + +But he stopped without finishing his sentence. The men above looked down +at what he was looking at and saw a child--Tom Van Dorn's child, Lila, +in the car. + +"My God, Margaret--what does this mean?" he almost whispered in terror. + +"It means," returned the strident voice of the woman, "that when you +sent for your car and the driver told me he was going to Adamses--I knew +why--from what you said, and now, by God," she screamed, "give me that +boy--or this girl goes to the union men as their shield." + +Van Dorn did not speak. His mouth seemed about to begin, but she stopped +him, crying: + +"And if you touch her I'll kill you both. And the child goes first." + +The woman had lost control of her voice. She swung a pistol toward the +child. + +"Give me that boy!" she shrieked, and Van Dorn, dumb and amazed, stood +staring at her. "Tell them to bring that boy before I count five: One, +two," she shouted, "three--" + +"Oh, Joe," called Van Dorn as his whole body began to tremble, "bring +the Adams boy quick--here!" His voice broke into a shriek with nervous +agitation and the word "here" was uttered with a piercing yell, that +made the crowd wince. + +Calvin brought Kenyon out and sent him across the street. Grant opened a +window and called out: "Get into the car with Lila, Kenyon--please." + +The woman in the car cried: "Grant, Grant, is that you up there? They +were going to murder the boy, Grant. Do you want his child up there?" + +She looked up and the arc light before the hotel revealed her tragic, +shattered face--a wreck of a face, crumpled and all out of line and +focus as the flickering glare of the arc-light fell upon it. "Shall I +send you his child?" she babbled hysterically, keeping the revolver +pointed at Lila--"His child that he's silly about?" + +Van Dorn started for her car, but Brotherton at the window bellowed +across a gun sight: "Move an inch and I'll shoot." + +Grant called down: "Margaret, take Lila and Kenyon home, please." + +Then, with Mr. Brotherton's gun covering the father in the street below, +the driver of the car turned it carefully through the parting crowd, and +was gone as mysteriously and as quickly as he came. + +"Now," cried Mr. Brotherton, still sighting down the gun barrel pointed +at Van Dorn, standing alone in the middle of the street, "you make +tracks, and don't you go to that saloon either--you go home to the bosom +of your family. Stop," roared Mr. Brotherton, as the man tried to break +into a run. Van Dorn stopped. "Go down to the Company store where the +union men are," commanded Mr. Brotherton. "They will take you home. + +"Hey--you Local No. 10," howled the great bull voice of Brotherton. "You +fellows take this man home to his own vine and fig tree." + +Van Dorn, looking ever behind him for help that did not come, edged down +the street and into the arms of Local No. 10, and was swallowed up in +that crowd. A rock from across the street crashed through the window +where the gun barrels were protruding, but there was no fire in return. +Another rock and another came. But there was no firing. + +Grant, who knew something of mobs, felt instinctively that the trouble +was over. Nathan and Brotherton agreed. They stood for a time--a long +time it seemed to them--guarding the stairs. Then some one struck a +match and looked at his watch. It was half past eight. It was too late +for Grant to hold his meeting. But he felt strongly that the exit of Van +Dorn had left the crowd without a leader and that the fight of the night +was won. + +"Well," said Grant, drawing a deep breath. "They'll not run me out of +town to-night. I could go to the lot now and hold the meeting; but it's +late and it will be better to wait until to-morrow night. They should +sleep this off--I'm going to talk to them." + +He stepped to an iron balcony outside the window and putting his hands +to his mouth uttered a long horn-like blast. The men saw him across the +street. "Come over here, all of you--" he called. "I want to talk to +you--just a minute." + +The crowd moved, first one or two, then three or four, then by tens. +Soon the crowd stood below looking up half curiously--half angrily. + +"You see, men," he smiled as he shoved his hand in his pocket, and put +his head humorously on one side: + +"We are more hospitable when you all come than when you send your +delegations. It's more democratic this way--just to kind of meet out +here like a big family and talk it over. Some way," he laughed, "your +delegates were in a hurry to go back and report. Well, now, that was +right. That is true representative government. You sent 'em, they came; +were satisfied and went back and told you all about it." The crowd +laughed. He knew when they laughed that he could talk on. "But you see, +I believe in democratic government. I want you all to come and talk this +matter over--not just a few." + +He paused; then began again: "Now, men, it's late. I've got so much to +say I don't want to begin now. I don't like to have Tom Van Dorn and Joe +Calvin divide time with me. I want the whole evening to myself. And," he +leaned over clicking his iron claw on the balcony railing while his jaw +showed the play of muscles in the light from below, "what's more I'm +going to have it, if it takes all summer. Now then," he cried: "The +Labor Council of the Wahoo Valley will hold its meeting to-morrow night +at seven-thirty sharp on Captain Morton's vacant lot just the other side +of the Hot Dog saloon. I'll talk to that meeting. I want you to come to +that meeting and hear what we have to say about what we are trying to +do." + +A few men clapped their hands. Grant Adams turned back into the room and +in due course the crowd slowly dissolved. At ten o'clock he was standing +in the door of the Vanderbilt House looking at his watch, ready to turn +in for the night. Suddenly he remembered the Captain. He hurried around +to the Hot Dog, and there peering into the darkness of the vacant lot +saw the Captain with his gun on his shoulder pacing back and forth, a +silent, faithful sentry, unrelieved from duty. + +When Grant had relieved him and told him that the trouble was over, the +little old man looked up with his snappy eyes and his dried, weazened +smile and said: "'Y gory, man--I'm glad you come. I was just a-thinking +I bet them girls of mine haven't cooked any potatoes to go with the meat +to make hash for breakfast--eh? and I'm strong for hash." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + +IN WHICH WE WITNESS A CEREMONY IN THE TEMPLE OF LOVE + + +George Brotherton took the Captain to the street car that night. They +rode face to face and all that the Captain had seen and more, outside +the Vanderbilt House, and all that George Brotherton had seen within its +portals, a street car load of Harvey people heard with much "'Y gorying" +and "Well--saying," as the car rattled through the fields and into +Market Street. Amiable satisfaction with the night's work beamed in the +moon-face of Mr. Brotherton and the Captain was drunk with martial +spirit. He shouldered his gun and marched down the full length of the +car and off, dragging Brotherton at his chariot wheels like a spoil of +battle. + +"Come on, George," called the Captain as the audience in the car smiled. +"Young man, I need you to tell the girls that their pa ain't gone stark, +staring mad--eh? And I want to show 'em a hero!--What say? A genuine +hee-ro!" + +It was half an hour after the Captain bursting upon his hearthstone like +a martial sky rocket, had exploded the last of his blue and green +candles. The three girls, sitting around the cold base burner, beside +and above which Mr. Brotherton stood in statuesque repose, heard the +Captain's tale and the protests of Mr. Brotherton much as Desdemona +heard of Othello's perils. And when the story was finished and retold +and refinished and the Captain was rising with what the girls called the +hash-look in his snappy little eyes, Martha saw Ruth swallow a vast yawn +and Martha turned to Emma an appreciative smile at Ruth's discomfiture. + +But Emma's eyes were fixed upon Mr. Brotherton and her face turned +toward him with an aspect of tender adoration. Mr. Brotherton, who was +not without appreciation of his own heroic caste, saw the yawn and the +smile and then he saw the face of Emma Morton. + +It came over him in a flash of surprise that Ruth and Martha were young +things, not of his world; and that Emma was of his world and very much +for him in his world. It got to him through the busy guard of his outer +consciousness with a great rush of tenderness that Emma really cared for +the dangers he had faced and was proud of the part he had played. And +Mr. Brotherton knew that, with Ruth and Martha, it was a tale that was +told. + +As he saw her standing among her sisters, his heart hid from him the +little school teacher with crow's feet at her eyes, but revealed instead +the glowing heart of an exalted woman, who did not realize that she was +uncovering her love, a woman who in the story she had heard was living +for a moment in high romance. Her beloved, imperiled, was restored to +her; the lost was found and the journey which ends so happily in lovers' +meetings was closing. + +His eyes filled and his voice needed a cough to prime it. The fire, +glowing in Emma Morton's eyes, steamed up George Brotherton's will--the +will which had sent him crashing forward in life from a train peddler to +a purveyor of literature and the arts in Harvey. Deeds followed impulses +with him swiftly, so in an instant the floor of the Morton cottage was +shaking under his tread and with rash indifference, high and heroic, +ignoring with equal disdain two tittering girls, an astonished little +old man and a cold base burner, the big man stalked across the room and +cried: + +"Well, say--why, Emma--my dear!" He had her hands in his and was putting +his arm about her as he bellowed: "Girls--" his voice broke under its +heavy emotional load. "Why, dammit all, I'm your long-lost brother +George! Cap, kick me, kick me--me the prize jackass--the grand +sweepstake prize all these years!" + +"No, no, George," protested the wriggling maiden. "Not--not here! Not--" + +"Don't you 'no--no' me, Emmy Morton," roared the big man, pulling her to +his side. "Girl--girl, what do we care?" He gave her a resounding kiss +and gazed proudly around and exclaimed, "Ruthie, run and call up the +_Times_ and give 'em the news. Martha, call up old man Adams--and +I'll take a bell to-morrow and go calling it up and down Market Street. +Then, Cap, you tell Mrs. Herdicker. This is the big news." As he spoke +he was gathering the amazed Ruth and Martha under his wing and kissing +them, crying, "Take that one for luck--and that to grow on." Then he let +out his laugh. But in vain did Emma Morton try to squirm from his grasp; +in vain she tried to quiet his clatter. "Say, girls, cluster around +Brother George's knee--or knees--and let's plan the wedding." + +"You are going to have a wedding, aren't you, Emma?" burst in Ruth, and +George cut in: + +"Wedding--why, this is to be the big show--the laughing show, all the +wonders of the world and marvels of the deep under one canvas. Why, +girls--" + +"Well, Emma, you've just got to wear a veil," laughed Martha +hysterically. + +"Veil nothing--shame on you, Martha Morton. Why, George hasn't asked--" + +"Now ain't it the truth!" roared Brotherton. "Why veil! Veil?" he +exclaimed. "She's going to wear seven veils and forty flower +girls--forty--count 'em--forty! And Morty Sands best man--" + +"Keep still, George," interrupted Ruth. "Now, Emma, when--when, I say, +are you going to resign your school?" + +Mr. Brotherton gave the youngest and most practical Miss Morton a look +of quick intelligence. "Don't you fret; Ruthie, I'm hog tied by the +silken skein of love. She's going to resign her school to-morrow." + +"Indeed I am not, George Brotherton--and if you people don't hush--" + +But Mr. Brotherton interrupted the bride-to-be, incidentally kissing her +by way of punctuation, and boomed on in his poster tone, "Morty Sands +best man with his gym class from South Harvey doing ground and lofty +tumbling up and down the aisles in pink tights. Doc Jim in linen pants +whistling the Wedding March to Kenyon Adams's violin obligato, with the +General hitting the bones at the organ! The greatest show on earth and +the baby elephant in evening clothes prancing down the aisle like the +behemoth of holy writ! Well, say--say, I tell you!" + +The Captain touched the big man on the shoulder apologetically. "George, +of course, if you could wait a year till the Household Horse gets going +good, I could stake you for a trip to the Grand Canyon myself, but just +now, 'y gory, man!" + +"Grand Canyon!" laughed Brotherton. "Why, Cap, we're going to go seven +times around the world and twice to the moon before we turn up in +Harvey. Grand Canyon--" + +"Well, at least, father," cried Martha, "we'll get her that tan +traveling dress and hat she's always wanted." + +"But I tell you girls to keep still," protested the bride-to-be, still +in the prospective groom's arms and proud as Punch of her position. +"Why, George hasn't even asked me and--" + +"Neither have you asked me, Emma, ''eathen idol made of mud what she +called the Great God Buhd.'" He stooped over tenderly and when his face +rose, he said softly, "And a plucky lot she cared for tan traveling +dresses when I kissed her where she stud!" And then and there before the +Morton family assembled, he kissed his sweetheart again, a middle-aged +man unashamed in his joy. + +It was a tremendous event in the Morton family and the Captain felt his +responsibility heavily. The excited girls, half-shocked and half-amused +and wholly delighted, tried to lead the Captain away and leave the +lovers alone after George had hugged them all around and kissed them +again for luck. But the Captain refused to be led. He had many things to +say. He had to impress upon Mr. Brotherton, now that he was about to +enter the family, the great fact that the Mortons were about to come +into riches. Hence a dissertation on the Household Horse and its growing +popularity among makers of automobiles; Nate Perry's plans in blue print +for the new factory were brought in, and a wilderness of detail spread +before an ardent lover, keen for his first hour alone with the woman who +had touched his bachelor heart. A hundred speeches came to his lips and +dissolved--first formal and ardent love vows--while the Captain rattled +on recounting familiar details of his dream. + +Then Ruth and Martha rose in their might and literally dragged their +father from the room and upstairs. Half an hour later the two lovers in +the doorway heard a stir in the house behind them. They heard the +Captain cry: + +"The hash--George, she's the best girl--'Y gory, the best girl in the +world. But she will forget to chop the hash over night!" + +As George Brotherton, bumping his head upon the eternal stars, turned +into the street, he saw the great black hulk of the Van Dorn house among +the trees. He smiled as he wondered how the ceremonies were proceeding +in the Temple of Love that night. + +It was not a ceremony fit for smiles, but rather for the tears of gods +and men, that the priest and priestess had performed. Margaret Van Dorn +had taken Kenyon home, then dropped Lila at the Nesbit door as she +returned from South Harvey. When she found that her husband had not +reached home, she ran to her room to fortify herself for the meeting +with him. And she found her fortifications in the farthest corner of the +bottom drawer of her dresser. From its hiding place she brought forth a +little black box and from the box a brown pellet. This fortification had +been her refuge for over a year when the stress of life in the Temple of +Love was about to overcome her. It gave her courage, quickened her wits +and loosened her tongue. Always she retired to her fortress when the +combat in the Temple threatened to strain her nerves. So she had worn a +beaten path of habit to her refuge. + +Then she made herself presentable; took care of her hair, smoothed her +face at the mirror and behind the shield of the drug she waited. She +heard the old car rattling up the street, and braced herself for the +struggle. She knew--she had learned by bitter experience that the first +blow in a rough and tumble was half the battle. As he came raging +through the door, slamming it behind him, she faced him, and before he +could speak, she sneered: + +"Ah, you coward--you sneaking, cur coward--who would murder a child to +win--Ach!" she cried. "You are loathsome--get away from me!" + +The furious man rushed toward her with his hands clinched. She stood +with her arms akimbo and said slowly: + +"You try that--just try that." + +He stopped. She came over and rubbed her body against his, purring, with +a pause after each word: + +"You are a coward--aren't you?" + +She put her fingers under his jaw, and sneered, "If ever you lay hands +on me--just one finger on me, Tom Van Dorn--" She did not finish her +sentence. + +The man uttered a shrill, insane cry of fury and whirled and would have +run, but she caught him, and with a gross physical power, that he knew +and dreaded, she swung him by force into a chair. + +"Now," she panted, "sit down like a man and tell me what you are going +to do about it? Look up--dawling!" she cried, as Van Dorn slumped in the +chair. + +The man gave her a look of hate. His eyes, that showed his soul, burned +with rage and from his face, so mobile and expressive, a devil of malice +gaped impotently at his wife, as he sat, a heap of weak vanity, before +her. He pulled himself up and exclaimed: + +"Well, there's one thing damn sure, I'll not live with you any more--no +man would respect me if I did after to-night." + +"And no man," she smiled and said in her mocking voice, "will respect +you if you leave me. How Laura's friends will laugh when you go, and say +that Tom Van Dorn simply can't live with any one. How the Nesbit crowd +will titter when you leave me, and say Tom Van Dorn got just what he had +coming! Why--go on--leave me--if you dare! You know you don't dare to. +It's for better or worse, Tom, until death do us part--dawling!" + +She laughed and winked indecently at him. + +"I will leave you, I tell you, I will leave you," he burst forth, half +rising. "All the devils of hell can't keep me here." + +"Except just this one," she mocked. "Oh, you might leave me and go with +your present mistress! By the way, who is our latest conquest--dawling? +I'm sure that would be fine. Wouldn't they cackle--the dear old hens +whose claws scratch your heart so every day?" She leaned over, caressing +him devilishly, and cried, "For you know when you get loose from me, +you'll pretty nearly have to marry the other lady--wouldn't that be +nice? 'Through sickness and health, for good or for ill,'--isn't it +nice?" she scoffed. Then she turned on him savagely, "So you will try to +hide behind a child, and use him for a shield--Oh, you cur--you +despicable dog," she scorned. Then she drew herself up and spoke in a +passion that all but hissed at him. "I tell you, Tom Van Dorn, if you +ever, in this row that's coming, harm a hair of that boy's head--you'll +carry the scar of that hair to your grave. I mean it." + +Van Dorn sprang up. He cried: "What business is it of yours? You she +devil, what's the boy to you? Can't I run my own business? Why do you +care so much for the Adams brat? Answer me, I tell you--answer me," he +cried, his wrath filling his voice. + +"Oh, nothing, dawling," she made a wicked, obscene eye at him, and +simpered: "Oh, nothing, Tom--only you see I might be his mother!" + +She played with the vulgar diamonds that hid her fingers and looked down +coyly as she smiled into his gray face. + +"Great God," he whispered, "were you born a--" he stopped, ashamed of +the word in his mouth. + +The woman kept twinkling her indecent eyes at him and put her head on +one side as she replied: "Whatever I am, I'm the wife of Judge Van Dorn; +so I'm quite respectable now--whatever I was once. Isn't that lawvly, +dawling!" She began talking in her baby manner. + +Her husband was staring at her with doubt and fear and weak, footless +wrath playing like scurrying clouds across his proud, shamed face. + +"Oh, Margaret, tell me the truth," he moaned, as the fear of the truth +baffled him--a thousand little incidents that had attracted his notice +and passed to be stirred up by a puzzled consciousness came rushing into +his memory--and the doubt and dread overcame even his hate for a moment +and he begged. But she laughed, and scouted the idea and then called out +in anguish: + +"Why--why have you a child to love--to love and live for even if you +cannot be with her--why can I have none?" + +Her voice had broken and she felt she was losing her grip on herself, +and she knew that her time was limited, that her fortifications were +about to crumble. She sat down before her husband. + +"Tom," she said coldly, "no matter why I'm fond of Kenyon Adams--that's +my business; Lila is your business, and I don't interfere, do I? Well," +she said, looking the man in the eyes with a hard, mean, significant +stare, "you let the boy alone--do you understand? Do what you please +with Grant or Jasper or the old man; but Kenyon--hands off!" + +She rose, slipped quickly to the stairway, and as she ran up she called, +"Good night, dawling." Before he was on his feet he heard the lock click +in her door, and with a horrible doubt, an impotent rage, and a mantling +shame stifling him, he went upstairs and from her distant room she heard +the bolt click in the door of his room. And behind the bolted doors +stood two ghosts--the ghosts of rejected children, calling across the +years, while the smudge of the extinguished torch of life choked two +angry hearts. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII + +GRANT ADAMS VISITS THE SONS OF ESAU + + +"My dear," quoth the Doctor to his daughter as he sat poking his feet +with his cane in her little office at the Kindergarten, after they had +discussed Lila's adventure of the night before, "I saw Tom up town this +morning and he didn't seem to be exactly happy. I says, 'Tom, I hear you +beat God at his own game last night!' and," the Doctor chuckled, "Laura, +do you know, he wouldn't speak to me!" As he laughed, the daughter +interrupted: + +"Why, father--that was mean--" + +"Of course it was mean. Why--considering everything, I'd lick a man if +he'd talk that mean to me. But my Eenjiany devil kind of got control of +my forbearing Christian spirit and I cut loose." + +The daughter smiled, then she sighed, and asked: "Father--tell me, why +did that woman object to Tom's use of Kenyon in the riot last night?" + +Doctor Nesbit opened his mouth as if to answer her. Then he smiled and +said, "Don't ask me, child. She's a bad egg!" + +"Lila says," continued the daughter, "that Margaret appears at every +public place where Kenyon plays. She seems eager to talk to him about +his accomplishments, and has a sort of fascinated interest in whatever +he does, as nearly as I can understand it? Why, father? What do you +suppose it is? I asked Grant, who was here this morning with a Croatian +baby whose mother is in the glass works, and Grant only shook his head." +The father looked at his daughter over his glasses and asked: + +"Croatians, eh? That's what the new colony is down in Magnus. Well, +we've got Letts and Lithuanians and why not Croatians? What a mix we +have here in the Valley! I wouldn't wash 'em for 'em!" + +"Well, father, I would. And when you get the dirt off they're mostly +just folks--just Indiany, as you call it. They all take my flower seeds. +And they all love bright colors in their windows. And they are spreading +the glow of blooms across the district, just as well as the Germans and +the French and the Belgians and the Irish. And they are here for exactly +the same thing which we are here for, father. We're all in the same +game." + +He looked at her blankly, and ventured, "Money?" + +"No--you stupid. You know better. It's children. They're here for their +children--to lift their children out of poverty. It's the children who +carry the banner of civilization, the hope of progress, the real +sunrise. These people are all confused and more or less dumb and loggy +about everything else in life but this one thing; they all hope greatly +for their children. For their children they joyfully endure the +hardships of poverty; the injustice of it; to live here in these +conditions that seem to us awful, and to work terrible hours that their +children may rise out of the worse condition that they left in Europe. +And they have left Europe, father, spiritually as well as physically. +Here they are reborn into America. The first generation may seem +foreign, may hold foreign ways--on the outside. But these American born +boys and girls, they are American--as much as we are, with all their +foreign names. They are of our spirit. When America calls they will hear +and follow. Whatever blood they will shed will be real American blood, +because as children, born under the same aspiring genius for freedom +under which we were born, as children they became Americans. Oh, father, +it's for the children that these people here in Harvey--these exploited +people everywhere in this country,--plant the flowers and brighten up +their homes. It's for their children that they are going with Grant to +organize for better things. The fire of life runs ahead of us in hope +for our children, and if we haven't children or the love of them in our +hearts--why, father, that's what's eating Tom's heart out, and blasting +this miserable woman's life! Grant said to-day: 'This baby here +symbolizes all that I stand for, all that I hope to do, all that the +race dreams!" + +The Doctor had lighted his pipe, and was puffing meditatively. He liked +to hear his daughter talk. He took little stock in what she said. But +when she asked him for help--he gave it to her unstinted, but often with +a large, tolerant disbelief in the wisdom of her request. As she paused +he turned to her quickly, "Laura--tell me, what do you make out of +Grant?" + +He eyed her sharply as she replied: "Father, Grant is a lonely soul +without chick or child, and I'm sorry for him. He goes--" + +"Well, now, Laura," piped the little man, "don't be too sorry. Sorrow is +a dangerous emotion." + +The daughter turned her face to her father frankly and said: "I realize +that, father. Don't concern yourself about that. But I see Grant some +way, eating the locusts and wild honey in the wilderness, calling out to +a stiff-necked generation to repent. His eyes are focussed on to-morrow. +He expects an immediate millennium. But he is at least looking forward, +not back. And the world back of us is so full of change, that I am sure +the world before us also must be full of change, and maybe sometime we +shall arrive at Grant's goal. He's not working for himself, either in +fame or in power, or in any personal thing. He's just following the +light as it is given him to see it, here among the poor." + +The daughter lifted a face full of enthusiasm to her father. He puffed +in silence. "Well, my dear, that's a fine speech. But when I asked you +about Grant I was rising to a sort of question of personal privilege. I +thought perhaps I would mix around at his meeting to-night! If you think +I should, just kind of stand around to give him countenance--and," he +chuckled and squeaked: "To bundle up a few votes!" + +"Do, father--do--you must!" + +"Well," squeaked the little voice, "so long as I must I'm glad to know +that Tom made it easy for me, by turning all of Harvey and the Valley +over to Grant at the riot last night. Why, if Tom tried to stop Grant's +meeting to-night Market Street itself would mob Tom--mob the very Temple +of Love." The Doctor chuckled and returned to his own affairs. "Being on +the winning side isn't really important. But it's like carrying a potato +in your pocket for rheumatism: it gives a feller confidence. And after +all, the devil's rich and God's poor have all got votes. And votes +count!" He grinned and revived his pipe. + +He was about to speak again when Laura interrupted him, "Oh, +father--they're not God's poor, whose ever they are. Don't say that. +They're Daniel Sands's poor, and the Smelter Trust's poor, and the Coal +Trust's poor, and the Glass and Cement and Steel company's poor. I've +learned that down here. Why, if the employers would only treat the +workers as fairly as they treat the machines, keeping them fit, and +modern and bright, God would have no poor!" + +The Doctor rose and stretched and smiled indulgently at his daughter. +"Heigh-ho the green holly," he droned. "Well, have it your way. God's +poor or Dan's poor, they're my votes, if I can get 'em. So we'll come to +the meeting to-night and blow a few mouthfuls on the fires of +revolution, for the good of the order!" + +He would have gone, but his daughter begged him to stay and dine with +her in South Harvey, before they went to the meeting. So for an hour the +Doctor sat in his daughter's office by the window, sometimes giving +attention to the drab flood of humanity passing along the street as the +shifts changed for evening in the mines and smelters, and then listening +to the day's stragglers who came and went through his daughter's office: +A father for medicine for a child, a mother for advice, a breaker boy +for a book, a little girl from the glass works for a bright bit of +sewing upon which she was working, a woman from Violet Hogan's room with +a heartbreak in her problem, a group of women from little Italy with a +complaint about a disorderly neighbor in their tenement, a cripple from +the mines to talk over his career, whether it should be pencils or shoe +strings, or a hand organ, or some attempt at handicraft; the head of a +local labor union paying some pittance to Laura, voted by the men to +help her with her work; a shy foreign woman with a badly spelled note +from her neighbor, asking for flower seeds and directions translated by +Laura into the woman's own language telling how to plant the seeds; a +belated working mother calling for the last little tot in the nursery +and explaining her delay. Laura heard them all and so far as she could, +she served them all. The Doctor was vastly proud of the effective way in +which she dispatched her work. + +It was six o'clock, but the summer sun still was high and the traffic in +the street was thick. For a time, while a woman with a child with +shriveled legs was talking to Laura about the child's education, the +Doctor sat gazing into the street. When the room was empty, he +exclaimed, "It's a long weary way from the sunshine and prairie grass, +child! How it all has changed with the years! Ten years ago I knew 'em +all, the men and the employers. Now they are all newcomers--men and +masters. Why, I don't even know their nationalities; I don't even know +what part of the earth they come from. And such sad-faced droves of +them; so many little scamps, underfed, badly housed for generations. The +big, strapping Irish and Germans and Scotch and the wide-chested little +Welshmen, and the agile French--how few of them there are compared with +this slow-moving horde of runts from God knows where! It's been a long +time since I've been down here to see a shift change, Laura. Lord--Lord +have mercy on these people--for no one else seems to care!" + +"Amen, and Amen, father," answered the daughter. "These are the people +that Grant is trying to stir to consciousness. These are the people +who--" + +"Well, yes," he turned a sardonic look upon his daughter, "they're the +boys who voted against me the last time because Tom and Dan hired a man +in every precinct to spread the story that I was a teetotaler, and that +your mother gave a party on Good Friday--and all because Tom and Dan +were mad at me for pushing that workingmen's compensation bill! But now +I look at 'em--I don't blame 'em! What do they know about workingmen's +compensation!" The Doctor stopped and chuckled; then he burst out: "I +tell you, Laura, when a man gets enough sense to stand by his +friends--he no longer needs friends. When these people get wise enough +not to be fooled by Tom and old Dan, they won't need Grant! In the +meantime--just look at 'em--look at 'em paying twice as much for rent as +they pay up town: gouged at the company stores down here for their food +and clothing; held up by loan sharks when they borrow money; doped with +aloes in their beer, and fusil oil in their whiskey, wrapped up in +shoddy clothes and paper shoes, having their pockets picked by weighing +frauds at the mines, and their bodies mashed in speed-up devices in the +mills; stabled in filthy shacks without water or sewers or electricity +which we uptown people demand and get for the same money that they pay +for these hog-pens--why, hell's afire and the cows are out--Laura! by +Godfrey's diamonds, if I lived down here I'd get me some frisky dynamite +and blow the whole place into kindling." He sat blinking his +indignation; then began to smile. "Instead of which," he squeaked, "I +shall endeavor by my winning ways to get their votes." He waved a gay +hand and added, "And with God be the rest!" + +Towering above a group of workers from the South of Europe--a delegation +from the new wire mill in Plain Valley, Grant Adams came swinging down +the street, a Gulliver among his Lilliputians. Although it was not even +twilight, it was evident to the Doctor that something more than the +changing shifts in the mills was thickening the crowds in the street. +Little groups were forming at the corners, good-natured groups who +seemed to know that they were not to be molested. And the Doctor at his +window watched Grant passing group after group, receiving its +unconscious homage; just a look, or a waving hand, or an affectionate, +half-abashed little cheer, or the turning of a group of heads all one +way to catch Grant's eyes as he passed. + +At the Captain's vacant lot, Grant rose before a cheering throng that +filled the lot, and overflowed the sidewalk and crowded far down the +street. Two flickering torches flared at his head. An electric in front +of the Hot Dog and a big arc-light over the door of the smelter lighted +the upturned faces of the multitude. When the crowd had ceased cheering, +Grant, looking into as many eyes of his hearers as he could catch, +began: + +"I have come to talk to Esau--the disinherited--to Esau who has +forfeited his birthright. I am here to speak to those who are toiling in +the world's rough work unrequited--I am here, one of the poor to talk to +the poor." + +His voice held back so much of his strength, his gaunt, awkward figure +under the uncertain torches, his wide, impassioned gestures, with the +carpenter's nail claw always before his hearers, made him a strange kind +of specter in the night. Yet the simplicity of his manner and the +directness of his appeal went to the hearts of his hearers. The first +part of his message was one of peace. He told the workers that every +inch they gained they lost when they tried to overcome cunning with +force. "The dynamiter tears the ground from under labor--not from under +capital; he strengthens capital," said Grant. "Every time I hear of a +bomb exploding in a strike, or of a scab being killed I think of the +long, hard march back that organized labor must make to retrieve its +lost ground. And then," he cried passionately, and the mad fanatic glare +lighted his face, "my soul revolts at the iniquity of those who, by +craft and cunning while we work, teach us the false doctrine of the +strength of force, and then when we use what they have taught us, point +us out in scorn as lawbreakers. Whether they pay cash to the man who +touched the fuse or fired the gun or whether they merely taught us to +use bombs and guns by the example of their own lawlessness, theirs is +the sin, and ours the punishment. Esau still has lost his +birthright--still is disinherited." + +He spoke for a time upon the aims of organization, and set forth the +doctrine of class solidarity. He told labor that in its ranks altruism, +neighborly kindness that is the surest basis of progress, has a thousand +disintegrated expressions. "The kindness of the poor to the poor, if +expressed in terms of money, would pay the National debt over night," he +said, and, letting out his voice, and releasing his strength, he begged +the men and women who work and sweat at their work to give that altruism +some form and direction, to put it into harness--to form it into ranks, +drilled for usefulness. Then he spoke of the day when class +consciousness would not be needed, when the unions would have served +their mission, when the class wrong that makes the class suffering and +thus marks the class line, would disappear just as they have disappeared +in the classes that have risen during the last two centuries. + +"Oh, Esau," he cried in the voice that men called insane because of its +intensity, "your birthright is not gone. It lies in your own heart. +Quicken your heart with love--and no matter what you have lost, nor what +you have mourned in despair, in so much as you love shall it all be +restored to you." + +They did not cheer as he talked. But they stood leaning forward intently +listening. Some of his hearers had expected to hear class hatred +preached. Others were expecting to hear the man lash his enemies and +many had assumed that he would denounce those who had committed the +mistakes of the night before. Instead of giving his hearers these +things, he preached a gospel of peace and love and hope. His hearers did +not understand that the maimed, lean, red-faced man before them was +dipping deeply into their souls and that they were considering many +things which they had not questioned before. + +When he plunged into the practical part of his speech, an explanation of +the allied unions of the Valley, he told in detail something of the ten +years' struggle to bring all the unions together under one industrial +council in the Wahoo Valley, and listed something of the strength of the +organization. He declared that the time had come for the organization to +make a public fight for recognition; that organization in secret and +under cover was no longer honorable. "The employers are frankly and +publicly allied," said Grant. "They have their meetings to talk over +matters of common interest. Why should not the unions do the same thing? +The smelter men, the teamsters, the miners, the carpenters, the steel +workers, the painters, the glass workers, the printers--all the +organized men and women in this district have the same common interests +that their employers have, and we should in no wise be ashamed of our +organization. This meeting is held to proclaim our pride in the common +ground upon which organized labor stands with organized capital in the +Wahoo Valley." + +He called the rolls of the unions in the trades council and for an hour +men stood and responded and reported conditions among workers in their +respective trades. It was an impressive roll call. After their +organization had been completed, a great roar of pride rose and Grant +Adams threw out his steel claw and leaning forward cried: + +"We have come to bring brotherhood into this earth. For in the union +every man sacrifices something to the common good; mutual help means +mutual sacrifice, and self-denial is brotherly love. Fraternity and +democracy are synonymous. We must rise together by self-help. I know how +easy it is for the rich man to become poor. I know that often the poor +man becomes rich. But when Esau throws off the yoke of Jacob, when the +poor shall rise and come into their own, the rise shall not be as +individuals, but as a class. The glass workers are better paid than the +teamsters; but their interests are common, and the better paid workers +cannot rise except their poorly paid fellow workmen rise with them. It +is a class problem and it must have a class solution." + +Grant Adams stood staring at the crowd. Then he spread out his two gaunt +arms and closed his eyes and cried: "Oh, Esau, Esau, you were faint and +hungry in that elder day when you drank the red pottage and sold your +birthright. But did you know when you bartered it away, that in that +bargain went your children's souls? Down here in the Valley, five babies +die in infancy where one dies up there on the hill. Ninety per cent. of +the boys in jail come from the homes in the Valley and ten per cent. +from the homes on the hill. And the girls who go out in the night, never +to come home--poor girls always. Crime and shame and death were in that +red pottage, and its bitterness still burns our hearts. And why--why in +the name of our loving Christ who knew the wicked bargain Jacob +made--why is our birthright gone? Why does Esau still serve his brother +unrequited?" Then he opened his eyes and cried stridently--"I'll tell +you why. The poor are poor because the rich are rich. We have been +working a decade and a half in this Valley, and profits, not new +capital, have developed it. Profits that should have been divided with +labor in wages have gone to buy new machines--miles and miles of new +machines have come here, bought and paid for with the money that labor +earned, and because we have not the machines which our labor has bought, +we are poor--we are working long hours amid squalor surrounded with +death and crime and shame. Oh, Esau, Esau, what a pottage it was that +you drank in the elder day! Oh, Jacob, Jacob, wrestle, wrestle with thy +conscience; wrestle with thy accusing Lord; wrestle, Jacob, wrestle, for +the day is breaking and we will not let thee go! How long, O Lord, how +long will you hold us to that cruel bargain!" + +He paused as one looking for an answer--hesitant, eager, expectant. Then +he drew a long breath, turned slowly and sadly and walked away. + +No cheer followed him. The crowd was stirred too deeply for cheers. But +the seed he had sown quickened in a thousand hearts even if in some +hearts it fell among thorns, even if in some it fell upon stony ground. +The sower had gone forth to sow. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX + +BEING NO CHAPTER AT ALL BUT AN INTERMEZZO BEFORE THE LAST MOVEMENT + + +The stage is dark. In the dim distance something is moving. It is a +world hurrying through space. Somewhat in the foreground but enveloped +in the murk sit three figures. They are tending a vast loom. Its myriad +threads run through illimitable space and the woof of the loom is time. +The three figures weaving through the dark do not know whence comes the +power that moves the loom eternally. They have not asked. They work in +the pitch of night. + +From afar in the earth comes a voice--high-keyed and gentle: + +A Voice, _pianissimo_: + +"This business of governing a sovereign people is losing its savor. I +must be getting some kind of spiritual necrosis. Generally speaking, +about all the real pleasure a grand llama of politics finds in life, is +in counting his ingrates--his governors and senators and congressmen! +Why, George, it's been nearly ten years since I've cussed out a senator +or a governor, yet I read Browning with joy and the last time I heard +Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, I went stark mad. But woe is me, George! Woe +is me. When the Judge and Dan Sands named the postmaster last month +without consulting me, I didn't care. I tell you, George, I must be +getting old!" + +Second Voice, _fortissimo_: + +"No, Doc--you're not getting old--why, you're not sixty--a mere spring +chicken yet--and Dan Sands is seventy-five if he's a day. What's the +matter with you in this here Zeitgeist that Carlyle talks about! It's +this restless little time spirit that's the matter with you. You're all +broke out and sick abed with the Zeitgeist. You've got no more necrosis +than a Belgian hare's got paresis--I'm right here to tell you and my +diagnosis goes." + +Third Voice, _adagio_: + +"James, my guides say that we're beginning a great movement from the few +to the many. That is their expression. Cromwell thinks it means economic +changes; but I was talking with Jefferson the other night and he says +no--it means political changes in order to get economic. He says Tilden +tells him--" + +The Second Voice, _fortissimo_: + +"Who cares what Tilden says! My noodle tells me that there's to be a big +do in this world, and my control tinkles the cash register, pops into +the profit account, eats up ten cent magazines, and gets away with five +feet of literary dynamite fuse every week. I'm that old Commodore Noah +that's telling you to get out your rubbers for the flood." + +The First Voice, _andante con expression_: + +"It's a queer world--a mighty queer world. Here's Laura's kindergarten +growing until it joins with Violet Hogan's day nursery and Laura's +flower seeds splashing color out of God's sunshine in front yards clear +down to Plain Valley. Money coming in about as they need it. Dan Sands +and Morty, Wright and Perry and the Dago saloon keeper, Joe Calvin, John +Dexter and the gamblers--all the robbers, high and low, dividing their +booty. With all the prosperity we are having, with all the opening of +mills and factories--it's getting easier to make money and consequently +harder to respect it. The more money there is, the less it buys, and +that is true in public sentiment just as it is in groceries and +furniture. Do you fellows realize that it's been ten years since the +_Times_ has run any of those 'Pen Portraits of Self-Made Men'?" A +silence, then the voice continues: + +"George, I honestly believe, if money keeps getting crowded farther and +farther into the background of life--we'll develop an honest politician. +We know that to give a bribe is just as bad as to take one. Think of the +men debauched with money disguised as campaign expenses, or with offices +or with franks and passes and pull and power! Think of all the bad +government fostered, all the injustices legalized, just to win a sordid +game! The best I can do now is to cry, 'Lord have mercy on me, a sinner! +The harlot and the thief are my betters.'" + +The _voices_ cease. The earth whirls on. The brooding spirits at +the loom muse in silence, for they need no voices. + +The First Fate: "The birds! The birds! I seemed to hear the +night birds twittering to bring in the dawn." + +The Second Fate: "The birds do not bring in the dawn. The dawn +comes." + +The First Fate: "But always and always before the day, we hear +these voices." + +The Third Fate: "World after world threads its time through our +loom. We watch the pattern grow. Days and eras and ages pass. We know +nothing of meanings. We only weave. We know that the pattern brightens +as new days come and always voices in the dark tell us of the changing +pattern of a new day." + +The First Fate: "But the birds--the birds! I seem to hear the +night birds' voices that make the dawn." + +The Second Fate: "They are not birds calling, but the whistle +of shot and shell and the shrill, far cries of man in air. But still I +say the dawn comes, the voices do not bring it." + +The Third Fate: "We do not know how the awakening voices in the +dark know that the light is coming. We do not know what power moves the +loom. We do not know who dreams the pattern. We only weave and muse and +listen for the voices of change as a world threads its events through +the woof of time on our loom." + + * * * * * + +The stage is dark. The weavers weave time into circumstances and in the +blackness the world moves on. Slowly it grays. A thousand voices rise. +Then circumstance begins to run brightly on the loom, and a million +voices join in the din of the dawn. The loom goes. The weavers fade. The +light in the world pales the thread of time and the whirl of the earth +no longer is seen. But instead we see only a town. Half of it shines in +the morning sun--half of it hides in the smoke. In the sun on the street +is a man. + + + + +CHAPTER XL + +HERE WE HAVE THE FELLOW AND THE GIRL BEGINNING TO PREPARE FOR THE LAST +CHAPTER + + +A tall, spare, middle-aged person was Thomas Van Dorn in the latter +years of the first decade of the twentieth century; tall and spare and +tight-skinned. The youthful olive texture of the skin was worn off and +had been replaced by a leathery finish--rather reddish brown in color. +The slight squint of his eyes was due somewhat to the little puffs under +them, and a suspicious, crafty air had grown into the full orbs, which +once glowed with emotion, when the younger man mounted in his oratorical +flights. His hands were gloved to match his exactly formal clothes, and +his hat--a top-hat when Judge Van Dorn was in the East, and a sawed-off +compromise with the local prejudice against top-hats when he was in +Harvey--was always in the latest mode. Often the hat was made to match +his clothes. He had become rigorous in his taste in neckties and only +grays and blacks and browns adorned the almost monkish severity of his +garb. Harsh, vertical lines had begun to appear at the sides of the +sensuous mouth, and horizontal lines--perhaps of hurt pride and +shame--were pressed into his wide, handsome forehead and the zigzag scar +was set white in a reddening field. + +All these things a photograph would show. But there was that about his +carriage, about his mien, about the personality that emerged from all +these things which the photograph would not show. For to the eyes of +those who had known him in the flush of his youth, something--perhaps it +was time, perhaps the burden of the years--seemed to be sapping him, +seemed to be drying him out, fruitless, pod-laden, dry and listless, +with a bleached soul, naked to the winds that blow across the world. The +myriad criss-crosses of minute red veins that marked his cheek often +were wet with water from the eyes that used to glow out of a very +volcano of a personality behind them. But after many hours of charging +up and down the earth in his great noisy motor, red rims began to form +about the watery eyes and they peered furtively and savagely at the +world, like wolves from a falling temple. + +As he stood by the fire in Mr. Brotherton's sanctuary, holding his +_Harper's Weekly_ in his hand, and glancing idly over the new books +carelessly arranged on the level of the eye upon the wide oak mantel, +the Judge came to be conscious of the presence of Amos Adams on a settee +near by. + +"How do you do, sir?" The habit of speaking to every one persisted, but +the suave manner was affected, and the voice was mechanical. The old man +looked up from his book--one of Professor Hyslop's volumes, and +answered, "Why, hello, Tom--how are you?" and ducked back to his +browsing. + +"That son of yours doesn't seem to have set the Wahoo afire with his +unions in the last two or three years, does he?" said Van Dorn. He could +not resist taking this poke at the old man, who replied without looking +up: + +"Probably not." + +Then fearing that he might have been curt the old man lifted his eyes +from his book and looking kindly over his glasses continued: "The Wahoo +isn't ablaze, Tom, but you know as well as I that the wage scale has +been raised twice in the mines, and once in the glass factory and once +in the smelter in the past three years without strikes--and that's what +Grant is trying to do. More than that, every concern in the Valley now +recognizes the union in conferring with the men about work conditions. +That's something--that's worth all his time for three years or so, if he +had done nothing else." + +"Well, what else has he done?" asked Van Dorn quickly. + +"Well, Tom, for one thing the men are getting class conscious, and in a +strike that will be a strong cement to make them stick." + +Van Dorn's neck reddened, as he replied: "Yes--the damn +anarchists--class consciousness is what undermines patriotism." + +"And patriotism," replied the old man, thumbing the lapel of his coat +that held his loyal legion button, "patriotism is the last resort--of +plutocrats!" + +He laughed good-naturedly and silently. Then he rose and said as he +started to go: + +"Well, Tom,--we won't quarrel over a little thing like our beloved +country. Why, Lila--" the old man looked up and saw the girl, "bless my +eyes, child, how you do grow, and how pretty you look in your new +ginghams--just like your mother, twenty years ago!" Amos Adams was +talking to a shy young girl--blue-eyed and brown-haired, who was walking +out of the store after buying a bottle of ink of Miss Calvin. Lila spoke +to the old man and would have gone with him, but for the booming voice +of Mr. Brotherton, the gray-clad benedict, who looked not unlike the +huge, pot-bellied gray jars which adorned "the sweet serenity of books +and wall paper." + +Mr. Brotherton had glanced up from his ledger at Amos Adams's mention of +Lila's name. Coming forward, he saw her in her new dress, a bright +gingham dress that reached so nearly to her shoe tops that Mr. +Brotherton cried: "Well, look who's here--if it isn't Miss Van Dorn! And +a great pleasure it is to see and know you, Miss Van Dorn." + +He repeated the name two or three times gently, while Lila smiled in shy +appreciation of Mr. Brotherton's ambushed joke. Her father, standing by +a squash-necked lavender jug in the "serenity," did not entirely grasp +Mr. Brotherton's point. But while the father was groping for it, Mr. +Brotherton went on: + +"Miss Van Dorn, once I had a dear friend--such a dear little friend +named Lila. Perhaps you may see her sometimes? Maybe sometimes at night +she comes to see you--maybe she peeps in when you are alone and asks to +play. Well, say--Lila," called Mr. Brotherton as gently as a fog horn +tooting a nocturne, "if she ever comes, if you ever see her, will you +give her my love? It would be highly improper for a married gentleman +with asthmatic tendencies and too much waistband to send his love or +anything like it to Miss Van Dorn; it would surely cause comment. But if +Lila ever comes, Miss Van Dorn," frolicked the elephant, "give her my +love and tell her that often here in the serenity, I shut my eyes and +see her playing out on Elm Street, a teenty, weenty girl--with blue hair +and curly eyes--or maybe it was the other way around," Mr. Brotherton +heaved a prodigious sigh and waved a weary, fat hand--"and here, my +lords and gentlemen, is Miss Van Dorn with her dresses down to her shoe +tops!" + +The girl was smiling and blushing, sheepishly and happily, while Mr. +Brotherton was mentally calculating that he would be in his middle +fifties before a possible little girl of his might be putting on her +first long dresses. It saddened him a little, and he turned, rather +subdued, and called into the alcove to the Judge and said: + +"Tom, this is our friend, Miss Van Dorn--I was just sending a message by +her to a dear--a very dear friend I used to have, named Lila, who is +gone. Miss Van Dorn knows Lila, and sees her sometimes. So now that you +are here, I'm going to send this to Lila," he raised the girl's hand to +his lips and awkwardly kissed it, as he said clumsily, "well, say, my +dear--will you see that Lila gets that?" + +Her father stepped toward the embarrassed girl and spoke: + +"Lila--Lila--can't you come here a moment, dear?" + +He was standing by the smoldering fire, brushing a rolled newspaper +against his leg. Something within him--perhaps Mr. Brotherton's awkward +kiss stirred it--was trying to soften the proud, hard face that was +losing the mobility which once had been its charm. He held out a hand, +and leaned toward the girl. She stepped toward him and asked, "What is +it?" + +An awkward pause followed, which the man broke with, "Well--nothing in +particular, child; only I thought maybe you'd like--well, tell me how +are you getting along in High School, little girl." + +"Oh, very well; I believe," she answered, but did not lift her eyes to +his. Mr. Brotherton moved back to his desk. Again there was silence. The +girl did not move away, though the father feared through every painful +second that she would. Finally he said: "I hear your mother is getting +on famously down in South Harvey. Our people down there say she is doing +wonders with her cooking club for girls." + +Lila smiled and answered: "She'll be glad to know it, I'm sure." Again +she paused, and waited. + +"Lila," he cried, "won't you let me help you--do something for you?