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diff --git a/old/masks10.txt b/old/masks10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..991418d --- /dev/null +++ b/old/masks10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7154 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Lifted Masks, by Susan Glaspell + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Lifted Masks + Stories + +Author: Susan Glaspell + +Release Date: January, 2005 [EBook #7368] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on April 21, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFTED MASKS *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne L. Shell, Charles Franks +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + +LIFTED MASKS + + +STORIES BY + + +SUSAN GLASPELL + +1912 + + + + + +[Dedication] +To +THE MEMORY OF MY FRIEND +JENNIE PRESTON + + + + +CONTENTS + + +I "ONE OF THOSE IMPOSSIBLE AMERICANS" + +II THE PLEA + +III FOR LOVE OF THE HILLS + +IV FRECKLES M'GRATH + +V FROM A TO Z + +VI THE MAN OF FLESH AND BLOOD + +VII HOW THE PRINCE SAW AMERICA + +VIII THE LAST SIXTY MINUTES + +IX "OUT THERE" + +X THE PREPOSTEROUS MOTIVE + +XI HIS AMERICA + +XII THE ANARCHIST: HIS DOG + +XIII AT TWILIGHT + + + + +LIFTED MASKS + + + + +I + +"ONE OF THOSE IMPOSSIBLE AMERICANS" + + +"N'avez-vous pas--" she was bravely demanding of the clerk when she +saw that the bulky American who was standing there helplessly +dangling two flaming red silk stockings which a copiously coiffured +young woman assured him were _bien chic_ was edging nearer her. +She was never so conscious of the truly American quality of her +French as when a countryman was at hand. The French themselves had +an air of "How marvellously you speak!" but fellow Americans +listened superciliously in an "I can do better than that myself" +manner which quite untied the Gallic twist in one's tongue. And so, +feeling her French was being compared, not with mere French itself, +but with an arrogant new American brand thereof, she moved a little +around the corner of the counter and began again in lower voice: +"_Mais, n'avez_--" + +"Say, Young Lady," a voice which adequately represented the figure +broke in, "_you_, aren't French, are you?" + +She looked up with what was designed for a haughty stare. But what +is a haughty stare to do in the face of a broad grin? And because it +was such a long time since a grin like that had been grinned at her +it happened that the stare gave way to a dimple, and the dimple to a +laughing: "Is it so bad as that?" + +"Oh, not your French," he assured her. "You talk it just like the +rest of them. In fact, I should say, if anything--a little more so. +But do you know,"--confidentially--"I can just spot an American girl +every time!" + +"How?" she could not resist asking, and the modest black hose she +was thinking of purchasing dangled against his gorgeous red ones in +friendliest fashion. + +"Well, Sir--I don't know. I don't think it can be the +clothes,"--judicially surveying her. + +"The clothes," murmured Virginia, "were bought in Paris." + +"Well, you've got _me_. Maybe it's the way you wear 'em. Maybe +it's 'cause you look as if you used to play tag with your brother. +Something--anyhow--gives a fellow that 'By jove there's an American +girl!' feeling when he sees you coming round the corner." + +"But why--?" + +"Lord--don't begin on _why_. You can say _why_ to +anything. Why don't the French talk English? Why didn't they lay +Paris out at right angles? Now look here, Young Lady, for that +matter--_why_ can't you help me buy some presents for my wife? +There'd be nothing wrong about it," he hastened to assure her, +"because my wife's a mighty fine woman." + +The very small American looked at the very large one. Now Virginia +was a well brought up young woman. Her conversations with strange +men had been confined to such things as, "Will you please tell me +the nearest way to--?" but preposterously enough--she could not for +the life of her have told why--frowning upon this huge American--fat +was the literal word--who stood there with puckered-up face swinging +the flaming hose would seem in the same shameful class with snubbing +the little boy who confidently asked her what kind of ribbon to buy +for his mother. + +"Was it for your wife you were thinking of buying these red +stockings?" she ventured. + +"Sure. What do you think of 'em? Look as if they came from Paris all +right, don't they?" + +"Oh, they look as though they came from Paris, all right," Virginia +repeated, a bit grimly. "But do you know"--this quite as to that +little boy who might be buying the ribbon--"American women don't +always care for all the things that look as if they came from Paris. +Is your wife--does she care especially for red stockings?" + +"Don't believe she ever had a pair in her life. That's why I thought +it might please her." + +Virginia looked down and away. There were times when dimples made +things hard for one. + +Then she said, with gentle gravity: "There are quite a number of +women in America who don't care much for red stockings. It would +seem too bad, wouldn't it, if after you got these clear home your +wife should turn out to be one of those people? Now, I think these +grey stockings are lovely. I'm sure any woman would love them. She +could wear them with grey suede slippers and they would be so soft +and pretty." + +"Um--not very lively looking, are they? You see I want something to +cheer her up. She--well she's not been very well lately and I +thought something--oh something with a lot of _dash_ in it, you +know, would just fill the bill. But look here. We'll take both. +Sure--that's the way out of it. If she don't like the red, she'll +like the grey, and if she don't like the--You like the grey ones, +don't you? Then here"--picking up two pairs of the handsomely +embroidered grey stockings and handing them to the clerk--"One," +holding up his thumb to denote one--"me,"--a vigorous pounding of +the chest signifying me. "One"--holding up his forefinger and +pointing to the girl--"mademoiselle." + +"Oh no--no--no!" cried Virginia, her face instantly the colour of +the condemned stockings. Then, standing straight: "Certainly +_not_." + +"No? Just as you say," he replied good humouredly. "Like to have you +have 'em. Seems as if strangers in a strange land oughtn't to stand +on ceremony." + +The clerk was bending forward holding up the stockings alluringly. +"_Pour mademoiselle, n'est-ce-pas_?" + +"_Mais--non!_" pronounced Virginia, with emphasis. + +There followed an untranslatable gesture. "How droll!" shoulder and +outstretched hands were saying. "If the kind gentleman _wishes_ +to give mademoiselle the _joli bas_--!" + +His face had puckered up again. Then suddenly it unpuckered. "Tell +you what you might do," he solved it. "Just take 'em along and send +them to your mother. Now your mother might be real glad to have +'em." + +Virginia stared. And then an awful thing happened. What she was +thinking about was the letter she could send with the stockings. +"Mother dear," she would write, "as I stood at the counter buying +myself some stockings to-day along came a nice man--a stranger to +me, but very kind and jolly--and gave me--" + +There it was that the awful thing happened. Her dimple was +showing--and at thought of its showing she could not keep it from +showing! And how could she explain why it was showing without its +going on showing? And how--? + +But at that moment her gaze fell upon the clerk, who had taken the +dimple as signal to begin putting the stockings in a box. The +Frenchwoman's eyebrows soon put that dimple in its proper place. +"And so the _petite Americaine_ was not too--oh, not _too_--" those +French eyebrows were saying. + +All in an instant Virginia was something quite different from a +little girl with a dimple. "You are very kind," she was saying, and +her mother herself could have done it no better, "but I am sure our +little joke had gone quite far enough. I bid you good-morning". And +with that she walked regally over to the glove counter, leaving red +and grey and black hosiery to their own destinies. + +"I loathe them when their eyebrows go up," she fumed. "Now +_his_ weren't going up--not even in his mind." + +She could not keep from worrying about him. "They'll just 'do' him," +she was sure. "And then laugh at him in the bargain. A man like that +has no _business_ to be let loose in a store all by himself." + +And sure enough, a half hour later she came upon him up in the dress +department. Three of them had gathered round to "do" him. They were +making rapid headway, their smiling deference scantily concealing +their amused contempt. The spectacle infuriated Virginia. "They just +think they can _work_ us!" she stormed. "They think we're +_easy_. I suppose they think he's a _fool_. I just wish +they could get him in a business deal! I just wish--!" + +"I can assure you, sir," the English-speaking manager of the +department was saying, "that this garment is a wonderful value. We +are able to let you have it at so absurdly low a figure because--" + +Virginia did not catch why it was they were able to let him have it +at so absurdly low a figure, but she did see him wipe his brow and +look helplessly around. "Poor _thing_," she murmured, almost +tenderly, "he doesn't know what to do. He just _does_ need +somebody to look after him." She stood there looking at his back. He +had a back a good deal like the back of her chum's father at home. +Indeed there were various things about him suggested "home." Did one +want one's own jeered at? One might see crudities one's self, but +was one going to have supercilious outsiders coughing those sham +coughs behind their hypocritical hands? + +"For seven hundred francs," she heard the suave voice saying. + +_Seven hundred francs_! Virginia's national pride, or, more +accurately, her national rage, was lashed into action. It was with +very red cheeks that the small American stepped stormily to the +rescue of her countryman. + +"Seven hundred francs for _that_?" she jeered, right in the +face of the enraged manager and stiffening clerks. "Seven hundred +francs--indeed! Last year's model--a hideous colour, and "--picking +it up, running it through her fingers and tossing it contemptuously +aside--"abominable stuff!" + +"Gee, but I'm grateful to you!" he breathed, again wiping his brow. +"You know, I was a little leery of it myself." + +The manager, quivering with rage and glaring uglily, stepped up to +Virginia. "May I ask--?" + +But the fat man stepped in between--he was well qualified for that +position. "Cut it out, partner. The young lady's a friend of +_mine_--see? She's looking out for me--not you. I don't want +your stuff, anyway." And taking Virginia serenely by the arm he +walked away. + +"This was no place to buy dresses," said she crossly. + +"Well, I wish I knew where the places _were_ to buy things," he +replied, humbly, forlornly. + +"Well, what do you want to buy?" demanded she, still crossly. + +"Why, I want to buy some nice things for my wife. Something the real +thing from Paris, you know. I came over from London on purpose. But +Lord,"--again wiping his brow--"a fellow doesn't know where to +_go_." + +"Oh well," sighed Virginia, long-sufferingly, "I see I'll just have +to take you. There doesn't seem any way out of it. It's evident you +can't go _alone_. _Seven hundred francs_!" + +"I suppose it was too much," he conceded meekly. "I tell you I +_will_ be grateful if you'll just stay by me a little while. I +never felt so up against it in all my life." + +"Now, a very nice thing to take one's wife from Paris," began +Virginia didactically, when they reached the sidewalk, "is lace." + +"L--ace? Um! Y--es, I suppose lace is all right. Still it never +struck me there was anything so very _lively_ looking about +lace." + +"'Lively looking' is not the final word in wearing apparel," +pronounced Virginia in teacher-to-pupil manner. "Lace is always in +good taste, never goes out of style, and all women care for it. I +will take you to one of the lace shops." + +"Very well," acquiesced he, truly chastened. "Here, let's get in +this cab." + +Virginia rode across the Seine looking like one pondering the +destinies of nations. Her companion turned several times to address +her, but it would have been as easy for a soldier to slap a general +on the back. Finally she turned to him. + +"Now when we get there," she instructed, "don't seem at all +interested in things. Act--oh, bored, you know, and seeming to want +to get me away. And when they tell the price, no matter what they +say, just--well sort of groan and hold your head and act as though +you are absolutely overcome at the thought of such an outrage." + +"U--m. You have to do that here to get--lace?" + +"You have to do that here to get _anything_---at the price you +should get it. You, and people who go shopping the way you do, bring +discredit upon the entire American nation." + +"That so? Sorry. Never meant to do that. All right, Young Lady, I'll +do the best I can. Never did act that way, but suppose I can, if the +rest of them do." + +"Groan and hold my head," she heard him murmuring as they entered +the shop. + +He proved an apt pupil. It may indeed be set down that his aptitude +was their undoing. They had no sooner entered the shop than he +pulled out his watch and uttered an exclamation of horror at the +sight of the time. Virginia could scarcely look at the lace, so +insistently did he keep waving the watch before her. His contempt +for everything shown was open and emphatic. It was also articulate. +Virginia grew nervous, seeing the real red showing through in the +Frenchwoman's cheeks. And when the price was at last named--a price +which made Virginia jubilant--there burst upon her outraged ears +something between a jeer and a howl of rage, the whole of it +terrifyingly done in the form of a groan; she looked at her +companion to see him holding up his hands and wobbling his head as +though it had been suddenly loosened from his spine, cast one look +at the Frenchwoman--then fled, followed by her groaning compatriot. + +"I didn't mean you to act like _that_!" she stormed. + +"Why, I did just what you told me to! Seemed to me I was following +directions to the letter. Don't think for a minute _I'm_ going +to bring discredit on the American nation! Not a bad scheme--taking +out my watch that way, was it?" + +"Oh, beautiful _scheme_. I presume you notice, however, that we +have no lace." + +They walked half a block in silence. "Now I'll take you to another +shop," she then volunteered, in a turning the other cheek fashion, +"and here please do nothing at all. Please just--sit." + +"Sort of as if I was feeble-minded, eh?" + +"Oh, don't _try_ to look feeble-minded," she begged, alarmed at +seeming to suggest any more parts; "just sit there--as if you were +thinking of something very far away." + +"Say, Young Lady, look here; this is very nice, being put on to the +tricks of the trade, but the money end of it isn't cutting much ice, +and isn't there any way you can just _buy_ things--the way you +do in Cincinnati? Can't you get their stuff without making a comic +opera out of it?" + +"No, you can't," spoke relentless Virginia; "not unless you want +them to laugh and say 'Aren't Americans fools?' the minute the door +is shut." + +"Fools--eh? I'll show them a thing or two!" + +"Oh, please show them nothing here! Please just--sit." + +While employing her wiles to get for three hundred and fifty francs a +yoke and scarf aggregating four hundred, she chanced to look at her +American friend. Then she walked rapidly to the rear of the shop, +buried her face in her handkerchief, and seemed making heroic efforts +to sneeze. Once more he was following directions to the letter. Chin +resting on hands, hands resting on stick, the huge American had taken +on the beatific expression of a seventeen-year-old girl thinking of +something "very far away." Virginia was long in mastering the sneeze. + +On the sidewalk she presented him with the package of lace and also +with what she regarded the proper thing in the way of farewell +speech. She supposed it _was_ hard for a man to go shopping +alone; she could see how hard it would be for her own father; indeed +it was seeing how difficult it would be for her father had impelled +her to go with him, a stranger. She trusted his wife would like the +lace; she thought it very nice, and a bargain. She was glad to have +been of service to a fellow countryman who seemed in so difficult a +position. + +But he did not look as impressed as one to whom a farewell speech +was being made should look. In fact, he did not seem to be hearing +it. Once more, and in earnest this time, he appeared to be thinking +of something very far away. Then all at once he came back, and it +was in anything but a far-away voice he began, briskly: "Now look +here, Young Lady, I don't doubt but this lace is great stuff. You +say so, and I haven't seen man, woman or child on this side of the +Atlantic knows as much as you do. I'm mighty grateful for the +lace--don't you forget that, but just the same--well, now I'll tell +you. I have a very special reason for wanting something a little +livelier than lace. Something that seems to have Paris written on it +in red letters--see? Now, where do you get the kind of hats you see +some folks wearing, and where do you get the dresses--well, it's +hard to describe 'em, but the kind they have in pictures marked +'Breezes from Paris'? You see--_S-ay!_--_what_ do you think of +_that?_" + +"That" was in a window across the street. It was an opera cloak. He +walked toward it, Virginia following. "Now _there_," he turned +to her, his large round face all aglow, "is what I want." + +It was yellow; it was long; it was billowy; it was insistently and +recklessly regal. + +"That's the ticket!" he gloated. + +"Of course," began Virginia, "I don't know anything about it. I am +in a very strange position, not knowing what your wife likes or--or +has. This is the kind of thing everything has to go _with_ or +one wouldn't--one couldn't--" + +"Sure! Good idea. We'll just get everything to go with it." + +"It's the sort of thing one doesn't see worn much outside of +Paris--or New York. If one is--now my mother wouldn't care for that +coat at all." Virginia took no little pride in that tactful finish. + +"Can't sidetrack me!" he beamed. "I _want_ it. Very thing I'm +after, Young Lady." + +"Well, of course you will have no difficulty in buying the coat +without me," said she, as a dignified version of "I wash my hands of +you." "You can do here as you said you wished to do, simply go in +and pay what they ask. There would be no use trying to get it cheap. +They would know that anyone who wanted it would"--she wanted to say +"have more money than they knew what to do with," but contented +herself with, "be able to pay for it." + +But when she had finished she looked at him; at first she thought +she wanted to laugh, and then it seemed that wasn't what she wanted +to do after all. It was like saying to a small boy who was one beam +over finding a tin horn: "Oh well, take the horn if you want to, but +you can't haul your little red waggon while you're blowing the +horn." There seemed something peculiarly inhuman about taking the +waggon just when he had found the horn. Now if the waggon were +broken, then to take away the horn would leave the luxury of grief. +But let not shadows fall upon joyful moments. + +With the full ardour of her femininity she entered into the +purchasing of the yellow opera cloak. They paid for that decorative +garment the sum of two thousand five hundred francs. It seemed it +was embroidered, and the lining was--anyway, they paid it. + +And they took it with them. He was going to "take no chances on +losing it." He was leaving Paris that night and held that during his +stay he had been none too impressed with either Parisian speed or +Parisian veracity. + +Then they bought some "Breezes from Paris," a dress that would +"go with" the coat. It was violet velvet, and contributed to the +sense of doing one's uttermost; and hats--"the kind you see some +folks wearing." One was the rainbow done into flowers, and the +other the kind of black hat to outdo any rainbow. "If you could +just give me some idea what type your wife is," Virginia was +saying, from beneath the willow plumes. "Now you see this hat +quite overpowers me. Do you think it will overpower her?" + +"Guess not. Anyway, if it don't look right on her head she may enjoy +having it around to look at." + +Virginia stared out at him. The _oddest_ man! As if a hat were +any good at all if it didn't look right on one's head! + +Upon investigation--though yielding to his taste she was still +vigilant as to his interests--Virginia discovered a flaw in one of +the plumes. The sylph in the trailing gown held volubly that it did +not _fait rien_; the man with the open purse said he couldn't +see that it figured much, but the small American held firm. That +must be replaced by a perfect plume or they would not take the hat. +And when she saw who was in command the sylph as volubly acquiesced +that _naturellement_ it must be _tout a fait_ perfect. She would +send out and get one that would be oh! so, so, _so_ perfect. It +would take half an hour. + +"Tell you what we'll do," Virginia's friend proposed, opera cloak +tight under one arm, velvet gown as tight under the other, "I'm +tired--hungry--thirsty; feel like a ham sandwich--and something. I'm +playing you out, too. Let's go out and get a bite and come back for +the so, so, _so_ perfect hat." + +She hesitated. But he had the door open, and if he stood holding it +that way much longer he was bound to drop the violet velvet gown. +She did not want him to drop the velvet gown and furthermore, she +_would_ like a cup of tea. There came into her mind a fortifying +thought about the relative deaths of sheep and lambs. If to be +killed for the sheep were indeed no worse than being killed for +the lamb, and if a cup of tea went with the sheep and nothing at +all with the lamb--? + +So she agreed. "There's a nice little tea-shop right round the +corner. We girls often go there." + +"Tea? Like tea? All right, then"--and he started manfully on. + +But as she entered the tea-shop she was filled with keen sense of +the desirableness of being slain for the lesser animal. For, cosily +installed in their favourite corner, were "the girls." + +Virginia had explained to these friends some three hours before that +she could not go with them that afternoon as she must attend a +musicale some friends of her mother's were giving. Being friends of +her mother's, she expatiated, she would have to go. + +Recollecting this, also for the first time remembering the musicale, +she bowed with the _hauteur_ of self-consciousness. + +Right there her friend contributed to the tragedy of a sheep's death +by dropping the yellow opera cloak. While he was stooping to pick it +up the violet velvet gown slid backward and Virginia had to steady +it until he could regain position. The staring in the corner gave +way to tittering--and no dying sheep had ever held its head more +haughtily. + +The death of this particular sheep proved long and painful. The legs +of Virginia's friend and the legs of the tea-table did not seem well +adapted to each other. He towered like a human mountain over the +dainty thing, twisting now this way and now that. It seemed +Providence--or at least so much of it as was represented by the +management of that shop--had never meant fat people to drink tea. +The table was rendered further out of proportion by having a large +box piled on either side of it. + +Expansively, and not softly, he discoursed of these things. What did +they think a fellow was to do with his _knees_? Didn't they +sell tea enough to afford any decent chairs? Did all these women +pretend to really _like_ tea? + +Virginia's sense of humour rallied somewhat as she viewed him eating +the sandwiches. Once she had called them doll-baby sandwiches; now +that seemed literal: tea-cups, _petit gateau_, the whole service +gave the fancy of his sitting down to a tea-party given by a little +girl for her dollies. + +But after a time he fell silent, looking around the room. And when +he broke that pause his voice was different. + +"These women here, all dressed so fine, nothing to do but sit around +and eat this folderol, _they_ have it easy--don't they?" + +The bitterness in it, and a faint note of wistfulness, puzzled her. +Certainly _he_ had money. + +"And the husbands of these women," he went on; "lots of 'em, I +suppose, didn't always have so much. Maybe some of these women +helped out in the early days when things weren't so easy. Wonder if +the men ever think how lucky they are to be able to get it back at +'em?" + +She grew more bewildered. Wasn't he "getting it back?" The money he +had been spending that day! + +"Young Lady," he said abruptly, "you must think I'm a queer one." + +She murmured feeble protest. + +"Yes, you must. Must wonder what I want with all this stuff, don't +you?" + +"Why, it's for your wife, isn't it?" she asked, startled. + +"Oh yes, but you must wonder. You're a shrewd one, Young Lady; +judging the thing by me, you must wonder." + +Virginia was glad she was not compelled to state her theory. Loud +and common and impossible were terms which had presented themselves, +terms which she had fought with kind and good-natured and generous. +Their purchases she had decided were to be used, not for a knock, +but as a crashing pound at the door of the society of his town. For +her part, Virginia hoped the door would come down. + +"And if you knew that probably this stuff would never be worn at +all, that ten to one it would never do anything more than lie round +on chairs--then you _would_ think I was queer, wouldn't you?" + +She was forced to admit that that would seem rather strange. + +"Young Lady, I believe I'll tell you about it. Never do talk about +it to hardly anybody, but I feel as if you and I were pretty well +acquainted--we've been through so much together." + +She smiled at him warmly; there was something so real about him when +he talked that way. + +But his look then frightened her. It seemed for an instant as though +he would brush the tiny table aside and seize some invisible thing +by the throat. Then he said, cutting off each word short: "Young +Lady, what do you think of this? I'm worth more 'an a million +dollars--and my wife gets up at five o'clock every morning to do +washing and scrubbing." + +"Oh, it's not that she _has_ to," he answered her look, "but +she _thinks_ she has to. See? Once we were poor. For twenty +years we were poor as dirt. Then she did have to do things like +that. Then I struck it. Or rather, it struck me. Oil. Oil on a bit +of land I had. I had just sense enough to make the most of it; one +thing led to another--well, you're not interested in that end of it. +But the fact is that now we're rich. Now she could have all the +things that these women have--Lord A'mighty she could lay abed every +day till noon if she wanted to! But--you see?--it _got_ her--those +hard, lonely, grinding years _took_ her. She's"--he shrunk from the +terrible word and faltered out--"her mind's not--" + +There was a sobbing little flutter in Virginia's throat. In a dim +way she was glad to see that the girls were going. She _could_ +not have them laughing at him--now. + +"Well, you can about figure out how it makes me feel," he continued, +and looking into his face now it was as though the spirit redeemed +the flesh. "You're smart. You can see it without my callin' your +attention to it. Last time I went to see her I had just made fifty +thousand on a deal. And I found her down on her knees thinking she +was scrubbing the floor!" + +Unconsciously Virginia's hand went out, following the rush of +sympathy and understanding. "But can't they--restrain her?" she +murmured. + +"Makes her worse. Says she's got it to do--frets her to think she's +not getting it done." + +"But isn't there some _way_?" she whispered. "Some way to make +her _know_?" + +He pointed to the large boxes. "That," he said simply, "is the +meaning of those. It's been seven years--but I keep on trying." + +She was silent, the tears too close for words. And she had thought +it cheap ambition!--vulgar aspiration--silly show--vanity! + +"Suppose you thought I was a queer one, talking about lively looking +things. But you see now? Thought it might attract her attention, +thought something real gorgeous like this might impress money on +her. Though I don't know,"--he seemed to grow weary as he told it; +"I got her a lot of diamonds, thinking they might interest her, and +she thought she'd stolen 'em, and they had to take them away." + +Still the girl did not speak. Her hand was shading her eyes. + +"But there's nothing like trying. Nothing like keeping right on +trying. And anyhow--a fellow likes to think he's taking his wife +something from Paris." + +They passed before her in their heartbreaking folly, their tragic +uselessness, their lovable absurdity and stinging irony--those +things they had bought that afternoon: an _opera cloak_--a +_velvet dress_--_those hats_--_red silk stockings_. + +The mockery of them wrung her heart. Right there in the tea-shop +Virginia was softly crying. + +"Oh, now that's too bad," he expostulated clumsily. "Why, look here, +Young Lady, I didn't mean you to take it so hard." + +When she had recovered herself he told her much of the story. And +the thing which revealed him--glorified him--was less the grief he +gave to it than the way he saw it. "It's the cursed unfairness of +it," he concluded. "When you consider it's all because she did those +things--when you think of her bein' bound to 'em for life just +because she was _too faithful doin' 'em_--when you think that +now--when I could give her everything these women have got!--she's +got to go right on worrying about baking the bread and washing the +dishes--did it for me when I was poor--and now with me rich she can't +get _out_ of it--and I _can't reach_ her--oh, it's _rotten!_ I +tell you it's _rotten!_ Sometimes I can just hear my money _laugh_ +at me! Sometimes I get to going round and round in a circle about it +till it seems I'm going crazy myself." + +"I think you are a--a noble man," choked Virginia. + +That disconcerted him. "Oh Lord--don't think that. No, Young Lady, +don't try to make any plaster saint out of _me_. My life goes +on. I've got to eat, drink and be merry. I'm built that way. But +just the same my heart on the inside's pretty sore, Young Lady. I +want to tell you that the whole inside of my heart is _sore as a +boil_!" + +They were returning for the hats. Suddenly Virginia stopped, and it +was a soft-eyed and gentle Virginia who turned to him after the +pause. "There are lovely things to be bought in Paris for women who +aren't well. Such soft, lovely things to wear in your room. Not but +what I think these other things are all right. As you say, they +may--interest her. But they aren't things she can use just now, and +wouldn't you like her to have some of those soft lovely things she +could actually wear? They might help most of all. To wake in the +morning and find herself in something so beautiful--" + +"Where do you get 'em?" he demanded promptly. + +And so they went to one of those shops which have, more than all the +others, enshrined Paris in feminine hearts. And never was lingerie +selected with more loving care than that which Virginia picked out +that afternoon. A tear fell on one particularly lovely _robe de +nuit_--so soothingly soft, so caressingly luxurious, it seemed +that surely it might help bring release from the bondage of those +crushing years. + +As they were leaving they were given two packages. "Just the kimona +thing you liked," he said, "and a trinket or two. Now that we're +such good friends, you won't feel like you did this morning." + +"And if I don't want them myself, I might send them to my mother," +Virginia replied, a quiver in her laugh at her own little joke. + +He had put her in her cab; he had tried to tell her how much he thanked +her; they had said good-bye and the _cocher_ had cracked his whip +when he came running after her. "Why, Young Lady," he called out, +"we don't know each other's _names_." + +She laughed and gave hers. "Mine's William P. Johnson," he said. +"Part French and part Italian. But now look here, Young Lady--or I +mean, Miss Clayton. A fellow at the hotel was telling me something +last night that made me _sick_. He said American girls sometimes +got awfully up against it here. He said one actually starved last +year. Now, I don't like that kind of business. Look here, Young Lady, +I want you to promise that if you--you or any of your gang--get up +against it you'll cable William P. Johnson, of Cincinnati, Ohio." + +The twilight grey had stolen upon Paris. And there was a mist which +the street lights only penetrated a little way--as sometimes one's +knowledge of life may only penetrate life a very little way. Her cab +stopped by a blockade, she watched the burly back of William P. +Johnson disappearing into the mist. The red box which held the +yellow opera cloak she could see longer than all else. + +"You never can tell," murmured Virginia. "It just goes to show that +you never can tell." + +And whatever it was you never could tell had brought to Virginia's +girlish face the tender knowingness of the face of a woman. + + + + +II + +THE PLEA + + +Senator Harrison concluded his argument and sat down. There was no +applause, but he had expected none. Senator Dorman was already +saying "Mr. President?" and there was a stir in the crowded +galleries, and an anticipatory moving of chairs among the Senators. +In the press gallery the reporters bunched together their scattered +papers and inspected their pencil-points with earnestness. Dorman +was the best speaker of the Senate, and he was on the popular side +of it. It would be the great speech of the session, and the prospect +was cheering after a deluge of railroad and insurance bills. + +"I want to tell you," he began, "why I have worked for this +resolution recommending the pardon of Alfred Williams. It is one of +the great laws of the universe that every living thing be given a +chance. In the case before us that law has been violated. This does +not resolve itself into a question of second chances. The boy of +whom we are speaking has never had his first." + +Senator Harrison swung his chair half-way around and looked out at +the green things which were again coming into their own on the +State-house grounds. He knew--in substance--what Senator Dorman +would say without hearing it, and he was a little tired of the whole +affair. He hoped that one way or other they would finish it up that +night, and go ahead with something else. He had done what he could, +and now the responsibility was with the rest of them. He thought +they were shouldering a great deal to advocate the pardon in the +face of the united opposition of Johnson County, where the crime had +been committed. It seemed a community should be the best judge of +its own crimes, and that was what he, as the Senator from Johnson, +had tried to impress upon them. + +He knew that his argument against the boy had been a strong one. He +rather liked the attitude in which he stood. It seemed as if he were +the incarnation of outraged justice attempting to hold its own at +the floodgates of emotion. He liked to think he was looking far +beyond the present and the specific and acting as guardian of the +future--and the whole. In summing it up that night the reporters +would tell in highly wrought fashion of the moving appeal made by +Senator Dorman, and then they would speak dispassionately of the +logical argument of the leader of the opposition. There was more +satisfaction to self in logic than in mere eloquence. He was even a +little proud of his unpopularity. It seemed sacrificial. + +He wondered why it was Senator Dorman had thrown himself into it so +whole-heartedly. All during the session the Senator from Maxwell had +neglected personal interests in behalf of this boy, who was nothing +to him in the world. He supposed it was as a sociological and +psychological experiment. Senator Dorman had promised the Governor +to assume guardianship of the boy if he were let out. The Senator +from Johnson inferred that as a student of social science his +eloquent colleague wanted to see what he could make of him. To +suppose the interest merely personal and sympathetic would seem +discreditable. + +"I need not dwell upon the story," the Senator from Maxwell was +saying, "for you all are familiar with it already. It is said to +have been the most awful crime ever committed in the State. I grant +you that it was, and then I ask you to look for a minute into the +conditions leading up to it. + +"When the boy was born, his mother was instituting divorce +proceedings against his father. She obtained the divorce, and +remarried when Alfred was three months old. From the time he was a +mere baby she taught him to hate his father. Everything that went +wrong with him she told him was his father's fault. His first vivid +impression was that his father was responsible for all the wrong of +the universe. + +"For seven years that went on, and then his mother died. His +stepfather did not want him. He was going to Missouri, and the boy +would be a useless expense and a bother. He made no attempt to find +a home for him; he did not even explain--he merely went away and +left him. At the age of seven the boy was turned out on the world, +after having been taught one thing--to hate his father. He stayed a +few days in the barren house, and then new tenants came and closed +the doors against him. It may have occurred to him as a little +strange that he had been sent into a world where there was no place +for him. + +"When he asked the neighbours for shelter, they told him to go to +his own father and not bother strangers. He said he did not know +where his father was. They told him, and he started to walk--a +distance of fifty miles. I ask you to bear in mind, gentlemen, that +he was only seven years of age. It is the age when the average boy +is beginning the third reader, and when he is shooting marbles and +spinning tops. + +"When he reached his father's house he was told at once that he was +not wanted there. The man had remarried, there were other children, +and he had no place for Alfred. He turned him away; but the +neighbours protested, and he was compelled to take him back. For +four years he lived in this home, to which he had come unbidden, and +where he was never made welcome. + +"The whole family rebelled against him. The father satisfied his +resentment against the boy's dead mother by beating her son, by +encouraging his wife to abuse him, and inspiring the other children +to despise him. It seems impossible such conditions should exist. +The only proof of their possibility lies in the fact of their +existence. + +"I need not go into the details of the crime. He had been beaten by +his father that evening after a quarrel with his stepmother about +spilling the milk. He went, as usual, to his bed in the barn; but +the hay was suffocating, his head ached, and he could not sleep. He +arose in the middle of the night, went to the house, and killed both +his father and stepmother. + +"I shall not pretend to say what thoughts surged through the boy's +brain as he lay there in the stifling hay with the hot blood +pounding against his temples. I shall not pretend to say whether he +was sane or insane as he walked to the house for the perpetration of +the awful crime. I do not even affirm it would not have happened had +there been some human being there to lay a cooling hand on his hot +forehead, and say a few soothing, loving words to take the sting +from the loneliness, and ease the suffering. I ask you to consider +only one thing: he was eleven years old at the time, and he had no +friend in all the world. He knew nothing of sympathy; he knew only +injustice." + +Senator Harrison was still looking out at the budding things on the +State-house grounds, but in a vague way he was following the story. +He knew when the Senator from Maxwell completed the recital of facts +and entered upon his plea. He was conscious that it was stronger +than he had anticipated--more logic and less empty exhortation. He +was telling of the boy's life in reformatory and penitentiary since +the commission of the crime,--of how he had expanded under kindness, +of his mental attainments, the letters he could write, the books he +had read, the hopes he cherished. In the twelve years he had spent +there he had been known to do no unkind nor mean thing; he responded +to affection--craved it. It was not the record of a degenerate, the +Senator from Maxwell was saying. + +A great many things were passing through the mind of the Senator +from Johnson. He was trying to think who it was that wrote that +book, "Put Yourself in His Place." He had read it once, and it +bothered him to forget names. Then he was wondering why it was the +philosophers had not more to say about the incongruity of people who +had never had any trouble of their own sitting in judgment upon +people who had known nothing but trouble. He was thinking also that +abstract rules did not always fit smoothly over concrete cases, and +that it was hard to make life a matter of rules, anyway. + +Next he was wondering how it would have been with the boy Alfred +Williams if he had been born in Charles Harrison's place; and then +he was working it out the other way and wondering how it would have +been with Charles Harrison had he been born in Alfred Williams's +place. He wondered whether the idea of murder would have grown in +Alfred Williams's heart had he been born to the things to which +Charles Harrison was born, and whether it would have come within the +range of possibility for Charles Harrison to murder his father if he +had been born to Alfred Williams's lot. Putting it that way, it was +hard to estimate how much of it was the boy himself, and how much +the place the world had prepared for him. And if it was the place +prepared for him more than the boy, why was the