diff options
| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:29:41 -0700 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:29:41 -0700 |
| commit | 1535671b640415968eb19a9c07d5be320142cd4c (patch) | |
| tree | 5bb627c73e500fcc438c23a95e35e5eeb7e46bb1 /old | |
Diffstat (limited to 'old')
| -rw-r--r-- | old/7443-h.htm.2021-01-26 | 13642 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/8wmph10.zip | bin | 0 -> 227683 bytes |
2 files changed, 13642 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/old/7443-h.htm.2021-01-26 b/old/7443-h.htm.2021-01-26 new file mode 100644 index 0000000..afbc294 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/7443-h.htm.2021-01-26 @@ -0,0 +1,13642 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> + +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> + <head> + <title> + Windy Mcpherson's Son, by Sherwood Anderson + </title> + <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + + body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} + .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } + blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} + .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} + div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } + div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } + .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} + .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} + .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal; + margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%; + text-align: right;} + .side { float: right; font-size: 75%; width: 25%; padding-left: 0.8em; + border-left: dashed thin; margin-left: 0.8em; text-align: left; + text-indent: 0; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; + font-weight: bold; color: black; background: #eeeeee; border: solid 1px;} + pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} + +</style> + </head> + <body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Windy McPherson's Son, by Sherwood Anderson + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Windy McPherson's Son + +Author: Sherwood Anderson + + +Release Date: February, 2005 [EBook #7443] +This file was first posted on April 30, 2003 +Last Updated: October 31, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WINDY MCPHERSON'S SON *** + + + + +Text file produced by Anne Soulard, Eric Eldred, John R. Bilderback, +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + +HTML file produced by David Widger + + + + +</pre> + + <div style="height: 8em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h1> + WINDY MCPHERSON’S SON + </h1> + <h2> + By Sherwood Anderson + </h2> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h4> + To The Living Men And Women Of My Own Middle Western Home Town<br /> This + Book Is Dedicated + </h4> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + <b>CONTENTS</b> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> <b>WINDY MCPHERSON’S SON</b> </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> <b>BOOK I</b> </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0011"> <b>BOOK II</b> </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER I </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER II </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER III </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER IV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER V </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER VI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER VII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER VIII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER IX </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0021"> <b>BOOK III</b> </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER I </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER II </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0020"> CHAPTER III </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0021"> CHAPTER IV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0022"> CHAPTER V </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0023"> CHAPTER VI </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0028"> <b>BOOK IV</b> </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0024"> CHAPTER I </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0025"> CHAPTER II </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h1> + WINDY MCPHERSON’S SON + </h1> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + BOOK I + </h2> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER I + </h2> + <p> + At the beginning of the long twilight of a summer evening, Sam McPherson, + a tall big-boned boy of thirteen, with brown hair, black eyes, and an + amusing little habit of tilting his chin in the air as he walked, came + upon the station platform of the little corn-shipping town of Caxton in + Iowa. It was a board platform, and the boy walked cautiously, lifting his + bare feet and putting them down with extreme deliberateness on the hot, + dry, cracked planks. Under one arm he carried a bundle of newspapers. A + long black cigar was in his hand. + </p> + <p> + In front of the station he stopped; and Jerry Donlin, the baggage-man, + seeing the cigar in his hand, laughed, and slowly drew the side of his + face up into a laboured wink. + </p> + <p> + “What is the game to-night, Sam?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + Sam stepped to the baggage-room door, handed him the cigar, and began + giving directions, pointing into the baggage-room, intent and + business-like in the face of the Irishman’s laughter. Then, turning, he + walked across the station platform to the main street of the town, his + eyes bent on the ends of his fingers on which he was making computations + with his thumb. Jerry looked after him, grinning so that his red gums made + a splash of colour on his bearded face. A gleam of paternal pride lit his + eyes and he shook his head and muttered admiringly. Then, lighting the + cigar, he went down the platform to where a wrapped bundle of newspapers + lay against the building, under the window of the telegraph office, and + taking it in his arm disappeared, still grinning, into the baggage-room. + </p> + <p> + Sam McPherson walked down Main Street, past the shoe store, the bakery, + and the candy store kept by Penny Hughes, toward a group lounging at the + front of Geiger’s drug store. Before the door of the shoe store he paused + a moment, and taking a small note-book from his pocket ran his finger down + the pages, then shaking his head continued on his way, again absorbed in + doing sums on his fingers. + </p> + <p> + Suddenly, from among the men by the drug store, a roaring song broke the + evening quiet of the street, and a voice, huge and guttural, brought a + smile to the boy’s lips: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “He washed the windows and he swept the floor, + And he polished up the handle of the big front door. + He polished that handle so carefullee, + That now he’s the ruler of the queen’s navee.” + </pre> + <p> + The singer, a short man with grotesquely wide shoulders, wore a long + flowing moustache, and a black coat, covered with dust, that reached to + his knees. He held a smoking briar pipe in his hand, and with it beat time + for a row of men sitting on a long stone under the store window and + pounding on the sidewalk with their heels to make a chorus for the song. + Sam’s smile broadened into a grin as he looked at the singer, Freedom + Smith, a buyer of butter and eggs, and past him at John Telfer, the + orator, the dandy, the only man in town, except Mike McCarthy, who kept + his trousers creased. Among all the men of Caxton, Sam most admired John + Telfer and in his admiration had struck upon the town’s high light. Telfer + loved good clothes and wore them with an air, and never allowed Caxton to + see him shabbily or indifferently dressed, laughingly declaring that it + was his mission in life to give tone to the town. + </p> + <p> + John Telfer had a small income left him by his father, once a banker in + the town, and in his youth he had gone to New York to study art, and later + to Paris; but lacking ability or industry to get on had come back to + Caxton where he had married Eleanor Millis, a prosperous milliner. They + were the most successful married pair in Caxton, and after years of life + together they were still in love; were never indifferent to each other, + and never quarrelled; Telfer treated his wife with as much consideration + and respect as though she were a sweetheart, or a guest in his house, and + she, unlike most of the wives in Caxton, never ventured to question his + goings and comings, but left him free to live his own life in his own way + while she attended to the millinery business. + </p> + <p> + At the age of forty-five John Telfer was a tall, slender, fine looking + man, with black hair and a little black pointed beard, and with something + lazy and care-free in his every movement and impulse. Dressed in white + flannels, with white shoes, a jaunty cap upon his head, eyeglasses hanging + from a gold chain, and a cane lightly swinging from his hand, he made a + figure that might have passed unnoticed on the promenade before some + fashionable summer hotel, but that seemed a breach of the laws of nature + when seen on the streets of a corn-shipping town in Iowa. And Telfer was + aware of the extraordinary figure he cut; it was a part of his programme + of life. Now as Sam approached he laid a hand on Freedom Smith’s shoulder + to check the song, and, with his eyes twinkling with good-humour, began + thrusting with his cane at the boy’s feet. + </p> + <p> + “He will never be ruler of the queen’s navee,” he declared, laughing and + following the dancing boy about in a wide circle. “He is a little mole + that works underground intent upon worms. The trick he has of tilting up + his nose is only his way of smelling out stray pennies. I have it from + Banker Walker that he brings a basket of them into the bank every day. One + of these days he will buy the town and put it into his vest pocket.” + </p> + <p> + Circling about on the stone sidewalk and dancing to escape the flying + cane, Sam dodged under the arm of Valmore, a huge old blacksmith with + shaggy clumps of hair on the back of his hands, and sought refuge between + him and Freedom Smith. The blacksmith’s hand stole out and lay upon the + boy’s shoulder. Telfer, his legs spread apart and the cane hooked upon his + arm, began rolling a cigarette; Geiger, a yellow skinned man with fat + cheeks and with hands clasped over his round paunch, smoked a black cigar, + and as he sent each puff into the air, grunted forth his satisfaction with + life. He was wishing that Telfer, Freedom Smith, and Valmore, instead of + moving on to their nightly nest at the back of Wildman’s grocery, would + come into his place for the evening. He thought he would like to have the + three of them there night after night discussing the doings of the world. + </p> + <p> + Quiet once more settled down upon the sleepy street. Over Sam’s shoulder, + Valmore and Freedom Smith talked of the coming corn crop and the growth + and prosperity of the country. + </p> + <p> + “Times are getting better about here, but the wild things are almost + gone,” said Freedom, who in the winter bought hides and pelts. + </p> + <p> + The men sitting on the stone beneath the window watched with idle interest + Telfer’s labours with paper and tobacco. “Young Henry Kerns has got + married,” observed one of them, striving to make talk. “He has married a + girl from over Parkertown way. She gives lessons in painting—china + painting—kind of an artist, you know.” + </p> + <p> + An ejaculation of disgust broke from Telfer: his fingers trembled and the + tobacco that was to have been the foundation of his evening smoke rained + on the sidewalk. + </p> + <p> + “An artist!” he exclaimed, his voice tense with excitement. “Who said + artist? Who called her that?” He glared fiercely about. “Let us have an + end to this blatant misuse of fine old words. To say of one that he is an + artist is to touch the peak of praise.” + </p> + <p> + Throwing his cigarette paper after the scattered tobacco he thrust one + hand into his trouser pocket. With the other he held the cane, emphasising + his points by ringing taps upon the pavement. Geiger, taking the cigar + between his fingers, listened with open mouth to the outburst that + followed. Valmore and Freedom Smith dropped their conversation and with + broad smiles upon their faces gave attention, and Sam McPherson, his eyes + round with wonder and admiration, felt again the thrill that always ran + through him under the drum beats of Telfer’s eloquence. + </p> + <p> + “An artist is one who hungers and thirsts after perfection, not one who + dabs flowers upon plates to choke the gullets of diners,” declared Telfer, + setting himself for one of the long speeches with which he loved to + astonish the men of Caxton, and glaring down at those seated upon the + stone. “It is the artist who, among all men, has the divine audacity. Does + he not hurl himself into a battle in which is engaged against him all of + the accumulative genius of the world?” + </p> + <p> + Pausing, he looked about for an opponent upon whom he might pour the flood + of his eloquence, but on all sides smiles greeted him. Undaunted, he + rushed again to the charge. + </p> + <p> + “A business man—what is he?” he demanded. “He succeeds by outwitting + the little minds with which he comes in contact. A scientist is of more + account—he pits his brains against the dull unresponsiveness of + inanimate matter and a hundredweight of black iron he makes do the work of + a hundred housewives. But an artist tests his brains against the greatest + brains of all times; he stands upon the peak of life and hurls himself + against the world. A girl from Parkertown who paints flowers upon dishes + to be called an artist—ugh! Let me spew forth the thought! Let me + cleanse my mouth! A man should have a prayer upon his lips who utters the + word artist!” + </p> + <p> + “Well, we can’t all be artists and the woman can paint flowers upon dishes + for all I care,” spoke up Valmore, laughing good naturedly. “We can’t all + paint pictures and write books.” + </p> + <p> + “We do not want to be artists—we do not dare to be,” shouted Telfer, + whirling and shaking his cane at Valmore. “You have a misunderstanding of + the word.” + </p> + <p> + He straightened his shoulders and threw out his chest and the boy standing + beside the blacksmith threw up his chin, unconsciously imitating the + swagger of the man. + </p> + <p> + “I do not paint pictures; I do not write books; yet am I an artist,” + declared Telfer, proudly. “I am an artist practising the most difficult of + all arts—the art of living. Here in this western village I stand and + fling my challenge to the world. ‘On the lip of not the greatest of you,’ + I cry, ‘has life been more sweet.’” + </p> + <p> + He turned from Valmore to the men upon the stone. + </p> + <p> + “Make a study of my life,” he commanded. “It will be a revelation to you. + With a smile I greet the morning; I swagger in the noontime; and in the + evening, like Socrates of old, I gather a little group of you benighted + villagers about me and toss wisdom into your teeth, striving to teach you + judgment in the use of great words.” + </p> + <p> + “You talk an almighty lot about yourself, John,” grumbled Freedom Smith, + taking his pipe from his mouth. + </p> + <p> + “The subject is complex, it is varied, it is full of charm,” Telfer + answered, laughing. + </p> + <p> + Taking a fresh supply of tobacco and paper from his pocket, he rolled and + lighted a cigarette. His fingers no longer trembled. Flourishing his cane + he threw back his head and blew smoke into the air. He thought that in + spite of the roar of laughter that had greeted Freedom Smith’s comment, he + had vindicated the honour of art and the thought made him happy. + </p> + <p> + To the newsboy, who had been leaning against the storefront lost in + admiration, it seemed that he had caught in Telfer’s talk an echo of the + kind of talk that must go on among men in the big outside world. Had not + this Telfer travelled far? Had he not lived in New York and Paris? Without + understanding the sense of what had been said, Sam felt that it must be + something big and conclusive. When from the distance there came the shriek + of a locomotive, he stood unmoved, trying to comprehend the meaning of + Telfer’s outburst over the lounger’s simple statement. + </p> + <p> + “There’s the seven forty-five,” cried Telfer, sharply. “Is the war between + you and Fatty at an end? Are we going to lose our evening’s diversion? Has + Fatty bluffed you out or are you growing rich and lazy like Papa Geiger + here?” + </p> + <p> + Springing from his place beside the blacksmith and grasping the bundle of + newspapers, Sam ran down the street, Telfer, Valmore, Freedom Smith and + the loungers following more slowly. + </p> + <p> + When the evening train from Des Moines stopped at Caxton, a blue-coated + train news merchant leaped hurriedly to the platform and began looking + anxiously about. + </p> + <p> + “Hurry, Fatty,” rang out Freedom Smith’s huge voice, “Sam’s already half + through one car.” + </p> + <p> + The young man called “Fatty” ran up and down the station platform. “Where + is that bundle of Omaha papers, you Irish loafer?” he shouted, shaking his + fist at Jerry Donlin who stood upon a truck at the front of the train, + up-ending trunks into the baggage car. + </p> + <p> + Jerry paused with a trunk dangling in mid-air. “In the baggage-room, of + course. Hurry, man. Do you want the kid to work the whole train?” + </p> + <p> + An air of something impending hung over the idlers upon the platform, the + train crew, and even the travelling men who began climbing off the train. + The engineer thrust his head out of the cab; the conductor, a dignified + looking man with a grey moustache, threw back his head and shook with + mirth; a young man with a suit-case in his hand and a long pipe in his + mouth ran to the door of the baggage-room, calling, “Hurry! Hurry, Fatty! + The kid is working the entire train. You won’t be able to sell a paper.” + </p> + <p> + The fat young man ran from the baggage-room to the platform and shouted + again to Jerry Donlin, who was now slowly pushing the empty truck along + the platform. From the train came a clear voice calling, “Latest Omaha + papers! Have your change ready! Fatty, the train newsboy, has fallen down + a well! Have your change ready, gentlemen!” + </p> + <p> + Jerry Donlin, followed by Fatty, again disappeared from sight. The + conductor, waving his hand, jumped upon the steps of the train. The + engineer pulled in his head and the train began to move. + </p> + <p> + The fat young man emerged from the baggage-room, swearing revenge upon the + head of Jerry Donlin. “There was no need to put it under a mail sack!” he + shouted, shaking his fist. “I’ll be even with you for this.” + </p> + <p> + Followed by the shouts of the travelling men and the laughter of the + idlers upon the platform he climbed upon the moving train and began + running from car to car. Off the last car dropped Sam McPherson, a smile + upon his lips, the bundle of newspapers gone, his pocket jingling with + coins. The evening’s entertainment for the town of Caxton was at an end. + </p> + <p> + John Telfer, standing by the side of Valmore, waved his cane in the air + and began talking. + </p> + <p> + “Beat him again, by Gad!” he exclaimed. “Bully for Sam! Who says the + spirit of the old buccaneers is dead? That boy didn’t understand what I + said about art, but he is an artist just the same!” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER II + </h2> + <p> + Windy McPherson, the father of the Caxton newsboy, Sam McPherson, had been + war touched. The civilian clothes that he wore caused an itching of the + skin. He could not forget that he had once been a sergeant in a regiment + of infantry and had commanded a company through a battle fought in ditches + along a Virginia country road. He chafed under the fact of his present + obscure position in life. Had he been able to replace his regimentals with + the robes of a judge, the felt hat of a statesman, or even with the night + stick of a village marshal life might have retained something of its + sweetness, but to have ended by becoming an obscure housepainter in a + village that lived by raising corn and by feeding that corn to red steers—ugh!—the + thought made him shudder. He looked with envy at the blue coat and the + brass buttons of the railroad agent; he tried vainly to get into the + Caxton Cornet Band; he got drunk to forget his humiliation and in the end + he fell to loud boasting and to the nursing of a belief within himself + that in truth not Lincoln nor Grant but he himself had thrown the winning + die in the great struggle. In his cups he said as much and the Caxton corn + grower, punching his neighbour in the ribs, shook with delight over the + statement. + </p> + <p> + When Sam was a twelve year old, barefooted boy upon the streets a kind of + backwash of the wave of glory that had swept over Windy McPherson in the + days of ‘61 lapped upon the shores of the Iowa village. That strange + manifestation called the A. P. A. movement brought the old soldier to a + position of prominence in the community. He founded a local branch of the + organisation; he marched at the head of a procession through the streets; + he stood on a corner and pointing a trembling forefinger to where the flag + on the schoolhouse waved beside the cross of Rome, shouted hoarsely, “See, + the cross rears itself above the flag! We shall end by being murdered in + our beds!” + </p> + <p> + But although some of the hard-headed, money-making men of Caxton joined + the movement started by the boasting old soldier and although for the + moment they vied with him in stealthy creepings through the streets to + secret meetings and in mysterious mutterings behind hands the movement + subsided as suddenly as it had begun and only left its leader more + desolate. + </p> + <p> + In the little house at the end of the street by the shores of Squirrel + Creek, Sam and his sister Kate regarded their father’s warlike pretensions + with scorn. “The butter is low, father’s army leg will ache to-night,” + they whispered to each other across the kitchen table. + </p> + <p> + Following her mother’s example, Kate, a tall slender girl of sixteen and + already a bread winner with a clerkship in Winney’s drygoods store, + remained silent under Windy’s boasting, but Sam, striving to emulate them, + did not always succeed. There was now and then a rebellious muttering that + should have warned Windy. It had once burst into an open quarrel in which + the victor of a hundred battles withdrew defeated from the field. Windy, + half-drunk, had taken an old account book from a shelf in the kitchen, a + relic of his days as a prosperous merchant when he had first come to + Caxton, and had begun reading to the little family a list of names of men + who, he claimed, had been the cause of his ruin. + </p> + <p> + “There is Tom Newman, now,” he exclaimed excitedly. “Owns a hundred acres + of good corn-growing land and won’t pay for the harness on the backs of + his horses or for the ploughs in his barn. The receipt he has from me is + forged. I could put him in prison if I chose. To beat an old soldier!—to + beat one of the boys of ‘61!—it is shameful!” + </p> + <p> + “I have heard of what you owed and what men owed you; you had none the + worst of it,” Sam protested coldly, while Kate held her breath and Jane + McPherson, at work over the ironing board in the corner, half turned and + looked silently at the man and the boy, the slightly increased pallor of + her long face the only sign that she had heard. + </p> + <p> + Windy had not pressed the quarrel. Standing for a moment in the middle of + the kitchen, holding the book in his hand, he looked from the pale silent + mother by the ironing board to the son now standing and staring at him, + and, throwing the book upon the table with a bang, fled the house. “You + don’t understand,” he had cried, “you don’t understand the heart of a + soldier.” + </p> + <p> + In a way the man was right. The two children did not understand the + blustering, pretending, inefficient old man. Having moved shoulder to + shoulder with grim, silent men to the consummation of great deeds Windy + could not get the flavour of those days out of his outlook upon life. + Walking half drunk in the darkness along the sidewalks of Caxton on the + evening of the quarrel the man became inspired. He threw back his + shoulders and walked with martial tread; he drew an imaginary sword from + its scabbard and waved it aloft; stopping, he aimed carefully at a body of + imaginary men who advanced yelling toward him across a wheatfield; he felt + that life in making him a housepainter in a farming village in Iowa and in + giving him an unappreciative son had been cruelly unfair; he wept at the + injustice of it. + </p> + <p> + The American Civil War was a thing so passionate, so inflaming, so vast, + so absorbing, it so touched to the quick the men and women of those + pregnant days that but a faint echo of it has been able to penetrate down + to our days and to our minds; no real sense of it has as yet crept into + the pages of a printed book; it yet wants its Thomas Carlyle; and in the + end we are put to the need of listening to old fellows boasting on our + village streets to get upon our cheeks the living breath of it. For four + years the men of American cities, villages and farms walked across the + smoking embers of a burning land, advancing and receding as the flame of + that universal, passionate, death-spitting thing swept down upon them or + receded toward the smoking sky-line. Is it so strange that they could not + come home and begin again peacefully painting houses or mending broken + shoes? A something in them cried out. It sent them to bluster and boast + upon the street corners. When people passing continued to think only of + their brick laying and of their shovelling of corn into cars, when the + sons of these war gods walking home at evening and hearing the vain + boastings of the fathers began to doubt even the facts of the great + struggle, a something snapped in their brains and they fell to chattering + and shouting their vain boastings to all as they looked hungrily about for + believing eyes. + </p> + <p> + When our own Thomas Carlyle comes to write of our Civil War he will make + much of our Windy McPhersons. He will see something big and pathetic in + their hungry search for auditors and in their endless war talk. He will go + filled with eager curiosity into little G. A. R. halls in the villages and + think of the men who coming there night after night, year after year, told + and re-told endlessly, monotonously, their story of battle. + </p> + <p> + Let us hope that in his fervour for the old fellows he will not fail to + treat tenderly the families of those veteran talkers; the families that + with their breakfasts and their dinners, by the fire at evening, through + fast day and feast day, at weddings and at funerals got again and again + endlessly, everlastingly this flow of war words. Let him reflect that + peaceful men in corn-growing counties do not by choice sleep among the + dogs of war nor wash their linen in the blood of their country’s foe. Let + him, in his sympathy with the talkers, remember with kindness the heroism + of the listeners. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + On a summer day Sam McPherson sat on a box before Wildman’s grocery lost + in thought. In his hand he held the little yellow account book and in this + he buried himself, striving to wipe from his consciousness a scene being + enacted before his eyes upon the street. + </p> + <p> + The realisation of the fact that his father was a confirmed liar and + braggart had for years cast a shadow over his days and the shadow had been + made blacker by the fact that in a land where the least fortunate can + laugh in the face of want he had more than once stood face to face with + poverty. He believed that the logical answer to the situation was money in + the bank and with all the ardour of his boy’s heart he strove to realise + that answer. He wanted to be a money-maker and the totals at the foot of + the pages in the soiled yellow bankbook were the milestones that marked + the progress he had already made. They told him that the daily struggles + with Fatty, the long tramps through Caxton’s streets on bleak winter + evenings, and the never-ending Saturday nights when crowds filled the + stores, the sidewalks, and the drinking places, and he worked among them + tirelessly and persistently were not without fruit. + </p> + <p> + Suddenly, above the murmur of men’s voices on the street, his father’s + voice rose loud and insistent. A block further down the street, leaning + against the door of Hunter’s jewelry store, Windy talked at the top of his + lungs, pumping his arms up and down with the air of a man making a stump + speech. + </p> + <p> + “He is making a fool of himself,” thought Sam, and returned to his + bankbook, striving in the contemplation of the totals at the foot of the + pages to shake off the dull anger that had begun to burn in his brain. + Glancing up again, he saw that Joe Wildman, son of the grocer and a boy of + his own age, had joined the group of men laughing and jeering at Windy. + The shadow on Sam’s face grew heavier. + </p> + <p> + Sam had been at Joe Wildman’s house; he knew the air of plenty and of + comfort that hung over it; the table piled high with meat and potatoes; + the group of children laughing and eating to the edge of gluttony; the + quiet, gentle father who amid the clamour and the noise did not raise his + voice, and the well-dressed, bustling, rosy-cheeked mother. As a contrast + to this scene he began to call up in his mind a picture of life in his own + home, getting a kind of perverted pleasure out of his dissatisfaction with + it. He saw the boasting, incompetent father telling his endless tales of + the Civil War and complaining of his wounds; the tall, stoop-shouldered, + silent mother with the deep lines in her long face, everlastingly at work + over her washtub among the soiled clothes; the silent, hurriedly-eaten + meals snatched from the kitchen table; and the long winter days when ice + formed upon his mother’s skirts and Windy idled about town while the + little family subsisted upon bowls of cornmeal mush everlastingly + repeated. + </p> + <p> + Now, even from where he sat, he could see that his father was half gone in + drink, and knew that he was boasting of his part in the Civil War. “He is + either doing that or telling of his aristocratic family or lying about his + birthplace,” he thought resentfully, and unable any longer to endure the + sight of what seemed to him his own degradation, he got up and went into + the grocery where a group of Caxton citizens stood talking to Wildman of a + meeting to be held that morning at the town hall. + </p> + <p> + Caxton was to have a Fourth of July celebration. The idea, born in the + heads of the few, had been taken up by the many. Rumours of it had run + through the streets late in May. It had been talked of in Geiger’s drug + store, at the back of Wildman’s grocery, and in the street before the New + Leland House. John Telfer, the town’s one man of leisure, had for weeks + been going from place to place discussing the details with prominent men. + Now a mass meeting was to be held in the hall over Geiger’s drug store and + to a man the citizens of Caxton had turned out for the meeting. The + housepainter had come down off his ladder, the clerks were locking the + doors of the stores, men went along the streets in groups bound for the + hall. As they went they shouted to each other. “The old town has woke up,” + they called. + </p> + <p> + On a corner by Hunter’s jewelry store Windy McPherson leaned against a + building and harangued the passing crowd. + </p> + <p> + “Let the old flag wave,” he shouted excitedly, “let the men of Caxton show + the true blue and rally to the old standards.” + </p> + <p> + “That’s right, Windy, expostulate with them,” shouted a wit, and a roar of + laughter drowned Windy’s reply. + </p> + <p> + Sam McPherson also went to the meeting in the hall. He came out of the + grocery store with Wildman and went along the street looking at the + sidewalk and trying not to see the drunken man talking in front of the + jewelry store. At the hall other boys stood in the stairway or ran up and + down the sidewalk talking excitedly, but Sam was a figure in the town’s + life and his right to push in among the men was not questioned. He + squirmed through the mass of legs and secured a seat in a window ledge + where he could watch the men come in and find seats. + </p> + <p> + As Caxton’s one newsboy Sam had got from his newspaper selling both a + living and a kind of standing in the town’s life. To be a newsboy or a + bootblack in a small novel-reading American town is to make a figure in + the world. Do not all of the poor newsboys in the books become great men + and is not this boy who goes among us so industriously day after day + likely to become such a figure? Is it not a duty we of the town owe to + future greatness that we push him forward? So reasoned the men of Caxton + and paid a kind of court to the boy who sat on the window ledge of the + hall while the other boys of the town waited on the sidewalk below. + </p> + <p> + John Telfer was chairman of the mass meeting. He was always chairman of + public meetings in Caxton. The industrious silent men of position in the + town envied his easy, bantering style of public address, while pretending + to treat it with scorn. “He talks too much,” they said, making a virtue of + their own inability with apt and clever words. + </p> + <p> + Telfer did not wait to be appointed chairman of the meeting, but went + forward, climbed the little raised platform at the end of the hall, and + usurped the chairmanship. He walked up and down on the platform bantering + with the crowd, answering gibes, calling to well-known men, getting and + giving keen satisfaction with his talent. When the hall was filled with + men he called the meeting to order, appointed committees and launched into + a harangue. He told of plans made to advertise the big day in other towns + and to get low railroad rates arranged for excursion parties. The + programme, he said, included a musical carnival with brass bands from + other towns, a sham battle by the military company at the fairgrounds, + horse races, speeches from the steps of the town hall, and fireworks in + the evening. “We’ll show them a live town here,” he declared, walking up + and down the platform and swinging his cane, while the crowd applauded and + shouted its approval. + </p> + <p> + When a call came for voluntary subscriptions to pay for the fun, the + audience quieted down. One or two men got up and started to go out, + grumbling that it was a waste of money. The fate of the celebration was on + the knees of the gods. + </p> + <p> + Telfer arose to the occasion. He called out the names of the departing, + and made jests at their expense so that they dropped back into their + chairs unable to face the roaring laughter of the crowd, and shouted to a + man at the back of the hall to close and bolt the door. Men began getting + up in various parts of the hall and calling out sums, Telfer repeating the + name and the amount in a loud voice to young Tom Jedrow, clerk in the + bank, who wrote them down in a book. When the amount subscribed did not + meet with his approval, he protested and the crowd backing him up forced + the increase he demanded. When a man did not rise, he shouted at him and + the man answered back an amount. + </p> + <p> + Suddenly in the hall a diversion arose. Windy McPherson emerged from the + crowd at the back of the hall and walked down the centre aisle to the + platform. He walked unsteadily straightening his shoulders and thrusting + out his chin. When he got to the front of the hall he took a roll of bills + from his pocket and threw it on the platform at the chairman’s feet. “From + one of the boys of ‘61,” he announced in a loud voice. + </p> + <p> + The crowd shouted and clapped its hands with delight as Telfer picked up + the bills and ran his finger over them. “Seventeen dollars from our hero, + the mighty McPherson,” he shouted while the bank clerk wrote the name and + the amount in the book and the crowd continued to make merry over the + title given the drunken soldier by the chairman. + </p> + <p> + The boy on the window ledge slipped to the floor and stood with burning + cheeks behind the mass of men. He knew that at home his mother was doing a + family washing for Lesley, the shoe merchant, who had given five dollars + to the Fourth-of-July fund, and the resentment he had felt on seeing his + father talking to the crowd before the jewelry store blazed up anew. + </p> + <p> + After the taking of subscriptions, men in various parts of the hall began + making suggestions for added features for the great day. To some of the + speakers the crowd listened respectfully, at others they hooted. An old + man with a grey beard told a long rambling story of a Fourth-of-July + celebration of his boyhood. When voices interrupted he protested and shook + his fist in the air, pale with indignation. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, sit down, old daddy,” shouted Freedom Smith and a murmur of applause + greeted this sensible suggestion. + </p> + <p> + Another man got up and began to talk. He had an idea. “We will have,” he + said, “a bugler mounted on a white horse who will ride through the town at + dawn blowing the reveille. At midnight he will stand on the steps of the + town hall and blow taps to end the day.” + </p> + <p> + The crowd applauded. The idea had caught their fancy and had instantly + taken a place in their minds as one of the real events of the day. + </p> + <p> + Again Windy McPherson emerged from the crowd at the back of the hall. + Raising his hand for silence he told the crowd that he was a bugler, that + he had been a regimental bugler for two years during the Civil War. He + said that he would gladly volunteer for the place. + </p> + <p> + The crowd shouted and John Telfer waved his hand. “The white horse for + you, McPherson,” he said. + </p> + <p> + Sam McPherson wriggled along the wall and out at the now unbolted door. He + was filled with astonishment at his father’s folly, and was still more + astonished at the folly of these other men in accepting his statement and + handing over the important place for the big day. He knew that his father + must have had some part in the war as he was a member of the G. A. R., but + he had no faith at all in the stories he had heard him relate of his + experiences in the war. Sometimes he caught himself wondering if there + ever had been such a war and thought that it must be a lie like everything + else in the life of Windy McPherson. For years he had wondered why some + sensible solid person like Valmore or Wildman did not rise, and in a + matter-of-fact way tell the world that no such thing as the Civil War had + ever been fought, that it was merely a figment in the minds of pompous old + men demanding unearned glory of their fellows. Now hurrying along the + street with burning cheeks, he decided that after all there must have been + such a war. He had had the same feeling about birthplaces and there could + be no doubt that people were born. He had heard his father claim as his + birthplace Kentucky, Texas, North Carolina, Louisiana and Scotland. The + thing had left a kind of defect in his mind. To the end of his life when + he heard a man tell the place of his birth he looked up suspiciously, and + a shadow of doubt crossed his mind. + </p> + <p> + From the mass meeting Sam went home to his mother and presented the case + bluntly. “The thing will have to be stopped,” he declared, standing with + blazing eyes before her washtub. “It is too public. He can’t blow a bugle; + I know he can’t. The whole town will have another laugh at our expense.” + </p> + <p> + Jane McPherson listened in silence to the boy’s outburst, then, turning, + went back to rubbing clothes, avoiding his eyes. + </p> + <p> + With his hands thrust into his trousers pocket Sam stared sullenly at the + ground. A sense of justice told him not to press the matter, but as he + walked away from the washtub and out at the kitchen door, he hoped there + would be plain talk of the matter at supper time. “The old fool!” he + protested, addressing the empty street. “He is going to make a show of + himself again.” + </p> + <p> + When Windy McPherson came home that evening, something in the eyes of the + silent wife, and the sullen face of the boy, startled him. He passed over + lightly his wife’s silence but looked closely at his son. He felt that he + faced a crisis. In the emergency he was magnificent. With a flourish, he + told of the mass meeting, and declared that the citizens of Caxton had + arisen as one man to demand that he take the responsible place as official + bugler. Then, turning, he glared across the table at his son. + </p> + <p> + Sam, openly defiant, announced that he did not believe his father capable + of blowing a bugle. + </p> + <p> + Windy roared with amazement. He rose from the table declaring in a loud + voice that the boy had wronged him; he swore that he had been for two + years bugler on the staff of a colonel, and launched into a long story of + a surprise by the enemy while his regiment lay asleep in their tents, and + of his standing in the face of a storm of bullets and blowing his comrades + to action. Putting one hand on his forehead he rocked back and forth as + though about to fall, declaring that he was striving to keep back the + tears wrenched from him by the injustice of his son’s insinuation and, + shouting so that his voice carried far down the street, he declared with + an oath that the town of Caxton should ring and echo with his bugling as + the sleeping camp had echoed with it that night in the Virginia wood. Then + dropping again into his chair, and resting his head upon his hand, he + assumed a look of patient resignation. + </p> + <p> + Windy McPherson was victorious. In the little house a great stir and + bustle of preparation arose. Putting on his white overalls and forgetting + for the time his honourable wounds the father went day after day to his + work as a housepainter. He dreamed of a new blue uniform for the great day + and in the end achieved the realisation of his dreams, not however without + material assistance from what was known in the house as “Mother’s Wash + Money.” And the boy, convinced by the story of the midnight attack in the + woods of Virginia, began against his judgment to build once more an old + dream of his father’s reformation. Boylike, the scepticism was thrown to + the winds and he entered with zeal into the plans for the great day. As he + went through the quiet residence streets delivering the late evening + papers, he threw back his head and revelled in the thought of a tall + blue-clad figure on a great white horse passing like a knight before the + gaping people. In a fervent moment he even drew money from his carefully + built-up bank account and sent it to a firm in Chicago to pay for a + shining new bugle that would complete the picture he had in his mind. And + when the evening papers were distributed he hurried home to sit on the + porch before the house discussing with his sister Kate the honours that + had alighted upon their family. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + With the coming of dawn on the great day the three McPhersons hurried hand + in hand toward Main Street. In the street, on all sides of them, they saw + people coming out of houses rubbing their eyes and buttoning their coats + as they went along the sidewalk. All of Caxton seemed abroad. + </p> + <p> + In Main Street the people were packed on the sidewalk, and massed on the + curb and in the doorways of the stores. Heads appeared at windows, flags + waved from roofs or hung from ropes stretched across the street, and a + great murmur of voices broke the silence of the dawn. + </p> + <p> + Sam’s heart beat so that he was hard put to it to keep back the tears from + his eyes. He thought with a gasp of the days of anxiety that had passed + when the new bugle had not come from the Chicago company, and in + retrospect he suffered again the horror of the days of waiting. It had + been all important. He could not blame his father for raving and shouting + about the house, he himself had felt like raving, and had put another + dollar of his savings into telegrams before the treasure was finally in + his hands. Now, the thought that it might not have come sickened him, and + a little prayer of thankfulness rose from his lips. To be sure one might + have been secured from a nearby town, but not a new shining one to go with + his father’s new blue uniform. + </p> + <p> + A cheer broke from the crowd massed along the street. Into the street rode + a tall figure seated upon a white horse. The horse was from Culvert’s + livery and the boys there had woven ribbons into its mane and tail. Windy + McPherson, sitting very straight in the saddle and looking wonderfully + striking in the new blue uniform and the broad-brimmed campaign hat, had + the air of a conqueror come to receive the homage of the town. He wore a + gold band across his chest and against his hip rested the shining bugle. + With stern eyes he looked down upon the people. + </p> + <p> + The lump in the throat of the boy hurt more and more. A great wave of + pride ran over him, submerging him. In a moment he forgot all the past + humiliations the father had brought upon his family, and understood why + his mother remained silent when he, in his blindness, had wanted to + protest against her seeming indifference. Glancing furtively up he saw a + tear lying upon her cheek and felt that he too would like to sob aloud his + pride and happiness. + </p> + <p> + Slowly and with stately stride the horse walked up the street between the + rows of silent waiting people. In front of the town hall the tall military + figure, rising in the saddle, took one haughty look at the multitude, and + then, putting the bugle to his lips, blew. + </p> + <p> + Out of the bugle came only a thin piercing shriek followed by a squawk. + Again Windy put the bugle to his lips and again the same dismal squawk was + his only reward. On his face was a look of helpless boyish astonishment. + </p> + <p> + And in a moment the people knew. It was only another of Windy McPherson’s + pretensions. He couldn’t blow a bugle at all. + </p> + <p> + A great shout of laughter rolled down the street. Men and women sat on the + curbstones and laughed until they were tired. Then, looking at the figure + upon the motionless horse, they laughed again. + </p> + <p> + Windy looked about him with troubled eyes. It is doubtful if he had ever + had a bugle to his lips until that moment, but he was filled with wonder + and astonishment that the reveille did not roll forth. He had heard the + thing a thousand times and had it clearly in his mind; with all his heart + he wanted it to roll forth, and could picture the street ringing with it + and the applause of the people; the thing, he felt, was in him, and it was + only a fatal blunder in nature that it did not come out at the flaring end + of the bugle. He was amazed at this dismal end of his great moment—he + was always amazed and helpless before facts. + </p> + <p> + The crowd began gathering about the motionless, astonished figure, + laughter continuing to send them off into something near convulsions. + Grasping the bridle of the horse, John Telfer began leading it off up the + street. Boys whooped and shouted at the rider, “Blow! Blow!” + </p> + <p> + The three McPhersons stood in a doorway leading into a shoe store. The boy + and the mother, white and speechless with humiliation, dared not look at + each other. In the flood of shame sweeping over them they stared straight + before them with hard, stony eyes. + </p> + <p> + The procession led by John Telfer at the bridle of the white horse marched + down the street. Looking up, the eyes of the laughing, shouting man met + those of the boy and a look of pain shot across his face. Dropping the + bridle he hurried away through the crowd. The procession moved on, and + watching their chance the mother and the two children crept home along + side streets, Kate weeping bitterly. Leaving them at the door Sam went + straight on down a sandy road toward a small wood. “I’ve got my lesson. + I’ve got my lesson,” he muttered over and over as he went. + </p> + <p> + At the edge of the wood he stopped and leaning on a rail fence watched + until he saw his mother come out to the pump in the back yard. She had + begun to draw water for the day’s washing. For her also the holiday was at + an end. A flood of tears ran down the boy’s cheeks, and he shook his fist + in the direction of the town. “You may laugh at that fool Windy, but you + shall never laugh at Sam McPherson,” he cried, his voice shaking with + excitement. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER III + </h2> + <p> + One evening, when he had grown so that he outtopped Windy, Sam McPherson + returned from his paper route to find his mother arrayed in her black, + church-going dress. An evangelist was at work in Caxton and she had + decided to hear him. Sam shuddered. In the house it was an understood + thing that when Jane McPherson went to church her son went with her. There + was nothing said. Jane McPherson did all things without words, always + there was nothing said. Now she stood waiting in her black dress when her + son came in at the door and he hurriedly put on his best clothes and went + with her to the brick church. + </p> + <p> + Valmore, John Telfer, and Freedom Smith, who had taken upon themselves a + kind of common guardianship of the boy and with whom he spent evening + after evening at the back of Wildman’s grocery, did not go to church. They + talked of religion and seemed singularly curious and interested in what + other men thought on the subject but they did not allow themselves to be + coaxed into a house of worship. To the boy, who had become a fourth member + of the evening gatherings at the back of the grocery store, they would not + talk of God, answering the direct questions he sometimes asked by changing + the subject. Once Telfer, the reader of poetry, answered the boy. “Sell + papers and fill your pockets with money but let your soul sleep,” he said + sharply. + </p> + <p> + In the absence of the others Wildman talked more freely. He was a + spiritualist and tried to make Sam see the beauties of that faith. On long + summer afternoons the grocer and the boy spent hours driving through the + streets in a rattling old delivery wagon, the man striving earnestly to + make clear to the boy the shadowy ideas of God that were in his mind. + </p> + <p> + Although Windy McPherson had been the leader of a Bible class in his + youth, and had been a moving spirit at revival meetings during his early + days in Caxton, he no longer went to church and his wife did not ask him + to go. On Sunday mornings he lay abed. If there was work to be done about + the house or yard he complained of his wounds. He complained of his wounds + when the rent fell due, and when there was a shortage of food in the + house. Later in his life and after the death of Jane McPherson the old + soldier married the widow of a farmer by whom he had four children and + with whom he went to church twice on Sunday. Kate wrote Sam one of her + infrequent letters about it. “He has met his match,” she said, and was + tremendously pleased. + </p> + <p> + In church on Sunday mornings Sam went regularly to sleep, putting his head + on his mother’s arm and sleeping throughout the service. Jane McPherson + loved to have the boy there beside her. It was the one thing in life they + did together and she did not mind his sleeping the time away. Knowing how + late he had been upon the streets at the paper selling on Saturday + evenings, she looked at him with eyes filled with tenderness and sympathy. + Once the minister, a man with brown beard and hard, tightly-closed mouth, + spoke to her. “Can’t you keep him awake?” he asked impatiently. “He needs + the sleep,” she said and hurried past the minister and out of the church, + looking ahead of her and frowning. + </p> + <p> + The evening of the evangelist meeting was a summer evening fallen on a + winter month. All day the warm winds had come up from the southwest. Mud + lay soft and deep in the streets and among the little pools of water on + the sidewalks were dry spots from which steam arose. Nature had forgotten + herself. A day that should have sent old fellows to their nests behind + stoves in stores sent them forth to loaf in the sun. The night fell warm + and cloudy. A thunder storm threatened in the month of February. + </p> + <p> + Sam walked along the sidewalk with his mother bound for the brick church, + wearing a new grey overcoat. The night did not demand the overcoat but Sam + wore it out of an excess of pride in its possession. The overcoat had an + air. It had been made by Gunther the tailor after a design sketched on the + back of a piece of wrapping paper by John Telfer and had been paid for out + of the newsboy’s savings. The little German tailor, after a talk with + Valmore and Telfer, had made it at a marvellously low price. Sam swaggered + as he walked. + </p> + <p> + He did not sleep in church that evening; indeed he found the quiet church + filled with a medley of strange noises. Folding carefully the new coat and + laying it beside him on the seat he looked with interest at the people, + feeling within him something of the nervous excitement with which the air + was charged. The evangelist, a short, athletic-looking man in a grey + business suit, seemed to the boy out of place in the church. He had the + assured business-like air of the travelling men who come to the New Leland + House, and Sam thought he looked like a man who had goods to be sold. He + did not stand quietly back of the pulpit giving out the text as did the + brown-bearded minister, nor did he sit with closed eyes and clasped hands + waiting for the choir to finish singing. While the choir sang he ran up + and down the platform waving his arms and shouting excitedly to the people + on the church benches, “Sing! Sing! Sing! For the glory of God, sing!” + </p> + <p> + When the song was finished, he began talking, quietly at first, of life in + the town. As he talked he grew more and more excited. “The town is a + cesspool of vice!” he shouted. “It reeks with evil! The devil counts it a + suburb of hell!” + </p> + <p> + His voice rose, and sweat ran off his face. A sort of frenzy seized him. + He pulled off his coat and throwing it over a chair ran up and down the + platform and into the aisles among the people, shouting, threatening, + pleading. People began to stir uneasily in their seats. Jane McPherson + stared stonily at the back of the woman in front of her. Sam was horribly + frightened. + </p> + <p> + The newsboy of Caxton was not without a hunger for religion. Like all boys + he thought much and often of death. In the night he sometimes awakened + cold with fear, thinking that death must be just without the door of his + room waiting for him. When in the winter he had a cold and coughed, he + trembled at the thought of tuberculosis. Once, when he was taken with a + fever, he fell asleep and dreamed that he had died and was walking on the + trunk of a fallen tree over a ravine filled with lost souls that shrieked + with terror. When he awoke he prayed. Had some one come into his room and + heard his prayer he would have been ashamed. + </p> + <p> + On winter evenings as he walked through the dark streets with the papers + under his arm he thought of his soul. As he thought a tenderness came over + him; a lump came into his throat and he pitied himself; he felt that there + was something missing in his life, something he wanted very badly. + </p> + <p> + Under John Telfer’s influence, the boy, who had quit school to devote + himself to money making, read Walt Whitman and had a season of admiring + his own body with its straight white legs, and the head that was poised so + jauntily on the body. Sometimes he would awaken on summer nights and be so + filled with strange longing that he would creep out of bed and, pushing + open the window, sit upon the floor, his bare legs sticking out beyond his + white nightgown, and, thus sitting, yearn eagerly toward some fine + impulse, some call, some sense of bigness and of leadership that was + absent from the necessities of the life he led. He looked at the stars and + listened to the night noises, so filled with longing that the tears sprang + to his eyes. + </p> + <p> + Once, after the affair of the bugle, Jane McPherson had been ill—and + the first touch of the finger of death reaching out to her—had sat + with her son in the warm darkness in the little grass plot at the front of + the house. It was a clear, warm, starlit evening without a moon, and as + the two sat closely together a sense of the coming of death crept over the + mother. + </p> + <p> + At the evening meal Windy McPherson had talked voluminously, ranting and + shouting about the house. He said that a housepainter who had a real sense + of colour had no business trying to work in a hole like Caxton. He had + been in trouble with a housewife about a colour he had mixed for painting + a porch floor and at his own table he raved about the woman and what he + declared her lack of even a primitive sense of colour. “I am sick of it + all,” he shouted, going out of the house and up the street with uncertain + steps. His wife had been unmoved by his outburst, but in the presence of + the quiet boy whose chair touched her own she trembled with a strange new + fear and began to talk of the life after death, making effort after effort + to get at what she wanted to say, and only succeeding in finding + expression for her thoughts in little sentences broken by long painful + pauses. She told the boy she had no doubt at all that there was some kind + of future life and that she believed she should see and live with him + again after they had finished with this world. + </p> + <p> + One day the minister who had been annoyed because he had slept in his + church, stopped Sam on the street to talk to him of his soul. He said that + the boy should be thinking of making himself one of the brothers in Christ + by joining the church. Sam listened silently to the talk of the man, whom + he instinctively disliked, but in his silence felt there was something + insincere. With all his heart he wanted to repeat a sentence he had heard + from the lips of grey-haired, big-fisted Valmore—“How can they + believe and not lead a life of simple, fervent devotion to their belief?” + He thought himself superior to the thin-lipped man who talked with him and + had he been able to express what was in his heart he might have said, + “Look here, man! I am made of different stuff from all the people there at + the church. I am new clay to be moulded into a new man. Not even my mother + is like me. I do not accept your ideas of life just because you say they + are good any more than I accept Windy McPherson just because he happens to + be my father.” + </p> + <p> + During one winter Sam spent evening after evening reading the Bible in his + room. It was after Kate’s marriage—she had got into an affair with a + young farmer that had kept her name upon the tongues of whisperers for + months but was now a housewife on a farm at the edge of a village some + miles from Caxton, and the mother was again at her endless task among the + soiled clothes in the kitchen and Windy McPherson off drinking and + boasting about town. Sam read the book in secret. He had a lamp on a + little stand beside his bed and a novel, lent him by John Telfer, beside + it. When his mother came up the stairway he slipped the Bible under the + cover of the bed and became absorbed in the novel. He thought it something + not quite in keeping with his aims as a business man and a money getter to + be concerned about his soul. He wanted to conceal his concern but with all + his heart wanted to get hold of the message of the strange book, about + which men wrangled hour after hour on winter evenings in the store. + </p> + <p> + He did not get it; and after a time he stopped reading the book. Left to + himself he might have sensed its meaning, but on all sides of him were the + voices of the men—the men at Wildman’s who owned to no faith and yet + were filled with dogmatisms as they talked behind the stove in the + grocery; the brown-bearded, thin-lipped minister in the brick church; the + shouting, pleading evangelists who came to visit the town in the winter; + the gentle old grocer who talked vaguely of the spirit world,—all + these voices were at the mind of the boy pleading, insisting, demanding, + not that Christ’s simple message that men love one another to the end, + that they work together for the common good, be accepted, but that their + own complex interpretation of his word be taken to the end that souls be + saved. + </p> + <p> + In the end the boy of Caxton got to the place where he had a dread of the + word soul. It seemed to him that the mention of the word in conversation + was something shameful and to think of the word or the shadowy something + for which the word stood an act of cowardice. In his mind the soul became + a thing to be hidden away, covered up, not thought of. One might be + allowed to speak of the matter at the moment of death, but for the healthy + man or boy to have the thought of his soul in his mind or word of it on + his lips—one might better become blatantly profane and go to the + devil with a swagger. With delight he imagined himself as dying and with + his last breath tossing a round oath into the air of his death chamber. + </p> + <p> + In the meantime Sam continued to have inexplicable longings and hopes. He + kept surprising himself by the changing aspect of his own viewpoint of + life. He found himself indulging in the most petty meannesses, and + following these with flashes of a kind of loftiness of mind. Looking at a + girl passing in the street, he had unbelievably mean thoughts; and the + next day, passing the same girl, a line caught from the babbling of John + Telfer came to his lips and he went his way muttering, “June’s twice June + since she breathed it with me.” + </p> + <p> + And then into the complex nature of this boy came the sex motive. Already + he dreamed of having women in his arms. He looked shyly at the ankles of + women crossing the street, and listened eagerly when the crowd about the + stove in Wildman’s fell to telling smutty stories. He sank to unbelievable + depths of triviality in sordidness, looking shyly into dictionaries for + words that appealed to the animal lust in his queerly perverted mind and, + when he came across it, lost entirely the beauty of the old Bible tale of + Ruth in the suggestion of intimacy between man and woman that it brought + to him. And yet Sam McPherson was no evil-minded boy. He had, as a matter + of fact, a quality of intellectual honesty that appealed strongly to the + clean-minded, simple-hearted old blacksmith Valmore; he had awakened + something like love in the hearts of the women school teachers in the + Caxton schools, at least one of whom continued to interest herself in him, + taking him with her on walks along country roads, and talking to him + constantly of the development of his mind; and he was the friend and boon + companion of Telfer, the dandy, the reader of poems, the keen lover of + life. The boy was struggling to find himself. One night when the sex call + kept him awake he got up and dressed, and went and stood in the rain by + the creek in Miller’s pasture. The wind swept the rain across the face of + the water and a sentence flashed through his mind: “The little feet of the + rain run on the water.” There was a quality of almost lyrical beauty in + the Iowa boy. + </p> + <p> + And this boy, who couldn’t get hold of his impulse toward God, whose sex + impulses made him at times mean, at times full of beauty, and who had + decided that the impulse toward bargaining and money getting was the + impulse in him most worth cherishing, now sat beside his mother in church + and watched with wide-open eyes the man who took off his coat, who sweated + profusely, and who called the town in which he lived a cesspool of vice + and its citizens wards of the devil. + </p> + <p> + The evangelist from talking of the town began talking instead of heaven + and hell and his earnestness caught the attention of the listening boy who + began seeing pictures. + </p> + <p> + Into his mind there came a picture of a burning pit of fire in which great + flames leaped about the heads of the people who writhed in the pit. “Art + Sherman would be there,” thought Sam, materialising the picture he saw; + “nothing can save him; he keeps a saloon.” + </p> + <p> + Filled with pity for the man he saw in the picture of the burning pit, his + mind centered on the person of Art Sherman. He liked Art Sherman. More + than once he had felt the touch of human kindness in the man. The roaring, + blustering saloonkeeper had helped the boy sell and collect for + newspapers. “Pay the kid or get out of the place,” the red-faced man + roared at drunken men leaning on the bar. + </p> + <p> + And then, looking into the burning pit, Sam thought of Mike McCarthy, for + whom he had at that moment a kind of passion akin to a young girl’s blind + devotion to her lover. With a shudder he realised that Mike also would go + into the pit, for he had heard Mike laughing at churches and declaring + there was no God. + </p> + <p> + The evangelist ran upon the platform and called to the people demanding + that they stand upon their feet. “Stand up for Jesus,” he shouted; “stand + up and be counted among the host of the Lord God.” + </p> + <p> + In the church people began getting to their feet. Jane McPherson stood + with the others. Sam did not stand. He crept behind his mother’s dress, + hoping to pass through the storm unnoticed. The call to the faithful to + stand was a thing to be complied with or resisted as the people might + wish; it was something entirely outside of himself. It did not occur to + him to count himself among either the lost or the saved. + </p> + <p> + Again the choir began singing and a businesslike movement began among the + people. Men and women went up and down the aisles clasping the hands of + people in the pews, talking and praying aloud. “Welcome among us,” they + said to certain ones who stood upon their feet. “It gladdens our hearts to + see you among us. We are happy at seeing you in the fold among the saved. + It is good to confess Jesus.” + </p> + <p> + Suddenly a voice from the bench back of him struck terror to Sam’s heart. + Jim Williams, who worked in Sawyer’s barber shop, was upon his knees and + in a loud voice was praying for the soul of Sam McPherson. “Lord, help + this erring boy who goes up and down in the company of sinners and + publicans,” he shouted. + </p> + <p> + In a moment the terror of death and the fiery pit that had possessed him + passed, and Sam was filled instead with blind, dumb rage. He remembered + that this same Jim Williams had treated lightly the honour of his sister + at the time of her disappearance, and he wanted to get upon his feet and + pour out his wrath on the head of the man, who, he felt, had betrayed him. + “They would not have seen me,” he thought; “this is a fine trick Jim + Williams has played me. I shall be even with him for this.” + </p> + <p> + He got to his feet and stood beside his mother. He had no qualms about + passing himself off as one of the lambs safely within the fold. His mind + was bent upon quieting Jim Williams’ prayers and avoiding the attention of + the people. + </p> + <p> + The minister began calling on the standing people to testify of their + salvation. From various parts of the church the people spoke out, some + loudly and boldly and with a ring of confidence in their voices, some + tremblingly and hesitatingly. One woman wept loudly shouting between the + paroxysms of sobbing that seized her, “The weight of my sins is heavy on + my soul.” Girls and young men when called on by the minister responded + with shamed, hesitating voices asking that a verse of some hymn be sung, + or quoting a line of scripture. + </p> + <p> + At the back of the church the evangelist with one of the deacons and two + or three women had gathered about a small, black-haired woman, the wife of + a baker to whom Sam delivered papers. They were urging her to rise and get + within the fold, and Sam turned and watched her curiously, his sympathy + going out to her. With all his heart he hoped that she would continue + doggedly shaking her head. + </p> + <p> + Suddenly the irrepressible Jim Williams broke forth again. A quiver ran + over Sam’s body and the blood rose to his cheeks. “Here is another sinner + saved,” shouted Jim, pointing to the standing boy. “Count this boy, Sam + McPherson, in the fold among the lambs.” + </p> + <p> + On the platform the brown-bearded minister stood upon a chair and looked + over the heads of the people. An ingratiating smile played about his lips. + “Let us hear from the young man, Sam McPherson,” he said, raising his hand + for silence, and, then, encouragingly, “Sam, what have you to say for the + Lord?” + </p> + <p> + Become the centre for the attention of the people in the church Sam was + terror-stricken. The rage against Jim Williams was forgotten in the spasm + of fear that seized him. He looked over his shoulder to the door at the + back of the church and thought longingly of the quiet street outside. He + hesitated, stammered, grew more red and uncertain, and finally burst out: + “The Lord,” he said, and then looked about hopelessly, “the Lord maketh me + to lie out in green pastures.” + </p> + <p> + In the seats behind him a titter arose. A young woman sitting among the + singers in the choir put her handkerchief to her face and throwing back + her head rocked back and forth. A man near the door guffawed loudly and + went hurriedly out. All over the church people began laughing. + </p> + <p> + Sam turned his eyes upon his mother. She was staring straight ahead of + her, and her face was red. “I’m going out of this place and I’m never + coming back again,” he whispered, and, stepping into the aisle, walked + boldly toward the door. He had made up his mind that if the evangelist + tried to stop him he would fight. At his back he felt the rows of people + looking at him and smiling. The laughter continued. + </p> + <p> + In the street he hurried along consumed with indignation. “I’ll never go + into any church again,” he swore, shaking his fist in the air. The public + avowals he had heard in the church seemed to him cheap and unworthy. He + wondered why his mother stayed in there. With a sweep of his arm he + dismissed all the people in the church. “It is a place to make public + asses of the people,” he thought. + </p> + <p> + Sam McPherson wandered through Main Street, dreading to meet Valmore and + John Telfer. Finding the chairs back of the stove in Wildman’s grocery + deserted, he hurried past the grocer and hid in a corner. Tears of wrath + stood in his eyes. He had been made a fool of. He imagined the scene that + would go on when he came upon the street with the papers the next morning. + Freedom Smith would be there sitting in the old worn buggy and roaring so + that all the street would listen and laugh. “Going to lie out in any green + pastures to-night, Sam?” he would shout. “Ain’t you afraid you’ll take + cold?” By Geiger’s drug store would stand Valmore and Telfer, eager to + join in the fun at his expense. Telfer would pound on the side of the + building with his cane and roar with laughter. Valmore would make a + trumpet of his hands and shout after the fleeing boy. “Do you sleep out + alone in them green pastures?” Freedom Smith would roar again. + </p> + <p> + Sam got up and went out of the grocery. As he hurried along, blind with + wrath, he felt he would like a stand-up fight with some one. And, then, + hurrying and avoiding the people, he merged with the crowd on the street + and became a witness to the strange thing that happened that night in + Caxton. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + In Main Street hushed people stood about in groups talking. The air was + heavy with excitement. Solitary figures went from group to group + whispering hoarsely. Mike McCarthy, the man who had denied God and who had + won a place for himself in the affection of the newsboy, had assaulted a + man with a pocket knife and had left him bleeding and wounded beside a + country road. Something big and sensational had happened in the life of + the town. + </p> + <p> + Mike McCarthy and Sam were friends. For years the man had idled upon the + streets of the town, loitering about, boasting and talking. He had sat for + hours in a chair under a tree before the New Leland House, reading books, + doing tricks with cards, engaging in long discussions with John Telfer or + any who would stand up to him. + </p> + <p> + Mike McCarthy got into trouble in a fight over a woman. A young farmer + living at the edge of Caxton had come home from the fields to find his + wife in the bold Irishman’s arms and the two men had gone out of the house + together to fight in the road. The woman, weeping in the house, followed + to ask forgiveness of her husband. Running in the gathering darkness along + the road she had found him cut and bleeding terribly, lying in a ditch + under a hedge. On down the road she ran and appeared at the door of a + neighbour, screaming and calling for help. + </p> + <p> + The story of the fight in the road got to Caxton just as Sam came out of + the corner, back of the stove in Wildman’s and appeared on the street. Men + ran from store to store and from group to group along the street saying + that the young farmer had died and that murder had been done. On a street + corner Windy McPherson harangued the crowd declaring that the men of + Caxton should arise in the defence of their homes and string the murderer + to a lamp post. Hop Higgins, driving a horse from Culvert’s livery, + appeared on Main Street. “He will be at the McCarthy farm,” he shouted. + When several men, coming out of Geiger’s drug store, stopped the marshal’s + horse, saying, “You will have trouble out there; you had better take + help,” the little red-faced marshal with the crippled leg laughed. “What + trouble?” he asked—“To get Mike McCarthy? I shall ask him to come + and he will come. The rest of that lot won’t cut any figure. Mike can wrap + the entire McCarthy family around his finger.” + </p> + <p> + There were six of the McCarthy men, all, except Mike, silent, sullen men + who only talked when they were in liquor. Mike furnished the town’s social + touch with the family. It was a strange family to live there in that fat, + corn-growing country, a family with something savage and primitive about + it, one that belonged among western mining camps or among the half savage + dwellers in deep alleys in cities, and the fact that it lived on a corn + farm in Iowa was, in the words of John Telfer, “something monstrous in + Nature.” + </p> + <p> + The McCarthy farm, lying some four miles east of Caxton, had once + contained a thousand acres of good corn-growing land. Lem McCarthy, the + father of the family, had inherited it from a brother, a gold miner, a + forty-niner, a sport owning fast horses, who planned to breed race horses + on the Iowa land. Lem had come out of the back streets of an eastern city, + bringing his brood of tall, silent, savage boys to live upon the land and, + like the forty-niner, to be a sport. Thinking the wealth that had come to + him vast beyond spending, he had plunged into horse racing and gambling. + When, within two years, five hundred acres of the farm had to be sold to + pay gambling debts, and the wide acres lay covered with weeds, Lem became + alarmed, and settled down to hard work, the boys working all day in the + field and at long intervals coming into town at night to get into trouble. + Having no mother or sister, and knowing that no Caxton woman could be + hired to go upon the place, they did their own housework; and on rainy + days sat about the old farmhouse playing cards and fighting. On other days + they would stand around the bar in Art Sherman’s saloon in Piety Hollow + drinking until they had lost their savage silence and had become loud and + quarrelsome, going from there upon the streets to seek trouble. Once, + going into Hayner’s restaurant, they took stacks of plates from shelves + back of the counter and, standing in the doorway, threw them at people + passing in the street, the crash of the breaking crockery accompanying + their roaring laughter. When they had driven the people to cover they got + upon their horses and with wild shouts raced up and down Main Street + between the rows of tied horses until Hop Higgins, the town marshal, + appeared, when they rode off into the country awakening the farmers along + the darkened road as they fled, shouting and singing, toward home. + </p> + <p> + When the McCarthy boys got into trouble in Caxton, old Lem McCarthy drove + into town and got them out of it, paying for the damage done and going + about declaring the boys meant no harm. When told to keep them out of town + he shook his head and said he would try. + </p> + <p> + Mike McCarthy did not ride swearing and singing with the five brothers + along the dark road. He did not work all day in the hot corn fields. He + was the family gentleman, and, wearing good clothes, strolled instead upon + the street or loitered in the shade before the New Leland House. Mike had + been educated. For some years he had attended a college in Indiana from + which he was expelled for an affair with a woman. After his return from + college he stayed in Caxton, living at the hotel and making a pretence of + studying law in the office of old Judge Reynolds. He paid slight attention + to the study of law, but with infinite patience had so trained his hands + that he became wonderfully dexterous with coins and cards, plucking them + out of the air and making them appear in the shoes, the hats, and even in + the mouths, of bystanders. During the day he walked the streets looking at + the girl clerks in the stores, or stood upon the station platform waving + his hand to women passengers on passing trains. He told John Telfer that + the flattery of women was a lost art that he intended to restore. Mike + McCarthy carried in his pockets books which he read sitting in a chair + before the hotel or on the stones before store windows. When on Saturdays + the streets were filled with people, he stood on the corners giving + gratuitous performances of his magical art with cards and coins, and + eyeing country girls in the crowd. Once, a woman, the town stationer’s + wife, shouted at him, calling him a lazy lout, whereupon he threw a coin + in the air, and when it did not come down rushed toward her shouting, “She + has it in her stocking.” When the stationer’s wife ran into her shop and + banged the door the crowd laughed and shouted with delight. + </p> + <p> + Telfer had a liking for the tall, grey-eyed, loitering McCarthy and + sometimes sat with him discussing a novel or a poem; Sam in the background + listened eagerly. Valmore did not care for the man, shaking his head and + declaring that such a fellow could come to no good end. + </p> + <p> + The rest of the town agreed with Valmore, and McCarthy, knowing this, + sunned himself in the town’s displeasure. For the sake of the public furor + it brought down upon his head he proclaimed himself a socialist, an + anarchist, an atheist, a pagan. Among all the McCarthy boys he alone cared + greatly about women, and he made public and open declarations of his + passion for them. Before the men gathered about the stove in Wildman’s + grocery store he would stand whipping them into a frenzy by declaring for + free love, and vowing that he would have the best of any woman who gave + him the chance. + </p> + <p> + For this man the frugal, hard working newsboy had conceived a regard + amounting to a passion. As he listened to McCarthy he got continuous + delightful little thrills. “There is nothing he would not dare,” thought + the boy. “He is the freest, the boldest, the bravest man in town.” When + the young Irishman, seeing the admiration in his eyes, flung him a silver + dollar saying, “That is for your fine brown eyes, my boy; it I had them I + would have half the women in town after me,” Sam kept the dollar in his + pocket and counted it a kind of treasure like the rose given a lover by + his sweetheart. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + It was past eleven o’clock when Hop Higgins returned to town with + McCarthy, driving quietly along the street and through an alley at the + back of the town hall. The crowd upon the street had broken up. Sam had + gone from one to another of the muttering groups, his heart quaking with + fear. Now he stood at the back of the mass of men gathered at the jail + door. An oil lamp, burning at the top of the post above the door, threw + dancing, flickering lights on the faces of the men before him. The thunder + storm that had threatened had not come, but the unnatural warm wind + continued and the sky overhead was inky black. + </p> + <p> + Through the alley, to the jail door, drove the town marshal, the young + McCarthy sitting in the buggy beside him. A man rushed forward to hold the + horse. McCarthy’s face was chalky white. He laughed and shouted, raising + his hand toward the sky. + </p> + <p> + “I am Michael, son of God. I have cut a man with a knife so that his red + blood ran upon the ground. I am the son of God and this filthy jail shall + be my sanctuary. In there I shall talk aloud with my Father,” he roared + hoarsely, shaking his fist at the crowd. “Sons of this cesspool of + respectability, stay and hear! Send for your females and let them stand in + the presence of a man!” + </p> + <p> + Taking the white, wild-eyed man by the arm Marshal Higgins led him into + the jail, the clank of locks, the low murmur of the voice of Higgins and + the wild laughter of McCarthy floating out to the group of silent men + standing in the mud of the alley. + </p> + <p> + Sam McPherson ran past the group of men to the side of the jail and + finding John Telfer and Valmore leaning silently against the wall of Tom + Folger’s wagon shop slipped between them. Telfer put out his arm and laid + it upon the boy’s shoulder. Hop Higgins, coming out of the jail, addressed + the crowd. “Don’t answer if he talks,” he said; “he is as crazy as a + loon.” + </p> + <p> + Sam moved closer to Telfer. The voice of the imprisoned man, loud, and + filled with a startling boldness, rolled out of the jail. He began + praying. + </p> + <p> + “Hear me, Father Almighty, who has permitted this town of Caxton to exist + and has let me, Thy son, grow to manhood. I am Michael, Thy son. They have + put me in this jail where rats run across the floor and they stand in the + mud outside as I talk with Thee. Are you there, old Truepenny?” + </p> + <p> + A breath of cold air blew up the alley followed by a flaw of rain. The + group under the flickering lamp by the jail entrance drew back against the + walls of the building. Sam could see them dimly, pressing closely against + the wall. The man in the jail laughed loudly. + </p> + <p> + “I have had a philosophy of life, O Father,” he shouted. “I have seen men + and women here living year after year without children. I have seen them + hoarding pennies and denying Thee new life on which to work Thy will. To + these women I have gone secretly talking of carnal love. With them I have + been gentle and kind; them I have flattered.” + </p> + <p> + A roaring laugh broke from the lips of the imprisoned man. “Are you there, + oh dwellers in the cesspool of respectability?” he shouted. “Do you stand + in the mud with cold feet listening? I have been with your wives. Eleven + Caxton wives without babes have I been with and it has been fruitless. The + twelfth woman I have just left, leaving her man in the road a bleeding + sacrifice to thee. I shall call out the names of the eleven. I shall have + revenge also upon the husbands of the women, some of whom wait with the + others in the mud outside.” + </p> + <p> + He began calling off the names of Caxton wives. A shudder ran through the + body of the boy, sensitised by the new chill in the air and by the + excitement of the night. Among the men standing along the wall of the jail + a murmur arose. Again they grouped themselves under the flickering light + by the jail door, disregarding the rain. Valmore, stumbling out of the + darkness beside Sam, stood before Telfer. “The boy should be going home,” + he said; “this isn’t fit for him to hear.” + </p> + <p> + Telfer laughed and drew Sam closer to him. “He has heard enough lies in + this town,” he said. “Truth won’t hurt him. I would not go myself, nor + would you, and the boy shall not go. This McCarthy has a brain. Although + he is half insane now he is trying to work something out. The boy and I + will stay to hear.” + </p> + <p> + The voice from the jail continued calling out the names of Caxton wives. + Voices in the group before the jail door began shouting: “This should be + stopped. Let us tear down the jail.” + </p> + <p> + McCarthy laughed aloud. “They squirm, oh Father, they squirm; I have them + in the pit and I torture them,” he cried. + </p> + <p> + An ugly feeling of satisfaction came over Sam. He had a sense of the fact + that the names shouted from the jail would be repeated over and over + through the town. One of the women whose names had been called out had + stood with the evangelist at the back of the church trying to induce the + wife of the baker to rise and be counted in the fold with the lambs. + </p> + <p> + The rain, falling on the shoulders of the men by the jail door, changed to + hail, the air grew colder and the hailstones rattled on the roofs of + buildings. Some of the men joined Telfer and Valmore, talking in low, + excited voices. “And Mary McKane, too, the hypocrite,” Sam heard one of + them say. + </p> + <p> + The voice inside the jail changed. Still praying, Mike McCarthy seemed + also to be talking to the group in the darkness outside. + </p> + <p> + “I am sick of my life. I have sought leadership and have not found it. Oh + Father! Send down to men a new Christ, one to get hold of us, a modern + Christ with a pipe in his mouth who will swear and knock us about so that + we vermin who pretend to be made in Thy image will understand. Let him go + into churches and into courthouses, into cities, and into towns like this, + shouting, ‘Be ashamed! Be ashamed of your cowardly concern over your + snivelling souls!’ Let him tell us that never will our lives, so miserably + lived, be repeated after our bodies lie rotting in the grave.” + </p> + <p> + A sob broke from his lips and a lump came into Sam’s throat. + </p> + <p> + “Oh Father! help us men of Caxton to understand that we have only this, + our lives, this life so warm and hopeful and laughing in the sun, this + life with its awkward boys full of strange possibilities, and its girls + with their long legs and freckles on their noses, that are meant to carry + life within themselves, new life, kicking and stirring, and waking them at + night.” + </p> + <p> + The voice of the prayer broke. Wild sobs took the place of speech. + “Father!” shouted the broken voice, “I have taken a life, a man that moved + and talked and whistled in the sunshine on winter mornings; I have + killed.” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + The voice inside the jail became inaudible. Silence, broken by low sobs + from the jail, fell on the little dark alley and the listening men began + going silently away. The lump in Sam’s throat grew larger. Tears stood in + his eyes. He went with Telfer and Valmore out of the alley and into the + street, the two men walking in silence. The rain had ceased and a cold + wind blew. + </p> + <p> + The boy felt that he had been shriven. His mind, his heart, even his tired + body seemed strangely cleansed. He felt a new affection for Telfer and + Valmore. When Telfer began talking he listened eagerly, thinking that at + last he understood him and knew why men like Valmore, Wildman, Freedom + Smith, and Telfer loved each other and went on being friends year after + year in the face of difficulties and misunderstandings. He thought that he + had got hold of the idea of brotherhood that John Telfer talked of so + often and so eloquently. “Mike McCarthy is only a brother who has gone the + dark road,” he thought and felt a glow of pride in the thought and in the + apt expression of it in his mind. + </p> + <p> + John Telfer, forgetting the boy, talked soberly to Valmore, the two men + stumbling along in the darkness intent upon their own thoughts. + </p> + <p> + “It is an odd thought,” said Telfer and his voice seemed far away and + unnatural like the voice from the jail; “it is an odd thought that but for + a quirk in the brain this Mike McCarthy might himself have been a kind of + Christ with a pipe in his mouth.” + </p> + <p> + Valmore stumbled and half fell in the darkness at a street crossing. + Telfer went on talking. + </p> + <p> + “The world will some day grope its way into some kind of an understanding + of its extraordinary men. Now they suffer terribly. In success or in such + failures as has come to this imaginative, strangely perverted Irishman + their lot is pitiful. It is only the common, the plain, unthinking man who + slides peacefully through this troubled world.” + </p> + <p> + At the house Jane McPherson sat waiting for her boy. She was thinking of + the scene in the church and a hard light was in her eyes. Sam went past + the sleeping room of his parents, where Windy McPherson snored peacefully, + and up the stairway to his own room. He undressed and, putting out the + light, knelt upon the floor. From the wild ravings of the man in the jail + he had got hold of something. In the midst of the blasphemy of Mike + McCarthy he had sensed a deep and abiding love of life. Where the church + had failed the bold sensualist succeeded. Sam felt that he could have + prayed in the presence of the entire town. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Father!” he cried, sending up his voice in the silence of the little + room, “make me stick to the thought that the right living of this, my + life, is my duty to you.” + </p> + <p> + By the door below, while Valmore waited on the sidewalk, Telfer talked to + Jane McPherson. + </p> + <p> + “I wanted Sam to hear,” he explained. “He needs a religion. All young men + need a religion. I wanted him to hear how even a man like Mike McCarthy + keeps instinctively trying to justify himself before God.” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER IV + </h2> + <p> + John Telfer’s friendship was a formative influence upon Sam McPherson. His + father’s worthlessness and the growing realisation of the hardship of his + mother’s position had given life a bitter taste in his mouth, and Telfer + sweetened it. He entered with zeal into Sam’s thoughts and dreams, and + tried valiantly to arouse in the quiet, industrious, money-making boy some + of his own love of life and beauty. At night, as the two walked down + country roads, the man would stop and, waving his arms about, quote Poe or + Browning or, in another mood, would compel Sam’s attention to the rare + smell of a hayfield or to a moonlit stretch of meadow. + </p> + <p> + Before people gathered on the streets he teased the boy, calling him a + little money grubber and saying, “He is like a little mole that works + underground. As the mole goes for a worm so this boy goes for a five-cent + piece. I have watched him. A travelling man goes out of town leaving a + stray dime or nickel here and within an hour it is in this boy’s pocket. I + have talked to banker Walker of him. He trembles lest his vaults become + too small to hold the wealth of this young Croesus. The day will come when + he will buy the town and put it into his vest pocket.” + </p> + <p> + For all his public teasing of the boy Telfer had the genius to adopt a + different attitude when they were alone together. Then he talked to him + openly and freely as he talked to Valmore and Freedom Smith and to other + cronies of his on the streets of Caxton. Walking along the road he would + point with his cane to the town and say, “You and that mother of yours + have more of the real stuff in you than the rest of the boys and mothers + of the town put together.” + </p> + <p> + In all Caxton Telfer was the only man who knew books and who took them + seriously. Sam sometimes found his attitude toward them puzzling and would + stand with open mouth listening as Telfer swore or laughed at a book as he + did at Valmore or Freedom Smith. He had a fine portrait of Browning which + he kept hung in the stable and before this he would stand, his legs spread + apart, and his head tilted to one side, talking. + </p> + <p> + “A rich old sport you are, eh?” he would say, grinning. “Getting yourself + discussed by women and college professors in clubs, eh? You old fraud!” + </p> + <p> + Toward Mary Underwood, the school teacher who had become Sam’s friend and + with whom the boy sometimes walked and talked, Telfer had no charity. Mary + Underwood was a sort of cinder in the eyes of Caxton. She was the only + child of Silas Underwood, the town harness maker, who once had worked in a + shop belonging to Windy McPherson. After the business failure of Windy he + had started independently and for a time did well, sending his daughter to + a school in Massachusetts. Mary did not understand the people of Caxton + and the people misunderstood and distrusted her. Taking no part in the + life of the town and keeping to herself and to her books she awoke a kind + of fear in others. Because she did not join them at church suppers, or go + from porch to porch gossiping with other women through the long summer + evenings, they thought her something abnormal. On Sundays she sat alone in + her pew at church and on Saturday afternoons, come storm, come sunshine, + she walked on country roads and through the woods accompanied by a collie + dog. She was a small woman with a straight, slender figure and had fine + blue eyes filled with changing lights, hidden by the eye-glasses she + almost constantly wore. Her lips were very full and red, and she sat with + them parted so that the edges of her fine teeth showed. Her nose was + large, and a fine reddish-brown colour glowed in her cheeks. Though + different, she had, like Jane McPherson, a habit of silence; and under her + silence, she, like Sam’s mother, possessed an unusually strong and + vigorous mind. + </p> + <p> + As a child she was a sort of half invalid and had not been on friendly + footing with other children. It was then that her habit of silence and + reticence had been established. The years in the school in Massachusetts + restored her health but did not break this habit. She came home and took + the place in the schools to earn money with which to take her back East, + dreaming of a position as instructor in an eastern college. She was that + rare thing, a woman scholar, loving scholarship for its own sake. + </p> + <p> + Mary Underwood’s position in the town and in the schools was insecure. Out + of her silent, independent way of life had sprung a misunderstanding that, + at least once, had taken definite form and had come near driving her from + the town and schools. That she did not succumb to the storm of criticism + that for some weeks beat about her head was due to her habit of silence + and to a determination to get her own way in the face of everything. + </p> + <p> + It was a suggestion of scandal that had put the grey hairs upon her head. + The scandal had blown over before the time of her friendship for Sam, but + he had known of it. In those days he knew of everything that went on in + the town—his quick ears and eyes missed nothing. More than once he + had heard the men waiting to be shaved in Sawyer’s barber shop speak of + her. + </p> + <p> + The tale ran that she had been involved in an affair with a real estate + agent who had afterward left town. It was said that the man, a tall, + fine-looking fellow, had been in love with Mary and had wanted to desert + his wife and go away with her. One night he had driven to Mary’s house in + a closed buggy and the two had driven into the country. They had sat for + hours in the covered buggy at the side of the road and talked, and people + driving past had seen them there talking together. + </p> + <p> + And then she had got out of the buggy and walked home alone through snow + drifts. The next day she was at school as usual. When told of it the + school superintendent, a puttering old fellow with vacant eyes, had shaken + his head in alarm and declared that it must be looked into. He called Mary + into his little narrow office in the school building, but lost courage + when she sat before him, and said nothing. The man in the barber shop, who + repeated the tale, said that the real estate man drove on to a distant + station and took a train to the city, and that some days later he came + back to Caxton and moved his family out of town. + </p> + <p> + Sam dismissed the story from his mind. Having begun a friendship for Mary + he put the man in the barber shop into a class with Windy McPherson and + thought of him as a pretender and liar who talked for the sake of talk. He + remembered with a shock the crude levity with which the loafers in the + shop had greeted the repetition of the tale. Their comments had come back + to his mind as he walked through the streets with his newspapers and had + given him a kind of jolt. He went along under the trees thinking of the + sunlight falling upon the grey hair as they walked together on summer + afternoons, and bit his lip and opened and closed his fist convulsively. + </p> + <p> + During Mary’s second year in the Caxton schools her mother died, and at + the end of another year, her father, failing in the harness business, Mary + became a fixture in the schools. The house at the edge of the town, the + property of her mother, had come down to her and she lived there with an + old aunt. After the passing of the wind of scandal concerning the real + estate man the town lost interest in her. She was thirty-six at the time + of her first friendship with Sam and lived alone among her books. + </p> + <p> + Sam had been deeply moved by her friendship. It had seemed to him + something significant that grown people with affairs of their own should + be so in earnest about his future as she and Telfer were. Boylike, he + counted it a tribute to himself rather than to the winsome youth in him, + and was made proud by it. Having no real feeling for books, and only + pretending to have out of a desire to please, he sometimes went from one + to the other of his two friends, passing off their opinions as his own. + </p> + <p> + At this trick Telfer invariably caught him. “That is not your notion,” he + would shout, “you have it from that school teacher. It is the opinion of a + woman. Their opinions, like the books they sometimes write, are founded on + nothing. They are not the real things. Women know nothing. Men only care + for them because they have not had what they want from them. No woman is + really big—except maybe my woman, Eleanor.” + </p> + <p> + When Sam continued to be much in the company of Mary, Telfer grew more + bitter. + </p> + <p> + “I would have you observe women’s minds and avoid letting them influence + your own,” he told the boy. “They live in a world of unrealities. They + like even vulgar people in books, but shrink from the simple, earthy folk + about them. That school teacher is so. Is she like me? Does she, while + loving books, love also the very smell of human life?” + </p> + <p> + In a way Telfer’s attitude toward the kindly little school teacher became + Sam’s attitude. Although they walked and talked together the course of + study she had planned for him he never took up and as he grew to know her + better, the books she read and the ideas she advanced appealed to him less + and less. He thought that she, as Telfer held, lived in a world of + illusion and unreality and said so. When she lent him books, he put them + in his pocket and did not read them. When he did read, he thought the + books reminded him of something that hurt him. They were in some way false + and pretentious. He thought they were like his father. One day he tried + reading aloud to Telfer from a book Mary Underwood had lent him. + </p> + <p> + The story was one of a poetic man with long, unclean fingernails who went + among people preaching the doctrine of beauty. It began with a scene on a + hillside in a rainstorm where the poetic man sat under a tent writing a + letter to his sweetheart. + </p> + <p> + Telfer was beside himself. Jumping from his seat under a tree by the + roadside he waved his arms and shouted: + </p> + <p> + “Stop! Stop it! Do not go on with it. The story lies. A man could not + write love letters under the circumstances and he was a fool to pitch his + tent on a hillside. A man in a tent on a hillside in a storm would be cold + and wet and getting the rheumatism. To be writing letters he would need to + be an unspeakable ass. He had better be out digging a trench to keep the + water from running through his tent.” + </p> + <p> + Waving his arms, Telfer went off up the road and Sam followed thinking him + altogether right, and, if later in life he learned that there are men who + could write love letters on a piece of housetop in a flood, he did not + know it then and the least suggestion of windiness or pretence lay heavy + in his stomach. + </p> + <p> + Telfer had a vast enthusiasm for Bellamy’s “Looking Backward,” and read it + aloud to his wife on Sunday afternoons, sitting under the apple trees in + the garden. They had a fund of little personal jokes and sayings that they + were forever laughing over, and she had infinite delight in his comments + on the life and people of Caxton, but did not share his love of books. + When she sometimes went to sleep in her chair during the Sunday afternoon + readings he poked her with his cane and laughingly told her to wake up and + listen to the dream of a great dreamer. Among Browning’s verses his + favourites were “A Light Woman” and “Fra Lippo Lippi,” and he would recite + these aloud with great gusto. He declared Mark Twain the greatest man in + the world and in certain moods he would walk the road beside Sam reciting + over and over one or two lines of verse, often this from Poe: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Helen, thy beauty is to me + Like some Nicean bark of yore. +</pre> + <p> + Then, stopping and turning upon the boy, he would demand whether or not + the writing of such lines wasn’t worth living a life for. + </p> + <p> + Telfer had a pack of dogs that always went with them on their walks at + night and he had for them long Latin names that Sam could never remember. + One summer be bought a trotting mare from Lem McCarthy and gave great + attention to the colt, which he named Bellamy Boy, trotting him up and + down a little driveway by the side of his house for hours at a time and + declaring he would be a great trotting horse. He could recite the colt’s + pedigree with great gusto and when he had been talking to Sam of some book + he would repay the boy’s attention by saying, “You, my boy, are as far + superior to the run of boys about town as the colt, Bellamy Boy, is + superior to the farm horses that are hitched along Main Street on Saturday + afternoons.” And then, with a wave of his hand and a look of much + seriousness on his face, he would add, “And for the same reason. You have + been, like him, under a master trainer of youth.” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + One evening Sam, now grown to man’s stature and full of the awkwardness + and self-consciousness of his new growth, was sitting on a cracker barrel + at the back of Wildman’s grocery. It was a summer evening and a breeze + blew through the open doors swaying the hanging oil lamps that burned and + sputtered overhead. As usual he was listening in silence to the talk that + went on among the men. + </p> + <p> + Standing with legs wide apart and from time to time jabbing with his cane + at Sam’s legs, John Telfer held forth on the subject of love. + </p> + <p> + “It is a theme that poets do well to write of,” he declared. “In writing + of it they avoid the necessity of embracing it. In trying for a + well-turned line they forget to look at well-turned ankles. He who sings + most passionately of love has been in love the least; he woos the goddess + of poesy and only gets into trouble when he, like John Keats, turns to the + daughter of a villager and tries to live the lines he has written.” + </p> + <p> + “Stuff and nonsense,” roared Freedom Smith, who had been sitting tilted + far back in a chair with his feet against the cold stove, smoking a short, + black pipe, and who now brought his feet down upon the floor with a bang. + Admiring Telfer’s flow of words he pretended to be filled with scorn. “The + night is too hot for eloquence,” he bellowed. “If you must be eloquent + talk of ice cream or mint juleps or recite a verse about the old swimming + pool.” + </p> + <p> + Telfer, wetting his finger, thrust it into the air. + </p> + <p> + “The wind is in the north-west; the beasts roar; we will have a storm,” he + said, winking at Valmore. + </p> + <p> + Banker Walker came into the store, followed by his daughter. She was a + small, dark-skinned girl with black, quick eyes. Seeing Sam sitting with + swinging legs upon the cracker barrel she spoke to her father and went out + of the store. At the sidewalk she stopped and, turning, made a quick + motion with her hand. + </p> + <p> + Sam jumped off the cracker barrel and strolled toward the street door. A + flush was on his cheeks. His mouth felt hot and dry. He went with extreme + deliberateness, stopping to bow to the banker, and for a moment lingering + to read a newspaper that lay upon the cigar case, to avoid the comments he + feared his going might excite among the men by the stove. In his heart he + trembled lest the girl should have disappeared down the street, and with + his eyes, he looked guiltily at the banker, who had joined the group at + the back of the store and who now stood listening to the talk, while he + read from a list held in his hand and Wildman went here and there doing up + packages and repeating aloud the names of articles called off by the + banker. + </p> + <p> + At the end of the lighted business section of Main Street, Sam found the + girl waiting for him. She began to tell of the subterfuge by which she had + escaped her father. + </p> + <p> + “I told him I would go home with my sister,” she said, tossing her head. + </p> + <p> + Taking hold of the boy’s hand, she led him along the shaded street. For + the first time Sam walked in the company of one of the strange beings that + had begun to bring him uneasy nights, and overcome with the wonder of it + the blood climbed through his body and made his head reel so that he + walked in silence unable to understand his own emotions. He felt the soft + hand of the girl with delight; his heart pounded against the walls of his + chest and a choking sensation gripped at his throat. + </p> + <p> + Walking along the street, past lighted residences where the low voices of + women in talk greeted his ears, Sam was inordinately proud. He thought + that he should like to turn and walk with this girl through the lighted + Main Street. Had she not chosen him from among all the boys of the town; + had she not, with a flutter of her little, white hand, called to him with + a call that he wondered the men upon the cracker barrels had not heard? + Her boldness and his own took his breath away. He could not talk. His + tongue seemed paralysed. + </p> + <p> + Down the street went the boy and girl, loitering in the shadows, hurrying + past the dim oil lamps at street crossings, getting from each other wave + after wave of exquisite little thrills. Neither spoke. They were beyond + words. Had they not together done this daring thing? + </p> + <p> + In the shadow of a tree they stopped and stood facing each other; the girl + looked at the ground and stood facing the boy. Putting out his hand he + laid it upon her shoulder. In the darkness on the other side of the street + a man stumbled homeward along a board sidewalk. The lights of Main Street + glowed in the distance. Sam drew the girl toward him. She raised her head. + Their lips met, and then, throwing her arms about his neck, she kissed him + again and again eagerly. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + Sam’s return to Wildman’s was marked by extreme caution. Although he had + been absent but fifteen minutes it seemed to him that hours must have + passed and he would not have been surprised to see the stores locked and + darkness settled down on Main Street. It was inconceivable that the grocer + could still be wrapping packages for banker Walker. Worlds had been + remade. Manhood had come to him. Why! the man should have wrapped the + entire store, package after package, and sent it to the ends of the earth. + He lingered in the shadows at the first of the store lights where ages + before he had gone, a mere boy, to meet her, a mere girl, and looked with + wonder at the lighted way before him. + </p> + <p> + Sam crossed the street and, from the front of Sawyer’s barber shop, looked + into Wildman’s. He felt like a spy looking into the camp of an enemy. + There before him sat the men into whose midst he had it in his power to + cast a thunderbolt. He might walk to the door and say, truthfully enough, + “Here before you is a boy that by the flutter of a white hand has been + made into a man; here is one who has wrung the heart of womankind and + eaten his fill at the tree of the knowledge of life.” + </p> + <p> + In the grocery the talk still continued among the men upon the cracker + barrels who seemed unconscious of the boy’s slinking entrance. Indeed, + their talk had sunk. From talking of love and of poets they talked of corn + and of steers. Banker Walker, his packages of groceries lying on the + counter, smoked a cigar. + </p> + <p> + “You can fairly hear the corn growing to-night,” he said. “It wants but + another shower or two and we shall have a record crop. I plan to feed a + hundred steers at my farm out Rabbit Road this winter.” + </p> + <p> + The boy climbed again upon a cracker barrel and tried to look unconcerned + and interested in the talk. Still his heart thumped; still a throbbing + went on in his wrists. He turned and looked at the floor hoping his + agitation would pass unnoticed. + </p> + <p> + The banker, taking up the packages, walked out at the door. Valmore and + Freedom Smith went over to the livery barn for a game of pinochle. And + John Telfer, twirling his cane and calling to a troup of dogs that + loitered in an alley back of the store, took Sam for a walk into the + country. + </p> + <p> + “I will continue this talk of love,” said Telfer, striking at weeds along + the road with his cane and from time to time calling sharply to the dogs + that, filled with delight at being abroad, ran growling and tumbling over + each other in the dusty road. + </p> + <p> + “That Freedom Smith is a sample of life in this town. At the word love he + drops his feet upon the floor and pretends to be filled with disgust. He + will talk of corn or steers or of the stinking hides that he buys, but at + the mention of the word love he is like a hen that has seen a hawk in the + sky. He runs about in circles making a fuss. ‘Here! Here! Here!’ he cries, + ‘you are making public something that should be kept hidden. You are doing + in the light of day what should only be done with a shamed face in a + darkened room.’ Why, boy, if I were a woman in this town I would not stand + it—I would go to New York, to France, to Paris—To be wooed for + but a passing moment by a shame-faced yokel without art—uh—it + is unthinkable.” + </p> + <p> + The man and the boy walked in silence. The dogs, scenting a rabbit, + disappeared across a long pasture, their master letting them go. From time + to time he threw back his head and took long breaths of the night air. + </p> + <p> + “I am not like banker Walker,” he declared. “He thinks of the growing corn + in terms of fat steers feeding on the Rabbit Run farm; I think of it as + something majestic. I see the long corn rows with the men and the horses + half hidden, hot and breathless, and I think of a vast river of life. I + catch a breath of the flame that was in the mind of the man who said, ‘The + land is flowing with milk and honey.’ I am made happy by my thoughts not + by the dollars clinking in my pocket. + </p> + <p> + “And then in the fall when the corn stands shocked I see another picture. + Here and there in companies stand the armies of the corn. It puts a ring + in my voice to look at them. ‘These orderly armies has mankind brought out + of chaos,’ I say to myself. ‘On a smoking black ball flung by the hand of + God out of illimitable space has man stood up these armies to defend his + home against the grim attacking armies of want.’” + </p> + <p> + Telfer stopped and stood in the road with his legs spread apart. He took + off his hat and throwing back his head laughed up at the stars. + </p> + <p> + “Freedom Smith should hear me now,” he cried, rocking back and forth with + laughter and switching his cane at the boy’s legs so that Sam had to hop + merrily about in the road to avoid it. “Flung by the hand of God out of + illimitable space—eh! not bad, eh! I should be in Congress. I am + wasted here. I am throwing priceless eloquence to dogs who prefer to chase + rabbits and to a boy who is the worst little money grubber in the town.” + </p> + <p> + The midsummer madness that had seized Telfer passed and for a time he + walked in silence. Suddenly, putting his arm on the boy’s shoulder, he + stopped and pointed to where a faint light in the sky marked the lighted + town. + </p> + <p> + “They are good people,” he said, “but their ways are not my ways or your + ways. You will go out of the town. You have genius. You will be a man of + finance. I have watched you. You are not niggardly and you do not cheat + and lie—result—you will not be a little business man. What + have you? You have the gift of seeing dollars where the rest of the boys + of the town see nothing and you are tireless after those dollars—you + will be a big man of dollars, it is plain.” Into his voice came a touch of + bitterness. “I also was marked out. Why do I carry a cane? why do I not + buy a farm and raise steers? I am the most worthless thing alive. I have + the touch of genius without the energy to make it count.” + </p> + <p> + Sam’s mind that had been inflamed by the kiss of the girl cooled in the + presence of Telfer. In the summer madness of the talking man there was + something soothing to the fever in his blood. He followed the words + eagerly, seeing pictures, getting thrills, filled with happiness. + </p> + <p> + At the edge of town a buggy passed the walking pair. In the buggy sat a + young farmer, his arm about the waist of a girl, her head upon his + shoulder. Far in the distance sounded the faint call of the dogs. Sam and + Telfer sat down on a grassy bank under a tree while Telfer rolled and + lighted a cigarette. + </p> + <p> + “As I promised, I will talk to you of love,” he said, making a wide sweep + with his arm each time as he put his cigarette into his mouth. + </p> + <p> + The grassy bank on which they lay had the rich, burned smell of the hot + days. A wind rustled the standing corn that formed a kind of wall behind + them. The moon was in the sky and shone down across bank after bank of + serried clouds. The grandiloquence went out of the voice of Telfer and his + face became serious. + </p> + <p> + “My foolishness is more than half earnest,” he said. “I think that a man + or boy who has set for himself a task had better let women and girls + alone. If he be a man of genius, he has a purpose independent of all the + world, and should cut and slash and pound his way toward his mark, + forgetting every one, particularly the woman that would come to grips with + him. She also has a mark toward which she goes. She is at war with him and + has a purpose that is not his purpose. She believes that the pursuit of + women is an end for a life. For all they now condemn Mike McCarthy who + went to the asylum because of them and who, while loving life, came near + to taking life, the women of Caxton do not condemn his madness for + themselves; they do not blame him for loitering away his good years or for + making an abortive mess of his good brain. While he made an art of the + pursuit of women they applauded secretly. Did not twelve of them accept + the challenge thrown out by his eyes as he loitered in the streets?” + </p> + <p> + The man, who had begun talking quietly and seriously, raised his voice and + waved the lighted cigarette in the air and the boy who had begun to think + again of the dark-skinned daughter of banker Walker listened attentively. + The barking of the dogs grew nearer. + </p> + <p> + “If you as a boy can get from me, a grown man, an understanding of the + purpose of women you will not have lived in this town for nothing. Set + your mark at money making if you will, but drive at that. Let yourself but + go and a sweet wistful pair of eyes seen in a street crowd or a pair of + little feet running over a dance floor will retard your growth for years. + No man or boy can grow toward the purpose of a life while he thinks of + women. Let him try it and he will be undone. What is to him a passing + humour is to them an end. They are diabolically clever. They will run and + stop and run and stop again, keeping just without his reach. He sees them + here and there about him. His mind is filled with vague, delicious + thoughts that come out of the very air; before he realises what he has + done he has spent his years in vain pursuit and turning finds himself old + and undone.” + </p> + <p> + Telfer began jabbing at the ground with his stick. + </p> + <p> + “I had my chance. In New York I had money to live on and time to have made + an artist of myself. I won prize after prize. The master, walking up and + down back of us, lingered longest over my easel. There was a fellow sat + beside me who had nothing. I made sport of him and called him Sleepy Jock + after a dog we used to have about our house here in Caxton. Now I am here + idly waiting for death and that Jock, where is he? Only last week I saw in + a paper that he had won a place among the world’s great artists by a + picture he has painted. In the school I watched for a look in the eyes of + the girl students and went about with them night after night winning, like + Mike McCarthy, fruitless victories. Sleepy Jock had the best of it. He did + not look about with open eyes but kept peering instead at the face of the + master. My days were full of small successes. I could wear clothes. I + could make soft-eyed girls turn to look at me in a dance hall. I remember + a night. We students gave a dance and Sleepy Jock came. He went about + asking for dances and the girls laughed and told him they had none to + give, that the dances were taken. I followed him and had my ears filled + with flattery and my card with names. In riding the wave of small success + I got the habit of small success. When I could not catch the line I wanted + to make a drawing live, I dropped my pencil and, taking a girl upon my + arm, went for a day in the country. Once, sitting in a restaurant, I + overheard two women talking of the beauty of my eyes and was made happy + for a week.” + </p> + <p> + Telfer threw up his hands in disgust. + </p> + <p> + “My flow of words, my ready trick of talking; to what does it bring me? + Let me tell you. It has brought me to this—that at fifty I, who + might have been an artist fixing the minds of thousands upon some thing of + beauty or of truth, have become a village cut-up, a pot-house wit, a + flinger of idle words into the air of a village intent upon raising corn. + </p> + <p> + “If you ask me why, I tell you that my mind was paralysed by small success + and if you ask me where I got the taste for that, I tell you that I got it + when I saw it lurking in a woman’s eyes and heard the pleasant little + songs that lull to sleep upon a woman’s lips.” + </p> + <p> + The boy, sitting upon the grassy bank beside Telfer, began thinking of + life in Caxton. The man smoking the cigarette fell into one of his rare + silences. The boy thought of girls that had come into his mind at night, + of how he had been thrilled by a glance from the eyes of a little + blue-eyed school girl who had once visited at Freedom Smith’s home and of + how he had gone at night to stand under her window. + </p> + <p> + In Caxton adolescent love had about it a virility befitting a land that + raised so many bushels of yellow corn and drove so many fat steers through + the streets to be loaded upon cars. Men and women went their ways + believing, with characteristic American what-boots-it attitude toward the + needs of childhood, that it was well for growing boys and girls to be much + alone together. To leave them alone together was a principle with them. + When a young man called upon his sweetheart, her parents sat in the + presence of the two with apologetic eyes and presently disappeared leaving + them alone together. When boys’ and girls’ parties were given in Caxton + houses, parents went away leaving the children to shift for themselves. + </p> + <p> + “Now have a good time and don’t tear the house down,” they said, going off + upstairs. + </p> + <p> + Left to themselves the children played kissing games and young men and + tall half-formed girls sat on the front porches in the darkness, thrilled + and half frightened, getting through their instincts, crudely and without + guidance, their first peep at the mystery of life. They kissed + passionately and the young men, walking home, lay upon their beds fevered + and unnaturally aroused, thinking thoughts. + </p> + <p> + Young men went into the company of girls time and again without knowing + aught of them except that they caused a stirring of their whole being, a + kind of riot of the senses to which they returned on other evenings as a + drunkard to his cups. After such an evening they found themselves, on the + next morning, confused and filled with vague longings. They had lost their + keenness for fun, they heard without hearing the talk of the men about the + station and in the stores, they went slinking through the streets in + groups and people seeing them nodded their heads and said, “It is the + loutish age.” + </p> + <p> + If Sam did not have a loutish age it was due to his tireless struggle to + increase the totals at the foot of the pages in the yellow bankbook, to + the growing ill health of his mother that had begun to frighten him, and + to the society of Valmore, Wildman, Freedom Smith, and the man who now sat + musing beside him. He began to think he would have nothing more to do with + the Walker girl. He remembered his sister’s affair with a young farmer and + shuddered at the crude vulgarity of it. He looked over the shoulder of the + man sitting beside him absorbed in thought, and saw the rolling fields + stretched away in the moonlight and into his mind came Telfer’s speech. So + vivid, so moving, seemed the picture of the armies of standing corn which + men had set up in the fields to protect themselves against the march of + pitiless Nature, and Sam, holding the picture in his mind as he followed + the sense of Telfer’s talk, thought that all society had resolved itself + into a few sturdy souls who went on and on regardless, and a hunger to + make of himself such another arose engulfing him. The desire within him + seemed so compelling that he turned and haltingly tried to express what + was in his mind. + </p> + <p> + “I will try,” he stammered, “I will try to be a man. I will try to not + have anything to do with them—with women. I will work and make money—and—and——” + </p> + <p> + Speech left him. He rolled over and lying on his stomach looked at the + ground. + </p> + <p> + “To Hell with women and girls,” he burst forth as though throwing + something distasteful out of his throat. + </p> + <p> + In the road a clamour arose. The dogs, giving up the pursuit of rabbits, + came barking and growling into sight and scampered up the grassy bank, + covering the man and the boy. Shaking off the reaction upon his sensitive + nature of the emotions of the boy Telfer arose. His <i>sang froid</i> had + returned to him. Cutting right and left with his stick at the dogs he + cried joyfully, “We have had enough of eloquence from man, boy, and dog. + We will be on our way. We will get this boy Sam home and tucked into bed.” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER V + </h2> + <p> + Sam was a half-grown man of fifteen when the call of the city came to him. + For six years he had been upon the streets. He had seen the sun come up + hot and red over the corn fields, and had stumbled through the streets in + the bleak darkness of winter mornings, when the trains from the north came + into Caxton covered with ice, and the trainmen stood on the deserted + little platform whipping their arms and calling to Jerry Donlin to hurry + with his work that they might get back into the warm stale air of the + smoking car. + </p> + <p> + In the six years the boy had grown more and more determined to become a + man of money. Fed by banker Walker, the silent mother, and in some subtle + way by the very air he breathed, the belief within him that to make money + and to have money would in some way make up for the old half-forgotten + humiliations in the life of the McPherson family and would set it on a + more secure foundation than the wobbly Windy had provided, grew and + influenced his thoughts and his acts. Tirelessly he kept at his efforts to + get ahead. In his bed at night he dreamed of dollars. Jane McPherson had + herself a passion for frugality. In spite of Windy’s incompetence and her + own growing ill health, she would not permit the family to go into debt, + and although, in the long hard winters, Sam sometimes ate cornmeal mush + until his mind revolted at the thought of a corn field, yet was the rent + of the little house paid on the scratch, and her boy fairly driven to + increase the totals in the yellow bankbook. Even Valmore, who since the + death of his wife had lived in a loft above his shop and who was a + blacksmith of the old days, a workman first and a money maker later, did + not despise the thought of gain. + </p> + <p> + “It is money makes the mare go,” he said with a kind of reverence as + banker Walker, fat, sleek, and prosperous, walked pompously out of + Wildman’s grocery. + </p> + <p> + Of John Telfer’s attitude toward money-making, the boy was uncertain. The + man followed with joyous abandonment the impulse of the moment. + </p> + <p> + “That’s right,” he cried impatiently when Sam, who had begun to express + opinions at the gatherings in the grocery, pointed out hesitatingly that + the papers took account of men of wealth no matter what their + achievements, “Make money! Cheat! Lie! Be one of the men of the big world! + Get your name up for a modern, high-class American!” + </p> + <p> + And in the next breath, turning upon Freedom Smith who had begun to berate + the boy for not sticking to the schools and who predicted that the day + would come when Sam would regret his lack of book learning, he shouted, + “Let the schools go! They are but musty beds in which old clerkliness lies + asleep!” + </p> + <p> + Among the travelling men who came to Caxton to sell goods, the boy, who + had continued the paper selling even after attaining the stature of a man, + was a favourite. Sitting in chairs before the New Leland House they talked + to him of the city and of the money to be made there. + </p> + <p> + “It is the place for a live young man,” they said. + </p> + <p> + Sam had a talent for drawing people into talk of themselves and of their + affairs and began to cultivate travelling men. From them, he got into his + nostrils a whiff of the city and, listening to them, he saw the great ways + filled with hurrying people, the tall buildings touching the sky, the men + running about intent upon money-making, and the clerks going on year after + year on small salaries getting nowhere, a part of, and yet not + understanding, the impulses and motives of the enterprises that supported + them. + </p> + <p> + In this picture Sam thought he saw a place for himself. He conceived of + life in the city as a great game in which he believed he could play a + sterling part. Had he not in Caxton brought something out of nothing, had + he not systematised and monopolised the selling of papers, had he not + introduced the vending of popcorn and peanuts from baskets to the Saturday + night crowds? Already boys went out in his employ, already the totals in + the bank book had crept to more than seven hundred dollars. He felt within + him a glow of pride at the thought of what he had done and would do. + </p> + <p> + “I will be richer than any man in town here,” he declared in his pride. “I + will be richer than Ed Walker.” + </p> + <p> + Saturday night was the great night in Caxton life. For it the clerks in + the stores prepared, for it Sam sent forth his peanut and popcorn venders, + for it Art Sherman rolled up his sleeves and put the glasses close by the + beer tap under the bar, and for it the mechanics, the farmers, and the + labourers dressed in their Sunday best and came forth to mingle with their + fellows. On Main Street crowds packed the stores, the sidewalks, and + drinking places, and men stood about in groups talking while young girls + with their lovers walked up and down. In the hall over Geiger’s drug store + a dance went on and the voice of the caller-off rose above the clatter of + voices and the stamping of horses in the street. Now and then a fight + broke out among the roisterers in Piety Hollow. Once a young farm hand was + killed with a knife. + </p> + <p> + In and out through the crowd Sam went, pressing his wares. + </p> + <p> + “Remember the long quiet Sunday afternoon,” he said, pushing a paper into + the hands of a slow-thinking farmer. “Recipes for cooking new dishes,” he + urged to the farmer’s wife. “There is a page of new fashions in dress,” he + told the young girl. + </p> + <p> + Not until the last light was out in the last saloon in Piety Hollow, and + the last roisterer had driven off into the darkness carrying a Saturday + paper in his pocket, did Sam close the day’s business. + </p> + <p> + And it was on a Saturday night that he decided to drop paper selling. + </p> + <p> + “I will take you into business with me,” announced Freedom Smith, stopping + him as he hurried by. “You are getting too old to sell papers and you know + too much.” + </p> + <p> + Sam, still intent upon the money to be made on that particular Saturday + night, did not stop to discuss the matter with Freedom, but for a year he + had been looking quietly about for something to go into and now he nodded + his head as he hurried away. + </p> + <p> + “It is the end of romance,” shouted Telfer, who stood beside Freedom Smith + before Geiger’s drug store and who had heard the offer. “A boy, who has + seen the secret workings of my mind, who has heard me spout Poe and + Browning, will become a merchant, dealing in stinking hides. I am overcome + by the thought.” + </p> + <p> + The next day, sitting in the garden back of his house, Telfer talked to + Sam of the matter at length. + </p> + <p> + “For you, my boy, I put the matter of money in the first place,” he + declared, leaning back in his chair, smoking a cigarette and from time to + time tapping Eleanor on the shoulder with his cane. “For any boy I put + money-making in the first place. It is only women and fools who despise + money-making. Look at Eleanor here. The time and thought she puts into the + selling of hats would be the death of me, but it has been the making of + her. See how fine and purposeful she has become. Without the millinery + business she would be a purposeless fool intent upon clothes and with it + she is all a woman should be. It is like a child to her.” + </p> + <p> + Eleanor, who had turned to laugh at her husband, looked instead at the + ground and a shadow crossed her face. Telfer, who had begun talking + thoughtlessly, out of his excess of words, glanced from the woman to the + boy. He knew that the suggestion regarding a child had touched a secret + regret in Eleanor, and began trying to efface the shadow on her face by + throwing himself into the subject that chanced to be on his tongue, making + the words roll and tumble from his lips. + </p> + <p> + “No matter what may come in the future, in our day money-making precedes + many virtues that are forever on men’s lips,” he declared fiercely as + though trying to down an opponent. “It is one of the virtues that proves + man not a savage. It has lifted him up—not money-making, but the + power to make money. Money makes life livable. It gives freedom and + destroys fear. Having it means sanitary houses and well-made clothes. It + brings into men’s lives beauty and the love of beauty. It enables a man to + go adventuring after the stuff of life as I have done. + </p> + <p> + “Writers are fond of telling stories of the crude excesses of great + wealth,” he went on hurriedly, glancing again at Eleanor. “No doubt the + things they tell of do happen. Money, and not the ability and the instinct + to make money, is at fault. And what of the cruder excesses of poverty, + the drunken men who beat and starve their families, the grim silences of + the crowded, unsanitary houses of the poor, the inefficient, and the + defeated? Go sit around the lounging room of the most vapid rich man’s + city club as I have done, and then sit among the workers of a factory at + the noon hour. Virtue, you will find, is no fonder of poverty than you and + I, and the man who has merely learned to be industrious, and who has not + acquired that eager hunger and shrewdness that enables him to get on, may + build up a strong dexterous body while his mind is diseased and decaying.” + </p> + <p> + Grasping his cane and beginning to be carried away by the wind of his + eloquence Telfer forgot Eleanor and talked for his love of talking. + </p> + <p> + “The mind that has in it the love of the beautiful, that stuff that makes + our poets, artists, musicians, and actors, needs this turn for shrewd + money getting or it will destroy itself,” he declared. “And the really + great artists have it. In books and stories the great men starve in + garrets. In real life they are more likely to ride in carriages on Fifth + Avenue and have country places on the Hudson. Go, see for yourself. Visit + the starving genius in his garret. It is a hundred to one that you will + find him not only incapable in money getting but also incapable in the + very art for which he starves.” + </p> + <p> + After the hurried word from Freedom Smith, Sam began looking for a buyer + for the paper business. The place offered appealed to him and he wanted a + chance at it. In the buying of potatoes, butter, eggs, apples, and hides + he thought he could make money, also, he knew that the dogged persistency + with which he had kept at the putting of money in the bank had caught + Freedom’s imagination, and he wanted to take advantage of the fact. + </p> + <p> + Within a few days the deal was made. Sam got three hundred and fifty + dollars for the list of newspaper customers, the peanut and popcorn + business and the transfer of the exclusive agencies he had arranged with + the dailies of Des Moines and St. Louis. Two boys bought the business, + backed by their fathers. A talk in the back room of the bank, with the + cashier telling of Sam’s record as a depositor, and the seven hundred + dollars surplus clinched the deal. When it came to the deal with Freedom, + Sam took him into the back room at the bank and showed his savings as he + had shown them to the fathers of the two boys. Freedom was impressed. He + thought the boy would make money for him. Twice within a week Sam had seen + the silent suggestive power of cash. + </p> + <p> + The deal Sam made with Freedom included a fair weekly wage, enough to more + than take care of all his wants, and in addition he was to have two-thirds + of all he saved Freedom in the buying. Freedom on the other hand was to + furnish horse, vehicle, and keep for the horse, while Sam was to take care + of the horse. The prices to be paid for the things bought were to be fixed + each morning by Freedom, and if Sam bought at less than the prices named + two-thirds of the savings went to him. The arrangement was suggested by + Sam, who thought he would make more from the saving than from the wage. + </p> + <p> + Freedom Smith discussed even the most trivial matter in a loud voice, + roaring and shouting in the store and on the streets. He was a great + inventor of descriptive names, having a name of his own for every man, + woman and child he knew and liked. “Old Maybe-Not” he called Windy + McPherson and would roar at him in the grocery asking him not to shed + rebel blood in the sugar barrel. He drove about the country in a low + phaeton buggy that rattled and squeaked enormously and had a wide rip in + the top. To Sam’s knowledge neither the buggy nor Freedom were washed + during his stay with the man. He had a method of his own in buying. + Stopping in front of a farm house he would sit in his buggy and roar until + the farmer came out of the field or the house to talk with him. And then + haggling and shouting he would make his deal or drive on his way while the + farmer, leaning on the fence, laughed as at a wayward child. + </p> + <p> + Freedom lived in a large old brick house facing one of Caxton’s best + streets. His house and yard were an eyesore to his neighbours who liked + him personally. He knew this and would stand on his front porch laughing + and roaring about it. “Good morning, Mary,” he would shout at the neat + German woman across the street. “Wait and you’ll see me clean up about + here. I’m going at it right now. I’m going to brush the flies off the + fence first.” + </p> + <p> + Once he ran for a county office and got practically every vote in the + county. + </p> + <p> + Freedom had a passion for buying up old half-worn buggies and agricultural + implements, bringing them home to stand in the yard, gathering rust and + decay, and swearing they were as good as new. In the lot were a half dozen + buggies and a family carriage or two, a traction engine, a mowing machine, + several farm wagons and other farm tools gone beyond naming. Every few + days he came home bringing a new prize. They overflowed the yard and crept + onto the porch. Sam never knew him to sell any of this stuff. He had at + one time sixteen sets of harness all broken and unrepaired in the barn and + in a shed back of the house. A great flock of chickens and two or three + pigs wandered about among this junk and all the children of the + neighbourhood joined Freedom’s four and ran howling and shouting over and + under the mass. + </p> + <p> + Freedom’s wife, a pale, silent woman, rarely came out of the house. She + had a liking for the industrious, hard-working Sam and occasionally stood + at the back door and talked with him in a low, even voice at evening as he + stood unhitching his horse after a day on the road. Both she and Freedom + treated him with great respect. + </p> + <p> + As a buyer Sam was even more successful than at the paper selling. He was + a buyer by instinct, working a wide stretch of country very systematically + and within a year more than doubling the bulk of Freedom’s purchases. + </p> + <p> + There is a little of Windy McPherson’s grotesque pretentiousness in every + man and his son soon learned to look for and to take advantage of it. He + let men talk until they had exaggerated or overstated the value of their + goods, then called them sharply to accounts, and before they had recovered + from their confusion drove home the bargain. In Sam’s day, farmers did not + watch the daily market reports, in fact, the markets were not systematised + and regulated as they were later, and the skill of the buyer was of the + first importance. Having the skill, Sam used it constantly to put money + into his pockets, but in some way kept the confidence and respect of the + men with whom he traded. + </p> + <p> + The noisy, blustering Freedom was as proud as a father of the trading + ability that developed in the boy and roared his name up and down the + streets and in the stores, declaring him the smartest boy in Iowa. + </p> + <p> + “Mighty little of old Maybe-Not in that boy,” he would shout to the + loafers in the store. + </p> + <p> + Although Sam had an almost painful desire for order and system in his own + affairs, he did not try to bring these influences into Freedom’s affairs, + but kept his own records carefully and bought potatoes and apples, butter + and eggs, furs and hides, with untiring zeal, working always to swell his + commissions. Freedom took the risks in the business and many times + profited little, but the two liked and respected each other and it was + through Freedom’s efforts that Sam finally got out of Caxton and into + larger affairs. + </p> + <p> + One evening in the late fall Freedom came into the stable where Sam stood + taking the harness off his horse. + </p> + <p> + “Here is a chance for you, my boy,” he said, putting his hand + affectionately on Sam’s shoulder. There was a note of tenderness in his + voice. He had written to the Chicago firm to whom he sold most of the + things he bought, telling of Sam and his ability, and the firm had replied + making an offer that Sam thought far beyond anything he might hope for in + Caxton. In his hand he held this offer. + </p> + <p> + When Sam read the letter his heart jumped. He thought that it opened for + him a wide new field of effort and of money making. He thought that at + last he had come to the end of his boyhood and was to have his chance in + the city. Only that morning old Doctor Harkness had stopped him at the + door as he set out for work and, pointing over his shoulder with his thumb + to where in the house his mother lay, wasted and asleep, had told him that + in another week she would be gone, and Sam, heavy of heart and filled with + uneasy longing, had walked through the streets to Freedom’s stable wishing + that he also might be gone. + </p> + <p> + Now he walked across the stable floor and hung the harness he had taken + from the horse upon a peg in the wall. + </p> + <p> + “I will be glad to go,” he said heavily. + </p> + <p> + Freedom walked out of the stable door beside the young McPherson who had + come to him as a boy and was now a broad-shouldered young man of eighteen. + He did not want to lose Sam. He had written the Chicago company because of + his affection for the boy and because he believed him capable of something + more than Caxton offered. Now he walked in silence holding the lantern + aloft and guiding the way among the wreckage in the yard, filled with + regrets. + </p> + <p> + By the back door of the house stood the pale, tired-looking wife who, + putting out her hand, took the hand of the boy. There were tears in her + eyes. And then saying nothing Sam turned and hurried off up the street, + Freedom and his wife walked to the front gate and watched him go. From a + street corner, where he stopped in the shadow of a tree, Sam could see + them there, the wind swinging the lantern in Freedom’s hand and the + slender little old wife making a white blotch against the darkness. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VI + </h2> + <p> + Sam went along the board sidewalk homeward bound, hurried by the driving + March wind that had sent the lantern swinging in Freedom’s hand. At the + front of a white frame residence a grey-haired old man stood leaning on + the gate and looking at the sky. + </p> + <p> + “We shall have a rain,” he said in a quavering voice, as though giving a + decision in the matter, and then turned and without waiting for an answer + went along a narrow path into the house. + </p> + <p> + The incident brought a smile to Sam’s lips followed by a kind of weariness + of mind. Since the beginning of his work with Freedom he had, day after + day, come upon Henry Kimball standing by his gate and looking at the sky. + The man was one of Sam’s old newspaper customers who stood as a kind of + figure in the town. It was said of him that in his youth he had been a + gambler on the Mississippi River and that he had taken part in more than + one wild adventure in the old days. After the Civil War he had come to end + his days in Caxton, living alone and occupying himself by keeping year + after year a carefully tabulated record of weather variations. Once or + twice a month during the warm season he stumbled into Wildman’s and, + sitting by the stove, talked boastfully of the accuracy of his records and + the doings of a mangy dog that trotted at his heels. In his present mood + the endless sameness and uneventfulness of the man’s life seemed to Sam + amusing and in some way sad. + </p> + <p> + “To depend upon going to the gate and looking at the sky to give point to + a day—to look forward to and depend upon that—what + deadliness!” he thought, and, thrusting his hand into his pocket, felt + with pleasure the letter from the Chicago company that was to open so much + of the big outside world to him. + </p> + <p> + In spite of the shock of unexpected sadness that had come with what he + felt was almost a definite parting with Freedom, and the sadness brought + on by his mother’s approaching death, Sam felt a strong thrill of + confidence in his own future that made his homeward walk almost cheerful. + The thrill got from reading the letter handed him by Freedom was renewed + by the sight of old Henry Kimball at the gate, looking at the sky. + </p> + <p> + “I shall never be like that, sitting in a corner of the world watching a + mangy dog chase a ball and peering day after day at a thermometer,” he + thought. + </p> + <p> + The three years in Freedom Smith’s service had taught Sam not to doubt his + ability to cope with such business problems as might come in his way. He + knew that he had become what he wanted to be, a good business man, one of + the men who direct and control the affairs in which they are concerned + because of a quality in them called Business Sense. He recalled with + pleasure the fact that the men of Caxton had stopped calling him a bright + boy and now spoke of him as a good business man. + </p> + <p> + At the gate before his own house he stopped and stood thinking of these + things and of the dying woman within. Back into his mind came the old man + he had seen at the gate and with him the thought that his mother’s life + had been as barren as that of the man who depended for companionship upon + a dog and a thermometer. + </p> + <p> + “Indeed,” he said to himself, pursuing the thought, “it has been worse. + She has not had a fortune on which to live in peace nor has she had the + remembrance of youthful days of wild adventure that must comfort the last + days of the old man. Instead she has been watching me as the old man + watches his thermometer and Father has been the dog in her house chasing + playthings.” The figure pleased him. He stood at the gate, the wind + singing in the trees along the street and driving an occasional drop of + rain against his cheek, and thought of it and of his life with his mother. + During the last two or three years he had been trying to make things up to + her. After the sale of the newspaper business and the beginning of his + success with Freedom he had driven her from the washtub and since the + beginning of her ill health he had spent evening after evening with her + instead of going to Wildman’s to sit with the four friends and hear the + talk that went on among them. No more did he walk with Telfer or Mary + Underwood on country roads but sat, instead, by the bedside of the sick + woman or, the night falling fair, helped her to an arm chair upon the + grass plot at the front of the house. + </p> + <p> + The years, Sam felt, had been good years. They had brought him an + understanding of his mother and had given a seriousness and purpose to the + ambitious plans he continued to make for himself. Alone together, the + mother and he had talked little, the habit of a lifetime making much + speech impossible to her and the growing understanding of her making it + unnecessary to him. Now in the darkness, before the house, he thought of + the evenings he had spent with her and of the pitiful waste that had been + made of her fine life. Things that had hurt him and against which he had + been bitter and unforgiving became of small import, even the doings of the + pretentious Windy, who in the face of Jane’s illness continued to go off + after pension day for long periods of drunkenness, and who only came home + to weep and wail through the house, when the pension money was gone, + regretting, Sam tried in fairness to think, the loss of both the washwoman + and the wife. + </p> + <p> + “She has been the most wonderful woman in the world,” he told himself and + tears of happiness came into his eyes at the thought of his friend, John + Telfer, who in bygone days had praised the mother to the newsboy trotting + beside him on moonlit roads. Into his mind came a picture of her long + gaunt face, ghastly now against the white of the pillows. A picture of + George Eliot, tacked to the wall behind a broken harness in the kitchen of + Freedom Smith’s house, had caught his eye some days before, and in the + darkness he took it from his pocket and put it to his lips, realising that + in some indescribable way it was like his mother as she had been before + her illness. Freedom’s wife had given him the picture and he had been + carrying it, taking it out of his pocket on lonely stretches of road as he + went about his work. + </p> + <p> + Sam went quietly around the house and stood by an old shed, a relic of an + attempt by Windy to embark in raising chickens. He wanted to continue the + thoughts of his mother. He began recalling her youth and the details of a + long talk they had held together on the lawn before the house. It was + extraordinarily vivid in his mind. He thought that even now he could + remember every word that had been said. The sick woman had talked of her + youth in Ohio, and as she talked pictures had come into the boy’s mind. + She had told him of her days as a bound girl in the family of a + thin-lipped, hard-fisted New Englander, who had come West to take a farm, + and of her struggles to obtain an education, of the pennies saved to buy + books, of her joy when she had passed examinations and become a school + teacher, and of her marriage to Windy—then John McPherson. + </p> + <p> + Into the Ohio village the young McPherson had come, to cut a figure in the + town’s life. Sam had smiled at the picture she drew of the young man who + walked up and down the village street with girls on his arms, and who + taught a Bible class in the Sunday school. + </p> + <p> + When Windy proposed to the young school teacher she had accepted him + eagerly, thinking it unbelievably romantic that so dashing a man should + have chosen so obscure a figure among all the women of the town. + </p> + <p> + “And even now I am not sorry although it has meant nothing but labour and + unhappiness for me,” the sick woman had told her son. + </p> + <p> + After marriage to the young dandy, Jane had come with him to Caxton where + he bought a store and where, within three years, he had put the store into + the sheriff’s hands and his wife into the position of town laundress. + </p> + <p> + In the darkness a grim smile, half scorn, half amusement, had flitted + across the face of the dying woman as she told of a winter when Windy and + another young fellow went, from schoolhouse to schoolhouse, over the state + giving a show. The ex-soldier had become a singer of comic songs and had + written letter after letter to the young wife telling of the applause that + greeted his efforts. Sam could picture the performances, the little + dimly-lighted schoolhouses with the weatherbeaten faces shining in the + light of the leaky magic lantern, and the delighted Windy running here and + there, talking the jargon of stageland, arraying himself in his motley and + strutting upon the little stage. + </p> + <p> + “And all winter he did not send me a penny,” the sick woman had said, + interrupting his thoughts. + </p> + <p> + Aroused at last to expression, and filled with the memory of her youth, + the silent woman had talked of her own people. Her father had been killed + in the woods by a falling tree. Of her mother she told an anecdote, + touching it briefly and with a grim humour that surprised her son. + </p> + <p> + The young school teacher had gone to call upon her mother once and for an + hour had sat in the parlour of an Ohio farmhouse while a fierce old woman + looked at her with bold questioning eyes that made the daughter feel she + had been a fool to come. + </p> + <p> + At the railroad station she had heard an anecdote of her mother. The story + ran, that once a burly tramp came to the farmhouse, and finding the woman + alone tried to bully her, and that the tramp, and the woman, then in her + prime, fought for an hour in the back yard of the house. The railroad + agent, who told Jane the story, threw back his head and laughed. + </p> + <p> + “She knocked him out, too,” he said, “knocked him cold upon the ground and + then filled him up with hard cider so that he came reeling into town + declaring her the finest woman in the state.” + </p> + <p> + In the darkness by the broken shed Sam’s mind turned from thoughts of his + mother to his sister Kate and of her love affair with the young farmer. He + thought with sadness of how she too had suffered because of the failings + of the father, of how she had been compelled to go out of the house to + wander in the dark streets to avoid the endless evenings of war talk + always brought on by a guest in the McPherson household, and of the night + when, getting a rig from Culvert’s livery, she had driven off alone into + the country to return in triumph to pack her clothes and show her wedding + ring. + </p> + <p> + Before him there rose a picture of a summer afternoon when he had seen a + part of the love making that had preceded this. He had gone into the store + to see his sister when the young farmer came in, looked awkwardly about + and pushed a new gold watch across the counter to Kate. A sudden wave of + respect for his sister had pervaded the boy. “What a sum it must have + cost,” he thought, and looked with new interest at the back of the lover + and at the flushed cheek and shining eyes of his sister. When the lover, + turning, had seen young McPherson standing at the counter, he laughed + self-consciously and walked out at the door. Kate had been embarrassed and + secretly pleased and flattered by the look in her brother’s eyes, but had + pretended to treat the gift lightly, twirling it carelessly back and forth + on the counter and walking up and down swinging her arms. + </p> + <p> + “Don’t go telling,” she had said. + </p> + <p> + “Then don’t go pretending,” the boy had answered. + </p> + <p> + Sam thought that his sister’s indiscretion, which had brought her a babe + and a husband in the same month had, after all, ended better than the + indiscretion of his mother in her marriage with Windy. + </p> + <p> + Rousing himself, he went into the house. A neighbour woman, employed for + the purpose, had prepared the evening meal and now began complaining of + his lateness, saying that the food had got cold. + </p> + <p> + Sam ate in silence. While he ate the woman went out of the house and + presently returned, bringing a daughter. + </p> + <p> + There was in Caxton a code that would not allow a woman to be alone in a + house with a man. Sam wondered if the bringing of the daughter was an + attempt on the part of the woman to abide by the letter of the code, if + she thought of the sick woman in the house as one already gone. The + thought amused and saddened him. + </p> + <p> + “You would have thought her safe,” he mused. She was fifty, small, nervous + and worn and wore a set of ill-fitting false teeth that rattled as she + talked. When she did not talk she rattled them with her tongue because of + nervousness. + </p> + <p> + In at the kitchen door came Windy, far gone in drink. He stood by the door + holding to the knob with his hand and trying to get control of himself. + </p> + <p> + “My wife—my wife is dying. She may die any day,” he wailed, tears + standing in his eyes. + </p> + <p> + The woman with the daughter went into the little parlour where a bed had + been put for the sick woman. Sam sat at the kitchen table dumb with anger + and disgust as Windy, lurching forward, fell into a chair and began + sobbing loudly. In the road outside a man driving a horse stopped and Sam + could hear the scraping of the wheels against the buggy body as the man + turned in the narrow street. Above the scraping of the wheels rose a + voice, swearing profanely. The wind continued to blow and it had begun to + rain. + </p> + <p> + “He has got into the wrong street,” thought the boy stupidly. + </p> + <p> + Windy, his head upon his hands, wept like a brokenhearted boy, his sobs + echoing through the house, his breath heavy with liquor tainting the air + of the room. In a corner by the stove the mother’s ironing board stood + against the wall and the sight of it added fuel to the anger smouldering + in Sam’s heart. He remembered the day when he had stood in the store + doorway with his mother and had seen the dismal and amusing failure of his + father with the bugle, and of the months before Kate’s wedding, when Windy + had gone blustering about town threatening to kill her lover and the + mother and boy had stayed with the girl, out of sight in the house, sick + with humiliation. + </p> + <p> + The drunken man, laying his head upon the table, fell asleep, his snores + replacing the sobs that had stirred the boy’s anger. Sam began thinking + again of his mother’s life. + </p> + <p> + The effort he had made to repay her for the hardness of her life now + seemed utterly fruitless. “I would like to repay him,” he thought, shaken + with a sudden spasm of hatred as he looked at the man before him. The + cheerless little kitchen, the cold, half-baked potatoes and sausages on + the table, and the drunken man asleep, seemed to him a kind of symbol of + the life that had been lived in that house, and with a shudder he turned + his face and stared at the wall. + </p> + <p> + He thought of a dinner he had once eaten at Freedom Smith’s house. Freedom + had brought the invitation into the stables on that night just as to-night + he had brought the letter from the Chicago company, and just as Sam was + shaking his head in refusal of the invitation in at the stable door had + come the children. Led by the eldest, a great tomboy girl of fourteen with + the strength of a man and an inclination to burst out of her clothes at + unexpected places, they had come charging into the stables to carry Sam + off to the dinner, Freedom laughingly urging them on, his voice roaring in + the stable so that the horses jumped about in their stalls. Into the house + they had dragged him, the baby, a boy of four, sitting astride his back + and beating on his head with a woollen cap, and Freedom swinging a lantern + and giving an occasional helpful push with his hand. + </p> + <p> + A picture of the long table covered with the white cloth at the end of the + big dining room in Freedom’s house came back into the mind of the boy now + sitting in the barren little kitchen before the untasted, badly-cooked + food. Upon it lay a profusion of bread and meat and great dishes heaped + with steaming potatoes. At his own house there had always been just enough + food for the single meal. The thing was nicely calculated, when you had + finished the table was bare. + </p> + <p> + How he had enjoyed that dinner after the long day on the road. With a + flourish and a roar at the children Freedom heaped high the plates and + passed them about, the wife or the tomboy girl bringing unending fresh + supplies from the kitchen. The joy of the evening with its talk of the + children in school, its sudden revelation of the womanliness of the tomboy + girl, and its air of plenty and good living haunted the mind of the boy. + </p> + <p> + “My mother never knew anything like that,” he thought. + </p> + <p> + The drunken man who had been sleeping aroused himself and began talking + loudly—some old forgotten grievance coming back to his mind, he + talked of the cost of school books. + </p> + <p> + “They change the books in the school too often,” he declared in a loud + voice, turning and facing the kitchen stove, as though addressing an + audience. “It is a scheme to graft on old soldiers who have children. I + will not stand it.” + </p> + <p> + Sam, enraged beyond speech, tore a leaf from a notebook and scrawled a + message upon it. + </p> + <p> + “Be silent,” he wrote. “If you say another word or make another sound to + disturb mother I will choke you and throw you like a dead dog into the + street.” + </p> + <p> + Reaching across the table and touching his father on the hand with a fork + taken from among the dishes, he laid the note upon the table under the + lamp before his eyes. He was fighting with himself to control a desire to + spring across the room and kill the man who he believed had brought his + mother to her death and who now sat bellowing and talking at her very + death bed. The desire distorted his mind so that he stared about the + kitchen like one seized with an insane nightmare. + </p> + <p> + Windy, taking the note in his hand, read it slowly and then, not + understanding its import and but half getting its sense, put it in his + pocket. + </p> + <p> + “A dog is dead, eh?” he shouted. “Well you’re getting too big and smart, + lad. What do I care for a dead dog?” + </p> + <p> + Sam did not answer. Rising cautiously, he crept around the table and put + his hand upon the throat of the babbling old man. + </p> + <p> + “I must not kill,” he kept telling himself aloud, as though talking to a + stranger. “I must choke until he is silent, but I must not kill.” + </p> + <p> + In the kitchen the two men struggled silently. Windy, unable to rise, + struck out wildly and helplessly with his feet. Sam, looking down at him + and studying the eyes and the colour in the cheeks, realised with a start + that he had not for years seen the face of his father. How vividly it + stamped itself upon his mind now, and how coarse and sodden it had become. + </p> + <p> + “I could repay all of the years mother has spent over the dreary washtub + by just one long, hard grip at this lean throat. I could kill him with so + little extra pressure,” he thought. + </p> + <p> + The eyes began to stare at him and the tongue to protrude. Across the + forehead ran a streak of mud picked up somewhere in the long afternoon of + drunken carousing. + </p> + <p> + “If I were to press hard now and kill him I would see his face as it looks + now all the days of my life,” thought the boy. + </p> + <p> + In the silence of the house he heard the voice of the neighbour woman + speaking sharply to her daughter. The familiar, dry, tired cough of the + sick woman followed. Sam took the unconscious old man in his arms and went + carefully and silently out at the kitchen door. The rain beat down upon + him and, as he went around the house with his burden, the wind, shaking + loose a dead branch from a small apple tree in the yard, blew it against + his face, leaving a long smarting scratch. At the fence before the house + he stopped and threw his burden down a short grassy bank into the road. + Then turning he went, bareheaded, through the gate and up the street. + </p> + <p> + “I will go for Mary Underwood,” he thought, his mind returning to the + friend who years before had walked with him on country roads and whose + friendship he had dropped because of John Telfer’s tirades against all + women. He stumbled along the sidewalk, the rain beating down upon his bare + head. + </p> + <p> + “We need a woman in our house,” he kept saying over and over to himself. + “We need a woman in our house.” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VII + </h2> + <p> + Leaning against the wall under the veranda of Mary Underwood’s house, Sam + tried to get in his mind a remembrance of what had brought him there. He + had walked bareheaded through Main Street and out along a country road. + Twice he had fallen, covering his clothes with mud. He had forgotten the + purpose of his walk and had tramped on and on. The unexpected and terrible + hatred of his father that had come upon him in the tense silence of the + kitchen had so paralysed his brain that he now felt light-headed and + wonderfully happy and carefree. + </p> + <p> + “I have been doing something,” he thought; “I wonder what it is.” + </p> + <p> + The house faced a grove of pine trees and was reached by climbing a little + rise and following a winding road out beyond the graveyard and the last of + the village lights. The wild spring rain pounded and rattled on the tin + roof overhead, and Sam, his back closely pressed against the front of the + house, fought to regain control of his mind. + </p> + <p> + For an hour he stood there staring into the darkness and watched with + delight the progress of the storm. He had—an inheritance from his + mother—a love of thunderstorms. He remembered a night when he was a + boy and his mother had got out of bed and gone here and there through the + house singing. She had sung softly so that the sleeping father did not + hear, and in his bed upstairs Sam had lain awake listening to the noises—the + rain on the roof, the occasional crash of thunder, the snoring of Windy, + and the unusual and, he thought, beautiful sound of the mother singing in + the storm. + </p> + <p> + Now, lifting up his head, he looked about with delight. Trees in the grove + in front of him bent and tossed in the wind. The inky blackness of the + night was relieved by the flickering oil lamp in the road beyond the + graveyard and, in the distance, by the lights streaming out at the windows + of the houses. The light coming out of the house against which he stood + made a little cylinder of brightness among the pine trees through which + the raindrops fell gleaming and sparkling. An occasional flash of + lightning lit up the trees and the winding road, and the cannonry of the + skies rolled and echoed overhead. A kind of wild song sang in Sam’s heart. + </p> + <p> + “I wish it would last all night,” he thought, his mind fixed on the + singing of his mother in the dark house when he was a boy. + </p> + <p> + The door opened and a woman stepped out upon the veranda and stood before + him facing the storm, the wind tossing the soft kimono in which she was + clad and the rain wetting her face. Under the tin roof, the air was filled + with the rattling reverberation of the rain. The woman lifted her head + and, with the rain beating down upon her, began singing, her fine + contralto voice rising above the rattle of the rain on the roof and going + on uninterrupted by the crash of the thunder. She sang of a lover riding + through the storm to his mistress. One refrain persisted in the song— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “He rode and he thought of her red, red lips,” + </pre> + <p> + sang the woman, putting her hand upon the railing of the little porch and + leaning forward into the storm. + </p> + <p> + Sam was amazed. The woman standing before him was Mary Underwood, who had + been his friend when he was a boy in school and toward whom his mind had + turned after the tragedy in the kitchen. The figure of the woman standing + singing before him became a part of his thoughts of his mother singing on + the stormy night in the house and his mind wandered on, seeing pictures as + he used to see them when a boy walking under the stars and listening to + the talk of John Telfer. He saw a broad-shouldered man shouting defiance + to the storm as he rode down a mountain path. + </p> + <p> + “And he laughed at the rain on his wet, wet cloak,” went on the voice of + the singer. + </p> + <p> + Mary Underwood’s singing there in the rain made her seem near and likeable + as she had seemed to him when he was a barefoot boy. + </p> + <p> + “John Telfer was wrong about her,” he thought. + </p> + <p> + She turned and faced him. Tiny streams of water ran from her hair down + across her cheeks. A flash of lightning cut the darkness, illuminating the + spot where Sam, now a broad-shouldered man, stood with the mud upon his + clothes and the bewildered look upon his face. A sharp exclamation of + surprise broke from her lips: + </p> + <p> + “Hello, Sam! What are you doing here? You had better get in out of the + rain.” + </p> + <p> + “I like it here,” replied Sam, lifting his head and looking past her at + the storm. + </p> + <p> + Walking to the door and standing with her hand upon the knob, Mary looked + into the darkness. + </p> + <p> + “You have been a long time coming to see me,” she said, “come in.” + </p> + <p> + Within the house, with the door closed, the rattle of the rain on the + veranda roof sank to a subdued, quiet drumming. Piles of books lay upon a + table in the centre of the room and there were other books on the shelves + along the walls. On a table burned a student’s lamp and in the corners of + the room lay heavy shadows. + </p> + <p> + Sam stood by the wall near the door looking about with half-seeing eyes. + </p> + <p> + Mary, who had gone to another part of the house and who now returned clad + in a long cloak, looked at him with quick curiosity, and began moving + about the room picking up odds and ends of woman’s clothing scattered on + the chairs. Kneeling, she lighted a fire under some sticks piled in an + open grate at the side of the room. + </p> + <p> + “It was the storm made me want to sing,” she said self-consciously, and + then briskly, “we shall have to be drying you out; you have fallen in the + road and got yourself covered with mud.” + </p> + <p> + From being morose and silent Sam became talkative. An idea had come into + his mind. + </p> + <p> + “I have come here courting,” he thought; “I have come to ask Mary + Underwood to be my wife and live in my house.” + </p> + <p> + The woman, kneeling by the blazing sticks, made a picture that aroused + something that had been sleeping in him. The heavy cloak she wore, falling + away, showed the round little shoulders imperfectly covered by the kimono, + wet and clinging to them. The slender, youthful figure, the soft grey hair + and the serious little face, lit by the burning sticks caused a jumping of + his heart. + </p> + <p> + “We are needing a woman in our house,” he said heavily, repeating the + words that had been on his lips as he stumbled through the storm-swept + streets and along the mud-covered roads. “We are needing a woman in our + house, and I have come to take you there. + </p> + <p> + “I intend to marry you,” he added, lurching across the room and grasping + her roughly by the shoulders. “Why not? I am needing a woman.” + </p> + <p> + Mary Underwood was dismayed and frightened by the face looking down at + her, and by the strong hands clenched upon her shoulders. In his youth she + had conceived a kind of maternal passion for the newsboy and had planned a + future for him. Her plans if followed would have made him a scholar, a man + living his life among books and ideas. Instead, he had chosen to live his + life among men, to be a money-maker, to drive about the country like + Freedom Smith, making deals with farmers. She had seen him driving at + evening through the street to Freedom’s house, going in and out of + Wildman’s, and walking through the streets with men. In a dim way she knew + that an influence had been at work upon him to win him from the things of + which she had dreamed and she had secretly blamed John Telfer, the + talking, laughing idler. Now, out of the storm, the boy had come back to + her, his hands and his clothes covered with the mud of the road, and + talked to her, a woman old enough to be his mother, of marriage and of + coming to live with him in his house. She stood, chilled, looking into the + eager, strong face and the eyes with the pained, dazed look in them. + </p> + <p> + Under her gaze, something of the old feeling of the boy came back to Sam, + and he began vaguely trying to tell her of it. + </p> + <p> + “It was not the talk of Telfer drove me from you,” he began, “it was + because you talked so much of the schools and of books. I was tired of + them. I could not go on year after year sitting in a stuffy little + schoolroom when there was so much money to be made in the world. I grew + tired of the school teachers, drumming with their fingers on the desks and + looking out at the windows at men passing in the street. I wanted to get + out of there and into the streets myself.” + </p> + <p> + Dropping his hands from her shoulders, he sat down in a chair and stared + into the fire, now blazing steadily. Steam began to rise from his trousers + legs. His mind, still working beyond his control, began to reconstruct an + old boyhood fancy, half his own, half John Telfer’s, that had years before + come into his mind. It concerned a picture he and Telfer had made of the + ideal scholar. The picture had, as its central figure, a stoop-shouldered, + feeble old man stumbling along the street, muttering to himself and poking + in a gutter with a stick. The picture was a caricature of puttering old + Frank Huntley, superintendent of the Caxton schools. + </p> + <p> + Sitting before the fire in Mary Underwood’s house, become, for the moment, + a boy, facing a boy’s problems, Sam did not want to be such a man. He + wanted only that in scholarship which would help him to be the kind of man + he was bent on being, a man of the world doing the work of the world and + making money by his work. Things he had been unable to get expressed when + he was a boy and her friend, coming again into his mind, he felt that he + must here and now make it plain to Mary Underwood that the schools were + not giving him what he wanted. His brain worked on the problem of how to + tell her about it. + </p> + <p> + Turning, he looked at her and said earnestly: “I am going to quit the + schools. It is not your fault, but I am going to quit just the same.” + </p> + <p> + Mary, who had been looking down at the great mud-covered figure in the + chair began to understand. A light came into her eyes. Going to the door + opening into a stairway leading to sleeping rooms above, she called + sharply, “Auntie, come down here at once. There is a sick man here.” + </p> + <p> + A startled, trembling voice answered from above, “Who is it?” + </p> + <p> + Mary Underwood did not answer. She came back to Sam and, putting her hand + gently on his shoulder, said, “It is your mother and you are only a sick, + half-crazed boy after all. Is she dead? Tell me about it.” + </p> + <p> + Sam shook his head. “She is still there in the bed, coughing.” He roused + himself and stood up. “I have just killed my father,” he announced. “I + choked him and threw him down the bank into the road in front of the + house. He made horrible noises in the kitchen and mother was tired and + wanted to sleep.” + </p> + <p> + Mary Underwood began running about the room. From a little alcove under a + stairway she took clothes, throwing them upon the floor about the room. + She pulled on a stocking and, unconscious of Sam’s presence, raised her + skirts and fastened it. Then, putting one shoe on the stockinged foot and + the other on the bare one, she turned to him. “We will go back to your + house. I think you are right. You need a woman there.” + </p> + <p> + In the street she walked rapidly along, clinging to the arm of the tall + fellow who strode silently beside her. A cheerfulness had come over Sam. + He felt he had accomplished something—something he had set out to + accomplish. He again thought of his mother and drifting into the notion + that he was on his way home from work at Freedom Smith’s, began planning + the evening he would spend with her. + </p> + <p> + “I will tell her of the letter from the Chicago company and of what I will + do when I go to the city,” he thought. + </p> + <p> + At the gate before the McPherson house Mary looked into the road below the + grassy bank that ran down from the fence, but in the darkness she could + see nothing. The rain continued to fall and the wind screamed and shouted + as it rushed through the bare branches of the trees. Sam went through the + gate and around the house to the kitchen door intent upon getting to his + mother’s bedside. + </p> + <p> + In the house the neighbour woman sat asleep in a chair before the kitchen + stove. The daughter had gone. + </p> + <p> + Sam went through the house to the parlour and sat down in a chair beside + his mother’s bed, picking up her hand and holding it in his own. “She must + be asleep,” he thought. + </p> + <p> + At the kitchen door Mary Underwood stopped, and, turning, ran away into + the darkness along the street. By the kitchen fire the neighbour woman + still slept. In the parlour Sam, sitting on the chair beside his mother’s + bed, looked about him. A lamp burned dimly upon the little stand beside + the bed and the light of it fell upon the portrait of a tall, + aristocratic-looking woman with rings on her fingers, that hung upon the + wall. The picture belonged to Windy and was claimed by him as a portrait + of his mother, and it had once brought on a quarrel between Sam and his + sister. + </p> + <p> + Kate had taken the portrait of the lady seriously, and the boy had come + upon her sitting in a chair before it, her hair rearranged and her hands + lying in her lap in imitation of the pose maintained so haughtily by the + great lady who looked down at her. + </p> + <p> + “It is a fraud,” he had declared, irritated by what he believed his + sister’s devotion to one of the father’s pretensions. “It is a fraud he + has picked up somewhere and now claims as his mother to make people + believe he is something big.” + </p> + <p> + The girl, ashamed at having been caught in the pose, and furious because + of the attack upon the authenticity of the portrait, had gone into a spasm + of indignation, putting her hands to her ears and stamping on the floor + with her foot. Then she had run across the room and dropped upon her knees + before a little couch, buried her face in a pillow and shook with anger + and grief. + </p> + <p> + Sam had turned and walked out of the room. The emotions of the sister had + seemed to him to have the flavour of one of Windy’s outbreaks. + </p> + <p> + “She likes it,” he had thought, dismissing the incident. “She likes + believing in lies. She is like Windy and would rather believe in them than + not.” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + Mary Underwood ran through the rain to John Telfer’s house and beat on the + door with her fist until Telfer, followed by Eleanor, holding a lamp above + her head, appeared at the door. With Telfer she went back through the + streets to the front of Sam’s house thinking of the terrible choked and + disfigured man they should find there. She went along clinging to Telfer’s + arm as she had clung to Sam’s, unconscious of her bare head and scanty + attire. In his hand Telfer carried a lantern secured from the stable. + </p> + <p> + In the road before the house they found nothing. Telfer went up and down + swinging the lantern and peering into gutters. The woman walked beside + him, her skirts lifted and the mud splashing upon her bare leg. + </p> + <p> + Suddenly Telfer threw back his head and laughed. Taking her hand he led + Mary with a rush up the bank and through the gate. + </p> + <p> + “What a muddle-headed old fool I am!” he cried. “I am getting old and + addle-pated! Windy McPherson is not dead! Nothing could kill that old war + horse! He was in at Wildman’s grocery after nine o’clock to-night covered + with mud and swearing he had been in a fight with Art Sherman. Poor Sam + and you—to have come to me and to have found me a stupid ass! Fool! + Fool! What a fool I have become!” + </p> + <p> + In at the kitchen door ran Mary and Telfer, frightening the woman by the + stove so that she sprang to her feet and began nervously making the false + teeth rattle with her tongue. In the parlour they found Sam, his head upon + the edge of the bed, asleep. In his hand he held the cold hand of Jane + McPherson. She had been dead for an hour. Mary Underwood stooped over and + kissed his wet hair as the neighbour woman came in at the doorway bearing + the kitchen lamp, and John Telfer, holding his finger to his lips, + commanded silence. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VIII + </h2> + <p> + The funeral of Jane McPherson was a trying affair for her son. He thought + that his sister Kate, with the babe in her arms, had become coarsened—she + looked frumpish and, while they were in the house, had an air of having + quarrelled with her husband when they came out of their bedroom in the + morning. During the funeral service Sam sat in the parlour, astonished and + irritated by the endless number of women that crowded into the house. They + were everywhere, in the kitchen, the sleeping room back of the parlour; + and in the parlour, where the dead woman lay in her coffin, they were + massed. When the thin-lipped minister, holding a book in his hand, held + forth upon the virtues of the dead woman, they wept. Sam looked at the + floor and thought that thus they would have wept over the body of the dead + Windy, had his fingers but tightened a trifle. He wondered if the minister + would have talked in the same way—blatantly and without knowledge—of + the virtues of the dead. In a chair at the side of the coffin the bereaved + husband, in new black clothes, wept audibly. The baldheaded, officious + undertaker kept moving nervously about, intent upon the ritual of his + trade. + </p> + <p> + During the service, a man sitting behind him dropped a note on the floor + at Sam’s feet. Sam picked it up and read it, glad of something to distract + his attention from the voice of the minister, and the faces of the weeping + women, none of whom had before been in the house and all of whom he + thought strikingly lacking in a sense of the sacredness of privacy. The + note was from John Telfer. + </p> + <p> + “I will not come to your mother’s funeral,” he wrote. “I respected your + mother while she lived and I will leave you alone with her now that she is + dead. In her memory I will hold a ceremony in my heart. If I am in + Wildman’s, I may ask the man to quit selling soap and tobacco for the + moment and to close and lock the door. If I am at Valmore’s shop, I will + go up into his loft and listen to him pounding on the anvil below. If he + or Freedom Smith go to your house, I warn them I will cut their + friendship. When I see the carriages going through the street and know + that the thing is right well done and over, I will buy flowers and take + them to Mary Underwood as an appreciation of the living in the name of the + dead.” + </p> + <p> + The note cheered and comforted Sam. It gave him back a grip of something + that had slipped from him. + </p> + <p> + “It is good sense, after all,” he thought, and realised that even in the + days when he was being made to suffer horrors, and in the face of the fact + that Jane McPherson’s long, hard role was just being played out to the + end, the farmer in the field was sowing his corn, Valmore was beating upon + his anvil, and John Telfer was writing notes with a flourish. He arose, + interrupting the minister’s discourse. Mary Underwood had come in just as + the minister began talking and had dropped into an obscure corner near the + door leading into the street. Sam crowded past the women who stared and + the minister who frowned and the baldheaded undertaker who wrung his hands + and, dropping the note into her lap, said, oblivious of the people looking + and listening with breathless curiosity, “It is from John Telfer. Read it. + Even he, hating women as he did, is now bringing flowers to your door.” + </p> + <p> + In the room a wind of whispered comments sprang up. Women, putting their + heads together and their hands before their faces, nodded toward the + school teacher, and the boy, unconscious of the sensation he had created, + went back to his chair and looked again at the floor, waiting until the + talk and the singing of songs and the parading through the streets should + be ended. Again the minister began reading from the book. + </p> + <p> + “I have become older than all of these people here,” thought the youth. + “They play at life and death, and I have felt it between the fingers of my + hand.” + </p> + <p> + Mary Underwood, lacking Sam’s unconsciousness of the people, looked about + with burning cheeks. Seeing the women whispering and putting their heads + together, a chill of fear ran through her. Into the room had been thrust + the face of an old enemy to her—the scandal of a small town. Picking + up the note she slipped out at the door and stole away along the street. + The old maternal love for Sam had returned strengthened and ennobled by + the terror through which she had passed with him that night in the rain. + Going to her house she whistled the collie dog and set out along a country + road. At the edge of a grove of trees she stopped, sat down on a log, and + read Telfer’s note. From the soft ground into which her feet sank there + came the warm pungent smell of the new growth. Tears came into her eyes. + She thought that in a few days much had come to her. She had got a boy + upon whom she could pour out the mother love in her heart, and she had + made a friend of Telfer, whom she had long regarded with fear and doubt. + </p> + <p> + For a month Sam lingered in Caxton. It seemed to him there was something + that wanted doing there. He sat with the men at the back of Wildman’s, and + walked aimlessly through the streets and out of the town along the country + roads, where men worked all day in the fields behind sweating horses, + ploughing the land. The thrill of spring was in the air, and in the + evening a song sparrow sang in the apple tree below his bedroom window. + Sam walked and loitered in silence, looking at the ground. In his mind was + the dread of people. The talk of the men in the store wearied him and when + he went alone into the country he found himself accompanied by the voices + of all of those he had come out of town to escape. On the street corner + the thin-lipped, brown-bearded minister stopped him and talked of the + future life as he had stopped and talked to a bare-legged newsboy. + </p> + <p> + “Your mother,” he said, “has but gone before. It is for you to get into + the narrow path and follow her. God has sent this sorrow as a warning to + you. He wants you also to get into the way of life and in the end to join + her. Begin coming to our church. Join in the work of the Christ. Find + truth.” + </p> + <p> + Sam, who had listened without hearing, shook his head and went on. The + minister’s talk seemed no more than a meaningless jumble of words out of + which he got but one thought. + </p> + <p> + “Find truth,” he repeated to himself after the minister, and let his mind + play with the idea. “The best men are all trying to do that. They spend + their lives at the task. They are all trying to find truth.” + </p> + <p> + He went along the street, pleased with himself because of the + interpretation he had put upon the minister’s words. The terrible moments + in the kitchen followed by his mother’s death had put a new look of + seriousness into his face and he felt within him a new sense of + responsibility to the dead woman and to himself. Men stopped him on the + street and wished him well in the city. News of his leaving had become + public. Things in which Freedom Smith was concerned were always public + affairs. + </p> + <p> + “He would take a drum with him to make love to a neighbour’s wife,” said + John Telfer. + </p> + <p> + Sam felt that in a way he was a child of Caxton. Early it had taken him to + its bosom; it had made of him a semi-public character; it had encouraged + him in his money-making, humiliated him through his father, and patronised + him lovingly because of his toiling mother. When he was a boy, scurrying + between the legs of the drunkards in Piety Hollow of a Saturday night, + there was always some one to speak a word to him of his morals and to + shout at him a cheering word of advice. Had he elected to remain there, + with the thirty-five hundred dollars already in the Savings Bank—built + to that during his years with Freedom Smith—he might soon become one + of the town’s solid men. + </p> + <p> + He did not want to stay. He felt that his call was in another place and + that he would go there gladly. He wondered why he did not get on the train + and be off. + </p> + <p> + One night when he had been late on the road, loitering by fences, hearing + the lonely barking of dogs at distant farmhouses, getting the smell of the + new-ploughed ground into his nostrils, he came into town and sat down on a + low iron fence that ran along by the platform of the railroad station, to + wait for the midnight train north. Trains had taken on a new meaning to + him since any day might see him on such a train bound into his new life. + </p> + <p> + A man, with two bags in his hands, came on the station platform followed + by two women. + </p> + <p> + “Here, watch these,” he said to the women, setting the bags upon the + platform; “I will go for the tickets,” and disappeared into the darkness. + </p> + <p> + The two women resumed their interrupted talk. + </p> + <p> + “Ed’s wife has been poorly these ten years,” said one of them. “It will be + better for her and for Ed now that she is dead, but I dread the long ride. + I wish she had died when I was in Ohio two years ago. I am sure to be + train-sick.” + </p> + <p> + Sam, sitting in the darkness, was thinking of a part of one of John + Telfer’s old talks with him. + </p> + <p> + “They are good people but they are not your people. You will go away from + here. You will be a big man of dollars, it is plain.” + </p> + <p> + He began listening idly to the two women. The man had a shop for mending + shoes on a side street back of Geiger’s drug store and the two women, one + short and round, one long and thin, kept a small, dingy millinery shop and + were Eleanor Telfer’s only competitors. + </p> + <p> + “Well, the town knows her now for what she is,” said the tall woman. + “Milly Peters says she won’t rest until she has put that stuck-up Mary + Underwood in her place. Her mother worked in the McPherson house and it + was her told Milly. I never heard such a story. To think of Jane McPherson + working all these years and then having such goings-on in her house when + she lay dying, Milly says that Sam went away early in the evening and came + home late with that Underwood thing, half dressed, hanging on his arm. + Milly’s mother looked out of the window and saw them. Then she ran out by + the kitchen stove and pretended to be asleep. She wanted to see what was + up. And the bold hussy came right into the house with Sam. Then she went + away, and after a while back she came with that John Telfer. Milly is + going to see that Eleanor Telfer finds it out. I guess it will bring her + down, too. And there is no telling how many other men in this town Mary + Underwood is running with. Milly says——” + </p> + <p> + The two women turned as out of the darkness came a tall figure roaring and + swearing. Two hands flashed out and sank into their hair. + </p> + <p> + “Stop it!” growled Sam, beating the two heads together, “stop your dirty + lies!—you ugly she-beasts!” + </p> + <p> + Hearing the two women screaming the man who had gone for the railroad + tickets came running down the station platform followed by Jerry Donlin. + Springing forward Sam knocked the shoemaker over the iron fence into a + newly spaded flower bed and then turned to the baggage man. + </p> + <p> + “They were telling lies about Mary Underwood,” he shouted. “She tried to + save me from killing my father and now they are telling lies about her.” + </p> + <p> + The two women picked up the bags and ran whimpering away along the station + platform. Jerry Donlin climbed over the iron fence and confronted the + surprised and frightened shoemaker. + </p> + <p> + “What the Hell are you doing in my flower bed?” he growled. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + Hurrying through the streets Sam’s mind was in a ferment. Like the Roman + emperor he wished that all the world had but one head that he might cut it + off with a slash. The town that had seemed so paternal, so cheery, so + intent upon wishing him well, now seemed horrible. He thought of it as a + great, crawling, slimy thing lying in wait amid the cornfields. + </p> + <p> + “To be saying that of her, of that white soul!” he exclaimed aloud in the + empty street, all of his boyish loyalty and devotion to the woman who had + put out a hand to him in his hour of trouble aroused and burning in him. + </p> + <p> + He wished that he might meet another man and could hit him also a swinging + blow on the nose as he had hit the amazed shoemaker. He went to his own + house and, leaning on the gate, stood looking at it and swearing + meaninglessly. Then, turning, he went again through the deserted streets + past the railroad station where, the midnight train having come and gone + and Jerry Donlin having gone home for the night, all was dark and quiet. + He was filled with horror of what Mary Underwood had seen at Jane + McPherson’s funeral. + </p> + <p> + “It is better to be utterly bad than to speak ill of another,” he thought. + </p> + <p> + For the first time he realised another side of village life. In fancy he + saw going past him on the dark road a long file of women, women with + coarse unlighted faces and dead eyes. Many of the faces he knew. They were + the faces of Caxton wives at whose houses he had delivered papers. He + remembered how eagerly they had run out of their houses to get the papers + and how they hung day after day over the details of sensational murder + cases. Once, when a Chicago girl had been murdered in a dive and the + details were unusually revolting, two women, unable to restrain their + curiosity, had come to the station to wait for the train bringing the + newspapers and Sam had heard them rolling the horrid mess over and over on + their tongues. + </p> + <p> + In every city and in every village there is a class of women, the thought + of whom paralyses the mind. They live their lives in small, unaired, + unsanitary houses, and go on year after year washing dishes and clothes—only + their fingers occupied. They read no good books, think no clean thoughts, + are made love to as John Telfer had said, with kisses in a darkened room + by a shame-faced yokel and, after marrying some such a yokel, live lives + of unspeakable blankness. Into the houses of these women come the husbands + at evening, tired and uncommunicative, to eat hurriedly and then go again + into the streets or, the blessing of utter physical exhaustion having come + to them, to sit for an hour in stockinged feet before crawling away to + sleep and oblivion. + </p> + <p> + In these women is no light, no vision. They have instead certain fixed + ideas to which they cling with a persistency touching heroism. To the man + they have snatched from society they cling also with a tenacity to be + measured only by their love of a roof over their heads and the craving for + food to put into their stomachs. Being mothers, they are the despair of + reformers, the shadow on the vision of dreamers and they put the black + dread upon the heart of the poet who cries, “The female of the species is + more deadly than the male.” At their worst they are to be seen drunk with + emotion amid the lurid horrors of a French Revolution or immersed in the + secret whispering, creeping terror of a religious persecution. At their + best they are mothers of half mankind. Wealth coming to them, they throw + themselves into garish display of it and flash upon the sight of Newport + or Palm Beach. In their native lair in the close little houses, they sleep + in the bed of the man who has put clothes upon their backs and food into + their mouths because that is the usage of their kind and give him of their + bodies grudgingly or willingly as the laws of their physical needs direct. + They do not love, they sell, instead, their bodies in the market place and + cry out that man shall witness their virtue because they had had the joy + of finding one buyer instead of the many of the red sisterhood. A fierce + animalism in them makes them cling to the babe at their breast and in the + days of its softness and loveliness they close their eyes and try to catch + again an old fleeting dream of their girlhood, a something vague, shadowy, + no longer a part of them, brought with the babe out of the infinite. + Having passed beyond the land of dreams, they dwell in the land of + emotions and weep over the bodies of unknown dead or sit under the + eloquence of evangelists, shouting of heaven and of hell—the call to + the one being brother to the call of the other—crying upon the + troubled air of hot little churches, where hope is fighting in the jaws of + vulgarity, “The weight of my sins is heavy on my soul.” Along streets they + go lifting heavy eyes to peer into the lives of others and to get a morsel + to roll upon their heavy tongues. Having fallen upon a side light in the + life of a Mary Underwood they return to it again and again as a dog to its + offal. Something touching the lives of such as walk in the clean air, + dream dreams, and have the audacity to be beautiful beyond the beauty of + animal youth, maddens them, and they cry out, running from kitchen door to + kitchen door and tearing at the prize like a starved beast who has found a + carcass. Let but earnest women found a movement and crowd it forward to + the day when it smacks of success and gives promise of the fine emotion of + achievement, and they fall upon it with a cry, having hysteria rather than + reason as their guiding impulse. In them is all of femininity—and + none of it. For the most part they live and die unseen, unknown, eating + rank food, sleeping overmuch, and sitting through summer afternoons + rocking in chairs and looking at people passing in the street. In the end + they die full of faith, hoping for a life to come. + </p> + <p> + Sam stood upon the road fearing the attacks these women were now making on + Mary Underwood. The moon coming up, threw its light on the fields that lay + beside the road and brought out their early spring nakedness and he + thought them dreary and hideous, like the faces of the women that had been + marching through his mind. He drew his overcoat about him and shivered as + he went on, the mud splashing him and the raw night air aggravating the + dreariness of his thoughts. He tried to revert to the assurance of the + days before his mother’s illness and to get again the strong belief in his + own destiny that had kept him at the money making and saving and had urged + him to the efforts to rise above the level of the man who bred him. He + didn’t succeed. The feeling of age that had settled upon him in the midst + of the people mourning over the body of his mother came back, and, + turning, he went along the road toward the town, saying to himself: “I + will go and talk to Mary Underwood.” + </p> + <p> + While he waited on the veranda for Mary to open the door, he decided that + after all a marriage with her might lead to happiness. The half spiritual, + half physical love of woman that is the glory and mystery of youth was + gone from him. He thought that if he could only drive from her presence + the fear of the faces that had been coming and going in his own mind he + would, for his own part, be content to live his life as a worker and money + maker, one without dreams. + </p> + <p> + Mary Underwood came to the door wearing the same heavy long coat she had + worn on that other night and taking her by the hand Sam led her to the + edge of the veranda. He looked with content at the pine trees before the + house, thinking that some benign influence must have guided the hand that + planted them there to stand clothed and decent amid the barrenness of the + land at the end of winter. + </p> + <p> + “What is it, boy?” asked the woman, and her voice was filled with anxiety. + The maternal passion again glowing in her had for days coloured all her + thoughts, and with all the ardour of an intense nature she had thrown + herself into her love of Sam. Thinking of him, she felt in fancy the pangs + of birth, and in her bed at night relived with him his boyhood in the town + and built again her plans for his future. In the day time she laughed at + herself and said tenderly, “You are an old fool.” + </p> + <p> + Brutally and frankly Sam told her of the thing he had heard on the station + platform, looking past her at the pine trees and gripping the veranda + rail. From the dead land there came again the smell of the new growth as + it had come to him on the road before the revelation at the railroad + station. + </p> + <p> + “Something kept telling me not to go away,” he said. “It must have been in + the air—this thing. Already these evil crawling things were at work. + Oh, if only all the world, like you and Telfer and some of the others + here, had an appreciation of the sense of privacy.” + </p> + <p> + Mary Underwood laughed quietly. + </p> + <p> + “I was more than half right when, in the old days, I dreamed of making you + a man at work upon the things of the mind,” she said. “The sense of + privacy indeed! What a fellow you have become! John Telfer’s method was + better than my own. He has given you the knack of saying things with a + flourish.” + </p> + <p> + Sam shook his head. + </p> + <p> + “Here is something that cannot be faced down with a laugh,” he said + stoutly. “Here is something at you—it is tearing at you—it has + got to be met. Even now women are waking up in bed and turning the matter + over in their minds. To-morrow they will be at you again. There is but one + way and we must take it. You and I will have to marry.” + </p> + <p> + Mary looked at the serious new lines of his face. + </p> + <p> + “What a proposal!” she cried. + </p> + <p> + On an impulse she began singing, her voice fine and strong running through + the quiet night. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “He rode and he thought of her red, red lips,” + </pre> + <p> + she sang, and laughed again. + </p> + <p> + “You should come like that,” she said, and then, “you poor muddled boy. + Don’t you know that I am your new mother?” she added, taking hold of his + two arms and turning him about facing her. “Don’t be absurd. I don’t want + a husband or a lover. I want a son of my own and I have found him. I + adopted you here in this house that night when you came to me sick and + covered with mud. As for these women—away with them—I’ll face + them down—I did it once before and I’ll do it again. Go to your city + and make your fight. Here in Caxton it is a woman’s fight.” + </p> + <p> + “It is horrible. You don’t understand,” Sam protested. + </p> + <p> + A grey, tired look came into Mary Underwood’s face. + </p> + <p> + “I understand,” she said. “I have been on that battlefield. It is to be + won only by silence and tireless waiting. Your very effort to help would + make the matter worse.” + </p> + <p> + The woman and the tall boy, suddenly become a man, stood in thought. She + was thinking of the end toward which her life was drifting. How + differently she had planned it. She thought of the college in + Massachusetts and of the men and women walking under the elm trees there. + </p> + <p> + “But I have got me a son and I am going to keep him,” she said aloud, + putting her hand on Sam’s arm. + </p> + <p> + Very serious and troubled, Sam went down the gravel path toward the road. + He felt there was something cowardly in the part she had given him to + play, but he could see no alternative. + </p> + <p> + “After all,” he reflected, “it is sensible—it is a woman’s battle.” + </p> + <p> + Half way to the road he stopped and, running back, caught her in his arms + and gave her a great hug. + </p> + <p> + “Good-bye, little Mother,” he cried and kissed her upon the lips. + </p> + <p> + And she, watching him as he went again down the gravel path, was overcome + with tenderness. She went to the back of the porch and leaning against the + house put her head upon her arm. Then turning and smiling through her + tears she called after him. + </p> + <p> + “Did you crack their heads hard, boy?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + From Mary’s house Sam went to his own. On the gravel path an idea had come + to him. He went into the house and, sitting down at the kitchen table with + pen and ink, began writing. In the sleeping room back of the parlour he + could hear Windy snoring. He wrote carefully, erasing and writing again. + Then, drawing up a chair before the kitchen fire, he read over and over + what he had written, and putting on his coat went through the dawn to the + house of Tom Comstock, editor of the <i>Caxton Argus</i>, and roused him + out of bed. + </p> + <p> + “I’ll run it on the front page, Sam, and it won’t cost you anything,” + Comstock promised. “But why run it? Let the matter drop.” + </p> + <p> + “I shall just have time to pack and get the morning train for Chicago,” + Sam thought. + </p> + <p> + Early the evening before, Telfer, Wildman, and Freedom Smith, at Valmore’s + suggestion, had made a visit to Hunter’s jewelry store. For an hour they + bargained, selected, rejected, and swore at the jeweller. When the choice + was made and the gift lay shining against white cotton in a box on the + counter Telfer made a speech. + </p> + <p> + “I will talk straight to that boy,” he declared, laughing. “I am not going + to spend my time training his mind for money making and then have him fail + me. I shall tell him that if he doesn’t make money in that Chicago I shall + come and take the watch from him.” + </p> + <p> + Putting the gift into his pocket Telfer went out of the store and along + the street to Eleanor’s shop. He strutted through the display room and + into the workshop where Eleanor sat with a hat on her knee. + </p> + <p> + “What am I going to do, Eleanor?” he demanded, standing with legs spread + apart and frowning down upon her, “what am I going to do without Sam?” + </p> + <p> + A freckle-faced boy opened the shop door and threw a newspaper on the + floor. The boy had a ringing voice and quick brown eyes. Telfer went again + through the display room, touching with his cane the posts upon which hung + the finished hats, and whistling. Standing before the shop, with the cane + hooked upon his arm, he rolled a cigarette and watched the boy running + from door to door along the street. + </p> + <p> + “I shall have to be adopting a new son,” he said musingly. + </p> + <p> + After Sam left, Tom Comstock stood in his white nightgown and re-read the + statement just given him. He read it over and over, and then, laying it on + the kitchen table, filled and lighted a corncob pipe. A draft of wind blew + into the room under the kitchen door chilling his thin shanks so that he + drew his bare feet, one after the other, up behind the protective walls of + his nightgown. + </p> + <p> + “On the night of my mother’s death,” ran the statement, “I sat in the + kitchen of our house eating my supper when my father came in and began + shouting and talking loudly, disturbing my mother who was asleep. I put my + hand at his throat and squeezed until I thought he was dead, and carried + him around the house and threw him into the road. Then I ran to the house + of Mary Underwood, who was once my schoolteacher, and told her what I had + done. She took me home, awoke John Telfer, and then went to look for the + body of my father, who was not dead after all. John McPherson knows this + is true, if he can be made to tell the truth.” + </p> + <p> + Tom Comstock shouted to his wife, a small nervous woman with red cheeks, + who set up type in the shop, did her own housework, and gathered most of + the news and advertising for <i>The Argus</i>. + </p> + <p> + “Ain’t that a slasher?” he asked, handing her the statement Sam had + written. + </p> + <p> + “Well, it ought to stop the mean things they are saying about Mary + Underwood,” she snapped. Then, taking the glasses from her nose, and + looking at Tom, who, while he did not find time to give her much help with + <i>The Argus</i>, was the best checker player in Caxton and had once been + to a state tournament of experts in that sport, she added, “Poor Jane + McPherson, to have had a son like Sam and no better father for him than + that liar Windy. Choked him, eh? Well, if the men of this town had any + spunk they would finish the job.” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + BOOK II + </h2> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER I + </h2> + <p> + For two years Sam lived the life of a travelling buyer, visiting towns in + Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa, and making deals with men who, like Freedom + Smith, bought the farmers’ products. On Sundays he sat in chairs before + country hotels and walked in the streets of strange towns, or, getting + back to the city at the week end, went through the downtown streets and + among the crowds in the parks with young men he had met on the road. From + time to time he went to Caxton and sat for an hour with the men in + Wildman’s, stealing away later for an evening with Mary Underwood. + </p> + <p> + In the store he heard news of Windy, who was laying close siege to the + farmer’s widow he later married, and who seldom appeared in Caxton. In the + store he saw the boy with freckles on his nose—the same John Telfer + had watched running along Main Street on the night when he went to show + Eleanor the gold watch bought for Sam and who sat now on the cracker + barrel in the store and later went with Telfer to dodge the swinging cane + and listen to the eloquence poured out on the night air. Telfer had not + got the chance to stand with a crowd about him at the railroad station and + make a parting speech to Sam, and in secret he resented the loss of that + opportunity. After turning the matter over in his mind and thinking of + many fine flourishes and ringing periods to give colour to the speech he + had been compelled to send the gift by mail. And Sam, while the gift had + touched him deeply and had brought back to his mind the essential solid + goodness of the town amid the cornfields, so that he lost much of the + bitterness aroused by the attack upon Mary Underwood, had been able to + make but a tame and halting reply to the four. In his room in Chicago he + had spent an evening writing and rewriting, putting in and taking out + flourishes, and had ended by sending a brief line of thanks. + </p> + <p> + Valmore, whose affection for the boy had been a slow growth and who, now + that he was gone, missed him more than the others, once spoke to Freedom + Smith of the change that had come over young McPherson. Freedom sat in the + wide old phaeton in the road before Valmore’s shop as the blacksmith + walked around the grey mare, lifting her feet and looking at the shoes. + </p> + <p> + “What has happened to Sam—he has changed so much?” he asked, + dropping a foot of the mare and coming to lean upon the front wheel. + “Already the city has changed him,” he added regretfully. + </p> + <p> + Freedom took a match from his pocket and lighted the short black pipe. + </p> + <p> + “He bites off his words,” continued Valmore; “he sits for an hour in the + store and then goes away, and doesn’t come back to say good-bye when he + leaves town. What has got into him?” + </p> + <p> + Freedom gathered up the reins and spat over the dashboard into the dust of + the road. A dog idling in the street jumped as though a stone had been + hurled at him. + </p> + <p> + “If you had something he wanted to buy you would find he talked all + right,” he exploded. “He skins me out of my eyeteeth every time he comes + to town and then gives me a cigar wrapped in tinfoil to make me like it.” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + For some months after his hurried departure from Caxton the changing, + hurrying life of the city profoundly interested the tall strong boy from + the Iowa village, who had the cold, quick business stroke of the + money-maker combined with an unusually active interest in the problems of + life and of living. Instinctively he looked upon business as a great game + in which many men sat, and in which the capable, quiet ones waited + patiently until a certain moment and then pounced upon what they would + possess. With the quickness and accuracy of a beast at the kill they + pounced and Sam felt that he had that stroke, and in his deals with + country buyers used it ruthlessly. He knew the vague, uncertain look that + came into the eyes of unsuccessful business men at critical moments and + watched for it and took advantage of it as a successful prize fighter + watches for a similar vague, uncertain look in the eyes of an opponent. + </p> + <p> + He had found his work, and had the assurance and the confidence that comes + with that discovery. The stroke that he saw in the hand of the successful + business men about him is the stroke also of the master painter, + scientist, actor, singer, prize fighter. It was the hand of Whistler, + Balzac, Agassiz, and Terry McGovern. The sense of it had been in him when + as a boy he watched the totals grow in the yellow bankbook, and now and + then he recognised it in Telfer talking on a country road. In the city + where men of wealth and power in affairs rubbed elbows with him in the + street cars and walked past him in hotel lobbies he watched and waited + saying to himself, “I also will be such a one.” + </p> + <p> + Sam had not lost the vision that had come to him when as a boy he walked + on the road and listened to the talk of Telfer, but he now thought of + himself as one who had not only a hunger for achievement but also a + knowledge of where to look for it. At times he had stirring dreams of vast + work to be done by his hand that made the blood race in him, but for the + most part he went his way quietly, making friends, looking about him, + keeping his mind busy with his own thoughts, making deals. + </p> + <p> + During his first year in the city he lived in the house of an ex-Caxton + family named Pergrin that had been in Chicago for several years, but that + still continued to send its members, one at a time, to spend summer + vacations in the Iowa village. To these people he carried letters handed + him during the month after his mother’s death, and letters regarding him + had come to them from Caxton. In the house, where eight people sat down to + dinner, only three besides himself were Caxton-bred, but thoughts and talk + of the town pervaded the house and crept into every conversation. + </p> + <p> + “I was thinking of old John Moore to-day—does he still drive that + team of black ponies?” the housekeeping sister, a mild-looking woman of + thirty, would ask of Sam at the dinner table, breaking in on a + conversation of baseball, or a tale by one of the boarders of a new office + building to be erected in the Loop. + </p> + <p> + “No, he don’t,” Jake Pergrin, a fat bachelor of forty who was foreman in a + machine shop and the man of the house, would answer. So long had Jake been + the final authority in the house on affairs touching Caxton that he looked + upon Sam as an intruder. “John told me last summer when I was home that he + intended to sell the blacks and buy mules,” he would add, looking at the + youth challengingly. + </p> + <p> + The Pergrin family was in fact upon foreign soil. Living amid the roar and + bustle of Chicago’s vast west side, it still turned with hungry heart + toward the place of corn and of steers, and wished that work for Jake, its + mainstay, could be found in that paradise. + </p> + <p> + Jake Pergrin, a bald-headed man with a paunch, stubby iron-grey moustache, + and a dark line of machine oil encircling his finger nails so that they + stood forth separately like formal flower beds at the edge of a lawn, + worked industriously from Monday morning until Saturday night, going to + bed at nine o’clock, and until that hour wandering, whistling, from room + to room through the house, in a pair of worn carpet slippers, or sitting + in his room practising on a violin. On Saturday evening, the habits formed + in his Caxton days being strong in him, he came home with his pay in his + pocket, settled with the two sisters for the week’s living, sat down to + dinner neatly shaved and combed, and then disappeared upon the troubled + waters of the town. Late on Sunday evening he re-appeared, with empty + pockets, unsteady step, blood-shot eyes, and a noisy attempt at + self-possessed unconcern, to hurry upstairs and crawl into bed in + preparation for another week of toil and respectability. The man had a + certain Rabelaisian sense of humour and kept score of the new ladies met + on his weekly flights by pencil marks upon his bedroom wall. He once took + Sam upstairs to show his record. A row of them ran half around the room. + </p> + <p> + Besides the bachelor there was a sister, a tall gaunt woman of thirty-five + who taught school, and the housekeeper, thirty, mild, and blessed with a + remarkably sweet speaking voice. Then there was a medical student in the + front room, Sam in an alcove off the hall, a grey-haired woman + stenographer, whom Jake called Marie Antoinette, and a buyer from a + wholesale dry-goods house, with a vivacious, fun-loving little Southern + wife. + </p> + <p> + The women in the Pergrin house seemed to Sam tremendously concerned about + their health and each evening talked of the matter, he thought, more than + his mother had talked during her illness. While Sam lived with them they + were all under the influence of a strange sort of faith healer and took + what they called “Health Suggestion” treatments. Twice each week the faith + healer came to the house, laid his hands upon their backs and took their + money. The treatment afforded Jake a never-ending source of amusement and + in the evening he went through the house putting his hands upon the backs + of the women and demanding money from them, but the dry-goods buyer’s + wife, who for years had coughed at night, slept peacefully after some + weeks of the treatment and the cough did not return while Sam remained in + the house. + </p> + <p> + In the house Sam had a standing. Glowing tales of his shrewdness in + business, his untiring industry, and the size of his bank account, had + preceded him from Caxton, and these tales the Pergrins, in their loyalty + to the town and to all the products of the town, did not allow to shrink + in the re-telling. The housekeeping sister, a kindly woman, became fond of + Sam, and in his absence would boast of him to chance callers or to the + boarders gathered in the living room in the evening. She it was who laid + the foundation of the medical student’s belief that Sam was a kind of + genius in money matters, a belief that enabled him later to make a + successful assault upon a legacy which came to that young man. + </p> + <p> + Frank Eckardt, the medical student, Sam took as a friend. On Sunday + afternoons they went to walk in the streets, or, taking two girl friends + of Frank’s, who were also students at the medical school, on their arms, + they went to the park and sat upon benches under the trees. + </p> + <p> + For one of these young women Sam conceived a regard that approached + tenderness. Sunday after Sunday he spent with her, and once, walking + through the park on an evening in the late fall, the dry brown leaves + rustling under their feet and the sun going down in red splendour before + their eyes, he took her hand and walked in silence, feeling tremendously + alive and vital as he had felt on that other night walking under the trees + of Caxton with the dark-skinned daughter of banker Walker. + </p> + <p> + That nothing came of the affair and that after a time he did not see the + girl again was due, he thought, to his own growing interest in money + making and to the fact that there was in her, as in Frank Eckardt, a blind + devotion to something that he could not himself understand. + </p> + <p> + Once he had a talk with Eckardt of the matter. “She is fine and purposeful + like a woman I knew in my home town,” he said, thinking of Eleanor Telfer, + “but she will not talk to me of her work as sometimes she talks to you. I + want her to talk. There is something about her that I do not understand + and that I want to understand. I think that she likes me and once or twice + I have thought she would not greatly mind my making love to her, but I do + not understand her just the same.” + </p> + <p> + One day in the office of the company for which he worked Sam became + acquainted with a young advertising man named Jack Prince, a brisk, very + much alive young fellow who made money rapidly, spent it lavishly, and had + friends and acquaintances in every office, every hotel lobby, every bar + room and restaurant in the down-town section of the city. The chance + acquaintance rapidly grew into friendship. The clever, witty Prince made a + kind of hero of Sam, admiring his reserve and good sense and boasting of + him far and wide through the town. With Prince, Sam occasionally went on + mild carouses, and, once, in the midst of thousands of people sitting + about tables and drinking beer at the Coliseum on Wabash Avenue, he and + Prince got into a fight with two waiters, Prince declaring he had been + cheated and Sam, although he thought his friend in the wrong, striking out + with his fist and dragging Prince through the door and into a passing + street car in time to avoid a rush of other waiters hurrying to the aid of + the one who lay dazed and sputtering on the sawdust floor. + </p> + <p> + After these evenings of carousal, carried on with Jack Prince and with + young men met on trains and about country hotels, Sam spent hour after + hour walking about town absorbed in his own thoughts and getting his own + impressions of what he saw. In the affairs with the young men he played, + for the most part, a passive rôle, going with them from place to place and + drinking until they became loud and boisterous, or morose and quarrelsome, + and then slipping away to his own room, amused or irritated as the + circumstances, or the temperament of his companions, had made or marred + the joviality of the evening. On his nights alone, he put his hands into + his pockets and walked for endless miles through the lighted streets, + getting in a dim way a realisation of the hugeness of life. All of the + faces going past him, the women in their furs, the young men with cigars + in their mouths going to the theatres, the bald old men with watery eyes, + the boys with bundles of newspapers under their arms, and the slim + prostitutes lurking in the hallways, should have interested him deeply. In + his youth, and with the pride of sleeping power in him, he saw them only + as so many individuals that might some day test their ability against his + own. And if he peered at them closely and marked down face after face in + the crowds it was as a sitter in the great game of business that he + looked, exercising his mind by imagining this or that one arrayed against + him in deals, and planning the method by which he would win in the + imaginary struggle. + </p> + <p> + There was at that time in Chicago a place, to be reached by a bridge above + the Illinois Central Railroad track, that Sam sometimes visited on stormy + nights to watch the lake lashed by the wind. Great masses of water moving + swiftly and silently broke with a roar against wooden piles, backed by + hills of stone and earth, and the spray from the broken waves fell upon + Sam’s face and on winter nights froze on his coat. He had learned to + smoke, and leaning upon the railing of the bridge would stand for hours + with a pipe in his mouth looking at the moving water, filled with awe and + admiration of the silent power of it. + </p> + <p> + One night in September, when he was walking alone in the streets, an + incident happened that showed him also a silent power within himself, a + power that startled and for the moment frightened him. Walking into a + little street back of Dearborn, he was suddenly aware of the faces of + women looking out at him through small square windows cut in the fronts of + the houses. Here and there, before and behind him, were the faces; voices + called, smiles invited, hands beckoned. Up and down the street went men + looking at the sidewalk, their coats turned up about their necks, their + hats pulled down over their eyes. They looked at the faces of the women + pressed against the little squares of glass and then, turning, suddenly, + sprang in at the doors of the houses as if pursued. Among the walkers on + the sidewalk were old men, men in shabby coats whose feet scuffled as they + hurried along, and young boys with the pink of virtue in their cheeks. In + the air was lust, heavy and hideous. It got into Sam’s brain and he stood + hesitating and uncertain, startled, nerveless, afraid. He remembered a + story he had once heard from John Telfer, a story of the disease and death + that lurks in the little side streets of cities, and ran into Van Buren + Street and from that into lighted State. He climbed up the stairway of the + elevated railroad and jumping on the first train went away south to walk + for hours on a gravel roadway at the edge of the lake in Jackson Park. The + wind from the lake and the laughter and talk of people passing under the + lights cooled the fever in him, as once it had been cooled by the + eloquence of John Telfer, walking on the road near Caxton, and with his + voice marshalling the armies of the standing corn. + </p> + <p> + Into Sam’s mind came a picture of the cold, silent water moving in great + masses under the night sky and he thought that in the world of men there + was a force as resistless, as little understood, as little talked of, + moving always forward, silent, powerful—the force of sex. He + wondered how the force would be broken in his own case, against what + breakwater it would spend itself. At midnight, he went home across the + city and crept into his alcove in the Pergrin house, puzzled and for the + time utterly tired. In his bed, he turned his face to the wall and + resolutely closing his eyes tried to sleep. “There are things not to be + understood,” he told himself. “To live decently is a matter of good sense. + I will keep thinking of what I want to do and not go into such a place + again.” + </p> + <p> + One day, when he had been in Chicago two years, there happened an incident + of another sort, an incident so grotesque, so Pan-like, so full of youth, + that for days after it happened he thought of it with delight, and walked + in the streets or sat in a passenger train laughing joyfully at the + remembrance of some new detail of the affair. + </p> + <p> + Sam, who was the son of Windy McPherson and who had more than once + ruthlessly condemned all men who put liquor into their mouths, got drunk, + and for eighteen hours went shouting poetry, singing songs, and yelling at + the stars like a wood god on the bend. + </p> + <p> + Late on an afternoon in the early spring he sat with Jack Prince in + DeJonge’s restaurant in Monroe Street. Prince, his watch lying before him + on the table and the thin stem of a wine glass between his fingers, talked + to Sam of the man for whom they had been waiting a half hour. + </p> + <p> + “He will be late, of course,” he exclaimed, refilling Sam’s glass. “The + man was never on time in his life. To keep an appointment promptly would + take something from him. It would be like the bloom of youth gone from the + cheeks of a maiden.” + </p> + <p> + Sam had already seen the man for whom they waited. He was thirty-five, + small and narrow-shouldered, with a little wrinkled face, a huge nose, and + a pair of eyeglasses that hooked over his ears. Sam had seen him in a + Michigan Avenue club with Prince solemnly pitching silver dollars at a + chalk mark on the floor with a group of serious, solid-looking old men. + </p> + <p> + “They are the crowd that have just put through the big deal in Kansas oil + stock and the little one is Morris, who handled the publicity for them,” + Prince had explained. + </p> + <p> + Later, when they were walking down Michigan Avenue, Prince talked at + length of Morris, whom he admired immensely. “He is the best advertising + and publicity man in America,” he declared. “He isn’t a four-flusher, as I + am, and does not make as much money, but he can take another man’s ideas + and express them so simply and forcibly that they tell the man’s story + better than he knew it himself. And that’s all there is to advertising.” + </p> + <p> + He began laughing. + </p> + <p> + “It is funny to think of it. Tom Morris will do a job of work and the man + for whom he does it will swear that he did it himself, that every pat + phrase on the printed page Tom has turned out, is one of his own. He will + howl like a beast at paying Tom’s bill, and then the next time he will try + to do the job himself and make a hopeless muddle of it so that he has to + send for Tom only to see the trick done over again like shelling corn off + the cob. The best men in Chicago send for him.” + </p> + <p> + Into the restaurant came Tom Morris bearing under his arm a huge + pasteboard portfolio. He seemed hurried and nervous. “I am on my way to + the office of the International Biscuit Turning Machine Company,” he + explained to Prince. “I can’t stop at all. I have here the layout of a + circular designed to push on to the market some more of that common stock + of theirs that hasn’t paid a dividend for ten years.” + </p> + <p> + Thrusting out his hand, Prince dragged Morris into a chair. “Never mind + the Biscuit Machine people and their stock,” he commanded; “they will + always have common stock to sell. It is inexhaustible. I want you to meet + McPherson here who will some day have something big for you to help him + with.” + </p> + <p> + Morris reached across the table and took Sam’s hand; his own was small and + soft like that of a woman. “I am worked to death,” he complained; “I have + my eye on a chicken farm in Indiana. I am going down there to live.” + </p> + <p> + For an hour the three men sat in the restaurant while Prince talked of a + place in Wisconsin where the fish should be biting. “A man has told me of + the place twenty times,” he declared; “I am sure I could find it on a + railroad folder. I have never been fishing nor have you, and Sam here + comes from a place to which they carry water in wagons over the plains.” + </p> + <p> + The little man who had been drinking copiously of the wine looked from + Prince to Sam. From time to time he took off his glasses and wiped them + with a handkerchief. “I don’t understand your being in such society,” he + announced; “you have the solid, substantial look of a bucket-shop man. + Prince here will get nowhere. He is honest, sells wind and his charming + society, and spends the money that he gets, instead of marrying and + putting it in his wife’s name.” + </p> + <p> + Prince arose. “It is useless to waste time in persiflage,” he began and + then turning to Sam, “There is a place in Wisconsin,” he said uncertainly. + </p> + <p> + Morris picked up the portfolio and with a grotesque effort at steadiness + started for the door followed by Prince and Sam walking with wavering + steps. In the street Prince took the portfolio out of the little man’s + hand. “Let your mother carry it, Tommy,” he said, shaking his finger under + Morris’s nose. He began singing a lullaby. “When the bough bends the + cradle will fall.” + </p> + <p> + The three men walked out of Monroe and into State Street, Sam’s head + feeling strangely light. The buildings along the street reeled against the + sky. A sudden fierce longing for wild adventure seized him. On a corner + Morris stopped, took the handkerchief from his pocket and again wiped his + glasses. “I want to be sure that I see clearly,” he said; “it seems to me + that in the bottom of that last glass of wine I saw three of us in a cab + with a basket of life oil on the seat between us going to the station to + catch the train for that place Jack’s friend told fish lies about.” + </p> + <p> + The next eighteen hours opened up a new world to Sam. With the fumes of + liquor rising in his brain, he rode for two hours on a train, tramped in + the darkness along dusty roads and, building a bonfire in a woods, danced + in the light of it upon the grass, holding the hands of Prince and the + little man with the wrinkled face. Solemnly he stood upon a stump at the + edge of a wheatfield and recited Poe’s “Helen,” taking on the voice, the + gestures and even the habit of spreading his legs apart, of John Telfer. + And then overdoing the last, he sat down suddenly on the stump, and + Morris, coming forward with a bottle in his hand said, “Fill the lamp, man—the + light of reason has gone out.” + </p> + <p> + From the bonfire in the woods and Sam’s recital from the stump, the three + friends emerged again upon the road, and a belated farmer driving home + half asleep on the seat of his wagon caught their attention. With the + skill of an Indian boy the diminutive Morris sprang upon the wagon and + thrust a ten dollar bill into the farmer’s hand. “Lead us, O man of the + soil!” he shouted, “Lead us to a gilded palace of sin! Take us to a + saloon! The life oil gets low in the can!” + </p> + <p> + Beyond the long, jolting ride in the wagon Sam never became quite clear. + In his mind ran vague notions of a wild carousal in a country tavern, of + himself acting as bartender, and a huge red-faced woman rushing here and + there under the direction of a tiny man, dragging reluctant rustics to the + bar and commanding them to keep on drinking the beer that Sam drew until + the last of the ten dollars given to the man of the wagon should have gone + into her cash drawer. Also, he thought that Jack Prince had put a chair + upon the bar and that he sat on it explaining to the hurrying drawer of + beer that although the Egyptian kings had built great pyramids to + celebrate themselves they never built anything more gigantic than the jag + Tom Morris was building among the farm hands in the room. + </p> + <p> + Later Sam thought that he and Jack Prince tried to sleep under a pile of + grain sacks in a shed and that Morris came to them weeping because every + one in the world was asleep and most of them lying under tables. + </p> + <p> + And then, his head clearing, Sam found himself with the two others walking + again upon the dusty road in the dawn and singing songs. + </p> + <p> + On the train, with the help of a Negro porter, the three men tried to + efface the dust and the stains of the wild night. The pasteboard portfolio + containing the circular for the Biscuit Machine Company was still under + Jack Prince’s arm and the little man, wiping and re-wiping his glasses, + peered at Sam. + </p> + <p> + “Did you come with us or are you a child we have adopted here in these + parts?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER II + </h2> + <p> + It was a wonderful place, that South Water Street in Chicago where Sam + came to make his business start in the city, and it was proof of the dry + unresponsiveness in him that he did not sense more fully its meaning and + its message. All day the food stuff of a vast city flowed through the + narrow streets. Blue-shirted, broad-shouldered teamsters from the tops of + high piled wagons bawled at scurrying pedestrians. On the sidewalks in + boxes, bags, and barrels, lay oranges from Florida and California, figs + from Arabia, bananas from Jamaica, nuts from the hills of Spain and the + plains of Africa, cabbages from Ohio, beans from Michigan, corn and + potatoes from Iowa. In December, fur-coated men hurried through the + forests of northern Michigan gathering Christmas trees that found their + way to warm firesides through the street. And summer and winter a million + hens laid the eggs that were gathered there, and the cattle on a thousand + hills sent their yellow butter fat packed in tubs and piled upon trucks to + add to the confusion. + </p> + <p> + Into this street Sam walked, thinking little of the wonder of these things + and thinking haltingly, getting his sense of the bigness of it in dollars + and cents. Standing in the doorway of the commission house for which he + was to work, strong, well clad, able and efficient, he looked through the + streets, seeing and hearing the hurry and the roar and the shouting of + voices, and then with a smile upon his lips went inside. In his brain was + an unexpressed thought. As the old Norse marauders looked at the cities + sitting in their splendour on the Mediterranean so looked he. “What loot!” + a voice within him said, and his brain began devising methods by which he + should get his share of it. + </p> + <p> + Years later, when Sam was a man of big affairs, he drove one day in a + carriage through the streets and turning to his companion, a grey-haired, + dignified Boston man who sat beside him, said, “I worked here once and + used to sit on a barrel of apples at the edge of the sidewalk thinking how + clever I was to make more money in one month than the man who raised the + apples made in a year.” + </p> + <p> + The Boston man, stirred by the sight of so much foodstuff and moved to + epigram by his mood, looked up and down the street. + </p> + <p> + “The foodstuff of an empire rattling o’er the stones,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “I should have made more money here,” answered Sam dryly. + </p> + <p> + The commission firm for which Sam worked was a partnership, not a + corporation, and was owned by two brothers. Of the two Sam thought that + the elder, a tall, bald, narrow-shouldered man, with a long narrow face + and a suave manner, was the real master, and represented most of the + ability in the partnership. He was oily, silent, tireless. All day he went + in and out of the office and warehouses and up and down the crowded + street, sucking nervously at an unlighted cigar. He was a great worker in + a suburban church, but a shrewd and, Sam suspected, an unscrupulous + business man. Occasionally the minister or some of the women of the + suburban church came into the office to talk with him, and Sam was amused + at the thought that Narrow Face, when he talked of the affairs of the + church, bore a striking resemblance to the brown-bearded minister of the + church in Caxton. + </p> + <p> + The other brother was a far different sort, and, in business, Sam thought, + a much inferior man. He was a heavy, broad-shouldered, square-faced man of + about thirty, who sat in the office dictating letters and who stayed out + two or three hours to lunch. He sent out letters signed by him on the + firm’s stationery with the title of General Manager, and Narrow Face let + him do it. Broad Shoulders had been educated in New England and even after + several years away from his college seemed more interested in it than in + the welfare of the business. For a month or more in the spring he took + most of the time of one of the two stenographers employed by the firm + writing letters to graduates of Chicago high schools to induce them to go + East to finish their education; and when a graduate of the college came to + Chicago seeking employment, he closed his desk and spent entire days going + from place to place, introducing, urging, recommending. Sam noticed, + however, that when the firm employed a new man in their own office or on + the road it was Narrow-Face who chose the man. + </p> + <p> + Broad-shoulders had been a famous football player in his day and wore an + iron brace on his leg. The offices, like most of the offices on the + street, were dark and narrow, and smelled of decaying vegetables and + rancid butter. Noisy Greek and Italian hucksters wrangled on the sidewalk + in front, and among these went Narrow-Face hurrying about making deals. + </p> + <p> + In South Water Street Sam did well, multiplying his thirty-six hundred + dollars by ten during the three years that he stayed there, or went out + from there to towns and cities directing a part of the great flowing river + of foodstuff through his firm’s front door. + </p> + <p> + With almost his first day on the street he began seeing on all sides of + him opportunity for gain, and set himself industriously at work to get his + hand upon money with which to take advantage of the chances that he + thought lay so invitingly about. Within a year he had made much progress. + From a woman on Wabash Avenue he got six thousand dollars, and he planned + and executed a coup that gave him the use of twenty thousand dollars that + had come as a legacy to his friend, the medical student, who lived at the + Pergrin house. + </p> + <p> + Sam had eggs and apples lying in warehouse against a rise; game, smuggled + across the state line from Michigan and Wisconsin, lay frozen in cold + storage tagged with his name and ready to be sold at a long profit to + hotels and fashionable restaurants; and there were even secret bushels of + corn and wheat lying in other warehouses along the Chicago River ready to + be thrown on the market at a word from him, or, the margins by which he + kept his hold on the stuff not being forthcoming, at a word from a LaSalle + Street broker. + </p> + <p> + Getting the twenty thousand dollars out of the hands of the medical + student was a turning point in Sam’s life. Sunday after Sunday he walked + with Eckardt in the streets or loitered with him in the parks thinking of + the money lying idle in the bank and of the deals he might be turning with + it in the street or on the road. Daily he saw more clearly the power of + cash. Other commission merchants along South Water Street came running + into the office of his firm with tense, anxious faces asking Narrow-Face + to help them over rough spots in the day’s trading. Broad-Shoulders, who + had no business ability but who had married a rich woman, went on month + after month taking half the profits brought in by the ability of his tall, + shrewd brother, and Narrow-Face, who had taken a liking for Sam and who + occasionally stopped for a word with him, spoke of the matter often and + eloquently. + </p> + <p> + “Spend your time with no one who hasn’t money to help you,” he said; “on + the road look for the men with money and then try to get it. That’s all + there is to business—money-getting.” And then looking across to the + desk of his brother he would add, “I would kick half the men in business + out of it if I could, but I myself must dance to the tune that money + plays.” + </p> + <p> + One day Sam went to the office of an attorney named Webster, whose + reputation for the shrewd drawing of contracts had come to him from + Narrow-Face. + </p> + <p> + “I want a contract drawn that will give me absolute control of twenty + thousand dollars with no risk on my part if I lose the money and no + promise to pay more than seven per cent if I do not lose,” he said. + </p> + <p> + The attorney, a slender, middle-aged man with a swarthy skin and black + hair, put his hands on the desk before him and looked at the tall young + man. + </p> + <p> + “What collateral?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + Sam shook his head. “Can you draw such a contract that will be legal and + what will it cost me?