--I +wish so much--so much to fill a father's place with you, my dear--so +much." + +He stepped toward her, felt for her hand, but could not find it. She +looked up at him, and in her eyes there rose the old cloud of sadness +that came only once in a long time. It was a puzzled face that he saw +looking steadily into his. + +"I don't know what you could do," she answered simply. + +Something about the pathetic loneliness of his unfathered child, +evidenced by the sadness that flitted across her face, touched a remote, +unsullied part of his nature, and moved him to say: + +"Oh, Lila--Lila--Lila--I need you--I need you--God knows, dear, how I do +need you. Won't you come to me sometimes? Won't your mother ever +relent--won't she? If she knew, she would be kind. Oh, Lila, Lila," he +called as the two stood together there in the twilight with the glow of +the coals in the fireplace upon them, "Lila, won't you let me take you +home even--in my car? Surely your mother wouldn't care for that, would +she?" + +The girl looked into the fire and answered, "No," and shook her head. +"No--mother would be pleased, I think. She has always told me to be kind +to you--to be respectful to you, sir. I've tried to be, sir?" + +Her voice rose in a question. He answered by taking her arm and +pleading, "Oh, come--won't you let me take you home in my car, +Lila--it's getting late--won't you, Lila?" + +But the girl turned away; he let her arm drop. She answered, shaking her +head: + +"I think, sir, if you don't mind--I'd rather walk." + +In another second she was gone. Her father leaned against the mantel and +the dying coals warmed tears in his hungry, furtive eyes, and his face +twitched for a moment before he turned, and walked with some show of +pride to his grand car. Half an hour later he was driving homeward, +looking neither to the right nor to the left, when his ear caught the +word, "Lila," in a girlish treble near him. He looked up to see a young +miss--a Calvin young miss, in fact--running and waving her hands toward +a group of boys and girls in their middle teens and late teens, trooping +up the hill along the sidewalk. They were neighborhood children, and +Lila seemed to be the center of the circle. He slowed down his car to +watch them. Near Lila was Kenyon Adams, a tall, beautiful youth, fiddle +box in hand, but still a boy even though he was twenty. Other boys +played about the group and through it, but none was so striking as +Kenyon, tall, lithe, with a beautifully poised head of crinkly chestnut +hair, who strode gayly among the youths and maidens and yet was not +quite of them. Even the Judge could see that Kenyon did not exactly +belong--that he was rare and exotic. But as her father's car crept +unnoticed past the group, he could see that Lila belonged. She was in no +way exotic among the Calvins and Kollanders and the Wrights, and the +children of the neighbors in Elm Street. Lila's clear, merry laugh--a +laugh that rang like an old bell through Tom Van Dorn's heart--rose +above the adolescent din of the group and to the father seemed to be the +dominant note in the hilarious cadenza of young life. It struck him that +they were like fireflies, glowing and darting and disappearing and +weaving about. + +And fireflies indeed they were. For in them the fires of life were just +beginning to sparkle. Slowly the great bat of a car moved up past them, +then darted around the block like the blind creature that it was, and +whirling its awkward circle came swooping up again to the glowing, +animated stars that held him in a deadly fascination. For those +twinkling, human stars playing like fireflies in exquisite joy at the +first faint kindling in their hearts of the fires that flame forever in +the torch of life, might well have held in their spell a stronger man +than Thomas Van Dorn. For the first evanescent fires of youth are the +most sacred fires in the world. And well might the great, black bat of a +car circle again and again and even again around and come always back to +the beautiful light. + +But Thomas Van Dorn came back not happily but in sad unrest. It was as +though the black bat carried captive on its back a weary pilgrim from +the Primrose Hunt, jaded and spent and dour, who saw in the sacred fires +what he had cast away, what he had deemed worthless and of a sudden had +seen in its true beauty and in its real value. Once again as the +fireflies played their ceaseless game with the ever flickering glow of +youth shining through eyes and cheeks from their hearts, the great bat +carrying its captive swooped around them--and then out into the darkness +of his own charred world. + +But the fireflies in the gay spring twilight kept darting and +criss-crossing and frolicking up the walk. One by one, each swiftly or +lazily disappeared from the maze, and at last only two, Kenyon and Lila, +went weaving up the lawn toward the steps of the Nesbit house. + +It had been one of those warm days when spring is just coming into the +world. All day the boy had been roaming the wide prairies. The voices of +the wind in the brown grass and in the bare trees by the creek had found +their way into his soul. A curious soul it was--the soul of a poet, the +soul of one who felt infinitely more than he knew--the soul of a man in +the body of a callow youth. + +As he and Lila walked up the hill, all the dreams that had swept across +him out in the fields came to him. They sat on the south steps of the +Nesbit house watching the spring that was trying to blossom in the pink +and golden sunset. The girl was beginning to look at the world through +new, strange eyes, and out on the hills that day the boy also had felt +the thrill of a new heaven and a new earth. + +Their talk was finite and far short of the vision of warm, radiant +life-stuff flowing through the universe that had thrilled Kenyon in the +hills. Out there, looking eastward over the prairies checked in brown +earth, and green wheat, and old grass faded from russet to lavender, +with the gray woods worming their way through the valleys, he had found +voice and had crooned melodies that came out of the wind and sun, and +satisfied his soul. Over and over he had repeated in various cadences +the words: + +"I will lift up mine eyes to the hills, whence cometh my help." + +And he had seemed to be forming a great heart-filling anthem. It was all +on his tongue's tip, with the answering chorus coming from out of some +vast mystery, "Behold, thou art fair, my love--behold, thou art +fair--thou hast dove's eyes." There in the sunshine upon the prairie +grass it was as real and vital a part of his soul's aspiration as though +it had been reiterated in some glad symphony. But as he sat in the +sunset trying to put into his voice the language that stirred his heart, +he could only drum upon a box and look at the girl's blue eyes and her +rosebud of a face and utter the copper coins of language for the golden +yearning of his soul. She answered, thrilled by the radiance of his +eyes: + +"Isn't the young spring beautiful--don't you just love it, Kenyon? I +do." + +He rose and stood out in the sun on the lawn. The girl got up. She was +abashed; and strangely self-conscious without reason, she began to +pirouette down the walk and dance back to him, with her blue eyes +fastened like a mystic sky-thread to his somber gaze. A thousand mute +messages of youth twinkled across that thread. Their eyes smiled. The +two stood together, and the youth kicked with his toes in the soft turf. + +"Lila," he asked as he looked at the greening grass of spring, "what do +you suppose they mean when they say, 'I will lift up mine eyes to the +hills'? The line has been wiggling around in my head all morning as I +walked over the prairie, that and another that I can't make much of, +about, 'Behold, thou art fair, my love--behold, thou art fair.' Say, +Lila," he burst out, "do you sometimes have things just pop into your +head all fuzzy with--oh, well, say feeling good and you don't know why, +and you are just too happy to eat? I do." + +He paused and looked into her bright, unformed face with the fleeting +cloud of sadness trailing its blind way across her heart. + +"And say, Lila--why, this morning when I was out there all alone I just +sang at the top of my voice, I felt so bang-up dandy--and--I tell you +something--honest, I kept thinking of you all the time--you and the +hills and a dove's eyes. It just tasted good way down in me--you ever +feel that way?" + +Again the girl danced her answer and sent the words she could not speak +through her eyes and his to his innermost consciousness. + +"But honest, Lila--don't you ever feel that way--kind of creepy with +good feeling--tickledy and crawly, as though you'd swallowed a candy +caterpillar and was letting it go down slow--slow, slow, to get every +bit of it--say, honest, don't you? I do. It's just fine--out on the +prairie all alone with big bursting thoughts bumping you all the +time--gee!" + +They were sitting on the steps when he finished and his heel was denting +the sod. She was entranced by what she saw in his eyes. + +"Of course, Kenyon," she answered finally. "Girls are--oh, different, I +guess. I dream things like that, and sometimes mornings when I'm wiping +dishes I think 'em--and drop dishes--and whoopee! But I don't +know--girls are not so woozy and slazy inside them as boys. Kenyon, let +me tell you something: Girls pretend to be and aren't--not half; and +boys pretend they aren't and are--lots more." + +She gazed up at him in an unblinking joy of adoration as shameless as +the heart of a violet baring itself to the sun. Then she shut her eyes +and the lad caught up his instrument and cried: + +"Come on, Lila,--come in the house. I've got to play out +something--something I found out on the prairie to-day about 'mine eyes +unto the hills' and 'the eyes of the dove' and the woozy, fuzzy, happy, +creepy thoughts of you all the time." + +He was inside the door with the violin in his hands. As she closed the +door he put his head down to the brown violin as if to hear it sing, and +whispered slowly: + +"Oh, Lila--listen--just hear this." + +And then it came! "The Spring Sun," it is known popularly. But in the +book of his collected music it appears as "Allegro in B." It is the +throb of joy of young life asking the unanswerable question of God: what +does it mean--this new, fair, wonderful world full of life and birth, +and joy; charged with mystery, enveloped in strange, unsolved grandeur, +like the cloud pictures that float and puzzle us and break and reform +and paint all Heaven in their beauty and then resolve themselves into +nothing. Many people think this is Kenyon Adams's most beautiful and +poetic message. Certainly in the expression of the gayety and the weird, +vague mysticism of youth and poignant joy he never reached that height +again. Death is ignored; it is all life and the aspirations of life and +the beckonings of life and the bantering of life and the deep, awful, +inexorable call of life to youth. Other messages of Kenyon Adams are +more profound, more comforting to the hearts and the minds of reasoning, +questioning men. But this Allegro in B is the song of youth, of early +youth, bidding childhood adieu and turning to life with shining +countenance and burning heart. + +When he had finished playing he was in tears, and the girl sitting +before him was awestricken and rapt as she sat with upturned face with +the miracle of song thrilling her soul. Let us leave them there in that +first curious, unrealized signaling of soul to soul. And now let us go +on into this story, and remember these children, as children still, who +do not know that they have opened the great golden door into life! + + + + +CHAPTER XLI + +HERE WE SEE GRANT ADAMS CONQUERING HIS THIRD AND LAST DEVIL + + +In the ebb and flow of life every generation sees its waves of altruism +washing in. But in the ebb of altruism in America that followed the +Civil War, Amos Adams's ship of dreams was left high and dry in the salt +marsh. Finally a time came when the tide began to boom in. But in no +substantial way did his newspaper feel the impulse of the current. The +_Tribune_ was an old hulk; it could not ride the tide. And its +skipper, seedy, broken with the years, always too gentle for the world +about him, even at his best, ever ready to stop work to read a book, +Amos Adams, who had been a crank for a third of a century, remained a +crank when much that he preached in earlier years was accepted by the +multitude. + +Amos Adams might have made the Harvey _Tribune_ a financial success +if he could have brought himself to follow John Kollander's advice. But +Amos could not abide the presence much less the counsel of the +professional patriot, with his insistent blue uniform and brass buttons. +Under an elaborate pretense of independence, John Kollander was a +limber-kneed time-server, always keen-eyed for the crumbs of Dives' +table; odd jobs in receiverships, odd jobs in lawsuits for Daniel +Sands--as, for instance, furnishing unexpected witnesses to prove +improbable contentions--odd jobs in his church, odd jobs in his party +organization, always carrying a per diem and expenses; odd jobs for the +Commercial Club, where the pay was sure; odd jobs for Tom Van Dorn, +spreading slander by innuendo where it would do the most good for Tom in +his business; odd jobs for Tom and Dick and for Harry, but always for +the immediate use and benefit of John Kollander, his heirs and assigns. +But if Amos Adams ever thought of himself, it was by inadvertence. He +managed, Heaven only knows how, to keep the _Tribune_ going. Jasper +bought back from the man who foreclosed the mortgage, his father's +homestead. He rented it to his father for a dollar a year and +ostentatiously gave the dollar to the Lord--so ostentatiously, indeed, +that when Henry Fenn gayly referred to Amos, Grant and Jasper as Father, +Son and Holy Ghost, the town smiled at his impiety, but the holy Jasper +boarded at the Hotel Sands, was made a partner at Wright & Perry's, and +became a bank director at thirty. For Jasper was a Sands! + +The day after Amos Adams and Tom Van Dorn had met in the Serenity of +Books and Wallpaper at Brotherton's, Grant was in the _Tribune_ +office. "Grant," the father was getting down from his high stool to dump +his type on the galley; "Grant, I had a tiff with Tom Van Dorn +yesterday. Lord, Lord," cried the old man, as he bent over, +straightening some type that his nervous hand had knocked down. "I +wonder, Grant"--the father rose and put his hand on his back, as he +stood looking into his son's face--"I wonder if all that we feel, all +that we believe, all that we strive and live for--is a dream? Are we +chasing shadows? Isn't it wiser to conform, to think of ourselves first +and others afterward--to go with the current of life and not against it? +Of course, my guides--" + +"Father," cried Grant, "I saw Tom Van Dorn yesterday, too, in his big +new car--and I don't need your guides to tell me who is moving with the +current and who is buffeting it. Oh, father, that hell-scorched +face--don't talk to me about his faith and mine!" The old man remounted +his printer's stool for another half-hour's work before dusk deepened, +and smiled as he pulled his steel spectacles over his clear old eyes. + +One would fancy that a man whose face was as seamed and scarred with +time and struggle as Grant Adams's face, would have said nothing of the +hell-scorched face of Tom Van Dorn. Yet for all its lines, youth still +shone from Grant Adams's countenance. His wide, candid blue eyes were +still boyish, and a soul so eager with hope that it sometimes blazed +into a mad intolerance, gazed into the world from behind them. Even his +arm and claw became an animate hand when Grant waved them as he talked; +and his wide, pugnacious shoulders, his shock of nonconforming red hair, +his towering body, and his solid workman's legs, firm as oak +beams,--all,--claw, arms, shoulders, trunk and legs,--translated into +human understanding the rebel soul of Grant Adams. + +Yet the rebellion of Grant Adams's soul was no new thing to the world. +He was treading the rough road that lies under the feet of all those who +try to divert their lives from the hard and wicked morals of their +times. For the kingdoms of this earth are organized for those who devote +themselves chiefly, though of course not wholly, to the consideration of +self. The world is still vastly egoistic in its balance. And the +unbroken struggle of progress from Abel to yesterday's reformer, has +been, is, and shall be the battle with the spirit that chains us to the +selfish, accepted order of the passing day. So Grant Adams's face was +battle scarred, but his soul, strong and exultant, burst through his +flesh and showed itself at many angles of his being. And a grim and +militant thing it looked. The flinty features of the man, his coarse +mouth, his indomitable blue eyes, his red poll, waving like a banner +above his challenging forehead, wrinkled and seamed and gashed with the +troubles of harsh circumstance, his great animal jaw at the base of the +spiritual tower of his countenance--all showed forth the warrior's soul, +the warrior of the rebellion that is as old as time and as new as +to-morrow. + +Working with his hands for a bare livelihood, but sitting at his desk +four or five days in the week and speaking at night, month after month, +year after year, for nearly twenty years, without rest or change, had +taken much of the bounce of youth from his body. He knew how the money +from the accumulated dues was piling up in the Labor Union's war chest +in the valley. He had proved what a trade solidarity in an industrial +district could do for the men without strikes by its potential strength. +Black powder, which killed like the pestilence that stalketh in +darkness, was gone. Electric lights had superseded torches in the +runways of the mines. Bathhouses were found in all the shafts. In the +smelters the long, killing hours were abandoned and a score of safety +devices were introduced. But each gain for labor had come after a bitter +struggle with the employers. So the whole history of the Wahoo Valley +was written in the lines of his broken face. + +The reformer with his iridescent dream of progress often hangs its +realization upon a single phase of change. Thus when Grant Adams +banished black powder from the district, he expected the whole phantasm +of dawn to usher in the perfect day for the miners. When he secured +electric lights in the runways and baths in the shaft house, he +confidently expected large things to follow. While large things +hesitated, he saw another need and hurried to it. + +Thus it happened, that in the hurrying after a new need, Grant Adams had +always remained in his own district, except for a brief season when he +and Dr. Nesbit sallied forth in a State-wide campaign to defend the +Doctor's law to compel employers to pay workmen for industrial +accidents, as the employers replace broken machinery--a law which the +Doctor had pushed through the Legislature and which was before the +people for a referendum vote. When Grant went out of the Wahoo Valley +district he attracted curious crowds, crowds that came to see the queer +labor leader who won without strikes. And when the crowds came under +Grant's spell, he convinced them. For he felt intensely. He believed +that this law would right a whole train of incidental wrongs of labor. +So he threw himself into the fight with a crusader's ardor. Grant and +the Doctor journeyed over the State through July and August; and in +September the wily Doctor trapped Tom Van Dorn into a series of joint +debates with Grant that advertised the cause widely and well. From these +debates Grant Adams emerged a somebody in politics. For oratory, however +polished, and scholarship, however plausible, cannot stand before the +wrath of an indignant man in a righteous cause who can handle himself +and suppress his wrath upon the platform. + +As the week of the debate dragged on and as the pageant of it trailed +clear across the State, with crowds hooting and cheering, Doctor +Nesbit's cup of joy ran over. And when Van Dorn failed to appear for the +Saturday meeting at the capital, the Doctor's happiness mounted to glee. + +That night, long after the midnight which ended the day's triumph, Grant +and the Doctor were sitting on a baggage truck at a way station waiting +for a belated train. Grant was in the full current of his passion. +Personal triumph meant little to him--the cause everything. His heart +was afire with a lust to win. The Doctor kept looking at Grant with +curious eyes--appraising eyes, indeed--from time to time as the younger +man's interminable stream of talk of the Cause flowed on. But the Doctor +had his passion also. When it burst its bonds, he was saying: "Look +here, you crazy man--take a reef in your canvas picture of jocund day +upon the misty mountain tops--get down to grass roots." Grant turned an +exalted face upon the Doctor in astonishment. The Doctor went on: + +"Grant, I can give the concert all right--but, young man, you are +selling the soap. That's a great argument you have been making this +week, Grant." + +"There wasn't much to my argument, Doctor," answered Grant, absently, +"though it was a righteous cause. All I did was to make an appeal to the +pocketbooks of Market Street all over the State, showing the merchants +and farmers that the more the laboring man receives the more he will +spend, and if he is paid for his accidents he will buy more prunes and +calico; whereas, if he is not paid he will burden the taxes as a pauper. +Tom couldn't overcome that argument, but in the long run, our cause will +not be won permanently and definitely by the bread and butter and taxes +argument, except as that sort of argument proves the justice of our +cause and arouses love in the hearts of you middle-class people." + +But Dr. Nesbit persisted with his figure. "Grant," he piped, "you +certainly can sell soap. Why don't you sell some soap on your own hook? +Why don't you let me run you for something--Congress--governor, or +something? We can win hands down." + +Grant did not wait for the Doctor to finish, but cried in violent +protest: "No, no, no--Doctor--no, I must not do that. I tell you, man, I +must travel light and alone. I must go into life as naked as St. +Francis. The world is stirring as with a great spirit of change. The +last night I was at home, up stepped a little Belgian glassblower to me. +I'd never seen him before. I said, 'Hello, comrade!' He grasped my hands +with both hands and cried 'Comrade! So you know the password. It has +given me welcome and warmth and food in France, in England, in +Australia, and now here. Everywhere the workers are comrades!' +Everywhere the workers are comrades. Do you know what that means, +Doctor?" + +The Doctor did not answer. His seventy years, and his habit of thinking +in terms of votes and parties and factions, made him sigh. + +"Doctor," cried Grant, "electing men to office won't help. But this law +we are fighting for--this law will help. Doctor, I'm pinning the faith +of a decade of struggle on this law." + +The Doctor broke the silence that followed Grant's declaration, to say: +"Grant, I don't see it your way. I feel that life must crystallize its +progress in institutions--political institutions, before progress is +safe. But you must work out your own life, my boy. Incidentally," he +piped, "I believe you are wrong. But after this campaign is over, I'm +going up to the capital for one last fling at making a United States +Senator. I've only a dozen little white chips in the great game, five in +the upper house and seven in the lower house. But we may deadlock it, +and if we do,--you'll see thirty years drop off my head and witness the +rejuvenation of Old Linen Pants." + +Grant began walking the platform again under the stars like an impatient +ghost. The Doctor rose and followed him. + +"Grant, now let me tell you something. I am half inclined at times to +think it's all moonshine--this labor law we're working to establish. But +Laura wants it, and God knows, Grant, she has little enough in her life +down there in the Valley. And if this law makes her happy--it's the +least I can do for her. She hasn't had what she should have had out of +life, so I'm trying to make her second choice worth while. That's why +I'm on the soap wagon with you!" He would have laughed away this serious +mood, but he could not. + +Grant stared at the Doctor for a moment before answering: "Why, of +course, Dr. Nesbit, I've always known that. + +"But--I--Doctor--I am consecrated to the cause. It is my reason for +living." + +The day had passed in the elder's life when he could rise to the younger +man's emotions. He looked curiously at Grant and said softly: + +"Oh, to be young--to be young--to be young!" He rose, touched the strong +arm beside him. "'And the young men shall see visions.' To be +young--just to be young! But 'the old men shall dream dreams.' Well, +Grant, they are unimportant--not entirely pleasant. We young men of the +seventies had a great material vision. The dream of an empire here in +the West. It has come true--increased one hundred fold. Yet it is not +much of a dream." + +He let the arm drop and began drumming on the truck as he concluded: +"But it's all I have--all the dream I have now. 'All of which I saw, and +part of which I was,' yet," he mused, "perhaps it will be used as a +foundation upon which something real and beautiful will be builded." + +Far away the headlight of their approaching train twinkled upon the +prairie horizon. The two men watched it glow into fire and come upon +them. And without resuming their talk, each went his own wide, weary way +in the world as they lay in adjoining berths on the speeding train. + +At the general election the Doctor's law was upheld by a majority of the +votes in the State, but the Doctor himself was defeated for reelection +to the State Senate in his own district. Grant Adams waited, intently +and with fine faith, for this law to bring in the millennium. But the +Doctor had no millennial faith. + +He came down town the morning after his defeat, gay and unruffled. He +went toddling into the stores and offices of Market Street, clicking his +cane busily, thanking his friends and joking with his foes. But he +chirruped to Henry Fenn and Kyle Perry whom he found in the Serenity at +the close of the day: "Well, gentlemen, I've seen 'em all! I've taken my +medicine like a little man; but I won't lick the spoon. I sha'n't go and +see Dan and Tom. I'm willing to go as far as any man in the forgiving +and forgetting business, but the Lord himself hasn't quit on them. Look +at 'em. The devil's mortgage is recorded all over their faces and he's +getting about ready to foreclose on old Dan! And every time Dan hears +poor Morty cough, the devil collects his compound interest. Poor, dear, +gay Morty--if he could only put up a fight!" + +But he could not put up a fight and his temperature rose in the +afternoon and he could not meet with his gymnasium class in South Harvey +in the evening, but sent a trainer instead. So often weeks passed during +which Laura Van Dorn did not see Morty and the daily boxes of flowers +that came punctiliously with his cards to the kindergarten and to Violet +Hogan's day nursery, were their only reminders of the sorry, lonely, +footless struggle Morty was making. + +It was inevitable that the lives of Violet Hogan and Laura Van Dorn in +South Harvey should meet and merge. And when they met and merged, Violet +Hogan found herself devoting but a few hours a day to her day nursery, +while she worked six long, happy hours as a stenographer for Grant Adams +in his office at the Vanderbilt House. For, after all, it was as a +stenographer that she remembered herself in the grandeur and the glory +of her past. So Henry Fenn and Laura Van Dorn carried on the work that +Violet began, and for them souls and flowers and happiness bloomed over +the Valley in the dark, unwholesome places which death had all but taken +for his own. + +It was that spring when Dr. Nesbit went to the capital and took his last +fling at State politics. For two months he had deadlocked his party +caucus in the election of a United States Senator with hardly more than +a dozen legislative votes. And he was going out of his dictatorship in a +golden glow of glory. + +And this was the beginning of the golden age for Captain Morton. The +Morton-Perry Axle Works were thriving. Three eight-hour shifts kept the +little plant booming, and by agreement with the directors of the +Independent mine, Nathan Perry spent five hours a day in the works. He +and the Captain, and the youngest Miss Morton, who was keeping books, +believed that it would go over the line from loss to profit before grass +came. The Captain hovered about the plant like an earth-bound spirit day +and night, interrupting the work of the men, disorganizing the system +that Nathan had installed, and persuading himself that but for him the +furnaces would go dead and the works shut down. + +It was one beautiful day in late March, after the November election +wherein the Doctor's law had won and the Doctor himself had lost, that +Grant Adams was in Harvey figuring with Mr. Brotherton on supplies for +his office. Captain Morton came tramping down the clouds before him as +he swept into the Serenity and jabbed a spike through the wheels of +commerce with the remark: "Well, George--what do you think of my +regalia--eh?" + +Mr. Brotherton and Grant looked up from their work. They beheld the +Captain arrayed in a dazzling light gray spring suit--an exceedingly +light gray suit, with a hat of the same color and gloves and shoe spats +to match, with a red tie so red that it all but crackled. "First profits +of the business. We got over the line yesterday noon, and I had a +thousand to go on, and this morning I just went on this spree--what +say?" + +"Well, Cap, when Morty Sands sees you he will die of envy. You're +certainly the lily of the Valley and the bright and morning star--the +fairest of ten thousand to my soul! Grant," said Brotherton as he turned +to his customer, "behold the plute!" + +The Captain stood grinning in pride as the men looked him over. + +"'Y gory, boys, you'd be surprised the way that Household Horse has hit +the trade. Orders coming in from automobile makers, and last week we +decided to give up making the little power saver and make the whole rear +axle. We're going to call it the Morton-Perry Axle, and put in a big +plant, and I was telling Ruthy this morning, I says, 'Ruth,' says I, 'if +we make the axle business go, I'll just telephone down to Wright & Perry +and have them send you out something nobby in husbands, and, 'y gory, a +nice thousand-mile wedding trip and maybe your pa will go along for +company--what say?'" + +He was an odd figure in his clothes--for they were ready-made--made for +the figure of youth, and although he had been in them but a few hours, +the padding was bulging at the wrong places; and they were wrinkled +where they should be tight. His bony old figure stuck out at the knees, +and the shoulders and elbows, and the high collar would not fit his +skinny neck. But he was happy, and fancied he looked like the pictures +of college boys in the back of magazines. So he answered Mr. +Brotherton's question about the opinion of the younger daughter as to +the clothes by a profound wink. + +"Scared--scared plumb stiff--what say? I caught Marthy nodding at Ruth +and Ruthy looking hard at Marthy, and then both of 'em went to the +kitchen to talk over calling up Emmy and putting out fly poison for the +women that are lying in wait for their pa. Scared--why, scared's no name +for it--what say?" + +"Well, Captain," answered Mr. Brotherton, "you are certainly voluptuous +enough in your new stage setting to have your picture on a cigar box as +a Cuban beauty or a Spanish senorita." + +The Captain was turning about, trying to see how the coat set in the +back and at the same time watching the hang of the trousers. Evidently +he was satisfied with it. For he said: "Well--guess I'll be going. I'll +just mosey down to Mrs. Herdicker's to give Emmy and Marthy and Ruthy +something to keep 'em from thinking of their real troubles--eh?" And +with a flourish he was gone. + +When Grant's order was filled, he said, "Violet will call for this, +George; I have some other matters to attend to." + +As he assembled the goods for the order, Mr. Brotherton called out, +"Well, how is Violet, anyway?" Grant smiled. "Violet is doing well. She +is blooming over again, and when she found herself before a +typewriter--it really seemed to take the curve out of her back. Henry +declares that the typewriter put ribbon in her hair. Laura Van Dorn, I +believe, is responsible for Violet's shirt waists. Henry Fenn comes to +the office twice a day, to make reports on the sewing business. But what +he's really doing, George, is to let her smell his breath to prove that +he's sober, and so she runs the two jobs at once. Have you seen Henry +recently?" + +"Well," replied Brotherton, "he was in a month or so ago to borrow ten +to buy a coat--so that he could catch up with the trousers of that suit +before they grew too old. He still buys his clothes that way." + +Grant threw back his red head and grinned a grim, silent grin: "Well, +that's funny. Didn't you know what is keeping him away?" Again Grant +grinned. "The day he was here he came wagging down with that ten-dollar +bill, but his conscience got the best of him for lavishing so much money +on himself, so he slipped it to Violet and told her to buy her some new +teeth--you know she's been ashamed to open her mouth now for years. +Violet promised she would get the teeth in time for Easter. And pretty +soon in walks Mrs. Maurice Stromsky--who scrubs in the Wright & Perry +Building, whose baby died last summer and had to be buried in the +Potter's field--she came in; and she and Violet got to talking about the +baby--and Violet up and gave that ten to Mrs. Stromsky, to get the baby +out of the Potter's field." + +Mr. Brotherton laughed his great laugh. Grant went on: + +"But that isn't all. The next day in walks Mrs. Maurice Stromsky, +penitent as a dog, and I heard her squaring herself with Violet for +giving that old saw-buck of yours to the Delaneys, whose second little +girl had diphtheria and who had no money for antitoxin. I never saw your +ten again, George," said Grant. "It seemed to be going down for the last +time." He looked at Brotherton quizzically for a second and asked: + +"So old Henry hasn't been around since--isn't that joyous? Well--anyway, +he'll show up to-day or to-morrow, for he's got the new coat; he got it +this morning. Jasper was telling me." + +In an hour Grant, returning after his morning's errands, was standing by +the puny little blaze that John Dexter had stirred out of the logs in +the Serenity. The two were standing together. Mr. Brotherton, reading +his Kansas City paper at his desk, called to them: "Well, I see Doc +Jim's still holding his deadlock and they can't elect a United States +Senator without him!" + +A telegraph messenger boy came in, looked into the Serenity, and said, +"Mr. Adams, I was looking for you." + +Grant signed the boy's book, read the telegram, and stood dumbly gazing +at the fire, as he held the sheet in his hand. + +The fire popped and snapped and the little blaze grew stronger when a +log dropped in two. A customer came in--picked up a magazine--called, +"Charge it, please," then went out. The door slammed. Another customer +came and went. Miss Calvin stepped back to Mr. Brotherton. The bell of +the cash register tinkled. Then Grant Adams turned, looked at the +minister absently for a moment, and handed him the sheet. It read: + + "I have pledged in writing five more votes than are needed to + make you the caucus nominee and give you a majority on the joint + ballot to-night for United States Senator. Come up first train." + +It was signed "James Nesbit." The preacher dropped his hand still +holding the yellow sheet, and looked into the fire. + +"Well?" asked Grant. + +"You say," returned John Dexter, and added: "It would be a great +opportunity--give you the greatest forum for your cause in +Christendom--give you more power than any other labor advocate ever held +in the world before." + +He said all this tentatively and as one asking a question. Grant did not +reply. He sat pounding his leg with his claw, abstractedly. + +"You needn't be a mere theorist in the Senate. You could get labor laws +enacted that would put forward the cause of labor. Grant, really, it +looks as though this was your life's chance." + +Grant reached for the telegram and read it again. The telegram +fluttering in his hands dropped to the floor. He reached for it--picked +it up, folded it on his claw carefully, and put it away. Then he turned +to the preacher and said harshly: + +"There's nothing in it. To begin: you say I'll have more power than any +other labor leader in the world. I tell you, labor leaders don't need +personal power. We don't need labor laws--that is, primarily. What we +need is sentiment--a public love of the under dog that will make our +present laws intolerable. It isn't power for me, it isn't clean politics +for the State, it isn't labor laws that's my job. My job, dearly +beloved," he hooked the minister's hand and tossed it gently, "my job, +oh, thou of little faith," he cried, as a flaming torch of emotion +seemed to brush his face and kindle the fanatic glow in his countenance +while his voice lifted, "is to stay right down here in the Wahoo Valley, +pile up money in the war chest, pile up class feeling among the +men--comradeship--harness this love of the poor for the poor into an +engine, and then some day slip the belt on that engine--turn on the +juice and pull and pull and pull for some simple, elemental piece of +justice that will show the world one phase of the truth about labor." + +Grant's face was glowing with emotion. "I tell you, the day of the +Kingdom is here--only it isn't a kingdom, it's Democracy--the great +Democracy. It's coming. I must go out and meet it. In the dark down in +the mines I saw the Holy Ghost rise into the lives of a score of men. +And now I see the Holy Ghost coming into a great class. And I must +go--go with neither purse nor script to meet it, to live for it, and +maybe to die for it." He shook his head and cried vehemently: + +"What a saphead I'd be if I fell to that bait!" He turned to the store +and called to Miss Calvin. "Ave--is there a telegraph blank in the +desk?" + +Mr. Brotherton threw it, skidding, across the long counter. Grant +fumbled in his vest for a pen, held the sheet firmly with his claw and +wrote: + + "You are kindness itself. But the place doesn't interest me. + Moreover, no man should go to the Senate representing all of a + State, whose job it is to preach class consciousness to a part + of the State. Get a bigger man. I thank you, however, with all + my heart." + +Grant watched the preacher read the telegram. He read it twice, then he +said: "Well--of course, that's right. That's right--I can see that. But +I don't know--don't you think--I mean aren't you kind of--well, I can't +just express it; but--" + +"Well, don't try, then," returned Grant. + +However, Doctor Nesbit, having something rather more than the ethics of +the case at stake, was aided by his emotions in expressing himself. He +made his views clear, and as Grant sat at his desk that afternoon, he +read this in a telegram from the Doctor: + + "Well, of all the damn fools!" + +That was one view of the situation. There was this other. It may be +found in one of those stated communications from perhaps Ruskin or +Kingsley, which the Peach Blow Philosopher sometimes vouchsafed to the +earth and it read: + +"A great life may be lived by any one who is strong enough to fail for +an ideal." + +Still another view may be had by setting down what John Dexter said to +his wife, and what she said to him. Said he, when he had recounted the +renunciation of Grant Adams: + +"There goes the third devil. First he conquered the temptation to marry +and be comfortable; next he put fame behind him, and now he renounces +power." + +And she said: "It had never occurred to me to consider Laura Van Dorn, +or national reputation, or a genuine chance for great usefulness as a +devil. I'm not sure that I like your taste in devils." + +To which answer may be made again by Mr. Left in a communication he +received from George Meredith, who had recently passed over. It was +verified by certain details as to the arrangement of the books on the +little table in the little room in the little house on a little hill +where he was wont to write, and it ran thus: + + "Women, always star-hungry, ever uncompromising in their demand + for rainbows, nibbling at the entre' and pushing aside the + roast, though often adoring primitive men who gorge on it, but + ever in the end rewarding abstinence and thus selecting a race + of spiritually-minded men for mates, are after all the world's + materialists." + + + + +CHAPTER XLII + +A CHAPTER WHICH IS CONCERNED LARGELY WITH THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF "THE FULL +STRENGTH OF THE COMPANY" + + +This story, first of all, and last of all, is a love story. The emotion +called love and its twin desire hunger, are the two primal passions of +life. From love have developed somewhat the great altruistic +institutions of humanity--the family, the tribe, the State, the nation, +and the varied social activities--religion, patriotism, philanthropy, +brotherhood. While from hunger have developed war and trade and property +and wealth. Often it happens in the growth of life that men have small +choice in matters of living that are motived by hunger or its descendant +concerns; for necessity narrows the choice. But in affairs of the heart, +there comes wide latitudes of choice. It is reasonably just therefore to +judge a man, a nation, a race, a civilization, an era, by its love +affairs. So a book that would tell of life, that would paint the manners +of men, and thus show their hearts, must be a love story. "As a man +thinketh in his heart, so is he," runs the proverb, and, mind you, it +says heart--not head, not mind, but heart; as a man thinketh in his +heart, in that part of his nature where reside his altruistic +emotions--so is he. + +It is the sham and shame of the autobiographies that flood and +dishearten the world, that they are so uncandid in their relation of +those emotional episodes in life--episodes which have to do with what we +know for some curious reason as "the softer passions." Caesar's Gaelic +wars, his bridges, his trouble with the impedimenta, his fights with the +Helvetians--who cares for them? Who cares greatly for Napoleon's +expedition against the Allies? Of what human interest is Grant's tale of +the Wilderness fighting? But to know of Calpurnia, of her predecessors, +and her heirs and assigns in Caesar's heart; to know the truth about +Josephine and the crash in Napoleon's life that came with her +heartbreak--if a crash did come, or if not, to know frankly what did +come; to know how Grant got on with Julia Dent through poverty and +riches, through sickness and in health, for better or for worse--with +all the strain and stress and struggle that life puts upon the yoke that +binds the commonplace man to the commonplace woman rising to eminence by +some unimportant quirk of his genius reacting on the times--these indeed +would be memoirs worth reading. + +And whatever worth this story holds must come from its value as a +love-story,--the narrative of how love rose or fell, grew or withered, +bloomed and fruited, or rotted at the core in the lives of those men and +women who move through the scenes painted upon this canvas. After all, +who cares that Thomas Van Dorn waxed fat in the land, that he received +academic degrees from great universities which his masters supported, +that he told men to go and they went, to come and they came? These +things are of no consequence. Men are doing such things every minute of +every day in all the year. + +But here sits Thomas Van Dorn, one summer afternoon, with a young broker +from New York--one of those young brokers with not too nice a +conscience, who laughs too easily at the wrong times. He and Thomas Van +Dorn are upon the east veranda of the new Country Club building in +Harvey--the pride of the town--and Thomas is squinting across the golf +course at a landscape rolling away for miles like a sea, a landscape +rich in homely wealth. The young New Yorker comes with letters to Judge +Van Dorn from his employers in Broad Street, and as the two sip their +long cool glasses, and betimes smoke their long black cigars, the former +judge falls into one of those self-revealing philosophical moods that +may be called the hypnoidal semi-conscious state of common sense. Said +Van Dorn: + +"Well, boy--what do you think of the greatest thing in the world?" And +not waiting for an answer the older man continued as he held his cigar +at arm's length and looked between his elevated feet at the landscape: +"'Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples, for I am sick of love.' +Great old lover--Solomon. Rather out of the amateur class--with his +thousand wives and