fault not more with +the preparers of the place than with the occupant of it? The whole +thing was very confusing. + +"This page," the Senator from Maxwell was saying, lifting the little +fellow to the desk, "is just eleven years of age, and he is within +three pounds of Alfred Williams's weight when he committed the +murder. I ask you, gentlemen, if this little fellow should be guilty +of a like crime to-night, to what extent would you, in reading of it +in the morning, charge him with the moral discernment which is the +first condition of moral responsibility? If Alfred Williams's story +were this boy's story, would you deplore that there had been no one +to check the childish passion, or would you say it was the inborn +instinct of the murderer? And suppose again this were Alfred +Williams at the age of eleven, would you not be willing to look into +the future and say if he spent twelve years in penitentiary and +reformatory, in which time he developed the qualities of useful and +honourable citizenship, that the ends of justice would then have +been met, and the time at hand for the world to begin the payment of +her debt?" + +Senator Harrison's eyes were fixed upon the page standing on the +opposite desk. Eleven was a younger age than he had supposed. As he +looked back upon it and recalled himself when eleven years of +age--his irresponsibility, his dependence--he was unwilling to say +what would have happened if the world had turned upon him as it had +upon Alfred Williams. At eleven his greatest grievance was that the +boys at school called him "yellow-top." He remembered throwing a +rock at one of them for doing it. He wondered if it was criminal +instinct prompted the throwing of the rock. He wondered how high the +percentage of children's crimes would go were it not for +countermanding influences. It seemed the great difference between +Alfred Williams and a number of other children of eleven had been +the absence of the countermanding influence. + +There came to him of a sudden a new and moving thought. Alfred +Williams had been cheated of his boyhood. The chances were he had +never gone swimming, nor to a ball game, or maybe never to a circus. +It might even be that he had never owned a dog. The Senator from +Maxwell was right when he said the boy had never been given his +chance, had been defrauded of that which has been a boy's heritage +since the world itself was young. + +And the later years--how were they making it up to him? He recalled +what to him was the most awful thing he had ever heard about the +State penitentiary: they never saw the sun rise down there, and they +never saw it set. They saw it at its meridian, when it climbed above +the stockade, but as it rose into the day, and as it sank into the +night, it was denied them. And there, at the penitentiary, they +could not even look up at the stars. It had been years since Alfred +Williams raised his face to God's heaven and knew he was part of it +all. The voices of the night could not penetrate the little cell in +the heart of the mammoth stone building where he spent his evenings +over those masterpieces with which, they said, he was more familiar +than the average member of the Senate. When he read those things +Victor Hugo said of the vastness of the night, he could only look +around at the walls that enclosed him and try to reach back over the +twelve years for some satisfying conception of what night really +was. + +The Senator from Johnson shuddered: they had taken from a living +creature the things of life, and all because in the crucial hour there +had been no one to say a staying word. Man had cheated him of the +things that were man's, and then shut him away from the world that +was God's. They had made for him a life barren of compensations. + +There swept over the Senator a great feeling of self-pity. As +representative of Johnson County, it was he who must deny this boy +the whole great world without, the people who wanted to help him, +and what the Senator from Maxwell called "his chance." If Johnson +County carried the day, there would be something unpleasant for him +to consider all the remainder of his life. As he grew to be an older +man he would think of it more and more--what the boy would have done +for himself in the world if the Senator from Johnson had not been +more logical and more powerful than the Senator from Maxwell. + +Senator Dorman was nearing the end of his argument. "In spite of the +undying prejudice of the people of Johnson County," he was saying, +"I can stand before you today and say that after an unsparing +investigation of this case I do not believe I am asking you to do +anything in violation of justice when I beg of you to give this boy +his chance." + +It was going to a vote at once, and the Senator from Johnson County +looked out at the budding things and wondered whether the boy down +at the penitentiary knew the Senate was considering his case that +afternoon. It was without vanity he wondered whether what he had +been trained to think of as an all-wise providence would not have +preferred that Johnson County be represented that session by a less +able man. + +A great hush fell over the Chamber, for ayes and noes followed +almost in alternation. After a long minute of waiting the secretary +called, in a tense voice: + +"Ayes, 30; Noes, 32." + +The Senator from Johnson had proven too faithful a servant of his +constituents. The boy in the penitentiary was denied his chance. + +The usual things happened: some women in the galleries, who had boys +at home, cried aloud; the reporters were fighting for occupancy of +the telephone booths, and most of the Senators began the perusal of +the previous day's Journal with elaborate interest. Senator Dorman +indulged in none of these feints. A full look at his face just then +told how much of his soul had gone into the fight for the boy's +chance, and the look about his eyes was a little hard on the theory +of psychological experiment. + +Senator Harrison was looking out at the budding trees, but his face +too had grown strange, and he seemed to be looking miles beyond and +years ahead. It seemed that he himself was surrendering the voices +of the night, and the comings and goings of the sun. He would never +look at them--feel them--again without remembering he was keeping +one of his fellow creatures away from them. He wondered at his own +presumption in denying any living thing participation in the +universe. And all the while there were before him visions of the boy +who sat in the cramped cell with the volume of a favourite poet +before him, trying to think how it would seem to be out under the +stars. + +The stillness in the Senate-Chamber was breaking; they were going +ahead with something else. It seemed to the Senator from Johnson +that sun, moon, and stars were wailing out protest for the boy who +wanted to know them better. And yet it was not sun, moon, and stars +so much as the unused swimming hole and the uncaught fish, the +unattended ball game, the never-seen circus, and, above all, the +unowned dog, that brought Senator Harrison to his feet. + +They looked at him in astonishment, their faces seeming to say it +would have been in better taste for him to have remained seated just +then. + +"Mr. President," he said, pulling at his collar and looking straight +ahead, "I rise to move a reconsideration." + +There was a gasp, a moment of supreme quiet, and then a mighty burst +of applause. To men of all parties and factions there came a single +thought. Johnson was the leading county of its Congressional +district. There was an election that fall, and Harrison was in the +race. Those eight words meant to a surety he would not go to +Washington, for the Senator from Maxwell had chosen the right word +when he referred to the prejudice of Johnson County on the Williams +case as "undying." The world throbs with such things at the moment +of their doing--even though condemning them later, and the part of +the world then packed within the Senate-Chamber shared the universal +disposition. + +The noise astonished Senator Harrison, and he looked around with +something like resentment. When the tumult at last subsided, and he +saw that he was expected to make a speech, he grew very red, and +grasped his chair desperately. + +The reporters were back in their places, leaning nervously forward. +This was Senator Harrison's chance to say something worth putting +into a panel by itself with black lines around it--and they were +sure he would do it. + +But he did not. He stood there like a schoolboy who had forgotten +his piece--growing more and more red. "I--I think," he finally +jerked out, "that some of us have been mistaken. I'm in favour now +of--of giving him his chance." + +They waited for him to proceed, but after a helpless look around the +Chamber he sat down. The president of the Senate waited several +minutes for him to rise again, but he at last turned his chair +around and looked out at the green things on the State-house +grounds, and there was nothing to do but go ahead with the second +calling of the roll. This time it stood 50 to 12 in favour of the +boy. + +A motion to adjourn immediately followed--no one wanted to do +anything more that afternoon. They all wanted to say things to the +Senator from Johnson; but his face had grown cold, and as they were +usually afraid of him, anyhow, they kept away. All but Senator +Dorman--it meant too much with him. "Do you mind my telling you," he +said, tensely, "that it was as fine a thing as I have ever known a +man to do?" + +The Senator from Johnson moved impatiently. "You think it 'fine,'" +he asked, almost resentfully, "to be a coward?" + +"Coward?" cried the other man. "Well, that's scarcely the word. It +was--heroic!" + +"Oh no," said Senator Harrison, and he spoke wearily, "it was a +clear case of cowardice. You see," he laughed, "I was afraid it +might haunt me when I am seventy." + +Senator Dorman started eagerly to speak, but the other man stopped +him and passed on. He was seeing it as his constituency would see +it, and it humiliated him. They would say he had not the courage of +his convictions, that he was afraid of the unpopularity, that his +judgment had fallen victim to the eloquence of the Senator from +Maxwell. + +But when he left the building and came out into the softness of the +April afternoon it began to seem different. After all, it was not he +alone who leaned to the softer side. There were the trees--they were +permitted another chance to bud; there were the birds--they were +allowed another chance to sing; there was the earth--to it was given +another chance to yield. There stole over him a tranquil sense of +unison with Life. + + + + +III + +FOR LOVE OF THE HILLS + + +"Sure you're done with it?" + +"Oh, yes," replied the girl, the suggestion of a smile on her face, +and in her voice the suggestion of a tear. "Yes; I was just going." + +But she did not go. She turned instead to the end of the alcove and +sat down before a table placed by the window. Leaning her elbows +upon it she looked about her through a blur of tears. + +Seen through her own eyes of longing, it seemed that almost all of +the people whom she could see standing before the files of the daily +papers were homesick. The reading-room had been a strange study to +her during those weeks spent in fruitless search for the work she +wanted to do, and it had likewise proved a strange comfort. When +tired and disconsolate and utterly sick at heart there was always +one thing she could do--she could go down to the library and look at +the paper from home. It was not that she wanted the actual news of +Denver. She did not care in any vital way what the city officials +were doing, what buildings were going up, or who was leaving town. +She was only indifferently interested in the fires and the murders. +She wanted the comforting companionship of that paper from home. + +It seemed there were many to whom the papers offered that same +sympathy, companionship, whatever it might be. More than anything +else it perhaps gave to them--the searchers, drifters--a sense of +anchorage. She would not soon forget the day she herself had stumbled +in there and found the home paper. Chicago had given her nothing but +rebuffs that day, and in desperation, just because she must go +somewhere, and did not want to go back to her boarding-place, she had +hunted out the city library. It was when walking listlessly about in +the big reading-room it had occurred to her that perhaps she could +find the paper from home; and after that when things were their worst, +when her throat grew tight and her eyes dim, she could always comfort +herself by saying: "After a while I'll run down and look at the paper." + +But to-night it had failed her. It was not the paper from home +to-night; it was just a newspaper. It did not inspire the belief +that things would be better to-morrow, that it must all come right +soon. It left her as she had come---heavy with the consciousness +that in her purse was eleven dollars, and that that was every cent +she had in the whole world. + +It was hard to hold back the tears as she dwelt upon the fact that +it was very little she had asked of Chicago. She had asked only a +chance to do the work for which she was trained, in order that she +might go to the art classes at night. She had read in the papers of +that mighty young city of the Middle West--the heart of the +continent--of its brawn and its brain and its grit. She had supposed +that Chicago, of all places, would appreciate what she wanted to do. +The day she drew her hard-earned one hundred dollars from the bank +in Denver--how the sun had shone that day in Denver, how clear the +sky had been, and how bracing the air!--she had quite taken it for +granted that her future was assured. And now, after tasting for +three weeks the cruelty of indifference, she looked back to those +visions with a hard little smile. + +She rose to go, and in so doing her eyes fell upon the queer little +woman to whom she had yielded her place before the Denver paper. +Submerged as she had been in her own desolation she had given no +heed to the small figure which came slipping along beside her beyond +the bare thought that she was queer-looking. But as her eyes rested +upon her now there was something about the woman which held her. + +She was a strange little figure. An old-fashioned shawl was pinned +tightly about her shoulders, and she was wearing a queer, rusty +little bonnet. Her hair was rolled up in a small knot at the back of +her head. She did not look as though she belonged in Chicago. And +then, as the girl stood there looking at her, she saw the thin +shoulders quiver, and after a minute the head that was wearing the +rusty bonnet went down into the folds of the Denver paper. + +The girl's own eyes filled, and she turned to go. It seemed she +could scarcely bear her own unhappiness that day, without coming +close to the heartache of another. But when she reached the end of +the alcove she glanced back, and the sight of that shabby, bent +figure, all alone before the Denver paper, was not to be withstood. + +"I am from Colorado, too," she said softly, laying a hand upon the +bent shoulders. + +The woman looked up at that and took the girl's hand in both of her +thin, trembling ones. It was a wan and a troubled face she lifted, +and there was something about the eyes which would not seem to have +been left there by tears alone. + +"And do you have a pining for the mountains?" she whispered, with a +timid eagerness. "Do you have a feeling that you want to see the sun +go down behind them tonight and that you want to see the darkness +come stealing up to the tops?" + +The girl half turned away, but she pressed the woman's hand tightly +in hers. "I know what you mean," she murmured. + +"I wanted to see it so bad," continued the woman, tremulously, "that +something just drove me here to this paper. I knowed it was here +because my nephew's wife brought me here one day and we come across +it. We took this paper at home for more 'an twenty years. That's why +I come. 'Twas the closest I could get." + +"I know what you mean," said the girl again, unsteadily. + +"And it's the closest I will ever get!" sobbed the woman. + +"Oh, don't say that," protested the girl, brushing away her own +tears, and trying to smile; "you'll go back home some day." + +The woman shook her head. "And if I should," she said, "even if I +should, 'twill be too late." + +"But it couldn't be too late," insisted the girl. "The mountains, +you know, will be there forever." + +"The mountains will be there forever," repeated the woman, musingly; +"yes, but not for me to see." There was a pause. "You see,"--she +said it quietly--"I'm going blind." + +The girl took a quick step backward, then stretched out two +impulsive hands. "Oh, no, no you're not! Why--the doctors, you know, +they do everything now." + +The woman shook her head. "That's what I thought when I come here. +That's why I come. But I saw the biggest doctor of them all +today--they all say he's the best there is--and he said right out +'twas no use to do anything. He said 'twas--hopeless." + +Her voice broke on that word. "You see," she hurried on, "I wouldn't +care so much, seems like I wouldn't care 't all, if I could get +there first! If I could see the sun go down behind them just one +night! If I could see the black shadows come slippin' over 'em just +once! And then, if just one morning--just once!--I could get up and +see the sunlight come a streamin'--oh, you know how it looks! You +know what 'tis I want to see!" + +"Yes; but why can't you? Why not? You won't go--your eyesight will +last until you get back home, won't it?" + +"But I can't go back home; not now." + +"Why not?" demanded the girl. "Why can't you go home?" + +"Why, there ain't no money, my dear," she explained, patiently. +"It's a long way off--Colorado is, and there ain't no money. Now, +George--George is my brother-in-law--he got me the money to come; +but you see it took it all to come here, and to pay them doctors +with. And George--he ain't rich, and it pinched him hard for me to +come--he says I'll have to wait until he gets money laid up again, +and--well he can't tell just when 't will be. He'll send it soon as +he gets it," she hastened to add. + +"But what are you going to do in the meantime? It would cost less to +get you home than to keep you here." + +"No, I stay with my nephew here. He's willin' I should stay with him +till I get my money to go home." + +"Yes, but this nephew, can't he get you the money? Doesn't he know," +she insisted, heatedly, "what it means to you?" + +"He's got five children, and not much laid up. And then, he never +seen the mountains. He doesn't know what I mean when I try to tell +him about gettin' there in time. Why, he says there's many a one +living back in the mountains would like to be livin' here. He don't +understand--my nephew don't," she added, apologetically. + +"Well, _someone_ ought to understand!" broke from the girl. "I +understand! But--" she did her best to make it a laugh--"eleven +dollars is every cent I've got in the world!" + +"Don't!" implored the woman, as the girl gave up trying to control +the tears. "Now, don't you be botherin'. I didn't mean to make you +feel so bad. My nephew says I ain't reasonable, and maybe I ain't." + +The girl raised her head. "But you _are_ reasonable. I tell +you, you _are_ reasonable!" + +"I must be going back," said the woman, uncertainly. "I'm just +making you feel bad, and it won't do no good. And then they may be +stirred up about me. Emma--Emma's my nephew's wife--left me at the +doctor's office 'cause she had some trading to do, and she was to +come back there for me. And then, as I was sittin' there, the pinin' +came over me so strong it seemed I just must get up and start! +And"---she smiled wanly---"this was far as I got." + +"Come over and sit down by this table," said the girl, impulsively, +"and tell me a little about your home back in the mountains. +Wouldn't you like to?" + +The woman nodded gratefully. "Seems most like getting back to them +to find someone that knows about them," she said, after they had +drawn their chairs up to the table and were sitting there side by +side. + +The girl put her rounded hand over on the thin, withered one. "Tell +me about it," she said again. + +"Maybe it wouldn't be much interesting to you, my dear. It's just a +common life--mine is. You see, William and I--William was my +husband--we went to Georgetown before it really was any town at all. +Years and years before the railroad went through, we was there. Was +you ever there?" she asked wistfully. + +"Oh, very often," replied the girl. "I love every inch of that +country!" + +A tear stole down the woman's face. "It's most like being home to +find someone that knows about it," she whispered. + +"Yes, William and I went there when 'twas all new country," she went +on, after a pause. "We worked hard, and we laid up a little money. +Then, three years ago, William took sick. He was sick for a year, +and we had to live up most of what we'd saved. That's why I ain't +got none now. It ain't that William didn't provide." + +The girl nodded. + +"We seen some hard days. But we was always harmonious--William and I +was. And William had a great fondness for the mountains. The night +before he died he made them take him over by the window and he +looked out and watched the darkness come stealin' over the +daylight--you know how it does in them mountains. 'Mother,' he said +to me--his voice was that low I could no more 'an hear what he +said--'I'll never see another sun go down, but I'm thankful I seen +this one.'" + +She was crying outright now, and the girl did not try to stop her. + +"And that's the reason I love the mountains," she whispered at last. +"It ain't just that they're grand and wonderful to look at. It ain't +just the things them tourists sees to talk about. But the mountains +has always been like a comfortin' friend to me. John and Sarah is +buried there--John and Sarah is my two children that died of fever. +And then William is there--like I just told you. And the mountains +was a comfort to me in all those times of trouble. They're like an +old friend. Seems like they're the best friend I've got on earth." + +"I know what you mean," said the girl, brokenly. "I know all about +it." + +"And you don't think I'm just notional," she asked wistfully, "in +pinin' to get back while--whilst I can look at them?" + +The girl held the old hand tightly in hers with a clasp more +responsive than words. + +"It ain't but I'd know they was there. I could feel they was there +all right, but"--her voice sank with the horror of it--"I'm 'fraid +I might forget just how they look!" + +"Oh, but you won't," the girl assured her. "You'll remember just how +they look." + +"I'm scared of it. I'm scared there might be something I'd forget. +And so I just torment myself thinkin'--'Now do I remember this? Can +I see just how that looks?' That's the way I got to thinkin' up in +the doctor's office, when he told me there was nothing to do, and I +was so worked up it seemed I must get up and start!" + +"You must try not to worry about it," murmured the girl. "You'll +remember." + +"Well, maybe so. Maybe I will. But that's why I want just one more +look. If I could look once more I'd remember it forever. You see I'd +look to remember it, and I would. And do you know--seems like I +wouldn't mind going blind so much then? When I'd sit facin' them I'd +just say to myself: 'Now I know just how they look. I'm seeing them +just as if I had my eyes!' The doctor says my sight'll just kind of +slip away, and when I look my last look, when it gets dimmer and +dimmer to me, I want the last thing I see to be them mountains where +William and me worked and was so happy! Seems like I can't bear it +to have my sight slip away here in Chicago, where there's nothing I +want to look at! And then to have a little left--to have just a +little left!--and to know I could see if I was there to look--and to +know that when I get there 'twill be--Oh, I'll be rebellious-like +here--and I'd be contented there! I don't want to be complainin'--I +don't want to!--but when I've only got a little left I want it--oh, +I want it for them things I want to see!" + +"You will see them," insisted the girl passionately. "I'm not going +to believe the world can be so hideous as that!" + +"Well, maybe so," said the woman, rising. "But I don't know where +'twill come from," she added doubtfully. + +She took her back to the doctor's office and left her in the care of +the stolid Emma. "Seems most like I'd been back home," she said in +parting; and the girl promised to come and see her and talk with her +about the mountains. The woman thought that talking about them would +help her to remember just how they looked. + +And then the girl returned to the library. She did not know why she +did so. In truth she scarcely knew she was going there until she +found herself sitting before that same secluded table at which she +and the woman had sat a little while before. For a long time she sat +there with her head in her hands, tears falling upon a pad of yellow +paper on the table before her. + +Finally she dried her eyes, opened her purse, and counted her money. +It seemed that out of her great desire, out of her great new need, +there must be more than she had thought. But there was not, and she +folded her hands upon the two five-dollar bills and the one silver +dollar and looked hopelessly about the big room. + +She had forgotten her own disappointments, her own loneliness. She +was oblivious to everything in the world now save what seemed the +absolute necessity of getting the woman back to the mountains while +she had eyes to see them. + +But what could she do? Again she counted the money. She could make +herself, some way or other, get along without one of the five-dollar +bills, but five dollars would not take one very close to the +mountains. It was at that moment that she saw a man standing before +the Denver paper, and noticed that another man was waiting to take +his place. The one who was reading had a dinner pail in his hand. +The clothes of the other told that he, too, was of the world's +workers. It was clear to the girl that the man at the file was +reading the paper from home; and the man who was ready to take his +place looked as if waiting for something less impersonal than the +news of the day. + +The idea came upon her with such suddenness, so full born, that it +made her gasp. They--the people who came to read the Denver paper, +the people who loved the mountains and were far from them, the +people who were themselves homesick and full of longing--were the +people to understand. + +It took her but a minute to act. She put the silver dollar and one +five-dollar bill back in her purse. She clutched the other bill in +her left hand, picked up a pencil, and began to write. She headed +the petition: "To all who know and love the mountains," and she told +the story with the simpleness of one speaking from the heart, and +the directness of one who speaks to those sure to understand. "And +so I found her here by the Denver paper," she said, after she had +stated the tragic facts, "because it was the closest she could come +to the mountains. Her heart is not breaking because she is going +blind. It is breaking because she may never again look with seeing +eyes upon those great hills which rise up about her home. We must do +it for her simply because we would wish that, under like +circumstances, someone would do it for us. She belongs to us because +we understand. + +"If you can only give fifty cents, please do not hold it back +because it seems but little. Fifty cents will take her twenty miles +nearer home--twenty miles closer to the things upon which she longs +that her last seeing glance may fall." + +After she had written it she rose, and, the five-dollar bill in one +hand, the sheets of yellow paper in the other, walked down the long +room to the desk at which one of the librarians sat. The girl's +cheeks were very red, her eyes shining as she poured out the story. +They mingled their tears, for the girl at the desk was herself young +and far from home, and then they walked back to the Denver paper and +pinned the sheets of yellow paper just above the file. At the bottom +of the petition the librarian wrote: "Leave your money at the desk +in this room. It will be properly attended to." The girl from +Colorado then turned over her five-dollar bill and passed out into +the gathering night. + +Her heart was brimming with joy. "I can get a cheaper boarding +place," she told herself, as she joined the home-going crowds, "and +until something else turns up I'll just look around and see if I +can't get a place in a store." + + * * * * * + +One by one they had gathered around while the woman was telling the +story. "And so, if you don't mind," she said, in conclusion, "I'd +like to have you put in a little piece that I got to Denver safe, +so's they can see it. They was all so worked up about when I'd get +here. Would that cost much?" she asked timidly. + +"Not a cent," said the city editor, his voice gruff with the attempt +to keep it steady. + +"You might say, if it wouldn't take too much room, that I was much +pleased with the prospect of getting home before sundown to-night." + +"You needn't worry but what we'll say it all," he assured her. +"We'll say a great deal more than you have any idea of." + +"I'm very thankful to you," she said, as she rose to go. + +They sat there for a moment in silence. "When one considers," +someone began, "that they were people who were pushed too close even +to subscribe to a daily paper--" + +"When one considers," said the city editor, "that the girl who +started it had just eleven dollars to her name--" And then he, too, +stopped abruptly and there was another long moment of silence. + +After that he looked around at the reporters. "Well, it's too bad +you can't all have it, when it's so big a chance, but I guess it +falls logically to Raymond. And in writing it, just remember, +Raymond, that the biggest stories are not written about wars, or +about politics, or even murders. The biggest stories are written +about the things which draw human beings closer together. And the +chance to write them doesn't come every day, or every year, or every +lifetime. And I'll tell you, boys, all of you, when it seems +sometimes that the milk of human kindness has all turned sour, just +think back to the little story you heard this afternoon." + + * * * * * + +Slowly the sun slipped down behind the mountains; slowly the long +purple shadows deepened to black; and with the coming of the night +there settled over the everlasting hills, and over the soul of one +who had returned to them, that satisfying calm that men call peace. + + + + +IV + +FRECKLES M'GRATH + + +Many visitors to the State-house made the mistake of looking upon +the Governor as the most important personage in the building. They +would walk up and down the corridors, hoping for a glimpse of some +of the leading officials, when all the while Freckles McGrath, the +real character of the Capitol, and by all odds the most illustrious +person in it, was at once accessible and affable. + +Freckles McGrath was the elevator boy. In the official register his +name had gone down as William, but that was a mere concession to the +constituents to whom the official register was sent out. In the +newspapers--and he appeared with frequency in the newspapers--he was +always "Freckles," and every one from the Governor down gave him +that title, the appropriateness of which was stamped a hundred fold +upon his shrewd, jolly Irish face. + +Like every one else on the State pay-roll, Freckles was keyed high +during this first week of the new session. It was a reform +Legislature, and so imbued was it with the idea of reforming that +there was grave danger of its forcing reformation upon everything in +sight. It happened that the Governor was of the same faction of the +party as that dominant in the Legislature; reform breathed through +every nook and crevice of the great building. + +But high above all else in importance towered the Kelley Bill. From +the very opening of the session there was scarcely a day when some +of Freckles' passengers did not in hushed whispers mention the +Kelley Bill. From what he could pick up about the building, and what +he read in the newspapers, Freckles put together a few ideas as to +what the Kelley Bill really was. It was a great reform measure, and +it was going to show the railroads that they did not own the State. +The railroads were going to have to pay more taxes, and they were +making an awful fuss about it; but if the Kelley Bill could be put +through it would be a great victory for reform, and would make the +Governor "solid" in the State. + +Freckles McGrath was strong for reform. That was partly because the +snatches of speeches he heard in the Legislature were more thrilling +when for reform than when against it; it was partly because he +adored the Governor, and in no small part because he despised Mr. +Ludlow. + +Mr. Ludlow was a lobbyist. Some of the members of the Legislature +were Mr. Ludlow's property--or at least so Freckles inferred from +conversation overheard at his post. There had been a great deal of +talk that session about Mr. Ludlow's methods. + +Freckles himself was no snob. Although he had heard Mr. Ludlow +called disgraceful, and although he firmly believed he was +disgraceful, he did not consider that any reason for not speaking to +him. And so when Mr. Ludlow got in all alone one morning, and the +occasion seemed to demand recognition of some sort, Freckles had +chirped: "Good-morning!" + +But the man, possibly deep in something else, simply knit together +his brows and gave no sign of having heard. After that, Henry +Ludlow, lobbyist, and Freckles McGrath, elevator boy, were enemies. + +A little before noon, one day near the end of the session, a member +of the Senate and a member of the House rode down together in the +elevator. + +"There's no use waiting any longer," the Senator was saying as they +got in. "We're as strong now as we're going to be. It's a matter of +Stacy's vote, and that's a matter of who sees him last." + +Freckles widened out his ears and gauged the elevator for very slow +running. Stacy had been written up in the papers as a wabbler on the +Kelley Bill. + +"He's all right now," pursued the Senator, "but there's every chance +that Ludlow will see him before he casts his vote this afternoon, +and then--oh, I don't know!" and with a weary little flourish of his +hands the Senator stepped off. + +Freckles McGrath sat wrapped in deep thought. The Kelley Bill was +coming up in the Senate that afternoon. If Senator Stacy voted for +it, it would pass. If he voted against it, it would fail. He would +vote for it if he didn't see Mr. Ludlow; he wouldn't vote for it if +he did. That was the situation, and the Governor's whole future, +Freckles felt, was at stake. + +The bell rang sharply, and he was vaguely conscious then that it had +been ringing before. In the next half-hour he was very busy taking +down the members of the Legislature. Strangely enough, Senator Stacy +and the Governor went down the same trip, and Freckles beamed with +approbation when, he saw them walk out of the building together. + +Stacy was one of the first of the senators to return. Freckles sized +him up keenly as he stepped into the elevator, and decided that he +was still firm. But there was a look about Senator Stacy's mouth +which suggested that there was no use in being too sure of him. +Freckles considered the advisability of bursting forth and telling +him how much better it would be to stick with the reform fellows; +but just as the boy got his courage screwed up to speaking point, +Senator Stacy got off. + +About ten minutes later Freckles had the elevator on the ground +floor, and was sitting there reading a paper, when he heard a step +that made him prick up his ears. The next minute Mr. Ludlow turned +the corner. He was immaculately dressed, as usual, and his iron-grey +moustache seemed to stand out just a little more pompously than +ever. There was a sneering look in his eyes as he stepped into the +car. It seemed to be saying: "They thought they could beat me, did +they? Oh, they're easy, they are!" + +Freckles McGrath slammed the door of the cage and started the car +up. He did not know what he was going to do, but he had an idea that +he did not want any other passenger. When half way between the +basement and the first floor, he stopped the elevator. He must have +time to think. If he took that man up to the Senate Chamber, he +would simply strike the death-blow to reform! And so he knelt and +pretended to be fixing something, and he thought fast and hard. + +"Something broke?" asked an anxious voice. + +Freckles looked around into Mr. Ludlow's face, and he saw that the +eminent lobbyist was nervous. + +"Yes," he said calmly. "It's acting queer. Something's all out of +whack." + +"Well, drop it to the basement and let me out," said Mr. Ludlow +sharply. + +"Can't drop it," responded Freckles. "She's stuck." + +Mr. Ludlow came and looked things over, but his knowledge did not +extend to the mechanism of elevators. + +"Better call someone to come and take us out," he said nervously. + +Freckles straightened himself up. A glitter had come into his small +grey eyes, and red spots were burning in his freckled cheeks. + +"I think she'll run now," he said. + +And she did run. Never in all its history had that State-house +elevator run as it ran then. It rushed past the first and second +floors like a thing let loose, with an utter abandonment that caused +the blood to forsake the eminent lobbyist's face. + +"Stop it, boy!" he cried in alarm. + +"Can't!" responded Freckles, his voice thick with terror. "Running +away!" he gasped. + +"Will it--fall?" whispered the lobbyist. + +"I--I think so!" blubbered Freckles. + +The central portion of the State-house was very high. Above that +part of the building which was in use there was a long stretch +leading to the tower. The shaft had been built clear up, though +practically unused. Past floors used for store-rooms, past floors +used for nothing at all, they went--the man's face white, the boy +wailing out incoherent supplications. And then, within ten feet of +the top of the shaft, and within a foot of the top floor of the +building, the elevator came to a rickety stop. It wabbled back and +forth; it did strange and terrible things. + +"She's falling!" panted Freckles. "Climb!" + +And Henry Ludlow climbed. He got the door open, and he clambered up. +No sooner had the man's feet touched the solid floor than Freckles +reached up and slammed the door of the cage. Why he did that he was +not sure at the time. Later he felt that something had warned him +not to give his prisoner's voice a full sweep down the shaft. + +Henry Ludlow was far from dull. As he saw the quick but even descent +of the car, he knew that he had been tricked. He would have been +more than human had there not burst from him furious and threatening +words. But what was the use? The car was going down--down--down, and +there he was, perhaps hundreds of feet above any one else in the +building--alone, tricked, beaten! + +Of course he tried the door at the head of the winding stairway, +knowing full well that it would be locked. They always kept it +locked; he had heard one of the janitors asking for the keys to take +a party up just a few days before. Perhaps he could get out on top +of the building and make signals of distress. But the door leading +outside was locked also. There he was--helpless. And below--well, +below they were passing the Kelley Bill! + +He rattled the grating of the elevator shaft. He made strange, loud +noises, knowing all the while he could not make himself heard. And +then at last, alone in the State-house attic, Henry Ludlow, eminent +lobbyist, sat down on a box and nursed his fury. + +Below, Freckles McGrath, the youngest champion of reform in the +building, was putting on a bold front. He laughed and he talked and +he whistled. He took people up and down with as much nonchalance as +if he did not know that up at the top of that shaft angry eyes were +straining themselves for a glimpse of the car, and terrible curses +were descending, literally, upon his stubby red head. + +It was a great afternoon at the State-house. Every one thronged to +the doors of the Senate Chamber, where they were putting through the +Kelley Bill. The speeches made in behalf of the measure were brief. +The great thing now was not to make speeches; it was to reach "S" on +roll-call before a man with iron-grey hair and an iron-grey +moustache could come in and say something to the fair-haired member +with the weak mouth who sat near the rear of the chamber. + +Freckles was called away just as it went to a vote. When he came +back Senator Kelley was standing out in the corridor, and a great +crowd of men were standing around slapping him on the back. The +Governor himself was standing on the steps of the Senate Chamber; +his eyes were bright, and he was smiling. + +Freckles turned his car back to the basement. He wanted to be all +alone for a minute, to dwell in solitude upon the fact that it was +he, Freckles McGrath, who had won this great victory for reform. It +was he, Freckles McGrath, who had assured the Governor's future. +Why, perhaps he had that afternoon made for himself a name which +would be handed down in the histories! + +Freckles was a kind little boy, and he knew that an elegant +gentleman could not find the attic any too pleasant a place in which +to spend the afternoon, go he decided to go up and get Mr. Ludlow. +It took courage; but he had won his victory and this was no time for +faltering. + +There was something gruesome about the long ascent. He thought of +stories he had read of lonely turrets in which men were beheaded, +and otherwise made away with. It seemed he would never come to the +top, and when at last he did it was to find two of the most +awful-looking eyes he had ever seen--eyes that looked as though +furies were going to escape from them--peering down upon him. + +The sight of that car, moving smoothly and securely up to the top, +and the sight of that audacious little boy with the freckled face +and the bat-like eyes, that little boy who had played his game so +well, who had wrought such havoc, was too much for Henry Ludlow's +self-control. Words such as he had never used before, such as he +would not have supposed himself capable of using, burst from him. +But Freckles stood calmly gazing up at the infuriated lobbyist, and +just as Mr. Ludlow was saying, "I'll beat your head open, you little +brat!" he calmly reversed the handle and sent the car skimming +smoothly to realms below. He was followed by an angry yell, and then +by a loud request to return, but he heeded them not, and for some +time longer the car made its usual rounds between the basement and +the legislative chambers. + +In just an hour Freckles tried it again. He sent the car to within +three feet of the attic floor, and then peered through the grating, +his face tied in a knot of interrogation. The eminent lobbyist stood +there gulping down wrath and pride, knowing well enough what was +expected of him. + +"Oh--all right," he muttered at last, and with that much of an +understanding Freckles sent the car up, opened the door, and Henry +Ludlow stepped in. + +No word was spoken between them until the light from the floor upon +which the Senate Chamber was situated came in view. Then Freckles +turned with a polite inquiry as to where the gentleman wished to get +off. + +"You may take me down to the office of the Governor," said Mr. +Ludlow stonily, meaningly. + +"Sure," said Freckles cheerfully. "Guess you'll find the Governor in +his office now. He's been in the Senate most of the afternoon, +watching 'em pass that Kelley Bill." + +Mr. Ludlow's lips drew in tightly. He squared his shoulders, and his +silence was tremendous. + +In just fifteen minutes Freckles was sent for from the executive +office. + +"I demand his discharge!" Mr. Ludlow was saying as the elevator boy +entered. + +"It happens you're not running this building," the Governor returned +with a good deal of acidity. "Though of course," he added with +dignity, "the matter will be carefully investigated." + +The Governor was one great chuckle inside, and his heart was full of +admiration and gratitude; but would Freckles be equal to bluffing it +through? Would the boy have the finesse, the nice subtlety, the real +master hand, the situation demanded? If not, then--imp of salvation +though he was--in the interest of reform, Freckles would have to go. + +It was a very innocent looking boy who stood before him and looked +inquiringly into his face. + +"William," began the Governor--Freckles was pained at first, and +then remembered that officially he was William--"this gentleman has +made a very serious charge against you." + +Freckles looked at Mr. Ludlow in a hurt way, and waited for the +Governor to proceed. + +"He says," went on the chief executive, "that you deliberately took +him to the top of the building and wilfully left him there a +prisoner all afternoon. Did you do that?" + +"Oh, sir," burst forth Freckles, "I did the very best I could to +save his life! I was willing to sacrifice mine for him. I--" + +"You little liar!" broke in Ludlow. + +The Governor held up his hand. "You had your chance. Let him have +his." + +"You see, Governor," began Freckles, as if anxious to set right +a great wrong which had been done him, "the car is acting bad. +The engineer said only this morning it needed a going over. When +it took that awful shoot, I lost control of it. Maybe I'm to be +discharged for losing control of it, but not"--Freckles sniffled +pathetically---"but not for anything like what he says I done. Why +Governor," he went on, ramming his knuckles into his eyes, "I ain't +got nothing against him! What'd I take him to the attic for?" + +"Of course not for money," sneered Mr. Ludlow. + +The Governor turned on him sharply. "When you can bring any proof of +that, I'll be ready to hear it. Until you can, you'd better leave it +out of the question." + +"Strange it should have happened this very afternoon," put in the +eminent lobbyist. + +The Governor looked at him with open countenance. "You were +especially interested in something this afternoon? I thought you +told me you had no vital interest here this session." + +There was nothing to be said. Mr. Ludlow said nothing. + +"Now, William," pursued the Governor, fearful in his heart that this +would be Freckles' undoing, "why did you close the door of the shaft +before you started down?" + +"Well, you see, sir," began Freckles, still tremulously, "I'm so +used to closin' doors. Closin' doors has become a kind of second +nature with me. I've been told about it so many times. And up there, +though I thought I was losin' my life, still I didn't neglect my +duty." + +The Governor put his hand to his mouth and coughed. + +"And why," he went on, more secure now, for a boy who could get out +of that could get out of anything, "why was it you didn't make some +immediate effort to get Mr. Ludlow down? Why didn't you notify +someone, or do something about it?" + +"Why, I supposed, of course, he walked down by the stairs," cried +Freckles. "I never dreamed he'd want to trust the elevator after the +way she had acted." + +"The door was locked," snarled the eminent lobbyist. + +"Well, now, you see, I didn't know that," explained Freckles +expansively. "Late in the afternoon I took a run up just to test the +car--and there you were! I never was so surprised in my life. I +supposed, of course, sir, that you'd spent the afternoon in the +Senate, along with everybody else." + +Once more the Governor put his hand to his mouth. + +"Your case will come before the executive council at its next +meeting, William. And if anything like this should happen again, you +will be discharged on the spot." Freckles bowed. "You may go now." + +When he was almost at the door the Governor called to him. + +"Don't you think, William," he said--the Governor felt that he and +Freckles could afford to be generous--"that you should apologise to +the gentleman for the really grave inconvenience to which you have +been the means of subjecting him?" + +Freckles' little grey eyes grew steely. He looked at Henry Ludlow, +and there was an ominous silence. Then light broke over his face. +"On behalf of the elevator," he said, "I apologise." + +And a third time the Governor's hand was raised to his mouth. + +The next week Freckles was wearing a signet ring; long and audibly +had he sighed for a ring of such kind and proportions. He was at +some pains in explaining to everyone to whom he showed it that it +had been sent him by "a friend up home." + + + + +V + +FROM A TO Z + + +Thus had another ideal tumbled to the rubbish heap! She seemed to be +breathing the dust which the newly fallen had stirred up among its +longer dead fellows. Certainly she was breathing the dust from +somewhere. + +During her senior year at the university, when people would ask: +"And what are you going to do when you leave school, Miss Willard?" +she would respond with anything that came to hand, secretly hugging +to her mind that idea of getting a position in a publishing house. Her +conception of her publishing house was finished about the same time +as her class-day gown. She was to have a roll-top desk--probably of +mahogany--and a big chair which whirled round like that in the office +of the under-graduate dean. She was to have a little office all by +herself, opening on a bigger office--the little one marked "Private." +There were to be beautiful rugs--the general effect not unlike the +library at the University Club--books and pictures and cultivated +gentlemen who spoke often of Greek tragedies and the Renaissance. +She was a little uncertain as to her duties, but had a general idea +about getting down between nine and ten, reading the morning paper, +cutting the latest magazine, and then "writing something." + +Commencement was now four months past, and one of her professors had +indeed secured for her a position in a Chicago "publishing house." +This was her first morning and she was standing at the window +looking down into Dearborn Street while the man who was to have her +in charge was fixing a place for her to sit. + +That the publishing house should be on Dearborn Street had been her +first blow, for she had long located her publishing house on that +beautiful stretch of Michigan Avenue which overlooked the lake. But +the real insult was that this publishing house, instead of having a +building, or at least a floor, all to itself, simply had a place +penned off in a bleak, dirty building such as one who had done work +in sociological research instinctively associated with a box +factory. And the thing which fairly trailed her visions in the dust +was that the partition penning them off did not extend to the +ceiling, and the adjoining room being occupied by a patent medicine +company, she was face to face with glaring endorsements of Dr. +Bunting's Famous Kidney and Bladder Cure. Taken all in all there +seemed little chance for Greek tragedies or the Renaissance. + +The man who was "running things"--she buried her phraseology with +her dreams--wore a skull cap, and his moustache dragged down below +his chin. Just at present he was engaged in noisily pulling a most +unliterary pine table from a dark corner to a place near the window. +That accomplished, an ostentatious hunt ensued, resulting in the +triumphant flourish of a feather duster. Several knocks at the +table, and the dust of many months--perhaps likewise of many +dreams--ascended to a resting place on the endorsement of Dr. +Bunting's Kidney and Bladder Cure. He next produced a short, +straight-backed chair which she recognised as brother to the one +which used to stand behind their kitchen stove. He gave it a shake, +thus delicately indicating that she was receiving special favours in +this matter of an able-bodied chair, and then announced with brisk +satisfaction: "So! Now we are ready to begin." She murmured a "Thank +you," seated herself and her buried hopes in this chair which did +not whirl round, and leaned her arms upon a table which did not even +dream in mahogany. + +In the _other_ publishing house, one pushed buttons and +uniformed menials appeared--noiselessly, quickly and deferentially. +At this moment a boy with sandy hair brushed straight back in a +manner either statesmanlike or clownlike--things were too involved +to know which--shuffled in with an armful of yellow paper which he +flopped down on the pine table. After a minute he returned with a +warbled "Take Me Back to New York Town" and a paste-pot. And upon +his third appearance he was practising gymnastics with a huge pair +of shears, which he finally presented, grinningly. + +There was a long pause, broken only by the sonorous voice of Dr. +Bunting upbraiding someone for not having billed out that stuff to +Apple Grove, and then the sandy-haired boy appeared bearing a large +dictionary, followed by the man in the skull cap behind a dictionary +of equal unwieldiness. These were set down on either side of the +yellow paper, and he who was filling the position of cultivated +gentleman pulled up a chair, briskly. + +"Has Professor Lee explained to you the nature of our work?" he +wanted to know. + +"No," she replied, half grimly, a little humourously, and not far +from tearfully, "he didn't--explain." + +"Then it is my pleasure to inform you," he began, blinking at her +importantly, "that we are engaged here in the making of a +dictionary." + +"A _dic--?_" but she swallowed the gasp in the laugh coming up +to meet it, and of their union was born a saving cough. + +"Quite an overpowering thought, is it not?" he agreed pleasantly. +"Now you see you have before you the two dictionaries you will use +most, and over in that case you will find other references. The main +thing"--his voice sank to an impressive whisper--"is _not_ to +infringe the copyright. The publisher was in yesterday and made a +little talk to the force, and he said that any one who handed in a +piece of copy infringing the copyright simply employed that means of +writing his own resignation. Neat way of putting it, was it not?" + +"Yes, _wasn't_ it--neat?" she agreed, wildly. + +She was conscious of a man's having stepped in behind her and taken +a seat at the table next hers. She heard him opening his dictionaries +and getting out his paper. Then the man in the skull cap had risen +and was saying genially: "Well, here is a piece of old Webster, your +first 'take'--no copyright on this, you see, but you must modernise +and expand. Don't miss any of the good words in either of these +dictionaries. Here you have dictionaries, copy-paper, paste, and +Professor Lee assures me you have brains--all the necessary +ingredients for successful lexicography. We are to have some rules +printed to-morrow, and in the meantime I trust I've made myself clear. +The main thing"--he bent down and spoke it solemnly--"is _not_ to +infringe the copyright." With a cheerful nod he was gone, and she heard +him saying to the man at the next table: "Mr. Clifford, I shall have +to ask you to be more careful about getting in promptly at eight." + +She removed the cover from her paste-pot and dabbled a little on a +piece of paper. Then she tried the unwieldy shears on another piece +of paper. She then opened one of her dictionaries and read +studiously for fifteen minutes. That accomplished, she opened the +other dictionary and pursued it for twelve minutes. Then she took +the column of "old Webster," which had been handed her pasted on a +piece of yellow paper, and set about attempting to commit it to +memory. She looked up to be met with the statement that Mrs. Marjory +Van Luce De Vane, after spending years under the so-called best +surgeons of the country, had been cured in six weeks by Dr. +Bunting's Famous Kidney and Bladder Cure. She pushed the +dictionaries petulantly from her, and leaning her very red cheek +upon her hand, her hazel eyes blurred with tears of perplexity and +resentment, her mouth drawn in pathetic little lines of uncertainty, +looked over at the sprawling warehouse on the opposite side of +Dearborn Street. She was just considering the direct manner of +writing one's resignation--not knowing how to infringe the +copyright--when a voice said: "I beg pardon, but I wonder if I can +help you any?" + +She had never heard a voice like that before. Or, _had_ she +heard it?--and where? She looked at him, a long, startled gaze. +Something made her think of the voice the prince used to have in +long-ago dreams. She looked into a face that was dark and thin +and--different. Two very dark eyes were looking at her kindly, and a +mouth which was a baffling combination of things to be loved and +things to be deplored was twitching a little, as though it would +like to join the eyes in a smile, if it dared. + +Because he saw both how funny and how hard it was, she liked him. It +would have been quite different had he seen either one without the +other. + +"You can tell me how _not_ to infringe the copyright," she +laughed. "I'm not sure that I know what a copyright is." + +He laughed--a laugh which belonged with his voice. "Mr. Littletree +isn't as lucid as he thinks he is. I've been here a week or so, and +picked up a few things you might like to know." + +He pulled his chair closer to her table then and gave her a lesson in +the making of copy. Edna Willard was never one-half so attractive as +when absorbed in a thing which someone was showing her how to do. Her +hazel eyes would widen and glisten with the joy of comprehending; her +cheeks would flush a deeper pink with the coming of new light, her +mouth would part in a child-like way it had forgotten to outgrow, +her head would nod gleefully in token that she understood, and she +had a way of pulling at her wavy hair and making it more wavy than +it had been before. The man at the next table was a long time in +explaining the making of a dictionary. He spoke in low tones, often +looking at the figure of the man in the skull cap, who was sitting +with his back to them, looking over copy. Once she cried, excitedly: +"Oh--I _see_!" and he warned, "S--h!" explaining, "Let him think +you got it all from him. It will give you a better stand-in." She +nodded, appreciatively, and felt very well acquainted with this kind +man whose voice made her think of something--called to something--she +did not just know what. + +After that she became so absorbed in lexicography that when the men +began putting away their things it was hard to realise that the +morning had gone. It was a new and difficult game, the evasion of +the copyright furnishing the stimulus of a hazard. + +The man at the next table had been watching her with an amused +admiration. Her child-like absorption, the way every emotion from +perplexity to satisfaction expressed itself in the poise of her head +and the pucker of her face, took him back over years emotionally +barren to the time when he too had those easily stirred enthusiasms +of youth. For the man at the next table was far from young now. His +mouth had never quite parted with boyishness, but there was more +white than black in his hair, and the lines about his mouth told +that time, as well as forces more aging than time, had laid heavy +hand upon him. But when he looked at the girl and told her with a +smile that it was time to stop work, it was a smile and a voice to +defy the most tell-tale face in all the world. + +During her luncheon, as she watched the strange people coming and +going, she did much wondering. She wondered why it was that so many +of the men at the dictionary place were very old men; she wondered +if it would be a good dictionary--one that would be used in the +schools; she wondered if Dr. Bunting had made a great deal of money, +and most of all she wondered about the man at the next table whose +voice was like--like a dream which she did not know that she had +dreamed. + +When she had returned to the straggling old building, had stumbled +down the narrow, dark hall and opened the door of the big bleak +room, she saw that the man at the next table was the only one who +had returned from luncheon. Something in his profile made her stand +there very still. He had not heard her come in, and he was looking +straight ahead, eyes half closed, mouth set--no unsurrendered +boyishness there now. Wholly unconsciously she took an impulsive +step forward. But she stopped, for she saw, and felt without really +understanding, that it was not just the moment's pain, but the +revealed pain of years. Just then he began to cough, and it seemed +the cough, too, was more than of the moment. And then he turned and +saw her, and smiled, and the smile changed all. + +As the afternoon wore on the man stopped working and turning a +little in his chair sat there covertly watching the girl. She was +just typically girl. It was written that she had spent her days in +the happy ways of healthful girlhood. He supposed that a great many +young fellows had fallen in love with her--nice, clean young +fellows, the kind she would naturally meet. And then his eyes closed +for a minute and he put up his hand and brushed back his hair; there +was weariness, weariness weary of itself, in the gesture. He looked +about the room and scanned the faces of the men, most of them older +than he, many of them men whose histories were well known to him. +They were the usual hangers on about newspaper offices; men who, for +one reason or other--age, dissipation, antiquated methods--had been +pitched over, men for whom such work as this came as a godsend. They +were the men of yesterday--men whom the world had rushed past. She +was the only one there, this girl who would probably sit here beside +him for many months, with whom the future had anything to do. +Youth!--Goodness!--Joy!--Hope!--strange things to bring to a place +like this. And as if their alienism disturbed him, he moved +restlessly, almost resentfully, bit his lips nervously, moistened +them, and began putting away his things. + +As the girl was starting home along Dearborn Street a few minutes +later, she chanced to look in a window. She saw that it was a +saloon, but before she could turn away she saw a man with a white +face--white with the peculiar whiteness of a dark face, standing +before the bar drinking from a small glass. She stood still, +arrested by a look such as she had never seen before: a panting +human soul sobbingly fluttering down into something from which it +had spent all its force in trying to rise. When she recalled herself +and passed on, a mist which she could neither account for nor banish +was dimming the clear hazel of her eyes. + +The next day was a hard one at the dictionary place. She told +herself it was because the novelty of it was wearing away, because +her fingers ached, because it tired her back to sit in that horrid +chair. She did not admit of any connection between her flagging +interest and the fact that the place at the next table was vacant. + +The following day he was still absent. She assumed that it was +nervousness occasioned by her queer surroundings made her look +around whenever she heard a step behind her. Where was he? Where had +that look carried him? If he were in trouble, was there no one to +help him? + +The third day she did an unpremeditated thing. The man in the skull +cap had been showing her something about the copy. As he was +leaving, she asked: "Is the man who sits at the next table coming +back?" + +"Oh yes," he replied grimly, "he'll be back." + +"Because," she went on, "if he wasn't, I thought I would take his +shears. These hurt my fingers." + +He made the exchange for her--and after that things went better. + +He did return late the next morning. After he had taken his place he +looked over at her and smiled. He looked sick and shaken--as if +something that knew no mercy had taken hold of him and wrung body +and soul. + +"You have been ill?" she asked, with timid solicitude. + +"Oh no," he replied, rather shortly. + +He was quiet all that day, but the next day they talked about the +work, laughed together over funny definitions they found. She felt +that he could tell many interesting things about himself, if he +cared to. + +As the days went on he did tell some of those things--out of the way +places where he had worked, queer people whom he had known. It +seemed that words came to him as gifts, came freely, happily, +pleased, perhaps, to be borne by so sympathetic a voice. And there +was another thing about him. He seemed always to know just what she +was trying to say; he never missed the unexpressed. That made it +easy to say things to him; there seemed a certain at-homeness +between his thought and hers. She accounted for her interest in him +by telling herself she had never known any one like that before. Now +Harold, the boy whom she knew best out at the university, why one +had to _say_ things to Harold to make him understand! And +Harold never left one wondering--wondering what he had meant by that +smile, what he had been going to say when he started to say +something and stopped, wondering what it was about his face that one +could not understand. Harold never could claim as his the hour after +he had left her, and was one ever close to anyone with whom one did +not spend some of the hours of absence? She began to see that hours +spent together when apart were the most intimate hours of all. + +And as Harold did not make one wonder, so he did not make one worry. +Never in all her life had there been a lump in her throat when she +thought of Harold. There was often a lump in her throat when the man +at the next table was coughing. + +One day, she had been there about two months, she said something to +him about it. It was hard; it seemed forcing one's way into a room +that had never been opened to one--there were several doors he kept +closed. + +"Mr. Clifford," she turned to him impetuously as they were putting +away their things that night, "will you mind if I say something to +you?" + +He was covering his paste-pot. He looked up at her strangely. The +closed door seemed to open a little way. "I can't conceive of +'minding' anything you might say to me, Miss Noah,"--he had called +her Miss Noah ever since she, by mistake, had one day called him Mr. +Webster. + +"You see," she hurried on, very timid, now that the door had opened +a little, "you have been so good to me. Because you have been so +good to me it seems that I have some right to--to--" + +His head was resting upon his hand, and he leaned a little closer as +though listening for something he wanted to hear. + +"I had a cousin who had a cough like yours,"--brave now that she +could not go back--"and he went down to New Mexico and stayed for a +year, and when he came back--when he came back he was as well as any +of us. It seems so foolish not to"--her voice broke, now that it had +so valiantly carried it--"not to--" + +He looked at her, and that was all. But she was never wholly the +same again after that look. It enveloped her being in a something +which left her richer--different. It was a look to light the dark +place between two human souls. It seemed for the moment that words +would follow it, but as if feeling their helplessness--perhaps +needlessness--they sank back unuttered, and at the last he got up, +abruptly, and walked away. + +One night, while waiting for the elevator, she heard two of the men +talking about him. When she went out on the street it was with head +high, cheeks hot. For nothing is so hard to hear as that which one +has half known, and evaded. One never denies so hotly as in denying +to one's self what one fears is true, and one never resents so +bitterly as in resenting that which one cannot say one has the right +to resent. + +That night she lay in her bed with wide open eyes, going over and +over the things they had said. "_Cure?_"--one of them had +scoffed, after telling how brilliant he had been before he "went to +pieces"--"why all the cures on earth couldn't help him! He can go +just so far, and then he can no more stop himself--oh, about as much +as an ant could stop a prairie fire!" + +She finally turned over on her pillow and sobbed; and she wondered +why--wondered, yet knew. + +But it resulted in the flowering of her tenderness for him. Interest +mounted to defiance. It ended in blind, passionate desire to "make +it up" to him. And again he was so different from Harold; Harold did +not impress himself upon one by upsetting all one's preconceived +ideas. + +She felt now that she understood better--understood the closed +doors. He was--she could think of no better word than sensitive. + +And that is why, several mornings later, she very courageously--for +it did take courage--threw this little note over on his desk--they +had formed a habit of writing notes to each other, sometimes about +the words, sometimes about other things. + +"IN-VI-TA-TION, _n._ That which Miss Noah extends to Mr. +Webster for Friday evening, December second, at the house where she +lives--hasn't she already told him where that is? It is the wish of +Miss Noah to present Mr. Webster to various other Miss Noahs, all of +whom are desirous of making his acquaintance." + +She was absurdly nervous at luncheon that day, and kept telling +herself with severity not to act like a high-school girl. He was +late in returning that noon, and though there seemed a new something +in his voice when he asked if he hadn't better sharpen her pencils, +he said nothing about her new definition of invitation. It was +almost five o'clock when he threw this over on her desk: + +"AP-PRE-CI-A-TION, _n._ That sentiment inspired in Mr. Webster +by the kind invitation of Miss Noah for Friday evening. + +"RE-GRET, _n._ That which Mr. Webster experiences because, for +reasons into which he cannot go in detail, it is impossible for him +to accept Miss Noah's invitation. + +"RE-SENT-MENT, _n._ That which is inspired in Mr. Webster by +the insinuation that there are other Miss Noahs in the world." + +Then below he had written: "Three hours later. Miss Noah, the world +is queer. Some day you may find out--though I hope you never +will--that it is frequently the things we most want to do that we +must leave undone. Miss Noah, won't you go on bringing me as much of +yourself as you can to Dearborn Street, and try not to think much +about my not being able to know the Miss Noah of Hyde Park? And +little Miss Noah--I thank you. There aren't words enough in this old +book of ours to tell you how much--or why." + +That night he hurried away with never a joke about how many words +she had written that day. She did not look up as he stood there +putting on his coat. + +It was spring now, and the dictionary staff had begun on W. + +They had written of Joy, of Hope and Life and Love, and many other +things. Life seemed pressing just behind some of those definitions, +pressing the harder, perhaps, because it could not break through the +surface. + +For it did not break through; it flooded just beneath. + +How did she know that he cared for her? She could not possibly have +told. Perhaps the nearest to actual proof she could bring was that +he always saw that her overshoes were put in a warm place. And when +one came down to facts, the putting of a girl's rubbers near the +radiator did not necessarily mean love. + +Perhaps then it was because there was no proof of it that she was +most sure. For some of the most sure things in the world are things +which cannot be proved. + +It was only that they worked together and were friends; that they +laughed together over funny definitions they found, that he was kind +to her, and that they seemed remarkably close together. + +That is as far as facts can take it. + +And just there--it begins. + +For the force which rushes beneath the facts of life, caring nothing +for conditions, not asking what one desires or what one thinks best, +caring as little about a past as about a future--save its own +future--the force which can laugh at man's institutions and batter +over in one sweep what he likes to call his wisdom, was sweeping +them on. And because it could get no other recognition it forced its +way into the moments when he asked her for an eraser, when she +wanted to know how to spell a word. He could not so much as ask her +if she needed more copy-paper without seeming to be lavishing upon +her all the love of all the ages. + +And so the winter had worn on, and there was really nothing whatever +to tell about it. + +She was quiet this morning, and kept her head bent low over her +work. For she had estimated the number of pages there were between W +and Z. Soon they would be at Z;--and then? Then? Shyly she turned +and looked at him; he too was bent over his work. When she came in +she had said something about its being spring, and that there must +be wild flowers in the woods. Since then he had not looked up. + +Suddenly it came to her--tenderly, hotly, fearfully yet bravely, +that it was she who must meet Z. She looked at him again, covertly. +And she felt that she understood. It was the lines in his face made +it clearest. Years, and things blacker, less easily surmounted than +years--oh yes, that too she faced fearlessly--were piled in between. +She knew now that it was she--not he--who could push them aside. + +It was all very unmaidenly, of course; but maidenly is a word love +and life and desire may crowd from the page. + +Perhaps she would not have thrown it after all--the little note she +had written--had it not been that when she went over for more +copy-paper she stood for a minute looking out the window. Even on +Dearborn Street the seductiveness of spring was in the air. Spring, +and all that spring meant, filled her. + +Because, way beyond the voice of Dr. Bunting she heard the songs of +far-away birds, and because beneath the rumble of a printing press +she could get the babble of a brook, because Z was near and life was +strong, the woman vanquished the girl, and she threw this over to +his desk: + +"CHAFING-DISH, n. That out of which Miss Noah asks Mr. Webster to +eat his Sunday night lunch tomorrow. All the other Miss Noahs are +going to be away, and if Mr. Webster does not come, Miss Noah will +be all alone. Miss Noah does not like to be lonely." + +She ate no lunch that day; she only drank a cup of coffee and walked +around. + +He did not come back that afternoon. It passed from one to two, from +two to three, and then very slowly from three to four, and still he +had not come. + +He too was walking about. He had walked down to the lake and was +standing there looking out across it. + +Why not?--he was saying to himself--fiercely, doggedly. Over and +over again--Well, _why_ not? + +A hundred nights, alone in his room, he had gone over it. Had not +life used him hard enough to give him a little now?--longing had +pleaded. And now there was a new voice--more prevailing voice--the +voice of her happiness. His face softened to an almost maternal +tenderness as he listened to that voice. + +Too worn to fight any longer, he gave himself up to it, and sat +there dreaming. They were dreams of joy rushing in after lonely +years, dreams of stepping into the sunlight after long days in fog +and cold, dreams of a woman before a fireplace--her arms about him, +her cheer and her tenderness, her comradeship and her passion--all +his to take! Ah, dreams which even thoughts must not touch--so +wonderful and sacred they were. + +A long time he sat there, dreaming dreams and seeing visions. The +force that rules the race was telling him that the one crime was the +denial of happiness--his happiness, her happiness; and when at last +his fight seemed but a puerile fight against forces worlds mightier +than he, he rose, and as one who sees a great light, started back +toward Dearborn Street. + +On the way he began to cough. The coughing was violent, and he +stepped into a doorway to gain breath. And after he had gone in +there he realised that it was the building of Chicago's greatest +newspaper. + +He had been city editor of that paper once. Facts, the things he +knew about himself, talked to him then. There was no answer. + +It left him weak and dizzy and crazy for a drink. He walked on +slowly, unsteadily, his white face set. For he had vowed that if it +took the last nerve in his body there should be no more of that +until after they had finished with Z. He knew himself too well to +vow more. He was not even sure of that. + +He did not turn in where he wanted to go, but resistance took the +last bit of force that was in him. He was trembling like a sick man +when he stepped into the elevator. + +She was just leaving. She was in the little cloak room putting on +her things. She was all alone in there. + +He stepped in. He pushed the door shut, and stood there leaning +against it, looking at her, saying nothing. + +"Oh--you are ill?" she gasped, and laid a frightened hand upon him. + +The touch crazed him. All resistance gone, he swept her into his +arms; he held her fiercely, and between sobs kissed her again and +again. He could not let her go. He frightened her. He hurt her. And +he did not care--he did not know. + +Then he held her off and looked at her. And as he looked into her +eyes, passion melted to tenderness. It was she now--not he; +love--not hunger. Holding her face in his two hands, looking at her +as if getting something to take away, his white lips murmured words +too inarticulate for her to hear. And then again he put his arms +around her--all differently. Reverently, sobbingly, he kissed her +hair. And then he was gone. + +He did not come out that Sunday afternoon, but Harold dropped in +instead, and talked of some athletic affairs over at the university. +She wondered why she did not go crazy in listening to him, and yet +she could answer intelligently. It was queer--what one _could_ +do. + +They had come at last to Z. There would be no more work upon the +dictionary after that day. And it was raining--raining as in Chicago +alone it knows how to rain. + +They wrote no notes to each other now. It had been different since +that day. They made small effort to cover their raw souls with the +mantle of commonplace words. + +Both of them had tried to stay away that last day. But both were in +their usual places. + +The day wore on eventlessly. Those men with whom she had worked, the +men of yesterday, who had been kind to her, came up at various times +for little farewell chats. The man in the skull cap told her that +she had done excellent work. She was surprised at the ease with +which she could make decent reply, thinking again that it was +queer--what one could do. + +He was moving. She saw him lay some sheets of yellow paper on the +desk in front. He had finished with his "take." There would not be +another to give him. He would go now. + +He came back to his desk. She could hear him putting away his +things. And then for a long time there was no sound. She knew that +he was just sitting there in his chair. + +Then she heard him get up. She heard him push his chair up to the +table, and then for a minute he stood there. She wanted to turn +toward him; she wanted to say something--do something. But she had +no power. + +She saw him lay an envelope upon her desk. She heard him walking +away. She knew, numbly, that his footsteps were not steady. She knew +that he had stopped; she was sure that he was looking back. But +still she had no power. + +And then she heard him go. + +Even then she went on with her work; she finished her "take" and +laid down her pencil. It was finished now--and he had gone. +Finished?--_Gone?_ She was tearing open the envelope of the +letter. + +This was what she read: + +"Little dictionary sprite, sunshine vender, and girl to be loved, if +I were a free man I would say to you--Come, little one, and let us +learn of love. Let us learn of it, not as one learns from +dictionaries, but let us learn from the morning glow and the evening +shades. But Miss Noah, maker of dictionaries and creeper into +hearts, the bound must not call to the free. They might fittingly +have used my name as one of the synonyms under that word Failure, +but I trust not under Coward. + +"And now, you funny little Miss Noah from the University of Chicago, +don't I know that your heart is blazing forth the assurance that you +don't _care_ for any of those things--the world, people, common +sense--that you want just love? They made a grand failure of you out +at your university; they taught you philosophy and they taught you +Greek, and they've left you just as much the woman as women were +five thousand years ago. Oh, I know all about you--you little girl +whose hair tried so hard to be red. Your soul touched mine as we sat +there writing words--words--words, the very words in which men try +to tell things, and can't--and I know all about what you would do. +But you shall not do it. Dear little copy maker, would a man +standing out on the end of a slippery plank have any right to cry to +someone on the shore--'Come out here on this plank with me?' If he +loved the someone on the shore, would he not say instead--'Don't get +on this plank?' Me get off the plank--come with you to the +shore--you are saying? But you see, dear, you only know slippery +planks as viewed from the shore--God grant you may never know them +any other way! + +"It was you, was it not, who wrote our definition of happiness? Yes, +I remember the day you did it. You were so interested; your cheeks +grew so very red, and you pulled and pulled at your wavy hair. You +said it was such an important definition. And so it is, Miss Noah, +quite the most important of all. And on the page of life, Miss Noah, +may happiness be written large and unblurred for you. It is because +I cannot help you write it that I turn away. I want at least to +leave the page unspoiled. + +"I carry a picture of you. I shall carry it always. You are sitting +before a fireplace, and I think of that fireplace as symbolising the +warmth and care and tenderness and the safety that will surround +you. And sometimes as you sit there let a thought of me come for +just a minute, Miss Noah--not long enough nor deep enough to bring +you any pain. But only think--I brought him happiness after he +believed all happiness had gone. He was so grateful for that light +which came after he thought the darkness had settled down. It will +light his way to the end. + +"We've come to Z, and it's good-bye. There is one thing I can give +you without hurting you,--the hope, the prayer, that life may be +very, very good to you." + +The sheets of paper fell from her hands. She sat staring out +into Dearborn Street. She began to see. After all, he had not +understood her. Perhaps men never understood women; certainly +he had not understood her. What he did not know was that she +was willing to _pay_ for her happiness--_pay_--pay any price +that might be exacted. And anyway--she had no choice. Strange that +he could not see that! Strange that he could not see the irony and +cruelty of bidding her good-bye and then telling her to be happy! + +It simplified itself to such an extent that she _grew_ very +calm. It would be easy to find him, easy to make him see--for it was +so very simple--and then.... + +She turned in her copy. She said good-bye quietly, naturally, rode +down in the lumbering old elevator and started out into the now +drenching rain toward the elevated trains which would take her to +the West Side; it was so fortunate that she had heard him telling +one day where he lived. + +When she reached the station she saw that more people were coming +down the stairs than were going up. They were saying things about +the trains, but she did not heed them. But at the top of the stairs +a man in uniform said: "Blockade, Miss. You'll have to take the +surface cars." + +She was sorry, for it would delay her, and there was not a minute to +lose. She was dismayed, upon reaching the surface cars, to find she +could not get near them; the rain, the blockade on the "L" had +caused a great crowd to congregate there. She waited a long time, +getting more and more wet, but it was impossible to get near the +cars. She thought of a cab, but could see none, they too having all +been pressed into service. + +She determined, desperately, to start and walk. Soon she would +surely get either a cab or a car. And so she started, staunchly, +though she was wet through now, and trembling with cold and +nervousness. + +As she hurried through the driving rain she faced things fearlessly. +Oh yes, she understood--everything. But if he were not well--should +he not have her with him? If he had that thing to fight, did he not +need her help? What did men think women were like? Did he think she +was one to sit down and reason out what would be advantageous? +Better a little while with him on a slippery plank than forever safe +and desolate upon the shore! + +She never questioned her going; were not life and love too great to +be lost through that which could be so easily put right? + +The buildings were reeling, the streets moving up and down--that +awful rain, she thought, was making her dizzy. Labouriously she +walked on--more slowly, less steadily, a pain in her side, that +awful reeling in her head. + +Carriages returning to the city were passing her, but she had not +strength to call to them, and it seemed if she walked to the curbing +she would fall. She was not thinking so clearly now. The thing which +took all of her force was the lifting of her feet and the putting +them down in the right place. Her throat seemed to be closing +up--and her side--and her head.... + +Someone had her by the arm. Then someone was speaking her name; +speaking it in surprise--consternation--alarm. + +It was Harold. + +It was all vague then. She knew that she was in a carriage, and that +Harold was talking to her kindly. "You're taking me there?" she +murmured. + +"Yes--yes, Edna, everything's all right," he replied soothingly. + +"Everything's all right," she repeated, in a whisper, and leaned her +head back against the cushions. + +They stopped after a while, and Harold was standing at the open door +of the cab with something steaming hot which he told her to drink. +"You need it," he said decisively, and thinking it would help her to +tell it, she drank it down. + +The world was a little more defined after that, and she saw things +which puzzled her. "Why, it looks like the city," she whispered, her +throat too sore now to speak aloud. + +"Why sure," he replied banteringly; "don't you know we have to go +through the city to get out to the South Side?" + +"Oh, but you see," she cried, holding her throat, "but you see, it's +the _other_ way!" + +"Not to-night," he insisted; "the place for you to-night is home. +I'm taking you where you belong." + +She reached over wildly, trying to open the door, but he held her +back; she began to cry, and he talked to her, gently but unbendingly. +"But you don't _understand!