concubines; perhaps a virtuous man withal, but hardly +a fanatic on the subject; and when he said he was sick of love--probably +somewhere in his fifties,--Solomon voiced a profound man's truth. Most +of us are. Speaking generally of love, my boy, I am with Solomon. There +is nothing in it." + +The cigar in his finely curved mouth--the sensuous mouth of youth, that +had pursed up dryly in middle age--was pointed upward. It stood out from +a reddish lean face and moved when the muscles of the face worked +viciously in response to some inward reflection of Tom Van Dorn. + +He drawled on, "Think of the time men fool away chasing calico. I've +gone all the gaits, and I know what I'm talking about. Ladies and Judy +O'Gradies, married and single, decent and indecent--it's all the same. I +tell you, young man, there's nothing in it! Love," he laughed a little +laugh: "Love--why, when I was in the business," he sniffed, "I never had +any trouble loving any lady I desired, nor getting her if I loved her +long enough and strong enough. When I was a young cub like you," Van +Dorn waved his weed grandly toward the young broker, "I used to keep +myself awake, cutting notches in my memory--naming over my conquests. +But now I use it as a man does the sheep over the fence, to put me to +sleep, and I haven't been able to pass my fortieth birthday in the list +for two years, without snoozing. What a fool a man can make of himself +over calico! The ladies, God bless 'em, have got old John Barleycorn +beaten a mile, when it comes to playing hell with a man's life. Again +speaking broadly, and allowing for certain exceptions, I should say--" +he paused to give the judicial pomp of reflection to his +utterances--"the bigger fool the woman is, the greater fool a man makes +of himself for her. And all for what?" + +His young guest interjected the word "Love?" in the pause. The Judge +made a wry face and continued: + +"Love? Love--why, man, you talk like a school girl. There is no love. +Love and God are twin myths by which we explain the relation of our +fates to our follies. The only thing about me that will live is the +blood I transmit to my children! We live in posterity. As for love and +all the mysteries of the temple--waugh--woof!" he shuddered. + +He put back his cigar into the corner of his hard mouth. He was +squinting cynically across the rolling golf course. What he saw there +checked his talk. He opened his eyes to get a clearer view. His +impression grew definite and unmistakable. There, half playing and half +sporting, like young lambs upon the close-cropped turf, were Kenyon +Adams and Lila Van Dorn! They were unconscious of all that their gay +antics disclosed. They were happy, and were trying only to express +happiness as they ran together after the ball, that flew in front of +them like a mad butterfly. But in the sad lore of his bleak heart, the +father read the meaning of their happiness. Youth in love was never +innocent for him. Looking at Lila romping with her lover, he turned sick +at heart. But he held himself in hand. Only the zigzag scar on his +forehead flashing white in the pink of his brow betrayed the turmoil +within him. He tried to keep his eyes off the golf course. A sharp dread +that he might transmit himself in nature to posterity only through the +base blood of the Adamses, struck him. He closed his eyes. But the wind +brought to him the merriment of the young voices. A jealousy of Kenyon, +and an anger at him, flared up in the father. So Tom Van Dorn drew down +the corners of his mouth--and batted his furtive eyes, and put on his +bony knee a mottled, nervous hand, with brown splotches at the wrist, +coming up over the veined furrows that led to his tapering fingers, as +he cried harshly in a tone that once had been soft and mellifluous, and +still was deep and chesty: "Still me with flagons, comfort me with +apples, for I am sick of love!" + +He would have gone away from the torture that came, as he stared at the +lovers, but his devil held him there. He was glad when a noise of saw +and hammer at the lake drowned the voices on the lawn. His gladness +lasted but a moment. For soon he saw the young people quit chasing their +crazy butterfly of a golf ball, and wander half way up the hill from the +lake, to sit in the snug shade of a wide-spreading, low-branched elm +tree. Then the father was nervous, because he could not hear their +voices. As he sat with the young broker, snarling at the anonymous +phantoms of his past which were bedeviling him, a gray doubt kept +brushing across his mind. He realized clearly that he had no legal right +to question Lila's choice of companions. He understood that the law +would not justify anything that he might do, or say, or think, +concerning her and her fortunes. Yet there unmistakably was the Van Dorn +set to her pretty head and a Van Dorn gesture in her gay hands that had +come down from at least four generations in family tradition. And he had +no right even to be offended when she would merge that Van Dorn blood +with the miserable Adams heredity. His impotence in the situation +baffled him, and angered him. The law was final to his mind; but it did +not satisfy his wrathful questioning heart. For in his heart, he +realized that denial was not escape from the responsibility he had +renounced when he tripped down the steps of their home and left Lila +pleading for him in her mother's arms. He bit his ragged cigar and +cursed his God, while the young man with Tom Van Dorn thought, "Well, +what a dour old Turk he is!" + +The hammering and sawing, which drowned the voices of the young people +under the tree, came from the new bathing pavilion near by. Grant Adams +was working on a two days' job putting up the pavilion for the summer. +He was out of Van Dorn's view, facing another angle of the long +three-faced veranda. Grant saw Kenyon lying upon the turf, slim and +graceful and with the beauty of youth radiating from him, and Grant +wondered, as he worked, why his son should be there playing among the +hills, while the sons of other men, making much more money than he--much +more money indeed than many of the others who flitted over the +green--should toil in the fumes of South Harvey and in the great +industrial Valley through long hard hours of work, that sapped their +heads and hearts by its monotony of motion, and lack of purpose. As he +gazed at the lovers, their love did not stick in his consciousness--even +if he realized it. Their presence under the elm tree at midday rose as a +problem which deepened a furrow here and there in his seamed face and he +hammered and sawed away with a will, working out in his muscles the +satisfaction which his mind could not bring him. + +As the two fathers from different vistas looked upon their children, +Kenyon and Lila beneath the elm tree were shyly toying with vagrant +dreams that trailed across their hearts. He was looking up at her and +saying: + +"Lila--who are we--you and I? I have been gazing at you three minutes +while you were talking, and I see some one quite different from the you +I knew before. Looking up at you, instead of down at you, is like +transposing you. You are strangely new in this other key." + +The girl did not try to respond in kind--with her lips at least. She +began teasing the youth about his crinkly hair. Breaking a twig as she +spoke, she threw it carelessly at his hair, and it stuck in the closely +curled locks. She laughed gayly at him. Perhaps in some way rather +subtly than suddenly, as by a ghostly messenger from afar, he may have +been made aware of her beautiful body, of the exquisite lines of her +figure, of the pink of her radiant skin, or the red of her girlish lips. +For the consciousness of these things seemed to spend his soul in joy. + +The blazing eyes of Tom Van Dorn, squinting down upon the couple under +the tree, could see the grace that shone from a thousand reactions of +their bodies and faces. He opened his mouth to voice something from the +bitterness of his heart but did not speak. Instead he yawned and cried: +"And so we rot and we rot and we rot." + +Now it matters little what the lovers chattered about there under the +elm tree, as they played with sticks and pebbles. It was what they would +have said that counts--or perhaps what they should have said, if they +had been able to voice their sense of the gift which the gods were +bestowing. But they were dumb humans, who threw pebbles at each other's +toes, though in the deep places of their souls, far below the surface +waves of bashful patter, heart might have spoken to heart in passing +thus: + +"Oh, Lila, what is beauty? What is it in the soul, running out glad to +meet beauty, whether of line, of tone, of color, of form, of motion, of +harmony?" + +And the answer might have been trumpeted back through the deep: + +"Maybe beauty is the God that is everywhere and everything, releasing +himself in matter. Perhaps for our eyes and ears and fingers, the +immanent God had an equation, whose answer is locked in our souls that +are also a part of God--created in his image. And when in curve or line, +in sequence of notes or harmony, or in thrilling touch sense, the +equation is stated in terms of radiation, God seeking our soul's answer, +speaks to us." + +But none of this trumpet call of souls reached the two fathers who were +watching the lovers. For one man was too old in selfishness to +understand, and the other had grown too old in bearing others' burdens +to know what voices speak through the soul's trumpet, when love first +comes into the heart. So the hammers hammered and the saws groaned in +the pavilion, and a hard heart hammered and a soul groaned and a tongue +babbled folly on the veranda. But under the elm tree, eyes met, and +across space went the message that binds lives forever. She picked up a +twig longer than most twigs about her, reached with it and touched his +forehead furtively, stroked his crinkled hair, blushing at her boldness. +His head sank to the earth, he put his face upon the grass, and for a +second he found joy in the rush of tears. They heard voices, bringing +the planet back to them; but voices far away. On the hill across the +little valley they could see two earnest golfers, working along the +sky-line. + +The couple on the sky-line hurried along in the heat. The man mopped his +face, and his brown, hairy arms, and his big sinewy neck. The woman, +rather thin, but fresh and with the maidenly look of one who isn't +entirely sure what that man will do next, kept well in the lead. + +"Well, Emma--there's love's young dream all right." He stopped to puff, +and waved at the couple by the tree. Then he hitched up his loose, baggy +trousers, gave a jerk to his big flowing blue necktie, let fly at the +ball and cried "Fore." When he came up to the ball again, he was red and +winded. "Emma," he said, "let's go have something to eat at the +house--my figure'll do for an emeritus bridegroom--won't it?" And thus +they strolled over the fields and out of the game. + +But on another hill, another couple in the midst of a flock of children +attracted by one of Mr. Brotherton's smashing laughs, looked down and +saw Lila and Kenyon. The quick eyes of love caught the meaning of the +figures under the tree. + +"Look, mamma--look," said Nathan Perry, pointing toward the tree. + +"Oh, Nate," cried Anne, "--isn't it nice! Lila and Kenyon!" + +"Well, mamma--are you happy?" asked Nathan, as he leaned against the +tree beside her. She nodded and directed their glances to the children +and said gently, "And they justify it--don't they?" + +He looked at her for a moment, and said, "Yes, dear--I suppose that's +what the Lord gave us love for. That is why love makes the world go +around." + +"And don't the people who don't have them miss it--my! Nate, if they +only knew--if these bridge-playing, childless ones knew how dear they +are--what joy they bring--just as children--not for anything else--do +you suppose they would--" + +"Oh, you can't tell," answered the young father. "Perhaps selfish people +shouldn't have children; or perhaps it's the children that make us +unselfish, and so keep us happy. Maybe it's one of those intricate +psychical reactions, like a chemical change--I don't know! But I do know +the kids are the best things in the world." + +She put her hand in his and squeezed it. "You know, Nate, I was just +thinking to-day as I put up the lunch--I'm a mighty lucky woman. I've +had all these children and kept every one so far; I've had such joy in +them--such joy, and we haven't had death. Even little Annie's long +sickness, and everything--Oh, dear, Nate--but isn't she worth it--isn't +she worth it?" + +He kissed her hand and replied, "You know I'm so glad we went down to +South Harvey to live, Anne. I can see--well, here's the way it is. Lots +of families down there--families that didn't have any more to go on than +we had then, started out, as we did. They had a raft of kids--" he +laughed, "just as we did. But, mamma--they're dead--or worse, they're +growing up underfed, and are hurrying into the works or the breaker +bins. I tell you, Anne--here's the thing. Those fathers and mothers +didn't have any more money than we had--but we did have more and better +training than they had. You knew better than to feed our kids trash, you +knew how to care for them--we knew how to spend our little, so that it +would count. They didn't. We have ours, and they have doctors' and +undertakers' bills. It isn't blood that counts so much--as the +difference in bringing up. We're lovers because of our bringing up. +Otherwise, we'd be fighting like cats and dogs, I'd be drinking, you'd +be slommicking around in wrappers, and the kids would be on the +streets." + +The children playing on the gravel bank were having a gay time. The +mother called to them to be careful of their clothes, and then replied: + +"Nate, honestly I believe if I had two or three million dollars, and +could give every girl in South Harvey a good education--teach her how to +cook and keep house and care for babies before she is eighteen, that we +could change the whole aspect of South Harvey in a generation. If I had +just two or three million dollars to spend--I could fill that town just +as full as Harvey of happy couples like us. Of course there'd be the +other kind--some of them--just as there are the other kind in +Harvey--people like the Van Dorns--but they would be the exception in +South Harvey, as the Van Dorns are the exception in Harvey. And two or +three million dollars would do it." + +"Yes, mamma,--that's the hell of it--the very hell of it that grinds my +gizzard--your father and my father and the others who haven't done a +lick of the work--and who are entitled only to a decent interest and +promoters' profits, have taken out twenty million dollars from South +Harvey in dividends in the last thirty years--and this is the result. +Hell for forty thousand people down there, and--you and I and a few +dozen educated happy people are the fruit of it. Sometimes, Anne, I look +at our little flock and look at you so beautiful, and think of our life +so glorious, and wonder how a just God can permit it." + +They looked at the waving acres of blue-grass, dotted with trees, at the +creek winding its way through the cornfields, dark green and all but +ready to tassle, then up at the clear sky, untainted with the smoke of +Harvey. + +Then they considered the years that lay back of them. "I think, Nate," +she answered, "that to love really and truly one man or one woman makes +one love all men and women. I feel that way even about the little fellow +that's coming. I love him so, that even he makes me love everything. And +so I can't just pray for him--I have to pray for all the mothers +carrying babies and all the babies in the world. I think when love comes +into the world it is immortal. We die, but the sum of love we live, we +leave; it goes on; it grows. It is the way God gets into the world. Oh, +Nate," she cried, "I want to live in the next world--personally--with +you--to know the very you. I don't want the impersonal immortality--I +want just you. But, dear--I--why, I'd give up even that if I could be +sure that the love we live would never leave this earth. Think what the +love of Christ did for the earth and He is still with us in spirit. And +I know when we go away--when any lovers go away, the love they have +lived will never leave this earth. It will live and joy--yes, and +agonize too at the injustice of the world--live and be crucified over +and over again, so long as injustice exists. Only as love grows in the +world, and is hurt--is crucified--will wrongs be righted, will the world +be saved." + +He patted her hand for a minute. + +"Kyle, Nate, Annie--come here, children," cried the father. After some +repetition of the calling, they came trooping up, asking: "What is it?" + +"Nothing at all," answered the father, "we just wanted to kiss you and +feel and see if your wings were sprouting, so that we could break them +off before you fly away," whereupon there was a hugging bee all around, +and while every one was loving every one else, a golf ball flew by them, +and a moment later the white-clad, unbent figure of Mrs. Bedelia +Satterthwaite Nesbit appeared, bare-headed and bare-armed, and behind +her trotted the devoted white figure of the Doctor, carrying two golf +sticks. + +"Chained to her chariot--to make a Roman holiday," piped the Doctor. +"She's taking this exercise for my health." + +"Well, James," replied his wife rather definitely, "I know you need it!" + +"And that settles it," cried the little man shrilly, "say, Nate, if we +men ever get the ballot, I'm going to take a stand for liberty." + +"I'm with you, Doctor," replied the young man. + +"Nate," he mocked in his comical falsetto, "as you grow older and get +further and further from your mother's loving care, you'll find that +there was some deep-seated natural reason why we men should lead the +sheltered life and leave the hurly-burly of existence to the women." + +From long habit, in such cases Mrs. Nesbit tried not to smile and, from +long habit, failed. "Doctor Jim," she cried as he picked up her ball, +and set it for her, "don't make a fool of yourself." + +The little man patted the earth under the ball, and looked up and said +as he took her hand, and obviously squeezed it for the spectators, as he +rose. + +"My dear--it's unnecessary. You have made one of me every happy minute +for forty years," and smiling at the lovers and their children, he took +the hand held out for him after she had sent the ball over the hill, and +they went away as he chuckled over his shoulder and cheeped: "Into the +twilight's purple rim--through all the world she followed him," and +trotting behind her as she went striding into the sunset, they +disappeared over the hill. + +When they had disappeared Anne began thinking of her picnic. She and +Nathan left the children at the lake, and walked to the club house for +the baskets. On the veranda they met Captain Morton in white flannels +with a gorgeous purple necktie and a panama hat of a price that made +Anne gasp. He came bustling up to Anne and Nathan and said: + +"Surprise party--I'm going to give the girls a little surprise party +next week--next Tuesday, and I want you to come--what say? Out +here--next Tuesday night--going to have all the old friends--every one +that ever bought a window hanger, or a churn, or a sewing machine, or a +Peerless cooker, or a Household Horse--but keep it quiet--surprise on +the girls, eh?" + +When they had accepted, the Captain lowered his voice and said +mysteriously: "'Y gory--the old man's got some ginger in him yet--eh?" +and bustled away with a card in his hands containing the names of the +invited guests, checking the Perrys from the list as he went. + +As Captain Morton rounded the corner of the veranda and came into the +out-of-door dining room, he found Margaret Van Dorn, sitting at a table +by a window with Ahab Wright--flowing white side whiskers and white +necktie inviolate and pristine in their perfection. Ahab was clearly +confused when the Captain sailed into the room. For there was a +breeziness about the Captain's manner, and although Ahab respected the +Captain's new wealth, still his years of poverty and the meanness of his +former calling as a peddler of insignificant things, made Ahab Wright +feel a certain squeamishness when he had to receive Captain Morton upon +the term which, in Ahab's mind, a man of so much money should be +received. + +Mrs. Van Dorn was using her eyes on Ahab. Perhaps they cast the spell. +She was leaning forward with her chin in her hands, with both elbows on +the table, and Ahab Wright, of the proud, prosperous and highly +respectable firm of Wright & Perry, was in much the mental and moral +attitude of the bird when the cat creeps up to the tree-trunk. He was +not unhappy; not terrorized--just curious and rather resistless, knowing +that if danger ever came he could fly. And Mrs. Van Dorn, who had tired +of the toys at hand, was adventuring rather aimlessly into the cold blue +eyes of Ahab, to see what might be in them. + +"For many years," she was saying, and pronounced it "yee-ahs," having +remembered at the moment to soften her "r's," "I have been living on a +highah plane wheyah one ignoahs the futuah and foahgets the pahst. On +this plane one rises to his full capacity of soul strength, without the +hampah of remoahs or the terror of a vindictive Providence." + +She might as well have been reciting the alphabet backwards so far as +Ahab understood or cared what she said. He was fascinated by her +resemblance to a pink and white marshmallow--rather over-powdered. But +she was still fortifying herself from that little black box in the +farthest corner in the bottom drawer of her dresser--and fortifying +herself with two brown pellets instead of one. So she ogled Ahab Wright +by way of diversion, and sat in the recesses of her soul and wondered +what she would say next. + +The Captain pulling his panama off made a tremendous bow as Margaret was +saying: "Those who grahsp the great Basic Truths in the Science of +Being--" and just as the Captain was about to open his mouth to invite +Ahab Wright to his party, plumb came the ghastly consciousness to him +that the Van Dorns were not on his list. For the Van Dorns, however +securely they were entrenched socially among the new people who had no +part in the town's old quarrel with Tom, however the oil and gas and +smelter people and the coal magnates may have received the Van +Dorns--still they were under the social ban of the only social Harvey +that Captain Morton knew. So as a man falling from a balloon gets his +balance, the Captain gasped as he came up from his low bow and said: + +"Madam, I says to myself just now as I looks over to that elm tree +yonder," he pointed to the place where Kenyon and Lila were sitting, +"soon we'll be having the fourth generation here in Harvey, and I says, +that will interest Tom! An 'y gory, ma'am, as I saw you sitting here, I +says as it was well in my mind, 'Here's Tom's lady love, and I'll just +go over and pass my congratulations on to Tom through the apple of his +eye, as you may say, and not bother him and the young man around the +corner there in their boss trade, eh?' What say?" He was flushed and +red, and he did not know exactly where to stop, but it was out--and +after a few sparring sentences, he broke away from the clutch of his +bungling intrusion and was gone. But as the Captain left the couple at +the table, the spell was broken. Life had intruded, and Ahab rose +hastily and went his way. + +Margaret Van Dorn sat looking out at a dreary world. Even the lovers by +the elm tree did not quicken her pulse. Scarcely more did they interest +her than her vapid adventure with Ahab Wright. All romantic adventure, +personal or vicarious, was as ashes on her lips. But emotion was not all +dead in her. As she gazed at Lila and Kenyon, Margaret wondered if her +husband could see the pair. Her first emotional reaction was a gloating +sense that he would be boiling with humiliation and rage when he saw his +child so obviously and publicly, even if unconsciously, adoring an +Adams. So she exulted in the Van Dorn discomfiture. As her first +spiteful impulse wore away, a sense of desolation overcame Margaret Van +Dorn. Probably she had no regrets that she had abandoned Kenyon. For +years she had nursed a daily horror that the door which hid her secret +might swing open, but that horror was growing stale. She felt that the +door was forever sealed by time. So in the midst of a world at its +spring, a budding world, a world of young mating, a gay world going out +on its vast yearly voyage to hunt new life in new joy, a quest for ever +new yet old as God's first smile on a world unborn, this woman sat in a +drab and dreary desolation. Even her spite withered as she sat playing +with her tall glass. And as spite chilled, her loneliness grew. + +She knew better than any one else in Harvey--better even than the +Nesbits--what Kenyon Adams really promised in achievement and fame. They +knew that he had some European recognition. Margaret in Europe had been +amazed to see how far he was going. In New York and Boston, she knew +what it meant to have her son's music on the best concert programs. Her +realization of her loss increased her loneliness. But regret did not +produce remorse. She was always and finally glad that the door was +inexorably sealed upon her secret. She saw only her husband angered by +her son's association with her husband's daughter, and when malice spent +itself, she was weary and lonely and out of humor, and longed to retire +to her fortification. + +After Captain Morton had bowed himself away from Margaret Van Dorn, he +stood at the other end of the veranda looking down toward the lake. The +carpenters were quitting work for the day on the new bathing pavilion +and he saw the tall figure of Grant Adams in the group. He hurried down +the steps near by, and came bustling over to Grant. + +"Just the man I want to see! I saw Jap chasing around the golf course +with Ruthie and invited him, but he said your pa wasn't very spry and +mightn't be uptown to-morrow, so you just tell him for me that you and +he are to come to my party here next Tuesday night--surprise party for +the girls--going to break something to them they don't know anything +about--what say? Tell your pa that his old army friend is going to send +his car--my new car--great, big, busting gray battleship for your +pa--makes Tom's car look like an ash cart. Don't let your pa refuse. I +want to bring you all up here to the party in that car in style--you and +Amos and Jap and Kenyon! eh? Say, Grant--tell me--" he wagged his head +at Kenyon and Lila still loitering by the tree. "What's Kenyon's idea in +loafing around so much here in Harvey? He's old enough to go to work. +What say?" Grant tried to get it to the Captain that Kenyon's real job +in the world was composing music, and that sometimes he tired of cities +and came down to Harvey to get the sunshine and prairie grass and the +woods and the waters of his childhood into his soul. But the Captain +waved the idea aside, "Nothing in the fiddling business, Grant--two +dollars a day and find yourself, is all the best of 'em make," protested +the Captain. "Let him do like I done--get at something sound and +practical early in life and 'y gory, man--look at me. What say?" + +Grant did not answer, but when the Captain veered around to the subject +of his party, Grant promised to bring the whole Adams family. A moment +later the Captain saw the Sands's motor car on the road before them, and +said: + +"Excuse me, Grant--here are the Sandses--I've got to invite them--Hi +there, Dan'l, come alongside." While the Captain was inviting Daniel +Sands, the Doctor's electric came purring up the hill to the club house +driven by Laura Van Dorn. Grant was trotting ahead to join the other +carpenters who were going to the street-car station, when Laura passing, +hailed him: + +"Wait a minute, Grant, till I take this to father, and I'll go with +you." + +As Laura Van Dorn turned her car around the club house, she stopped it +under the veranda overlooking the golf course and the rolling prairie +furrowed by the slowly winding stream. The afternoon sun slanting upon +the landscape brought out all its beauty--its gay greens, its somber, +contrasting browns, and its splashing of color from the fruit trees +across the valley that blushed pink and went white in the first unsure +ecstasies of new life. Then she saw Kenyon and Lila slowly walking up +the knoll to the road. The mother noted with quick instinct the way +their hands jostled together as they walked. The look that flashed from +their eyes when their hands touched--the look of proprietorship in each +other--told Laura Van Dorn that her life's work with Lila was finished. +The daughter's day of choice had come; and whatever of honesty, whatever +of sense, and sentiment, whatever of courage or conscience the mother +had put into the daughter's heart and mind was ready for its lifelong +test. Lila had embarked on her own journey; and motherhood was ended for +Laura Van Dorn. + +As she looked at the girl, the mother saw herself, but she was not +embittered at the sad ending of her own journey along the road which her +daughter was taking. For years she had accepted as the fortunes of war, +what had come to her with her marriage, and because she had the +daughter, the mother knew that she was gainer after all. For to realize +motherhood even with one child, was to taste the best that life held. So +her face reflected, as a cloud reflects the glory of the dawn, something +of the radiance that shone in the two young faces before her; and in her +faith she laid small stress upon the particular one beside her daughter. +Not his growing fame, not his probable good fortune, inspired her +satisfaction. When she considered him at all as her daughter's lover, +she only reflected on the fact that all she knew of Kenyon was honest +and frank and kind. Then she dismissed him from her thoughts. + +The mother standing on the hillock looking at the youth and maiden +sauntering toward her, felt the serene reliance in the order of things +that one has who knows that the worst life can do to a brave, wise, kind +heart, is not bad. For she had felt the ruthless wrenches of the +senseless wheels of fate upon her own flesh. Yet she had come from the +wheels bruised, and in agony, but not broken, not beaten. Her peace of +mind was not passive. It amounted to a militant pride in the strength +and beauty of the soul she had equipped for the voyage. Laura Van Dorn +was sure of Lila and was happy. Her eyes filled with grateful tears as +she looked down upon her daughter. + +Her father, toddling ahead of Mrs. Nesbit a hundred paces, reached the +car first. She nodded at the young people trudging up the slope. "Yes," +said the Doctor, "we have been watching them for half an hour. Seems +like the voice of the turtle is heard in the land." + +The daughter alighted from the runabout, her father got in and waited +for his wife. The three turned their backs on the approaching lovers and +pretended not to see them. As Laura walked around the corner of the +house, she found Grant waiting for her at the car station, and the two +having missed the car that the other carpenters had taken, stood under +the shed waiting. + +"Well--Laura," he asked, "are you leaving the idle rich for the worthy +poor?" She laughed and explained: + +"The electric was for father and mother, and so long as I have to go +down to my girls' class in South Harvey this evening for their picnic, +I'm going to ride in your car, if you don't mind?" + +The street car came wailing down on them and when they had taken a rear +seat on the trailer together, Grant began: "I'm glad you've come just +now--just to-night. I've been anxious to see you. I've got some things +to talk over--mighty big things--for me. In the first place--" + +"In the first place and before I forget it, let me tell you the good +news. A telegram has just come from the capital to father, saying that +the State supreme court had upheld his labor bill--his and your bill +that went through the referendum. + +"'Referendum J.' probably was the judge who wrote the opinion," said +Grant grimly. He took off his hat, and the cooling breeze of the late +afternoon played with his hair, without fluttering the curly, wiry red +poll, turning light yellow with the years. "Well, whoever influenced the +court--I'm glad that's over. The men have been grumbling for a year and +more because we couldn't get the benefits of the law. But their suits +are pending--and now they ought to have their money." + +As the car whined along through the prairie streets, Grant, who had +started to speak twice, at last said abruptly, "I've got to cut loose." +He turned around so that his eyes could meet hers and went on: "Your +father and George Brotherton and a lot of our people seem to think that +we can patch things up--I mean this miserable profit system. They think +by paying the workmen for accidents and with eight hours, a living wage, +and all that sort of thing, we can work out the salvation of labor. I +used to think that too; but it won't do, Laura--I've gone clean to the +end of that road, and there's nothing in it. And I'm going to cut loose. +That's what I want to see you about. There's nothing in this +step-at-a-time business. I'm for the revolution!" + +She showed clearly that she was surprised, and he seemed to find some +opposition in her countenance, for he hurried on: "The Kingdom--I mean +the Democracy of labor--is at hand; the day is at its dawn. I want to +throw my weight for the coming of the Democracy." + +His voice was full of emotion as he cried: + +"Laura--Laura, I know what you think; you want me to wait; you want me +to help on the miserable patchwork job of repairing the profit system. +But I tell you--I'm for the revolution, and with all the love in my +heart--I'm going to throw myself into it!" + +No one sat in the seat before them, as they whirled through the lanes +leading to town, and he rested his head in his hand and put his elbow on +the forward seat. + +"Well, what do you think of it?" he asked, looking anxiously into her +troubled face. "I have been feeling strongly now for a month--waiting to +see you--also waiting to be dead sure of myself. Now I am sure!" The mad +light in his eye and the zealot's enthusiasm flaming in his battered +face, made the woman pause a moment before she replied: + +"Well," she smiled as she spoke, "don't you think you are rather rushing +me off my feet? I've seen you coming up to it for some time--but I +didn't know you were so far along with your conviction." + +She paused and then: "Of course, Grant, the Socialists--I mean the +revolutionary group--even the direct action people--have their proper +place in the scheme of things--but, Grant--" she looked earnestly at him +with an anxious face, "they are the scouts--the pioneers ahead of the +main body of the troops! And, Grant," she spoke sadly, "that's a hard +place--can't you find enough fighting back with the main body of the +troops--back with the army?" + +He beat the seat with his iron claw impatiently and cried: "No--no--I'm +without baggage or equipment. I'm traveling light. I must go forward. +They need me there. I must go where the real danger is. I must go to +point the way." + +"But what is the way, Grant--what is it? You don't know--any more than +we do--what is beyond the next decade's fight! What is the way you are +going to point out so fine and gay--what is it?" she cried. + +"I don't know," he answered doggedly. "I only know I must go. The scouts +never know where they are going. Every great movement has its men who +set out blindly, full of faith, full of courage, full of joy, happy to +fail even in showing what is not the way--if they cannot find the path. +I must go," he cried passionately, "with those who leave their homes to +mark the trail--perhaps a guide forward, perhaps as a warning away--but +still to serve. I'm going out to preach the revolution for I know that +the day of the Democracy of labor is at hand! It is all but dawning." + +She saw the exultation upon him that hallowed his seamed features and +she could not speak. But when she got herself in hand she said calmly: +"But, Grant--that's stuff and nonsense--there is no revolution. There +can be no Democracy of labor, so long as labor is what it is. We all +want to help labor--we know that it needs help. But there can be no +Democracy of labor until labor finds itself; until it gets capacity for +handling big affairs, until it sees more clearly what is true and what +is false. Just now labor is awakening, is growing conscious--a +little--but, Grant, come now, my good friend, listen, be sensible, get +down to earth. Can't you see your fine pioneering and your grand +scouting won't help--not now?" + +"And can't you understand," he replied almost angrily, "that unless I or +some one else who can talk to these people does go out and preach a +definite ideal, a realizable hope--even though it may not be realized, +even though it may not take definite shape--they will never wake up? +Can't you see, girl, that when labor is ready for the revolution--it +won't need the revolution? Can't you see that unless we preach the +revolution, they will never be ready for it? When the workers can stand +together, can feel class consciousness and strike altogether, can +develop organizing capacity enough to organize, to run their own +affairs--then the need for class consciousness will pass, and the demand +for the revolution will be over? Can't you see that I must go out +blindly and cry discontent to these people?" + +She smiled and shook her head and answered, "I don't know, Grant--I +don't know." + +They were coming into town, and every few blocks the car was taking on +new passengers. She spoke low and almost whispered when she answered: + +"I only know that I believe in you--you are my faith; you are my social +gospel." She paused, hesitated, flushed slightly, and said, "Where you +go I shall go, and your people shall be my people! Only do--Oh, do +consider this well before you take the final step." + +"Laura, I must go," he returned stubbornly. "I am going to preach the +revolution of love--the Democracy of labor founded on the theory that +the Holy Ghost is in every heart--poor as well as rich--rich as well as +poor. I'm not going to preach against the rich--but against the system +that makes a few men rich without much regard to their talent, at the +expense of all the rest, without much regard to their talents." + +The woman looked at him as he turned his blue eyes upon her in a kind of +delirium of conviction. He hurried on as their car rattled through the +town: + +"We must free master as well as slave. For while there is slavery--while +the profit system exists--the mind of the slave and the mind of the +master will be cursed with it. There can be no love, no justice between +slave and master--only deceit and violence on each side, and I'm going +out to preach the revolution--to call for the end to a system that keeps +love out of the world." + +"Well, then, Grant," said the woman as the car jangled its way down +Market Street, "hurrah for the revolution." + +She smiled up at him, and they rode without speaking until they reached +South Harvey. He left her at the door of her kindergarten, and a group +of young girls, waiting for her, surrounded her. + +When he reached his office, he found Violet Hogan working at her desk. + +"You'll find all your mail opened, and I've noted the things that have +been attended to," she said, as she turned to him. "I'm due over to the +girls' class with Miss Laura--I'm helping her to-night with her picnic." + +Grant nodded, and fell to his work. Violet went on: + +"The letters for your signature are here on my desk. Money seems to be +coming in. New local showing up down in Magnus--from the tile works." +She rose, put on her coat and hat, and said as she stood in the door, +"To-morrow will be your day in--won't it?" He nodded at his work, and +she called out, "Well,--bye, bye--I'll be in about noon." + +Daylight faded and he turned on the electric above his desk and was +going over his work, making notations on letters for Violet, when he +heard a footstep on the stairs. He recognized the familiar step of Henry +Fenn. + +"Come in--come in, Henry," cried Grant. + +Fenn appeared, saw Grant at his work, slipped into a chair, and said: + +"Now go right on--don't mind me, young man." Fenn pulled a newspaper +from his cheap neat coat, and sat reading it, under a light that he made +for himself at Violet's desk. The light fell on his thin whitening +hair--still coarse, and close cropped. In his clean, washed-out face +there was the faded glow of the man who had been the rising young +attorney thirty years before. Grant knew that Fenn did not expect the +work to stop, so he went on with it. "I'm going to supper about eight +o'clock," said Grant, and asked: "Will that be all right?" + +"Don't mind me," returned Fenn, and smiled with a dim reflection of the +old incandescence of his youth. + +Fenn's hands trembled a little, but his eyes were steady and his voice +clear. His clothes were shabby but decent, and his whole appearance was +that of one who is making it a point to keep up. When Grant had finished +his correspondence, and was sealing up his letters, Fenn lent a hand and +began: + +"Well, Grant, I'm in trouble--Oh, it's not that," he laughed as Grant +looked quickly into the clean, alert old face. "That's not bothered me +for--Oh, for two years now. But it's Violet--she wants me to marry her." +He blurted it out as if it had been pent in, and was hard to hold. + +"Why--well--what makes you--well, has she proposed, Henry?" asked the +younger man. + +"Naw--of course not," answered Fenn. "Boy, you don't know anything about +women." + +Fenn shook his head knowingly, and winked one eye slowly. +"Children--she's set the children on me. You know, Grant--" he turned +his smile on with what candlepower he could muster, "that's my other +weakness--children. And they're the nicest children in the world. But I +can't--I tell you, man, I can't," protested Mr. Fenn, as if he believed +Grant in league with the woman to kidnap him. + +"Well, then, don't," said Grant, rising and gathering up his mail. + +"But how can I help it?" Fenn cried helplessly. "What can a man do? +Those kids need a father. I need a family--I've always needed a +family--but I don't want Violet--nor any one else." Grant towed him +along to the restaurant, and they sat alone. After Grant had ordered his +supper he asked, "Henry--why can't you marry Violet? She's a sensible, +honest woman--she's got over her foolishness; what's wrong with her?" + +"Why, of course, she is a good woman. If you'd see her chasing out +nights--picking up girls, mothering 'em, loving 'em, working with +'em--she knows their language; she can talk to 'em so they get it. And +I've known her time and again to get scent of a new girl over there at +Bessie Wilson's and go after her and pull her out and start her right +again. I tell you, Grant, Violet has her weaknesses--as to hair ribbons +and shirtwaists and frills for the kids--but she's got a heart, Grant--a +mighty big heart." + +"Then why not marry her?" persisted Grant. + +"That's just it," answered Fenn. + +He looked hopelessly at Grant and finally said as he reached his hands +across the table and grasped Grant's big flinty paw, "Grant--let me tell +you something--it's Margaret. I'm a fool--a motley fool i' the forest, +Grant, but I can't help it; I can't help it," he cried. "So long as she +lives--she may need me. I don't trust that damn scoundrel, Grant. She +may need me, and I stand ready to go to hell itself with her if I live a +thousand years. It's not that I want her any more; but, Grant--maybe you +know her; maybe you understand. She used to hate you for some reason, +and maybe that will help you to know how I feel. But--I know I'm +weak--God knows I'm putty in my soul. And I'm ashamed. But I mustn't get +married. It wouldn't be fair. It wouldn't be square to Violet, nor the +kids, nor to any one. So long as Margaret is on this earth--it's my job +to stand guard and wait till she needs me." + +He turned a troubled, heartbroken face up to the younger man and +concluded, "I know she despises me--that she loathes me. But I can't +help it, Grant--and I came to you to kind of help me with Violet. It +wouldn't be right to--well, to let this thing go on." He heaved a deep +sigh, then he added as he fumbled with the red tablecloth, "What a fool +a man is--Lord, what a fool!" + +In the end, Grant had to agree to let Violet know, by some round about +procedure devised by Mr. Fenn's legal mind, that he was not a +marriageable person. At the same time, Grant had to agree not to +frighten away the Hogan children. + +The next morning as Grant and his father rode from their home into town, +Grant told his father of the invitation to the Captain's party. + +"If your mother could have lived just to see the Captain on his grand +plutocratic spree, Grant--" said his father. He did not finish the +sentence, but cracked the lines on the old mare's back and looked at the +sky. He turned his white beard and gentle eyes upon his son and said, +"There was a time last night, before you came in, when I thought I had +her. Some one was greatly interested in you and some new project you +have in mind. Emerson thinks well of it," said Amos, "though," he added, +"Emerson thinks it won't amount to much--in practical immediate results. +But I think, Grant, now of course, I can't be sure," the father rubbed +his jaw and shook a meditative head, "it certainly did seem to me mother +was there for a time. Something kept bothering Emerson--calling +Grantie--the way she used to--all the time he was talking!" + +The father let Grant out of the buggy at the Vanderbilt House in South +Harvey, and the old mare and her driver jogged up town to the +_Tribune_ office. There he creaked out of the buggy and went to his +work. It was nine o'clock before the Captain came capering in, and the +two old codgers in their seventies went into the plot of the surprise +party with the enthusiasm of boys. + +After the Captain had explained the purpose of the surprise, Amos Adams +sat with his hands on his knees and smiled. "Well--well, Ezry--I didn't +realize it. Time certainly does fly. And it's all right," he added, "I'm +glad you're going to do it. She certainly will approve it. And the +girls--" the old man chuckled, "you surely will settle them for good and +all." + +He laughed a little treble laugh, cracked and yet gleeful. "Nice +girls--all of 'em. But Grant says Jap's a kind of shining around your +Ruth--that's the singing one, isn't it? Well, I suppose, Ezry, either of +'em might do worse. Of course, this singing one doesn't remember her +mother much, so I suppose she won't be much affected by your surprise?" +He asked a question, but after his manner went on, "Well, maybe it was +Jap and Ruth that was bothering Mary last night. I kind of thought +someway, for the first time maybe I'd get her. But nothing much came of +it," he said sadly. "It's funny about the way I've never been able to +get her direct, when every one else comes--isn't it?" + +The Captain was in no humor for occult things, so he cut in with: "Now +listen here, Amos--what do you think of me asking Mrs. Herdicker to sit +at one end of the table, eh? Of course I know what the girls will +think--but then," he winked with immense slyness, "that's all right. I +was talking to her about it, and she's going to have a brand new +dress--somepin swell--eh? By the jumping John Rogers, Amos--there's a +woman--eh?" + +And tightening up his necktie--a scarlet creation of much pride--he +pulled his hat over his eyes, as one who has great affairs under it, and +marched double-quick out of the office. + +You may be sure that some kind friend told the Morton girls of what was +in store for them, the kind friend being Mr. George Brotherton, who +being thoroughly married, regarded any secret from his wife in the light +of a real infidelity. So he told her all that he and Market Street knew. +Now the news of the party--a party in whose preparations they were to +have no share, roused in the Misses Morton, and their married sister, +jointly and severally, that devil of suspicion which always tormented +their dreams. + +"And, Emma," gasped Martha, when Emma came over for her daily visit, +"just listen! Mrs. Herdicker is having the grandest dress made for the +party! She told the girls in the store she had twenty-seven dollars' +worth of jet on it--just jet alone." Here the handsome Miss Morton +turned pale with the gravity of the news. "She told the girls to-day, +this very afternoon, that she was going to take the three o'clock +morning train right after the party for New York to do her fall buying. +Fall buying, indeed! Fall buying," the handsome Miss Morton's voice +thickened and she cried, "just because papa's got a little money, she +thinks--" + +But what she thought Miss Morton never said, for Mrs. Brotherton, still +familiar with the gossip of the schoolhouse, cut in to say: "And, +Martha, what do you think those Copini children say? They say father's +got their father's orchestra to practice all the old sentimental music +you ever heard of--'Silver Threads Among the Gold,' and 'Do You Love Me, +Molly Darling,' and 'Lorena,' and 'Robin Adair,'--and oh," cried Mrs. +Brotherton, shaking a hopeless head, "I don't know what other silly +things." + +"And yes, girls," exclaimed the youngest Miss Morton flippantly, "he's +sent around to the Music School for Miss Howe to come and sing 'O +Promise Me'!" + +"The idea!" cried the new Mrs. Brotherton. + +"Why, the very idea!" broke out the handsome Miss Morton, sitting by the +dining-room table. + +"The idea!" echoed the youngest Miss Morton, putting away her music +roll, and adding in gasping excitement: "And that isn't the worst. He +sent word for her to sing it just after the band had finished playing +the wedding march!" + +Now terror came into the house of Morton, and when the tailor's boy +brought home a package, the daughters tore it open ruthlessly, and +discovered--as they sat limply with it spread out in its pristine beauty +on the sofa before them--a white broadcloth dinner suit--with a watered +silk vest. Half an hour later, when a pleated dress shirt with pearl +buttons came, it found three daughters sitting with tight lips waiting +for their father--and six tigers' eyes glaring hungrily at the door +through which he was expected. At six o'clock, when they heard his +nimble step on the porch, they looked at one another in fear, and as he +burst into the room, each looked decisively at the other as indicating a +command to begin. + +He came in enveloping them in one all-encompassing hug and cried: + +"Well 'y gory, girls, you certainly are the three graces, the three +fates, and the world, the flesh and the devil all in one--what say?" + +But the Morton daughters were not to be silenced. Ruth took in a deep +breath and began: + +"Well, now see here, father, do you know what people are saying about--" + +"Of course--I was just coming to that, Ruthie," answered the Captain. +"Amos Adams he says, 'Well, Cap,' say he, 'I was talking to Cleopatra +and she says Queen Victoria had a readin' to the effect that there was a +boy named Amos Ezra Morton Adams over on one of the stars in the +southwest corner of the milky way that would be busting into this part +of the universe in about three years, more or less'--what say?" + +The old man laughed and Ruth flushed red, and ran away. The Captain saw +his suit lying on the sofa. + +"Somepin new--" interjected the Captain. "Thought I'd kind o' bloom out; +sort o' to let folks know that the old man had a little kick in him +yet--eh? And now, girls--listen; let's all go out to the Country Club +for dinner to-night, and I'll put on my new suit and you kind of rig up +in your best, and we'll make what George calls a killing--what say?" He +put his hands in his pockets and looked critically at his new clothes. +The flight of Ruth had quieted Emma, but Martha came swooping down on +him with "Now, father--look here--about that Country Club party--" + +The Captain shot a swift glance at Martha, and saw Emma looking at him +from the kitchen door. + +"What party?" he exclaimed. "Can't I ask my girls out for a little +innocent dinner without its being called a party--eh? Now, you girls get +your things on and come on. As for me, the limousine will be at the door +at eight!" + +He disappeared up the stairs and in the Morton household, two young +women, woeful and heavy hearted, went about their toilets, while in the +Brotherton establishment, one large fat man in suspenders felt the rush +of sudden tears on his shirt front and marveled at the ways of the sex. +When the Mortons were in the midst of their moist and lugubrious task, +the thin, cracked little voice of the Captain called out: + +"Girls--before you go, don't forget to put that cold beef on and stew it +to-night for hash in the morning--eh?" + +It was a beautiful party that Captain Morton gave at the Country Club +house that evening. And at the end of a most gorgeously elaborate +dinner, wherein were dishes whose very names the Captain did not know, +he rose among his guests seated at the U-shaped table in the big dining +room with the heavy brown beams in the ceiling, a little old man by his +big chair, which stood beside a chair unoccupied. + +"Friends," he said, "when a man gets on in his seventies, at that +uncertain time, when he does not know whether to be ashamed of his years +or proud of his age," he smiled at Daniel Sands, who clicked his +false-teeth in appreciation of the phrase, "it would seem that thoughts +of what the poet calls 'the livelier iris' on the 'burnished dove' would +not inconvenience him to any great extent--eh? At seventy-five a young +fellow's fancy ought to be pretty well done lightly turning to thoughts +of love--what say? But by cracky--they don't." + +He paused. The Morton girls in shame looked at their plates. "So, I just +thought I'd have this little party to tell you about it. I wanted to +surprise the girls." There was only a faint clapping of hands; for tears +in the eyes of the three Morton daughters discouraged merriment. + +"A man, as I was saying, never gets too old--never gets too crabbed, for +what my friend Amos's friend Emerson calls 'a ruddy drop of manly +blood'--eh? So, when that 'ruddy drop of manly blood' comes a surging up +in me, I says I'll just about have a party for that drop of manly blood! +I'm going to tell you all about it. There's a woman in my mind--a very +beautiful woman; for years--a feller just as well breakdown and +confess--eh?--well for years she's been in my mind pretty much all the +time--particularly since Ruthie there was a baby and left alorn and +alone--as you may say--eh? And so," he reached down and grasped a goblet +of water firmly, and held it before him, "and so," he repeated, and his +old eyes glistened and his voice broke, "as it was just fifty years ago +to-night that heaven opened and let her come to me, before I marched off +to war--so," he hurried along, "I give you this toast--the vacant +chair--may it always, always, always be filled in my heart of hearts!" + +He could not drink, but sank with his head on his arms, and when they +had ceased clapping their hands, the old man looked up, signaled to the +orchestra, and cried in a tight, cracked voice, "Now, dern ye--begin yer +fiddlin'!" + +Whereupon the three Morton daughters wept and the old ladies gathered +about them and wept, and Mrs. Hilda Herdicker's ton of jet heaved as in +a tidal wave, and the old men dried their eyes, and only Lila Van Dorn +and Kenyon Adams, holding hands under the table, really knew what it was +all about. + +Now they have capered through these pages of this chapter--all of the +people in this story in their love affairs. Hand in hand, they have come +to the footlights, hand in hand they have walked before us. We have seen +that love is a passion with many sides. It varies with each soul. In +youth, in maturity, in courtship, in marriage, in widowhood, in +innocence, and in the wisdom of serpents, love reflects the soul it +shines on. For love is youth in the heart--youth that always beckons, +that always shapes our visions. Love ever sheens and shimmers brightly +from within us; but what it shows to the world--that is vastly different +with each of us. For that is the shadow of his inmost being. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIII + +WHEREIN WE FIND GRANT ADAMS CALLING UPON KENYON'S MOTHER, AND DARKNESS +FALLS UPON TWO LOVERS + + +Once in a while an item appeared in the Harvey _Tribune_ that might +have been found nowhere else, and for reasons. For instance, the issue +of the _Tribune_ that contained the account of the Captain's party +also contained this item, which Daniel Sands had kept out of every other +paper in town: + + "Mortimer Sands, son of D. Sands of the Traders' Bank, has + returned from Arizona, where he has been seeking health. He is + hopeful of ultimate recovery." + +Another item of interest appeared in the same issue of the paper. It +related that T. Van Dorn, former Judge of the District Court, is in +Washington, D. C., on legal business. + +The Adams family item, which the paper never failed to contain, was +this: + + "K. Adams will leave next week for New York, where his new + opera, 'Rachel,' will have its first appearance next autumn. He + will be missed in our midst." + +And for a paper with no subscribers and no patronage, it is curious to +note that the _Tribune_ carried the news above mentioned to all of +Harvey, and all of Harvey discussed the news. Not that the town did not +know more or less of the facts as hereinabove related; but when a fact +is read in print it becomes something different from a fact. It becomes +a public matter, an episode in the history of the world. + +In the same issue of the paper was a statement from Grant Adams that he +had decided to throw his life with the Socialists and with that group +known as the revolutionary Socialists. Grant was enough of a personage, +and the declaration was short enough and interesting enough, to give it +a place in the newspapers of the country for a day. In the State where +he lived, the statement created some comment--mostly adverse to Dr. +Nesbit, whose political association with Grant Adams had linked the +Doctor's name with Grant's. Being out of power, Dr. Nesbit felt these +flings. So it happened that when, the Sunday following the announcement, +Grant came with his father and Kenyon in the rattling old buggy up to +the Nesbit home on Elm Street, Amos Adams found a rollicking, frivolous, +mischievous host--but Grant Adams found a natty, testy, sardonic old +man, who made no secret of his ill-humor. + +Kenyon found Lila, and the two with their music indoors made a +background for the talk on the veranda. Nathan Perry, who came up for a +pill or a powder for one of his flock, sat for a time on the veranda +steps. For all his frivoling with the elder Adams, Nathan could see by +the way the loose, wrinkled skin on the Doctor's face kept twitching +when Grant spoke, that the old man had something on his mind. + +"Grant," cried the Doctor, in his excited treble, "do you realize what +an ornate, unnecessary, unmitigated conspicuous, and elaborate jack +you've made of yourself? Do you--young man? Well, you have. Your +revolution--your revolution!" shrilled the old man. "Damn sight of +revolution you'll kick up charging over the country with your water-tank +patriots--your--your box-car statesmen--now, won't you?" + +"Here--Doctor,--come--be--" + +But the Doctor would not let Grant talk. The chirrup of the shrill old +voice bore in upon the younger man's protest with, "Now, you let me say +my say. The world's moving along--moving pretty fast and generally to +one end, and that end is to put food in the bellies, clothes on the +back, and brains in the head of the working man. The whole trend of +legislation all over the world has gone that way. Hell's afire, +Grant--what more do you want? We've given you the inheritance tax and +the income tax and direct legislation to manipulate it, and, by Ned, +instead of staying with the game and helping us work these things out in +wise administration, you fly the coop, and go squawking over the country +with your revolution and leave me--damn it, Grant," piped the little, +high voice, sputtering with rage, "you leave me--with my linen pants on +a clothes-line four miles from home!" + +Then slowly the little lines began to break in his loose skin. A faint +smile, then a grin and then a laugh, spread over the old face, and he +wiped his watering eyes as he shook his head mournfully. + +Grant was gathering himself to reply when Nate Perry rasped in with his +high-keyed Yankee voice: "I guess that about covers my views, Grant--if +any one should ask you." + +The crusader rose in Grant: "It's you men who have no sense," he cried. +"You think because I declare war on the profit system that I propose to +sail out and overturn it with a few bombs over night. Look here, men; +what I propose to do is to demonstrate right here in the Wahoo Valley, +where there are all sorts of laboring people, skilled, unskilled, +continuous, overpaid and underpaid, foreign and American--utterly +unlike, incoherent, racially and industrially--that they have in them +capacities for organizing; unused abilities, untried talents that will +make them worthy to take a higher place in the economic scale than they +now have. If I can amalgamate them, if I can weld them into a +consistent, coherent labor mass--the Irish, the Slav, the Jews, the +Italians, the Poles, the French, the Dutch, the Letts, and the +Mexicans--put to some purpose the love of the poor for the poor, so that +it will count industrially, you can't stop the revolution." He was +wagging his head, waving his stump of an arm and his face showed the +temperamental excitement that was in him. + +"Go ahead, Grant," said Perry. "Play out all your line--show us your +game." + +"Well, then--here's my game. For five years we've been collecting a +district strike fund--all our own, that doesn't belong to any other +organization or federation anywhere. It's ours here in the Wahoo. It's +independent of any state or national control. I've collected it. It's +been paid because these men here in the Valley have faith in me. We have +practically never spent a penny of it. There are about ten thousand +workers in the Valley--some, like the glassblowers, are the aristocracy +of labor; others, like the breaker boys, are at the bottom of the scale. +But we've kept wages up, kept conditions as high as they are anywhere in +the country--and we've done it without strikes. They have faith in me. +So we've assessed them according to their wages, and we have on hand, +with assessments and interest, over a third of a million dollars." + +He looked at Perry, and nodded his head at the Doctor. "You fellows +think I'm a cream-puff reformer. I'm not. Now, then--I've talked it over +with our board--we are going to invest that money in land up and down +the Valley--put the women and children and old men on it--in +tents--during the growing season, and cultivate that land in three-acre +tracts intensively. Our Belgian glassblowers and smelter men have sent +for their gardeners to teach us. Now it's merely a question of getting +the land and doing the preliminary organization. We want to get as much +land as we can. Now, there's my game. With that kind of a layout we can +win any strike we call. And we can prove to the world that labor has the +cohesive cooperating faculty required to manage the factories--to take a +larger share of the income of industry, if you please. That's my +revolution, gentlemen. And it's going to begin right here in the Wahoo +Valley." + +"Well," returned Nate Perry, "your revolution looks interesting. It's +got some new gears, at least." + +"Go it while you're young," piped the Doctor. "In just about eighteen +months, you will be coming to me to go on your bond--to keep out of +jail. I've seen new-fangled revolutions peter out before." + +"Just the same," replied Grant, "I've pinned my faith to these men and +women. They are now working in fear of poverty. Give them hope of better +things instead of fear and they will develop out of poverty, just as the +middle class came out under the same stimulus." + +"I don't know anything about that," interrupted Perry, "but I do know +that I could take that money and put three thousand families to work on +the land in the Wahoo Valley and develop the best labor in the country." + +He laughed, and Grant gazed, almost flared, so eager was his look, at +Perry for a moment, and said: "When the day of the democracy of labor +comes--and it will come and come soon--men like you will take +leadership." + +There was more high talk, and Nathan Perry went home with his pill. + +When he was gone, the music from indoors came to the three men. "That's +from his new opera, father," said Grant, as his attention was attracted +to the violin and piano. + +"Good Lord," exclaimed the Doctor, "I've heard so much of that opera +that I caught myself prescribing a bar from the opening chorus for the +grip the other day!" + +The two elder men looked at each other, and the Doctor said, "Well, +Amos--that's mostly why I asked you to come up to-day. It wasn't for the +society of your amateur revolutionist--you may be sure of that." + +The Doctor tempered his words with a smile, but they had pricks, and +Grant winced. "I suppose we may as well consider Lila and Kenyon as +before the house?" + +"Kenyon came to me last night," said Grant, "wanting to know whether he +should come to father first, or go to Dr. Nesbit, or--well, he wondered +if it would be necessary to talk with Lila's own father." All the +grimness in Grant's countenance melted as he spoke of Kenyon and the +battered features softened. + +"And that is what I wish to talk about, Grant," said the Doctor gently. +"They don't know who Kenyon is--I mean, they don't know about his +parentage." Grant looked at the floor. Slowly as the old shame revived +in him, its flush rose from his neck to his face and met his tousled +hair. The two old men looked seriously at one another. The Doctor +emphasized the solemnity of the occasion by lighting a pipe. + +"I don't know--I really don't know what is right here," he said finally. +"Is it fair to Laura to let her daughter marry the son of a woman who, +more than any other woman in the world, has wronged her? I'm sure Laura +cherishes no malice toward Kenyon's mother. Yet, of course," the Doctor +spoke deliberately and puffed between his words, "blood is blood. But I +don't know how much blood is blood, I mean how much of what we call +heredity in human beings is due to actual blood transmission of traits, +and how much is due to the development of traits by family environment. +I'm not sure, Amos, that this boy's bad blood has not been entirely +eliminated by the kindly, beautiful family environment he has had with +you and yours. There seems to be nothing of the Muellers in him, but his +face and his music--I take it his music is of German origin." + +"I don't know--I don't know, Doctor," answered Amos. "I've tried to take +him apart, and put him together again, but I can't find where the parts +belong." + +And so they droned on, those three wiseacres--two oldish gentlemen and a +middle-aged man, thinking they could change or check or dam the course +of true love. While inside at the piano on the tide of music that was +washing in from God only knows what bourne where words are useless and +passions speak the primitive language of souls, Lila and Kenyon were +solving all the problems set for them by their elders and betters. For +they lived in another world from those who established themselves in the +Providence business out on the veranda. And on this earth, even in the +same houses, and in the same families, there is no communication between +the worlds. With our powerful lenses of memory we men and women in our +forties gaze earnestly and long at the distant planets of youth, +wondering if they are really inhabited by real people--or mere animals, +perchance--if they have human institutions, reasonable aspirations or +finite intelligences. We take temperatures, make blood counts and record +blood pressure, reckon the heart-beats, and think we are wondrous wise. +But wig-wag as we may, signal with what mysterious wireless of +evanescent youth-fire we still hold in our blood, we get nothing but +vague hints, broken reminiscences, and a certain patchwork of our own +subconscious chop logic of middle age in return. There is no real +communication between the worlds. Youth remains another planet--even as +age and childhood are other planets. + +Now, after the three wise men had considered the star glowing before +them, they decided thus: + +"Well," quoth the Doctor, "it seems absolutely just that Lila should +know who her husband is, and that Laura should know whom her child is +marrying. So far as I am concerned, I know this Adams blood; I'll trust +it to breed out any taint; but I have no right to decide for Lila; I +have no right to say what Laura will do--though, Grant, I know in my +heart that she would rather have her child marry yours than to have +anything else come about that the world could hold for her. And yet--she +should know the truth." + +Grant sat with his head bowed, and his eyes on the floor, while the +Doctor spoke. Without looking up, he said: "There's some one else to +consider, Doctor--there's Margaret--after all, it's her son; it's her +secret. It's--I don't know what her rights are--perhaps she's forfeited +them. But she is at least physically his mother." + +The Doctor looked up with a troubled face. He ran his hand over the +place where his pompadour once used to rise, and where only a fuzz +responded to the stroke of his dry palm, and answered: + +"Grant--through it all--through all the tragedy that she has brought +here, I've kept that secret for Margaret. And until she releases me, I +can never break my silence. A doctor--one of the right sort--never +could. Whatever you feel are her rights--you and she must settle. It +must be you, not I, to tell this story, even to my own flesh and blood, +Grant." + +Grant rose and walked the long, straight stretch of the veranda. His +shoulders, pugnacious, aggressive, and defiant, swayed as he walked +heavily and he gazed at the floor as one in shame. Finally he whirled +toward the Doctor and said: + +"I'm going to his mother. I'm going now. She may have mighty few rights +in this matter--she cast him off shamefully. But she has just one right +here--the right to know that I shall tell her secret to Laura, and I'm +going to talk to her before I tell Laura. Even if Margaret clamors +against what I think is right, I shall not stop. But I'm not going to +sneak her secret away without her knowing it. I suppose that's about the +extent of her rights in Kenyon: to know before I tell his wife who he +really is, so that Margaret will know who knows and who does not know +her relation to him. It seems to me that is about the justice of the +case." The Doctor puffed at his pipe, and nodded a slow assent. + +"Now's as good a time as any," answered the Doctor, and added: "By the +way, Amos--I had a telegram from Washington this morning, saying that +Tom is to be made Federal judge in the new district. That's what he's +doing in Washington just now. He is one of those ostensible fellows," +piped the Doctor. "Ostensibly he's there trying to help land another +man; but Tom's the Van Dorn candidate." + +He smoked until his pipe revived and added, "Well, Tom can afford it; +he's got all the money he needs." + +Grant, who heard the Doctor's news, did not seem to be disturbed by it. +His mind was occupied with more personal matters. He stood by a pillar, +looking off into the summer day. + +"Well, I suppose," he looked at his clothes, brushed the dust from the +top of his shoes by rubbing them separately against the calves of his +legs, straightened his ready-made tie and felt of the buttons on his +vest, "I suppose," he repeated, "I may just as well go now as at any +other time," and he strode down the steps and made straight for the Van +Dorn home. + +When he came to the Van Dorn house he saw Margaret sitting alone in the +deep shade of a vine-screened piazza. She wore a loose flowing purple +house garment, of a bizarre pattern which accented her physical charms. +But not until he had begun to mount the steps before her did he notice +that she was sound asleep in a gaping and disenchanting stupor. Yet his +footstep aroused her, and she started and gazed wildly at him: +"Why--why--you--why, Grant!" + +"Yes, Margaret," he answered as he stood hat in hand on the top step +before her, ignoring her trembling and the terror in her eyes. "I've +come to have a talk with you--about Kenyon." + +She looked about her, listened a second, shuddered, and said with +quivering facial muscles and shaky voice, "Yes--oh, yes--about +Kenyon--yes--Kenyon Adams. Yes, I know." + +The eyes she turned on him were dull and her face was slumped, as though +the soul had gone from it. A tremor was visible in her hands, and the +color was gone from her drooping lips. She stared at him for a moment, +stupidly, then irritation came into her voice, as he sat unbidden in a +porch chair near her. "I didn't tell you to sit down." + +"No." He turned his face and caught her eyes. "But I'll be comfortable +sitting down, and we've got more or less talking to do." + +He could see that she was perturbed, and fear wrote itself all over her +face. But he did not know that she was vainly trying to get control of +herself. The power of the little brown pellets left her while she slept, +and she was uncertain of herself and timid. "I--I'm +sick--well--I--I--why, I can't talk to you now. Go 'way," she cried. "Go +'way, won't you, please--please go 'way, and come some other time." + +"No--now's as good a time as any," he replied. "At any rate, I'll tell +you what's on my mind. Mag, now pay attention." He turned his face to +her. "The time has come when Lila Van Dorn and her mother must know who +Kenyon is." + +She looked vacantly at him, then started and chattered, +"Wh-wh-wh-wha-what are you s-s-sas-saying--do you mean?" + +She got up, closed the door into the house, and came tottering back and +stood by her chair, as the man answered: + +"I mean, Maggie, exactly what I said. Kenyon wants to marry Lila. But I +think, and Doctor Nesbit thinks, that before it is settled, Lila and her +mother, and you might as well include Mrs. Nesbit, must know just who +their daughter is marrying--I mean what blood. Now do you get my idea?" + +As he spoke, the woman, clutching at her chair back, tried to quiet her +fluttering hands. But she began panting and a sickly pallor overcame her +and she cried feebly: "Oh, you devil--you devil--will you never let me +alone?" + +He answered, "Look here, Mag--what's the matter with you? I'm only +trying to play fair with you. I wouldn't tell 'em until you--" + +"Ugh!" She shut her eyes. "Grant--wait a minute. I must get my medicine. +I'll be back." She turned to go. "Oh, wait a minute--I'll be back in +five minutes--I promise, honest to God, I'll be right back, Grant." She +was at the door. As she fumbled with the screen, he nodded his assent +and smiled grimly as he said, "All right, Maggie." + +When he was alone, he looked about him, at the evidence of the Van Dorn +money in the temple of Love. The outdoor room was furnished with +luxuries he had never seen. He sniffed as though he smelled the money +that was evident everywhere. Beside Margaret's chair, where she had +dropped it when she went to sleep, was a book. It was a beautifully +bound copy of the Memoirs of some titled harlot of the old French court. +He was staring absent-mindedly at the floor where the book lay when she +came to the door. + +She came out, sat down, looked steadily at him and began calmly: "Now, +what is it you desire?" + +She said "desiah," and Grant grunted as she went on: "I'm shuah no good +can come and only hahm, great suffering--and Heaven knows what wrong, by +this--miserable plan. What good can it do?" + +Her changed attitude surprised him. "Well, now, Maggie," he returned, +"since you want to talk it over sensibly, I'll tell you how we feel--at +least how I feel. The chief business of any proper marriage is children. +This marriage between Kenyon and Lila--if it comes--should bring forth +fruit. I claim Lila has a right to know that he has my blood and yours +in him before she goes into a life partnership with him." + +"Oh, Grant, Grant," cried Margaret passionately, "the sum of your +hair-splitting is this: that you bring shame upon your child's mother, +and then cant like a Pharisee about its being for a good purpose. That's +the way with you--you--you--" She could not quite finish the sentence. + +She sat breathing fast, waiting for strength to come to her from the +fortifying little pill. Grant picked up his hat. "Well--I've told you. +That's what I came for." + +She caught his arm and cried, "Sit down--haven't I a right to be heard? +Hasn't a mother any rights--" + +"No," cut in Grant, "not when she strangles her motherhood!" + +"But how could I take my motherhood without disgracing my boy?" she +asked. + +He met her eyes. They were steady eyes, and were brightening. The man +stared at her and answered: "When I brought him to you after mother +died, a little, toddling, motherless boy, when I wanted you to come with +us to mother him--and I didn't want you, Maggie, any more than you +wanted me, but I thought his right to a mother was greater than either +of our rights to our choice of mates--then and there, you made your +final choice." + +"What does God mean," she whined, "by hounding me all my life for that +one mistake!" + +"Maggie--Maggie," answered the man, sitting down as she sank into a +chair, "it wasn't the one mistake that has made you unhappy." + +"That's twaddle," she retorted, "sheer twaddle. Don't I know how that +child has been a cancer in my very heart--burning and gnawing and making +me wretched? Don't I know?" + +"No, you don't, Mag. If you want the truth," replied Grant bluntly, "you +looked upon the boy as a curse. He has threatened you every day of your +life. The very love you think you have for him, which I don't doubt for +a minute, Mag, made you do a mad, foolish, infinitely cruel, spiteful +thing--that night at the South Harvey riot. Perhaps you might care for +Kenyon's affection now, but you can't have that even remotely. For all +his interest in you is limited by the fact that you robbed Lila of her +father. All your cancer and heart burnings, Mag, have been your own +selfishness. Lord, woman--I know you." + +He turned his hard gaze upon her and she winced. But she clearly was +enjoying the quarrel. It stimulated her taut nerves. The house behind +her was empty. She felt free to brawl. + +"And you? And you?" she jeered. "I suppose he's made a saint of you." + +The man's face softened, as he said simply, "I don't claim to be a +saint, Mag. But I owe Kenyon everything I am in the world--everything." + +"Well, it isn't much of a debt," she laughed. + +"No," he repeated, "it's not much of a debt." After a moment he added, +"Doctor Nesbit has kept this secret all these years. Now it's time to +let these people know. You can see why, and the only reason I came to +you--" + +"You came to me, Grant," she cried, "to tell me you were going to shame +me before that--that--before her--that old, yellow-haired tabby, who +goes around doing good! Ugh--" + +Grant stared at her blankly a full, uncomprehensive minute. Finally +Margaret went on: "And I suppose the next thing you long-nosed +busybodies will do will be to get chicken hearted about Tom Van Dorn's +rights in the matter. Ah, you hypocrites!" she cried. + +"Well, I don't know," answered Grant sternly; "if Lila should go to her +father for advice--why shouldn't he have all the facts?" + +Margaret rose. Her bright, glassy eyes flashed. Anger colored her face. +Her bosom rose and fell as she exclaimed: "But she'll not go to him. Oh, +he's perfectly foolish about her. Every time a photographer in this town +takes her picture, he snoops around and gets one. He has her picture in +his watch, in which he thinks she looks like the Van Dorns. When he goes +away he takes her picture in a leather frame and puts it on his table in +the hotel--except when I'm around." She laughed. "Ain't it funny? Ain't +it funny," she chattered hysterically, "him doddering the way he does +about her, and her freezing the life out of him?" She shook with mirth, +and went on: "Oh, the devil's coming round for Tom Van Dorn's soul--and +all there is of it--all there is of it is the little green spot where he +loves this brat. The rest's all rotted out!" + +She laughed foolishly. Then Grant said: + +"Well, Mag--I must be going. I just thought it would be square to tell +you before I go any further. About the other--the affair of Lila and her +father is no concern of mine. That's for Lila and her mother to settle. +But you and I and Kenyon are bound together by the deepest tie in the +world, Maggie. And I had to come to you." She stared into his gnarled +face, then shut her eyes, and in an instant wherein they were closed she +lapsed into her favorite pose and disappeared behind her mask. + +"Vurry kind of you, I'm shuah. Chahmed to have this little talk again." + +He gazed at the empty face, saw the drugged eyes, and the smirking +mouth, and felt infinitely sad as a flash of her girlhood came back to +his memory. "Well, good-by, Mag," he said gently, and turned and went +down the steps. + +The messenger boy whom Grant Adams passed as he went down the walk to +the street from the Van Dorn home, put a telegram into Mrs. Van Dorn's +lap. It was from Washington and read: + + "Appointment as Federal Judge assured. Notify Sands. Have Calvin + prepare article for Monday's _Times_ and other papers." + +She re-read it, held it in her hand for a time as she looked hungrily +into the future. + +While Grant Adams and Margaret were talking, the two old men on the +porch, who once would have grappled with the problems of the great first +cause, dropped into cackling reminiscences of the old days of the +sixties and seventies when they were young men in their twenties and +Harvey was an unbleached yellow pine stain on the prairie grass. So they +forgot the flight of time, and forgot that indoors the music had +stopped, and that two young voices were cooing behind the curtains. +Upstairs, Laura Van Dorn and her mother, reading, tried with all their +might and main to be oblivious to the fact that the music had stopped, +and that certain suppressed laughs and gasps and long, silent gaps in +the irregular conversation meant rather too obvious love-making for an +affair which had not been formally recognized by the family. Yet the +formality was all that was lacking. For if ever an affair of the heart +was encouraged, was promoted, was greeted with everything but hurrahs +and hosannas by the family of the lady thereunto appertaining, it was +the love affair of Kenyon Adams and Lila Van Dorn. + +The youth and the maiden below stairs were exceedingly happy. They went +through the elaborate business of love-making, from the first touch of +thrilling fingers to such passionately rapturous embraces as they might +steal half watched and half tolerated, and the mounting joy in their +hearts left no room for fear of the future. As they sat toying and +frivoling behind the curtains of the wide living room in the Nesbit +home, they saw Grant Adams's big, awkward figure hurrying across the +lawn. He walked with stooping shoulders and bowed head, and held his +claw hand behind him in his flinty, red-haired hand. + +"Where has he been?" asked Kenyon, as he peered through the open +curtain, with his arm about the girl. + +"I don't know. The Mortons aren't at home this afternoon; they all went +out in the Captain's big car," answered the girl. + +"Well,--I wonder--" mused the youth. + +Lila snatched the window curtain, and closing it, whispered: +"Quick--quick--we don't care--quick--they may come in when he gets on +the porch." + +Through a thin slit in the closed curtains they watched the gaunt figure +climb the veranda steps and they heard the elders ask: + +"Well?" and the younger man replied, "Nothing--nothing--" he repeated, +"but heartbreak." + +Then he added as he walked to the half-open door, "Doctor--it seems to +me that I should go to Laura now; to Laura and her mother." + +"Yes," returned the Doctor, "I suppose that is the thing to do." + +Grant's hand was on the door screen, and the Doctor's eyes grew bright +with emotion, as he called: + +"You're a trump, boy." + +The two old men looked at each other mutely and watched the door closing +after him. Inside, Grant said: "Lila--ask your mother and grandmother if +they can come to the Doctor's little office--I want to speak to them." +After the girl had gone, Grant stood by Kenyon, with his arm about the +young man, looking down at him tenderly. When he heard the women +stirring above on the stairs, Grant patted Kenyon's shoulder, while the +man's face twitched and the muscles of his hard jaw worked as though he +were chewing a bitter cud. + +The three, Grant and the mother and the mother's mother, left the lovers +in such awe as love may hold in the midst of its rapture, and when the +office door had closed, and the women were seated, Grant Adams, who +stood holding to a chair back, spoke: + +"It's about Kenyon. And I don't know, perhaps I should have spoken +sooner. But I must speak now." + +The two women gazed inquiringly at him with sympathetic faces. He was +deeply embarrassed, and his embarrassment seemed to accentuate a kind of +caste difference between them. + +"Yes, Grant," said Mrs. Nesbit, "of course, we know about Lila and +Kenyon. Nothing in the world could please us more than to see them happy +together." + +"I know, ma'am," returned Grant, twirling his chair nervously. "That's +just the trouble. Maybe they can't be happy together." + +"Why, Grant," exclaimed Laura, "what's to hinder?" + +"Stuff!" sniffed Mrs. Nesbit. + +He looked up then, and the two women could see that he flinched. + +"Well,--I don't know how to say it, but you must know it." He stopped, +and they saw anguish in his face. "But I--Laura," he turned to the +younger woman and made a pitiful gesture with his whole hand, "do you +remember back when you were a girl away at school and I stopped writing +to you?" + +"Yes, Grant," replied Laura, "so well--so well, and you never would +say--" + +"Because I had no right to," he cut in, "it was not my secret--to +tell--then." + +Mrs. Nesbit sat impatiently on her chair edge, as one waiting for a +foolish formality to pass. She looked at the clumsy, bulky figure of a +man in his ill-fitting Sunday clothes, and obviously was rather +irritated at his ill-timed interjection of his own childhood affair into +an entirely simple problem of true love running smoothly. But her +daughter, seeing the anguish in the man's twisted face, was stricken +with a terror in her heart. Laura knew that no light emotion had +grappled him, and when her mother said, "Well?" sharply, the daughter +rose and went to him, touching his hand gently that had been gripping +the chair-back. She said, "Yes, Grant, but why do you have to tell it +now?" + +"Because," he answered passionately, "you should know, and Lila should +know and your mother should know. Your father and I and my father all +think so." + +Mrs. Nesbit sat back further in her chair. Her face showed anxiety. She +looked at the two others and when Laura's eyes met her mother's, there +was a warning in the daughter's glance which kept her mother silent. + +"Grant," said Laura, as she stood beside the gaunt figure, on which a +mantle of shame seemed to be falling, "there is nothing in the world +that should be hard for you to tell me--or mother." + +"It isn't you," he returned, and then lifting his face and trying to +catch the elder woman's eyes, he said slowly: + +"Mrs. Nesbit--I'm Kenyon's father." + +He caught Laura's hand in his own, and held her from stepping back. +Laura did not speak. Mrs. Nesbit gazed blankly at the two and in the +silence the little mantel clock ticked into their consciousnesses. +Finally the elder woman, who had grown white as some old suspicion or +fatal recollection flashed through her mind, asked in an unsteady voice: +"And his mother?" + +"His mother was Margaret Mueller, Mrs. Nesbit," answered the man. + +Then anger glowed in the white face as Mrs. Nesbit rose and stepped +toward the downcast man. "Do you mean to tell me you--" She did not +finish, but began again, not noticing that the door behind her had let +in her husband: "Do you mean to say that you have let me go on all these +years nursing that--that, that--creature's child and--" + +"Yes, my dear," said the Doctor, touching her arm, and taking her hand, +"I have." She turned on her husband her startled, hurt face and +exclaimed, "And you, Jim--you too--you too?" + +"What else could I do in honor, my dear? And it has been for the best." + +"No," she cried angrily; "no, see what you have brought to us, Jim--that +hussy's--her, why, her very--" + +The years had told upon Doctor Nesbit. He could not rise to the struggle +as he could have risen a decade before. His hands were shaking and his +voice broke as he replied: "Yes, my dear--I know--I know. But while she +bore him, we have formed him." To her darkening face he repeated: "You +have formed him--and made him--you and the Adamses--with your love. And +love," his soft, high voice was tender as he concluded, "love purges +everything--doesn't it, Bedelia?" + +"Yes, father,--love is enough. Oh, Grant, Grant--it doesn't matter--not +to me. Poor--poor Margaret, what she has lost--what she has lost!" said +the younger woman, as she stood close to Grant and looked deeply into +his anguished face. Mrs. Nesbit stood wet-eyed, and spent of her wrath, +looking at the three before her. + +"O God--my God, forgive me--but I can't--Oh, Laura--Jim--I can't, I +can't, not that woman's--not her--her--" She stopped and cried +miserably, "You all know what he is, and whose he is." Again she stopped +and looked beseechingly around. "Oh, you won't let Lila--she wouldn't do +that--not take that woman's--that woman who disgraced Lila's +mother--Lila must not take her child--Oh, Jim, you won't let that--" + +As she spoke Mrs. Nesbit sank to a sofa near the door, and turned her +face to the pillow. The three who watched her turned blank, inquiring +faces to one another. + +"Perhaps," the Doctor began hesitatingly and impotently, "Lila should--" + +"What does she know--what can a child of twenty know," answered the +grandmother from her pillow, "of the taint of that blood, of the devil +she will transmit? Why, Jim--Oh, Jim--Lila's not old enough to decide. +She mustn't--she mustn't--we mustn't let her." Mrs. Nesbit raised her +body and asked as one who grasps a shadow, "Won't you ask her to +wait--to wait until she can understand?" + +A question passed from face to face among those who stood beside the +elder woman, and Dr. Nesbit answered it. Strength--the power that came +from a habit of forty years of dominating situations--came to him and he +stepped to his wife's side. The two stood together, facing the younger +pair. The Doctor spoke, not as an arbiter, but as an advocate: + +"Laura, your mother has her right to be considered here. All three of +you; Kenyon himself, and you and Lila--she has reared. She has made you +all what you are. Her wishes must be regarded now." Mrs. Nesbit rose +while the Doctor was speaking. He took her hand as was his wont and +turned to her, saying: "Mother, how will this do: Let's do nothing now, +not to-day at any rate. You must all adjust yourselves to the facts that +reveal this new relation before you can make an honest decision. When we +have done that, let Laura and her mother tell Lila the truth, and let +each tell the child exactly how she feels; and then, if you can bring +yourself to it, leave it to her; if she will wait for a time until she +understands her grandmother's point of view--very well. If not--" + +"If not, mother, Lila's decision must stand." This came from Laura, who +stepped over and kissed her mother's hand. The father looked tenderly at +his daughter and shook his head as he answered softly: "If not--no, I +shall stand with mother--she has her right--the realest right of all!" + +And so it came to pass that the course of true love in the hearts of +Lila Van Dorn and Kenyon Adams had its first sharp turning. And all the +world was overclouded for two souls. But they were only two souls and +the world is full of light. And the light falls upon men and women +without much respect for class or station, for good deeds or bad deeds, +for the weak or for the strong, for saints or sinners. For know well, +truly beloved, that chance and circumstance fall out of the great +machine of life upon us, hodge podge and helter skelter; good is not +rewarded by prizes from the wheel of fortune nor bad punished by its +calamities. Only as our hearts react on life, do we get happiness or +misery, not from the events that follow the procession of the days. + +Now for a moment let us peep through the clouds that lowered over the +young souls aforesaid. Clouds in youth are vastly black; but they are +never thick. And peering through those clouds, one may see the lovers, +groping in the umbrage. It does not matter much to us, and far less does +it matter to them how they have made their farewell meeting. It is night +and they are coming from Captain Morton's. + +Hand in hand they skip across the lawn, and soon are hidden in the +veranda. They sit arm in arm, on a swinging porch chair, and have no +great need for words. "What is it--what is the reason?" asked the youth. + +"Well, dear"--it is an adventure to say the word out loud after +whispering it for so many days--"dear," she repeated, and feels the +pressure of his arm as she speaks, "it's something about you!" + +"But what?" he persisted. + +"We don't know now," she returns. "And really what does it matter, only +we can't hurt grandma, and it won't be for long. It can't be for long, +and then--" + +"We don't care now,--not to-night, do we?" She lifts her head from his +shoulder, and puts up her lips for the answer. It is all new--every +thrill of the new-found joy of one another's being is strange; every +touch of the hands, of cheeks, every pressure of arms--all are +gloriously beautiful. + +Once in life may human beings know the joy these lovers knew that night. +The angels lend it once and then, if we are good, they let us keep it in +our memories always. If not, then God sends His infinite pity instead. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIV + +IN WHICH WE SUFFER LITTLE CHILDREN, WITH GEORGE BROTHERTON, AND IN +GENERAL CONSIDER THE HABITANTS OF THE KINGDOM + + +Mr. Brotherton had been pacing the deck of his store like the captain of +a pirate ship in a storm. Nothing in the store suited him; he found Miss +Calvin's high facade of hair too rococo for the attenuated lines of gray +and lavender and heliotrope that had replaced the angular effects in red +and black and green and brown of former years. He had asked her to tone +it down to make it match the long-necked gray jars and soft copper vases +that adorned the gray burlapped Serenity, and she had appeared with it +slopping over her ears, "as per yours of even date!" And still he paced +the deck. + +He picked up Zola's "Fecundite," which he had taken from stock; tried to +read it; put it down; sent for "Tom Sawyer"; got up, went after +Dickens's "Christmas Books," and put them down; peeped into "Little +Women," and watched the trade, as Miss Calvin handled it, occasionally +dropping his book for a customer; hunted for "The Three Bears," which he +found in large type with gorgeous pictures, read it, and decided that it +was real literature. + +Amos Adams came drifting in to borrow a book. He moved slowly, a sort of +gray wraith almost discarnate and apart from things of the earth. +Brotherton, looking at the old man, felt a candor one might have in +addressing a state of mind. So the big voice spoke gently: + +"Here, Mr. Adams," called Brotherton. "Won't you come back here and talk +to me?" But the shopkeeper felt that he should put the elder man at his +ease, so he added: "You're a wise guy, as the Latin fathers used to say. +Anyway, if Jasper ever gets to a point where he thinks marriage will pay +six per cent. over and above losses, you may be a kind of +step-uncle-in-law of mine. Tell me, Mr. Adams--what about children--do +they pay? You know, I've always wanted children. But now--well, you see, +I never thought but that people just kind of picked 'em off the bushes +as you do huckleberries. I'm getting so that I can't look at a great +crowd of people without thinking of the loneliness, suffering and +self-denial that it cost to bring all of them into the world. Good Lord, +man, I don't want lots of children--not now. And yet, +children--children--why, if we could open a can and have 'em as we do +most things, from sardines to grand opera, I'd like hundreds of them. +Yet, I dunno," Mr. Brotherton wagged a thoughtful head. + +But Amos Adams rejoined: "Ah, yes, George, but when you think of what it +means for two people to bring a child into the world--what the journey +means--the slow, inexorable journey into the valley of the shadow means +for them, close together; what tenderness springs up; what sacrifices +come forth; what firm knitting of lives; what new kind of love is +bred--you are inclined to think maybe Providence knew what it was about +when it brought children into life by the cruel path." + +Mr. Brotherton nodded a sympathetic head. + +"Let me tell you something, George," continued Amos. "It's through their +hope of bettering the children that Grant has moved his people in the +Valley out on the little garden plots. There they are--every warmish day +thousands of mothers and children and old men, working their little +plots of ground, trudging back to the tenements in the evening. The love +of children is the one steady, unswerving passion in these lives, and +Grant has nearly harnessed it, George. And it's because Nate Perry has +that love that he's giving freely here for those poor folks a talent +that would make him a millionaire, and is running his mines, and his big +foundry with Cap Morton besides. It's perfectly splendid to see the way +a common fatherhood between him and the men is making a brotherhood. +Why, man," cried Amos, "it refreshes one's faith like a tragedy." + +"Hello, Aunt Avey," piped the cheery voice of the little old Doctor, as +he came toddling through the front door. "It's a boy--Joe Calvin the +Third." The Doctor came back to the desk where Amos was standing and +took a chair, and as Amos drifted out of the store as impersonally as he +came, the Doctor began to grin. + +"We were just talking of children," said Brotherton with studied +casualness. "You know, Doctor," Brotherton smiled abashed, "I've always +thought I'd like lots of children. But now--" + +"I see 'em come, and I see 'em go every day. I'm kind of getting used to +death, George. But the miracle of birth grows stranger and stranger." + +"So young Joe Calvin's a proud parent, is he? Boy, you say?" + +"Boy," chuckled the Doctor, "and old Joe's out there having a nervous +breakdown. They've had ten births in the Calvin family. I've attended +all of 'em, and this is the first time old Joe's ever been allowed in +the house. To-day the old lady's out there with a towel around her head, +practically having that baby herself. The poor daughter-in-law hasn't +seen it. You'd think she was only invited in as a sort of paying guest. +And old lady Calvin comes in every few minutes and delivers homilies on +the joys of large families!" + +The Doctor laughed until his blue old eyes watered, and he chirped when +he had his laugh out: "How soon we forget! Which, I presume, is one of +God's semi-precious blessings!" + +When the Doctor went out, Brotherton found the store deserted, except +for Miss Calvin, who was in front. Brotherton carried a log to the +fireplace, stirred up the fire, and when he had it blazing, found Laura +Van Dorn standing beside him. + +"Well, George," she said, "I've just been stealing away from my children +in the Valley for a little visit with Emma." + +"Very well, then," said Mr. Brotherton, "sit down a minute with me. Tell +me, Laura--about children--are they worth it?" + +She was a handsome woman, with youth still in her eyes and face, who sat +beside George Brotherton, looking at the fire that March day. +"George--good old friend," she said gently, "there's nothing else in the +world so worth it as children." + +She hesitated before going so deeply into her soul, perhaps picking her +verbal way. "George--no man ever degraded a woman more than I was +degraded. Yet I brought Lila out of it, and I thank God for her, and I +don't mind the price--not now." She turned to look at Mr. Brotherton +inquiringly as she said: "But what I come in to talk to you about, +George, was Grant. Have you noticed in the last few months--that +growing--well--it's more than enthusiasm, George; it's a fanaticism. +Since he has been working on the garden plan--Grant has been getting +wilder and wilder in his talk about the Democracy of labor. Have you +noticed it--or am I oversensitive?" + +Brotherton, poking idly in the fire, did not answer at once. At length +he said: + +"Grant's a zealot. He's full of this prisms, prunes and peace idea, this +sweetness and light revolution, this notion of hitching their hop-dreams +to these three-acre plots, and preaching non-resistance. It's coming a +little fast for me, Laura--just a shade too many at times. But, on the +other hand--there's Nate Perry. He's as cold-blooded a Yankee as ever +swindled a father--and he's helping with the scheme. He's--" + +"He has no faith in the Democracy of Labor. He hoots," interrupted +Laura. "What he's doing is working for a more efficient lot of laboring +men, so that when the time comes when the unions shall ask and get more +definite control of the factories and mines, in the way of wage-setting, +and price-making, they will bring some sense with their control. He's +merely looking after himself--in the last analysis; but Grant's going +mad. George, he actually believes that when this thing wins here in the +Valley--the peaceful strike, the rise of labor, and the theory of +non-resistance--he's going over the world, and in a few years will have +labor emancipated. Have you heard him--that is, recently?" + +"Well, yes, a week or so ago," answered Brotherton, "and he was going it +at a pretty fair clip for a minute then. Well, say--I mean--what should +we do?" he asked, drumming with the poker on the hearth. "Laura," +Brotherton ran his eyes from the poker until they met her frank, gray +eyes, "Grant would listen to you before he would listen to any one else +on earth or in Heaven--I'm sure of that." + +"Then what shall we do?" she asked. "We mustn't let him wreck +himself--and all these people? What ought I--" + +A shadow fell across the door, and in another moment there stood in the +opening of the alcove the tall, lean figure of Thomas Van Dorn. + +When Laura was gone, Van Dorn, after more or less polite circumlocution, +began to unfold a plan of Market Street to buy the _Daily Times_ +and bring Jared Thurston back to Harvey to run it in the interests of +the property owners in the town and in the Valley. Incidentally he had +come to warn George on behalf of Market Street that he was harboring +Grant Adams, contrary to the judgment of Market Street. But George +Brotherton's heart was far from Market Street; it was out on the hill +with Emma, his wife, and his mouth spoke from the place of his treasure. + +"Tom--tell me, as between man and man, what do you think of children? +You're sort of in the outer room of the Blue Lodge of grandfatherdom, +with Lila and Kenyon getting ready for the preacher, and you ought to +know, Tom--honest, man, how about it?" + +A wave of self-pity enveloped the Judge. His voice broke as he answered: +"George, I haven't any little girl--she never even has spoken to me +about this affair that the whole town knows about. Oh, I haven't any +child at all." + +He looked a miserable moment at Brotherton, perhaps reviewing the years +which they had lived and grown from youth to middle age together and +growled: "Not a thing--not a damned thing in it--George, in all this +forty years of fighting to keep ahead of the undertaker! Not a God +damned thing!" And so he left the Sweet Serenity of Books and Wall Paper +and went back to the treadmill of life, spitting ashes from his gray +lips! + +And then Daniel Sands toddled in to get the five-cent cigars which he +had bought for a generation--one at a time every day, and Brotherton +came to Daniel with his problem. + +The old man, whose palsied head forever was denying something, as if he +had the assessor always in his mind, shut his rheumy eyes and answered: +"My children--bauch--" He all but spat upon their names. "Morty--moons +around reading Socialist books, with a cold in his throat and dishwater +in his brains. And the other, she's married a dirty traitor and stands +by him against her own flesh and blood. Ba-a-a-ch!" He showed his blue, +old mouth, and cried: + +"I married four women to give those children a home--and what thanks do +I get? Ingrates--one a milk-sop--God, if he'd only be a Socialist and +get out and throw dynamite; but he won't; he won't do a thing but sit +around drooling about social justice when I want to eat my meals in +peace. And he goes coughing all day and night, and grunting, and now +he's wearing a pointed beard--he says it's for his throat, but I +know--it's because he thinks it's romantic. And that Anne--why, she's +worse," but he did not finish the sentence. His old head wagged +violently. Evidently another assessor had suddenly pounced in upon his +imagination. For he shuffled into the street. + +Mr. Brotherton sat by the fire, leaning forward, with his fingers locked +between his knees. The warning against Grant Adams that Tom Van Dorn had +given him had impressed him. He knew Market Street was against Grant +Adams. But he did not realize that Market Street's attitude was only a +reflex of the stir in the Valley. All Market streets over the earth feel +more or less acutely changes which portend in the workshops, often +before those changes come. We are indeed "members one of another," and +the very aspirations of those who dream of better things register in the +latent fears of those who live on trade. We are so closely compact in +our organization that a man may not even hope without crowding his +neighbor. And in that little section of the great world which men knew +as Market Street in Harvey, the surest evidence of the changing attitude +of the men in the Valley toward their work, was found not in the crowds +that gathered in Belgian Hall week after week to hear Grant Adams, not +in the war-chest which was filling to overflowing, not in the gardens +checkered upon the hillsides, but rather in the uneasiness of Market +Street. The reactions were different in Market Street and in the Valley; +but it was one vision rising in the same body, each part responding +according to its own impulses. Of course Market Street has its side, and +George Brotherton was not blind to it. Sitting by his fire that raw +March day, he realized that Market Street was never a crusader, and why. +He could see that the men from whom the storekeepers bought goods on +ninety days' time, 3 per cent. off for cash, were not crusaders. When a +man turned up among them with a six-months' crusade for an evanescent +millennium, flickering just a few years ahead, the wholesalers of the +city and the retailers of Market Street nervously began thumbing over +their rapidly accumulating "bills payable" and began using crisp, +scratchy language toward the crusader. + +It made Brotherton pause when he thought how they might involve and +envelop him--as a family man. For as he sat there, the man's mind kept +thinking of children. And his mind wandered to the thought of his wife +and his home--and the little ones that might be. As his mind clicked +back to Amos Adams, and to the strange family that would produce three +boys as unlike as Grant and Jasper and Kenyon, he began to consider how +far Kenyon had come for a youth in his twenties. And Brotherton realized +that he might have had a child as old as Kenyon. Then Mr. Brotherton put +his hands over his face and tried to stop the flying years. + +A shadow fell, and Brotherton greeted Captain Morton, in a sunburst of +mauve tailoring. The Captain pointed proudly to a necktie pin +representing a horse jumping through a horseshoe, and cried: "What you +think of it? Real diamond horseshoe nails--what say?" + +"Now, Captain, sit down here," said Mr. Brotherton. "You'll do, +Captain--you'll do." But the subject nearest the big man's heart would +not leave it. "Cap," he said, "what about children--do they pay?" + +"That's just it," put in the Captain. "That's just what I said to Emmy +this morning. I was out to see her after you left and stayed until Laura +Van Dorn came and chased me off. Emmy's mighty happy, George--mighty, +mighty happy--eh? Her mother always was that way. I was the one that was +scared." George nodded assent. "But to-day--well, we just sat there and +cried--she's so happy about it--eh? Wimmin, George, ain't scared a bit. +I know 'em. I've been in their kitchins for thirty years, George, and +let me tell you somepin funny," continued the Captain. "Old Ahab Wright +has taken to smoking in public to get the liberal vote! Let me tell you +somepin else. They've decided to put the skids under Grant Adams and his +gang down in the Valley, and the other day they ran into a snag. You +know Calvin & Calvin are representing the owners since Tom's got this +life job, though he's got all his money invested down there and still +advises 'em. Well, anyway, they decided to put a barbed-wire trocha +around all the mines and the factories. Well, four carloads of wire and +posts shows up down in the Valley this week, and, 'y gory, man,--they +can't get a carpenter in town or down there to touch it. Grant's got 'em +sewed up. But Tom says he'll fix 'em one of these days, if they get +before him in his court--what say?" + +"I suppose he will, Captain," replied Mr. Brotherton, and took up his +theme. "But getting back to the subject of children--I've been talking +all morning about 'em to all kinds of folks, and I've decided the +country's for 'em. Children, Cap," Mr. Brotherton rose, put on his coat +and took the Captain's arm, "children, Captain," he repeated, as they +reached the sidewalk and were starting for the street car, "children, I +figure it out--children are the see-ment of civilization! Well, +say--thus endeth the reading of the first lesson!" + +As they stood in the corner transfer shed waiting for the car, Grant +Adams came up. "Say, Grant," called Brotherton, "what you goin' to do +about that barbed wire trocha?" + +"Oh," smiled Grant, "I've just about settled it. The boys will begin on +it this afternoon. A lot of them were angry when they heard what the +owners were up to, but I said, 'Here: we've got justice on our side. We +claim a partnership interest in all those mines and factories down +there. We contend that we who labor there now are the legatees of all +the labor that's been killed and maimed and cheated by long hours and +low wages down in the Valley for thirty years, and if we have a +partnership right in those mines and factories, it's our business to +protect them.' So I talked the boys into putting up the trocha. I tell +you, George," said Grant, and the tremor of emotion strained his voice +as he spoke, "it won't be long until we'll have a partnership in that +trocha, just as we'll have an interest in every hammer and bolt, and +ledge and vein in the Valley. It's coming, and coming fast--the +Democracy of Labor. I have faith, the men and women have faith--all over +the Valley. We've found the right way--the way of peace. When labor has +proved its efficiency--" + +"Ah--you're crazy, Grant," snapped the Captain. "This class of people +down here--these ignorant foreigners--why, they couldn't run a peanut +stand--eh?" + +Dick Bowman and his son came up, and not knowing a discussion was in the +wind, Dick shook hands around. And after the Captain had taken his +uptown car, Grant stood apart, lost in thought, but Dick said: "Well, +Benny, we got here in time for the car!" Then craning his long neck, the +father laughed: "Ben, here's a laboring man and his shift goes on at +one--so he's in a hurry, but we'll make it." + +"Dick," began Brotherton, looking at the thin shadow of a man who was +hardly Brotherton's elder by half a dozen years. "Dick, you're a kind of +expert father, you and Joe Calvin, and to-day Joe's a granddaddy--tell +me about the kiddies--are they worth it?" + +Bowman threw his head back and craned his long neck. "Not for us--not +for us poor--maybe for you people here," said Bowman, who paused and +counted on his fingers: "Eight born, three dead--that's too many. Joe +Calvin, he's raised all his and they're doing fairly well. That's his +girl in here--ain't it?" Bowman sighed. "Her and my Jean played together +back in their little days; before we moved to South Harvey." He lowered +his voice. + +"George, mother hasn't heard from Jean for going on two year, now. She +went off with a fellow; told us she married him--she was just a +child--but had been working around in the factories--and, well, I don't +say so, but I guess she just has got where she's ashamed to +write--maybe." + +His voice rose in anger as he cried: "Why didn't she have a show, like +this girl of Joe's? He's no better than I. And you know my wife--well, +she's no Mrs. Joe Calvin--she's been as happy about 'em when they came +as if they were princes of the blood." He stopped. + +"Then there's Mugs--I dunno, George,--it seems like we tried with Mugs, +but all them saloons and--well, the gambling and the women under his +nose from the time he was ten years old--well, I can't make him work. +Little Jack is steady enough for a boy of twenty--he's in the Company +mines, and we've put Ben in this year. He is twelve--though, for +Heaven's sake, don't go blabbing it; he's supposed to be fourteen. And +little Betty, she's in school yet. I don't know how she'll turn out. No, +George," he went on, "children for us poor, children's a mighty risky, +uncertain crop. But," he smiled reflectively, "I'm right here to tell +you they're lots of fun as little shavers--growing up. Why, George, you +ought to hear Benny sing. Them Copinis of the Hot Dog found he had a +voice, and they've taught him some dago songs." Ben was a bright-faced +boy of twelve--big for his age, with snappy, brown eyes and apples of +cheeks and curly hair. He slipped away to look into a store window, +leaving the two men alone. Mr. Brotherton was in a mellow mood. He put +his great paw on the small man's shoulder and said huskily: + +"Say, Dick, honest, I'd rather have just one boy like that than the +whole damn Valley--that's right!" + +The car came bowling up and the South Harvey people boarded it. Grant +Adams rode down into the Valley with great dreams in his soul. He talked +little to the Bowmans, but looked out of the window and saw the dawn of +another day. It is the curse of dreamers that they believe that when +they are convinced of a truth, they who have pursued it, who have +suffered for it, who have been exalted by it, they have only to pass out +their truth to the world to remake the universe. But the world is made +over only when the common mind sees the truth, and the common heart +feels it. So the history of reform is a history of disappointment. The +reform works, of course. But in working it does only the one little +trick it is intended to do, and the long chain of incidental blessings +which should follow, which the reformers feel must inevitably follow, +wait for other reformers to bring them into being. So there is always +plenty of work for the social tinker, and no one man ever built a +millennium. For God is ever jealous for our progeny, and leaves an +unfinished job always on the work bench of the world. + +Grant Adams believed that he had a mission to bring labor into its own. +The coming of the Democracy of Labor was a real democracy to him--no +mere shibboleth. And as he rode through the rows of wooden tenements, +where he knew men and women were being crushed by the great industrial +machine, he thought of the tents in the fields; of the women and +children and of the old and the sick going out there to labor through +the day to piece out the family wage and secure economic independence +with wholesome, self-respecting work. It seemed to him that when he +could bring the conditions that were starting in Harvey, to every great +industrial center, one great job in the world would be done forever. + +So he drummed his iron claw on the seat before him, put his hard hand +upon his rough face, and smiled in the joy of his high faith. + +Dick Bowman and his boy left Grant at the car. He waved his claw at +little Ben when they parted, and sighed as he saw the little fellow +scampering to shaft No. 3 of the Wahoo Fuel Company's mines. There Grant +lost sight of the child, and went to his work. In two hours he and +Violet Hogan had cleaned off his desk. He had promised the Wahoo Fuel +Company to see that the work of constructing the trocha was started that +afternoon, and when Violet had telephoned to Mechanics' Hall, Grant and +a group of men went to the mines to begin on the trocha. They passed +down the switch into the yards, and Grant heard a brakeman say: + +"That Frisco car there has a broken brake--watch out for her." + +And a switchman reply: + +"Yes--I know it. I tried to get the yardmaster not to send her down. But +we'll do what we can." + +The brakeman on the car signaled for the engineer to pull the other cars +away, and leave the Frisco car at the top of a slight grade, to be +shoved down by the men when another car was needed at the loading chute. +Grant walked toward the loading chute, and a roar from the falling coal +filled his ears. He saw little Ben under a car throwing back the coal +falling from the faulty chute on to the ground. + +Through the roar Grant heard a yell as from a man in terror. He looked +back of him and saw the Frisco car coming down the grade as if shot from +a monster catapult! + +"The boy--the boy--!" he heard the man on the car shriek. He tried to +clamber over the coal to the edge of the car, but before he could reach +the side, the Frisco car had hit the loading car a terrific blow, +sending it a car length down the track. + +One horrible scream was all they heard from little Ben. Grant was at his +side in a moment. There, stuck to the rail, were two little legs and an +arm. Grant stooped, picked up the little body, pulled it loose from the +tracks, and carried it, running, to the company hospital. + +As Grant ran, tears fell in the little, coal-stained face, and made +white splotches on the child's cheeks. + + + + +CHAPTER XLV + +IN WHICH LIDA BOWMAN CONSIDERS HER UNIVERSE AND TOM VAN DORN WINS +ANOTHER VICTORY + + +For a long and weary night and a day of balancing doubt, and another +dull night, little Ben Bowman lay limp and crumpled on his cot--a broken +lump of clay hardly more than animate. Lida Bowman, his mother, all that +time sat in the hall of the hospital outside the door of his room. The +stream of sorrow that winds through a hospital passed before her +unheeded. Her husband came, sat with her silently for a while, went, and +came again, many times. But she did not go. In the morning of the second +day as she stood peering through the door crack at the child she saw his +little body move in a deep sigh, and saw his black eyes open for a +second and close as he smiled. Dr. Nesbit, who stood beside her, grasped +her hand and led her away. + +"I think the worst is over, Lida," he said, and held her hand as they +walked down the hall. He sat with her in the waiting room, into which +the earliest tide of visitors had not begun to flow, and promised her +that if the child continued to rally from the shock, she might stand by +his bed at noon. Then for the first time she wept. He stood by the +window looking out at the great pillars of smoke that were smudging the +dawn, at the smelter fumes that were staining the sky, at the hurrying +crowd of men and women and children going into the mines, the mills, the +shops, hurrying to work with the prod of fear ever in their backs--fear +of the disgrace of want, fear of the shame of beggary, fear to hear some +loved one ask for food or warmth or shelter and to have it not. When the +great motherly body had ceased its paroxysms, he went to Mrs. Bowman and +touched her shoulder. + +"Lida," he said, "it isn't much--but I'm glad of one thing. My bill is +on the statutes to give people who are hurt, as Ben was, their money +from the company without going to law and dividing with the lawyers. It +is on the books good and tight; referred to the people and approved by +them and ground clear through the state supreme court and sustained. It +isn't much, Lida--Heaven knows that--but little Ben will get his money +without haggling and that money will help to start him in life." + +She turned a tear-swollen face to him, but again her grief overcame her. +He stood with one wrinkled hand upon her broad shoulder, and with the +other patted her coarse hair. When she looked up at him, again he said +gently: + +"I know, Lida, that money isn't what you mothers want--but--" + +"But we've got to think of it, Doc Jim--that's one of the curses of +poverty, but, oh, money!--It won't bring them back strong and whole--who +leave us to go to work, and come back all torn and mashed." + +She sat choking down the sobs that came surging up from her great bosom, +and weaving to and fro as she fought back her tears. The Doctor sat +beside her and took her red unshapely hands unadorned except by the thin +gold wedding ring that she had worn in toil for over thirty years. + +"Lida, sometimes I think only God and the doctors know how heavy women's +loads are," said the Doctor. + +"Ain't that so--Doc Jim!" she cried. "Ain't that the truth? I've had a +long time to think these two days and nights--and I've thought it all +over and all out. Here I am nearly fifty and eight times you and I have +fought it out with death and brought life into this world. I'm strong--I +don't mind that. I joyed at their coming, and made the others edge over +at the table, and snuggle up in the bed, and we've been happy. Even the +three that are dead--I'm glad they came; I'm thankful for 'em. And Dick +he's been so proud of each one, and cuddled it, and muched it--" + +Her voice broke and she sobbed, "Oh, little Ben--little Ben, how pappy +made over his hair--he was born with hair--don't you mind, Doc Jim?" + +The Doctor laughed and looked into the past as he piped, "Curliest +headed little tyke, and don't you remember Laura gave him Lila's baby +things she'd saved for all those years?" + +"Yes, Doc Jim--don't I? God knows, Doc, she's been a mother to the whole +Valley--when I got up I found I was the twentieth woman up and down the +Valley she'd given Lila's little things to--just to save our pride when +she thought we would not take 'em any other way. Don't I know--all about +it--and she's still doing it--God bless her, and she's been here every +morning, noon and night since--since--she came with a little beef tea, +or some of her own wine, or a plate of hot toast in her basket--that she +made me eat. Why, if it wasn't for her and Henry and Violet and +Grant--what would God's poor in this Valley do in trouble--I sure +dunno." + +There came an unsteady minute, when the Doctor stroked her hand and +piped, "Well, Lida--you folks in the Valley don't get half the fun out +of it that the others get. It's pie for them." + +The woman folded her hands in her lap and sighed deeply. "Doc Jim," she +began, "eight times I've brought life into this world. The three that +went, went because we were poor--because we couldn't buy life for 'em. +They went into the mills and the mines with Dick's muscle. One is at +home, waiting till the wheels get hungry for her. Four I've fed into the +mills that grind up the meat we mothers make." She stared at him wildly +and cried "O God--God, Doc Jim--what justice is there in it? I've been a +kind of brood-mare bearing burden carriers for Dan Sands, who has sold +my blood like cheese in his market. My mother sent three boys to the war +who never came back and I've heard her cry and thank God He'd let her. +But my flesh and blood--the little ones that Dick and me have coddled +and petted and babied--they've been fed into the wheels to make +profits--profits for idlers to squander--profits to lure women to shame +and men to death. That's what I've been giving my body and soul for, Doc +Jim. Little Ben up there has given his legs and his arms--oh, those soft +little arms and the cunning little legs I used to kiss--for what? I'll +tell you--he's given them so that by saving a day's work repairing a +car, some straw boss could make a showing to a superintendent, and the +superintendent could make a record for economy to a president, and a +president could increase dividends--dividends to be spent by idlers. And +idleness makes drunkards who make harlots who make hell--and all my +little boy's arms and legs will go for is for sin and shame." + +The Doctor returned to the window and she cried bitterly: "Oh, you know +that's the truth--the God's truth, Doc Jim. Where's my Jean? She went +into the glass factory--worked twelve hours a day on a job that would +have crippled her for life in another year, and then went away with that +Austrian blower--and when he threw her out, she was ashamed to +write--and for a long time now I've read the city papers of them women +who kill themselves--hoping to find she was dead. And Mugs--you know +what South Harvey's made of him--" + +She rose and walked to the window. Standing beside him she cried: + +"I tell you, Doc Jim--I hate it." She pointed to the great black mills +and mine shafts and the piles of brick and lumber and sheet iron that +stretched before her for a mile. "I hate it, and I'm going to hit it +once before I die. Don't talk peace to me. I've got a right to hit it +and hit it hard--and if my time ever comes--" + +A visitor was shown into the room, and Mrs. Bowman ceased speaking. She +was calm when the Doctor left her and at noon she stood beside the cot, +and saw little Ben smile at her. Then she went away in tears. As she +passed out of the door of the hospital into the street, she met Grant +Adams coming in to inquire about little Ben. + +"He knows me now," she said. "I suppose he'll get well--without +legs--and with only one arm--I've seen them on the street selling +pencils--oh, little Ben!" she cried. Then she turned on Grant in anger. +"Grant Adams--go on with your revolution. I'm for it--and the quicker +the better--but don't come around talking peace to me. Us mothers want +to fight." + +"Fighting, in the long run, will do no good, Mrs. Bowman," said Grant. +"It will hurt the cause. + +"But it will do us good," she answered. + +"Force against force and we lose--they have the guns," he persisted. + +"Well, I'd rather feed my babies to good merciful guns than to wheels," +she replied, and then softened as she took his hand. + +"I guess I'm mad to-day, Grant. Go on up. Maybe they'll let you look at +him. He smiled at me--just as he did when Doctor Nesbit showed him to me +the day he was born." + +She kept back her tears with an effort, and added, "Only the Doc tried +to tell me that babies don't smile. But I know better, Ben smiled--just +like the one to-day." + +"Well, Mrs. Bowman," rejoined Grant, "there's one comfort. Dr. Nesbit's +law makes it possible for you to get your damages without going to law +and dividing with some lawyer. However the Doctor and I may differ--we +down here in the mines and mills must thank him for that." + +"Oh, Doc Jim's all right, Grant," answered Mrs. Bowman, relapsing into +her lifetime silence. + +It was nearly three months later and spring was at its full, before they +discharged little Ben from the hospital. But the last fortnight of his +stay they had let him visit outside the hospital for a few hours daily. +And to the joy of a great crowd in the Hot Dog saloon, he sat on the bar +and sang his little heart out. They took him down to Belgian hall at +noon, and he sang the "Marseillaise" to the crowd that gathered there. +In the hospital, wherever they would let him, after he had visited the +Hot Dog, he sang--sang in the big ward where he sat by a window, sang in +the corridors, whenever the patients could hear him, and sang Gospel +hymns in his cot at bedtime. + +He was an odd little bundle, that Henry Fenn carried into the offices of +the Wahoo Valley Fuel Company one afternoon in early June, with Dick +Bowman following proudly, as they made the proof of the claim for +compensation for the accident. The people in the offices were kind and +tenderly polite to the little fellow. Henry saw that all the papers were +properly made out, and the clerk in the office told Dick and Henry to +call for the check next day but one--which was pay day. + +So they carried little Ben away and Mrs. Bowman--though it was barely +five o'clock--began fixing Ben up for the wedding of Jasper Adams and +Ruth Morton. It was the first public appearance as a singer that little +Ben had made in Harvey. His appearance was due largely to the notion of +Captain Morton, supported and abetted by George Brotherton. So little +Ben Bowman was smuggled behind a palm in the choir loft and permitted to +sing "O Promise Me" during the services. + +"Not," explained the Captain to Mr. Brotherton in the barn where he was +smoking, the afternoon before the ceremony, "not that I cared a whoop in +Texas about Ben--though 'y gory, the boy sings like a canary; but it was +the only excuse I could find for slipping a hundred dollars to the +Bowman family, without making Dick and Lida think it was charity--eh?" + +The wedding made a dull evening for Grant. He carried little Ben in his +arms out of the crowd at the church, and gathering up the Bowmans and +his father, went home without stopping for the reception or for the +dance or for any of the subsidiary attractions of the ceremony which +Jasper and the Captain, each delighting in tableaux and parades, had +arranged for. Little Ben's arm was clinging to Grant's neck as he +piloted his party to the street car. They passed the Van Dorn house and +saw old Daniel Sands come tottering down the walk from the Van Dorn +home, between Ahab Wright and young Joe Calvin. Daniel Sands stumbled as +he shuffled past Amos Adams and Amos put out an arm to catch Daniel. He +regained his balance and without recognizing who had helped him, +cackled: + +"Tom's a man of his word, boys--when he promises--that settles it. Tom +never lies." And his senile voice shrilled in a laugh. Then the old +banker recognized Amos Adams with Grant in the moonlight. "Hi, old spook +chaser," he chirped feebly, still holding to Amos Adams's arm; "sorry I +couldn't get to my nevvy's wedding--Morty went--Morty's our social man," +he laughed again. "But I had some other important +matters--business--very important business." + +The Sands' party was moving toward the Sands' limousine, which stood +purring at the curb. Ahab Wright and young Joe Calvin boosted the +trembling old man into the car, and Ahab Wright slipped back and +returned to the wedding reception, from which he had stolen away. Ahab +was obviously embarrassed at being caught in the conference with Sands +and Van Dorn, but Daniel Sands as he climbed into the car, sinking +cautiously among the cushions and being swathed in robes by the +chauffeur, was garrulous. He kept carping at Amos Adams who stood by +with his son and the Bowmans, waiting for the street car. + +"Lost your only sane son, Amos," he said. "The fool takes after you, and +the fiddler after his mother--but Jap--he's real Sands--he's like me." + +He laughed at his joke, and when his breath came back he went on. + +"There's Morty--he's like both the fool and the fiddler--both the fool +and the fiddler--and not a bit like me." + +"Morty isn't very well, Daniel," said Amos Adams, ignoring all that the +old man had said. "Don't you think, Daniel, you're letting that disease +get too deep a hold on Morty? With all your money, Dan, I think you'd--" + +"With all my money--with all my money, Amos," cried the old man, shaking +his hands, "with all my money--I can just stand and wait. Amos--he's a +fool, I know--but he's the only boy I've got--the only boy. And with all +my money--what good will it do me? Anne won't have it--and Morty's all +I've got and he's going before I do. Amos--Amos--tell me, Amos--what +have I done to deserve this of God? Haven't I done as I ort? Why is this +put on me?" He sat panting and blinking and shaking his ever-denying, +palsied head. Amos did not reply. The chauffeur was taking his seat in +the car. "Ain't I paid my share in the church? Ain't I give parks to the +city? Ain't I had family prayers for fifty years? Ain't I been a praying +member all my life nearly? Ain't I supported missions? Why," he panted, +"is it put on me to die without a son to bear my name and take care of +my property? I made over two millions to him the other day. But why, +Amos," the old man's voice was broken and he whimpered, "has the Lord +sent this to Morty?" + +Amos did not reply, but the big voice of Grant spoke very softly: "Uncle +Dan, Morty's got tuberculosis--you know that. Tuberculosis has made you +twenty per cent. interest for twenty years--those hothouses for +consumption of yours in the Valley. But it's cost the poor scores and +scores of lives. Morty has it." Grant's voice rose solemnly. "Vengeance +is mine sayeth the Lord, I will repay. You've got your interest, and the +Lord has taken his toll." + +The old man showed his colorless gums as he opened a raging mouth. + +"You--you--eh, you blasphemer!" He shook as with a chill and screamed, +"But we've got you now--we'll fix you!" + +The car for Harvey came, and the Adamses climbed in. + +Amos Adams, sitting on the hard seat of the street car looking into the +moonlight, considered seriously his brother-in-law, and his low estate. +That he had to be helped into his limousine, that he had to be wrapped +up like a baby, that his head was palsied and his hands fluttering, +seemed strange and rather inexplicable to Amos. He counted Daniel a +young man, four years his junior, barely seventy-nine; a man who should +be in his prime. Amos did not realize that his legs had been kept supple +by climbing on and off a high printer's stool hourly for fifty years, +and that his body had buffeted the winds of the world unprotected all +those years and had kept fit. But Daniel Sands's sad case seemed +pathetic to the elder Adams and he cut into some rising stream of +conversation from Grant and the Bowmans inadvertently with: "Poor +Daniel--Morty doomed, and Daniel himself looking like the breaking up of +a hard winter--poor Daniel! He doesn't seem to have got the hang of +things in this world; he can't seem to get on some way. I'm sorry for +Daniel, Grant; he might have made quite a man if he'd not been fooled by +money." + +Clearly Amos was meditating aloud; no one replied and the talk flowed +on. But the old man looked into the moonlight and dreamed dreams. + +The next day was Grant's day at his carpenter's bench, and when he came +to his office with his kit in his hands at five o'clock in the +afternoon, he found Violet Hogan waiting with the letters he was to +sign, and with the mail opened and sorted. As he was signing his letters +Violet gave him the news of the day: + +"Dick Bowman ran in at noon and asked me to see if I could get Dr. +Nesbit and George Brotherton and Henry Fenn down here this evening to +talk over his investment of little Ben's money. The check will come +to-morrow." Grant looked up from his desk, but before he could ask a +question Violet answered: "They'll be down at eight. The Doctor is that +proud! And Mr. Brotherton is cutting lodge--the Shriners, themselves--to +come down." + +It was a grave and solemn council that sat by Grant Adams's desk that +evening discussing the disposal of little Ben's five thousand. Excepting +Mr. Brotherton, no one there had ever handled that much money at one +time. For though the Doctor was a man of affairs the money he handled in +politics came easy and went easy, and the money he earned Mrs. Nesbit +always had invested for him. So he and Lida Bowman sat rather apart +while Dick and Brotherton considered the safety of bonds and mortgages +and time deposits and other staple methods of investing the vast sum +which was about to be paid to them for Ben's accident. They also +considered plans for his education--whether he should learn telegraphy +or should cultivate his voice, or go to college or what not. In this +part of the council the Doctor took a hand. But Lida Bowman kept her +wonted silence. The money could not take the bitterness from her loss; +though it did relieve her despair. While they talked, as a mere incident +of the conversation, some one spoke of having seen Joe Calvin come down +to the Wahoo Fuel Company's offices that day in his automobile. Doctor +Nesbit recalled having seen Calvin conferring with Tom Van Dorn and +Daniel Sands in Van Dorn's office that afternoon. Then Dick Bowman +craning his neck asked for the third time when Henry Fenn would show up; +and for the third time it was explained that Henry had taken the Hogan +children to the High School building in Harvey to behold the spectacle +of Janice Hogan graduating from the eighth grade into the High School. +Then Dick explained: + +"Well, I just thought Henry would know about this paper I got to-day +from the constable. It's a legal document, and probably has something to +do with getting Benny's money or something. I couldn't make it out so I +thought I'd just let Henry figure on it and tell me what to do." And +when a few minutes later Fenn came in, with a sense of duty to the +Hogans well done, Dick handed Fenn the paper and asked with all the +assurance of a man who expects the reassurance of an affirmative answer: + +"Well, Henry--she's all right, ain't she? Just some legal formality to +go through, I suppose?" + +Henry Fenn took the document from Bowman's hand. Henry stood under the +electric, read it and sat thinking for a few seconds, with widely +furious eyes. + +"Well," he said, "they've played their trump, boys. Doc Jim--your law's +been attacked in the federal court--under Tom Van Dorn--damn him!" + +The group barked a common question in many voices. Fenn replied: "As I +make it out, they got a New York stockholder of the Wahoo Valley Fuel +Company to ask for an injunction against paying little Ben his money +to-morrow, and the temporary injunction has been granted with the +hearing set for June 16." + +"And won't they pay us without a suit?" asked Bowman. "Why, I don't see +how that can be--they've been paying for accidents for a year now." + +"Why, the law's through all the courts!" queried Brotherton. + +"The state courts--yes," answered Fenn, "but they didn't own the federal +court until they got Tom in." + +Bowman's jaw began to tremble. His Adam's apple bobbed like a cork, and +no one spoke. Finally Dr. Nesbit spoke in his high-keyed voice: "I +presume legal verbiage is all they talk in hell!" and sat pondering. + +"Is there no way to beat it?" asked Brotherton. + +"Not in this court, George," replied Fenn, "that's why they brought suit +in this court." + +"That means a long fight--a big law suit, Henry?" asked Bowman. + +"Unless they compromise or wear you out," replied the lawyer. + +"And can't a jury decide?" + +"No--it's an injunction. It's up to the court, and the court is Tom Van +Dorn," said Fenn. + +Then Dick Bowman spoke: "And there goes little Ben's school and a chance +to make something out of what's left of him. Why, it don't look right +when the legislature's passed it, and the people's confirmed it and nine +lawyers in all the state courts have said it's law,--for the attorney +for the company holding a job as judge to turn over all them forms of +law. Can't we do something?" + +"Yes," spoke the big voice of Grant Adams for the first time since Fenn +made his announcement, "we can strike--that's one thing we can do. Why," +he continued, full of emotion, "I could no more hold those men down +there against a strike when they hear this than I could fly. They'll +have to fight for this right, gentlemen!" + +"Be calm now, Grant," piped the Doctor; "don't go off half cocked." + +Grant's eyes flared--his nose dilated and the muscles of his heavy jaw +worked and knotted. He answered in a harsh voice: + +"Oh, I'll be calm all right, Doctor. I'm going down in the morning and +plead for peace. But I know my people. I can't hold 'em." + +Those in the room stood for a moment in dazed silence; then the Doctor +and Brotherton, realizing the importance of further discussion that +night, soon withdrew from the room, leaving Dick voluble in his grief +and Lida, his wife, stony and speechless beside him. She shook no +sympathizing hand, not even Grant's, as the Bowmans left for home. But +she climbed out of the chair and down the stairs on tired, heavy feet. + +In the morning there was turmoil in the Valley. In the _Times_ +Jared Thurston, with the fatuous blundering which characterizes all +editors of papers like his, printed the news that little Ben Bowman +would be denied his rights, as a glorious victory over the reformers. In +an editorial, written in old Joe Calvin's best style, the community was +congratulated upon having one judge at last who would put an end to the +socialistic foolishness that had been written by demagogues on the state +statute books, and hinting rather broadly that the social labor program +adopted by the people at the last election through the direct vote would +go the way of the fool statute under which the Bowman lad hoped to cheat +the courts of due process of law. + +In vain did Grant Adams try to rally carpenters to the trocha. He +pleaded with the men to raise a special fund to take little Ben's case +through the federal courts; but he failed. + +The Wahoo Valley saw in the case of little Ben Bowman the drama of greed +throttling poverty, all set forth in stark, grim terms that no one could +question. The story appealed directly to the passions of the Valley and +the Valley's voice rose in the demand to resort to its last weapon of +defense. The workers felt that they must strike or forfeit their +self-respect. And day by day the _Times_, gloating at the coming +downfall in Van Dorn's program of labor-repression, threw oil on the +flaming passions of the Valley, so labor raged and went white hot. The +council of the Wahoo Valley Trades Workers came together to vote on the +strike. Every unit of seven was asked to meet and vote. Grant sat in his +office with the executive committee a day and a night counting the +slowly returning votes. Grant had influence enough to make them declare +emphatically for a peaceful strike. But the voice of the Valley was for +a strike. The spring was at its full. The little garden plots were +blooming. The men felt confident. A conference of the officials of the +council was called to formulate the demands. Grant managed to put off +the strike until the hearing on the temporary injunction, June 16, was +held. But the men drew up their demands and were ready for the court +decision which they felt would be finally against them. + +The Wahoo Valley was stirred deeply by the premonitions of the coming +strike. It was proud of its record for industrial peace, and the +prospect of war in the Valley overturned all its traditions. + +Market Street had its profound reaction, too. Market Street and the +Valley, each in its own way, felt the dreaded turmoil coming, knew what +commercial disaster the struggle meant, but Market Street was timid and +powerless and panic-stricken. Yet life went on. In the Valley there were +births and deaths and marriages, and on the hill in Harvey, Mrs. Bedelia +Nesbit was working out her plans to make over the Nesbit house, while +Lila, her granddaughter, was fluttering about in the seventh Heaven, for +she was living under the same sky and sun and stars that bent over +Kenyon, her lover, home from Boston for the Morton-Adams wedding. He +might be hailed as a passing ship once or twice a day, if she managed to +time her visits to Market Street properly, or he might be seen from the +east veranda of her home at the proper hour, and there was a throb of +joy that blotted out all the rest of the pale world. There was one time; +two times indeed they were, and a hope of a third, when slipping out +from under the shadow of her grandmother's belligerent plumes, Lila had +known the actual fleeting touch of hands; the actual feasting of eyes +and the quick rapture of meeting lips at a tryst. And when Mrs. Nesbit +left for Minneapolis to consult an architect, and to be gone two +weeks--Harvey and the Valley and the strike slipped so far below the +sky-line of the two lovers that they were scarcely aware that such +things were in the universe. + +Kenyon could not see even the grim cast of decision mantling Grant's +face. Day by day, while the votes assembled which ordered the strike, +the deep abiding purpose of Grant Adams's soul rose and stood ready to +master him. He and the men seemed to be coming to their decision +together. As the votes indicated by a growing majority their +determination, in a score of ways Grant made it evident to those about +him, that for him time had fruited; the day was ready and the hour at +hand for his life plans to unfold. Those nearest him knew that the +season of debate for Grant Adams had passed. He was like one whose sails +of destiny are set and who longs to put out into the deep and let down +his nets. So he passed the long days impatiently until the hearing of +the injunction in little Ben's suit arrived, and every day burned some +heavier line into his face that recorded the presence of the quenchless +fire of purpose in his heart. + +A smiling, affable man was Judge Thomas Van Dorn in his court the +morning of June 16. He had his ticket bought for Chicago and a seat in +the great convention of his party assured. He walked through the court +room, rather dapperly. He put his high silk hat on the bench beside him, +by way of adding a certain air of easy informality to the proceedings. +His red necktie brought out every thin wrinkle in his burnished brown +face and upon the pink brow threaded by a chain lightning of a scar. The +old mushy, emotional voice of his youth and maturity had thickened, and +he talked loudly. He listened to arguments of counsel. Young Joe Calvin, +representing the Fuel Company, was particularly eloquent. Henry Fenn +knew that his case was hopeless, but made such reply as he could. + +"Well," cut in the court before Fenn was off his feet at the close of +his argument, "there's nothing to your contention. The court is familiar +with those cases, cited by counsel. Either the constitution means what +it says or it doesn't. This court is willing to subscribe to a fund to +pay this Bowman child a just compensation. This is a case for charity +and the company is always generous in its benevolence. The Socialists +may have the state courts, and the people are doubtless crazy--but this +court will uphold the constitution. The injunction is made permanent. +The court stands adjourned." + +The crowd of laborers in the court room laughed in the Judge's face. +They followed Grant Adams, who with head bowed in thought walked slowly +to the street car. "Well, fellows," said Grant, "here's the end. As it +stands now, the law considers steel and iron in machinery more sacred +than flesh and blood. The court would have allowed them to appropriate +money for machines without due process of law; but it enjoins them from +appropriating money for flesh and blood." He was talking to the members +of the Valley Labor Council as they stood waiting for a car. "We may as +well miss a car and present our demands to the Calvins. The sooner we +get this thing moving, the better." + +Ten minutes later the Council walked into the office of Calvin and +Calvin. There sat Joseph Calvin, the elder, a ratty little man still, +with a thin stringy neck and with a bald head. His small, mousy eyes +blinked at the workmen. He was exceedingly polite. He admitted that he +was attorney for the owners' association in the Valley, that he could if +he chose speak for them in any negotiations they might desire to make +with their employees, but that he was authorized to say that the owners +were not ready to consider or even to receive any communication from the +men upon any subject--except as individual employees might desire to +confer with superintendents or foremen in the various mines and mills. + +So they walked out. At labor headquarters in South Harvey, Nathan Perry +came sauntering in. + +"Well, boys--let's have your agreement--I think I know what it is. We're +ready to sign." + +In an hour men were carrying out posters to be distributed throughout +the Valley, signed by Grant Adams, chairman of the Wahoo Valley Trades +Workers' Council. It read: + + STRIKE STRIKE STRIKE + + The managers of our mines and mills in the Wahoo Valley have + refused to confer with representatives of the workers about an + important matter. Therefore we order a general strike of all + workers in the mines and mills in this District. Workers before + leaving will see that their machines are carefully oiled, + covered, and prepared to rest without injury. For we claim + partnership interest in them, and should protect them and all + our property in the mines and mills in this Valley. During this + strike, we pledge ourselves. + + To orderly conduct. + + To keep out of the saloons. + + To protect our property in the mines and mills. + + To use our influence to restrain all violence of speech or + conduct. And we make the following demands: + + First. That prices of commodities turned out in this district + shall not be increased to the public as a result of concessions + to us in this strike, and to that end we demand. + + Second. That we be allowed to have a representative in the + offices of all concerns interested, said representative to have + access to all books and accounts, guaranteeing to labor such + increases in wages as shall be evidently just, allowing 8 per + cent. dividends on stock, the payment of interest on bonds, and + such sums for upkeep, maintenance, and repairs as shall not + include the creation of a surplus or fund for extensions. + + Third, we demand that the companies concerned shall obey all + laws enacted by the state or nation to improve conditions of + industry until such laws have been passed upon by the supreme + courts of the state and of the United States. + + Fourth, we demand that all negotiations between the employers + and the workers arising out of the demands shall be conducted on + behalf of the workers by the Trades Workers' Council of the + Wahoo Valley or their accredited representatives. + + During this strike we promise to the public righteous peace; + after the strike we promise to the managers of the mines and + mills efficient labor, and to the workers always justice. + + STRIKE STRIKE STRIKE + +At two o'clock that June afternoon the whistle of the big engine in the +smelter in South Harvey, the whistle in the glass factory at Magnus, and +the siren in the cement mill at Foley blew, and gradually the wheels +stopped, the machines were covered, the fires drawn, the engines wiped +and covered with oil, and the men marched out of all the mills and mines +and shops in the district. There was no uproar, no rioting, but in an +hour all the garden patches in the Valley were black with men. The big +strike of the Wahoo Valley was on. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVI + +WHEREIN GRANT ADAMS PREACHES PEACE AND LIDA BOWMAN SPEAKS HER MIND + + +A war, being an acute stage of discussion about the ownership of +property, is a war even though "the lead striker calls it a strike," and +even though he proposes to conduct the acute stage of the discussion on +high moral grounds. The gentleman who is being relieved of what he +considers at the moment his property, has no notion of giving it up +without a struggle, no matter how courteously he is addressed, nor upon +what exalted grounds the discussion is ranging. It is a world-old +mistake of the Have-nots to discount the value which the Haves put upon +their property. The Have-nots, generally speaking, hold the property +under discussion in low esteem. They have not had the property in +question. They don't know what a good thing it is--except in theory. But +the Haves have had the property and they will fight for it, displaying a +degree of feeling that always surprises the Have-nots, and naturally +weakens their regard for the high motives and disinterested citizenship +of the Haves. + +Now Grant Adams in the great strike in the Wahoo Valley was making the +world-old mistake. He was relying upon the moral force of his argument +to separate the Haves from their property. He had cared little for the +property. The poor never care much for property--otherwise they would +not be poor. So Grant and his followers in the Valley--and all over the +world for that matter,--(for they are of the great cult who believe in a +more equitable distribution of property, through a restatement of the +actual values of various servants to society), went into their demands +for partnership rights in the industrial property around them, in a +sublime and beautiful but untenable faith that the righteousness of +their cause would win it. The afternoon when the men walked out of the +mines and mills and shops, placards covered the dead walls of the Valley +and the hired billboards in Harvey setting forth the claims of the men. +They bought and paid for twenty thousand copies of Amos Adams's +_Tribune_, and distributed it in every home in the district, +setting forth their reasons for striking. Great posters were spread over +the town and in the Valley declaring "the rule of this strike is to be +square, and to be square means that the strikers will do as they would +be done by. There will be no violence." + +Now it would seem that coming to the discussion with these obviously +high motives, and such fair promises, the strikers would have been met +by similarly altruistic methods. But instead, the next morning at half +past six, when a thousand strikers appeared bearing large white badges +inscribed with the words, "We stand for peace and law and order," and +when the strikers appeared before the entrance to the shaft houses and +the gates and doors of the smelters and mills, to beg men and women not +to fill the vacant places at the mills and mines, the white-badged +brigade was met with five hundred policemen who rudely ordered the +strikers to move on. + +The Haves were exhibiting feeling in the matter. But the mines and mills +did not open; not enough strike-breakers appeared. So that afternoon, a +great procession of white-badged men and white-clad women and children, +formed in South Harvey, and, headed by the Foley Brass Band, marched +through Market Street and for five miles through the streets of Harvey +singing. Upon a platform carried by eight white-clad mothers, sat little +Ben Bowman swathed in white, waving a white flag in his hand, and +leading the singing. Over the chair on which he sat were these words on +a great banner. "For his legal rights and for all such as he we demand +that the law be enforced." + +For two hours the procession wormed through Harvey. The streets were +crowded to watch it. It made its impression on the town. The elder +Calvin watched it with Mayor Ahab Wright, in festal side whiskers, from +the office of Calvin & Calvin. Young Joe Calvin from time to time came +and looked over their shoulders. But he was for the most part too busily +engaged, making out commissions for deputy sheriffs and extra policemen, +to watch the parade. As the parade came back headed for South Harvey, +the ear of the young man caught a familiar tune. He watched Ahab Wright +and his father to see if they recognized it. The placid face of the +Mayor betrayed no more consciousness of the air than did his immaculate +white necktie. The elder Calvin's face showed no appreciative wrinkles. +The band passed down the street roaring the battle hymn of labor that +has become so familiar all over the world. The great procession paused +uncovered in the street, while Little Ben waved his flag and raised his +clear, boyish voice with its clarion note and sang, as the procession +waved back. And at the spectacle of the crippled child, waving his one +little arm, and lifting his voice in a lusty strain, the sidewalk crowd +cheered and those who knew the tune joined. + +Young Joe Calvin stood with his hands on the shoulders of the two +sitting men. "Mr. Mayor, do you know that tune?" said Young Joe. + +Mr. Mayor, whose only secular tune was "Yankee Doodle," confessed his +ignorance. "Listen to the words," suggested Young Joe. Old Joe put his +hand to his right ear. Ahab Wright leaned forward, and the words of the +old, old cry of the Reds of the Midi came surging up: + + "To arms! to arms!--ye brave! + The avenging sword unsheathe! + March on! March on! all hearts resolved + On victory or death." + +When Ahab Wright caught the words he was open mouthed with astonishment. +"Why--why," he cried, "that--why, that is sedition. They're advocating +murder!" + +Young Joe Calvin's face did not betray him, and he nodded a warning +head. Old Joe looked the genuine consternation which he felt. + +"We can't have this, Ahab--this won't do--a few days of this and we'll +have bloodshed." + +It did not occur to Ahab Wright that he had been singing "Onward, +Christian Soldiers," and "I Am a Soldier of the Cross," and "I'll Be +Washed in the Blood of the Lamb," all of his pious life, without ever +meaning anything particularly sanguinary. He heard the war song of the +revolution, and being a literal and peth-headed man, prepared to defend +the flag with all the ardor that had burned in John Kollander's heart +for fifty years. + +"I tell you, Mr. Mayor, we need the troops. The Sheriff agrees with +me--now you hear that," said young Joe. "Will you wait until some one is +killed or worse, until a mine is flooded, before sending for them?" + +"You know, Ahab," put in old Joe, "the Governor said on the phone this +morning, not to let this situation get away from you." + +The crowd was joining the singing. The words--the inspiring words of the +labor chant had caught the people on the sidewalk, and a great diapason +was rising: + + "March on! March on!--all hearts resolved + On victory or death." + +"Hear that--hear that, Ahab!" cried old Joe. "Why, the decent people up +town here are going crazy--they're all singing it--and that little devil +is waving a red flag with the white one!" + +Ahab Wright looked and was aghast. "Doesn't that mean +rebellion--anarchy--and bloodshed?" he gasped. + +"It means socialism," quoth young Joe, laconically, "which is the same +thing." + +"Well, well! my! my! Dear me," fretted Ahab, "we mustn't let this go +on." + +"Shall I get the Governor on the phone--you know we have the Sheriff's +order here--just waiting for you to join him?" asked young Joe. + +The Haves were moving the realm of the discussion about their property +from pure reason to the baser emotions. + +"Look, look!" cried the Mayor. "Grant Adams is standing on that +platform--and those women have to hold him up--it's shameful. Listen!" + +"I want to say to my old neighbors and friends here in Harvey," cried +Grant, "that in this strike we shall try with all our might, with all +our hearts' best endeavors, to do unto others as we would have them do +unto us. Our property in the mines and mills in this Valley, we shall +protect, just as sacredly as our partners on Wall Street would protect +it. It is our property--we are the legatees of the laborers who have +piled it up. You men of Harvey know that these mines represent little +new capital. They were dug with the profits from the first few shafts. +The smelters rose from the profits of the first smelters in the +district. Where capital has builded with fresh investment--we make no +specific claim, but where capital has builded here in this district from +profits made in the district--profits made by reason of cheating the +crippled and the killed, profits made by long deadly hours of labor, +profits made by cooking men's lungs on the slag dump, profits made by +choking men to death, unrequited, in cement dust, profits sweated out of +the men at the glass furnaces--where capital has appropriated unjustly, +we expect to appropriate justly. We shall take nothing that we do not +own. This is the beginning of the rise of the Democracy of Labor--the +dawn of the new day." He waved his arm and his steel claw and chanted: + + "March on!--March on!--all hearts resolved," + +And in a wave of song the response came + + "To victory or death." + +Grant Adams flaunted his black slouch hat; then he sprang from the +platform, and hurried to the front of the procession. The band struck up +a lively tune and the long trail of white-clad women and white-badged +men became animate. + +"Well, Ahab--you heard that? That is rebellion," said old Joe, squinting +his mole-like eyes. "What are you going to do about that--as the chief +priest of law and order in this community?" + +Five minutes later Ahab Wright, greatly impressed with the dignity of +his position, and with the fact that he was talking to so superior a +person as a governor, was saying: + +"Yes, your excellency--yes, I wanted to tell you of our conditions here +in the Valley. It's serious--quite serious." To the Governor's question +the Mayor replied: + +"No--no--not yet, but we want to prevent it. This man Adams--Grant +Adams, you've heard about him--" + +And then an instant later he continued, "Yes--that's the man, +Governor--Dr. Nesbit's friend. Well, this man Adams has no respect for +authority, nor for property rights, and he's stirring up the people." + +Young Joe Calvin winked at his father and said during the pause, + +"That's the stuff--the old man's coming across like a top." + +Ahab went on: "Exactly--'false and seditious doctrines,' and I'm afraid, +Governor, that it will be wise to send us some troops." + +The Calvins exchanged approving nods, and young Joe, having the +enthusiasm of youth in his blood, beat his desk in joyous approval of +the trend of events. + +"Oh, I don't know as to that," continued Ahab, answering the Governor. +"We have about four thousand men--perhaps a few more out. You know how +many troops can handle them." + +"Tell him we'll quarter them in the various plants, Ahab," cut in old +Joe, and Ahab nodded as he listened. + +"Well, don't wait for the tents," he said. "Our people will quarter the +men in the buildings in the centers of the disturbance. Our merchants +can supply your quartermaster with everything. We have about a thousand +policemen and deputy sheriffs--" + +While the Mayor was listening to the Governor, Calvin senior said to his +son, "Probably we'd better punch him up with that promise about the +provo marshal," and young Joe interrupted: + +"And, Mr. Mayor, don't forget to remind him of the promise he made to +Tom Van Dorn,--about me." + +Ahab nodded and listened. "Wait," he said, putting his hand over the +telephone receiver, and added in a low voice to those in the room: "He +was just talking about that and thinks he will not proclaim martial law +until there is actual violence--which he feels will follow the coming of +the troops, when the men see he is determined. He said then that he +expected Captain Calvin of the Harvey Company to take charge, and the +Governor will speak to the other officers about it." Ahab paused a +moment for further orders. "Well," said the elder Calvin, "I believe +that's all." + +"Will there be anything else to-day, Joe?" asked Ahab, unconsciously +assuming his counter manner to young Joe Calvin, who replied without a +smile: + +"Well--no--not to-day, thank you," and Ahab went back to the Governor +and ended the parley. + +The _Times_ the next morning with flaring headlines announced that +the Governor had decided to send troops to the Wahoo Valley to protect +the property in the mines and mills for the rightful owners and to +prevent any further incendiary speaking and rioting such as had +disgraced Market Street the day before. In an editorial the Governor was +advised to proclaim martial law, as only the strictest repression would +prevent the rise of anarchy and open rebellion to the authorities. + +The troops came on the early morning trains, and filed into the sheds +occupied by the workmen before the strike. The young militiamen +immediately began pervading South Harvey, Foley and Magnus, and when the +strikers lined up before the gates and doors of their former working +places at seven o'clock that morning they met a brown line of +youths--devil-may-care young fellows out for a lark, who liked to prod +the workmen with their bayonets and who laughingly ordered the strikers +to stop trying to keep the strike-breakers from going to work. The +strikers were bound by their pledges to the Trades Council not to touch +the strike-breakers under any circumstances. The strikers--white-badged +and earnest-faced--made their campaign by lining up five on each side of +a walk or path through which the strike-breakers would have to pass to +their work, and crying: + +"Help us, and we'll help you. Don't scab on us--keep out of the works, +and we'll see that you are provided for. Join us--don't turn your backs +on your fellow workers." + +They would stretch out their arms in mute appeal when words failed, and +they brought dozens of strike-breakers away from their work. And on the +second morning of the strike not a wheel turned in the district. + +All morning Grant Adams moved among the men. He was a marked +figure--with his steel claw--and he realized that he was regarded by the +militiamen as an ogre. A young militiaman had hurt a boy in +Magnus--pricked him in the leg and cut an artery. Grant tried to see the +Colonel of the company to protest. But the soldier had been to the +officer with his story, and Grant was told that the boy attacked the +militiaman--which, considering that the boy was a child in his early +teens and the man was armed and in his twenties, was unlikely. But Grant +saw that his protests would not avail. He issued a statement, gave it to +the press correspondents who came flocking in with the troops, and sent +it to the Governor, who naturally transferred it back to the militiamen. + +In the afternoon the parade started again--the women and children in +white, and the men in white coats and white working caps. It formed on a +common between Harvey and South Harvey, and instead of going into Harvey +turned down into the Valley where it marched silently around the quiet +mills and shafts and to the few tenements where the strike-breakers were +lodged. A number of them were sitting at the windows and on the steps +and when the strikers saw the men in the tenements, they raised their +arms in mute appeal, but spoke no word. Down the Valley the procession +hurried and in every town repeated this performance. The troops had +gathered in Harvey and were waiting, and it was not until after three +o'clock that they started after the strikers. A troop of cavalry +overtook the column in Foley, and rode through the line a few times, but +no one spoke, and the cavalrymen rode along the line but did not try to +break it. So the third day passed without a fire in a furnace in the +district. + +That night Grant Adams addressed the strikers in Belgian Hall in South +Harvey, in Fraternity Hall in Magnus and on a common in Foley. The +burden of his message was this: "Stick--stick to the strike and to our +method. If we can demonstrate the fact that we have the brains to +organize, to abandon force, to maintain ourselves financially, to put +our cause before our fellow workers so clearly that they will join +us--we can win, we can enter into the partnership in these mills that is +ours by right. The Democracy of Labor is a Democracy of Peace--only in +peace, only by using the higher arts of peace under great provocation +may we establish that Democracy and come into our own. +Stick--stick--stick to the strike and stick to the ways of peace. Let +them rally to their Colonels and their tin soldiers--and we shall not +fear--for we are gathered about the Prince of Peace." + +The workmen always rose to this appeal and in Foley where the Letts had +worked in the slag-dump, one of them, who did not quite understand the +association of words implied by the term the Prince of Peace, cried: + +"Hurrah for Grant, he is the Prince of Peace," and the good natured +crowd laughed and cheered the man's mistake. + +But the _Times_ the next morning contained this head: + + "Shame on Grant Adams, Trying to Inflame Ignorant Foreigners. + Declares he is the Prince of Peace and gets Applause from his + Excited Dupes--Will he Claim to be Messiah?" + +It was a good story--from a purely sensational viewpoint, and it was +telegraphed over the country, that Grant Adams, the labor leader, was +claiming to be a messiah and was rallying foreigners to him by +supernatural powers. The _Times_ contained a vicious editorial +calling on all good citizens to stamp out the blasphemous cult that +Adams was propagating. The editorial said that the authorities should +not allow such a man to speak on the streets maintained by tax-payers, +and that with the traitorous promises of ownership of the mines and +mills backing up such a campaign, rebellion would soon be stalking the +street and bloodshed such as had not been seen in America for a +generation would follow. The names which the _Times_ called Grant +Adams indicated so much malice, that Grant felt encouraged, and believed +he had the strike won, if he could keep down violence. So triumph +flambeaued itself on his face. For two peaceful days had passed. And +peace was his signal of victory. + +But during the night a trainload of strike-breakers came from Chicago. +They were quartered in the railroad yards, and Grant ordered a thousand +pickets out to meet the men at daybreak. Grant called out the groups of +seven and each lodging house, tenement and car on the railroad siding +was parceled out to a group. Moreover, Grant threw his army into action +by ordering twenty groups into Sands Park, through which the +strike-breaking smelter men would pass after the pickets had spoken to +the strike-breakers in their door yards. Lining the park paths, men +stood in the early morning begging working men not to go into the places +made vacant by the strike. In addition to this, he posted other groups +of strikers to stand near the gates and doors of the working places, +begging the strike-breakers to join the strikers. + +Grant Adams, in his office, was the motive power of the strike. By +telephone his power was transferred all over the district. Violet Hogan +and Henry Fenn were with him. Two telephones began buzzing as the first +strikers went into Sands Park. Fenn, sitting by Grant, picked up the +first transmitter; Violet took the other. She took the message in +shorthand. Fenn translated a running jargon between breaths. + +"Police down in Foley--Clubbing the Letts.--No bloodshed.--They are +running back to their gardens." + +"Tell the French to take their places," said Grant--"There are four +French sevens--tell him to get them out right away--but not to fight the +cops. Militia there?" + +"No," answered Fenn, "they are guarding the mill doors, and this +happened in the streets near the lodging houses." + +"Mr. Adams," said Violet, reading, "there's some kind of a row in Sands +Park. The cavalry is there and Ira Dooley says to tell you to clear out +the Park or there will be trouble." + +"Get the boys on the phone, Violet, and tell them I said leave the Park, +then, and go to the shaft houses in Magnus--but to march in +silence--understand?" + +Fenn picked up the transmitter again, "What's that--what's that--" he +cried. Then he mumbled on, "He says the cops have ax-handles and that +down by the smelters they are whacking our people right and left--Three +in an ambulance?--The Slavs won't take it? Cop badly hurt?" asked Fenn. + +Grant Adams groaned, and put his head in his hand, and leaned on the +desk. He rose up suddenly with a flaming face and said: "I'm going down +there--I can stop it." + +He bolted from the room and rattled down the stairs. In a minute he came +running up. "Violet--" he called to the woman who was busy at the +telephone--"shut that man off and order a car for me quick--they've +stolen my crank and cut every one of my tires. For God's sake be +quick--I must get down to those Slavs." + +In a moment Violet had shut off her interviewer, and was calling the +South Harvey Garage. Henry Fenn, busy with his phone, looked up with a +drawn face and cried: + +"Grant--the Cossacks--the Cossacks are riding down those little Italians +in Sands Park--chasing them like dogs from the paths--they say the +cavalry is using whips!" + +Grant stood with bowed head and arched shoulders listening. The muscles +of his jaw contracted, and he snapped his teeth. + +"Any one hurt?" he asked. Fenn, with the receiver to his ear went on, +"The Dagoes are not fighting back--the cavalrymen are shooting in the +air, but--the lines are broken--the scabs are marching to the mines +through a line of soldiers--we've stopped about a third from the +cars--they are forming at the upper end of the Park--our men, they--" + +"Good-by," shouted Grant, as he heard a motor car whirring in the +distance. + +Turning out of the street he saw a line of soldiers blocking his way. He +had the driver turn, and at the next corner found himself blocked in. +Once more he tried, and again found himself fenced in. He jumped from +the car, and ran, head down, toward the line of young fellows in khaki +blocking the street. As he came up to them he straightened up, and, +striking with his hook a terrific blow, the bayonet that would have +stopped him, Grant caught the youth's coat in the steel claw, whirled +him about and was gone in a second. + +He ran through alleys and across commons until he caught a street car +for the smelters. Here he heard the roar of the riot. He saw the new +ax-handles of the policemen beating the air, and occasionally thudding +on a man's back or head. The Slavs were crying and throwing clods and +stones. Grant ran up and bellowed in his great voice: + +"Quit it--break away--there, you men. Let the cops alone. Do you want to +lose this strike?" + +A policeman put his hand on Grant's shoulder to arrest him. Grant +brushed him aside. + +"Break away there, boys," he called. The Slavs were standing staring at +him. Several bloody faces testified to the effectiveness of the +ax-handles. + +"Stand back--stand back. Get to your lines," he called, glaring at them. +They fell under his spell and obeyed. When they were quiet he walked +over to them, and said gently: + +"It's all right, boys--grin and bear it. We'll win. You couldn't help +it--I couldn't either." He smiled. "But try--try next time." The +strike-breakers were huddled back of the policemen. + +"Men," he shouted to the strike-breakers over the heads of the +policemen, "this strike is yours as well as ours. We have money to keep +you, if you will join us. Come with us--comrades--Oh, comrades, stand +with us in this fight! Go in there and they'll enslave you--they'll +butcher you and kill you and offer you a lawsuit for your blood. We +offer you justice, if we win. Come, come," he cried, "fellow +workers--comrades, help us to have peace." + +The policemen formed a line into the door of the shaft house. The +strike-breakers hesitated. Grant approached the line of policemen, put +up his arm and his maimed hand, lifted his rough, broken face skyward +and cried, "O--O--O, God, pour Thy peace into their hearts that they may +have mercy on their comrades." + +A silence fell, the strike-breakers began to pass through the police +lines to join the strikers. At first only one at a time, then two. And +then, the line broke and streamed around the policemen. A great cheer +went up from the street, and Grant Adams's face twitched and his eyes +filled with tears. Then he hurried away. + +It was eight o'clock and the picketing for the day was done, when Grant +reached his office. + +"Well," said Fenn, who had Violet's notes before him, "it's considerably +better than a dog fall. They haven't a smelter at work. Two shafts are +working with about a third of a force, and we feel they are bluffing. +The glass works furnaces are cold. The cement mills are dead. They beat +up the Italians pretty badly over in the Park." + +The _Times_ issued a noon extra to tell of the incident in front of +the smelter, and expatiated upon the Messianic myth. A tirade against +Grant Adams in black-faced type three columns wide occupied the center +of the first page of the extra, and in Harvey people began to believe +that he was the "Mad Mullah" that the _Times_ said he was. + +When Dr. Nesbit drove his electric home that noon, he found his daughter +waiting for him. She stood on the front porch, with a small valise +beside her. She was dressed in white and her youthful skin, fresh lips, +glowing eyes and heightened color made her seem younger than the woman +of forty that she was. Her father saw in her face the burning purpose to +serve which had come to indicate her moments of decision. The Doctor had +grown used to that look of decision and he knew that it was in some way +related to South Harvey and the strike. For during her years of work in +the Valley, its interests had grown to dominate her life. But the Valley +and its interests had unfolded her soul to its widest reach, to its +profoundest depths. And in her features were blazoned, at times, all the +love and joy and strength that her life had gathered. These were the +times when she wore what her father called "the Valley look." She had +"the Valley look" in her face that day when she stood waiting for her +father with the valise beside her--a beautiful woman. + +"Father--now don't stop me, dear. I'm going to Grant. Mother will be +home in a few days. I've told Lila to stay with Martha Morton when you +are not here. It's always secure and tranquil up here, you know. But I'm +going down in the Valley. I'm going to the strike." + +"Going to the strike?" repeated her father. + +"Yes," she answered, turning her earnest eyes upon him as she spoke. +"It's the first duty I have on earth--to be with my people in this +crisis. All these years they have borne me up; have renewed my faith; +they have given me courage. Now is my turn, father. Where they go, I go +also." She smiled gently and added, "I'm going to Grant." + +She took her father's hands. "Father--Oh, my good friend--you understand +me--Grant and me?--don't you? Every man in the crisis of his life needs +a woman. I've been reading about Grant in the papers. I can see what +really has happened. But he doesn't understand how what they say +happens, for the next few days or weeks or months, while this strike is +on, is of vastly more importance than what really happens. He lacks +perspective on himself. A woman, if she is a worthy friend--gives that +to a man. I'm going to Grant--to my good friend, father, and stand with +him--very close, and very true, I hope!" + +Trouble moved over the Doctor's face in a cloud. "I don't know about +Grant, Laura," he said. "All this Messiah and Prince of Peace +tomfoolery--and--" + +"Why, you know it never happened, don't you, father? You know Grant is +not a fool--nor mad?" + +"Oh, I suppose so, Laura--but he approximates both at times," piped the +father raspingly. + +"Father--listen here--listen to me, dear. I know Grant--I've known him +always. This is what is the matter with Grant. I don't think one act in +all his life was based on a selfish or an ulterior motive. He has spent +his life lavishly for others. He has given himself without let or +hindrance for his ideals--he gave up power and personal glory--all for +this cause of labor. He has been maimed and broken for it--has failed +for it; and now you see what clouds are gathering above him--and I must +go to him. I must be with him." + +"But for what good, Laura?" asked her father impatiently. + +"For my own soul's good and glory, dear," she answered solemnly. "To +live my faith; to stand by the people with whom I have cast my lot; to +share the great joy that I know is in Grant's heart--the joy of serving; +to triumph in his failure if it comes to that!--to be happy--with him, +as I know him no matter what chance and circumstance surround him. +Oh--father--" + +She looked up with brimming eyes and clasped his hand tightly while she +cried: "I must go--Oh, bless me as I go--" And the father kissed her +forehead. + +An hour later, while Grant Adams, in his office, was giving directions +for the afternoon parade a white-clad figure brightened the doorway. + +"Well, Grant, I have come to serve," she smiled, "under you." + +He turned and rose and took her hands in his one flinty hand and said +quietly: "We need you--we need you badly right this minute." + +She answered, "Very well, then--I'm ready!" + +"Well, go out and work--talk peace, don't let them fight, hold the line +calm and we'll win," he said. + +She started away and he cried after her, "Come to Belgian Hall +to-night--we may need you there. The strike committee and the leader of +each seven will be there. It will be a war council." + +Out to the works went Laura Van Dorn. Mounted policemen or mounted +deputies or mounted militiamen stood at every gate. As the +strike-breakers came out they were surrounded by the officers of the +law, who marched away with the strangers. The strikers followed, calling +upon their fellow workers, stretching out pleading arms to them and at +corners where the strikers were gathered in any considerable numbers, +the guards rode into the crowd waving their whips. At a corner near the +Park a woman stepped from the crowd and cried to the officers: + +"That's my boy in there--I've got a right to talk to him." + +She started to crowd between the horses, and the policemen thrust her +back. + +"Karl--Karl," she cried, "you come out of there; what would papa +say--and you a scab." + +She lifted her arms beseechingly and started toward the youth. A +policeman cursed her and felled her with a club. + +She lay bleeding on the street, and the strikers stood by and ground +their teeth. Laura Van Dorn stooped over the woman, picked her up and +helped her to walk home. But as she turned away she saw five men walk +out of the ranks of the strike-breakers and join the men on the corner. +A cheer went up, and two more came. + +Belgian Hall was filled with workers that night--men and women. In front +of the stage at a long table sat the strike committee. Before them sat +the delegates from the various "locals" and the leaders of the sevens. A +thousand men and women filled the hall--men and women from every quarter +of the globe. That night they had decided to admit the Jews from the +Magnus paint works--the Jews whom the Russians scorned, and the Lettish +people distrusted. Behind all of the delegates in a solid row around the +wall stood the police, watching Grant Adams. He did not sit with the +strike committee but worked his way through the crowd, talking to a +group here and encouraging a man or woman there--but always restless, +always fearing trouble. It was nine o'clock when the meeting opened by +singing "The International." It was sung in twenty tongues, but the +chorus swelled up and men and women wept as they sang. + + "Oh, the Brotherhood of men + Shall be the human race." + +Then the delegates reported. A Greek woman told how she had been chased +by men on horseback through the woods, in the Park. A Polack man showed +a torn hand that had come under an ax-handle. A Frenchman told how he +had been pursued by a horseman while going for medicine for his sick +child. A Portuguese told how he had brought from the ranks of the +strike-breakers a big fellow worker whom he knew in New Jersey. The +Germans reported that every one of their men in the Valley was out and +working in his garden. Over and over young girls told of insults they +had received. A mania of brutality seemed to have spread through the +officers of the law. A Scotch miner's daughter showed a tear in her +dress made by a soldier's bayonet-- + +"'In fun,' he said, but I could see na joke." + +In all the speeches there was a spirit of camaraderie--of fellowship, of +love. "We are one blood now," a Danish miner cried, in broken English, +"we are all Americans, and America will be a brotherhood--a brotherhood +in the Democracy of Labor, under the Prince of Peace." A great shout +arose and the crowd called: + +"Grant--Grant--Brother Grant." + +But he stood by the table and shook his head. After a girl picket and a +woman--one a Welsh girl, the other a Manx miner's mother--had told how +they were set upon in the Park by the soldiers, up rose a pale, +trembling woman from among the Hungarians, her brown, blotched face and +her big body made the men look down or away. She spoke in broken, +uncertain English. + +"We haf send to picket our men and yet our boys, and they beat them +down. We haf our girls send, and they come home crying. But I say to God +this evening--Oh, is there nothing for me--for me carrying child, and He +whisper yais--these soldiers, he haf wife, he haf mother." She paused +and shook with fear and shame. "Then I say to you--call home your +man--your girl so young, and we go--we women with child--we with big +bellies, filled with unborn--we go--O, my God, He say we go, and this +soldier--he haf wife, he haf mother--he will see;--we--we--they will not +strike us down. Send us, oh, Grant, Prince of Peace, to the picket line +next morning." + +Her voice broke and she sat down covering her head with her skirt and +weeping in excitement. + +"Let me go," cried a clear voice, as a brown-eyed Welsh woman rose. "I +know ten others that will go." + +"I also," cried a German woman. "Let us organize to-night. We can have +two hundred child-bearing women!" + +"Yes, men," spoke up a trim-looking young wife from among the +glassworkers, "we of old have been sacred--let us see if capital holds +us sacred now--before property." + +Grant leaned over to Laura and asked, "Would it do? Wouldn't they shame +us for it?" + +The eyes of Laura Van Dorn were filled with tears. They were streaming +down her face. + +"Oh, yes," she cried, "no deeper symbol of peace is in the earth than +the child-bearing woman. Let her go." + +Grant Adams rose and addressed the chair: "Mr. Chairman--I move that all +men and all women except those chosen by these who have just spoken, be +asked to keep out of the Park to-morrow morning, that all the world may +know how sacred we hold this cause and with what weapons of peace we +would win it." + +So it was ordered, and the crowd sang the International Hymn again, and +then the Marseillaise, and went home dreaming high dreams. + +As Grant and Laura walked from the hall, the last to leave the meeting, +after the women had finished making out their list of pickets, the +streets were empty and they met--or rather failed to meet, Mrs. Dick +Bowman, with Mugs in tow, who crossed the street obviously to avoid +Grant and his companion. + +Grant and Laura, walking briskly along and planning the next day's work, +passed the smelters where the soldiers were on sentry duty. They passed +the shaft houses where Harvey militiamen were bunked and guarded by +sentinels. They passed the habiliments of war in a score of peaceful +places. + +"Grant," cried Laura, "I really think now we'll win--that the strike of +peace will prove all that you have lived for." + +"But if we fail," he replied, "it proves nothing--except perhaps that it +was worth trying, and will be worth trying and trying and trying--until +it wins!" + +It was half past twelve. Grant Adams, standing before the Vanderbilt +House, talking with Henry Fenn, was saying, "Well, Henry, one week of +this--one week of peace--and the triumph of peace will be--" + +A terrific explosion shut his mouth. Across the night he saw a red glare +a few hundred feet away. An instant later it was dark again. He ran +toward the place where the glare had winked out. As he turned a corner, +he saw stars where there should have been shaft house No. 7 of the Wahoo +Fuel Company's mines, and he knew that it had been destroyed. In it were +a dozen sleeping soldiers of the Harvey Militia Company, and it flashed +through his mind that Lida Bowman at last had spoken. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVII + +IN WHICH GRANT ADAMS AND LAURA VAN DORN TAKE A WALK DOWN MARKET STREET +AND MRS. NESBIT ACQUIRES A LONG LOST GRANDSON-IN-LAW + + +Grant Adams and Henry Fenn were among the first to arrive at the scene +of the explosion. Henry Fenn had tried to stop Grant from going so +quickly, thinking his presence at the scene would raise a question of +his guilt, but he cried: + +"They may need me, Henry--come on--what's a quibble of guilt when a +life's to save?" + +When they came to the pile of debris, they saw Dick Bowman coming +up--barefooted, coatless and breathless. Grant and Fenn had run less +than fifteen hundred feet--Dick lived a mile from the shaft house. Grant +Adams's mind flashed suspicion toward the Bowmans. He went to Dick +across the wreckage and said: + +"Oh, Dick--I'm sorry you didn't get here sooner." + +"So am I--so am I," cried Dick, craning his long neck nervously. + +"Where is Mugs?" asked Grant, as the two worked with a beam over a +body--the body of handsome Fred Kollander--lying near the edge of the +litter. + +"He's home in bed and asleep--and so's his mother, too, Grant, sound +asleep." + +During the first minutes after the explosion, men near by like Grant and +Fenn came running to the scene of the wrecked shaft by the scores, and +as Grant and Dick Bowman spoke the streets grew black with men, workmen, +policemen, soldiers, citizens, men by the hundreds came hurrying up. The +great siren whistles of the water and light plants began to bellow; fire +bells and church bells up in Harvey began to ring, and Grant knew that +the telephone was alarming the town. Ten minutes after the explosion, +while Grant was ordering his men in the crowd to organize for the +rescue, a militia colonel appeared, threw a cordon of men about the +ruins and the police and soldiers took charge, forcing Grant and his men +away. The first few moments after he had been thrust out of the relief +work, Grant spent sending his men in the crowd to summon the members of +the Council; then he turned and hurried to his office in the Vanderbilt +House. For an hour he wrote. Henry Fenn came, and later Laura Van Dorn +appeared, but he waved them both to silence, and without telling them +what he had written he went with them to the hall where the Valley +Council was waiting in a turmoil of excitement. It was after two +o'clock. South Harvey was a military camp. Thousands of citizens from +Harvey were hurrying about. As he passed along the street, the electric +lights showed him little groups about some grief-stricken parent or +brother or sister of a missing militiaman. Automobiles were roaring +through the streets carrying officers, policemen, prominent citizens of +Harvey. Ahab Wright and Joe Calvin and Kyle Perry were in a car with +John Kollander who had come down to South Harvey to claim the body of +his son, Fred. Grant saw the Sands's car with Morty in it supporting a +stricken soldier. The car was halted at the corner by the press of +traffic, and as Grant and Laura and Henry passed, Morty said under the +din: "Grant--Grant, be careful--they are turning Heaven and earth to +find your hand in this; it will be only a matter of days--maybe only +hours, until they will have their witnesses hired!" + +Grant nodded. The car moved on and Grant and his friends pressed through +the throng to the hall where the Valley Council was waiting. There Grant +stood and read what he had written. It ran thus: + +"For the death by dynamite of the militiamen who perished at midnight in +shaft No. 7 of the Wahoo Fuel Company's mines, I take full +responsibility. I have assumed a leadership in a strike which caused +these deaths. I shirk no whit of my share in this outrage. Yet I +preached only peace. I pleaded for orderly conduct. I appealed to the +workers to take their own not by force of arms but by the tremendous +force of moral right. That ten thousand workers respected this appeal, I +am exceedingly proud. That one out of all the ten thousand was not +convinced of the justice of our cause and the ultimate triumph by the +force of righteousness I am sorry beyond words. I call upon my comrades +to witness what a blow to our cause this murder has been and to stand +firm in the faith that the strike must win by ways of peace. + +"Yet, whoever did this deed was not entirely to blame--however it may +cripple his fellow-workers. A child mangled in the mines denied his +legal damages; men clubbed for telling of their wrongs to their +fellow-laborers who were asked to fill their places; women on the picket +line, herded like deer through the park by Cossacks whipping the fleeing +creatures mercilessly; these things inflamed the mind of the man who set +off the bomb; these things had their share in the murder. + +"But I knew what strikes were. I know indeed what strikes still are and +what this strike may be. I sorrow with those families whose boys +perished by the bomb in shaft house No. 7. I grieve with the families of +those who have been beaten and broken in this strike. But by all this +innocent blood--blood shed by the working people--blood shed by those +who ignorantly misunderstand us, I now beg you, my comrades, to stand +firm in this strike. Let not this blood be shed in vain. It may be +indeed that the men of the master class here have not descended as +deeply as we may expect them to descend. They may feel that more blood +must be spilled before they let us come into our own. But if blood is +shed again, we must bleed, but let it not be upon our hands. + +"Again, even in this breakdown of our high hopes for a strike without +violence, I lift my voice in faith, I hail the coming victory, I +proclaim that the day of the Democracy of Labor is at hand, and it shall +come in peace and good will to all." + +When he had finished reading his statement, he sat down and the Valley +Council began to discuss it. Many objected to it; others wished to have +it modified; still others agreed that it should be published as he had +read it. In the end, he had his way. But in the hubbub of the +discussion, Laura Van Dorn, sitting near him, asked: + +"Grant, why do you take all this on your shoulders? It is not fair, and +it is not true--for that matter." + +He answered finally: "Well, that's what I propose to do." + +He was haggard and careworn and he stared at the woman beside him with +determination in his eyes. But she would not give up. Again she +insisted: "The people are inflamed--terribly inflamed and in the morning +they will be in no mood for this. It may put you in jail--put you where +you are powerless." + +He turned upon her the stubborn, emotional face that she rarely had seen +but had always dreaded. He answered her: + +"If anything were to be gained for the comrades by waiting--I'd wait." +Then his jaws closed in decision as he said: "Laura, that deed was done +in blind rage by one who once risked his life to save mine. Then he +acted not blindly but in the light of a radiance from the Holy Ghost in +his heart! If I can help him now--can even share his shame with him--I +should do it. And in this case--I think it will help the cause to make a +fair confession of our weakness." + +"But, Grant," cried the woman, "Grant--can't you see that the murder of +these boys--these Harvey boys, the boys whose mothers and fathers and +sweethearts and young wives and children are going about the streets as +hourly witnesses against you and our fellow-workers here--will arouse a +mob spirit that is dangerous?" + +"Yes--I see that. But if anything can quell the mob spirit, frank, +open-hearted confession will do it." He brushed aside her further +protests and in another instant was on his feet defending his statement +to the Valley Council. Ten minutes later the reporters had it. + +At six o'clock in the morning posters covered South Harvey and the whole +district proclaiming martial law. They were signed by Joseph Calvin, +Jr., provost marshal, and they denied the right of assembly, except upon +written order of the provost marshal, declared that incendiary speech +would be stopped, forbade parades except under the provost marshal's +inspection, and said that offenders would be tried by court-martial for +all disobediences to the orders of the proclamation. The proclamation +was underscored in its requirements that no meeting of any kind might be +held in the district or on any lot or in any building except upon +written consent of the owner of the lot or building and with the +permission of the provost marshal. Belgian Hall was a rented hall, and +the Wahoo Fuel Company controlled most of the available town lots, +leaving only the farms of the workers, that were planted thick with +gardens, for even the most inoffensive meeting. + +And at ten o'clock Grant Adams had signed a counter proclamation +declaring that the proclamation of martial law in a time of peace was an +usurpation of the constitutional rights of American citizens, and that +they must refuse to recognize any authority that abridged the right of +free assemblage, a free press, free speech and a trial by jury. Amos +Adams sent the workers an invitation to meet in the grove below his +house. Grant called a meeting for half-past twelve at the Adams +homestead. It was a direct challenge. + +The noon extra edition of the _Times_, under the caption, "The +Governor Is Right," contained this illuminating editorial: + + "Seven men dead--dynamited to death by Grant Adams; seven men + dead--the flower of the youth of Harvey; seven men dead for no + crime but serving their country, and Grant Adams loose, + poisoning the minds of his dupes, prating about peace in public + and plotting cowardly assassination in private. Of course, the + Governor was right. Every good citizen of this country will + commend him for prompt and vigorous action. In less than an hour + after the bomb had sent the seven men of the Harvey Home Guards + to eternity, the Governor had proclaimed martial law in this + district, and from now on, no more incendiary language, no more + damnable riots, miscalled parades will menace property, and no + more criminal acts done under the cover of the jury system will + disgrace this community under the leadership of this creature + Adams. + + "In his manifesto pulingly taking the blame for a crime last + night so obviously his that mere denial would add blood to the + crime itself, Adams says in extenuation that 'women were herded + before the Cossacks like deer in the park,' while they were + picketing. But he does not say that in the shameful cowardice so + characteristic of his leadership in this labor war, he forced, + by his own motion, women unfit to be seen in public, much less + to fight his battles, under the hoofs of the horses in Sands + Park this morning, and if the Greek woman, who claims she was + dragooned should die, the fault, the crime of her death in + revolting circumstances, will be upon Grant Adams's hands. + + "When such a leader followed by blind zealots like the riff-raff + who are insanely trailing after this Mad Mullah who claims + divine powers--save the mark--when such leaders and such human + vermin as these rise in a community, the people who own + property, who have built up the community, who have spent their + lives making Harvey the proud industrial center that she is--the + people who own property, we repeat, should organize to protect + it. The Governor suspending while this warlike state exists the + right of anarchists who turn it against law and order, the right + of assembling, and speech and trial by jury, has set a good + example. We hear from good authority that the Adams anarchists + are to be aided by another association even more reckless than + he and his, and that Greeley county will be flooded by bums and + thugs and plug-uglies who will fill our jails and lay the burden + of heavy taxes upon our people pretending to defend the rights + of free speech. + + "A law and order league should be organized among the business + men of Harvey to rid the county of these rats breeding social + disease, and if courageous hearts are needed, and extraordinary + methods necessary--all honest people will uphold the patriots + who rally to this cause." + +At twelve o 'clock crowds of working people began to swarm into Adams's +grove. Five hundred horsemen were lined up at the gate. Around a +temporary speaker's stand a squad of policemen was formed. The crowd +stood waiting. Grant Adams did not appear. The crowd grew restless; it +began to fear that he had been arrested, that there had been some +mishap. Laura Van Dorn, sensing the uncertainty and discouragement of +the crowd, decided to try to hold it. It seemed to her as she watched +the uneasiness rising slowly to impatience in the men and women about +her, that it was of much importance--tremendous importance indeed--to +hold these people to their faith, not especially in Grant, though to her +that seemed necessary, too, but at bottom to hold their faith firm in +themselves, in their own powers to better themselves, to rise of their +own endeavors, to build upon themselves! So she walked quickly to the +policeman before the steps leading to the stand and said smilingly: + +"Pardon me," and stepped behind him and was on the stand before he +realized that he had been fooled. Her white-clad figure upon the +platform attracted a thousand eyes in a second, and in a moment she was +speaking: + +"I am here to defend our ancient rights of meeting, speaking, and trial +by jury." A policeman started for her. She smiled and waved him back +with such a dignity of mien that her very manner stopped him. + +When he hesitated, knowing that she was a person of consequence in +Harvey, she went on: "No cause can thrive until it maintains anew its +right to speech, to assemble and to have its day in court before a jury. +Every cause must fight this world-old fight--and then if it is a just +cause, when it has won those ancient rights--which are not