_" she whispered, passionately. "I've +_got_ to go!" + +"Not to-night," he said again, and something in the way he said it +made her finally huddle back in the corner of the carriage. + +Block after block, mile after mile, they rode on in silence. She +felt overpowered. And with submission she knew that it was Z. For +the whole city was piled in between. Great buildings were in +between, and thousands of men running to and fro on the streets; +man, and all man had builded up, were in between. And then +Harold--Harold who had always seemed to count for so little, had +come and taken her away. + +Dully, wretchedly--knowing that her heart would ache far worse +to-morrow than it did to-night--she wondered about things. Did +things like rain and street-cars and wet feet and a sore throat +determine life? Was it that way with other people, too? Did other +people have barriers--whole cities full of them--piled in between? +And then did the Harolds come and take them where they said they +belonged? Were there not _some_ people strong enough to go +where they wanted to go? + + + + +VI + +THE MAN OF FLESH AND BLOOD + + +The elements without were not in harmony with the spirit which it +was desired should be engendered within. By music, by gay +decorations, by speeches from prominent men, the board in charge of +the boys' reformatory was striving to throw about this dedication of +the new building an atmosphere of cheerfulness and good-will--an +atmosphere vibrant with the kindness and generosity which emanated +from the State, and the thankfulness and loyalty which it was felt +should emanate from the boys. + +Outside the world was sobbing. Some young trees which had been +planted along the driveway of the reformatory grounds, and which +were expected to grow up in the way they should go, were rocking +back and forth in passionate insurrection. Fallen leaves were being +spit viciously through the air. It was a sullen-looking landscape +which Philip Grayson, he who was to be the last speaker of the +afternoon, saw stretching itself down the hill, across the little +valley, and up another little hill of that rolling prairie state. In +his ears was the death wail of the summer. It seemed the spirit of +out-of-doors was sending itself up in mournful, hopeless cries. + +The speaker who had been delivering himself of pedantic +encouragement about the open arms with which the world stood ready +to receive the most degraded one, would that degraded one but come +to the world in proper spirit, sat down amid perfunctory applause +led by the officers and attendants of the institution, and the boys +rose to sing. The brightening of their faces told that their work as +performers was more to their liking than their position as auditors. +They threw back their heads and waited with well-disciplined +eagerness for the signal to begin. Then, with the strength and +native music there are in some three hundred boys' throats, there +rolled out the words of the song of the State. + +There were lips which opened only because they must, but as a whole +they sang with the same heartiness, the same joy in singing, that he +had heard a crowd of public-school boys put into the song only the +week before. When the last word had died away it seemed to Philip +Grayson that the sigh of the world without was giving voice to the +sigh of the world within as the well-behaved crowd of boys sat down +to resume their duties as auditors. + +And then one of the most important of the professors from the State +University was telling them about the kindness of the State: the +State had provided for them this beautiful home; it gave them +comfortable clothing and nutritious food; it furnished that fine +gymnasium in which to train their bodies, books and teachers to +train their minds; it provided those fitted to train their souls, to +work against the unfortunate tendencies--the professor stumbled a +little there--which had led to their coming. The State gave +liberally, gladly, and in return it asked but one thing: that they +come out into the world and make useful, upright citizens, citizens +of which any State might be proud. Was that asking too much? the +professor from the State University was saying. + +The sobbing of the world without was growing more intense. Many +pairs of eyes from among the auditors were straying out to where the +summer lay dying. Did they know--those boys whom the State classed +as unfortunates--that out of this death there would come again life? +Or did they see but the darkness--the decay--of to-day? + +The professor from the State University was putting the case very +fairly. There were no flaws--seemingly--to be picked in his logic. +The State had been kind; the boys were obligated to good +citizenship. But the coldness!--comfortlessness!--of it all. The +open arms of the world!--how mocking in its abstractness. What did +it mean? Did it mean that they--the men who uttered the phrase so +easily--would be willing to give these boys aid, friendship when +they came out into the world? What would they say, those boys whose +ears were filled with high-sounding, non-committal phrases, if some +man were to stand before them and say, "And so, fellows, when you +get away from this place, and are ready to get your start in the +world, just come around to my office and I'll help you get a job?" +At thought of it there came from Philip Grayson a queer, partly +audible laugh, which caused those nearest him to look his way in +surprise. + +But he was all unconscious of their looks of inquiry, absorbed in the +thoughts that crowded upon him. How far away the world--his kind of +people--must seem to these boys of the State Reform School. The +speeches they had heard, the training that had been given them, +had taught them--unconsciously perhaps, but surely--to divide the +world into two great classes: the lucky and the unlucky, those who +made speeches and those who must listen, the so-called good and the +so-called bad; perhaps--he smiled a little at his own cynicism--those +who were caught and those who were not. + +There came to him these words of a poet of whom he used to be fond: + + In men whom men pronounce as ill, + I find so much of goodness still; + In men whom men pronounce divine, + I find so much of sin and blot; + I hesitate to draw the line + Between the two, when God has not. + +When God has not! He turned and looked out at the sullen sky, +returning--as most men do at times--to that conception of his +childhood that somewhere beyond the clouds was God. God! Did God +care for the boys of the State Reformatory? Was that poet of the +western mountains right when he said that God was not a drawer of +lines, but a seer of the good that was in the so-called bad, and of +the bad in the so-called good, and a lover of them both? + +If that was God, it was not the God the boys of the reformatory had +been taught to know. They had been told that God would forgive the +wicked, but it had been made clear to them--if not in words, in +implications--that it was they who were the wicked. And the +so-called godly men, men of such exemplary character as had been +chosen to address them that afternoon, had so much of the spirit of +God that they, too, were willing to forgive, be tolerant, and--he +looked out at the bending trees with a smile--disburse generalities +about the open arms of the world. + +What would they think--those three hundred speech-tired boys--if +some man who had been held before them as exemplary were to rise and +lay bare his own life--its weaknesses, its faults, perhaps its +crimes--and tell them there was weakness and there was strength in +every human being, and that the world-old struggle of life was to +overcome one's weakness with one's strength. + +The idea took strange hold on him. It seemed the method of the +world--at any rate it had been the method of that afternoon--for the +men who stood before their fellows with clean hands to plant +themselves on the far side of a chasm of conventions, or narrow +self-esteem, or easily won virtue, and cry to those beings who +struggled on the other side of that chasm--to those human beings +whose souls had never gone to school: "Look at us! Our hands are +clean, our hearts are pure. See how beautiful it is to be good! Come +ye, poor sinners, and be good also." And the poor sinners, the +untaught, birthmarked human souls, would look over at the +self-acclaimed goodness they could see far across the chasm, and +even though attracted to it (which, he grimly reflected, would not +seem likely) the thing that was left with them was a sense of the +width of the chasm. + +He had a sense of needless waste, of unnecessary blight. He looked +down at those three hundred faces and it was as if looking at human +waste; and it was human stupidity, human complacency and cowardice +kept those human beings human drift. + +With what a smug self-satisfaction--under the mask of +benevolence--the speakers of that afternoon had flaunted their +virtue--their position! How condescendingly they had spoken of the +home which we, the good, prepare for you, the bad, and what +namby-pambyness there was, after all, in that sentiment which all of +them had voiced--and now you must pay us back by being good! + +Oh for a man of flesh and blood to stand up and tell how he himself +had failed and suffered! For a man who could bridge that chasm with +strong, broad, human understanding and human sympathies--a man who +would stand among them pulse-beat to pulse-beat and cry out, "I +know! I understand! I fought it and I'll help you fight it too!" + +The sound of his own name broke the spell that was upon him. He +looked to the centre of the stage and saw that the professor from +the State University had seated himself and that the superintendent +of the institution was occupying the place of the speaker. And the +superintendent was saying: + +"We may esteem ourselves especially fortunate in having him with us +this afternoon. He is one of the great men of the State, one of the +men who by high living, by integrity and industry, has raised +himself to a position of great honour among his fellow men. A great +party--may I say the greatest of all parties?--has shown its +unbounded confidence in him by giving him the nomination for the +governorship of the State. No man in the State is held in higher +esteem to-day than he. And so it is with special pleasure that I +introduce to you that man of the future--Philip Grayson." + +The superintendent sat down then, and he himself--Philip Grayson--was +standing in the place where the other speakers had stood. It was with +a rush which almost swept away his outward show of calm that it came +to him that he--candidate for the governorship--was well fitted to be +that man of flesh and blood for whom he had sighed. That he himself +was within grasp of an opportunity to get beneath the jackets and into +the very hearts and souls of those boys, and make them feel that a +man of sins and virtues, of weaknesses and strength, a man who had +had much to conquer, and for whom the fight would never be finally +won, was standing before them stripped of his coat of conventions +and platitudes, and in nakedness of soul and sincerity of heart was +talking to them as a man who understood. + +Almost with the inception of the idea was born the consciousness of +what it might cost. And as in answer to the silent, blunt question, +Is it worth it? there looked up at him three hundred pairs of +eyes--eyes behind which there was good as well as bad, eyes which +had burned with the fatal rush of passion, and had burned, too, with +the hot tears of remorse--eyes which had opened on a hostile world. + +And then the eyes of Philip Grayson could not see the eyes which +were before him, and he put up his hand to break the mist--little +caring what the men upon the platform would think of him, little +thinking what effect the words which were crowding into his heart +would have upon his candidacy. But one thing was vital to him now: +to bring upon that ugly chasm the levelling forces of a common +humanity, and to make those boys who were of his clay feel that a +being who had fallen and risen again, a fellow being for whom life +would always mean a falling and a rising again, was standing before +them, and--not as the embodiment of a distant goodness, not as a +pattern, but as one among them, verily as man to man--was telling +them a few things which his own life had taught him were true. + +It was his very consecration which made it hard to begin. He was +fearful of estranging them in the beginning, of putting between them +and him that very thing he was determined there should not be. + +"I have a strange feeling," he said, with a winning little smile, +"that if I were to open my heart to-day, just open it clear up the +way I'd like to if I could, that you boys would look into it, and +then jump back in a scared kind of way and cry, 'Why--that's me!' +You would be a little surprised--wouldn't you?--if you could look +back and see the kind of boy I was, and find I was much the kind of +boy you are? + +"Do you know what I think? I think hypocrisy is the worst thing in +the world. I think it's worse than stealing, or lying, or any of the +other bad things you can name. And do you know where I think lots of +the hypocrisy comes from? I think it comes from the so-called +self-made men--from the real good men, the men who say 'I haven't +got one bad thing charged up to my account.' + +"Now the men out campaigning for me call me a self-made man. Your +superintendent just now spoke of my integrity, of the confidence +reposed in me, and all that. But do you know what is the honest +truth? If I am any kind of a man worth mentioning, if I am deserving +of any honour, any confidence, it is not because I was born with my +heart filled with good and beautiful things, for I was not. It is +because I was born with much in my heart that we call the bad, and +because, after that bad had grown stronger and stronger through the +years it was unchecked, and after it had brought me the great shock, +the great sorrow of my life, I began then, when older than you boys +are now, to see a little of that great truth which you can put +briefly in these words: 'There is good and there is bad in every +human heart, and it is the struggle of life to conquer the bad with +the good.' What I am trying to say is, that if I am worthy any one's +confidence to-day, it is because, having seen that truth, I have +been able, through never ceasing trying, through slow conquering, to +crowd out some of the bad and make room for a little of the good. + +"You see," he went on, three hundred pairs of eyes hard upon him +now, "some of us are born to a harder struggle than others. There +are people who would object to my saying that to you, even if I +believed it. They would say you would make the fact of being born +with much against which to struggle an excuse for being bad. But +look here a minute; if you were born with a body not as strong as +other boys' bodies, if you couldn't run as far, or jump as high, you +wouldn't be eternally saying, 'I can't be expected to do much; I +wasn't born right.' Not a bit of it! You'd make it your business to +get as strong as you could, and you wouldn't make any parade of the +fact that you weren't as strong as you should be. We don't like +people who whine, whether it's about weak bodies or weak souls. + +"I've been sitting here this afternoon wondering what to say to you +boys. I had intended telling some funny stories about things which +happened to me when I was a boy. But for some reason a serious mood +has come over me, and I don't feel just like those stories now. I +haven't been thinking of the funny side of life in the last +half-hour. I've been thinking of how much suffering I've endured +since the days when I, too, was a boy." + +He paused then; and when he went on his voice tested to the utmost +the silence of the room: "There is lots of sorrow in this old world. +Maybe I'm on the wrong track, but as I see it to-day human beings +are making a much harder thing of their existence than there is any +need of. There are millions and millions of them, and year after +year, generation after generation, they fight over the same old +battles, live through the same old sorrows. Doesn't it seem all +wrong that after the battle has been fought a million times it can't +be made a little easier for those who still have it before them? + +"If a farmer had gone over a bad road, and the next day saw another +farmer about to start over the same road, wouldn't he send him back? +Doesn't it seem too bad that in things which concern one's whole +life people can't be as decent as they are about things which +involve only an inconvenience? Doesn't it seem that when we human +beings have so much in common we might stand together a little +better? I'll tell you what's the matter. Most of the people of this +world are coated round and round with self-esteem, and they're +afraid to admit any understanding of the things which aren't good. +Suppose the farmer had thought it a disgrace to admit he had been +over that road, and so had said: 'From what I have read in books, +and from what I have learned in a general way, I fancy that road +isn't good.' Would the other farmer have gone back? I rather think +he would have said he'd take his chances. But you see the farmer +said he _knew_; and how did he know? Why, because he'd been +over the road himself." + +As he paused again, looking at them, he saw it all with a clarifying +simplicity. He himself knew life for a fine and beautiful thing. He +had won for himself some of the satisfactions of understanding, +certain rare delights of the open spirit. He wanted to free the +spirits of these boys to whom he talked; wanted to show them that +spirits could free themselves, indicate to them that self-control +and self-development carried one to pleasures which sordid +self-indulgences had no power to bestow. It was a question of +getting the most from life. It was a matter of happiness. + +It was thus he began, slowly, the telling of his life's story: + +"I was born with strange, wild passions in my heart. I don't know +where they came from; I only know they were there. I resented +authority. If someone who had a right to dictate to me said, +'Philip, do this,' then Philip would immediately begin to think how +much he would rather do the other thing. And," he smiled a little, +and some of the boys smiled with him in anticipation, "it was the +other thing which Philip usually did. + +"I didn't go to a reform school, for the very good reason that there +wasn't any in the State where I lived." Some of he boys smiled +again, and he could hear the nervous coughing of one of the party +managers sitting close to him. "I was what you would call a very bad +boy. I didn't mind any one. I was defiant--insolent. I did bad +things just because I knew they were bad, and--and I took a great +deal of satisfaction out of it." + +The sighing of the world without was the only sound which vibrated +through the room. "I say," he went on, "that I got a form of +satisfaction from it. I did not say I got happiness; there is a vast +difference between a kind of momentary satisfaction and that +thing--that most precious of all things--which we call happiness. +Indeed, I was very far from happy. I had hours when I was so morose +and miserable that I hated the whole world. And do you know what I +thought? I thought there was no one in all the world who had the +same kind of things surging up in his heart that I did. I thought +there was no one else with whom it was as easy to be bad, or as hard +to be good. I thought that no one understood. I thought that I was +all alone. + +"Did you ever feel like that? Did you ever feel that no one else +knew anything about such feelings as you had? Did you ever feel that +here was you, and there was the rest of the world, and that the rest +of the world didn't know anything about you, and was just generally +down on you? Now that's the very thing I want to talk away from you +to-day. You're not the only one. We're all made of the same kind of +stuff, and there's none of us made of stuff that's flawless. We all +have a fight; some an easy one, and some a big one, and if you have +formed the idea that there is a kind of dividing-line in the world, +and that on the one side is the good, and on the other side the bad, +why, all I can say is that you have a wrong notion of things. + +"Well, I grew up to be a man, and because I hadn't fought against +any of the stormy things in my heart they kept growing stronger and +stronger. I did lots of wild, ugly things, things of which I am +bitterly ashamed. I went to another place, and I fell in with the +kind of fellows you can imagine I felt at home with. I had been told +when I was a boy that it was wrong to drink and gamble. I think that +was the chief reason I took to drink and gambling." + +There was another cough, more pronounced this time, from the party +manager, and the superintendent was twisting uneasily in his seat. +It was the strangest speech that had ever been delivered at the +boys' reformatory. The boys were leaning forward--self-forgetful, +intent. "One night I was playing cards with a crowd of my friends, +and one of the men, the best friend I had, said something that made +me mad. There was a revolver right there which one of the men had +been showing us. Some kind of a demon got hold of me, and without so +much as a thought I picked up that revolver and fired at my friend." + +The party manager gave way to an exclamation of horror, and the +superintendent half rose from his seat. But before any one could say +a word Philip Grayson continued, looking at the half-frightened +faces before him: "I suppose you wonder why I am not in the +penitentiary. I had been drinking, and I missed my aim; and I was +with friends, and it was hushed up." + +He rested his hand upon the table, and looked out at the sullen +landscape. His voice was not steady as he went on: "It's not an easy +thing to talk about, boys. I never talked about it to any one before +in all my life. I'm not telling it now just to entertain you or to +create a sensation. I'm telling it," his voice grew tense in its +earnestness, "because I believe that this world could be made a +better and a sweeter place if those who have lived and suffered +would not be afraid to reach out their hands and cry: 'I know that +road--it's bad! I steered off to a better place, and I'll help you +steer off, too.'" + +There was not one of the three hundred pairs of eyes but was riveted +upon the speaker's colourless face. The masks of sullenness and +defiance had fallen from them. They were listening now--not because +they must, but because into their hungry and thirsty souls was being +poured the very sustenance for which--unknowingly--they had yearned. + +"We sometimes hear people say," resumed the candidate for Governor, +"that they have lived through hell. If by that they mean they've +lived through the deepest torments the human heart can know, then I +can say that I, too, have lived through hell. What I suffered after +I went home that night no one in this world will ever know. Words +couldn't tell it; it's not the kind of thing words can come anywhere +near. My whole life spread itself out before me; it was not a +pleasant thing to look at. But at last, boys, out of the depths of +my darkness, I began to get a little light. I began to get some +understanding of the battle which it falls to the lot of some of us +human beings to wage. There was good in me, you see, or I wouldn't +have cared like that, and it came to me then, all alone that +terrible night, that it is the good which lies buried away somewhere +in our hearts must fight out the bad. And so--all alone, boys--I +began the battle of trying to get command of my own life. And do you +know--this is the truth--it was with the beginning of that battle I +got my first taste of happiness. There is no finer feeling in this +world than the sense of coming into mastery of one's self. It is +like opening a door that has shut you in. Oh, you don't do it all in +a minute. This is no miracle I'm talking about. It's a fight. But +it's a fight that can be won. It's a fight that's gloriously worth +the winning. I'm not saying to you, 'Be good and you'll succeed.' +Maybe you won't succeed. Life as we've arranged it for ourselves +makes success a pretty tough proposition. But that doesn't alter the +fact that it pays to be a decent sort. You and I know about how much +happiness there is in the other kind of thing. And there is +happiness in feeling you're doing what you can to develop what's in +you. Success or failure, it brings a sense of having done your +part,--that bully sense of having put up the best fight you could." + +He leaned upon the table then, as though very weary. "I don't know, +I am sure, what the people of my State will think of all this. +Perhaps they won't want a man for their Governor who once tried to +kill another man. But," he looked around at them with that smile of +his which got straight to men's hearts, "there's only one of me, and +there are three hundred of you, and how do I know but that in +telling you of that stretch of bad road ahead I've made a dozen +Governors this very afternoon!" + +He looked from row to row of them, trying to think of some last word +which would leave them with a sense of his sincerity. What he did +say was: "And so, boys, when you get away from here, and go out into +the world to get your start, if you find the arms of that world +aren't quite as wide open as you were told they would be, if there +seems no place where you can get a hold, and you are saying to +yourself, 'It's no use--I'll not try,' before you give up just +remember there was one man who said he knew all about it, and give +that one man a chance to show he meant what he said. So look me up, +if luck goes all against you, and maybe I can give you a little +lift." He took a backward step, as though to resume his seat, and +then he said, with a dry little smile which took any suggestion of +heroics from what had gone before, "If I'm not at the State-house, +you'll find my name in the directory of the city where your +programme tells you I live." + +He sat down, and for a moment there was silence. Then, full-souled, +heart-given, came the applause. It was not led by the attendants +this time; it was the attendants who rose at last to stop it. And +when the clapping of the hands had ceased, many of those hands were +raised to eyes which had long been dry. + +The exercises were drawn to a speedy close, and he found the party +manager standing by his side. "It was very grand," he sneered, "very +high-sounding and heroic, but I suppose you know," jerking his hand +angrily toward a table where a reporter for the leading paper of the +opposition was writing, "that you've given them the winning card." + +As he replied, in far-off tone, "I hope so," the candidate for +Governor was looking, not at the reporter who was sending out a new +cry for the opposition, but into those faces aglow with the light of +new understanding and new-born hopes. He stood there watching them +filing out into the corridor, craning their necks to throw him a +last look, and as he turned then and looked from the window it was +to see that the storm had sobbed itself away, and that along the +driveway of the reformatory grounds the young trees--unbroken and +unhurt--were rearing their heads in the way they should go. + + + + +VII + +HOW THE PRINCE SAW AMERICA + + +They began work at seven-thirty, and at ten minutes past eight every +hammer stopped. In the Senate Chamber and in the House, on the +stairways and in the corridors, in every office from the Governor's +to the custodian's they laid down their implements and rose to their +feet. A long whistle had sounded through the building. There was +magic in its note. + +"What's the matter with you fellows?" asked the attorney-general, +swinging around in his chair. + +"Strike," declared one of the men, with becoming brevity. + +"Strike of what?" + +"Carpet-Tackers' Union Number One," replied the man, kindly +gathering up a few tacks. + +"Never heard of it." + +"Organised last night," said the carpet-tacker, putting on his coat. + +"Well I'll--" he paused expressively, then inquired: "What's your +game?" + +"Well, you see, boss, this executive council that runs the +State-house has refused our demands." + +"What are your demands?" + +"Double pay." + +"Double pay! Now how do you figure it out that you ought to have +double pay?" + +"Rush work. You see we were under oath, or pretty near that, to get +every carpet in the State-house down by four o'clock this afternoon. +Now you know yourself that rush work is hard on the nerves. Did you +ever get rush work done at a laundry and not pay more for it? We was +anxious as anybody to get the Capitol in shape for the big show this +afternoon. But there's reason in all things." + +"Yes," agreed his auditor, "there is." + +The man looked at him a little doubtfully. "Our president--we +elected Johnny McGuire president last night--went to the Governor +this morning with our demands." + +The Governor's fellow official smiled--he knew the Governor pretty +well. "And he turned you down?" + +The striker nodded. "But there's an election next fall; maybe the +turning down will be turned around." + +"Maybe so--you never can tell. I don't know just what power +Carpet-Tackers' Union Number One will wield, but the Governor's +pretty solid, you know, with Labour as a whole." + +That was true, and went home. The striker rubbed his foot +uncertainly across the floor, and took courage from its splinters. +"Well, there's one thing sure. When Prince Ludwig and his train-load +of big guns show up at four o'clock this afternoon they'll find bare +floors, and pretty bum bare floors, on deck at this place." + +The attorney-general rubbed his own foot across the splintered, +miserable boards. "They are pretty bum," he reflected. "I wonder," +he added, as the man was half-way out of the door, "what Prince +Ludwig will think of the American working-man when he arrives this +afternoon?" + +"Just about as much," retorted the not-to-be-downed carpet-tacker, +"as he does about American generosity. And he may think a few +things," he added weightily, "about American independence." + +"Oh, he's sure to do that," agreed the attorney-general. + +He joined the crowd in the corridor. They were swarming out from all +the offices, all talking of the one thing. "It was a straight case +of hold-up," declared the Governor's secretary. "They supposed they +had us on the hip. They were getting extra money as it was, but you +see they just figured it out we'd pay anything rather than have +these wretched floors for the reception this afternoon. They thought +the Governor would argue the question, and then give in, or, at any +rate, compromise. They never intended for one minute that the Prince +should find bare floors here. And I rather think," he concluded, +"that they feel a little done up about it themselves." + +"What's the situation?" asked a stranger within the gates. + +"It's like this," a newspaper reporter told him; "about a month ago +there was a fire here and the walls and carpets were pretty well +knocked out with smoke and water. The carpets were mean old things +anyway, so they voted new ones. And I want to tell you"--he swelled +with pride--"that the new ones are beauties. The place'll look great +when we get 'em down. Well, you know Prince Ludwig and his crowd +cross the State on their way to the coast, and of course they were +invited to stop. Last week Billy Patton--he's running the whole +show--declined the invitation on account of lack of time, and then +yesterday comes a telegram saying the Prince himself insisted on +stopping. You know he's keen about Indian dope--and we've got Indian +traditions to burn. So Mr. Bill Patton had to make over his schedule +to please the Prince, and of course we were all pretty tickled about +it, for more reasons than one. The telegram didn't come until five +o'clock yesterday afternoon, but you know what a hummer the Governor +is when he gets a start. He made up his mind this building should be +put in shape within twenty-four hours. They engaged a whole lot of +fellows to work on the carpets to-day. Then what did they do but get +together last night--well, you know the rest. Pretty bum-looking old +shack just now, isn't it?" and the reporter looked around ruefully. + +It was approaching the hour for the legislature to convene, and the +members who were beginning to saunter in swelled the crowd--and the +indignation--in the rotunda. + +The Governor, meanwhile, had been trying to get other men, but +Carpet-Tackers' Union Number One had looked well to that. The +biggest furniture dealer in the city was afraid of the plumbers. +"Pipes burst last night," he said, "and they may not do a thing for +us if we get mixed up in this. Sorry--but I can't let my customers +get pneumonia." + +Another furniture man was afraid of the teamsters. For one reason or +another no one was disposed to respond to the Macedonian cry, and +when the Governor at last gave it up and walked out into the rotunda +he was about as disturbed as he permitted himself to get. "It's the +idea of lying down," he said. "I'd do anything--anything!--if I +could only think what to do." + +A popular young member of the House overheard the remark. "By +George, Governor," he burst forth, after a minute's deep +study--"say--by Jove, I say, let's do it ourselves!" + +They all laughed, but the Governor's laugh stopped suddenly, and he +looked hard at the young man. + +"Why not?" the young legislator went on. "It's a big job, but there +are a lot of us. We've all put down carpets at home; what are we +afraid to tackle it here for?" + +Again the others laughed, but the Governor did not. "Say, Weston," +he said, "I'd give a lot--I tell you I'd give a lot--if we just +could!" + +"Leave it to me!"--and he was lost in the crowd. + +The Governor's eyes followed him. He had always liked Harry Weston. +He was the very sort to inspire people to do things. The Governor +smiled knowingly as he noted the men Weston was approaching, and his +different manner with the various ones. And then he had mounted a +few steps of the stairway, and was standing there facing the crowd. + +"Now look here," he began, after silence had been obtained, "this +isn't a very formal meeting, but it's a mighty important one. It's a +clear case of Carpet-Tackers' Union against the State. What I want +to know is--Is the State going to lie down?" + +There were loud cries of "No!"