rights at all +but are merely ancient battle grounds on which every cause must fight, +then any cause may stand a chance to win. I think we should make it +clear now that as free-born Americans, no one has a right to stop us +from meeting and speaking; no one has a right to deny us jury trials. I +believe the time has come when we should ignore rather definitely--" she +paused, and turned to the policeman standing beside her, "we should +ignore rather finally this proclamation of the provost marshal and +should insist rather firmly that he shall try to enforce it." + +A policeman stepped suddenly and menacingly toward her. She did not +flinch. The dignity of five generations of courtly Satterthwaites rose +in her as she gazed at the clumsy officer. She saw Grant Adams coming up +at a side entrance to the grove. The policeman stopped. She desired to +divert the policeman and the crowd from Grant Adams. The crowd tittering +at the quick halt of the policeman, angered him. Again he stepped toward +her. His face was reddening. The Satterthwaite dignity mounted, but the +Nesbit mind guided her, and she said coldly: "All right, sir, but you +must club me. I'll not give up my rights here so easily." + +Three officers made a rush for her, grabbed her by the arms, and, +struggling, she went off the platform, but she left Grant Adams standing +upon it and a cheering crowd saw the ruse. + +"I'm here," he boomed out in his great voice, "because 'the woods were +man's first temples' and we'll hold them for that sacred right to-day." +The police were waiting for him to put his toe across the line of +defiance. "We'll transgress this order of little Joe Calvin's--why, he +might as well post a trespass notice against snowslides as against this +forward moving cause of labor." His voice rose, "I'm here to tell you +that under your rights as citizens of this Republic, and under your +rights in the coming Democracy of Labor, I bid you tear up these martial +law proclamations to kindle fires in your stoves." + +He glared at the policemen and held up his hand to stop them as they +came. "Listen," he cried, "I'm going to give you better evidence than +that against me. I, as the leader of this strike--take this down, Mr. +Stenographer, there--I'll say it slowly; I, as the leader of this +movement of the Democracy of Labor, as the preacher preaching the era of +good will and comradeship all over the earth, bid you, my +fellow-workers, meet to preach Christ's workingman's gospel wherever you +can hire a hall or rent a lot, to parade your own streets, and to bare +your heads to clubs and your breasts to bullets if need be to restore in +this district the right of trial by jury in times of peace. And +now,"--the crowd roared its approval. He glared defiance at the +policemen. He raised his voice above the din, "And now I want to tell +you something more. Our property in these mills and mines--" again the +crowd bellowed its joyous approval of his words and Grant's face lighted +madly, "our property--the property we have earned, we must guard against +the violence of the very master class themselves; for under this +infernal Russian ukase of little Joe Calvin, the devil only knows what +arson and loot and murder--" the crowd howled wildly; a policeman blew +his whistle and when the melee was over Grant Adams was in the midst of +the blue-coated squad marching toward the gate. + +At the gate, on a pawing white horse, sat young Joe Calvin. The crowd, +following the officers, came upon the first squad of policemen--the +squad that took Laura Van Dorn from the stand. The two squads joined +with their prisoners, and back of the officers came the yelling, hooting +crowd, pushing the officers along. As the officers came up, the provost +marshal cried: + +"Turn them over to my men here. Men, handcuff them together." In an +instant it was done. + +Then the cavalry formed in two lines, and between them marched Laura Van +Dorn and Grant Adams, manacled together. Up through the weed-grown +commons between South Harvey and the big town they marched under the +broiling sun. The crowd trudged after them--trailing behind for the most +part, but often running along by the horsemen and calling words of +sympathy to Grant or reviling the soldiers. + +Down Market Street they all came--soldiers, prisoners and straggling +crowd. The town, prepared by telephone for the sight, stood on the +streets and hurrahed for Joe Calvin. He had brought in his game, and if +one trophy was a trifle out of caste for a prisoner, a bit above her +station, so much the worse for her. The blood of the seven dead soldiers +was crying for vengeance in Harvey--the middle-class nerve had been +touched to the quick--and Market Street hooted at the prisoners, and +hailed Joe Calvin on his white charger as a hero of the day. + +For the mind of a crowd is a simple mind. It draws no fine distinctions. +It has no memory. It enjoys primitive emotions, and takes the most +rudimentary pleasures. The mind of the crowd on Market Street in Harvey +that bright, hot June day, when Joe Calvin on his white steed at the +head of his armed soldiers led Grant Adams and Laura Van Dorn up the +street to the court house, saw as plainly as any crowd could see +anything that Grant Adams was the slayer of seven mangled men, whose +torn bodies the crowd had seen at the undertaker's. It saw death and +violation of property rights as the fruit of Grant Adams's revolution, +and if this woman, who was of Market Street socially, cared to lower +herself to the level of assassins and thugs, she was getting only her +deserts. + +So Grant and Laura passed through the ranks of men and women whom they +knew and saw eyes turned away that might have recognized them, saw faces +averted to whom they might have looked for sympathy--and saw what power +on a white horse can make of a mediocre man! + +But Grant was not interested in power on a white horse, nor was he +interested in the woman who marched with him. His face kept turning to +the crowd from South Harvey that straggled beside him outside of the +line of horsemen about him. Now and then Grant caught the eyes of a +leader or of a friend and to such a one he would speak some earnest word +of cheer or give some belated order or message. Only once did Laura +divert him from the stragglers along the way. It was when Ahab Wright +ducked his head and drew down his office window in the second story of +the Wright & Perry building. "At least," said Laura, "it's a lesson +worth learning in human nature. I'll know how much a smile is worth +after this or the mere nod of a head. Not that I need it to sustain me, +Grant," she went on seriously, "so far as I'm concerned, but I can feel +how it would be to--well, to some one who needed it." + +Under the murmur of the crowd, Laura continued: "I know exactly with +what emotion pretty little Mrs. Joe Calvin will hear of this episode." + +"What?" queried Grant absently. His attention left her again, for the +men from South Harvey at whom he was directing volts of courage from his +blazing eyes. + +"Well--she'll be scared to death for fear mother and I will cut her +socially for it! She's dying to get into the inner circle, and she'll +abuse little Joe for this--which," smiled Laura, "will be my revenge, +and will be badly needed by little Joe." But she was talking to deaf +ears. + +A street car halted them before Brotherton's store for a minute. Grant +looked anxiously in the door way, and saw only Miss Calvin, who turned +away her head, after smiling at her brother. + +"I wonder where George can be?" asked Grant. + +"Don't you know?" replied Laura, looking wonderingly at him. "There's a +little boy at their house!" + +The crowd was hooting and cheering and the procession was just ready to +turn into the court house corner, when Grant felt Laura's quick hand +clasp. Grant was staring at Kenyon, white and wild-eyed, standing near +them on the curb. + +"Yes," he said in a low voice, "I see the poor kid." + +"No--no," she cried, "look down the block--see that electric! There +comes father, bringing mother back from the depot--Oh, Grant--I don't +mind for me, I don't mind much for father--but mother--won't some one +turn them up that street! Oh, Grant--Grant, look!" + +Less than one hundred feet before them the electric runabout was +beginning to wobble unsteadily. The guiding hand was trembling and +nervous. Mrs. Nesbit, leaning forward with horror in her face, was +clutching at her husband's arm, forgetful of the danger she was running. +The old Doctor's eyes were wide and staring. He bore unsteadily down +upon the procession, and a few feet from the head of the line, he jumped +from the machine. He was an old man, and every year of his seventy-five +years dragged at his legs, and clutched his shaking arms. + +"Joe Calvin--you devil," he screamed, and drew back his cane, "let her +go--let her go." + +The crowd stood mute. A blow from the cane cracked on the young legs as +the Doctor cried: + +"Oh, you coward--" and again lifted his cane. Joe Calvin tried to back +the prancing horse away. The blow hit the horse on the face, and it +reared, and for a second, while the crowd looked away in horror, lunged +above the helpless old man. Then, losing balance, the great white horse +fell upon the Doctor; but as the hoofs grazed his face, Kenyon Adams had +the old man round the waist and flung him aside. But Kenyon went down +under the horse. Calvin turned his horse; some one picked up the +fainting youth, and he was beside Mrs. Nesbit in the car a moment later, +a limp, unconscious thing. Grant and Laura ran to the car. Dr. Nesbit +stood dazed and impotent--an old man whose glory was of yesterday--a +weak old man, scorned and helpless. He turned away trembling with a +nervous palsy, and when he reached the side of the machine, his +daughter, trying to hide her manacled hand, kissed him and said +soothingly: + +"It's all right, father--young Joe's vexed at something I said down in +the Valley; he'll get over it in an hour. Then I'll come home." + +"And," gasped Mrs. Nesbit, "he--that whippersnapper," she gulped, +"dared--to lay hands on you; to--" + +Laura shook her head, to stop her mother from speaking of the +handcuff,--"to make you walk through Market Street--while," but she +could get no further. The crowd surrounded them. And in the midst of the +jostling and milling, the Doctor's instinct rose stronger than his rage. +He was fumbling for his medicine case, and trying to find something for +Kenyon. The old hands were at the young pulse, and he said unsteadily: + +"He'll be around in a few minutes." + +Some one in the crowd offered a big automobile. The Doctor got in, waved +to his daughter, and followed Mrs. Nesbit up the hill. + +"You young upstart," he cried, shaking his fist at Calvin as the car +turned around, "I'll be down in ten minutes and see to you!" The provost +marshal turned his white steed and began gathering up his procession and +his prisoners. But the spell was broken. The mind of the crowd took in +an idea. It was that a shameful thing was happening to a woman. So it +hissed young Joe Calvin. Such is the gratitude of republics. + +In the court house, the provost marshal, sitting behind an imposing +desk, decided that he would hold Mrs. Van Dorn under $100 bond to keep +the peace and release her upon her own recognizance. + +"Well," she replied, "Little Joe, I'll sign no peace bond, and if it +wasn't for my parents--I'd make you lock me up." + +Her hand was free as she spoke. "As it is--I'm going back to South +Harvey. I'll be there until this strike is settled; you'll have no +trouble in finding me." She hurried home. As she approached the house, +she saw in the yard and on the veranda, groups of sympathetic neighbors. +In the hall way were others. Laura hurried into the Doctor's little +office just as he was setting Kenyon's broken leg and had begun to bind +the splints upon it. Kenyon lay unconscious. Mrs. Nesbit and Lila +hovered over him, each with her hands full of surgical bandages, and +cotton and medicine. Mrs. Nesbit's face was drawn and anxious. + +"Oh, mamma--mamma--I'm so sorry--so sorry--you had to see." The proud +woman looked up from her work and sniffed: + +"That whippersnapper--that--that--" she did not finish. The Doctor drew +his daughter to him and kissed her. "Oh, my poor little girl--they +wouldn't have done that ten years ago--" + +"Father," interrupted the daughter, "is Kenyon all right?" + +"Just one little bone broken in his leg. He'll be out from under the +ether in a second. But I'll--Oh, I'll make that Calvin outfit sweat; +I'll--" + +"Oh, no, you won't, father--little Joe doesn't know any better. Mamma +can just forget to invite his wife to our next party--which I won't let +her do--not even that--but it would avenge my wrongs a thousand times +over." + +Lila had Kenyon's hand, and Mrs. Nesbit was rubbing his brow, when he +opened his eyes and smiled. Laura and the Doctor, knowing their wife and +mother, had left her and Lila together with the awakening lover. His +eyes first caught Mrs. Nesbit's who bent over him and whispered: + +"Oh, my brave, brave boy--my noble--chivalrous son--" + +Kenyon smiled and his great black eyes looked into the elder woman's as +he clutched Lila's hand. + +"Lila," he said feebly, "where is it--run and get it." + +"Oh, it's up in my room, grandma--wait a minute--it's up in my room." +She scurried out of the door and came dancing down the stairs in a +moment with a jewel on her finger. The grandmother's eyes were wet, and +she bent over and kissed the young, full lips into which life was +flowing back so beautifully. + +"Now--me!" cried Lila, and as she, too, bent down she felt the great, +strong arms of her grandmother enfolding her in a mighty hug. There, in +due course, the Doctor and Laura found them. A smile, the first that had +wreathed his wrinkled face for an hour, twitched over the loose skin +about his old lips and eyes. + +"The Lord," he piped, "moves in a mysterious way--my dear--and if Laura +had to go to jail to bring it--the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh +away--blessed be--" + +"Well, Kenyon," the grandmother interrupted the Doctor, stooping to put +her fingers lovingly upon his brow, "we owe everything to you; it was +fine and courageous of you, son!" + +And with the word "son" the Doctor knew and Laura knew, and Lila first +of all knew that Bedelia Nesbit had surrendered. And Kenyon read it in +Lila's eyes. Then they all fell to telling Kenyon what a grand youth he +was and how he had saved the Doctor's life, and it ended as those things +do, most undramatically, in a chorus of what I saids, and you saids to +me, and I thought, and you did, and he should have done, until the party +wore itself out and thought of Lila, sitting by her lover, holding his +hands. And then what with a pantomime of eyes from Laura and the Doctor +to Mrs. Nesbit, and what with an empty room in a big house, with voices +far--exceedingly far--obviously far away, it ended with them as all +journeys through this weary world end, and must end if the world wags +on. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVIII + +WHEREIN WE ERECT A HOUSE BUILT UPON A ROCK + + +That evening in the late twilight, two women stood at the wicket of a +cell in the jail and while back of the women, at the end of a corridor, +stood a curious group of reporters and idlers and guards, inside the +wicket a tall, middle-aged man with stiff, curly, reddish hair and a +homely, hard, forbidding face stood behind the bars. The young woman put +her hand with the new ring on it through the wicket. + +"It's Kenyon's ring--Kenyon's," smiled Lila, and to his questioning look +at her mother, the daughter answered: "Yes, grandma knows. And what is +more, grandpa told us both--Kenyon and me--what was bothering +grandma--and it's all--all--right!" + +The happy eyes of Laura Van Dorn caught the eyes of Grant as they gazed +at her from some distant landscape of his turbulent soul. She could not +hold his eyes, nor bring them to a serious consideration of the +occasion. His heart seemed to be on other things. So the woman said: +"God is good, Grant." She watched her daughter and cast a glance at the +shining ring. Grant Adams heard and saw, but while he comprehended +definitely enough, what he saw and heard seemed remote and he repeated: + +"God is good--infinitely good, Laura!" His eyes lighted up. "Do you know +this is the first strike in the world--I believe, indeed the first +enterprise in the world started and conducted upon the fundamental +theory that we are all gods. Nothing but the divine spark in those men +would hold them as they are held in faith and hope and fellowship. Look +at them," he lifted his face as one seeing Heavenly legions, "ten +thousand souls, men and women and children, cheated for years of their +rights, and when they ask for them in peace, beaten and clubbed and +killed, and still they do not raise their hands in violence! Oh, I tell +you, they are getting ready--the time must be near." He shook his head +in exultation and waved his iron claw. + +Laura said gently, "Yes, Grant, but the day always is near. Whenever two +or three are gathered--" + +"Oh, yes--yes," he returned, brushing her aside, "I know that. And it +has come to me lately that the day of the democracy is a spiritual and +not a material order. It must be a rising level of souls in the world, +and the mere dawn of the day will last through centuries. But it will be +nonetheless beautiful because it shall come slowly. The great thing is +to know that we are all--the wops and dagoes and the hombres and the +guinnies--all gods! to know that in all of us burns that divine spark +which environment can fan or stifle--that divine spark which makes us +one with the infinite!" He threw his face upward as one who saw a vision +and cried: "And America--our America that they think is so sordid, so +crass, so debauched with materialism--what fools they are to think it! +From all over the world for three hundred years men and women have been +hurrying to this country who above everything else on earth were charged +with aspiration. They were lowly people who came, but they had high +visions; this whole land is a crucible of aspirations. We are the most +sentimental people on earth. No other land is like it, and some day--oh, +I know God is charging this battery full of His divine purpose for some +great marvel. Some time America will rise and show her face and the +world will know us as we are!" + +The girl, with eyes fascinated by her engagement ring, scarcely +understood what the man was saying. She was too happy to consider +problems of the divine immanence. There was a little mundane talk of +Kenyon and of the Nesbits and then the women went away. + +An hour later an old man sitting in the dusk with a pencil in his left +hand, was startled to see these two women descending upon him, to tell +him the news. He kissed them both with his withered lips, and rubbed the +soft cheek of the maiden against his old gray beard. + +And when they were gone, he picked up the pencil again, and sat dumbly +waiting, while in his heart he called eagerly across the worlds: +"Mary--Mary, are you there? Do you know? Oh, Mary, Mary!" + +The funeral of the young men killed in the shaft house brought a day of +deepening emotion to Harvey. Flags were at half mast and Market Street +was draped in crape. The stores closed at the tolling of bells which +announced the hour of the funeral services. Two hundred automobiles +followed the soldiers who escorted the bodies to the cemetery, and when +the bugle blew taps, tears stood in thousands of eyes. + +The moaning of the great-throated regimental band, the shrilling of the +fife and the booming of the drum; the blare of the bugle that sounded +taps stirred the chords of hate, and the town came back from burying its +dead a vessel of wrath. In vain had John Dexter in his sermon over Fred +Kollander tried to turn the town from its bitterness by preaching from +the text, "Ye are members one of another," and trying to point the way +to charity. The town would have no charity. + +The tragedy of the shaft house and the imprisonment of Grant Adams had +staged for the day all over the nation in the first pages of the +newspapers an interesting drama. Such a man as Grant Adams was a figure +whose jail sentence under military law for defending the rights of a +free press, free speech, free assemblage and trial by jury, was good for +a first page position in every newspaper in the country--whatever bias +its editorial columns might take against him and his cause. Millions of +eyes turned to look at the drama. But there were hundreds among the +millions who saw the drama in the newspapers and who decided they would +like to see it in reality. Being foot loose, they came. So when the +funeral procession was hurrying back into Harvey and the policemen and +soldiers were dispersing to their posts, they fell upon half a dozen +travel-stained strangers in the court house yard addressing the loafers +there. Promptly the strangers were haled before the provost marshal, and +promptly landed in jail. But other strangers appeared on the streets +from time to time as the freight trains came clanging through town, and +by sundown a score of young men were in the town lockup. They were +happy-go-lucky young blades; rather badly in need of a bath and a +barber, but they sang lustily in the calaboose and ate heartily and with +much experience of prison fare. One read his paperbound Tolstoy; another +poured over his leaflet of Nietzsche, a third had a dog-eared Ibsen from +the public library of Omaha, a fourth had a socialist newspaper, which +he derided noisily, as it was not his peculiar cult of discontent; while +others played cards and others slept, but all were reasonably happy. And +at the strange spectacle of men jail-bound enjoying life, Harvey +marveled. And still the jail filled up. At midnight the policemen were +using a vacant storeroom for a jail. By daybreak the people of the town +knew that a plague was upon them. + +Every age has its peculiar pilgrims, whose pilgrimages are reactions of +life upon the times. When the shrines called men answered; when the new +lands called men hastened to them; when wars called the trumpets woke +the sound of hurrying feet--always the feet of the young men. For Youth +goes out to meet Danger in life as his ancient and ever-beloved comrade. +So in that distant epoch that closed half a decade ago, in a day when +existence was easy; when food was always to be had for the asking, when +a bed was never denied to the weary who would beg it the wide land over, +there arose a band of young men with slack ideas about property, with +archaic ideas of morality--ideas perhaps of property and morals that +were not unfamiliar to their elder comrades of the quest and the joust, +and the merry wars. These modern lads, pilgrims seeking their olden, +golden comrade Danger, sallied forth upon the highroads of our +civilization, and as the grail was found, and the lands were bounded and +the journeys over and the trumpets seemed to be forever muffled, these +hereditary pilgrims of the vast pretense, still looking for Danger, +played blithely at seeking justice. It was a fine game and they found +their danger in fighting for free speech, and free assemblage. They were +tremendously in earnest about it, even as the good Don Quixote was with +his windmills in the earlier, happier days. They were of the blithe cult +which wooes Danger in Folly in times of Peace and in treason when war +comes. + +And so Harvey in its wrath, in its struggle for the divine right of +Market Street to rule, Harvey fell upon these blithe pilgrims with a sad +sincerity that was worthy of a better cause. And the more the young men +laughed, the more they played tricks upon the police, reading the Sermon +on the Mount to provoke arrest, reading the Constitution of the United +States to invite repression, even reading the riot act by way of +diversion for the police, the more did the wooden head of Market Street +throb with rage and the more did the people imagine a vain thing. + +And when seventy of them had crowded the jail, and their leaders blandly +announced that they would eat the taxes all out of the county treasury +before they stopped the fight for free speech, Market Street awoke. +Eating taxes was something that Market Street could understand. So the +police began clubbing the strangers. The pilgrims were meeting Danger, +their lost comrade, and youth's blood ran wild at the meeting and there +were riots in Market Street. A lodging house in the railroad yards in +South Harvey was raided one night--when the strike was ten days old, and +as it was a railroadmen's sleeping place, and a number of trainmen were +staying there to whom the doctrines of peace and non-resistance did not +look very attractive under a policeman's ax-handle--a policeman was +killed. + +Then the Law and Order League was formed. Storekeepers, clerks, real +estate men, young lawyers, the heart of that section of the +white-shirted population whom Grant Adams called the "poor plutes," +joined this League. And deaf John Kollander was its leader. Partly +because of his bereavement men let him lead, but chiefly because his +life's creed seemed to be vindicated by events, men turned to him. The +bloodshed on Market Street, the murder of a policeman and the dynamiting +of the shaft house with their sons inside, had aroused a degree of +passion that unbalanced men, and John Kollander's wrath was public +opinion dramatized. The police gave the Law and Order League full swing, +and John Kollander was the first chief in the city. Prisoners arrested +for speaking without a permit were turned over to the Law and Order +League at night, and taken in the city auto-truck to the far limits of +the city, and there--a mile from the residential section, in the high +weeds that fringed the town and confined the country, the Law and Order +League lined up under John Kollander and with clubs and whips and +sticks, compelled the prisoners to run a gauntlet to the highroad that +leads from Harvey. Men were stripped, and compelled to lean over and +kiss an American flag--spread upon the ground, while they were kicked +and beaten before they could rise. This was to punish men for carrying a +red flag of socialism, and John Kollander decreed that every loyal +citizen of Harvey should wear a flag. To omit the flag was to arouse +suspicion; to wear a red necktie was to invite arrest. It was a merry +day for blithe devotees of Danger; and they were taking their full of +her in Harvey. + +The Law and Order League was one of those strange madnesses to which any +community may fall a victim. Kyle Perry and Ahab Wright--with Jasper +Adams a nimble echo, church men, fathers, husbands, solid business men, +were its leaders. + +They endorsed and participated in brutalities, cowardly cruelties at +which in their saner moments they could only shudder in horror. But they +made Jared Thurston chairman of the publicity committee and the +_Times_, morning after morning, fanned the passions of the people +higher and higher. "Skin the Rats," was the caption of his editorial the +morning after a young fellow was tarred and feathered and beaten until +he lost consciousness and was left in the highway. The editorial under +this heading declared that anarchy had lifted its hydra head; that Grant +Adams preaching peace in the Valley was preparing to let in the jungle, +and that the bums who were flooding the city jail were Adams's tools, +who soon would begin dynamiting and burning the town, when it suited his +purpose, while his holier-than-thou dupes in the Valley were conducting +their goody-goody strike. + +Plots of dynamiting were discovered. Hardly a day passed for nearly a +week that the big black headlines of the _Times_ did not tell of +dynamite found in obviously conspicuous places--in the court house, in +the Sands opera house, in the schoolhouses, in the city hall. So Harvey +grew class conscious, property conscious, and the town went stark mad. +It was the gibbering fear of those who make property of privilege, and +privilege of property, afraid of losing both. + +But for a week and a day the motive power of the strike was Grant +Adams's indomitable will. Hour after hour, day after day he paced his +iron floor, and dreamed his dream of the conquest of the world through +fellowship. And by the power of his faith and by the example of his +imprisonment for his faith, he held his comrades in the gardens, kept +the strikers on the picket lines and sustained the courage of the +delegates in Belgian Hall, who met inside a wall of blue-coated +policemen. The mind of the Valley had reached a place where sympathy for +Grant Adams and devotion to him, imprisoned as their leader, was +stronger than his influence would have been outside. So during the week +and a day, the waves of hate and the winds of adverse circumstance beat +upon the house of faith, which he had builded slowly through other years +in the Valley, and it stood unshaken. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIX + +HOW MORTY SANDS TURNED AWAY SADLY AND JUDGE VAN DORN UNCOVERED A SECRET + + +Grant Adams sat in his cell, with the jail smell of stone and iron and +damp in his nostrils. As he read the copy of Tolstoy's "The +Resurrection," which his cell-mate had left in his hurried departure the +night before, Grant moved unconsciously to get into the thin direct rays +of the only sunlight--the early morning sunlight, that fell into his +cage during the long summer day. The morning _Times_ lay on the +floor where Grant had dropped it after reading the account of what had +happened to his cell-mate when the police had turned him over to the Law +and Order League, at midnight. To be sure, the account made a great hero +of John Kollander and praised the patriotism of the mob that had +tortured the poor fellow. But the fact of his torture, the fact that he +had been tarred and feathered, and turned out naked on the golf links of +the country club, was heralded by the _Times_ as a warning to +others who came to Harvey to preach Socialism, and flaunt the red flag. +Grant felt that the jailer's kindness in giving him the morning paper so +early in the day, was probably inspired by a desire to frighten him +rather than to inform him of the night's events. + +Gradually he felt the last warmth of the morning sun creep away and he +heard a new step beside the jailer's velvet footfall in the corridor, +and heard the jailer fumbling with his keys and heard him say: "That's +the Adams cell there in the corner," and an instant later Morty Sands +stood at the door, and the jailer let him in as Grant said: + +"Well, Morty--come right in and make yourself at home." + +He was not the dashing young blade who for thirty years had been the +Beau Brummel of George Brotherton's establishment; but a rather weazened +little man whose mind illumined a face that still clung to sportive +youth, while premature age was claiming his body. + +He cleared his throat as he sat on the bunk, and after dropping Grant's +hand and glancing at the book title, said: "Great, isn't it? Where'd you +get it?" + +"The brother they ran out last night. They came after him so suddenly +that he didn't have time to pack," answered Grant. + +"Well, he didn't need it, Grant," replied Morty. "I just left him. I got +him last night after the mob finished with him, and took him home to our +garage, and worked with him all night fixing him up. Grant, it's hell. +The things they did to that fellow--unspeakable, and fiendish." Morty +cleared his throat again, paused to gather courage and went on. "And he +heard something that made him believe they were coming for you +to-night." + +The edge of a smile touched the seamed face, and Grant replied: +"Well--maybe so. You never can tell. Besides old John Kollander, who are +the leaders of this Law and Order mob, Morty?" + +"Well," replied the little man, "John Kollander is the responsible head, +but Kyle Perry is master of ceremonies--the stuttering, old coot; and +Ahab gives them the use of the police, and Joe Calvin backs up both of +them. However," sighed Morty, "the whole town is with them. It's stark +mad, Grant--Harvey has gone crazy. These tramps filling the jails and +eating up taxes--and the _Times_ throwing scares into the merchants +with the report that unless the strike is broken, the smelters and +glassworks and cement works will move from the district--it's awful! My +idea of hell, Grant, is a place where every man owns a little property +and thinks he is just about to lose it." + +The young-old man was excited, and his eyes glistened, but his speech +brought on a fit of coughing. He lifted his face anxiously and began: +"Grant,--I'm with you in this fight." He paused for breath. "It's a +man's scrap, Grant--a man's fight as sure as you're born." Grant sprang +to his feet and threw back his head, as he began pacing the narrow cell. +As he threw out his arms, his claw clicked on the steel bars of the +cell, and Morty Sands felt the sudden contracting of the cell walls +about the men as Grant cried-- + +"That's what it is, Morty--it's a man's fight--a man's fight for men. +The industrial system to-day is rotting out manhood--and womanhood +too--rotting out humanity because capitalism makes unfair divisions of +the profits of industry, giving the workers a share that keeps them in a +man-rotting environment, and we're going to break up the system--the +whole infernal profit system--the blight of capitalism upon the world." +Grant brought down his hand on Morty's frail shoulder in a kind of +frenzy. "Oh, it's coming--the Democracy of Labor is coming in the earth, +bringing peace and hope--hope that is the 'last gift of the gods to +men'--Oh, it's coming! it's coming." His eyes were blazing and his voice +high pitched. He caught Morty's eyes and seemed to shut off all other +consciousness from him but that of the idea which obsessed him. + +Morty Sands felt gratefully the spell of the strong mind upon him. Twice +he started to speak, and twice stopped. Then Grant said: "Out with it, +Morty--what's on your chest?" + +"Well,--this thing," he tapped his throat, "is going to get me, Grant, +unless--well, it's a last hope; but I thought," he spoke in short, +hesitating phrases, then he started again. "Grant, Grant," he cried, +"you have it, this thing they call vitality. You are all vitality, +bodily, mentally, spiritually. Why have I been denied always, everything +that you have! Millions of good men and bad men and indifferent men are +overflowing with power, and I--I--why, why can't I--what shall I do to +get it? How can I feel and speak and live as you? Tell me." He gazed +into the strong, hard visage looking down upon him, and cried weakly: +"Grant--for God's sake, help me. Tell me--what shall I do to--Oh, I want +to live--I want to live, Grant, can't you help me!" + +He stopped, exhausted. Grant looked at him keenly, and asked gently, + +"Had another hemorrhage this morning--didn't you?" + +Morty looked over his clothes to detect the stain of blood, and nodded. +"Oh, just a little one. Up all night working with Folsom, but it didn't +amount to anything." + +Grant sat beside the broken man, and taking his white hand in his big, +paw-like hand: + +"Morty--Morty--my dear, gentle friend; your trouble is not your body, +but your soul. You read these great books, and they fascinate your mind. +But they don't grip your soul; you see these brutal injustices, and they +cut your heart; but they don't reach your will." The strong hand felt +the fluttering pressure of the pale hand in its grasp. Morty looked +down, and seemed about to speak. + +"Morty," Grant resumed, "it's your money--your soul-choking money. +You've never had a deep, vital, will-moving conviction in your life. You +haven't needed this money. Morty, Morty," he cried, "what you need is to +get out of your dry-rot of a life; let the Holy Ghost in your soul wake +up to the glory of serving. Face life barehanded, consecrate your +talents--you have enough--to this man's fight for men. Throw away your +miserable back-breaking money. Give it to the poor if you feel like it; +it won't help them particularly." He shook his head so vigorously that +his vigor seemed like anger, and hammered with his claw on the iron +bunk. "Money," he cried and repeated the word, "money not earned in +self-respect never helps any one. But to get rid of the damned stuff +will revive you; will give you a new interest in life--will change your +whole physical body, and then--if you live one hour in the big +soul-bursting joy of service you will live forever. But if you die--die +as you are, Morty--you'll die forever. Come." Grant reached out his arms +to Morty and fixed his luminous eyes upon his friend, "Come, come with +me," he pleaded. "That will cure your soul--and it doesn't matter about +your body." + +Morty's face lighted, and he smiled sympathetically; but the light +faded. He dropped his gaze to the floor and sighed. Then he shook his +head sadly. "It won't work, Grant--it won't work. I'm not built that +way. It won't work." + +His fine sensitive mouth trembled, and he drew a deep breath that ended +in a hard dry cough. Then he rose, held out his hand and said: + +"Now you watch out, Grant--they'll get you yet. I tell you it's +awful--that's the exact word--the way hate has driven this town mad." He +shook the cage door, and the jailer came from around a corner, and +unlocked the door, and in a moment Morty was walking slowly away with +his eyes on the cold steel of the cell-room floor. + +When his visitor was gone, Grant Adams went back to his book. At the end +of an hour he went to the slit in his cell, which served as window, and +looked on a damp courtyard that gave him a narrow slice of Market Street +and the Federal court house in the distance. Men and women walking in +and out of the little stereoscopic view he had of the street, seemed to +the prisoner people in a play, or in another world. They were remote +from him. At the gestures they made, the gaits they fell into, the +errands they were going upon, the spring that obviously moved them, he +gazed as one who sees a dull pantomime. During the middle of the +morning, as he looked, he saw Judge Van Dorn's big, black motor car roll +up to the curb before the Federal court house and unload the spare, +dried-up, clothes-padded figure of the Judge, who flicked out of Grant's +eyeshot. A hundred other figures passed, and Ahab Wright, with his white +side-whiskers bristling testily, came bustling across the stereopticon +screen and turned to the court house and was gone. Young Joe Calvin, +dismounting from his white horse, came for a second into the picture, +and soon after the elder Calvin came trotting along beside Kyle Perry +with his heavy-footed gait, and the two turned as the Judge had +turned--evidently into the court house, where the Judge had his office. + +Grant took up his book. After noon the jailer came with Henry Fenn, who, +as Adams' attorney, visited him daily. But the jailer stood by while the +lawyer talked to the prisoner through the bars. Henry Fenn wore a +troubled face and Grant saw at once that his friend was worried. So +Grant began: + +"So you've heard my cell-mate's message--eh, Henry? Well, don't worry. +Tell the boys down in the Valley, whatever they do--to keep off Market +Street and out of Harvey to-night." + +The listening jailer looked sharply at Fenn. It was apparent the jailer +expected Fenn to protest. But Fenn turned his radiant smile on the +jailer and said: "The smelter men say they could go through this steel +as if it was pasteboard in ten minutes--if you'd say the word." Fenn +grinned at the prisoner as he added: "If you want the boys, all the tin +soldiers and fake cops in the State can't stop them. But I've told them +to stay away--to stay in their fields, to keep the peace; that it is +your wish." + +"Henry," replied Grant, "tell the boys this for me. We've won this fight +now. They can't build a fire, strike a pick, or turn a wheel if the boys +stick--and stick in peace. I'm satisfied that this story of what they +will do to me to-night, while I don't question the poor chap who sent +the word--is a plan to scare the boys into a riot to save me and thus to +break our peace strike." + +He walked nervously up and down his cell, clicking the bars with his +claw as he passed the door. "Tell the boys this. Tell them to go to bed +to-night early; beware of false rumors, and at all hazards keep out of +Harvey. I'm absolutely safe. I'm not in the least afraid--and, Henry, +Henry," cried Grant, as he saw doubt and anxiety in his friend's face, +"what if it's true; what if they do come and get me? They can't hurt me. +They can only hurt themselves. Violence always reacts. Every blow I get +will help the boys--I know this--I tell you--" + +"And I tell you, young man," interrupted Fenn, "that right now one dead +leader with a short arm is worth more to the employers than a ton of +moral force! And Laura and George and Nate and the Doctor and I have +been skirmishing around all day, and we have filed a petition for your +release on a habeas corpus in the Federal court--on the ground that your +imprisonment under martial law without a jury trial is +unconstitutional." + +"In the Federal court before Van Dorn?" asked Grant, incredulously. + +"Before Van Dorn. The State courts are paralyzed by young Joe Calvin's +militia!" returned Fenn, adding: "We filed our petition this morning. +So, whether you like it or not, you appear at three-thirty o'clock this +afternoon before Van Dorn." + +Grant smiled and after a moment spoke: "Well, if I was as scared as you +people, I'd--look here. Henry, don't lose your nerve, man--they can't +hurt me. Nothing on this earth can hurt me, don't you see, man--why go +to Van Dorn?" + +Fenn answered: "After all, Tom's a good lawyer in a life job and he +doesn't want to be responsible for a decision against you that will make +him a joke among lawyers all over the country when he is reversed by +appeal." Grant shook his dubious head. + +"Well, it's worth trying," returned Fenn. + +At three o'clock Joseph Calvin, representing the employers, notified +Henry Fenn that Judge Van Dorn had been called out of town unexpectedly +and would not be able to hear the Adams' petition at the appointed time. +That was all. No other time was set. But at half-past five George +Brotherton saw a messenger boy going about, summoning men to a meeting. +Then Brotherton found that the Law and Order League was sending for its +members to meet in the Federal courtroom at half-past eight. He learned +also that Judge Van Dorn would return on the eight o'clock train and +expected to hear the Adams' petition that night. So Brotherton knew the +object of the meeting. In ten minutes Doctor Nesbit, Henry Fenn and +Nathan Perry were in the Brotherton store. + +"It means," said Fenn, "that the mob is going after Grant to-night and +that Tom knows it." + +"Why?" asked the thin, sharp voice of Nathan Perry. + +"Otherwise he would have let the case go over until morning." + +"Why?" again cut in Perry. + +"Because for the mob to attack a man praying for release under habeas +corpus in a federal court might mean contempt of court that the federal +government might investigate. So Tom's going to wash his hands of the +matter before the mob acts to-night." + +"Why?" again Perry demanded. + +"Well," continued Fenn, "every day they wait means accumulated victory +for the strikers. So after Tom refuses to release Grant, the mob will +take him." + +"Well, say--let's go to the Valley with this story. We can get five +thousand men here by eight o'clock," cried Brotherton. + +"And precipitate a riot, George," put in the Doctor softly, "which is +one of the things they desire. In the riot the murder of Grant could be +easily handled and I don't believe they will do more than try to scare +him otherwise." + +"Why?" again queried Nathan Perry, towering thin and nervous above the +seated council. + +"Well," piped the Doctor, with his chin on his cane, "he's too big a +figure nationally for murder--" + +"Well, then--what do you propose, gentlemen?" asked Perry who, being the +youngest man in the council, was impatient. + +Fenn rose, his back to the ornamental logs piled decoratively in the +fireplace, and answered: + +"To sound the clarion means riot and bloodshed--and failure for the +cause." + +"To let things drift," put in Brotherton, "puts Grant in danger." + +"Of what?" asked the Doctor. + +"Well, of indignities unspeakable and cruel torture," returned +Brotherton. + +"I'm sure that's all, George. But can't we--we four stop that?" said +Fenn. "Can't we stand off the mob? A mob's a coward." + +"It's the least we can do," said Perry. + +"And all you can do, Nate," added the Doctor, with the weariness of age +in his voice and in his counsel. + +But when the group separated and the Doctor purred up the hill in his +electric, his heart was sore within him and he spoke to the wife of his +bosom of the burden that was on his heart. Then, after a dinner scarcely +tasted, the Doctor hurried down town to meet with the men at +Brotherton's. + +As Mrs. Nesbit saw the electric dip under the hill, her first impulse +was to call up her daughter on the telephone, who was at Foley that +evening. For be it remembered Mrs. Nesbit in the days of her prime was +dubbed "the General" by George Brotherton, and when she saw the care and +hovering fear in the pink, old face of the man she loved, she was not +the woman to sit and rock. She had to act and, because she feared she +would be stopped, she did not pick up the telephone receiver. She went +to the library, where Kenyon Adams with his broken leg in splints was +sitting while Lila read to him. She stood looking at the lovers for a +moment. + +"Children," she said, "Grant Adams is in great danger. We must help +him." + +To their startled questions, she answered: "He is asking your father, +Lila, to release him from the prison to-night. If he is not released, a +mob will take Grant as they took that poor fool last night and--" She +stopped, turned toward them a perturbed and fear-wrinkled face. Then she +said quickly: "I don't know that I owe Grant Adams anything but--you +children do--" She did not complete her sentence, but burst out: "I +don't care for Tom Van Dorn's court, his grand folderol and mummery of +the law. He's going to send a man to death to-night because his masters +demand it. And we must stop it--you and Lila and I, Kenyon." + +Kenyon reached out, tried to rise and failed, but grasped her strong, +effective hand, as he cried: "What can we do--what can I do?" + +She went into the Doctor's office and brought out two old crutches. + +"Take these," she said, "then I'll help you down the porch steps--and +you go to your mother! That's what you can do. Maybe she can stop +him--she has done a number of other worse things with him." + +She literally lifted the tottering youth down the veranda steps and a +few moments later his crutches were rattling upon the stone steps that +rose in front of the proud house of Van Dorn. Margaret had seen him +coming and met him before he rang the bell. + +She looked the dreadful wonder in her mind and as he took her hand to +steady himself, he spoke while she was helping him to sit. + +"You are my mother," he said simply. "I know it now." He felt her hand +tighten on his arm. She bent over him and with finger on lips, +whispered: "Hush, hush, the maid is in there--what is it, Kenyon?" + +"I want you to save Grant." + +She still stood over him, looking at him with her glazed eyes shot with +the evidence of a strong emotion. + +"Kenyon, Kenyon--my boy--my son!" she whispered, then said greedily: +"Let me say it again--my son!" She whispered the word "son" for a +moment, stooping over him, touching his forehead gently with her +fingers. Then she cried under her breath: "What about that +man--your--Grant? What have I to do with him?" + +He reached for her hands beseechingly and said: "We are asking your +husband, the Judge, to let him out of jail to-night, for if the Judge +doesn't release Grant--they are going to mob him and maybe kill him! Oh, +won't you save him? You can. I know you can. The Judge will let him out +if you demand it." + +"My son, my son!" the woman answered as she looked vacantly at him. "You +are my son, my very own, aren't you?" + +She stooped to look into his eyes and cried: "Oh, you're mine"--her +trembling fingers ran over his face. "My eyes, my hair. You have my +voice--O God--why haven't they found it out?" Then she began whispering +over again the words, "My son." + +A clock chimed the half-hour. It checked her. "He'll be back in half an +hour," she said, rising; then--"So they're going to mob Grant, are they? +And he sent you here asking me for mercy!" + +Kenyon shook his head in protest and cried: "No, no, no. He doesn't even +know--" + +She looked at the young man and became convinced that he was telling the +truth; but she was sure that Laura Van Dorn had sent him. It was her +habit of mind to see the ulterior motive. So the passion of motherhood +flaring up after years of suppression quickly died down. It could not +dominate her in her late forties, even for the time, nor even with the +power which held her during the night of the riot in South Harvey, when +she was in her thirties. The passion of motherhood with Margaret Van +Dorn was largely a memory, but hate was a lively and material emotion. + +She fondled her son in the simulation of a passion that she did not +feel--and when in his eagerness he tried vainly to tie her to a promise +to help his father, she would only reply: + +"Kenyon, oh, my son, my beautiful son--you know I'd give my life for +you--" + +The son looked into the dead, brassy eyes of his mother, saw her +drooping mouth, with the brown lips that had not been stained that day; +observed the slumping muscles of her over-massaged face, and felt with a +shudder the caress of her fingers--and he knew in his heart that she was +deceiving him. A moment after she had spoken the automobile going to the +station for the Judge backed out of the garage and turned into the +street. + +"You must go now," she cried, clinging to him. "Oh, son--son--my only +son--come to me, come to your mother sometimes for her love. He is +coming now in a few minutes on the eight o'clock train. You must not let +him see you here." + +She helped Kenyon to rise. He stumbled across the floor to the steps and +she helped him gently down to the lawn. She stood play-acting for him a +moment in whisper and pantomime, then she turned and hurried indoors and +met the inquisitive maid servant with: + +"Just that Kenyon Adams--the musician--awfully dear boy, but he wanted +me to interfere with the Judge for that worthless brother, Grant. The +Nesbits sent him. You know the