--"Well, I should say not!" + +"Well, then, see here. The Governor's tried for other men and can't +get them. Now the next thing I want to know is--What's the matter +with us?" + +They didn't get it for a minute, and then everybody laughed. + +"It's no joke! You've all put down carpets at home; what's the use +of pretending you don't know how to do it? Oh yes--I know, bigger +building, and all that, but there are more of us, and the principle +of carpet-tacking is the same, big building or little one. Now my +scheme is this--Every fellow his own carpet-tacker! The Governor's +office puts down the Governor's carpet; the Secretary's office puts +down the Secretary's carpet; the Senate puts down the Senate +carpet--and we'll look after our little patch in the House!" + +"But you've got more fellows than anybody else," cried a member of +the Senate. + +"Right you are, and we'll have an over-flow meeting in the corridors +and stairways. The House, as usual, stands ready to do her +part,"--that brought a laugh for the Senators, and from them. + +"Now get it out of your heads this is a joke. The carpets are here; +the building is full of able-bodied men; the Prince is coming at +four--by his own request, and the proposition is just this: Are we +going to receive him in a barn or in a palace? Let's hear what +Senator Arnold thinks about it." + +That was a good way of getting away from the idea of its being a +joke. Senator Arnold was past seventy. Slowly he extended his right +arm and tested his muscle. "Not very much," he said, "but enough to +drive a tack or two." That brought applause and they drew closer +together, and the atmosphere warmed perceptibly. "I've fought for +the State in more ways than one,"--Senator Arnold was a +distinguished veteran of the Civil War--"and if I can serve her now +by tacking down carpets, then it's tacking down carpets I'm ready to +go at. Just count on me for what little I'm worth." + +Someone started the cry for the Governor. "Prince Ludwig is being +entertained all over the country in the most lavish manner," he +began, with his characteristic directness in stating a situation. +"By his own request he is to visit our Capitol this afternoon. I +must say that I, for one, want to be in shape for him. I don't like +to tell him that we had a labour complication and couldn't get the +carpets down. Speaking for myself, it is a great pleasure to inform +you that the carpet in the Governor's office will be in proper shape +by four o'clock this afternoon." + +That settled it. Finally Harry Weston made himself heard +sufficiently to suggest that when the House and Senate met at nine +o'clock motions to adjourn be entertained. "And as to the rest of +you fellows," he cried, "I don't see what's to hinder your getting +busy right now!" + +There were Republicans and there were Democrats; there were friends +and there were enemies; there were good, bad and--no, there were no +indifferent. An unprecedented harmony of thought, a millennium-like +unity of action was born out of that sturdy cry--Every man his own +carpet-tacker! The Secretary of State always claimed that he drove +the first tack, but during the remainder of his life the +Superintendent of Public Instruction also contended hotly for that +honour. The rivalry as to who would do the best job, and get it done +most quickly, became intense. Early in the day Harry Weston made the +rounds of the building and announced a fine of one-hundred dollars +for every wrinkle. There were pounded fingers and there were broken +backs, but slowly, steadily and good-naturedly the State-house +carpet was going down. It was a good deal bigger job than they had +anticipated, but that only added zest to the undertaking. The news +of how the State officials were employing themselves had spread +throughout the city, and guards were stationed at every door to keep +out people whose presence would work more harm than good. All +assistance from women was courteously refused. "This is solemn +business," said the Governor, in response to a telephone from some +of the fair sex, "and the introduction of the feminine element might +throw about it a social atmosphere which would result in loss of +time. And then some of the boys might feel called upon to put on +their collars and coats." + +Stretch--stretch--stretch, and tack--tack--tack, all morning long it +went on, for the State-house was large--oh, very large. There should +have been a Boswell there to get the good things, for the novelty of +the situation inspired wit even in minds where wit had never glowed +before. Choice bits which at other times would fairly have gone on +official record were now passed almost unnoticed, so great was the +surfeit. Instead of men going out to lunch, lunch came in to them. +Bridget Haggerty, who by reason of her long connection with the +boarding-house across the street was a sort of unofficial official +of the State, came over and made the coffee and sandwiches, all the +while calling down blessings on the head of every mother's son of +them, and announcing in loud, firm tones that while all five of her +boys belonged to the union she'd be after tellin' them what she +thought of this day's work! + +It was a United States Senator who did the awful trick, and, to be +fair, the Senator did not think of it as an awful trick at all. He +came over there in the middle of the morning to see the Governor, +and in a few hurried words--it was no day for conversation--was told +what was going on. It was while standing out in the corridor +watching the perspiring dignitaries that the idea of his duty came +to him, and one reason he was sure he was right was the way in which +it came to him in the light of a duty. Here was America in undress +uniform! Here was--not a thing arranged for show, but absolutely the +thing itself! Prince Ludwig had come with a sincere desire to see +America. Every one knew that he was not seeing it at all. He would +go back with memories of bands and flags and people all dressed up +standing before him making polite speeches. But would he carry back +one small whiff of the spirit of the country? Again Senator Bruner +looked about him. The Speaker of the House was just beginning laying +the stair carpet; a judge of the Supreme Court was contending hotly +for a better hammer. "It's an insult to expect any decent man to +drive tacks with a hammer like this," he was saying. Here were +men--real, live men, men with individuality, spirit. When the Prince +had come so far, wasn't it too bad that he should not see anything +but uniforms and cut glass and dress suits and other externals and +non-essentials? Senator Bruner was a kind man; he was a good fellow; +he was hospitable--patriotic. He decided now in favour of the +Prince. + +He had to hurry about it, for it was almost twelve then. One of the +vice-presidents of the road lived there, and he was taken into +confidence, and proved an able and eager ally. They located the +special train bearing the Prince and ordered it stopped at the next +station. The stop was made that Senator Patton might receive a long +telegram from Senator Bruner. "I figure it like this," the Senator +told the vice-president. "They get to Boden at a quarter of one and +were going to stop there an hour. Then they were going to stop a +little while at Creyville. I've told Patton the situation, and that +if he wants to do the right thing by the prince he'll cut out those +stops and rush right through here. That will bring him in--well, +they could make it at a quarter of two. I've told him I'd square it +with Boden and Creyville. Oh, he'll do it all right." + +And even as he said so came the reply from Patton: "Too good to +miss. Will rush through. Arrive before two. Have carriage at Water +Street." + +"That's great!" cried the Senator. "Trust Billy Patton for falling +in with a good thing. And he's right about missing the station +crowd. Patton can always go you one better," he admitted, +grinningly. + +They had luncheon together, and they were a good deal more like +sophomores in college than like a United States Senator and a big +railroad man. "You don't think there's any danger of their getting +through too soon?" McVeigh kept asking, anxiously. + +"Not a bit," the Senator assured him. "They can't possibly make it +before three. We'll come in just in time for the final skirmish. +It's going to be a jolly rush at the last." + +They laid their plans with skill worthy of their training. The State +library building was across from the Capitol, and they were +connected by tunnel. "I never saw before," said the Senator, "what +that tunnel was for, but I see now what a great thing it is. We'll +get him in at the west door of the library--we can drive right up to +it, you know, and then we walk him through the tunnel. That's a +stone floor"--the Senator was chuckling with every sentence--"so I +guess they won't be carpeting it. There's a little stairway running +up from the tunnel---and say, we must telephone over and arrange +about those keys. There'll be a good deal of climbing, but the +Prince is a good fellow, and won't mind. It wouldn't be safe to try +the elevator, for Harry Weston would be in it taking somebody a +bundle of tacks. The third floor is nothing but store rooms; we'll +not be disturbed up there, and we can look right down the rotunda +and see the whole show. Of course we'll be discovered in time; some +one is sure to look up and see us, but we'll fix it so they won't +see us before we've had our fun, and it strikes me, McVeigh, that +for two old fellows like you and me we've put the thing through in +pretty neat shape." + +It was a very small and unpretentious party which stepped from the +special at Water Street a little before two. The Prince was wearing +a long coat and an automobile cap and did not suggest anything at +all formidable or unusual. "You've saved the country," Senator +Patton whispered in an aside. "He was getting bored. Never saw a +fellow jolly up so in my life. Guess he was just spoiling for some +fun. Said it would be really worth while to see somebody who wasn't +looking for him." + +Senator Bruner beamed. "That's just the point. He's caught my idea +exactly." + +It went without a hitch. "I feel," said the Prince, as they were +hurrying him through the tunnel, "that I am a little boy who has run +away from school. Only I have a terrible fear that at any minute +some band may begin to play, and somebody may think of making a +speech." + +They gave this son of a royal house a seat on a dry-goods box, so +placed that he could command a good view, and yet be fairly secure. +The final skirmish was on in earnest. Two State Senators--coatless, +tieless, collarless, their faces dirty, their hair rumpled, were +finishing the stair carpet. The chairman of the appropriations +committee in the House was doing the stretching in a still +uncarpeted bit of the corridor, and a member who had recently +denounced the appropriations committee as a disgrace to the State +was presiding at the hammer. They were doing most exquisitely +harmonious team work. A railroad and anti-railroad member who fought +every time they came within speaking distance of one another were +now in an earnest and very chummy conference relative to a large +wrinkle which had just been discovered on the first landing. Many +men were standing around holding their backs, and many others were +deeply absorbed in nursing their fingers. The doors of the offices +were all open, and there was a general hauling in of furniture and +hanging of pictures. Clumsy but well-meaning fingers were doing +their best with "finishing touches." The Prince grew so excited +about it all that they had to keep urging him not to take too many +chances of being seen. + +"And I'll tell you," Senator Bruner was saying, "it isn't only +because I knew it would be funny that I wanted you to see it; +but--well, you see America isn't the real America when she has on +her best clothes and is trying to show off. You haven't seen anybody +who hasn't prepared for your coming, and that means you haven't seen +them as they are at all. Now here we are. This is us! You see that +fellow hanging a picture down there? He's president of the First +National Bank. Came over a little while ago, got next to the +situation, and stayed to help. And--say, this is good! Notice that +red-headed fellow just getting up from his knees? Well, he's +president of the teamsters' union--figured so big in a strike here +last year. I call that pretty rich! He's the fellow they are all so +afraid of, but I guess he liked the idea of the boys doing it +themselves, and just sneaked in and helped.--There's the Governor. +He's a fine fellow. He wouldn't be held up by anybody--not even to +get ready for a Prince, but he's worked like a Trojan all day to +make things come his way. Yes sir--this is the sure-enough thing. +Here you have the boys off dress parade. Not that we run away from +our dignity every day, but--see what I mean?" + +"I see," replied the Prince, and he looked as though he really did. + +"You know--say, dodge there! Move back! No--too late. The Governor's +caught us. Look at him!" + +The Governor's eyes had turned upward, and he had seen. He put his +hands on his back--he couldn't look up without doing that--and gave +a long, steady stare. First, Senator Bruner waved; then Senator +Patton waved; then Mr. McVeigh waved; and then the Prince waved. +Other people were beginning to look up. "They're all on," laughed +Patton, "let's go down." + +At first they were disposed to think it pretty shabby treatment. "We +worked all day to get in shape," grumbled Harry Weston, "and then +you go ring the curtain up on us before it's time for our show to +begin." + +But the Prince made them feel right about it. He had such a good +time that they were forced to concede the move had been a success. +And he said to the Governor as he was leaving: "I see that the only +way to see America is to see it when America is not seeing you." + + + + +VIII + +THE LAST SIXTY MINUTES + + +"Nine--ten--" The old clock paused as if in dramatic appreciation of +the situation, and then slowly, weightily, it gave the final stroke, +"Eleven!" + +The Governor swung his chair half-way round and looked the timepiece +full in the face. Already the seconds had begun ticking off the last +hour of his official life. On the stroke of twelve another man would +be Governor of the State. He sat there watching the movement of the +minute hand. + +The sound of voices, some jovial, some argumentative, was borne to +him through the open transom. People were beginning to gather in the +corridors, and he could hear the usual disputes about tickets of +admission to the inaugural. + +His secretary came in just then with some letters. "Could you see +Whitefield now?" he asked. "He's waiting out here for you." + +The old man looked up wearily. "Oh, put him off, Charlie. Tell him +you can talk to him about whatever it is he wants to know." + +The secretary had his hand on the knob, when the Governor added, +"And, Charlie, keep everybody out, if you can. I'm--I've got a few +private matters to go over." + +The younger man nodded and opened the door. He half closed it behind +him, and then turned to say, "Except Francis. You'll want to see him +if he comes in, won't you?" + +He frowned and moved impatiently as he answered, curtly: "Oh, yes." + +Francis! Of course it never occurred to any of them that he could +close the door on Francis. He drummed nervously on his desk, then +suddenly reached down and, opening one of the drawers, tossed back a +few things and drew out a newspaper. He unfolded this and spread it +out on the desk. Running across the page was the big black line, +"Real Governors of Some Western States," and just below, the first +of the series, and played up as the most glaring example of nominal +and real in governorship, was a sketch of Harvey Francis. + +He sat there looking at it, knowing full well that it would not +contribute to his peace of mind. It did not make for placidity of +spirit to be told at the end of things that he had, as a matter of +fact, never been anybody at all. And the bitterest part of it was +that, looking back on it now, getting it from the viewpoint of one +stepping from it, he could see just how true was the statement: +"Harvey Francis has been the real Governor of the State; John +Morrison his mouthpiece and figurehead." + +He walked to the window and looked out over the January landscape. +It may have been the snowy hills, as well as the thoughts weighing +him down, that carried him back across the years to one snowy +afternoon when he stood up in a little red schoolhouse and delivered +an oration on "The Responsibilities of Statesmanship." He smiled as +the title came back to him, and yet--what had become of the spirit +of that seventeen-year-old boy? He had meant it all then; he could +remember the thrill with which he stood there that afternoon long +before and poured out his sentiments regarding the sacredness of +public trusts. What was it had kept him, when his chance came, from +working out in his life the things he had so fervently poured into +his schoolboy oration? + +Someone was tapping at the door. It was an easy, confident tap, and +there was a good deal of reflex action in the Governor's "Come in." + +"Indulging in a little meditation?" + +The Governor frowned at the way Francis said it, and the latter went +on, easily: "Just came from a row with Dorman. Everybody is holding +him up for tickets, and he--poor young fool--looks as though he +wanted to jump in the river. Takes things tremendously to +heart--Dorman does." + +He lighted a cigar, smiling quietly over that youthful quality of +Dorman's. "Well," he went on, leaning back in his chair and looking +about the room, "I thought I'd look in on you for a minute. You see +I'll not have the _entree_ to the Governor's office by afternoon." +He laughed, the easy, good-humoured laugh of one too sophisticated +to spend emotion uselessly. + +It was he who fell into meditation then, and the Governor sat +looking at him; a paragraph from the newspaper came back to him: +"Harvey Francis is the most dangerous type of boss politician. His +is not the crude and vulgar method that asks a man what his vote is +worth. He deals gently and tenderly with consciences. He knows how +to get a man without fatally injuring that man's self-respect." + +The Governor's own experience bore out the summary. When elected to +office as State Senator he had cherished old-fashioned ideas of +serving his constituents and doing his duty. But the very first week +Francis had asked one of those little favours of him, and, wishing +to show his appreciation of support given him in his election, he +had granted it. Then various courtesies were shown him; he was let +in on a "deal," and almost before he realised it, it seemed +definitely understood that he was a "Francis man." + +Francis roused himself and murmured: "Fools!--amateurs." + +"Leyman?" ventured the Governor. + +"Leyman and all of his crowd!" + +"And yet," the Governor could not resist, "in another hour this same +fool will be Governor of the State. The fool seems to have won." + +Francis rose, impatiently. "For the moment. It won't be lasting. In +any profession, fools and amateurs may win single victories. They +can't keep it up. They don't know _how_. Oh, no," he insisted, +cheerfully, "Leyman will never be re-elected. Fact is, I'm counting +on this contract business we've saved up for him getting in good +work." He was moving toward the door. "Well," he concluded, with a +curious little laugh, "see you upstairs." + +The Governor looked at the clock. It pointed now to twenty-five +minutes past eleven. The last hour was going fast. In a very short +time he must join the party in the anteroom of the House. But +weariness had come over him. He leaned back in his chair and closed +his eyes. + +He was close upon seventy, and to-day looked even older than his +years. It was not a vicious face, but it was not a strong one. +People who wanted to say nice things of the Governor called him +pleasant or genial or kindly. Even the men in the appointive offices +did not venture to say he had much force. + +He felt it to-day as he never had before. He had left no mark; he +had done nothing, stood for nothing. Never once had his personality +made itself felt. He had signed the documents; Harvey Francis had +always "suggested"--the term was that man's own--the course to be +pursued. And the "suggestions" had ever dictated the policy that +would throw the most of influence or money to that splendidly +organised machine that Francis controlled. + +With an effort he shook himself free from his cheerless retrospect. +There was a thing or two he wanted to get from his desk, and his +time was growing very short. He found what he wanted, and then, just +as he was about to close the drawer, his eye fell on a large yellow +envelope. + +He closed the drawer; but only to reopen it, take out the envelope +and remove the documents it contained; and then one by one he spread +them out before him on the desk. + +He sat there looking down at them, wondering whether a man had ever +stepped into office with as many pitfalls laid for him. During the +last month they had been busy about the old State-house setting +traps for the new Governor. The "machine" was especially jubilant +over those contracts the Governor now had spread out before him. The +convict labour question was being fought out in the State just +then--organised labour demanding its repeal; country taxpayers +insisting that it be maintained. Under the system the penitentiary +had become self-supporting. In November the contracts had come up +for renewal; but on the request of Harvey Francis the matter had +been put off from time to time, and still remained open. Just the +week before, Francis had put it to the Governor something like this: + +"Don't sign those contracts. We can give some reason for holding +them off, and save them up for Leyman. Then we can see that the +question is agitated, and whatever he does about it is going to +prove a bad thing for him. If he doesn't sign, he's in bad with the +country fellows, the men who elected him. Don't you see? At the end +of his administration the penitentiary, under you self-sustaining, +will have cost them a pretty penny. We've got him right square!" + +The clock was close to twenty minutes of twelve, and he concluded +that he would go out and join some of his friends he could hear in +the other room. It would never do for him to go upstairs with a +long, serious face. He had had his day, and now Leyman was to have +his, and if the new Governor did better than the old one, then so +much the better for the State. As for the contracts, Leyman surely +must understand that there was a good deal of rough sailing on +political waters. + +But it was not easy to leave the room. Walking to the window he +again stood there looking out across the snow, and once more he went +back now at the end of things to that day in the little red +schoolhouse which stood out as the beginning. + +He was called back from that dreaming by the sight of three men +coming up the hill. He smiled faintly in anticipation of the things +Francis and the rest of them would say about the new Governor's +arriving on foot. Leyman had requested that the inaugural parade be +done away with--but one would suppose he would at least dignify the +occasion by arriving in a carriage. Francis would see that the +opposing papers handled it as a grand-stand play to the country +constituents. + +And then, forgetful of Francis, and of the approaching ceremony, the +old man stood there by the window watching the young man who was +coming up to take his place. How firmly the new Governor walked! +With what confidence he looked ahead at the State-house. The +Governor--not considering the inconsistency therein--felt a thrill +of real pride in thought of the State's possessing a man like that. + +Standing though he did for the things pitted against him, down in +his heart John Morrison had all along cherished a strong admiration +for that young man who, as District Attorney of the State's +metropolis, had aroused the whole country by his fearlessness and +unquestionable sincerity. Many a day he had sat in that same office +reading what the young District Attorney was doing in the city close +by--the fight he was making almost single-handed against corruption, +how he was striking in the high places fast and hard as in the low, +the opposition, threats, and time after time there had been that +same secret thrill at thought of there being a man like that. And +when the people of the State, convinced that here was one man who +would serve _them_, began urging the District Attorney for +chief executive, Governor Morrison, linked with the opposing forces, +doing all he could to bring about Leyman's defeat, never lost that +secret feeling for the young man, who, unbacked by any organisation, +struck blow after blow at the machine that had so long dominated the +State, winning in the end that almost incomprehensible victory. + +The new Governor had passed from sight, and a moment later his voice +came to the ear of the lonely man in the executive office. Some +friends had stopped him just outside the Governor's door with a +laughing "Here's hoping you'll do as much for us in the new office +as you did in the old," and the new Governor replied, buoyantly: +"Oh, but I'm going to do a great deal more!" + +The man within the office smiled a little wistfully and with a sigh +sat down before his desk. The clock now pointed to thirteen minutes +of twelve; they would be asking for him upstairs. There were some +scraps of paper on his desk and he threw them into the waste-basket, +murmuring: "I can at least give him a clean desk." + +He pushed his chair back sharply. A clean desk! The phrase opened to +deeper meanings.... Why not clean it up in earnest? Why not give him +a square deal--a real chance? Why not _sign the contracts_? + +Again he looked at the clock--not yet ten minutes of twelve. For ten +minutes more he was Governor of the State! Ten minutes of real +governorship! Might it not make up a little, both to his own soul +and to the world, for the years he had weakly served as another +man's puppet? The consciousness that he could do it, that it was not +within the power of any man to stop him, was intoxicating. Why not +break the chains now at the last, and just before the end taste the +joy of freedom? + +He took up his pen and reached for the inkwell. With trembling, +excited fingers he unfolded the contracts. He dipped his pen into +the ink; he even brought it down on the paper; and then the tension +broke. He sank back in his chair, a frightened, broken old man. + +"Oh, no," he whispered; "no, not now. It's--" his head went lower +and lower until at last it rested on the desk--"too late." + +When he raised his head and grew more steady, it was only to see the +soundness of his conclusion. He had not the right now in the final +hour to buy for himself a little of glory. It would only be a form +of self-indulgence. They would call it, and perhaps rightly, hush +money to his conscience. They would say he went back on them only +when he was through with them. Oh, no, there would be no more +strength in it than in the average deathbed repentance. He would +at least step out with consistency. + +He folded the contracts and put them back into the envelope. The +minute hand now pointed to seven minutes to twelve. Some one was +tapping at the door, and the secretary appeared to say they were +waiting for him upstairs. He replied that he would be there in a +minute, hoping that his voice did not sound as strange to the other +man as it had to himself. + +Slowly he walked to the door leading into the corridor. This, then, +was indeed the end; this the final stepping down from office! After +years of what they called public service, he was leaving it all now +with a sense of defeat and humiliation. A lump was in the old man's +throat; his eyes were blurred. "But you, Frank Leyman," he whispered +passionately, turning as if for comfort to the other man, "it will +be different with you! They'll not get you--not you!" + +It lifted him then as a great wave--this passionate exultation that +here was one man whom corruption could not claim as her own. Here +was one human soul not to be had for a price! There flitted before +him again a picture of that seventeen-year-old boy in the little red +schoolhouse, and close upon it came the picture of this other young +man against whom all powers of corruption had been turned in vain. +With the one it had been the emotional luxury of a sentiment, a +thing from life's actualities apart; with the other it was a force +that dominated all things else, a force over which circumstances and +design could not prevail. "I know all about it," he was saying. "I +know about it all! I know how easy it is to fall! I know how fine it +is to stand!" + +His sense of disappointment in his own empty, besmirched career was +almost submerged then as he projected himself on into the career of +this other man who within the hour would come there in his stead. +How glorious was his opportunity, how limitless his possibilities, +and how great to his own soul the satisfaction the years would bring +of having done his best! + +It had all changed now. That passionate longing to vindicate +himself, add one thing honourable and fine to his own record, had +altogether left him, and with the new mood came new insight and what +had been an impulse centred to a purpose. + +It pointed to three minutes to twelve as he walked over to his desk, +unfolded the contracts, and one by one affixed his signature. In a +dim way he was conscious of how the interpretation of his first +motive would be put upon it, how they would call him traitor and +coward; but that mattered little. The very fact that the man for +whom he was doing it would never see it as it was brought him no +pang. And when he had carefully blotted the papers, affixed the seal +and put them away, there was in his heart the clean, sweet joy of a +child because he had been able to do this for a man in whom he +believed. + +The band was playing the opening strains as he closed the door +behind him and started upstairs. + + + + +IX + +"OUT THERE" + + +The old man held the picture up before him and surveyed it with +admiring but disapproving eye. "No one that comes along this way'll +have the price for it," he grumbled. "It'll just set here 'till +doomsday." + +It did seem that the picture failed to fit in with the rest of the +shop. A persuasive young fellow who claimed he was closing out his +stock let the old man have it for what he called a song. It was only +a little out-of-the-way store which subsisted chiefly on the framing +of pictures. The old man looked around at his views of the city, his +pictures of cats and dogs and gorgeous young women, his flaming bits +of landscape. "Don't belong in here," he fumed, "any more 'an I +belong in Congress." + +And yet the old man was secretly proud of his acquisition. He seemed +all at once to be lifted from his realm of petty tradesman to that +of patron of art. There was a hidden dignity in his scowling as he +shuffled about pondering the least ridiculous place for the picture. + +It is not fair to the picture to try repainting it in words, for +words reduce it to a lithograph. It was a bit of a pine forest, +through which there exuberantly rushed an unspoiled little mountain +stream. Chromos and works of art may deal with kindred subjects. +There is just that one difference of dealing with them differently. +"It ain't what you _see_, so much as what you can guess is +there," was the thought it brought to the old man who was dusting +it. "Now this frame ain't three feet long, but it wouldn't surprise +me a bit if that timber kept right on for a hundred miles. I kind of +suspect it's on a mountain--looks cool enough in there to be on a +mountain. Wish I was there. Bet they never see no such days as we do +in Chicago. Looks as though a man might call his soul his own--out +there." + +He began removing some views of Lincoln Park and some corpulent +Cupids in order to make room in the window for the new picture. When +he went outside to look at it he shook his head severely and +hastened in to take away some ardent young men and women, some fruit +and flowers and fish which he had left thinking they might "set it +off." It was evident that the new picture did not need to be "set +off." "And anyway," he told himself, in vindication of entrusting +all his goods to one bottom, "I might as well take them out, for the +new one makes them look so kind of sick that no one would have them, +anyhow." Then he went back to mounting views with the serenity of +one who stands for the finer things. + +His clamorous little clock pointed to a quarter of six when he +finally came back to the front of the store. It was time to begin +closing up for the night, but for the minute he stood there watching +the crowd of workers coming from the business district not far away +over to the boarding-house region, a little to the west. He watched +them as they came by in twos and threes and fours: noisy people and +worn-out people, people hilarious and people sullen, the gaiety and +the weariness, the acceptance and the rebellion of humanity--he saw +it pass. "As if any of _them_ could buy it," he pronounced +severely, adding, contemptuously, "or wanted to." + +The girl was coming along by herself. He watched her as she crossed +to his side of the street, thinking it was too bad for a poor girl +to be as tired as that. She was dressed like many of the rest of +them, and yet she looked different--like the picture and the chromo. +She turned an indifferent glance toward the window, and then +suddenly she stood there very still, and everything about her seemed +to change. "For all the world," he told himself afterward, "as if +she'd found a long-lost friend, and was 'fraid to speak for fear it +was too good to be true." + +She did seem afraid to speak--afraid to believe. For a minute she +stood there right in the middle of the sidewalk, staring at the +picture. And when she came toward the window it was less as if +coming than as if drawn. What she really seemed to want to do was to +edge away; yet she came closer, as close as she could, her eyes +never leaving the picture, and then fear, or awe, or whatever it was +made her look so queer gave way to wonder--that wondering which is +ready to open the door to delight. She looked up and down the street +as one rubbing one's eyes to make sure of a thing, and then it all +gave way to a joy which lighted her pale little face like--"Well, +like nothing I ever saw before," was all the old man could say of +it. "Why, she'd never know if the whole fire department was to run +right up here on the sidewalk," he gloated. Just then she drew +herself up for a long breath. "See?" he chuckled, delightedly. "She +knows it has a smell!" She looked toward the door, but shook her +head. "Knows she can't pay the price," he interpreted her. Then, she +stepped back and looked at the number above the door. "Coming +again," he made of that; "ain't going to run no chances of losing +the place." And then for a long time she stood there before the +picture, so deeply and so strangely quiet that he could not +translate her. "I can't just get the run of it," was his bewildered +conclusion. "I don't see why it should make anybody act like that." +And yet he must have understood more than he knew, for suddenly he +was seeing her through a blur of tears. + +As he began shutting up for the night he was so excited about the +way she looked when she finally turned away that it never occurred +to him to be depressed about her inability to pay the price. + +He kept thinking of her, wondering about her, during the next day. +At a little before six he took up his station near the front window. +Once more the current of workers flowed by. "I'm an old fool," he +told himself, irritated at the wait; "as if it makes any difference +whether she comes or not--when she can't buy it, anyhow. She's just +as big a fool as I am--liking it when she can't have it, only I'm +the biggest fool of all--caring whether she likes it or not." But +just then the girl passed quickly by a crowd of girls who were ahead +of her and came hurrying across the street. She was walking fast, +and looked excited and anxious. "Afraid it might be gone," he +said--adding, grimly: "Needn't worry much about that." + +She came up to the picture as some people would enter a church. And +yet the joy which flooded her face is not well known to churches. +"I'll tell you what it's like"--the old man's thoughts stumbling +right into the heart of it--"it's like someone that's been wandering +round in a desert country all of a sudden coming on a spring. She's +_thirsty_--she's drinking it in--she can't get enough of it. +It's--it's the water of life to her!" And then, ashamed of saying a +thing that sounded as if it were out of a poem, he shook his +shoulders roughly as if to shake off a piece of sentiment unbecoming +his age and sex. + +He went to the door and watched her as she passed away. "I'll bet +she'd never tip the scale to one hundred pounds," he decided. "Looks +like a good wind could blow her away." She stooped a little and just +as she passed from sight he saw that she was coughing. + +Then the old man made what he prided himself was a great deduction. +"She's been there, and she wants to go back. This kind of takes her +back for a minute, and when she gets the breath of it she ain't so +homesick." + +All through those July days he watched each night for the +frail-looking little girl who liked the picture of the pines. She +would always come hurrying across the street in the same eager way, +an eagerness close to the feverish. But the tenseness would always +relax as she saw the picture. "She never looks quite so wilted down +when she goes away as she does when she comes," the old man saw. +"Upon my soul, I believe she really _goes_ there. It's--oh, +Lord"--irritated at getting beyond his depth--"_I_ don't know!" + +He never called it anything now but "Her Picture." One day at just +ten minutes of six he took it out of the window. "Seems kind of +mean," he admitted, "but I just want to find out how much she does +think of it." + +And when he found out he told himself that of all the mean men God +had ever let live, he was the meanest. The girl came along in the +usual hurried, anxious fashion. And when she saw the empty window he +thought for a minute she was going to sink right down there on the +sidewalk. Everything about her seemed to give way--as if something +from which she had been drawing had been taken from her. The +luminousness gone from her face, there were cruel revelations. +"Blast my _soul!_" the old man muttered angrily, not far from +tearfully. She looked up and down the noisy, dirty, parched street, +then back to the empty window. For a minute she just stood +there--that was the worst minute of all. And then--accepting--she +turned and walked slowly away, walked as the too-weary and the +too-often disappointed walk. + +It was with not wholly steady hand that the old man hastened to +replace the picture, all the while telling himself what he thought +of himself: more low-down than the cat who plays with the mouse, +meaner than the man who'd take the bone from the dog, less to be +loved than the man who would kick over the child's play-house, only +to be compared with the brute who would snatch the cup of water from +the dying--such were the verdicts he pronounced. He thought perhaps +she would come back, and stayed there until almost seven, waiting +for her, though pretending it was necessary that he take down and +then put up again the front curtains. All the next day he was +restless and irritable. As if to make up to the girl for the +contemptible trick he had played he spent a whole hour that +afternoon arranging a tapestry background for the picture. "She'll +think," he told himself, "that this was why it was out, and won't be +worried about its being gone again. This will just be a little sign +to her that it's here to stay." + +He began his watch that night at half-past five. After fifteen +minutes the thought came to him that she might be so disheartened +she would go home by another street. He became so gloomily certain +she would do this that he was jubilant when he finally saw her +coming along on the other side--coming purposelessly, shorn of that +eagerness which had always been able, for the moment, to vanquish +the tiredness. But when she came to the place where she always +crossed the street she only stood there an instant and then, a +little more slowly, a little more droopingly, walked on. She had +given up! She was not coming over! + +But she did come. After she had gone a few steps she hesitated again +and this time started across the street. "That's right," approved +the old man, "never give up the ship!" + +She passed the store as if she were not going to look in; she seemed +trying not to look, but her head turned--and she saw the picture. +First her body seemed to stiffen, and then something--he couldn't +make out whether or not it was a sob--shook her, and as she came +toward the picture on her white, tired face were the tears. + +"Don't you worry," he murmured affectionately to her retreating +form, "it won't never be gone again." + +The very next week he was put to the test. The kind of lady who did +not often pass along that street entered the shop and asked to see +the picture in the window. He looked at her suspiciously. Then he +frowned at her, as he stood there, fumbling. _Her_ picture! +What would she think? What would she do? Then a crafty smile stole +over his face and he walked to the window and got the picture. "The +price of this picture, madame," he said, haughtily, "is forty +dollars,"--adding to himself, "That'll fix her." + +But the lady made no comment, and stood there holding the picture up +before her. "I will take it," she said, quietly. + +He stared at her stupidly. Forty dollars! Then it must be that the +picture was better than the young man had known. "Will you wrap it, +please?" she asked. "I will take it with me." + +He turned to the back of the store. Forty dollars!--he kept +repeating it in dazed fashion. And they had raised the rent on him, +and the papers said coal would be high that winter--those facts +seemed to have something to do with forty dollars. _Forty +dollars!_--it was hammering at him, overwhelmed him, too big a +sum to contend with. With long, grim stroke he tore off the wrapping +paper; stoically he began folding it. But something was the matter. +The paper would not go on right. Three times he took it off, and +each time he could not help looking down at the picture of the +pines. And each time the forest seemed to open a little farther; +each time it seemed bigger--bigger even than forty dollars; it +seemed as if it _knew things_--things more important than even +coal and rent. And then the strangest thing of all happened: the +forest faded away into its own shadowy distances, and in its place +was a noisy, crowded, sun-baked street, and across the street was +eagerly hurrying an anxious little girl, a frail little wisp of a +girl who probably should not be crossing hot, noisy streets at +all--then a light in tired eyes, a smile upon a worn face, relief as +from a cooling breeze--and _anyway_, suddenly furious at the +lady, furious at himself--"he'd be gol-_darned_ if it wasn't +_her_ picture!" + +He walked firmly back to the front of the store. + +"I forgot at first," he said, brusquely, "that this picture belongs +to someone else." + +The lady looked at him in astonishment. "I do not understand," she +said. + +"There's nothing to understand," he fairly shouted, "except that it +belongs to someone else!" + +She turned away, but came back to him. "I will give you fifty +dollars for it," she said, in her quiet way. + +"Madame," he thundered at her, "you can stand there and offer me +five hundred dollars, and I'm here to tell you that this picture is +not for sale. Do you _hear_?" + +"I certainly do," replied the lady, and walked from the store. + +He was a long time in cooling off. "I tell you," he stormed to a +very blue Lake Michigan he was putting into a frame, "it's +hers--it's _hern_--and anybody that comes along here with any +nonsense is just going to hear from _me_!" + +In the days which followed he often thought to go out and speak to +her, but perhaps the old man had a restraining sense of values. He +planned some day to go out and tell her the picture was hers, but +that seemed a silly thing to tell her, for surely she knew it +anyway. He worried a good deal about her cough, which seemed to be +getting worse, and he had it all figured out that when cold weather +came he would have her come in where it was warm, and take her look +in there. He felt that he knew all about her, and though he did not +know her name, though he had never heard her speak one word, in some +ways he felt closer to her than to any one else in the world. + +Yet if the old man had known just how it was with the girl it is +altogether unlikely that he would have understood. It would have +mystified and disappointed him had he known that she had never seen +a pine forest or a mountain in her life. Indeed there was a great +deal about the little girl which the old man, together with almost +all the rest of the world, would not have understood. + +Not that the surface facts about her were either incomprehensible or +interesting. The tale of her existence would sound much like that of +a hundred other girls in the same city. Inquiry about her would have +developed the facts that she did typewriting for a land company, +that she did not seem to have any people, and lived at a big +boarding-house. At the boarding-house they would have told you that +she was a nice little thing, quiet as a mouse, and that it was too +bad she had to work, for she seemed more than half sick. There the +story would have rested, and the real things about her would not +have been touched. + +She worked for the Chicago branch of a big Northwestern land +company. They dealt in the lands of Idaho, Montana, Oregon and +Washington. The things she sat at her typewriter and wrote were of +the wonders of that great country: the great timber lands, the +valleys and hills, towering mountain peaks and rushing rivers. She +typewrote "literature" telling how there was a chance for every man +out there, how the big, exhaustless land was eager to yield of its +store to all who would come and seek. Day after day she wrote those +things telling how the sick were made well and the poor were made +rich, how it was a land of indescribable wonders which the feeble +pen could not hope to portray. + +And the girl with whom almost everything in life had gone wrong came +to think of Out There as the place where everything was right. It +was the far country where there was no weariness nor loneliness, the +land where one did not grow tired, where one never woke up in the +morning too tired to get up, where no one went to bed at night too +tired to go to sleep. The street-cars did not ring their gongs so +loud Out There, the newsboys had pleasant voices, and there were no +elevated trains. It was a pure, high land which knew no smoke nor +dirt, a land where great silences drew one to the heart of peace, +where the people in the next room did not come in and bang things +around late at night. Out There was a wide land where buildings were +far apart and streets were not crowded. Even the horses did not grow +tired Out There. Oh, it was a land where dreams came true--a +beautiful land where no one ate prunes, where the gravy was never +greasy and the potatoes never burned. It was a land of flowers and +birds and lovely people--a land of wealth and health and many +smiles. + +Her imagination made use of it all. She knew how men were reclaiming +the desert of Idaho, of the tremendous undeveloped wealth of what +had been an almost undiscovered State. She thrilled to the poetry of +irrigation. Often when hot and tired and dusty her fancy would follow +the little mountain stream from its birth way up in the clouds, her +imagination rushing with it through sweetening forest and tumbling +with it down cooling rocks until finally strong, bold, wise men guided +it to the desert which had yearned for it through all the years, and +the grateful desert smiled rich smiles of grain and flowers. She could +make it more like a story than any story in any book. And she could +always breathe better in thinking of the pine forests of Oregon. There +was something liberating--expanding--in just the thought of them. She +dreamed cooling dreams about them, dreams of their reaching farther +than one's fancy could reach, big widening dreams of their standing +there serene in the consciousness of their own immensity. They stood +to her for a beautiful idea: the idea of space, of room--room for +everybody, and then much more room! Even one's understanding grew +big as one turned to them. + +And she loved to listen for the Pacific Ocean, coming from +incomprehensible distances and unknowable countries, now rushing +with passion to the wild coast of Oregon, again stealing into the +Washington harbours. She loved to address the letters to Portland, +Seattle, Spokane, Tacoma--all those pulsing, vivid cities of a +country of big chances and big beauty. She loved to picture Seattle, +a city builded upon many hills--how wonderful that a city should be +builded upon hills!--in Chicago there was nothing that could +possibly be thought of as a hill. And she loved to shut her eyes and +let the great mountain peak grow in the distance, as one could see +it from Portland--how noble a thing to see a mountain peak from a +city! Sometimes she trembled before that consciousness of a +mountain. Often when so tired she scarcely knew what she was doing +she found she was saying her prayers to a mountain. Indeed, Out +There seemed the place to send one's prayers--for was it not a place +where prayers were answered? + +During that summer when the West was overrun with tourists who +grumbled about everything from the crowded trains to the way in +which sea-foods were served, this little girl sat in one of the hot +office buildings of Chicago and across the stretch of miles drew to +herself the spirit of that country of coming days. Thousands rode in +Pullman cars along the banks of the Columbia--saw, and felt not; she +sat before her typewriter in a close, noisy room and heard the +cooling rush of waters and got the freeing message of the pines. In +some rare moments when she rose from the things about her to the +things of which she dreamed she possessed the whole great land, and +as the sultry days sapped of her meagre strength, and the bending +over the typewriter cramped an already too cramped chest she clung +with a more and more passionate tenacity to the bigness and the +beauty and rightness of things Out There. And it was so kind to +her--that land of deep breaths and restoring breezes. It never shut +her out. It always kept itself bigger and more wonderful than one +could ever hope to fancy it. + +And the night she found the picture she knew that it was all really +so. That was why it was so momentous a night. The picture was a +dream visualised--a dreamer vindicated. They had pictures in the +office, of course--some pictures trying to tell of that very kind of +a place. But those were just pictures; this _proved_ it, told +what it meant. It told that she had been right, and there was joy in +knowing that she had known. She clung to the picture as one would to +that which proves as real all one has long held dear, loved it as +the dreamer loves that which secures him in his dreaming. + +She came to think of it as her own abiding place. Often when too +tired for long wings of fancy she would just sink down in the deep, +cool shadows of the pines, beside the little river which one knew so +well was the gift of distant snows. It rested her most of all; it +quieted her. + +She smiled sometimes to think how no one in the office knew about +it, wondered what they would think if they knew. Often she would +find someone in the office looking at her strangely. She used to +wonder about it a little. + +And then one day Mr. Osborne sent for her to come into his office. +He acted so queerly. As she came in and sat down near his desk he +swung his chair around and sat there with his back to her. After +that he got up and walked to the window. + +The head stenographer had complained of her cough. She said she did +not think it right either to the girl or to the rest of them for her +to be there. She said she hated to speak of it, but could not stand +it any longer. That had been the week before, and ever since he had +been putting it off. But now he could put it off no longer; the head +stenographer was valuable, and besides he knew that she was right. + +And so he told her--this was all he could think of just then--that +they were contemplating some changes in the office, and for a time +would have less desk room. If he sent her machine to her home, would +she be willing to do her work there for a while? Hers was the kind +of work that could be done at home. + +She was sorry, for she wondered if she could find a place in her +room for the typewriter, and it did not seem there would be air +enough there to last her all day long. And she had grown fond of the +office, with its "literature" and pictures and maps and the men who +had just come from Out There coming in every once in a while. It was +a bond--a place to touch realities. But of course there was nothing +for her to do but comply, and she made no comment on the +arrangement. + +She pushed her chair back and rose to go. "Are you alone in the +world?" he asked abruptly then, + +"Yes; I--oh yes." + +It was too much for him. "How would you like," he asked recklessly, +"to have me get you transportation out West?" + +She sank back in her chair. Every particle of colour had left her +face. Her deep eyes had grown almost wild. "Oh," she gasped--"you +can't mean--you don't think--" + +"You wouldn't want to go?" + +"I mean"--it was but a whisper--"it would be--too wonderful." + +"You would like it then?" + +She only nodded; but her lips were parted, her eyes glowing. He +wondered why he had never seen before how different looking +and--yes, beautiful, in a strange kind of way--she was. + +"I see you have a cold," he said, "and I think you would get along +better out there. I'll see if I can fix up the transportation, and +get something with our people in one of the towns that would be good +for you." + +She leaned back in her chair and sat there smiling at him. Something +in the smile made him say, abruptly: "That's all; you may go now, +and I'll send a boy with your machine." + +She walked through the streets as one who had already found another +country. More than one turned to look at her. She reached her room +at last and pulling her one little chair up to the window sat +staring out across the alley at the brick wall across from her. But +she was not seeing a narrow alley and a high brick wall. She was +seeing rushing rivers and mighty forests and towering peaks. She +leaned back in her chair--an indulgence less luxurious than it +sounds, as the chair only reached the middle of her back--and looked +out at the high brick wall and saw a snow-clad range of hills. But +she was tired; this tremendous idea was too much for her; the very +wonder of it was exhausting. She lay down on her bed--radiant, but +languid. Soon she heard a rush of waters. At first it was only +someone filling the bath-tub, but after a while it was the little +stream which flowed through her forest. And then she was not lying +on a lumpy bed; she was sinking down under pine trees--all so sweet +and still and cool. But an awful thing was happening!--the forest +was on fire--it was choking and burning her! She awoke to find smoke +from the building opposite pouring into her room; flies were buzzing +about, and her face and hands were hot. + +She did little work in the next few days. It was hard to go on with +the same work when waiting for a thing which was to make over one's +whole life. The stress of dreams changing to hopes caused a great +languor to come over her. And her chair was not right for her +typewriter, and the smoke came in all the time. Strangely enough Out +There seemed farther away. Sometimes she could not go there at all; +she supposed it was because she was really going. + +At the close of the week she went to the office with her work. She +was weak with excitement as she stepped into the elevator. Would Mr. +Osborne have the transportation for her? Would he tell her when she +was to go? + +But she did not see Mr. Osborne at all. When she asked for him the +clerk just replied carelessly that he was not there. She was going +to ask if he had left any message for her, but the telephone rang +then and the man to whom she was talking turned away. Someone was +sitting at her old desk, and they did not seem to be making the +changes they had contemplated; everyone in the office seemed very +busy and uncaring, and because she knew her chin was trembling she +turned away. + +She had a strange feeling as she left the office: as if standing on +ground which quivered, an impulse to reach out her hand and tell +someone that something must be done right away, a dreadful fear that +she was going to cry out that she could not wait much longer. + +All at once she found that she was crossing the street, and saw +ahead the little art store with the wonderful picture which proved +it was all really so. In the same old way, her step quickened. It +would show her again that it was all just as she had thought it was, +and if that were true, then it must be true also that Mr. Osborne +was going to get her the transportation. It would prove that +everything was all right. + +But a cruel thing happened. It failed her. It was just as +beautiful--but something a long way off, impossible to reach. Try as +she would, she could not get _into_ it, as she used to. It was +only a picture; a beautiful picture of some pine trees. And they +were very far away, and they had nothing at all to do with her. + +Through the window, at the back of the store, she saw the old man +standing with his back to her. She thought of going in and asking to +sit down--she wanted to sit down--but perhaps he would say something +cross to her--he was such a queer looking old man--and she knew she +would cry if anything cross was said to her. That he had watched for +her each night, that he had tried and tried to think of a way of +finding her, that he would have been more glad to see her than to +see anyone in the world, would have been kinder to her than anyone +on earth would have been--those were the things she did not know. +And so--more lonely than she had ever been before--she turned away. + +On Monday she felt she could wait no longer. It did not seem that it +would be _safe_. She got ready to go to see Mr. Osborne, but +the getting ready tired her so that she sat a long time resting, +looking out at the high brick wall beyond which there was nothing at +all. She was counting the blocks, thinking of how many times she +would have to cross the street. But just then it occurred to her +that she could telephone. + +When she came back upstairs she crept up on the bed and lay there +very still. The boy had said that Mr. Osborne was away and would be +gone two weeks. No one in the office had heard him say anything +about her transportation. + +All through the day she lay there, and what she saw before her was a +narrow alley and a high brick wall. She had lost her mountains and +her forests and her rivers and her lakes. She tried to go out to +them in the same old way--but she could not get beyond the high +brick wall. She was shut in. She tried to draw them to her, but they +could not come across the wall. It shut them out. She tried to pray +to the great mountain which one could see from Portland. But even +prayers could get no farther than the wall. + +Late that afternoon, because she was so shut in that she was +choking, because she was consumed with the idea that she must claim +her country now or lose it forever, she got up and started for the +picture. It was a long, long way to go, and dreadful things were in +between--people who would bump against her, hot, uneven streets, +horses that might run over her--but she must make the journey. She +must make it because the things that she lived on were slipping from +her--and she was choking--sinking down--and all alone. + +Step by step, never knowing just how her foot was going to make the +next step, sick with the fear that people were going to run into +her--the streets going up and down, the buildings round and round, +she did go; holding to the window casings for the last few +steps--each step a terrible chasm which she was never sure she was +going to be able to cross--she was there at last. And in the window +as she stood there, swayingly, was a dark, blurred thing which might +have been anything at all. She tried to remember why she had come. +What _was_ it--? And then she was sinking down into an abyss. + +That the hemorrhage came then, that the old man came out and found +her and tenderly took her in, that he had her taken where she should +have been taken long before, that the doctors said it was too late, +and that soon their verdict was confirmed--those are the facts which +would seem to tell the rest of the story. But deep down beneath +facts rests truth, and the truth is that this is a story with the +happiest kind of a happy ending. What facts would call the breeze +from an electric fan was in truth the gracious breath of the pines. +And when the nurse said "She's going," she was indeed going, but to +a land of great spaces and benign breezes, a land of deep shadows +and rushing waters. For a most wondrous thing had happened. She had +called to the mountain, and the mountain had heard her voice; and +because it was so mighty and so everlasting it drew her to itself, +across high brick walls and past millions of hurrying, noisy +people--oh, a most triumphant flight! And the mountain said--"I give +you this whole great land. It is yours because you have loved it so +well. Hills and valleys and rivers and forests and lakes--it is all +for you." Yes, the nurse was quite right; she was going: going for a +long sweet sleep beneath trees of many shadows, beside clear waters +which had come from distant snows--really going "Out There." + + + + +X + +THE PREPOSTEROUS MOTIVE + + +The Governor was sitting alone in his private office with an open +letter in his hand. He was devoutly and gloomily wishing that some +other man was just then in his shoes. The Governor had not devoted a +large portion of his life to nursing a desire of that nature, for he +was a man in whose soul the flame of self-satisfaction glowed +cheeringly; but just now there were reasons, and he deemed them +ample, for deploring that he had been made chief executive of his +native State. + +Had he chosen to take you into his confidence--a thing the Governor +would assuredly choose not to do--he would have told you there were +greater things in the world than the governorship of that State. He +might have suggested a seat in the Senate of the United States as +one of those things. It was of the United States Senate his +Excellency was thinking as he sat there alone moodily deploring the +gubernatorial shoes. + +The senior Senator was going to die. He differed therein from his +fellows in that he was going to die soon, almost immediately. He had +reached the tottering years even at the time of his reelection, and +it had never been supposed that his life would outstretch his term. +He had been sent back, not for another six years of service, but to +hold out the leader of the Boxers, as they called themselves--the +younger and unorthodox element of the party in the State, an element +growing to dangerous proportions. It was only by returning the aged +Senator, whom they held it would be brutal to turn down after a life +of service to the party, that the "machine" won the memorable fight +of the previous winter. + +From the viewpoint of the machine, the Governor was the senior +Senator's logical successor. Had it not been for the heavy inroads +of the Boxers, his Excellency would even then have been sitting in +the Senate Chamber at Washington. It had not been considered safe to +nominate the Governor. Had his supporters conceded that the time was +at hand for a change, there would have been a general clamour for +the leader of the Boxers--Huntington, undeniably the popular man of +the State. And so they concocted a beautiful sentiment about +"rounding out the veteran's career," and letting him "die with his +boots on"; and through the omnipotence of sentiment, they won. + +Down in his heart the venerable Senator was not seeking to die with +his boots on. He would have preferred sitting in a large chair +before the fire and reading quietly of what other men were doing in +the Senate of the United States. But they told him he must sacrifice +that wish, for if he retired he would be succeeded by a dangerous +man. And the old man, believing them, had gone dutifully back into +the arena. + +Now it seemed that a power outside man's control was declaring +against the well-laid plans of the machine. As the machine saw +things, the time was not ripe for the senior Senator to die. He had +just entered upon his new term, and the Governor himself had but +lately stepped into a second term. They had assumed that the Senator +would live on for at least two years, but now they heard that he was +likely to die almost at once. His Excellency could not very well +name himself for the vacancy, and it seemed dangerous just then to +risk a call of the Assembly. They dared not let the Governor appoint +a weaker man, even if he would consent to do so, for they would need +the best they had to put up against the leader of the Boxers. With +the Governor, they believed they could win, but the question of +appointing him had suddenly become a knotty one. + +The Governor himself was bowed with chagrin. He saw now that he had +erred in taking a second term, and he was not the man to enjoy +reviewing his mistakes. As he sat there reading and rereading the +letter which told him that the work of the senior Senator was almost +done, he said to himself that it was easy enough to wrestle with +men, but a harder thing to try one's mettle with fate. He spent a +gloomy and unprofitable day. + +Late in the afternoon a telegram reached the executive office. +Styles was coming to town that night, and wanted to see the Governor +at the hotel. Things always cleared when Styles came to town; and +so, though still unable to foresee the outcome, he brightened at +once. + +Styles was a railroad man, and rich. People to whom certain things +were a sealed book said that it was nice of Mr. Styles to take an +interest in politics when he had so many other things on his mind, +and that he must be a very public-spirited man. That he took an +interest in politics, no one familiar with the affairs of the State +would deny. The orthodox papers painted him as a public benefactor, +but the Boxers arrayed him with hoofs and horns. + +The Governor and Mr. Styles were warm friends. It was said that +their friendship dated from mere boyhood, and that the way the two +men had held together through all the vicissitudes of life was +touching and beautiful--at least, so some people observed. There +were others whose eyebrows went up when the Governor and Mr. Styles +were mentioned in their Damon and Pythias capacity. + +That night, in the public benefactor's room at the hotel, the +Governor and his old friend had a long talk. When twelve o'clock +came they were still talking; more than that, the Governor was +excitedly pacing the floor. + +"I tell you, Styles," he expostulated, "I don't like it! It doesn't +put me in a good light. It's too apparent, and I'll suffer for it, +sure as fate. Mark my words, we'll all suffer for it!" + +Mr. Styles was sitting in an easy attitude before the table. The +public benefactor never paced the floor; it did not seem necessary. +He smoked in silence for a minute; then raised himself a little in +his chair. + +"Well, have you anything better to offer?" + +"No, I haven't," replied the Governor, tartly; "but it seems to me +you ought to have." + +Styles sank back in his chair and for several minutes more devoted +himself to the art of smoking. There were times when this +philanthropic dabbler in politics was irritating. + +"I think," he began presently, "that you exaggerate the unpleasant +features of the situation. It will cause talk, of course; but isn't +it worth it? You say it's unheard of; maybe, but so is the +situation, and wasn't there something in the copy-books about +meeting new situations with new methods? If you have anything better +to offer, produce it; if not, we've got to go ahead with this. And +really, I don't see that it's so bad. You have to go South to look +after your cotton plantation; you find now that it's going to take +more time than you feel you should take from the State; you can't +afford to give it up; consequently, you withdraw in favor of the +Lieutenant-Governor. We all protest, but you say Berriman is a good +man, and the State won't suffer, and you simply can't afford to go +on. Well, we can keep the Senator's condition pretty quiet here; and +after all, he's sturdy, and may live on to the close of the year. +After due deliberation Berriman appoints you. A little talk?--Yes. +But it's worth a little talk. It seems to me the thing works out +very smoothly." + +When Tom Styles leaned back in his chair and declared a thing worked +out very smoothly, that thing was quite likely to go. In three days +the Governor went South. When he returned, the newspaper men were +startled by the announcement that business considerations which he +could not afford to overlook demanded his withdrawal from office. +Previous to this time the Lieutenant-Governor and Mr. Styles +had met and the result of their meeting was not made a matter +of public record. + +As the Governor had anticipated, many things were said. Inquiries +were made into the venerable Senator's condition--which, the +orthodox papers declared, was but another example of the indecency +of the Boxer journals. The Governor went to his cotton plantation. +The Lieutenant-Governor went into office, and was pronounced a +worthy successor to a good executive. The venerable Senator +continued to live. As Mr. Styles had predicted, the gossip soon +quieted into a friendly hope that the Governor would realise large +sums with his cotton. + +It was late in the fall when the senior Senator finally succumbed. +The day the papers printed the story of his death, they printed +speculative editorials on his probable successor. When the bereaved +family commented with bitterness on this ill-concealed haste, they +were told that it was politics--enterprise--life. + +The old man's remains lay in state in the rotunda of the State +Capitol, and the building was draped in mourning. Many came and +looked upon the quiet face; but far more numerous than those who +gathered at his bier to weep were those who assembled in secluded +corners to speculate on the wearing of his toga. It was +politics--enterprise--life. + +Mr. Styles told the Lieutenant-Governor to be deliberate. There was +no need of an immediate appointment, he said. And so for a time +things went on about the State-house much as usual, save that the +absorbing topic was the senatorial situation, and that every one was +watching the new chief executive. The retired Governor now spent +part of his time in the South, and part at home. The cotton +plantation was not demanding all his attention, after all. + +It could not be claimed that John Berriman had ever done any great +thing. He was not on record as having ever risen grandly to an +occasion; but there may have been something in the fact that an +occasion admitting of a grand rising had never presented itself. +Before he became Lieutenant-Governor, he had served inoffensively in +the State Senate for two terms. No one had ever worked very hard for +Senator Berriman's vote. He had been put in by the machine, and it +had always been assumed that he was machine property. + +Berriman himself had never given the matter of his place in the +human drama much thought. He had an idea that it was proper for him +to vote with his friends, and he always did it. Had he been called a +tool, he would have been much ruffled; he merely trusted to the +infallibility of the party. + +The Boxers did not approach him now concerning the appointment of +Huntington. That, of course, was a fixed matter, and they were not +young and foolish enough to attempt to change it. + +One day the Governor received a telegram from Styles suggesting that +he "adjust that matter" immediately. He thought of announcing the +appointment that very night, but the newspaper men had all left the +building, and as he had promised that they should know of it as soon +as it was made, he concluded to wait until the next morning. + +Governor Berriman had a brother in town that week, attending a +meeting of the State Agricultural Society. Hiram Berriman had a +large farm in the southern part of the State. He knew but little of +political methods, and had primitive ideas about honesty. There had +always been a strong tie between the brothers, despite the fact that +Hiram was fifteen years the Governor's senior. They talked of many +things that night, and the hour was growing late. They were about to +retire when the Governor remarked, a little sleepily: + +"Well, to-morrow morning I announce the senatorial appointment." + +"You do, eh?" returned the farmer. + +"Yes, there's no need of waiting any longer, and it's getting on to +the time the State wants two senators in Washington." + +"Well, I suppose, John," Hiram said, turning a serious face to his +brother, "that you've thought the matter all over, and are sure you +are right?" + +The Governor threw back his head with a scoffing laugh. + +"I guess it didn't require much thought on my part," he answered +carelessly. + +"I don't see how you figure that out," contended Hiram warmly. +"You're Governor of the State, and your own boss, ain't you?" + +It was the first time in all his life that anyone had squarely +confronted John Berriman with the question whether or not he was his +own boss, and for some reason it went deep into his soul, and +rankled there. + +"Now see here, Hiram," he said at length, "there's no use of your +putting on airs and pretending you don't understand this thing. You +know well enough it was all fixed before I went in." The other man +looked at him in bewilderment, and the Governor continued brusquely: +"The party knew the Senator was going to die, and so the Governor +pulled out and I went in just so the thing could be done decently +when the time came." + +The old farmer was scratching his head. + +"That's it, eh? They got wind the Senator was goin' to die, and so +the Governor told that lie about having to go South just so he could +step into the dead man's shoes, eh?" + +"That's the situation--if you want to put it that way." + +"And now you're going to appoint the Governor?" + +"Of course I am; I couldn't do anything else if I wanted to." + +"Why not?" + +"Why, look here, Hiram, haven't you any idea of political +obligation? It's expected of me." + +"Oh, it is, eh? Did you promise to appoint the Governor?" + +"Why, I don't know that I exactly made any promises, but that +doesn't make a particle of difference. The understanding was that +the Governor was to pull out and I was to go in and appoint him. +It's a matter of honour;" and Governor Berriman drew himself up with +pride. + +The farmer turned a troubled face to the fire. + +"I suppose, then," he said finally, "that you all think the Governor +is the best man we have for the United States Senate. I take it that +in appointing him, John, you feel sure he will guard the interests +of the people before everything else, and that the people--I mean +the working people of this State--will always be safe in his hands; +do you?" + +"Oh, Lord, no, Hiram!" exclaimed the Governor irritably. "I don't +think that at all!" + +Hiram Berriman's brown face warmed to a dull red. + +"You don't?" he cried. "You mean to sit there, John Berriman, and +tell me that you don't think the man you're going to put in the +United States Senate will be an honest man? What do you mean by +saying you're going to put a dishonest man in there to make laws for +the people, to watch over them and protect them? If you don't think +he's a good man, if you don't think he's the best man the State +has"--the old farmer was pounding the table heavily with his huge +fist--"if you don't think that, in God's name, _why do you appoint +him_?" + +"I wish I could make you understand, Hiram," said the Governor in an +injured voice, "that it's not for me to say." + +"Why ain't it for you to say? Why ain't it, I want to know? Who's +running you, your own conscience or some gang of men that's trying +to steal from the State? Good God, I wish I had never lived to see +the day a brother of mine put a thief in the United States Senate to +bamboozle the honest, hard-working people of this State!" + +"Hold on, please--that's a little too strong!" flamed the Governor. + +"It ain't too strong. If a Senator ain't an honest man, he's a +thief; and if he ain't lookin' after the welfare of the people, he's +bamboozlin' them, and that's all there is about it. I don't know +much about politics, but I ain't lived my life without learning a +little about right and wrong, and it's a sorry day we've come to, +John Berriman, if right and wrong don't enter into the makin' of a +Senator!" + +The Governor could think of no fitting response, so he held his +peace. This seemed to quiet the irate farmer, and he surveyed his +brother intently, and not unkindly. + +"You're in a position now, John," he said, and there was a kind of +homely eloquence in his serious voice, "to be a friend to the +people. It ain't many of us ever get the chance of doin' a great +thing. We work along, and we do the best we can with what comes our +way, but most of us don't get the chance to do a thing that's goin' +to help thousands of people, and that the whole country's goin' to +say was a move for the right. You want to think of that, and when +you're thinkin' so much about honour, you don't want to clean forget +about honesty. Don't you stick to any foolish notions about bein' +faithful to the party; it ain't the party that needs helpin'. No +matter how you got where you are, you're Governor of the State right +now, John, and your first duty is to the people of this State, not +to Tom Styles or anybody else. Just you remember that when you're +namin' your Senator in the morning." + +It was long before the Governor retired. He sat there by the +fireplace until after the fire had died down, and he was too +absorbed to grow cold. He thought of many things. Like the man who +had preceded him in office, he wished that some one else was just +then encumbered with the gubernatorial shoes. + +The next morning there was a heavy feeling in his head which he +thought a walk in the bracing air might dispel, so he started on +foot for the Statehouse. A light snow was on the ground, and there +was something reassuring in the crispness of the morning. It would +make a slave feel like a free man to drink in such air, he was +thinking. Snatches of his brother's outburst of the night before +kept breaking into his consciousness but curiously enough they did +not greatly disturb him. He concluded that it was wonderful what a +walk in the bracing air could do. From the foot of the hill he +looked up at the State-house, for the first time in his experience +seeing and thinking about it--not simply taking it for granted. +There seemed a nobility about it--in the building itself, and back +of that in what it stood for. + +As he walked through the corridor to his office he was greeted with +cheerful, respectful salutations. His mood let him give the +greetings a value they did not have and from that rose a sense of +having the trust and goodwill of his fellows. + +But upon reaching his desk he found another telegram from Styles. It +was imperatively worded and as he read it the briskness and +satisfaction went from his bearing. He walked to the window and +stood there looking down at the city, and, as it had been in looking +ahead at the State-house, he now looked out over the city really +seeing and understanding it, not merely taking it for granted. He +found himself wondering if many of the people in that city--in that +State--looked to their Governor with the old-fashioned trust his +brother had shown. His eyes dimmed; he was thinking of the +satisfaction it would afford his children, if--long after he had +gone--they could tell how a great chance had once come into their +father's life, and how he had proved himself a man. + +"Will you sign these now, Governor?" asked a voice behind him. + +It was his secretary, a man who knew the affairs of the State well, +and whom every one seemed to respect. + +"Mr. Haines," he said abruptly, "who do you think is the best man we +have for the United States Senate?" + +The secretary stepped back, dumfounded; amazed that the question +should be put to him, startled at that strange way of putting it. +Then he told himself he must be discreet. Like many of the people at +the State-house, in his heart Haines was a Boxer. + +"Why, I presume," he ventured, "that the Governor is looked upon as +the logical candidate, isn't he?" + +"I'm not talking about logical candidates. I want to know who you +think is the man who would most conscientiously and creditably +represent this State in the Senate of the United States." + +It was so simply spoken that the secretary found himself answering +it as simply. "If you put it that way, Governor, Mr. Huntington is +the man, of course." + +"You think most of the people feel that way?" + +"I know they do." + +"You believe if it were a matter of popular vote, Huntington would +be the new Senator?" + +"There can be no doubt of that, Governor. I think they all have to +admit that. Huntington is the man the people want." + +"That's all, Mr. Haines. I merely wondered what you thought about +it." + +Soon after that Governor Berriman rang for a messenger boy and sent +a telegram. Then he settled quietly down to routine work. It was +about eleven when one of the newspaper men came in. + +"Good-morning, Governor," he said briskly "how's everything to-day?" + +"All right, Mr. Markham. I have nothing to tell you to-day, except +that I've made the senatorial appointment." + +"Oh," laughed the reporter excitedly, "that's all, is it?" + +"Yes," replied the Governor, smiling too; "that's all!" + +The reporter looked at the clock. "I'll just catch the noon +edition," he said, "if I telephone right away." + +He was moving to the other room when the Governor called to him. + +"See here, it seems to me you're a strange newspaper man!" + +"How so?" + +"Why, I tell you I've made a senatorial appointment--a matter of +some slight importance--and you rush off never asking whom I've +appointed." + +The reporter gave a forced laugh. He wished the Governor would not +detain him with a joke now when every second counted. + +"That's right," he said, with strained pleasantness. "Well, who's +the man?" + +The Governor raised his head. "Huntington," he said quietly, and +resumed his work. + +"What?" gasped the reporter. "What?" + +Then he stopped in embarrassment, as if ashamed of being so easily +taken in. "Guess you're trying to jolly me a little, aren't you, +Governor?" + +"Jolly you, Mr. Markham? I'm not given to 'jollying' newspaper +reporters. Here's a copy of the telegram I sent this morning, if you +are still sceptical. Really, I don't see why you think it so +impossible. Don't you consider Mr. Huntington a fit man for the +place?" + +But for the minute the reporter seemed unable to speak. "May I ask," +he fumbled at last, "why you did it?" + +"I had but one motive, Mr. Markham. I thought the matter over and it +seemed to me the people should have the man they wanted. I am with +them in believing Huntington the best man for the place." He said it +simply, and went quietly back to his work. + +For many a long day politicians and papers continued the search for +"the motive." Styles and his crowd saw it as a simple matter of +selling out; they knew, of course, that it could be nothing else. +After their first rage had subsided, and they saw there was nothing +they could do, they wondered, sneeringly, why he did not "fix up a +better story." That was a little _too_ simple-minded. Did he +think people were fools? And even the men who profited by the +situation puzzled their brains for weeks trying to understand it. +There was something behind it, of course. + + + + +XI + +HIS AMERICA + + +He hated to see the reporter go. With the closing of that door it +seemed certain that there was no putting it off any longer. + +But even when the man's footsteps were at last sounding on the +stairway, he still clung to him. + +"Father," he asked, fretfully, "why do you always talk to those +fellows?" + +Herman Beckman turned in his chair and stared at his son. Then he +laughed. "Now, that's a fine question to come from the honour man of +a law school! I hope, Fritz, that your oration to-night is going to +have a little more sense in it than that." + +The calling up of his oration made him reach out another clutching +hand to the vanished reporter. "But it's farcical, father, to be +always interviewed by a paper nobody reads." + +"Nobody--_reads_?" + +"Why, nobody cares anything about the _Leader_. It's dead." + +Herman Beckman looked at his son sharply; something about him seemed +strange. He decided that he was nervous about the commencement +programme. Fritz had the one oration. + +The boy had opened the drawer of his study table and was fingering +some papers he had taken out. + +"Sure you know it?" the man asked with affectionate parental +anxiety. + +"Oh, I know it all right," Fred answered grimly, and again the +father decided that he was nervous about the thing. He wasn't just +like himself. + +The man walked to the window and stood looking across at the +university buildings. Colleges had always meant much to Herman +Beckman. The very day Fritz was born he determined that the boy was +to go to college. It was good to witness the fulfilment of his +dreams. He turned his glance to the comfortable room. + +"Pretty decent comfortable sort of place, isn't it, father?" Fred +asked, following his father's look and thought from the Morris chair +to the student's lamp, and all those other things which nowadays +seem an inevitable part of the acquirement of learning. + +It made his father laugh. "Yes, my boy, I should call it decent--and +comfortable." He grew thoughtful after that. + +"Pretty different from the place you had, father?" + +"Oh--me? My place to study was any place I could find. Sometimes on +top of a load of hay, lots of times by the light of the logs. I've +studied in some funny places, Fritz." + +"Well, you _got_ there, father!" the boy burst out with +feeling. "By Jove, there aren't many of them _know_ the things +you know!" + +"I know enough to know what I don't know," said the old man, a +little sadly. "I know enough to know what I missed. I wanted to go +to college. No one will ever know how I wanted to! I began to think +I'd never feel right about it. But I have a notion that when I sit +there to-night listening to you, Fritz, knowing that you're speaking +for two hundred boys, half of whose fathers did go to college, I +think I'm going to feel better about it then." + +The boy turned away. Something in the kindly words seemed as the cut +of a whip across his face. + +"Well, Fritz," his father continued, getting into his coat, "I'll be +going downtown. Leave you to put on an extra flourish or two." He +laughed in proud parental fashion. "Anyway, I have some things to +see about." + +The boy stood up. "Father, I have something to tell you." He said it +shortly and sharply. + +The father stood there, puzzled. + +"You won't like my oration to-night, father." + +And still the man did not speak. The words would not have bothered +him much--it was the boy's manner. + +"In fact, father, you're going to be desperately disappointed in +it." + +The dull red was creeping into the man's cheeks. He was one to have +little patience with that thing of not doing one's work. "Why am I +going to be disappointed? This is no time to shirk! You should--" + +"Oh, you'll not complain of the time and thought I've put on it," +the boy broke in with a short, hard laugh. "But, you see, +father--you see"--his armour had slipped from him--"it doesn't +express--your views." + +"Did I ever say I wanted you to express 'my views'? Did I bring you +up to be a mouthpiece of mine? Haven't I told you to _think_?" +But with a long, sharp glance at his boy anger gave way. "Come, +boy"--going over and patting him on the back--"brace up now. You're +acting like a seven-year-old girl afraid to speak her first piece," +and his big laugh rang out, eager to reassure. + +"You won't see it! You won't believe it! I don't suppose you'll +believe it when you hear it!" He turned away, overwhelmed by a +sudden realisation of just how difficult was the thing that lay +before him. + +The man started toward his son, but instead he walked over and sat +down at the opposite side of the table, waiting. He was beginning to +see that there was something in this which he did not understand. + +At last the boy turned to him, fighting back some things, taking on +other things. He gazed at the care-worn, rugged face--face of a +worker and a dreamer, reading in those lines the story of that life, +seeing more clearly than he had ever seen before the beauty and +futility of it. Here was the idealist, the man who would give his +whole lifetime to a dream he had dreamed. He loved his father very +tenderly as he looked at him, read him, then. + +"Father," he asked quietly, "are you satisfied with your life?" + +The man simply stared--waiting, seeking his bearings. + +"You came to this country when you were nineteen years old--didn't +you, father?" The man nodded. "And now you're--it's sixty-one, isn't +it?" + +Again he nodded. + +"You've been in America, then, forty-two years. Father, do you think +as much of it now as you did forty-two years ago?" + +"I don't know what you mean," the man said, searching his son's +quiet, passionate face. "I can't make you out, Fritz." + +"My favourite story as a kid," the boy went on, "was to hear you +tell of how you felt when your boat came sailing into New York +Harbour, and you saw the first outlines of a country you had dreamed +about all through your boyhood, which you had saved pennies for, +worked nights for, ever since you were old enough to know the +meaning of America. I mean," he corrected, significantly, "the +meaning of what you thought was America. + +"It's a bully story, father," he continued, with a smile at once +tender and hard; "the simple German boy, born a dreamer, standing +there looking out at the dim shores of that land he had idealised. +If ever a man came to America bringing it rich gifts, that man was +you!" + +"Fritz," his father's voice was rendered harsh by mystification and +foreboding, "tell me what you're talking about. Come to the point. +Clear this up." + +"I'm talking about American politics--your party--having ruined your +life! I'm talking about working like a slave all your days and +having nothing but a mortgaged farm at sixty-one! I'm talking about +playing a losing game! I'm saying, _What's the use?