Nesbit woman is crazy about that +anarchist. Oh, Nadine, did Chalmers see Kenyon? You know Chalmers just +blabs everything to the Judge." + +Nadine indicated that Chalmers had recognized Kenyon as he crawled up +the veranda steps and Mrs. Van Dorn replied: "Very well, I'll be ready +for him." And half an hour later, when the Judge drove up, his wife met +him as he was putting his valise in his room: + +"Dahling," she said as she closed the door, "that Kenyon Adams was over +here, appealing to me for his brother, Grant." + +"Well?" asked the Judge contemptuously. + +"You have him where we want him now, dahling," she answered. "If you +refuse him his freedom, the mob will get him. And oh, oh, oh," she cried +passionately, "I hope they'll hang him, hang him, higher'n Haman. That +will take the tuck out of the old Nesbit cat and that other, his--his +sweetheart, to have her daughter marrying the brother of a man who was +hanged! That'll bring them down." + +A flash across the Judge's face told the woman where her emotion was +leading her. It angered her. + +"So that holds you, does it? That binds the hands of the Judge, does it? +This wonderful daughter, who snubs him on the street--she mustn't marry +the brother of a man who was hanged!" Margaret laughed, and the Judged +glowered in rage until the scar stood white upon his purple brow. + +"Dahling," she leered, "remember our little discussion of Kenyon Adams's +parentage that night! Maybe our dear little girl is going to marry the +son, the son," she repeated wickedly, "of a man who was hanged!" + +He stepped toward her crying: "For God's sake, quit! Quit!" + +"Oh, I hope he'll hang. I hope he'll hang and you've got to hang him! +You've got to hang him!" she mocked exultingly. + +The man turned in rage. He feared the powerful, physical creature before +him. He had never dared to strike her. He wormed past her and ran +slinking down the hall and out of the door--out from the temple of love, +which he had builded--somewhat upon sand perhaps, but still the temple +of love. A rather sad place it was, withal, in which to rest the weary +bones of the hunter home from the hills, after a lifelong ride to hounds +in the primrose hunt. + +He stood for a moment upon the steps of the veranda, while his heart +pumped the bile of hate through him; and suddenly hearing a soft +footfall, he turned his head quickly, and saw Lila--his daughter. As he +turned toward her in the twilight it struck him like a blow in the face +that she in some way symbolized all that he had always longed for--his +unattainable ideal; for she seemed young--immortally young, and sweet. +The grace of maidenhood shone from her and she turned an eager but +infinitely wistful face up to his, and for a second the picture of the +slim, white-clad figure, enveloping and radiating the gentle eagerness +of a beautiful soul, came to him like the disturbing memory of some +vague, lost dream and confused him. While she spoke he groped back to +the moment blindly and heard her say: + +"Oh, you will help me now, this once, this once when I beg it; you will +help me?" As she spoke she clutched his arm. Her voice dropped to a +whisper. "Father, don't let them murder him--don't, oh, please, +father--for me, won't you save him for me--won't you let him out of jail +now?" + +"Lila, child," the Judge held out his hand unsteadily, "it's not what I +want to do; it's the law that I must follow. Why, I can't do--" + +"If Mr. Ahab Wright was in jail as Grant is and the workmen had the +State government, what would the law say?" she answered. Then she +gripped his hands and cried: "Oh, father, father, have mercy, have +mercy! We love him so and it will kill Kenyon. Grant has been like a +father to Kenyon; he has been--" + +"Tell me this, Lila," the Judge stopped her; he held her hands in his +cold, hard palms. "Who is Kenyon--who is his father--do you know?" + +"Yes, I know," the daughter replied quietly. + +"Tell me, then. I ought to know," he demanded. + +"There is just one right by which you can ask," she began. "But if you +refuse me this--by what other right can you ask? Oh, daddy, daddy," she +sobbed. "In my dreams I call you that. Did you ever hear that name, +daddy, daddy--I want you--for my sake, to save this man, daddy." + +The Judge heard the words that for years had sounded in his heart. They +cut deep into his being. But they found no quick. + +"Well, daughter," he answered, "as a father--as a father who will help +you all he can--I ask, then, who is Kenyon Adams's father?" + +"Grant," answered the girl simply. + +"Then you are going to marry an illegitimate--" + +"I shall marry a noble, pure-souled man, father." + +"But, Lila--Lila," he rasped, "who is his mother?" + +Then she shrank away from him. She shook her head sadly, and withdrew +her hands from his forcibly as she cried: + +"O father--father--daddy, have you no heart--no heart at all?" She +looked beseechingly up into his face and before he could reply, she +seemed to decide upon some further plea. "Father, it is sacred--very +sacred to me, a beautiful memory that I carry of you, when I think of +the word 'Daddy.' I have never, never, not even to mother, nor to Kenyon +spoken of it. But I see you young, and straight and tall and very +handsome. You have on light gray clothes and a red flower on your coat, +and I am in your arms hugging you, and then you put me down, and I stand +crying 'Daddy, daddy,' after you, when you are called away somewhere. +Oh, then--then, oh, I know that then--I don't know where you went nor +anything, but then, then when I snuggled up to you, surely you would +have heard me if I had asked you what I am asking now." + +The daughter paused, but the father did not answer at once. He looked +away from her across the years. In the silence Lila was aware that in +the doorway back of her father, Margaret Van Dorn stood listening. Her +husband did not know that she was there. + +"Lila," he began, "you have told me that Kenyon's father is Grant Adams, +why do you shield his mother?" + +The daughter stood looking intently into the brazen eyes of her father, +trying to find some way into his heart. "Father, Grant Adams is before +your court. He is the father of the man whom I shall marry. You have a +right to know all there is to know about Grant Adams." She shook her +head decisively. "But Kenyon's mother, that has nothing to do with what +I am asking you!" She paused, then cried passionately: "Kenyon's +mother--oh, father, that's some poor woman's secret, which has no +bearing on this case. If you had any right on earth to know, I should +tell you; but you have no right." + +"Now, Lila," answered her father petulantly--"look here--why do you get +entangled with those Adamses? They are a low lot. Girl, a Van Dorn has +no business stooping to marry an Adams. Miserable mongrel blood is that +Adams blood child. Why the Van Dorns--" but Lila's pleading, wistful +voice went on: + +"In all my life, father, I have asked you only this one thing, and this +is just, you know how just it is--that you keep my future husband's +father from a cruel, shameful death. And--now--" her voice was +quivering, near the breaking point, and she cried: "And now, now you +bring in blood and family. What are they in an hour like this! Oh, +father--father, would my daddy--the fine, strong, loving daddy of my +dreams do this? Would he--would he--oh, daddy--daddy--daddy!" she cried, +beseechingly. + +Perhaps he could see in her face the consciousness that some one was +behind him, for he turned and saw his wife standing in the doorway. As +he saw her, there rose in him the familiar devil she always aroused, +which in the first years wore the mask of love, but dropped that mask +for the sneer of hate. It was the devil's own voice that spoke, quietly, +suavely, and with a hardness that chilled his daughter's heart. "Lila, +perhaps the secret of Kenyon's mother is no affair of mine, but neither +is Grant Adams's fate after I turn him back to the jailer, an affair of +mine. But you make Grant's affair mine; well, then--I make this secret +an affair of mine. If you want me to release Grant Adams--well, then, I +insist." The gray features of his wife stopped him; but he smiled and +waved his hand grandly at the miserable woman, as he went on: "You see +my wife has bragged to me once or twice that she knows who Kenyon's +mother is, Lila, and now--" + +The daughter put her hands to her face and turned away, sick with the +horror of the scene. Her heart revolted against the vile intrigue her +father was proposing. She turned and faced him, clasping her hands in +her anguish, lifted her burning face for a moment and stared piteously +at him, as she sobbed: "O dear, dear God--is this my father?" and +shaking with shame and horror she turned away. + + + + +CHAPTER L + +JUDGE VAN DORN SINGS SOME MERRY SONGS AND THEY TAKE GRANT ADAMS BEHIND A +WHITE DOOR + + +After arguments of counsel, after citation of cases, after the applause +of Market Street at some incidental _obiter dicta_ of Judge Van +Dorn's about the rights of property, after the court had put on its +tortoise-shell rimmed glasses, which the court had brought home from its +recent trip to Chicago to witness the renomination of President Taft, +after the court, peering through its brown-framed spectacles, was +fumbling over its typewritten opinion from the typewriter of the offices +of Calvin & Calvin, written during the afternoon by the court's legal +_alter ego_, after the court had cleared its throat to proceed with +the reading of the answer to the petition in habeas corpus of Grant +Adams, the court, through its owlish glasses, saw the eyes of the +petitioner Adams fixed, as the court believed, malignantly on the court. + +"Adams," barked the court, "stand up!" With his black slouch hat in his +hand, the petitioner Adams rose. It was a hot night and he wiped his +brow with a red handkerchief twisted about his steel claw. + +"Adams," began the court, laying down the typewritten manuscript, "I +suppose you think you are a martyr." + +The court paused. Grant Adams made no reply. The court insisted: + +"Well, speak up. Aren't you a martyr?" + +"No," meeting the eye of the court, "I want to get out and get to work +too keenly to be a martyr." + +"To get to work," sneered the court. "You mean to keep others from going +to work. Now, Adams, isn't it true that you are trying to steal the +property of this district from its legal owners by riot and set yourself +up as the head of your Democracy of Labor, to fatten on the folly of the +working men?" The court did not pause for a reply, but continued: "Now, +Adams, there is no merit to the contentions of your counsel in this +hearing, but, even if there was mere technical weight to his arguments, +the moral issues involved, the vast importance of this ease to the +general welfare of this Republic, would compel this court to take +judicial notice of the logic of its decision in your favor. For it would +release anarchy, backed by legal authority, and strike down the arm of +the State in protecting property and suppressing crime." + +The court paused, and, taking its heavy spectacles in its fingers, +twirled them before asking: "Adams, do you think you are a God? What is +this rot you're talking about the Prince of Peace? What do you mean by +saying nothing can hurt you? If you know nothing can hurt you, why do +you let your attorney plead the baby act and declare that, if you are +not released to-night, a mob will wait on you? If you are a God, why +don't you help yourself--quell the mob, overcome the devil?" + +The crowd laughed and the court perfunctorily rapped for order. The +laugh was frankincense and myrrh to the court. So the court clearly +showed its appreciation of its own fine sarcasm as it rapped for order +and continued insolently: "See here, Adams, if you aren't crazy, what +are you trying to do? What do you expect to get out of all this glib +talk about the power of spiritual forces and the peaceful revolution and +the power greater than bullets and your fanatical ranting about the Holy +Ghost in the dupes you are inciting to murder? Come now, maybe you are +crazy? Maybe if you'd talk and not stand there like a loon--" + +Again the crowd roared and again the court suppressed its chuckle and +again order was restored. "Maybe if you'd not stand there grouching, +you'd prove to the court that you are crazy, and on the grounds of +insanity the court might grant your prayer. Come, now, Adams, speak up; +go the whole length. Give us your creed!" + +"Well," began Adams, "since you want--" + +"Don't you know how to address a court?" The court bellowed. + +"To say 'Your honor' would be a formality which even your friends would +laugh at," replied Grant quietly. The crowd hissed; the court turned +purple. Grant Adams stood rigid, with white face and quivering muscles. +His jaws knotted and his fist clenched. Yet when he spoke he held his +voice down. In it was no evidence of his tension. Facing for the first +few moments of his speech the little group of his friends--Dr. Nesbit, +George Brotherton, Captain Morton, Nathan Perry and Amos Adams--who sat +at the lawyers' table with Henry Fenn, Grant Adams plunged abruptly into +his creed: "I believe that in every human adult consciousness there is a +spark of altruism, a divine fire, which marks the fatherhood of God and +proves the brotherhood of man. Environment fans that spark or stifles +it. Its growth is evidenced in human institutions, in scales and grades +of civilization. Christ was a glowing flame of this fire." The court +gave a knowing wink to Ahab Wright, who grinned at the court's keen +sense of humor. Adams saw the wink, but proceeded: "That is what He +means when He says: 'I am the resurrection and the life,' for only as +men and nations, races and civilization by their institutions fan that +spark to fire, will they live, will they conquer the forces of death +ever within them." + +Thus far Grant Adams had been speaking slowly, addressing himself more +to his friends and the court stenographer than the crowd. Now he faced +the crowd defiantly as he let his voice rise and cried: "This is no +material world. Humanity is God trying to express Himself in terms of +justice--with the sad handicap of time and space ever holding the +Eternal Spirit in check. We are all Gods." + +Again Market Street, which worshiped the god material, hissed. Grant +turned to the men in the benches a mad, ecstatic face and throwing his +crippled arm high above his head, cried aloud: + +"O men of Harvey, men with whom I have lived and labored, I would give +my life if you could understand me; if you could know in your hearts how +passionately I yearn to get into your souls the knowledge that only as +you give you will have, only as you love these men of the mines and +mills, only as you are brothers to these ginks and wops and guinnies, +will prosperity come to Harvey. 'I am the resurrection and the life' +should ring through your souls; for when brotherhood, expressed in law +and customs, gives these men their rightful share in the products of +their labor, our resurrected society will begin to live." He stopped +dead still for a moment, gazing, almost glaring, into the eyes of the +crowd. Ahab Wright dropped his gaze. But John Kollander, who heard +nothing, glared angrily back. Then leaning forward and throwing out his +claw as if to grapple them, Grant Adams, let out his great voice in a +cry that startled Market Street into a shudder as he spoke. "Come, come, +come with us and live, oh, men of Market Street, you who are dead and +damned! Come with us and live. 'I am the way and the life.'" He checked +his rising voice, then said: "Come, let us go forward together, for only +then will God, striving for justice in humanity, restore your dead and +atrophied souls. Have faith that as you give you will have; as you love, +will you live." His manner changed again. The court was growing +restless. Grant's voice was low pitched, but it showed a heavy tension +of emotion. He stretched his hand as one pleading: "Oh, come with us. +Come with us--your brothers. We are one body, why should we have +different aims? We are ten thousand here, you are many more. Perhaps we +are only dreaming a mad dream, but if you come with us we shall all +awake from our dream into a glorious reality." + +Market Street laughed. John Kollander bawled: "He's an anarchist--a +socialist!" Grant looked at the deaf old man in his blue coat and brass +buttons adorned with many little flags, to advertise his patriotism. +Taking a cue from John Kollander, Grant cried: "I am moving with the +current of Heavenly love, I am a part of that love that is washing into +this planet from the infinite source of life beyond our ken. I am moved, +I know not how. I am inspired to act, I know not whence. I go I know not +where--only I have faith, faith that fears nothing, faith that tells me +that insomuch as I act in love, I am a part of the Great Purpose moving +the universe, immortal, all powerful, vital, the incarnation of +Happiness! I am trying--trying--ah, God, how I am trying, to bring into +the world all the love that my soul will carry. I am--" + +"That's enough," snapped the court; and turning to Joseph Calvin, Judge +Van Dorn said: "That man's crazy. This court has no jurisdiction over +the insane. His family can bring a proceeding in habeas corpus before +the probate court of the county on the ground of the prisoner's +insanity. But I have no right to take judicial notice of his insanity." +The Judge folded up his opinion, twirled his heavy glasses a moment, +blinked wisely and said: "Gentlemen, this is no case for me. This is a +crazy man. I wash my hands of the whole business!" + +He rose, put away his glasses deliberately, and was stepping from his +dais, when up rose big George Brotherton and cried: + +"Say, Tom Van Dorn--if you want this man murdered, say so. If you want +him saved, say so. Don't polly-fox around here, dodging the issue. You +know the truth of the matter as well as--" + +The court smiled tolerantly at the impetuous fellow, who was clearly in +contempt of court. The crowd waited breathlessly. + +"Well, George," said the suave Judge with condescension in his tone as +he strutted into the group of lawyers and reporters about him, "if you +know so much about this case, what is the truth?" The crowd roared its +approval. "But hire a hall, George--don't bother me with it. It's out of +my jurisdiction." + +So saying, he elbowed his way out of the room into his office and soon +was in his automobile, driving toward the Country Club. He had agreed to +be out of reach by telephone during the evening and that part of the +agreement he decided to keep. + +After the Judge left the room Market Street rose and filed out, leaving +Grant standing among the little group of his friends. The sheriff stood +near by, chatting with the jailer and as Brotherton came up to bid Grant +good-night, Brotherton felt a piece of paper slip into his hands, when +he shook hands with Grant. "Don't let it leave your pocket until you see +me again," said Grant in a monotone, that no one noticed. + +The group--Dr. Nesbit, Nathan Perry, George Brotherton and Captain +Morton--stood dazed and discouraged about Grant. No one knew exactly +what note to strike--whether of anger or of warning or of cheer. It was +Captain Morton who broke the silence. + +"'Y gory, man--free speech is all right, and I'm going to stay with you, +boy, and fight it out; but, Grant, things do look mighty shaky here, and +I wonder if it's worth it--for that class of people, eh?" + +From the Captain, Nathan Perry took his cue. "I should say, Grant, that +they'll make trouble to-night. Shouldn't we call out the boys from the +Valley, and--" + +Grant cut in: + +"Men, I know what you fear," he said. "You are afraid they will kill me. +Why, they can't kill me! All that I am that is worth living is immortal. +What difference does it make about this body?" His face was still +lighted with the glow it wore while he was addressing the court. "Ten +thousand people in the Valley have my faith. And now I know that even +this strike is not important. The coming Democracy of Labor is a +spiritual caste. And it has been planted in millions of minds. It can +never die. It too is immortal. What have guns and ropes and steel bars +to do with a vision like this?" He threw back his head, his blue eyes +blazed and he all but chanted his defiance of material things: "What can +they do to me, to my faith, to us, to these Valley people, to the +millions in the world who see what we see, who know what we know and +strive for what we cherish? Don't talk to me about death--there is no +death for God's truth. As for this miserable body here--" He gazed at +his friends for a moment, shook his head sadly and walked to the jailer. + +For an hour after the sheriff took Grant to his cell as the town went +home and presumably to bed, George Brotherton with Henry Fenn and Nathan +Perry, rolled his car around the court house square in the still, hot +June night. The Doctor stood by his electric runabout, for half an hour +or more. Then, the Doctor feeling that a false alarm had been spread, +whirred up the hill. The younger men stayed on Market Street. They left +it long after midnight, deserted and still. + +As the watching party broke up, a telephone message from the offices of +Calvin & Calvin winged its way to Sands Park, and from the shades there +came silently a great company of automobiles with hooded lights. One +separated from the others and shot down into the Valley of the Wahoo. +The others went into Market Street. + +At three o'clock the work there was done. The office of the Harvey +_Tribune_ was wrecked, and in one automobile rode Amos Adams, a +prisoner, while before him, surrounded by a squad of policemen, rode +Grant Adams, bound and gagged. + +Around the policemen the mob gathered, and at the city limits the +policemen abandoned Grant and Amos. Their instructions were to take the +two men out of town. The policemen knew the mob. It was not Market +Street. It was the thing that Market Street had made with its greed. The +ignorance of the town, the scum of the town--men, white and black, whom +Market Street, in thoughtless greed the world over, had robbed as +children of their birthright; men whose chief joy was in cruelty and who +lusted for horror. The mob was the earth-bound demon of Market Street. +Only John Kollander in his brass buttons and blue soldier clothes and +stuttering Kyle Perry and one or two others of the town's respectability +were with the mob that took Grant Adams and his father after the +policemen released the father and son at the city limits. The +respectables directed; the scum and the scruff of the town followed, +yelping not unlike a pack of hungry dogs. + +John Kollander led the way to the country club grounds. There was a wide +stretch of rolling land, quiet, remote from passing intruders, safe; and +there great elm trees cast their protecting shade, even in the +starlight, over such deeds as men might wish to do in darkness. + +It was nearly four o'clock and the clouds, banked high in the west, were +flaming with heat lightning. + +On the wide veranda of the country club alone, with a siphon and a +fancy, square, black bottle, sat Judge Thomas Van Dorn. He was in his +shirt sleeves. His wilted collar, grimy and bedraggled, lay on the floor +beside him. He was laughing at something not visible to the waiter, who +sat drowsing in the door of the dining room, waiting for the Judge +either to go to sleep or to leave the club in his car. The Judge had +been singing to himself and laughing quietly at his own ribaldry for +nearly an hour. The heat had smothered the poker game in the basement +and except for the Judge and the waiter the club house was deserted. The +Judge hit the table with the black bottle and babbled: + + "Dog bit a rye straw, + Dog bit a riddle-O! + Dog bit a little boy + Playing on a fiddle-O!" + +Then he laughed and said to the sleepy waiter: "Didn't know I could +sing, did you, Gustave!" + +The waiter grinned. The Judge did not hear a footstep behind him. The +waiter looked up and saw Kyle Perry. + + "Oh, I know a maid + And she's not afraid + To face-- + +"Why, hello Kyle, you old stuttering scoundrel--have one on me--cleanses +the teeth--sweetens the breath and makes hair grow on your belly!" + +He laughed and when Kyle broke in: + +"S-s-say, T-T-Tom, the f-f-fellows are all over in the g-g-golf +l-l-links." + +"The hell they are, Kyle," laughed the Judge. "Tell 'em to come over and +have a cold one on me--Gustave, you go--" + +"B-b-but they d-don't want a drink. The p-p-poker b-b-bunch said you +were here and th-th-they s-s-sent m-m-me to--" + +"S-s-s-sure they d-d-did, Kyle," interrupted Van Dorn. "They sent you to +read the Declaration of Independence to-morrow and wanted you to begin +now and get a g-g-good st-st-start!" He broke into song: + + "Oh, there was an old man from Dundee + Who got on a hell of a spree, + Oh, he wound up the clock, + With-- + +"Say, Kyle," the Judge looked up foolishly, "you didn't know that I was +a cantatrice." He laughed and repeated the last word slowly three times +and then giggled. + +"Still sober. I tell Mrs. Van Dorn that when I can say cantatrice or +specification," he repeated that word slowly, "I'm fit to hold court." + + "Oh, the keyhole in the door-- + The keyhole in the door--" + +he bellowed. + +"Now, l-l-listen, T-T-Tom," insisted Perry. "I t-t-tell you the bunch +has g-g-got Grant Adams and the old man out there in the g-g-golf +l-links and they heard you were h-h-here and they s-s-sent me to tell +you they were g-g-going to g-g-give him all the d-d-degrees and they +w-w-want to t-t-tie a s-s-sign on him when they t-t-turn him loose and +h-h-head him for Om-m-ma-h-ha--" + +"B-b-better h-h-h-head him for h-h-hell," mocked the Judge. + +"Well, they've g-got an iron b-b-band they've b-b-bound on h-h-him and +they've got a b-b-board and some t-t-tar and they w-w-want a m-motto." + +The Judge reached for his fountain pen in his white vest and when the +waiter had brought a sheet of paper, he scribbled while he sang +sleepily: + + "Oh, there was a man and he could do, + He could do--he could do; + +"Here," he pushed the paper to Perry, who saw the words: + + "Get on to the Prince of Peace, + Big Boss of the Democracy of Labor." + +"That's k-k-kind of t-t-tame, don't y-y-you think?" said Kyle. + +"That's all right, Kyle--anyway, what I've written goes: + + "Oh, there was an old woman in Guiana." + +He sang and waved Kyle proudly away. And in another hour the waiter had +put him to bed. + + * * * * * + +It was nearly dawn when George Brotherton had told his story to Laura. +They sat in the little, close, varnish-smelling room to which he called +her. + +She had come through rain from Harvey. As she came into the dreary, +shabby, little room in South Harvey, with its artificial palms and +artificial wreaths--cheap, commercial habiliments of ostentatious +mourning, Laura Van Dorn thought how cruel it was that he should be +there, in a public place at the end, with only the heavy hands of paid +attendants to do the last earthly services for him--whose whole life was +a symbol of love. + +But her heart was stricken, deeply, poignantly stricken by the great +peace she found behind the white door. Yet thus the dust touches our +souls' profoundest depths--always with her memory of that great peace, +comes the memory of the odor of varnish and carbolic acid and the drawn, +spent face of George Brotherton, as he stood before her when she closed +the door. He gazed at her piteously, a wreck of a man, storm-battered +and haggard. His big hands were shaking with a palsy of terrible grief. +His moon face was inanimate, and vagrant emotions from his heart flicked +across his features in quivers of anguish. His thin hair was tousled and +his clothes were soiled and disheveled. + +"I thought you ought to know, Laura--at once," he said, after she had +closed the white door behind her and sat numb and dumb before him. "Nate +and Henry and I got there about four o'clock. Well, there they were--by +the big elm tree--on the golf course. His father was there and he told +me coming back that when they wanted Grant to do anything--they would +string up Amos--poor old Amos! They made Grant stoop over and kiss the +flag, while they kicked him; and they made him pull that machine gun +around the lake. The fools brought it up from the camp in South Harvey." +Brotherton's face quivered, but his tears were gone. He continued: "They +strung poor old Amos up four times, Laura--four times, he says." +Brotherton looked wearily into the street. "Well, as we came down the +hill in our car, we could see Grant. He was nearly naked--about as he is +now. We came tearing down the hill, our siren screaming and Nate and me +yelling and waving our guns. At the first scream of our siren, there was +an awful roar and a flash. Some one," Brotherton paused and turned his +haggard eyes toward Laura--"it was deaf John Kollander, he turned the +lever and fired that machine gun. Oh, Laura, God, it was awful. I saw +Grant wilt down. I saw--" + +The man broke into tears, but bit his lips and continued: "Oh, they ran +like snakes then--like snakes--like snakes, and we came crashing down to +the tree and in a moment the last machine had piked--but I know 'em, +every man-jack!" he cried. "There was the old man, tied hand and foot, +three yards from the tree, and there, half leaning, half sitting by the +tree, the boy, the big, red-headed, broken and crippled boy--was panting +his life out." Brotherton caught her inquiring eyes. "It was all gone, +Laura," he said softly, "all gone. He was the boy, the shy, gentle boy +that we used to know--and always have loved. All this other that the +years have brought was wiped from his eyes. They were so tender and--" +He could go no further. She nodded her understanding. He finally +continued: "The first thing he said to me was, 'It's all right, George.' +He was tied, they had pulled the claw off and his poor stumped arm was +showing and he was bleeding--oh, Laura." + +Brotherton fumbled in his pocket and handed an envelope to her. + +"'George,' he panted, as I tried to make him comfortable--'have Nate +look after father.' And when Nate had gone he whispered between gasps, +'that letter there in the court room--' He had to stop a moment, then he +whispered again, 'is for her, for Laura.' He tried to smile, but the +blood kept bubbling up. We lifted him into an easier position, but +nothing helped much. He realized that and when we quit he said: + +"'Now then, George, promise me this--they're not to blame. John +Kollander isn't to blame. It was funny; Kyle Perry saw him as I did, and +Kyle--' he almost laughed, Laura. + +"'Kyle,' he repeated, 'tried to yell at old John, but got so excited +stuttering, he couldn't! I'm sure the fellows didn't intend--' he was +getting weak; 'this,' he said. + +"'Promise me and make--others; you won't tell. I know father--he won't. +They're not--it's--society. Just that,' he said. 'This was society!' He +had to stop. I felt his hand squeeze. 'I'm--so--happy,' he said one word +at a time, gripping my hand tighter and tighter till it ached." +Brotherton put out his great hand, and looked at it impersonally, as one +introducing a stranger for witness. Then Brotherton lifted his eyes to +Laura's and took up his story: + +"'That's hers,' he said; 'the letter,' and then 'my messages--happy.'" + +The woman pressed her letter to her lips and looked at the white door. +She rose and, holding her letter to her bosom, closed her eyes and stood +with a hand on the knob. She dropped her hand and turned from the white +door. The dawn was graying in the ugly street. But on the clouds the +glow of sunrise blushed in promise. She walked slowly toward the street. +She gazed for a moment at the glorious sky of dawn. + +When her eyes met her friend's, she cried: + +"Give me your hand--that hand!" + +She seized it, gazed hungrily at it a second, then kissed it +passionately. She looked back at the white door, and shook with sobs as +she cried: + +"Oh, you don't think he's there--there in the night--behind the door? We +know--oh, we do know he's out here--out here in the dawn." + + + + +CHAPTER LI + +IN WHICH WE END AS WE BEGAN AND ALL LIVE HAPPILY EVER AFTER + + +The great strike in the Wahoo Valley now is only an episode in the +history of this struggle of labor for its rights. The episode is +receding year by year further and more dimly into the past and is one of +the long, half-forgotten skirmishes wherein labor is learning the truth +that only in so far as labor dares to lean on peace and efficiency can +labor move upward in the scale of life. The larger life with its wider +hope, requires the deeper fellowship of men. The winning or losing of +the strike in the Wahoo meant little in terms of winning or losing; but +because the men kept the peace, kept it to the very end, the strike +meant much in terms of progress. For what they gained was permanent; +based on their own strength, not on the weakness of those who would deny +them. + +But the workers in the mines and mills of the Wahoo Valley, who have +gone to and from their gardens, planting and cultivating and harvesting +their crops for many changing seasons, hold the legend of the strong +man, maimed and scarred, who led them in that first struggle with +themselves, to hold themselves worthy of their dreams. In a hundred +little shacks in the gardens, and in dingy rooms in the tenements may be +found even to-day newspaper clippings pinned to the wall with his +picture on them, all curled up and yellow with years. Before a +wash-stand, above a bed or pasted over the kitchen stove, soiled and +begrimed, these clippings recall the story of the man who gave his life +to prove his creed. So the fellowship he brought into the world lives +on. + +And the fellowship that came into the world as Grant Adams went out of +it, touched a wider circle than the group with whom he lived and +labored. The sad sincerity with which he worked proved to Market Street +that the man was consecrated to a noble purpose, and Market Street's +heart learned a lesson. Indeed the lives of that long procession of +working men who have given themselves so freely--where life was all they +had to give--for the freedom of their fellows from the bondage of the +times, the lives of these men have found their highest value in making +the Market Street eternal, realize its own shame. So Grant Adams lay +down in the company of his peers that Market Street might understand in +his death what his fellows really hoped for. He was a seed that is sown +and falls upon good ground. For Market Street after all is not a stony +place; seeds sown there bring forth great harvests. And while the +harvest of Grant Adams's life is not at hand; the millennium is not +here; the seed is quickening in the earth. And great things are moving +in the world. + + * * * * * + +Of course, there came a time in Harvey, even in the house of Nesbit, +when there was marrying and giving in marriage. It was on a winter's +night when the house inside the deep, dark Moorish verandas, celebrating +Mrs. Nesbit's last bout with the spirit of architecture, glowed with a +jewel of light. + +And in due course they appeared, Rev. Dr. John Dexter leading the way, +followed by a thin, dark-skinned young man with eyes to match and a +rather slight, shortish girl, blond and pink with happy trimmings and +real pearls on her eyelashes. The children jabbered, and the women wept +and the men wiped their eyes, and it was altogether a gay occasion. Just +as the young people were ready to look the world squarely in the face, +George Brotherton, thinking he heard some one moving outside in the +deep, dark veranda, flicked on the porch light, and through the windows +he saw--and the merry company could not help seeing two faces--two wan, +unhappy faces, staring hungrily in at the bridal pair. They stood at +different corners of the house and did not seem to know of one another's +presence until the light revealed them. Only an instant did their faces +flash into the light, as John Dexter was reading from the Bible a part +of the service that he loved to put in, "and forbid them not, for of +such is the kingdom of Heaven." The faces vanished, there was a +scurrying across the cement floor of the veranda and two figures met on +the lawn in shame and anger. + +But they in the house did not know of the meeting. For everybody was +kissing everybody else, and the peppermint candy in little Grant +Brotherton's mouth tasted on a score of lips in three minutes, and a +finger dab of candy on Jasper Adams's shirt front made the world akin. + +After the guests had gone, three old men lingered by the smoldering +logs. "Well, now, Doc Jim," asked Amos, "why shouldn't I? Haven't I paid +taxes in Greeley County for nearly fifty years? Didn't I make the +campaign for that home in the nineties, when they called it the poor +house--most people call it that now. I only stay there when I am +lonesome and I go out in a taxi-cab at the county's expense like a +gentleman to his estate. And I guess it is my estate. I was talking to +Lincoln about it the other night, and he says he approves. Ruskin says I +am living my religion like a diamond in the rock." + +To the Captain's protest he answered, "Oh, yes, I know that--but that +would be charity. My pencils and shoestrings and collar buttons and coat +hangers keep me in spending money. I couldn't take charity even from you +men. And Jasper's money," the gray poll wagged, and he cried, "Oh, +no--not Ahab Wright's and Kyle Perry's--not that money. Kenyon is +forever slipping me fifty. But I don't need it. John Dexter keeps a room +always ready for me, and I like it at the Dexters' almost as much as I +do at the county home. So I don't really need Kenyon's money, however +much joy he takes in giving it. And I raise the devil's own fuss to keep +him from doing it." + +The Doctor puffed, and the Captain in his regal garments paraded the +long room, with his hands locked under his coattails. + +"But, Amos," cried the Captain, "under the law, no man wearing that +button," and the Captain looked at the tri-color of the Loyal Legion, +proudly adorning the shiny coat, "no soldier under the law, has to go +out there. They've got to keep you here in town, and besides you're +entitled to a whopping lot of pension money for all these unclaimed +years." + +The white old head shook and the pursed old lips smiled, as the thin +little voice replied, "Not yet, Ezra--not yet--I don't need the pension +yet. And as for the Home--it's not lonesome there. A lot of 'em are +bedfast and stricken and I get a certain amount of fun--chirping 'em up +on cloudy days. They like to hear from Emerson and John A. Logan, and +Sitting Bull and Huxley and their comrades. So I guess I'm being more or +less useful." He stroked his scraggy beard and looked at the fire. "And +then," he added, "she always seems nearer where there is sorrow. Grant, +too, is that way, though neither of 'em really has come." + +The Captain finding that his money was ashes in his hands, and not +liking the thought and meditation of death, changed the subject, and +when the evening was old, Amos Adams called a taxi-cab, and at the +county's expense rode home. + +At the end of a hard winter day, descending tardily into the early +spring, they missed him at the farm. No one knew whether he had gone to +visit the Dexters, as was his weekly wont, or whether he was staying +with Captain Morton in town, where he sometimes spent Saturday night +after the Grand Army meeting. + +The next day the sun came out and melted the untimely snow banks. And +some country boys playing by a limestone ledge in a wide upland meadow +above the Wahoo, far from the smoke of town, came upon the body of an +old man. Beside him was strewn a meager peddler's kit. On his knees was +a tablet of paper; in his left hand was a pencil tightly gripped. On the +tablet in a fine, even hand were the words: "I am here, Amos," and his +old eyes, stark and wide, were drooped, perhaps to look at the tri-color +of the Loyal Legion that shone on his shrunken chest and told of a great +dream of a nation come true, or perhaps in the dead, stark eyes was +another vision in another world. + +And so as in the beginning, there was blue sky and sunshine and prairie +grass at the end. + + + + +CHAPTER LII + +NOT EXACTLY A CHAPTER BUT RATHER A Q E D OR A HIC FABULA DOCET + + +"And the fool said in his heart, there is no God!" And this fable +teaches, if it teaches anything, that the fool was indeed a fool. Now do +not think that his folly lay chiefly in glutting his life with drab +material things, with wives and concubines, with worldly power and +glory. That was but a small part of his folly. For that concerned +himself. That turned upon his own little destiny. The vast folly of the +fool came with his blindness. He could not see the beautiful miracle of +progress that God has been working in this America of ours during these +splendid fifty years that have closed a great epoch. + +And what a miracle it was! Here lay a continent--rich, crass, material, +beckoning humanity to fall down and worship the god of gross and +palpable realities. And, on the other hand, here stood the American +spirit--the eternal love of freedom, which had brought men across the +seas, had bid them fight kings and principalities and powers, had forced +them into the wilderness by the hundreds of thousands to make of it "the +homestead of the free"; the spirit that had called them by the millions +to wage a terrible civil war for a great ideal. + +This spirit met the god of things as they are, and for a generation +grappled in a mighty struggle. + +And men said: The old America is dead; America is money mad; America is +a charnel house of greed. Millions and millions of men from all over the +earth came to her shores. And the world said: They have brought only +their greed with them. And still the struggle went on. The continent was +taken; man abolished the wilderness. A new civilization rose. And +because it was strong, the world said it was not of the old America, but +of a new, soft, wicked order, which wist not that God had departed from +it. + +Then the new epoch dawned; clear and strong came the call to Americans +to go forth and fight in the Great War--not for themselves, not for +their own glory, nor their own safety, but for the soul of the world. +And the old spirit of America rose and responded. The long inward +struggle, seen only by the wise, only by those who knew how God's truth +conquers in this earth, working beneath the surface, deep in the heart +of things, the long inward struggle of the spirit of America for its own +was won. + +So it came to pass that the richness of the continent was poured out for +an ideal, that the genius of those who had seemed to be serving only +Mammon was devoted passionately to a principle, and that the blood of +those who came in seeming greed to America was shed gloriously in the +high emprise which called America to this new world crusade. Moses in +the burning bush speaking with God, Saul on the road to Damascus, never +came closer to the force outside ourselves which makes for +righteousness,--the force that has guided humanity upward through the +ages,--than America has come in this hour of her high resolve. And yet +for fifty years she has come into this holy ground steadily, and +unswervingly; indeed, for a hundred years, for three hundred years from +Plymouth Rock to the red fields of France, America has come a long and +perilous way--yet always sure, and never faltering. + +To have lived in the generation now passing, to have seen the glory of +the coming of the Lord in the hearts of the people, to have watched the +steady triumph in our American life of the spirit of justice, of +fellowship over the spirit of greed, to have seen the Holy Ghost rise in +the life of a whole nation, was a blessed privilege. And if this tale +has reflected from the shallow paper hearts of those phantoms flitting +through its pages some glimpse of their joy in their pilgrimage, the +story has played its part. If the fable of Grant Adams's triumphant +failure does not dramatize in some way the victory of the American +spirit--the Puritan conscience--in our generation, then, alas, this +parable has fallen short of its aim. But most of all, if the story has +not shown how sad a thing it is to sit in the seat of the scornful, and +to deny the reality of God's purpose in this world, even though it is +denied in pomp and power and pride, then indeed this narrative has +failed. For in all this world one finds no other place so dreary and so +desolate as it is in the heart of a fool. + +THE END + + + + +PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA + + + + +The following pages contain advertisements of Macmillan books by the +same author. + + + + +BY THE SAME AUTHOR + +God's Puppets + +By WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE + +Cloth, 12mo, with Frontispiece, $1.35 + +"Five capital stories full of scorn for hypocrisy, meanness and +anti-social types of character, and of equal admiration for men who are +clean, straight and generous. The book has the tone and purpose of Mr. +White's 'A Certain Rich Man.' It has also humor and a closely drawn +picture of small town conditions in the Middle West."--_Outlook._ + +"Literature that is lifelike in essence, moral without being +hypocritical, dramatic without being theatricalized, inspiring without +being preachy."--_New York Sun._ + +The Old Order Changeth + +By WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE + +Cloth, 12mo, $1.25 + +This is a collection of stirring essays on topics of present-day +interest. Opening with a discussion of the former democracy of this +country, the author considers the beginnings of the change, the cause +and certain definite tendencies in American democracy. + +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + +Publishers--64-66 Fifth Avenue--New York + + + + +NEW FALL FICTION + +H. G. WELLS' NEW NOVEL. + +JOAN AND PETER. "The Story of an Education." + +By H. G. Wells. With frontispiece. + +$1.75. + +A NEW NOVEL BY WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE. + +IN THE HEART OF A FOOL. By William + +Allen White, author of "A Certain Rich Man." + +With frontispiece. $1.60. + +EDEN PHILLPOTTS' NEW NOVEL. + +THE SPINNERS. By Eden Phillpotts, author of "Brunel's Tower," +"Old Delabole," etc. + +NEW JACK LONDON STORIES. + +THE RED ONE. By Jack London, author of "The Call of the Wild," +etc. With frontispiece. + +A SEA STORY BY MCFARLAND. + +SKIPPER JOHN OF THE NIMBUS. By Raymond McFarland. With +frontispiece. $1.50. + +A NOVEL BY ZOeE BECKLEY. + +A CHANCE TO LIVE. By Zoe Beckley. With illustrations. + +ONCE ON THE SUMMER RANGE. By Francis Hill. Illustrated. + +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + +Publishers--64-66 Fifth Avenue--New York + + + + +The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me + +By WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE + +Cloth, $1.50 + +"A jolly book ... truly one of the best that has yet come down war's +grim pike."--_New York Post._ + +"Honest from first to last.... Resembles 'Innocents Abroad' in scheme +and laughter ... a vivid picture of Europe at this hour. 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The sober common sense and the +information about the work going on in France--the way our men take hold +and the French respond--go to make this the book all Americans have long +been waiting for. + +The inimitable sketches of Tony Sarg, distributed throughout, lend a +clever, human atmosphere to the text. + +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + +Publishers--64-66 Fifth Avenue--New York + + + + +A Certain Rich Man + +By WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE + +Author of "What's the Matter with Kansas?" + +Cloth, 12mo, $1.50 + +The absorbing story of the career of a remarkable money-maker and his +associates. A powerful book full of United States life and colour, +taking front rank among the best modern novels. + +"It pulsates with humour, interest, passionate love, adventure, +pathos--every page is woven with threads of human nature, life as we +know it, as it is, and above it all a spirit of righteousness, true +piety, and heroic patriotism. These inspire the author's genius and fine +literary quality, thrilling the reader with tenderest emotion, and +holding to the end his unflagging and absorbing interest."--G. W. O. in +_Philadelphia Public Ledger_. + +"This novel has a message for to-day, and for its brilliant character +drawing, and that gossipy desultory style of writing that stamps Mr. +White's literary work, will earn a high place in fiction. It is good and +clean and provides a vacation from the cares of the hour. It resembles a +Chinese play, because it begins with the hero's boyhood, describes his +long, busy life, and ends with his death. Its tone is often religious, +never flippant, and one of its best assets is its glowing descriptions +of the calm, serene beauties of nature. Its moral is that a magnate +never did any real good with money."--_Oregonian_, Portland, Oregon. + +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + +Publishers--64-66 Fifth Avenue--New York + + + + +Other Books by William Allen White + +COURT OF BOYVILLE + +Illustrated--Cloth--12mo--$1.50 + +There are few men in the world who have pictured that strange creation, +the Boy, as he actually is. One of these men is Mr. White. His Kansas +boys are a delight, and the recollections they will awaken in the mind +of any man will cause him to congratulate himself for having read the +book. + +IN OUR TOWN + +Illustrated--Cloth--12mo--$1.50 + +Mr. White suggests Barrie more than any other living writer. His new +book does for the daily life of a modern Kansas town just what Barrie +has done for a Scotch town in "A Window in Thrums." + +"It is 'Boyville' grown up; better because more skilfully and deftly +done; riper, because 'Bill' is a bigger boy now than he was five years +ago, and more human. No writer to-day handles the small town life to +compare with White, and this is the best book he has yet done."--_Los +Angeles Herald._ + +STRATAGEMS AND SPOILS + +Illustrated--Cloth--12mo--$1.50 + +There are hours and days and long years in the lives of men and women +wherein strong passions are excited and great human interests are at +stake. The ambition for power, the greed for money, the desire to win +the game, the hunger for fame, parental love, anger, friendship, hate, +and revenge--the primitive passions that move men and the world +powerfully--certainly these deserve as important a place in the +chronicles of the human animal as does the mating instinct. 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