_ Father, +I'm telling you that _I'm_ going to join the other party and +make some money!" + +The man just sat there, staring. + +"Well," the boy took it up defiantly, "why not?" + +And then he moved, laid a not quite steady hand out upon the table. +"My boy, you're not well. You've studied too hard. Now brace +yourself up for to-night, and then we'll go down home and fix you +up. What you need, Fritz," he said, trying to laugh, "is the +hayfield." + +"You're not _seeing_ it!" The boy pushed back his chair and +began moving about the room. "The only way I can brace myself up for +to-night is to get so mad--father, usually you see things so easily! +Don't you understand? It was my chance, my one moment, my time to +strike. It will be years before I get such a hearing again. You see, +father, the thing will be printed, and the men I want to have hear +it, the men who _own this State_, will be there. One of them is +to preside. And the story of it, the worth of it, to them, is that +I'm your son. You see, after all," he seized at this wildly, "I'm +getting my start on the fact that I'm your son." + +"Go on," said the man; the brown of his wind-beaten face had yielded +to a tinge of grey. "Just what is it you are going to say?" + +"I call it 'The New America,' a lot of this talk about doing things, +the glory of industrial America, the true Americans the men of +constructive genius, the patriotism of railroad and factory +building, a eulogy of railroad officials and corporation +presidents," he rushed on with a laugh. "Singing the song of +Capital. Father, can't you see _why?_" + +The old man had risen. "Tell me this," he said. "None of it matters +much, if you just tell me this: You _believe_ these things? +You've thought it all out for yourself--and you _feel_ that +way? You're honest, aren't you, Fritz?" He put that last in a +whisper. + +The boy made no reply; after a minute the man sank back to his +chair. The years seemed coming to him with the minutes. + +Fred was leaning against the wall. "Father," he said at last, "I +hope you'll let me be a little roundabout. It's only fair to me to +let me ramble on a little. I've got to put it all right before you +or--or--You know, dad,"--he came back to his place by the table, +"the first thing I remember very clearly is those men, your party +managers, coming down to the farm one time and asking you to run for +Governor. How many times is it you've run for Governor, father?" He +put the question slowly. + +"Five," said the man heavily. + +"I don't know which time this was; but you didn't want to. You were +sorry when you saw them coming. I heard some of the talk. You talked +about your farm, what you wanted to do that summer, how you couldn't +afford the time or the money. They argued that you owed it to the +party--they always got you there; how no other man could hold down +majorities as you could--a man like you giving the best years of his +life to holding down majorities! They said you were the one man +against whom no personal attack could be made. And when there was so +much to fight, anyway--oh, I know that speech by heart! They've made +great capital of your honesty and your clean life. In fact, they've +held that up as a curtain behind which a great many things could go +on. Oh, _you_ didn't know about them; you were out in front of +the curtain, but I haven't lived in this town without finding out +that they needed your integrity and your clean record pretty bad! + +"That was out on the side porch. Mother had brought out some +buttermilk, and they drank it while they talked. You put up a good +fight. Your time was money to you at that time of year; a man +shouldn't neglect his farm--but you never yet could hold out against +that 'needing-you' kind of talk. They knew there was no chance for +your election. You knew it. But it takes a man of just your grit to +put any snap into a hopeless campaign. + +"Mother cried when you went to drive them back to town. You see, I +remember all those things. She told about how hard you would work, +and how it would do no good--that the State belonged to the other +party. She talked about the farm, too, and the addition she had +wanted for the house, and how now she wouldn't have it. Mother felt +pretty bad that night. She's gone through a lot of those times." + +There was a silence. + +"You were away a lot that summer, and all fall. You looked pretty +well used up when you came home, but you said that you had held down +majorities splendidly." + +Again there was silence. It was the silences that seemed to be +saying the most. + +"You had one term in Congress--that's the only thing you ever had. +Then you did so much that they concentrated in your district and saw +to it that you never got back. Julius Caesar couldn't have been +elected again," he laughed harshly. + +"Father," the boy went on, after a pause, "you asked me if I were +honest. There are two kinds of honesty. The primitive kind--like +yours--and then the kind you develop for yourself. Do I believe the +things I'm going to say to-night? No--not now. But I'll believe them +more after I've heard the applause I'm sure to get. I'll believe +them still more after I've had my first case thrown to me by our +railroad friends who own this State. More and more after I've said +them over in campaigning next fall, and pretty soon I'll be so sure +I believe them that I really will believe them--and that," he +concluded, flippantly, "is the new brand of American honesty. Why, +any smart man can persuade himself he's not a hypocrite!" + +"My _God!_" it wrenched from the man. "_This?_ If you'd +stolen money--killed a man--but hypocrisy, cant--the very thing I've +fought hardest, hated most! You lived all your life with me to learn +_this?_" + +"I lived all my life with you to learn what pays, and what doesn't. +I lived all my life with you to learn from failure the value of +success." + +"I never was sure I was a failure until this hour." + +"Father! Can't you see--" + +"Oh, don't _talk_ to me!" cried the old man, rising, reaching +out his fist as though he would strike him. "Son of mine sitting +there telling me he is fixing up a brand of honesty for himself!" + +The boy grew quieter as self-restraint left his father. "I mean +that--just that," he said at last. "Let a man either give or get. If +he gives, let it be to the real thing. There are two Americas. The +America of you dreamers--and then the real America. Yours is an +idea--an idea quite as much as an ideal. I don't think you have the +slightest comprehension of how far apart it is from the real +America. The people who dream of it over in Europe are a great deal +nearer it than you people who work for it here. Father, the spirit +of this country flows in a strong, swift, resistless current. You +never got into it at all. Your kind of idealists influence it about +as much--about as much as red lights burned on the banks of the +great river would influence the current of that river. You're not +_of_ it. You came here, throbbing with the love for America; +and with your ideal America you've fought the real, and you've +worked and you've believed and you've sacrificed. Father, _what's +the use?_ In this State, anyway, it's hopeless. It has been so +through your lifetime; it will be through mine." + +The man sat looking at him. He felt that he should say something, +but the words did not come--held back, perhaps, by a sense of their +uselessness. It was not so much what Fred said as it was the look in +his eyes as he said it. There was nothing impetuous or youthful +about that look, nothing to be laughed at or argued away. He had +always felt that Fred had a mind which saw things straight, saw them +in their right relations, and at that moment he had no words to +plead for what Fred called the America of the dreamers. + +"I'm of the second generation, dad," the boy went on, at length, +"and the second generation has an ideal of its own, and that ideal +is Success. It took us these forty years to come to understand the +spirit of America. You were a dreamer who loved America. I'm an +American. We've translated democracy and brotherhood and equality +into enterprise and opportunity and success--and that's getting +Americanised. Now, father," he sought refuge in the tone of +every-day things, "you'll get used to it--won't you? I don't expect +you to feel very good about it, but you aren't going to be broken up +about it--are you? After all, father," laughing and moving about as +if to break the seriousness of things, "there's nothing criminal +about being one of the other fellows--is there? Just remember that +there _are_ folks who even think it's respectable!" The father +had risen and picked up his hat. "No, Fred," he said, with a sadness +in which there was great dignity, "there is nothing criminal in it +if a man's conviction sends him that way. But to me there is +something--something too sad for words in a man's selling his own +soul." + +"Father! How extravagant! _Why_ is it selling one's soul to sit +down and figure out what's the best thing to do?" He hesitated, +hating to add hurt to hurt, not wanting to say that his father's +fight should have been with the revolutionists, that his life was +ineffective because, seeing his dream from within a dream, his +thinking had been muddled. He only said: "As I say, father, it's a +question of giving or getting. I couldn't even give in your way. And +I've seen enough of giving to want a taste of getting. I want to +make things go--and I see my chance. Why father," he laughed, trying +to turn it, "there's nothing so American as wanting to make things +_go_." + +He looked at him for a long minute. "My boy," he said, "I fear you +are becoming so American that I am losing you." + +"Father," the boy pleaded, affectionately, "now don't--" + +The old man held up his hand. "You've tried to make me understand +it," he said, "and succeeded. You can't complain of the way you've +succeeded. I don't know why I don't argue with you--plead; there are +things I could say--should say, perhaps--but something assures me it +would be useless. I feel a good many years older than I did when I +came into this room, but the reason for it is not that you're +joining the other party. You know what I think of the men who +control this State, the men with whom you desire to cast your lot, +but I trust the years I've spent fighting them haven't made a bigot +of me. It's not joining their party--it's _using_ it--makes +this the hardest thing I've been called upon to meet." + +"Father, don't look like that! How do you think I am going to get up +and speak tonight with _that_ face before me?" + +"You didn't think, did you," the man laughed bitterly, "that I would +inspire you to your effort?" + +The boy stood looking at his father, a strange new fire in his eyes. + +"Yes," he said, quietly, tenderly, "you will inspire me. When I get +up before those men tonight I'm going to see the picture of that boy +straining for his first glimpse of New York Harbour. I'm going to +think for just a minute of the things that boy brought with +him--things he has never lost. And then I'll see you as you stand +here now---it will be enough. What I need to do is to get mad. If I +falter I'll just think of some of those times when you came home +from your campaigns--how you looked--what you said. It will bring +the inspiration. Father, I figure it out like this. We're going to +get it back. We're going to get what's coming to us. There's another +America than the America of you dreamers. To yours you have given; +from mine I will get. And the irony of it--don't think I don't see +the irony of it--is that I will be called the real American. Do you +know what I'm going to do? I'm going to make the railroads of this +State--oh, it sounds like schoolboy talk, but just give me a little +time--I'm going to make the railroads of this State pay off every +cent of that mortgage on your farm! Father," he finished, +impetuously, in a last appeal, "you're broken up now, disappointed, +but would you honestly want me to travel the road you've traveled?" + +"My boy," answered the old man, and the tears came with it, "I +wanted you to travel the road of an honest man." + +Herman Beckman did not go to the commencement exercises that night. +There was no train home until morning, so he had the night to spend +in town. He was alone, for his friends assumed that he would be out +at the university. But he preferred being alone. + +He sat in his room at the hotel, reading. And he could read. Years +of discipline stood him in good stead now. His life had taught him +to read anywhere, at any time. He had never permitted himself the +luxury of not being "in the mood." It was only the men who had gone +to college who could do that. He _had_ to read. He always +carried some little book with him, for how did a man know that he +might not have to wait an hour for a train somewhere? The man had a +simple-minded veneration for knowledge. He wanted to know about +things. And he had never learned to pretend that he didn't want to +know. He quite lacked the modern art of flippancy. He believed in +great books. + +And so on the night that his son was being graduated from college he +sat in his room at the hotel--cheap room in a mediocre hotel; he had +never learned to feel at home in the rich ones--reading Marcus +Aurelius. But his hand as he turned the pages trembled as the hand +of a very old man. At midnight some reporters came in to ask him +what he thought of his son's oration. They wanted a statement from +him. + +He told them that he had never believed the sins of a parent should +be visited on a child, and that it was even so with the thought. He +had always contended that a man should do his own thinking. The +contention applied to his son. + +"Gamey old brute!" was what one of the reporters said in the +elevator. + +He could not read Marcus Aurelius after that. He went to bed, but he +did not sleep. Many things passed before him. His anticipations, his +dreams for Fritz, had brought the warmest pleasure of his stern, +unrelaxing life. There was a great emptiness tonight. What was a man +to turn to, think about, when he seemed stripped, not only of the +future, but of the past? He seemed called upon to readjust the whole +of his life, giving up that which he had held dearest. What was +left? Daylight found him turning it over and over. + +In the morning he went home. He got away without seeing any of his +friends. + +He did not try to read this morning; somehow it seemed there was no +use in trying to read any more. He watched the country through which +they were passing, thinking of the hundreds of times he had ridden +over it in campaigning. He wondered, vaguely, just how much money he +had spent on railroad fare--he had never accepted mileage. Fred's +"What's the use?" kept ringing in his ears. There was something +about that phrase which made one feel very tired and old. It even +seemed there was no use looking out to see how the crops were +getting on. _What's the use? What's the use?_ Was that a phrase +one learned in college? + +There had been two things to tell "mother" that night. The first was +that he had stopped in town and told Claus Hansen he could have that +south hundred and sixty he had been wanting for two years. + +It was not easy to tell the woman who had worked shoulder to +shoulder with him for thirty years, the woman who during those years +had risen with him in the early morning and worked with him until +darkness rescued the weary bodies, that in their old age they must +surrender the fruit of their toil. They would have left just what +they had started with. They had just held their own. + +Coming down on the train he had made up his mind that if Hansen were +in town he would tell him that he could have the land. He felt so +very tired and old, so bowed down with Fred's "What's the use?" that +he saw that he himself would never get the mortgage paid off. And +Fred had said something about making the railroads pay it. He did +not know just how the boy figured that out--indeed, he was getting a +little dazed about the whole thing--but if Fritz had any idea of +having the railroads pay off the mortgage on _his_ farm--he +couldn't forget how the boy looked when he said it, face white, eyes +burning--he would see to it right now that there was no chance of +that. + +He tried not to look at the land as he drove past it on the way +home. He wondered just how much campaign literature it had paid for. +He wondered if he would ever get used to seeing Claus Hansen putting +up his hay over there in that field. + +He had felt so badly about telling mother that he told it very +bluntly. And because he felt so sorry for her he said not one kind +word, but just sat quiet, looking the other way. + +She was clearing off the table. He heard her scraping out the potato +dish with great care. Then she was coming over to him. She came +awkwardly, hesitatingly--her life had not schooled her in meeting +emotional moments beautifully--but she laid her hand upon him, +patted him on the shoulder as one would a child. "Never mind, +papa--never you mind. It will make it easier for us. There's enough +left--and it will make it easier. We're getting on--we're--" There +she broke off abruptly into a vigorous scolding of the dog, who was +lifting covetous nostrils to a piece of meat. + +That was all. And there was no woman in the country had worked +harder. And Martha was ambitious; she liked land, and she did not +like Claus Hansen's wife. + +Yes, he had had a good wife. + +Then there was that other thing to tell her--about Fritz. That was +harder. + +Mother had not gone up to the city to hear Fritz "speak" because her +feet were bothering her, and she could not wear her shoes. He had +had a vague idea of how disappointed she was, though she had said +very little about it. Martha never had been one to say much about +things. When he came back, of course she had wanted to know all +about it, and he had put her off. Now he had to tell her. + +It was much harder; and in the telling of it he broke down. + +This time she did not come over and pat his shoulder. Perhaps Martha +knew--likely she had never heard the word intuition, but, anyway, +she knew--that it was beyond that. + +It seemed difficult for her to comprehend. She was bewildered to +find that Fritz could change parties all in a minute. She seemed to +grasp, first of all, that it was disrespectful to his father. Some +boys at school had been putting notions into his head. + +But gradually she began to see it. Fritz wanted to make money. Fritz +wanted to have it easier. And the other people did "have it easier." + +It divided her feeling: sorry and indignant for the father, secretly +glad and relieved for the boy. "He will have it easier than we had +it, papa," she said at the last. "But it was not right of Fritz," +she concluded, vaguely but severely. + +As she washed the dishes Martha was thinking that likely Fritz's +wife would have a hired girl. + +Then Martha went up to bed. He said that he would come in a few +minutes, but many minutes went by while he sat out on the side porch +trying to think it out. + +The moon was shining brightly down on that hundred and sixty which +Claus Hansen was to have. And the moon, too, seemed to be saying: +"What's the use?" + +Well, what _was_ the use? Perhaps, after all, the boy was +right. What had it all amounted to? What was there left? What had he +done? + +Two Americas, Fred had said, and his but the America of the +dreamers. He had always thought that he was fighting for the real. +And now Fred said that he had never become an American at all. + +From the time he was twelve years old he had wanted to be an +American. A queer old man back in the German village--an old man, he +recalled strangely now, who had never been in America--told him +about it. He told how all men were brothers in America, how the poor +and the rich loved each other--indeed, how there were no poor and +rich at all, but the same chance for every man who would work. He +told about the marvellous resources of that distant America--gold in +the earth, which men were free to go and get, hundreds upon hundreds +of miles of untouched forests and great rivers--all for men to use, +great cities no older than the men who were in them, which men at +that present moment were _making_--every man his equal chance. +He told of rich land which a man could have for nothing, which would +be _his_, if he would but go and work upon it. In the heart of +the little German boy there was kindled then a fire which the years +had never put out. His cheeks grew red, his eyes bright and very +deep as he listened to the story. He went home that night and +dreamed of going to America. And through the years of his boyhood, +penny by penny, he saved his money for America. It was his dream. It +was the passion of his life. More plainly than the events of +yesterday, he remembered his first glimpse of those wonderful +shores--the lump in his throat, the passionate excitement, the +uplift. Leaning over the railing of his boat, staring, searching, +penetrating, worshipping, he lifted up his heart and sent out his +pledge of allegiance to the new land. How he would love America, +work for it, be true to it! + +He had three dollars and sixty cents in his pocket when he stepped +upon American soil. He wondered if any man had ever felt richer. For +had he not reached the land where there was an equal chance for +every man who would work, where men loved each other as brothers, +and where the earth itself was so rich and so gracious in its +offerings? + +The old man crossed one leg over the other--slowly, stiffly. It made +him tired and stiff now just to think of the work he had done +between that day and this. + +But there was something which he had always had--that something was +_his_ America. That had never wavered, though he soon learned +that between it and realities were many things which were wrong and +unfortunate. With the whole force and passion of his nature, with +all his single mindedness--would some call it simple mindedness?--he +threw himself into the fight against those things which were +blurring men's vision of his America. No work, no sacrifice was too +great, for America had enemies who called themselves friends, men +who were striking heavy blows at that equal chance for every man. +When he failed, it was because he did not know enough; he must work, +he must study, he must think, in order to make more real to other +men the America which was in his heart. He must fight for it because +it was his. + +And now it seemed that the end had come; he was old, he was tired, +he was not sure. Claus Hansen would have his land and his son would +join hands with the things which he had spent his life in fighting. +And far deeper and sadder and more bitter than that, he had not +transmitted the America of his heart even to his own son. He was not +leaving someone to fight for it in his stead, to win where he had +failed. Fred saw in it but a place for gain. "I lived all my life +with you to learn from failure the value of success." That was what +he had given to his boy. Yes, that was what he had bequeathed to +America. Could the failure, the futility of his life be more clearly +revealed? + +Twice Martha had called to him, but still he sat, smoking, thinking. +There was much to think about to-night. + +Finally, it was not thought, but visions. Too tired for conscious +thinking, he gave himself up to what came--Fred's America, his +America, the America of the dreamers--and the things which stood +between. The America of the future---what would that America be? + +At the last, taking form from many things which came and went, +shaping itself slowly, form giving place to new form, he seemed to +see it grow. Out beyond that land Claus Hansen was to have, a long +way off, there rose the vision of the America of the future--an +America of realities, and yet an America of dreams; for the dreamers +had become the realists---or was it that the realists had become +dreamers? In the manifold forms taken on and cast aside destroying +dualism had made way for the strength and the dignity and harmony of +unity. He watched it as breathlessly, as yearningly, as the +nineteen-year-old boy had watched the other America taking shape in +the distance some forty years before. "How did you come?" he +whispered. "What are you?" + +And the voice of that real America seemed to answer: "I came because +for a long-enough time there were enough men who held me in their +hearts. I came because there were men who never gave me up. I was +won by men who believed that they had failed." + +Again there was a lump in his throat--once more an exultation +flooded all his being. For to the old man--tired, stiff, smitten +though he had been, there came again that same uplift which long +before had come to the boy. Was there not here an answer to "What's +the use?" For he would leave America as he came to it--loving it, +believing in it. What were the work and the failure of a lifetime +when there was something in his heart which was his? Should he say +that he had fought in vain when he had kept it for himself? It was +as real, as wonderful--yes as inevitable, as it had been forty years +before. Realities had taken his land, his career, his hopes for the +boy. But realities had not stripped him of his dream. The futility +of the years could not harm the things which were in his heart. Even +in America he had not lost His America. + +"Perhaps it is then that it is like that," he murmured, his vision +carrying him back to the days of his broken English. "Perhaps it is +that every man's America is in the inside of his own heart. Perhaps +it is that it will come when it has grown big--big and very +strong--in the hearts." + + + + +XII + +THE ANARCHIST: HIS DOG + + +Stubby had a route, and that was how he happened to get a dog. For the +benefit of those who have never carried papers it should be thrown +in that having a route means getting up just when there is really +some fun in sleeping, lining up at the _Leader_ office--maybe +having a scrap with the fellow who says you took his place in the +line--getting your papers all damp from the press and starting for +the outskirts of the city. Then you double up the paper in the +way that will cause all possible difficulty in undoubling and hurl +it with what force you have against the front door. It is good to +have a route, for you at least earn your salt, so your father can't +say _that_ any more. If he does, you know it isn't so. + +When you have a route, you whistle. All the fellows whistle. They +may not feel like it, but it is the custom--as could be sworn to by +many sleepy citizens. And as time goes on you succeed in acquiring +the easy manner of a brigand. + +Stubby was little and everything about him seemed sawed off just a +second too soon,--his nose, his fingers, and most of all, his hair. +His head was a faithful replica of a chestnut burr. His hair did not +lie down and take things easy. It stood up--and out!--gentle ladies +couldn't possibly have let their hands sink into it--as we are told +they do--for the hands just wouldn't sink. They'd have to float. + +And alas, gentle ladies didn't particularly want their hands to sink +into it. There was not that about Stubby's short person to cause the +hands of gentle ladies to move instinctively to his head. Stubby +bristled. That is, he appeared to bristle. Inwardly, Stubby yearned, +though he would have swung into his very best brigand manner on the +spot were you to suggest so offensive a thing. Just to look at +Stubby you'd never in a thousand years guess what a funny feeling he +had sometimes when he got to the top of the hill where his route +began and could see a long way down the river and the town curled in +on the other side. Sometimes when the morning sun was shining +through a mist--making things awful queer--some of the mist got into +Stubby's squinty little eyes. After the mist behaved that way he +always whistled so rakishly and threw his papers with such +abandonment that people turned over in their beds and muttered +things about having that little heathen of a paper boy shot. + +All along the route are dogs. Indeed, routes are distinguished by +their dogs. Mean routes are those that have terraces and mean dogs; +good routes--where the houses are close together and the dogs run +out and wag their tails. Though Stubby's greater difficulty came +through the wagging tails; he carried in a collie neighbourhood, and +all collies seemed consumed with mighty ambitions to have routes. If +you spoke to them--and how could you _help_ speaking to a +collie when he came bounding out to you that way?--you had an awful +time chasing him back, and when he got lost--and it seemed collies +spent most of their time getting lost--the woman would put her head +out next morning and want to know if you had coaxed her dog away. + +Some of the fellows had dogs that went with them on their routes. +One day one of them asked Stubby why he didn't have a dog and he +replied in surly fashion that he didn't have one 'cause he didn't +want one. If he wanted one, he guessed he'd have one. + +And there was no one within ear-shot old enough or wise enough--or +tender enough?--to know from the meanness of Stubby's tone, and by +his evil scowl, that his heart was just breaking to own a dog. + +One day a new dog appeared along the route. He was yellow and looked +like a cheap edition of a bull-dog. He was that kind of dog most +accurately described by saying it is hard to describe him, the kind +you say is just dog--and everybody knows. + +He tried to follow Stubby; not in the trusting, bounding manner of +the collies--not happily, but hopingly. Stubby, true to the ethics +of his profession, chased him back where he had come from. That +there might be nothing whatever on his conscience, he even threw a +stone after him. Stubby was an expert in throwing things at dogs. He +could seem to just miss them and yet never hit them. + +The next day it happened again; but just as he had a clod poised for +throwing, a window went up and a woman called: "For pity +_sake_, little boy, don't chase him back _here_." + +"Why--why, ain't he yours?" called Stubby. + +"Mercy, _no_. We can't chase him away." + +"Who's is he?" demanded Stubby. + +"Why, he's nobody's! He just hangs around. I wish you'd coax him +away." + +Well, that was a _new_ one! And then all in a heap it rushed +over Stubby that this dog who was nobody's dog could, if he coaxed +him away--and the woman _wanted_ him coaxed away--be his dog. + +And because that idea had such a strange effect on him he sang out, +in off-hand fashion: "Oh, all right, I'll take him away and drown +him for you! + +"Oh, little _boy_," called the woman, "why, don't _drown_ +him!" + +"Oh, all right, I'll shoot him then!" called obliging Stubby, +whistling for the dog--while all morning long the woman grieved over +having sent a helpless little dog away with that perfectly +_brutal_ paper boy! + +Stubby's mother was washing. She looked up from her tubs on the back +porch to say, "Wish you'd take that bucket--" then seeing what was +slinking behind her son, straightway assumed the role of destiny +with, "Git out o' here!" + +Stubby snapped his fingers behind his back as much as to say, "Wait +a minute." + +"A woman gave him to me," he said to his mother. + +"_Gave_ him to you?" she scoffed. "I sh' think she would!" + +Then something happened that had not happened many times in Stubby's +short lifetime. He acknowledged his feelings. + +"I'd like to keep him. I'd like to have a dog." + +His mother shook her hands and the flying suds seemed expressing her +scorn. "Huh! _That_ ugly good-for-nothing thing?" + +The dog had edged in between Stubby's feet and crouched there. "He +could go with me on my route," said Stubby. "He'd kind of be company +for me." + +And when he had said that he knew all at once just how lonesome he +had been sometimes on his route, how he had wanted something to +"kind of be company" for him. + +His face twitched as he stooped down to pat the dog. Mrs. Lynch +looked at her son--youngest of her five. Not the hardness of her +heart but the hardness of her life had made her unpractised in +moments of tenderness. Something in the way Stubby was patting the +dog suggested to her that Stubby was a "queer one." He _was_ +kind of little to be carrying papers all by himself. + +Stubby looked up. "He could eat what's thrown away." + +That was an error in diplomacy. The woman's face hardened. "Mighty +little'll be thrown away _this_ winter," she muttered. + +But just then Mrs. Johnson appeared on the other side of the fence +and began hanging up her clothes and with that Mrs. Lynch saw her +way to justify herself in indulging her son. Mrs. Johnson and Mrs. +Lynch had "had words." "You just let him stay around, Stubby," she +called, and you would have supposed from her tone it was Stubby who +was on the other side of the fence, "maybe he'll keep the +neighbour's chickens out! Them that ain't got chickens o' their own +don't want to be bothered with the neighbours'!" + +That was how it happened that he stayed; and no one but Stubby +knew--and possibly Stubby didn't either--how it happened that he was +named Hero. It would seem that Hero should be a noble St. Bernard, +or a particularly mean-looking bulldog, not a stocky, shapeless, +squint-eyed yellow dog with one ear bitten half off and one leg +built on an entirely different plan from its fellow legs. Possibly +Stubby's own spiritual experiences had suggested to him that you +weren't necessarily the way you looked. + +The chickens were pretty well kept out, though no one ever saw Hero +doing any of it. Perhaps Hero had been too long associated with +chasing to desire any part in it--even with roles reversed. If +Stubby could help it, no one really saw Stubby doing the chasing +either; he became skilled in chasing when he did not appear to be +chasing; then he would get Hero to barking and turn to his mother +with, "Guess you don't see so many chickens round nowadays." + +The fellows in the line jeered at Hero at first, but they soon tired +of it when Stubby said he didn't want the cur but his mother made +him stay around to keep the chickens out. He was a fine chicken dog, +Stubby grudgingly admitted. He couldn't keep him from following, +said Stubby, so he just let him come. Sometimes when they were +waiting in line Stubby made ferocious threats at Hero. He was going +to break his back and wring his head off and do other heartless +things which for some reason he never started in right then and +there to accomplish. + +It was different when they were alone--and they were alone a good +deal. Stubby's route wasn't nearly so long after he had Hero to go +with him. When winter came and five o'clock was dark and cold for +starting out it was pretty good to have Hero trotting at his heels. +And Hero always wanted to go; it was never so rainy nor so cold that +that yellow dog seemed to think he would rather stay home by the +fire. Then Hero was always waiting for him when he came home from +school. Stubby would sing out, "Hello, cur!" and the tone was such +that Hero did not grasp that he was being insulted. Sometimes when +there was nobody about, Stubby picked Hero up in his arms and +squeezed him--Stubby had not had a large experience with squeezing. +At those times Hero would lick Stubby's face and whimper a little +love whimper and such were the workings of Stubby's heart and mind +that that made him of quite as much account as if he really had +chased the chickens. Stubby, who had seen the way dogs can look at +you out of their eyes, was not one to say of a dog, "What good is +he?" + +But it seemed there were such people. There were even people who +thought you oughtn't to have a dog to love and to love you if you +weren't one of those rich people who could pay two dollars and a +half a year for the luxury. + +Stubby first heard of those people one night in June. The father of +the Lynch family was sitting in the back yard reading the paper when +Hero and Stubby came running in from the alley. It was one of those +moments when Hero, forgetting the bleakness of his youth, abandoned +himself to the joy of living. He was tearing round and round Stubby, +barking, when Stubby's father called out: "Here!--shut up there, you +cur. You better lie low. You're going to be shot the first of +August." + +Stubby, and as regards the joy of living Hero had done as much for +Stubby as Stubby for Hero, came to a halt. The fun and frolic just +died right out of him and he stood there staring at his father, who +had turned the page and was settling himself to a new horror. At +last Stubby spoke. "Why's he going to be shot on the first of +August?" he asked in a tight little voice. + +His father looked up. "Why's he going to be shot? You got any two +dollars and a half to pay for him?" + +He laughed as though that were a joke. Well, it was something of a +joke. Stubby got ten cents a week out of his paper money. The rest +he "turned in." + +Then he went back to his paper. There was another long pause before +Stubby asked, in that tight queer little voice: "What'd I have to +pay two dollars and a half for? Nobody owns him." + +His parent stirred scornfully. "Suppose you never heard of a dog +tax, did you? S'pose they don't learn you nothing like that at +school?" + +Yes, Stubby did know that dogs had to have checks, but he hadn't +thought anything about that in connection with Hero. He ventured +another question. "You have to have 'em for all dogs, even if you +just picked 'em up on the street and took care of 'em when nobody +else would?" + +"You bet you do," his parent assured him genially. "You pay your dog +tax or the policeman comes on the first of August and shoots your +dog." + +With that he dismissed it for good, burying himself in his paper. +For a minute the boy stood there in silence. Then he walked slowly +round the house and sat down where his father couldn't see him. Hero +followed--it was a way Hero had. The dog sat down beside the boy and +after a couple of minutes the boy's arm stole furtively around him +and they sat there very still for a long time. + +As nobody but Hero paid much attention to him, nobody save Hero +noticed how quiet and queer Stubby was for the next three days. Hero +must have noticed it, for he was quiet and queer too. He followed +wherever Stubby would let him, and every time he got a chance he +would nestle up to him and look into his face--that way even cur +dogs have of doing when they fear something is wrong. + +At the end of three days Stubby, his little freckled face set and +grim, took his stand in front of his father and came right out with: +"I want to keep one week's paper money to pay Hero's tax." + +His father's chair had been tilted back against a tree. Now it came +down with a thud. "Oh, you _do_, do you?" + +"I can earn the other fifty cents at little jobs." + +"You _can_, can you? Now ain't you smart!" + +The tone brought the blood to Stubby's face. "I think I got a right +to," he said, his voice low. + +The man's face, which had been taunting, grew ugly. "Look a-here, +young man, none o' your lip!" + +The tears rushed to Stubby's eyes but he stumbled on: "I guess +Hero's got a right to some of my paper money when he goes with me +every day on my route." + +At that his father stared for a minute and then burst into a loud +laugh. Blinded with tears, the boy turned to the house. + +After she had gone to bed that night Stubby's mother heard a sound +from the alcove at the head of the stairs where her youngest child +slept. As the sound kept on she got out of her bed and went to +Stubby's cot. + +"Look here," she said, awkwardly but not unkindly, "this won't do. +We're poor folks, Freddie" (it was only once in a while she called +him that), "all we can do to live these times--we can't pay no dog +tax." + +As Stubby did not speak she added: "I know you've taken to the dog, +but just the same you ain't to feel hard to your pa. He can't help +it--and neither can I. Things is as they is--and nobody can help +it." + +As, despite this bit of philosophy Stubby was still gulping back +sobs, she added what she thought a master stroke in consolation. +"Now you just go right to sleep, and if they come to take this dog +away maybe you can pick up another one in the fall." + +The sobs suddenly stopped and Stubby stared at her. And what he said +after a long stare was: "I guess there ain't no use in you and me +talking about it." + +"That's right," said she, relieved; "now you go right off to sleep." +And she left him, never dreaming why Stubby had seen there was no +use talking about it. + +Nor did he talk about it; but a change came over Stubby's funny +little person in the next few days. The change was particularly +concerned with his jaw, though there was something different, too, +in the light in his eyes as he looked straight ahead, and something +different in his voice when he said: "Come on, Hero." + +He got so he could walk into a store and demand, in a hard little +voice: "Want a boy to do anything for you?" and when they said, "Got +more boys than we know what to do with, sonny," Stubby would say, +"All right," and stalk sturdily out again. Sometimes they laughed +and said: "What could _you_ do?" and then Stubby would stalk +out, but possibly a little less sturdily. + +Vacation came the next week, and still he had found nothing. His +father, however, had been more successful. He found a place where +they wanted a boy to work in a yard a couple of hours in the +morning. For that Stubby was to get a dollar and a half a week. But +that was to be turned in for his "keep." There were lots of mouths +to feed--as Stubby's mother was always calling to her neighbour +across the alley. + +But the yard gave Stubby an idea, and he earned some dimes and one +quarter in the next week. Most folks thought he was too little--one +kind lady told him he ought to be playing, not working--but there +were people who would let him take a big shears and cut grass around +flower beds, and things like that. This he had to do afternoons, +when he was supposed to be off playing, and when he came home his +mother sometimes said some folks had it easy--playing around all +day. + +It was now the first week in July and Stubby had a dollar and twenty +cents. It was getting to the point where he would wake in the night +and find himself sitting up in bed, hands clenched. He dreamed +dreams about how folks would let him live if he had ninety-nine +cents but how he only had ninety-seven and a half, so they were +going to shoot him. + +Then one day he found Mr. Stuart. He was passing the house after +having asked three people if they wanted a boy, and they didn't, and +seemed so surprised at the idea of their wanting him that Stubby's +throat was all tight, when Mr. Stuart sang out: "Say, boy, want a +little job?" + +It seemed at first it must be a joke--or a dream--anybody asking him +if he _wanted_ one, but the man was beckoning to him, so he +pulled himself together and ran up the steps. + +"Now here's a little package"--he took something out of the mail +box. "It doesn't belong here. It's to go to three-hundred-two +Pleasant street. You take it for a dime?" + +Stubby nodded. + +As he was going down the steps the man called: "Say, boy, how'd you +like a steady job?" + +For the first minute it seemed pretty mean--making fun of a fellow +that way! + +"This will be here every day. Suppose you come each day, about this +time, and take it over there--not mentioning it to anybody." + +Stubby felt weak. "Why, all right," he managed to say. + +"I'll give you fifty cents a week. That fair?" + +"Yes, sir," said Stubby, doing some quick calculation. + +"Then here goes for the first week"--and he handed him the other +forty cents. + +It was funny how fast the world could change! Stubby wanted to +run--he hadn't been doing much running of late. He wanted to go home +and get Hero to go with him to Pleasant street, but didn't. No, +_sir_, when you had a job you had to 'tend to things! + +Well, a person could do things, if he had to, thought Stubby. No use +saying you couldn't, you _could_, if you had to. He was back in +tune with life. He whistled; he turned up his collar in the old +rakish way; he threw a stick at a cat. Back home he jumped over the +fence instead of going in the gate--lately he had actually been +using the gate. And he cried, "Get out of my sight, you cur!" in +tones which, as Hero understood things, meant anything but getting +out of his sight. + +He was a little boy again. He slept at night as little boys sleep. +He played with Hero along the route--taught him some new tricks. His +jaw relaxed from its grown-upishness. + +It was funny about those Stuarts. Sometimes he saw Mr. Stuart, but +never anybody else; the place seemed shut up. But each day the +little package was there, and every day he took it to Pleasant +street and left it at the door there--that place seemed shut up, +too. + +When it was well into the second week Stubby ventured to say +something about the next fifty cents. + +The man fumbled in his pockets. Something in his face was familiar +to experienced Stubby. It suggested a having to have two dollars and +a half by August first and only having a dollar and a quarter state +of mind. + +"I haven't got the change. Pay you at the end of next week for the +whole business. That all right?" + +Stubby considered. "I've got to have it before the first of August," +he said. + +At that the man laughed--funny kind of laugh, it was, and muttered +something. But he told Stubby he would have it before the first. + +It bothered Stubby. He wished the man had given it to him +_then_. He would rather get it each week and keep it himself. A +little of the grown-up look stole back. + +After that he didn't see Mr. Stuart, and one day, a week or so +later, the package was not in the box and a man who wore the kind of +clothes Stubby's father wore came around the house and asked him +what he was doing. + +Stubby was wary. "Oh, I've got a little job I do for Mr. Stuart." + +The man laughed. "I had a little job I did for Mr. Stuart, too. You +paid in advance?" + +Stubby pricked up his ears. + +"'Cause if you ain't, I'd advise you to look out for a little job +some'eres else." + +Then it came out. Mr. Stuart was broke; more than that, he was "off +his nut." Lots of people were doing little jobs for him--there was +no sense in any of them, and now he had suddenly been called out of +town! + +There was a trembly feeling through Stubby's insides, but outwardly +he was bristling just like his hair bristled as he demanded: "Where +am I to get what's coming to me?" + +"'Fraid you won't get it, sonny. We're all in the same boat." He +looked Stubby up and down and then added: "Kind of little for that +boat." + +"I _got_ to have it!" cried Stubby. "I tell you, I _got_ +to!" + +The man shook his head. "_That_ cuts no ice. Hard luck, sonny, +but we've got to take our medicine in this world. 'Taint no medicine +for kids, though," he muttered. + +Stubby's face just then was too much for him. He put his hand in his +pocket and drew out a dime, saying: "There now. You run along and +get you a soda and forget your troubles. It ain't always like this. +You'll have better luck next time." + +But Stubby did not get the soda. He put the dime in his pocket and +turned toward home. Something was the matter with his legs--they +acted funny about carrying him. He tried to whistle, but something +was the matter with his lips, too. + +Counting this dime, he now had a dollar and eighty cents, and it was +the twenty-eighth day of July. "Thirty days has September--April, +June and November--" he was saying to himself. Then July was one of +the long ones. Well, _that_ was a good thing! Been a great deal +worse if July was a short one. Again he tried to whistle, and that +time did manage to pipe out a few shrill little notes. + +When Hero came running up the hill to meet him he slapped him on the +back and cried, "Hello, Hero!" in tones fairly swaggering with +bravado. + +That night he engaged his father in conversation--the phrase is well +adapted to the way Stubby went about it. "How is it about--'bout +things like taxes"--Stubby crossed his knees and swung one foot to +show his indifference--"if you have _almost_ enough--do they +sometimes let you off?"--the detachment was a shade less perfect on +that last. + +His father laughed scoffingly. "Well, I guess _not!_" + +"I thought maybe," said Stubby, "if a person had _tried_ awful +hard--and had _most_ enough--" + +Something inside him was all shaky, so he didn't go on. His father +said that _trying_ didn't have anything to do with it. + +It was hard for Stubby not to sob out that he thought trying +_ought_ to have something to do with it, but he only made a +hissing noise between his teeth that took the place of the whistle +that wouldn't come. + +"Kind of seems," he resumed, "if a person would have had enough if +they hadn't been beat out of it, maybe--if he done the best he +could--" + +His father snorted derisively and informed him that doing the best +you could made no difference to the government; hard luck stories +didn't go when it came to the laws of the land. + +Thereupon Stubby took a little walk out to the alley and spent a +considerable time in contemplation of the neighbour's chicken-yard. +When he came back he walked right up to his father and standing +there, feet planted, shoulders squared, wanted to know, in a +desperate little voice: "If some one else was to give--say a dollar +and eighty cents for Hero, could I take the other seventy out of my +paper money?" + +The man turned upon him roughly. "Uh-_huh_! _That's_ it, +is it? _That's_ why you're getting so smart all of a sudden +about government! Look a-here. Just l'me tell you something. You're +lucky if you git enough to _eat_ this winter. Do you know +there's talk of the factory shuttin' down? _Dog_ tax! Why +you're lucky if you git _shoes_." + +Stubby had turned away and was standing with his back to his father, +hands in his pockets. + +"And l'me tell you some'en else, young man. If you got any dollar +and eighty cents, you give it to your mother!" + +As Stubby was turning the corner of the house he called after him: +"How'd you like to have me get you an automobile?" + +He went doggedly from house to house the next afternoon, but nobody +had any jobs. When Hero came running out to him that night he patted +him, but didn't speak. + +That evening as they were sitting in the back yard--Stubby and Hero +a little apart from the others--his father was discoursing with his +brother about anarchists. They were getting commoner, his father +thought. There were a good many of them at the shop. They didn't +call themselves that, but that was what they were. + +"Well, what is an anarchist, anyhow?" Stubby's mother wanted to +know. + +"Why, an anarchist," her lord informed her, "is one that's against +the government. He don't believe in the law and order. The real bad +anarchists shoot them that tries to enforce the laws of the land. +Guess if you'd read the papers these days you'd know." + +Stubby's brain had been going round and round and these words caught +in it as it whirled. The government--the laws of the land--why, it +was the government and the laws of the land that were going to shoot +Hero! It was the government--the laws of the land--that didn't care +how hard you had _tried_--didn't care whether you had been +cheated--didn't care how you _felt_--didn't care about anything +except getting the money! His brain got hotter. Well, _he_ +didn't believe in the government, either. He was one of those +people--those anarchists--that were against the laws of the land. + +He'd done the very best he could and now the government was going +to take Hero away from him just because he couldn't get--_couldn't_ +get--that other seventy cents. + +Stubby's mother didn't hear her son crying that night. That was +because Stubby was successful in holding the pillow over his head. + +The next morning he looked in one of the papers he was carrying to +see what it said about anarchists. Sure enough, some place way off +somewhere, the anarchists had shot somebody that was trying to +enforce the laws of the land. The laws of the land--that didn't +_care_. + +That afternoon as Stubby tramped around looking for jobs he saw a +good many boys playing with dogs. None of them seemed to be worrying +about whether their dogs had checks. To Stubby's hot little brain +and sore little heart came the thought that they didn't love their +dogs any more than he loved Hero, either. But the government didn't +care whether he loved Hero or not! Pooh!--what was that to the +government? All it cared about was getting the money. He stood for a +long time watching a boy giving his dog a bath. The dog was trying +to get away and the boy and another boy were having lots of fun +about it. All of a sudden Stubby turned and ran away--ran down an +alley, ran through a number of alleys, just kept on running, blinded +by the tears. + +And that night, in the middle of the night, that something in his +head going round and round, getting hotter and hotter, he decided +that the only thing for him to do was to shoot the policeman who +came to take Hero away on the morning of August first--that would be +day after to-morrow. + +All night long policemen with revolvers stood around his bed. When +his mother called him at half-past four he was shaking so he could +scarcely get into his clothes. + +On his way home from his route Stubby had to pass a police-station. +He went on the other side of the street and stood there looking +across. One of the policemen was playing with a dog! + +Suddenly he wanted to rush over and throw himself down at that +policeman's feet--sob out the story--ask him to please, +_please_ wait till he could get that other seventy cents. + +But just then the policeman got up and went in the station, and +Stubby was afraid to go in the police-station. + +That policeman complicated things for Stubby. Before that it had +been quite simple. The policeman would come to enforce the law of +the land; but he did not believe in the law of the land, so he would +just kill the policeman. But it seemed a policeman wasn't just a +person who enforced the laws of the land. He was also a person who +played with a dog. + +After a whole day of walking around thinking about it--his eyes +burning, his heart pounding--he decided that the thing to do was to +warn the policeman by writing a letter. He did not know whether real +anarchists warned them or not, but Stubby couldn't get reconciled to +the idea of killing a person without telling him you were going to +do it. It seemed that even a policeman should be told--especially a +policeman who played with a dog. + +The following letter was pencilled by a shaking hand, late that +afternoon. It was written upon a barrel in the Lynch wood-shed, on a +piece of wrapping paper, a bristly little head bending over it: + +To the Policeman who comes to take my dog 'cause I ain't got the two +fifty--'cause I tried but could only get one eighty--'cause a man +was off his nut and didn't pay me what I earned-- + +This is to tell you I am an anarchist and do not believe in the +government or the law and the order and will shoot you when you +come. I wouldn't a been an anarchist if I could a got the money and +I tried to get it but I couldn't get it--not enough. I don't think +the government had ought to take things you like like I like Hero so +I am against the government. + +Thought I would tell you first. + +Yours truly, + +F. LYNCH. + +I don't see how I can shoot you 'cause where would I get the +revolver. So I will have to do it with the butcher knife. Folks are +sometimes killed that way 'cause my father read it in the paper. + +If you wanted to take the one eighty and leave Hero till I can get +the seventy I will not do anything to you and would be very much +obliged. + +1113 Willow street. + +The letter was properly addressed and sealed--not for nothing had +Stubby's teacher given those instructions in the art of letter +writing. The stamp he paid for out of the dime the man gave him to +get a soda with--and forget his troubles. + +Now Bill O'Brien was on the desk at the police-station and Miss +Murphy of the Herald stood in with Bill. That was how it came about +that the next morning a fat policeman, an eager-looking girl and a +young fellow with a kodak descended into the hollow to 1113 Willow +street. + +A little boy peeped around the corner of the house--such a +wild-looking little boy--hair all standing up and eyes glittering. A +yellow dog ran out and barked. The boy darted out and grabbed the +dog in his arms and in that moment the girl called to the man with +the black box: "Right now! Quick! Get him!" + +They were getting ready to shoot Hero! That box was the way the +police did it! He must--oh, he _must--must_ ... Boy and dog +sank to the ground--but just the same the boy was shielding the dog! + +When Stubby had pulled himself together the policeman was holding +Hero. He said that Hero was certainly a fine dog--he had a dog a +good deal like him at home. And Miss Murphy--she was choking back +sobs herself--knew how he could earn the seventy cents that +afternoon. + +In such wise do a good anarchist and a good story go down under the +same blow. Some of those sobs Miss Murphy choked back got into what +she wrote about Stubby and his yellow dog and the next day citizens +with no sense of the dramatic sent money enough to check Hero +through life. + +At first Stubby's father said he had a good mind to lick him. But +something in the quality of Miss Murphy's journalism left a hazy +feeling of there being something remarkable about his son. He +confided to his good wife that it wouldn't surprise him much if +Stubby was some day President. Somebody had to be President, said +he, and he had noticed it was generally those who in their youthful +days did things that made lively reading in the newspapers. + + + + +XIII + +AT TWILIGHT + + +A breeze from the May world without blew through the class-room, and +as it lifted his papers he had a curious sense of freshness and +mustiness meeting. He looked at the group of students before him, +half smiling at the way the breath of spring was teasing the hair of +the girls sitting by the window. Anna Lawrence was trying to pin +hers back again, but May would have none of such decorum, and only +waited long enough for her to finish her work before joyously +undoing it. She caught the laughing, admiring eyes of a boy sitting +across from her and sought to conceal her pleasure in her +unmanageable wealth of hair by a wry little face, and then the eyes +of both strayed out to the trees that had scented that breeze for +them, looking with frank longing at the campus which stretched +before them in all its May glory that sunny afternoon. He remembered +having met this boy and girl strolling in the twilight the evening +before, and as a buoyant breeze that instant swept his own face he +had a sudden, irrelevant consciousness of being seventy-three years +old. + +Other eyes were straying to the trees and birds and lilacs of that +world from which the class-room was for the hour shutting them out. +He was used to it--that straying of young eyes in the spring. For +more than forty years he had sat at that desk and talked to young +men and women about philosophy, and in those forty years there had +always been straying eyes in May. The children of some of those boys +and girls had in time come to him, and now there were other children +who, before many years went by, might be sitting upon those benches, +listening to lectures upon what men had thought about life, while +their eyes strayed out where life called. So it went on--May, +perhaps, the philosopher triumphant. + +As, with a considerable effort--for the languor of spring, or some +other languor, was upon him too--he brought himself back to the +papers they had handed in, he found himself thinking of those first +boys and girls, now men and women, and parents of other boys and +girls. He hoped that philosophy had, after all, done something more +than shut them out from May. He had always tried, not so much to +instruct them in what men had thought, as to teach them to think, +and perhaps now, when May had become a time for them to watch the +straying of other eyes, they were the less desolate because of the +habits he had helped them to form. He wanted to think that he had +done something more than hold them prisoners. + +There was a sadness to-day in his sympathy. He was tired. It was +hard to go back to what he had been saying about the different +things the world's philosophers had believed about the immortality +of the soul. So, as often when his feeling for his thought dragged, +he turned to Gretta Loring. She seldom failed to bring a revival of +interest--a freshening. She was his favourite student. He did not +believe that in all the years there had been any student who had not +only pleased, but helped him as she did. + +He had taught her father and mother. And now there was Gretta, +clear-eyed and steady of gaze, asking more of life than either of +them had asked; asking, not only May, but what May meant. For Gretta +there need be no duality. She was one of those rare ones for whom +the meaning of life opened new springs to the joy of life, for whom +life intensified with the understanding of it. He never said a thing +that gratified him as reaching toward the things not easy to say but +that he would find Gretta's face illumined--and always that eager +little leaning ahead for more. + +She had that look of waiting now, but to-day it seemed less an +expectant than a troubled look. She wanted him to go on with what he +had been saying about the immortality of the soul. But it was not so +much a demand upon him--he had come to rely upon those demands, as +it was--he had an odd, altogether absurd sense of its being a fear +for him. She looked uncomfortable, fretted; and suddenly he was +startled to see her searching eyes blurred by something that must be +tears. + +She turned away, and for just a minute it seemed to leave him alone +and helpless. He rubbed his forehead with his hand. It felt hot. It +got that way sometimes lately when he was tired. And the close of +that hour often found him tired. + +He believed he knew what she wanted. She would have him declare his +own belief. In the youthful flush of her modernism she was impatient +with that fumbling around with what other men had thought. Despising +the muddled thinking of some of her classmates, she would have him +put it right to them with "As for yourself--" + +He tried to formulate what he would care to say. But, perhaps just +because he was too tired to say it right, the life the robin in the +nearest tree was that moment celebrating in song seemed more +important than anything he had to say about his own feeling toward +the things men had thought about the human soul. + +It was ten minutes before closing time, but suddenly he turned to +his class with: "Go out-of-doors and think about it. This is no day +to sit within and talk of philosophy. What men have thought about +life in the past is less important than what you feel about it +to-day." He paused, then added, he could not have said why, "And +don't let the shadow of either belief or unbelief fall across the +days that are here for you now." Again he stopped, then surprised +himself by ending, "Philosophy should quicken life, not deaden it." + +They were not slow in going, their astonishment in his wanting them +to go quickly engulfed in their pleasure in doing so. It was only +Gretta who lingered a moment, seeming too held by his manner in +sending her out into the sunshine to care about going there. He +thought she was going to come to the desk and speak to him. He was +sure she wanted to. But at the last she went hastily, and he +thought, just before she turned her face away, that it was a tear he +saw on her lashes. + +Strange! Was she unhappy, she through whom life surged so richly? +And yet was it not true, that where it gave much it exacted much? +Feeling much, and understanding what she felt, and feeling for what +she understood--must she also suffer much? Must one always pay? + +He sighed, and began gathering together his papers. Thoughts about +life tired him to-day. + +On the steps he paused, unreasonably enough a little saddened as he +watched some of them beginning a tennis game. Certainly they were +losing no time--eager to let go thoughts about life for its +pleasures, very few of them awake to that rich life he had tried to +make them ready for. He drooped still more wearily at the thought +that perhaps the most real gift he had for them was that unexpected +ten minutes. + +Remembering a book he must have from the library, he turned back. He +went to the alcove where the works on philosophy were to be found, +and was reaching up for the volume he wanted, when a sentence from a +lowly murmured conversation in the next aisle came to him across the +stack of books. + +"That's all very well; we know, of course, that he doesn't believe, +but what will he do when it comes to _himself?_" + +It arrested him, coming as it did from one of the girls who had just +left his class-room. He stood there motionless, his hand still +reaching up for the book. + +"Do? Why, face it, of course. Face it as squarely as he's faced +every other fact of life." + +That was Gretta, and though, mindful of the library mandate for +silence, her tone was low, it was vibrant with a fine scorn. + +"Well," said the first speaker, "I guess he'll have to face it +before very long." + +That was not answered; there was a movement on the other side of the +barricade of books--it might have been that Gretta had turned away. +His hand dropped down from the high shelf. He was leaning against +the books. + +"Haven't you noticed, Gretta, how he's losing his grip?" + +At that his head went up sharply; he stood altogether tense as he +waited for Gretta to set the other girl right--Gretta, so +sure-seeing, so much wiser and truer than the rest of them. Gretta +would _laugh!_ + +But she did not laugh. And what his strained ear caught at last +was--not her scornful denial, but a little gasp of breath suggesting +a sob. + +"_Noticed_ it? Why it breaks my heart!" + +He stared at the books through which her low, passionate voice had +carried. Then he sank to the chair that fortunately was beside him. +Power for standing had gone from him. + +"Father says--father's on the board, you know" (it was the first +girl who spoke)--"that they don't know what to do about it. It's not +justice to the school to let him begin another year. These things +are arranged with less embarrassment in the big schools, where a man +begins emeritus at a certain time. Though of course they'll pension +him--he's done a lot for the school." + +He thanked Gretta for her little laugh of disdain. The memory of it +was more comforting--more satisfying--than any attempt to put it +into words could have been. + +He heard them move away, their skirts brushing the book-stacks in +passing. A little later he saw them out in the sunshine on the +campus. Gretta joined one of the boys for a game of tennis. +Motionless, he sat looking out at her. She looked so very young as +she played. + +For an hour he remained at the table in the alcove where he had +overheard what his students had to say of him. And when the hour had +gone by he took up the pen which was there upon the study table and +wrote his resignation to the secretary of the board of trustees. It +was very brief--simply that he felt the time had come when a younger +man could do more for the school than he, and that he should like +his resignation to take effect at the close of the present school +year. He had an envelope, and sealed and stamped the letter--ready +to drop in the box in front of the building as he left. He had +always served the school as best he could; he lost no time now, once +convinced, in rendering to it the last service he could offer +it--that of making way for the younger man. + +Looking things squarely in the face, and it was the habit of a +lifetime to look things squarely in the face, he had not been long +in seeing that they were right. Things tired him now as they had not +once tired him. He had less zest at the beginning of the hour, more +relief at the close of it. He seemed stupid in not having seen it +for himself, but possibly many people were a little stupid in seeing +that their own time was over. Of course he had thought, in a vague +way, that his working time couldn't be much longer, but it seemed +part of the way human beings managed with themselves that things in +even the very near future kept the remoteness of future things. + +Now he understood Gretta's troubled look and her tears. He knew how +those fine nerves of hers must have suffered, how her own mind had +wanted to leap to the aid of his, how her own strength must have +tormented her in not being able to reach his flagging powers. It +seemed part of the whole hardness of life that she who would care +the most would be the one to see it most understandingly. + +What he was trying to do was to see it all very simply, in +matter-of-fact fashion, that there might be no bitterness and the +least of tragedy. It was nothing unique in human history he was +facing. One did one's work; then, when through, one stopped. He +tried to feel that it was as simple as it sounded, but he wondered +if back of many of those brief letters of resignation that came at +quitting-time there was the hurt, the desolation, that there was no +use denying to himself was back of his. + +He hoped that most men had more to turn to. Most men of +seventy-three had grandchildren. That would help, surrounding one +with a feeling of the naturalness of it all. But that school had +been his only child. And he had loved it with the tenderness one +gives a child. That in him which would have gone to the child had +gone to the school. + +The woman whom he loved had not loved him; he had never married. His +life had been called lonely; but lonely though it undeniably had +been, the life he won from books and work and thinking had kept the +chill from his heart. He had the gift of drawing life from all +contact with life. Working with youth, he kept that feeling for +youth that does for the life within what sunshine and fresh air do +for the room in which one dwells. + +It was now that the loneliness that blights seemed waiting for +him.... Life _used_ one--and that in the ugly, not the noble sense +of being used. Stripped of the fine fancies men wove around it, what +was it beyond just a matter of being sucked dry and then thrown +aside? Why not admit that, and then face it? And the abundance with +which one might have given--the joy in the giving--had no bearing +upon the fact that it came at last to that question of getting one +out of the way. It was no one's unkindness; it was just that life +was like that. Indeed, the bitterness festered around the thought +that it _was_ life itself--the way of life--not the brutality +of any particular people. "They'll pension him--he's done a lot for +the school." Even the grateful memory of Gretta's tremulous, +scoffing little laugh for the way it fell short could not follow to +the deep place that had been hurt. + +Getting himself in hand again, and trying to face this as simply and +honestly as he had sought to face the other, he knew that it was +true he had done a great deal for the school. He did not believe it +too much to say he had done more for it than any other man. +Certainly more than any other man he had given it what place it had +with men who thought. He had come to it in his early manhood, and at +a time when the school was in its infancy--just a crude, struggling +little Western college. Gretta Loring's grandfather had been one of +its founders--founding it in revolt against the cramping +sectarianism of another college. He had gloried in the spirit which +gave it birth, and it was he who, through the encroachings of +problems of administration and the ensnarements and entanglements of +practicality, had fought to keep unattached and unfettered that +spirit of freedom in the service of truth. + +His own voice had been heard and recognised, and a number of times +during the years calls had come from more important institutions, +but he had not cared to go. For year by year there deepened that +personal love for the little college to which he had given the +youthful ardour of his own intellectual passion. All his life's +habits were one with it. His days seemed beaten into the path that +cut across the campus. The vines that season after season went a +little higher on the wall out there indicated his strivings by their +own, and the generation that had worn down even the stones of those +front steps had furrowed his forehead and stooped his shoulders. He +had grown old along with it! His days were twined around it. It was +the place of his efforts and satisfactions (joys perhaps he should +not call them), of his falterings and his hopes. He loved it because +he had given himself to it; loved it because he had helped to bring +it up. On the shelves all around him were books which it had been +his pleasure--because during some of those hard years they were to +be had in no other way--to order himself and pay for from his own +almost ludicrously meagre salary. He remembered the excitement there +always was in getting them fresh from the publisher and bringing +them over there in his arms; the satisfaction in coming in next day +and finding them on the shelves. Such had been his dissipations, his +indulgences of self. Many things came back to him as he sat there +going back over busy years, the works on philosophy looking down +upon him, the shadows of that spring afternoon gathering around him. +He looked like a very old man indeed as he at last reached out for +the letter he had written to the trustees, relieving them of their +embarrassment. + +Twilight had come on. On the front steps he paused and looked around +the campus. It was growing dark in that lingering way it has in the +spring--daylight creeping away under protest, night coming gently, +as if it knew that the world having been so pleasant, day would be +loath to go. The boys and girls were going back and forth upon the +campus and the streets. They could not bear to go within. For more +than forty years it had been like that. It would be like that for +many times forty years--indeed, until the end of the world, for it +would be the end of the world when it was not like that. He was glad +that they were out in the twilight, not indoors trying to gain from +books something of the meaning of life. That course had its +satisfactions along the way, but it was surely no port of peace to +which it bore one at the last. + +He shrunk from going home. There were so many readjustments he must +make, once home. So, lingering, he saw that off among the trees a +girl was sitting alone. She threw back her head in a certain way +just then, and he knew by the gesture that it was Gretta Loring. He +wondered what she was thinking about. What did one who thought think +about--over there on the other side of life? Youth and age looked at +life from opposite sides. Then they could not see it alike, for what +one saw in life seemed to depend so entirely upon how the light was +falling from where one stood. + +He could not have said just what it was made him cross the campus +toward her. Part of it was the desire for human sympathy--one thing, +at least, which age did not deaden. But that was not the whole of +it, nor the deepest thing in it. It was an urge of the spirit to +find and keep for itself a place where the light was falling +backward upon life. + +She was quiet in her greeting, and gentle. Her cheeks were still +flushed, her hair tumbled from her game, but her eyes were +thoughtful and, he thought, sad. He felt that the sadness was +because of him; of him and the things of which he made her think. He +knew of her affection for him, the warmth there was in her +admiration of the things for which he had fought. He had discovered +that it hurt her now that others should be seeing and not he, pained +her to watch so sorry a thing as his falling below himself, wounded +both pride and heart that men whom she would doubtless say had never +appreciated him were whispering among themselves about how to get +rid of him. Why, the poor child might even be tormenting herself +with the idea she ought to tell him! + +That was why he told her. He pointed to the address on the envelope, +saying: "That carries my resignation, Gretta." + +Her start and the tears which rushed to her eyes told him he was +right about her feeling. She did not seem able to say anything. Her +chin was trembling. + +"I see that the time has come," he said, "when a younger man can do +more for the school than I can hope to do for it." + +Still she said nothing at all, but her eyes were deepening and she +had that very steadfast, almost inspired look that had so many times +quickened him in the class-room. + +She was not going to deny it! She was not going to pretend! + +After the first feeling of not having got something needed he rose +to her high ground--ground she had taken it for granted he would +take. + +"And will you believe it, Gretta," he said, rising to that ground +and there asking, not for the sympathy that bends down, but for a +hand in passing, "there comes a hard hour when first one feels the +time has come to step aside and be replaced by that younger man?" + +She nodded. "It must be," she said, simply; "it must be very much +harder than any of us can know till we come to it." + +She brought him a sense of his advantage in experience--his riches. +To be sure, there was that. + +And he was oddly comforted by the honesty in her which could not +stoop to dishonest comforting. In what superficially might seem her +failure there was a very real victory for them both. And there was +nothing of coldness in her reserve! There was the fulness of +understanding, and of valuing the moments too highly for anything +there was to be said about it. There was a great spiritual dignity, +a nobility, in the way she was looking at him. It called upon the +whole of his own spiritual dignity. It was her old demand upon him, +but this time the tears through which her eyes shone were tears of +pride in fulfilment, not of sorrowing for failure. + +Suddenly he felt that his life had not been spent in vain, that the +lives of all those men of his day who had fought the good fight for +intellectual honesty--spiritual dignity--had not been spent in vain +if they were leaving upon the earth even a few who were like the +girl beside them. + +It turned him from himself to her. She was what counted--for she was +what remained. And he remained in just the measure that he remained +through her; counted in so far as he counted for her. It was as if +he had been facing in the wrong direction and now a kindly hand had +turned him around. It was not in looking back there he would find +himself. He was not back there to be found. Only so much of him +lived as had been able to wing itself ahead--on in the direction she +was moving. + +It did not particularly surprise him that when she at last spoke it +was to voice a shade of that same feeling. "I was thinking," she +began, "of that younger man. Of what he must mean to the man who +gives way to him." + +She was feeling her way as she went--groping among the many dim +things that were there. He had always liked to watch her face when +she was thinking her way step by step. + +"I think you used a word wrongly a minute ago," she said, with a +smile. "You spoke of being replaced. But that isn't it. A man like +you isn't replaced; he's"--she got it after a minute and came forth +with it triumphantly--"fulfilled!" + +Her face was shining as she turned to him after that. "Don't you +see? He's there waiting to take your place because you got him +ready. Why, you made that younger man! Your whole life has been a +getting ready for him. He can do his work be cause you first did +yours. Of course he can go farther than you can! Wouldn't it be a +sorry commentary on you if he couldn't?" + +Her voice throbbed warmly upon that last, and during the pause the +light it had brought still played upon her face. "We were talking in +class about immortality," she went on, more slowly. "There's one +form of immortality I like to think about. It's that all those who +from the very first have given anything to the world are living in +the world to-day." There was a rush of tears to her eyes and of +affection to her voice as she finished, very low: "You'll never die. +You've deepened the consciousness of life too much for that." + +They sat there as twilight drew near to night, the old man and the +young girl, silent. The laughter of boys and girls and the +good-night calls of the birds were all around them. The fragrance of +life was around them. It was one of those silences to which come +impressions, faiths, longings, not yet born as thoughts. + +Something in the quality of that silence brought the rescuing sense +of its having been good to have lived and done one's part--that +sense which, from places of desolation and over ways rough and steep +and dark, can find its way to the meadows of serenity. + + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Lifted Masks, by Susan Glaspell + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFTED MASKS *** + +This file should be named masks10.txt or masks10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, masks11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, masks10a.txt + +Produced by Suzanne L. 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