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + The lawyer laughed good naturedly. “I can draw it of course. Why not?” + </p> + <p> + Sam, taking a roll of bills from his pocket, counted the amount upon the + table. + </p> + <p> + “Who are you anyway?” asked Webster. “If you can get twenty thousand and + without collateral you’re worth knowing. I might be getting up a gang to + rob a mail train.” + </p> + <p> + Sam did not answer. He put the contract in his pocket and went home to his + alcove at the Pergrins. He wanted to get by himself and think. He did not + believe that he would by any chance lose Frank Eckardt’s money, but he + knew that Eckardt himself would draw back from the kind of deals that he + expected to make with the money, that they would frighten and alarm him, + and he wondered if he was being honest. + </p> + <p> + In his own room after dinner Sam studied carefully the agreement drawn by + Webster. It seemed to him to cover what he wanted covered, and having got + it well fixed in his mind he tore it up. “There is no use his knowing I + have been to a lawyer,” he thought guiltily. + </p> + <p> + Getting into bed, he began building plans for the future. With more than + thirty thousand dollars at his command he thought that he should be able + to make headway rapidly. “In my hands it will double itself every year,” + he told himself and getting out of bed he drew a chair to the window and + sat down, feeling strangely alive and awake like a young man in love. He + saw himself going on and on, directing, managing, ruling men. It seemed to + him that there was nothing he could not do. “I will run factories and + banks and maybe mines and railroads,” he thought and his mind leaped + forward so that he saw himself, grey, stern, and capable, sitting at a + broad desk high in a great stone building, a materialisation of John + Telfer’s word picture—“You will be a big man of dollars—it is + plain.” + </p> + <p> + And then into Sam’s mind came another picture. He remembered a Saturday + afternoon when a young man had come running into the office on South Water + Street, a young man who owed Narrow-Face a sum of money and could not pay + it. He remembered the unpleasant tightening of the mouth and the sudden + shrewd hard look in his employer’s long narrow face. He had not heard much + of the talk, but he was aware of a strained pleading quality in the voice + of the young man who had said over and over slowly and painfully, “But, + man, my honour is at stake,” and of a coldness in the answering voice + replying persistently, “With me it is not a matter of honour but of + dollars, and I am going to get them.” + </p> + <p> + From the alcove window Sam looked out upon a vacant lot covered with + patches of melting snow. Beyond the lot facing him stood a flat building, + and the snow, melting on the roof, made a little stream that ran down some + hidden pipe and rattled out upon the ground. The noise of the falling + water and the sound of distant footsteps going homeward through the + sleeping city brought back thoughts of other nights when as a boy in + Caxton he had sat thus, thinking disconnected thoughts. + </p> + <p> + Without knowing it Sam was fighting one of the real battles of his life, a + battle in which the odds were very much against the quality in him that + got him out of bed to look at the snow-clad vacant lot. + </p> + <p> + There was in the youth much of the brute trader, blindly intent upon gain; + much of the quality that has given America so many of its so-called great + men. It was the quality that had sent him in secret to Lawyer Webster to + protect himself without protecting the simple credulous young medical + student, and that had made him say as he came home with the contract in + his pocket, “I will do what I can,” when in truth he meant, “I will get + what I can.” + </p> + <p> + There may be business men in America who do not get what they can, who + simply love power. One sees men here and there in banks, at the heads of + great industrial trusts, in factories and in great mercantile houses of + whom one would like to think thus. They are the men who one dreams have + had an awakening, who have found themselves; they are the men hopeful + thinkers try to recall again and again to the mind. + </p> + <p> + To these men America is looking. It is asking them to keep the faith, to + stand themselves up against the force of the brute trader, the dollar man, + the man who with his one cunning wolf quality of acquisitiveness has too + long ruled the business of the nation. + </p> + <p> + I have said that the sense of equity in Sam fought an unequal battle. He + was in business, and young in business, in a day when all America was + seized with a blind grappling for gain. The nation was drunk with it, + trusts were being formed, mines opened; from the ground spurted oil and + gas; railroads creeping westward opened yearly vast empires of new land. + To be poor was to be a fool; thought waited, art waited; and men at their + firesides gathered their children around them and talked glowingly of men + of dollars, holding them up as prophets fit to lead the youth of the young + nation. + </p> + <p> + Sam had in him the making of the new, the commanding man of business. It + was that quality in him that made him sit by the window thinking before + going to the medical student with the unfair contract, and the same + quality had sent him forth night after night to walk alone in the streets + when other young men went to theatres or to walk with girls in the park. + He had, in truth, a taste for the lonely hours when thought grows. He was + a step beyond the youth who hurries to the theatre or buries himself in + stories of love or adventure. He had in him something that wanted a + chance. + </p> + <p> + In the flat building across the vacant lot a light appeared at a window + and through the lighted window he saw a man clad in pajamas who propped a + sheet of music against a dressing-table and who had a shining silver horn + in his hand. Sam watched, filled with mild curiosity. The man, not + reckoning on an onlooker at so late an hour, began an elaborate and + amusing schedule of personation. He opened the window, put the horn to his + lips and then turning bowed before the lighted room as before an audience. + He put his hand to his lips and blew kisses about, then put the horn to + his lips and looked again at the sheet of music. + </p> + <p> + The note that came out of the window on the still air was a failure, it + flattened into a squawk. Sam laughed and pulled down the window. The + incident had brought back to his mind another man who bowed to a crowd and + blew upon a horn. Getting into bed he pulled the covers about him and went + to sleep. “I will get Frank’s money if I can,” he told himself, settling + the matter that had been in his mind. “Most men are fools and if I do not + get his money some other man will.” + </p> + <p> + On the next afternoon Eckardt had lunch down town with Sam. Together they + went to a bank where Sam showed the profits of deals he had made and the + growth of his bank account, going afterward into South Water Street where + Sam talked glowingly of the money to be made by a shrewd man who knew the + ways of the street and had a head upon his shoulders. + </p> + <p> + “That’s just it,” said Frank Eckardt, falling quickly into the trap Sam + had set, and hungering for profits; “I have money but no head on my + shoulders for using it. I wish you would take it and see what you can do.” + </p> + <p> + With a thumping heart Sam went home across the city to the Pergrin house, + Eckardt beside him in the elevated train. In Sam’s room the agreement was + written out by Sam and signed by Eckardt. At dinner time they had the + drygoods buyer in to sign as witness. + </p> + <p> + And the agreement turned out to Eckardt’s advantage. In no year did Sam + return him less than ten per cent, and in the end gave back the principal + more than doubled so that Eckardt was able to retire from the practice of + medicine and live upon the interest of his capital in a village near + Tiffin, Ohio. + </p> + <p> + With the thirty thousand dollars in his hands Sam began to reach out and + extend the scope of his ventures. He bought and sold constantly, not only + eggs, butter, apples, and grain, but also houses and building lots. + Through his head marched long rows of figures. Deals worked themselves out + in detail in his brain as he went about town drinking with young men, or + sat at dinner in the Pergrin house. He even began working over in his head + various schemes for getting into the firm by which he was employed, and + thought that he might work upon Broad-Shoulders, getting hold of his + interest and forcing himself into control. And then, the fear of + Narrow-Face holding him back and his growing success in deals keeping his + mind occupied, he was suddenly confronted by an opportunity that changed + entirely the plans he was making for himself. + </p> + <p> + Through Jack Prince’s suggestion Colonel Tom Rainey of the great Rainey + Arms Company sent for him and offered him a position as buyer of all the + materials used in their factories. + </p> + <p> + It was the kind of connection Sam had unconsciously been seeking—a + company, strong, old, conservative, known throughout the world. There was, + in the talk with Colonel Tom, a hint of future opportunities to get stock + in the company and perhaps to become eventually an official—these + things were of course remote—to be dreamed of and worked toward—the + company made it a part of its policy. + </p> + <p> + Sam said nothing, but already he had decided to accept the place, and was + thinking of a profitable arrangement touching percentages on the amount + saved in buying that had worked out so well for him during his years with + Freedom Smith. + </p> + <p> + Sam’s work for the firearms company took him off the road and confined him + to an office all day long. In a way he regretted this. The complaints he + had heard among travelling men in country hotels with regard to the + hardship of travel meant nothing to his mind. Any kind of travel was a + keen pleasure to him. Against the hardships and discomforts he balanced + the tremendous advantages of seeing new places and faces and getting a + look into many lives, and he looked back with a kind of retrospective joy + on the three years of hurrying from place to place, catching trains, and + talking with chance acquaintances met by the way. Also, the years on the + road had given him many opportunities for secret and profitable deals of + his own. + </p> + <p> + Over against these advantages the place at Rainey’s threw him into close + and continuous association with men of big affairs. The offices of the + Arms Company occupied an entire floor of one of Chicago’s newest and + biggest skyscrapers and millionaire stockholders and men high in the + service of the state and of the government at Washington came in and went + out at the door. Sam looked at them closely. He wanted to have a tilt with + them and try if his Caxton and South Water Street shrewdness would keep + the head upon his shoulders in LaSalle Street. The opportunity seemed to + him a big one and he went about his work quietly and ably, intent upon + making the most of it. + </p> + <p> + The Rainey Arms Company, at the time of Sam’s coming with it, was still + largely owned by the Rainey family, father and daughter. Colonel Rainey, a + grey-whiskered military looking man with a paunch, was the president and + largest individual stockholder. He was a pompous, swaggering old fellow + with a habit of making the most trivial statement with the air of a judge + pronouncing the death sentence, and sat dutifully at his desk day after + day looking very important and thoughtful, smoking long black cigars and + signing personally piles of letters brought him by the heads of various + departments. He looked upon himself as a silent but very important spoke + in the government at Washington and every day issued many orders which the + men at the heads of departments received with respect and disregarded in + secret. Twice he had been prominently mentioned in connection with cabinet + positions in the national government, and in talks with his cronies at + clubs and restaurants he gave the impression of having actually refused an + offer of appointment on both occasions. + </p> + <p> + Having got himself established as a factor in the management of the + business, Sam found many things that surprised him. In every company of + which he knew there was some one man to whom all looked for guidance, who + at critical moments became dominant, saying “Do this, or that,” and making + no explanations. In the Rainey Company he found no such man, but, instead, + a dozen strong departments, each with its own head and each more or less + independent of the others. + </p> + <p> + Sam lay in his bed at night and went about in the evening thinking of this + and of its meaning. Among the department heads there was a great deal of + loyalty and devotion to Colonel Tom, and he thought that among them were a + few men who were devoted to other interests than their own. + </p> + <p> + At the same time he told himself there was something wrong. He himself had + no such feeling of loyalty and although he was willing to give lip service + to the resounding talk of the colonel about the fine old traditions of the + company, he could not bring himself to a belief in the idea of conducting + a vast business on a system founded upon lip service to traditions, or + upon loyalty to an individual. + </p> + <p> + “There must be loose ends lying about everywhere,” he thought and followed + the thought with another. “A man will come along, pick up these loose + ends, and run the whole shop. Why not I?” + </p> + <p> + The Rainey Arms Company had made its millions for the Rainey and Whittaker + families during the Civil War. Whittaker had been an inventor, making one + of the first practical breech-loading guns, and the original Rainey had + been a dry-goods merchant in an Illinois town who backed the inventor. + </p> + <p> + It proved itself a rare combination. Whittaker developed into a wonderful + shop manager for his day, and, from the first, stayed at home building + rifles and making improvements, enlarging the plant, getting out the + goods. The drygoods merchant scurried about the country, going to + Washington and to the capitals of the individual states, pulling wires, + appealing to patriotism and state pride, taking big orders at fat prices. + </p> + <p> + In Chicago there is a tradition that more than once he went south of the + Dixie line and that following these trips thousands of Rainey-Whittaker + rifles found their way into the hands of Confederate soldiers, but this + story which increased Sam’s respect for the energetic little drygoods + merchant, Colonel Tom, his son, indignantly denied. In reality Colonel Tom + would have liked to think of the first Rainey as a huge, Jove-like god of + arms. Like Windy McPherson of Caxton, given a chance, he would have + invented a new ancestor. + </p> + <p> + After the Civil War, and Colonel Tom’s growing to manhood, the Rainey and + Whittaker fortunes were merged into one through the marriage of Jane + Whittaker, the last of her line, to the only surviving Rainey, and upon + her death her fortune, grown to more than a million, stood in the name of + Sue Rainey, twenty-six, the only issue of the marriage. + </p> + <p> + From the first day, Sam began to forge ahead in the Rainey Company. In the + buying end he found a rich field for spectacular money saving and money + making and made the most of it. The position as buyer had for ten years + been occupied by a distant cousin to Colonel Tom, now dead. Whether the + cousin was a fool or a knave Sam could never quite decide and did not + greatly care, but after he had got the situation in hand he felt that the + man must have cost the company a tremendous sum, which <i>he</i> intended + to save. + </p> + <p> + Sam’s arrangement with the company gave him, besides a fair salary, half + he saved in the fixed prices of standard materials. These prices had stood + fixed for years and Sam went into them, cutting right and left, and making + for himself during his first year twenty-three thousand dollars. At the + end of the year, when the directors asked to have an adjustment made and + the percentage contract annulled, he got a generous slice of company + stock, the respect of Colonel Tom Rainey and the directors, the fear of + some of the department heads, the loyal devotion of others, and the title + of Treasurer of the company. + </p> + <p> + The Rainey Arms Company was in truth living largely upon the reputation + built up for it by the first pushing energetic Rainey, and the inventive + genius of his partner, Whittaker. Under Colonel Tom it had found new + conditions and new competition which he had ignored, or met in a + half-hearted way, standing on its reputation, its financial strength, and + on the glory of its past achievements. Dry rot ate at its heart. The + damage done was not great, but was growing greater. The heads of the + departments, in whose hands so much of the running of the business lay, + were many of them incompetent men with nothing to commend them but long + years of service. And in the treasurer’s office sat a quiet young man, + barely turned twenty, who had no friends, wanted his own way, and who + shook his head over the office traditions and was proud of his unbelief. + </p> + <p> + Seeing the absolute necessity of working through Colonel Tom, and having a + head filled with ideas of things he wanted done, Sam began working to get + suggestions into the older man’s mind. Within a month after his elevation + the two men were lunching together daily and Sam was spending many extra + hours behind closed doors in Colonel Tom’s office. + </p> + <p> + Although American business and manufacturing had not yet achieved the + modern idea of efficiency in shop and office management, Sam had many of + these ideas in his mind and expounded them tirelessly to Colonel Tom. He + hated waste; he cared nothing for company tradition; he had no idea, as + did the heads of other departments, of getting into a comfortable berth + and spending the rest of his days there, and he was bent on managing the + great Rainey Company, if not directly, then through Colonel Tom, who, he + felt, was putty in his hands. + </p> + <p> + From his new position as treasurer Sam did not drop his work as buyer, + but, after a talk with Colonel Tom, merged the two departments, put in + capable assistants of his own, and went on with his work of effacing the + tracks of the cousin. For years the company had been overpaying for + inferior material. Sam put his own material inspectors into the west side + factories and brought several big Pennsylvania steel companies scurrying + to Chicago to make restitution. The restitution was stiff, but when + Colonel Tom was appealed to, Sam went to lunch with him, bought a bottle + of wine, and stiffened his back. + </p> + <p> + One afternoon in a room in the Palmer House a scene was played out that + for days stayed in Sam’s mind as a kind of realisation of the part he + wanted to play in the business world. The president of a lumber company + took Sam into the room, and, laying five one thousand dollar bills upon a + table, walked to the window and stood looking out. + </p> + <p> + For a moment Sam stood looking at the money on the table and at the back + of the man by the window, burning with indignation. He felt that he should + like to take hold of the man’s throat and press as he had once pressed on + the throat of Windy McPherson. And then a cold gleam coming into his eyes + he cleared his throat and said, “You are short here; you will have to + build this pile higher if you expect to interest me.” + </p> + <p> + The man by the window shrugged his shoulders—he was a slender, + young-looking man in a fancy waistcoat—and then turning and taking a + roll of bills from his pocket he walked to the table, facing Sam. + </p> + <p> + “I shall expect you to be reasonable,” he said, as he laid the bills on + the table. + </p> + <p> + When the pile had reached twenty thousand, Sam reached out his hand and + taking it up put it in his pocket. “You will get a receipt for this when I + get back to the office,” he said; “it is about what you owe our company + for overcharges and crooked material. As for our business, I made a + contract with another company this morning.” + </p> + <p> + Having got the buying end of the Rainey Arms Company straightened out to + his liking, Sam began spending much time in the shops and, through Colonel + Tom, forced big changes everywhere. He discharged useless foremen, knocked + out partitions between rooms, pushed everywhere for more and better work. + Like the modern efficiency man, he went about with a watch in his hand, + cutting out lost motion, rearranging, getting his own way. + </p> + <p> + It was a time of great agitation. The offices and shops buzzed like bees + disturbed and black looks followed him about. But Colonel Tom rose to the + situation and went about at Sam’s heels, swaggering, giving orders, + throwing back his shoulders like a man remade. All day long he was at it, + discharging, directing, roaring against waste. When a strike broke out in + one of the shops because of innovations Sam had forced upon the workmen + there, he got upon a bench and delivered a speech—written by Sam—on + a man’s place in the organisation and conducting of a great modern + industry and his duty to perfect himself as a workman. + </p> + <p> + Silently, the men picked up their tools and started again for their + benches and when he saw them thus affected by his words Colonel Tom + brought what threatened to be a squally affair to a hurrahing climax by + the announcement of a five per cent increase in the wage scale—that + was Colonel Tom’s own touch and the rousing reception of it brought a glow + of pride to his cheeks. + </p> + <p> + Although the affairs of the company were still being handled by Colonel + Tom, and though he daily more and more asserted himself, the officers and + shops, and later the big jobbers and buyers as well as the rich LaSalle + Street directors, knew that a new force had come into the company. Men + began dropping quietly into Sam’s office, asking questions, suggesting, + seeking favours. He felt that he was getting hold. Of the department + heads, about half fought him and were secretly marked for slaughter; the + others came to him, expressed approval of what was going on and asked him + to look over their departments and to make suggestions for improvements + through them. This Sam did eagerly, getting by it their loyalty and + support which later stood him in good stead. + </p> + <p> + In choosing the new men that came into the company Sam also took a hand. + The method used was characteristic of his relations with Colonel Tom. If a + man applying for a place suited him, he got admission to the colonel’s + office and listened for half an hour to a talk anent the fine old + traditions of the company. If a man did not suit Sam, he did not get to + the colonel. “You can’t have your time taken up by them,” Sam explained. + </p> + <p> + In the Rainey Company, the various heads of departments were stockholders + in the company, and selected from among themselves two men to sit upon the + board, and in his second year Sam was chosen as one of these employee + directors. During the same year five heads of departments resigning in a + moment of indignation over one of Sam’s innovations—to be replaced + later by two—their stock by a prearranged agreement came back into + the company’s hands. This stock and another block, secured for him by the + colonel, got into Sam’s hands through the use of Eckardt’s money, that of + the Wabash Avenue woman, and his own snug pile. + </p> + <p> + Sam was a growing force in the company. He sat on the board of directors, + the recognised practical head of the business among its stockholders and + employees; he had stopped the company’s march toward a second place in its + industry and had faced it about. All about him, in offices and shops, + there was the swing and go of new life and he felt that he was in a + position to move on toward real control and had begun laying lines with + that end in view. Standing in the offices in LaSalle Street or amid the + clang and roar of the shops he tilted up his chin with the same odd little + gesture that had attracted the men of Caxton to him when he was a barefoot + newsboy and the son of the town drunkard. Through his head went big + ambitious projects. “I have in my hand a great tool,” he thought; “with it + I will pry my way into the place I mean to occupy among the big men of + this city and this nation.” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER III + </h2> + <p> + Sam McPherson, who stood in the shops among the thousands of employees of + the Rainey Arms Company, who looked with unseeing eyes at the faces of the + men intent upon the operation of machines and saw in them but so many aids + to the ambitious projects stirring in his brain, who, while yet a boy, had + because of the quality of daring in him, combined with a gift of + acquisitiveness, become a master, who was untrained, uneducated, knowing + nothing of the history of industry or of social effort, walked out of the + offices of his company and along through the crowded streets to the new + apartment he had taken on Michigan Avenue. It was Saturday evening at the + end of a busy week and as he walked he thought of things he had + accomplished during the week and made plans for the one to come. Through + Madison Street he went and into State, seeing the crowds of men and women, + boys and girls, clambering aboard the cable cars, massed upon the + pavements, forming in groups, the groups breaking and reforming, and the + whole making a picture intense, confusing, awe-inspiring. As in the shops + among the men workers, so here, also, walked the youth with unseeing eyes. + He liked it all; the mass of people; the clerks in their cheap clothing; + the old men with young girls on their arms going to dine in restaurants; + the young man with a wistful look in his eyes waiting for his sweetheart + in the shadow of the towering office building. The eager, straining rush + of the whole, seemed no more to him than a kind of gigantic setting for + action; action controlled by a few quiet, capable men—of whom he + intended to be one—intent upon growth. + </p> + <p> + In State Street he stopped at a shop and buying a bunch of roses came out + again upon the crowded street. In the crowd before him walked a woman—tall, + freewalking, with a great mass of reddish-brown hair on her head. As she + passed through the crowd men stopped and looked back at her, their eyes + ablaze with admiration. Seeing her, Sam sprang forward with a cry. + </p> + <p> + “Edith!” he called, and running forward thrust the roses into her hand. + “For Janet,” he said, and lifting his hat walked beside her along State to + Van Buren Street. + </p> + <p> + Leaving the woman at a corner Sam came into a region of cheap theatres and + dingy hotels. Women spoke to him; young men in flashy overcoats and with a + peculiar, assertive, animal swing to their shoulders loitered before the + theatres or in the doorways of the hotels; from an upstairs restaurant + came the voice of another young man singing a popular song of the street. + “There’ll be a hot time in the old town to-night,” sang the voice. + </p> + <p> + Over a cross street Sam went into Michigan Avenue, faced by a long narrow + park and beyond the railroad tracks by the piles of new earth where the + city was trying to regain its lake front. In the cross street, standing in + the shadow of the elevated railroad, he had passed a whining, intoxicated + old woman who lurched forward and put a hand upon his coat. Sam had flung + her a quarter and passed on shrugging his shoulders. Here also he had + walked with unseeing eyes; this too was a part of the gigantic machine + with which the quiet, competent men of growth worked. + </p> + <p> + From his new quarters in the top floor of the hotel facing the lake, Sam + walked north along Michigan Avenue to a restaurant where Negro men went + noiselessly about among white-clad tables, serving men and women who + talked and laughed under the shaded lamps had an assured, confident air. + Passing in at the door of the restaurant, a wind, blowing over the city + toward the lake, brought the sound of a voice floating with it. “There’ll + be a hot time in the old town to-night,” again insisted the voice. + </p> + <p> + After dining Sam got on a grip car of the Wabash Avenue Cable, sitting on + the front seat and letting the panorama of the town roll up to him. From + the region of cheap theatres he passed through streets in which saloons + stood massed, one beside another, each with its wide garish doorway and + its dimly lighted “Ladies’ Entrance,” and into a region of neat little + stores where women with baskets upon their arms stood by the counters and + Sam was reminded of Saturday nights in Caxton. + </p> + <p> + The two women, Edith and Janet Eberly, met through Jack Prince, to one of + whom Sam had sent the roses at the hands of the other, and from whom he + had borrowed the six thousand dollars when he was new in the city, had + been in Chicago for five years when Sam came to know them. For all of the + five years they had lived in a two-story frame building that had been a + residence in Wabash Avenue near Thirty-ninth Street and that was now both + a residence and a grocery store. The apartment upstairs, reached by a + stairway at the side of the grocery, had in the five years, and under the + hand of Janet Eberly, become a thing of beauty, perfect in the simplicity + and completeness of its appointment. + </p> + <p> + The two women were the daughters of a farmer who had lived in one of the + middle western states facing the Mississippi River. Their grandfather had + been a noted man in the state, having been one of its first governors and + later serving it in the senate in Washington. There was a county and a + good-sized town named for him and he had once been talked of as a + vice-presidential possibility but had died at Washington before the + convention at which his name was to have been put forward. His one son, a + youth of great promise, went to West Point and served brilliantly through + the Civil War, afterward commanding several western army posts and + marrying the daughter of another army man. His wife, an army belle, died + after having borne him the two daughters. + </p> + <p> + After the death of his wife Major Eberly began drinking, and to get away + from the habit and from the army atmosphere where he had lived with his + wife, whom he loved intensely, took the two little girls and returned to + his home state to settle on a farm. + </p> + <p> + About the county where the two girls grew to womanhood, their father, + Major Eberly, got the name of a character, seeing people but seldom and + treating rudely the friendly advances of his farmer neighbours. He would + sit in the house for days poring over books, of which he had a great many, + and hundreds of which were now on open shelves in the apartment of the two + girls. These days of study, during which he would brook no intrusion, were + followed by days of fierce industry during which he led team after team to + the field, ploughing or reaping day and night with no rest except to eat. + </p> + <p> + At the edge of the Eberly farm there was a little wooden country church + surrounded by a hay field, and on Sunday mornings during the summer the + ex-army man was always to be found in the field, running some noisy, + clattering agricultural implement up and down under the windows of the + church and disturbing the worship of the country folk; in the winter he + drew a pile of logs there and went on Sunday mornings to split firewood + under the church windows. While his daughters were small he was several + times haled into court and fined for cruel neglect of his animals. Once he + locked a great herd of fine sheep in a shed and went into the house and + stayed for days intent upon his books so that many of them suffered + cruelly for want of food and water. When he was taken into court and + fined, half the county came to the trial and gloated over his humiliation. + </p> + <p> + To the two girls the father was neither cruel nor kind, leaving them + largely to themselves but giving them no money, so that they went about in + dresses made over from those of the mother, that lay piled in trunks in + the attic. When they were small, an old Negro woman, an ex-servant of the + army belle, lived with and mothered them, but when Edith was a girl of ten + this woman went off home to Tennessee, so that the girls were thrown on + their own resources and ran the house in their own way. + </p> + <p> + Janet Eberly was, at the beginning of her friendship with Sam, a slight + woman of twenty-seven with a small expressive face, quick nervous fingers, + black piercing eyes, black hair and a way of becoming so absorbed in the + exposition of a book or the rush of a conversation that her little intense + face became transfigured and her quick fingers clutched the arm of her + listener while her eyes looked into his and she lost all consciousness of + his presence or of the opinions he may have expressed. She was a cripple, + having fallen from the loft of a barn in her youth injuring her back so + that she sat all day in a specially made reclining wheeled chair. + </p> + <p> + Edith was a stenographer, working in the office of a publisher down town, + and Janet trimmed hats for a milliner a few doors down the street from the + house in which they lived. In his will the father left the money from the + sale of the farm to Janet, and Sam used it, insuring his life for ten + thousand dollars in her name while it was in his possession and handling + it with a caution entirely absent from his operations with the money of + the medical student. “Take it and make money for me,” the little woman had + said impulsively one evening shortly after the beginning of their + acquaintance and after Jack Prince had been talking flamboyantly of Sam’s + ability in affairs. “What is the good of having a talent if you do not use + it to benefit those who haven’t it?” + </p> + <p> + Janet Eberly was an intellect. She disregarded all the usual womanly + points of view and had an attitude of her own toward life and people. In a + way she had understood her hard-driven, grey-haired father and during the + time of her great physical suffering they had built up a kind of + understanding and affection for each other. After his death she wore a + miniature of him, made in his boyhood, on a chain about her neck. When Sam + met her the two immediately became close friends, sitting for hours in + talk and coming to look forward with great pleasure to the evenings spent + together. + </p> + <p> + In the Eberly household Sam McPherson was a benefactor, a wonder-worker. + In his hands the six thousand dollars was bringing two thousand a year + into the house and adding immeasurably to the air of comfort and good + living that prevailed there. To Janet, who managed the house, he was + guide, counsellor, and something more than friend. + </p> + <p> + Of the two women it was the strong, vigorous Edith, with the reddish-brown + hair and the air of physical completeness that made men stop to look at + her on the street, who first became Sam’s friend. + </p> + <p> + Edith Eberly was strong of body, given to quick flashes of anger, stupid + intellectually and hungry to the roots of her for wealth and a place in + the world. She had heard, through Jack Prince, of Sam’s money making and + of his ability and prospects and, for a time, had designs upon his + affections. Several times when they were alone together she gave his hand + a characteristically impulsive squeeze and once upon the stairway beside + the grocery store offered him her lips to kiss. Later there sprang up + between her and Jack Prince a passionate love affair, dropped finally by + Prince through fear of her violent fits of anger. After Sam had met Janet + Eberly and had become her loyal friend and henchman all show of affection + or even of interest between him and Edith was at an end and the kiss upon + the stairs was forgotten. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + Going up the stairway after the ride in the cable car Sam stood beside + Janet’s wheel chair in the room at the front of the apartment facing + Wabash Avenue. The chair was by the window and faced an open coal fire in + a grate she had had built into the wall of the house. Outside, through an + open arched doorway, Edith moved noiselessly about taking dishes from a + little table. He knew that after a time Jack Prince would come and take + her to the theatre, leaving Janet and him to finish their talk. + </p> + <p> + Sam lighted his pipe and between puffs began talking, making a statement + that he knew would arouse her, and Janet, putting her hand impulsively on + his shoulder, began tearing the statement to bits. + </p> + <p> + “You talk!” she broke out. “Books are not full of pretence and lies; you + business men are—you and Jack Prince. What do you know of books? + They are the most wonderful things in the world. Men sit writing them and + forget to lie, but you business men never forget. You and books! You + haven’t read books, not real ones. Didn’t my father know; didn’t he save + himself from insanity through books? Do I not, sitting here, get the real + feel of the movement of the world through the books that men write? + Suppose I saw those men. They would swagger and strut and take themselves + seriously just like you or Jack or the grocer down stairs. You think you + know what’s going on in the world. You think you are doing things, you + Chicago men of money and action and growth. You are blind, all blind.” + </p> + <p> + The little woman, a light, half scorn, half amusement in her eyes, leaned + forward and ran her fingers through Sam’s hair, laughing down into the + astonished face he turned up to her. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I’m not afraid, in spite of what Edith and Jack Prince say of you,” + she went on impulsively. “I like you all right and if I were a well woman + I should make love to you and marry you and then see to it there was + something in this world for you besides money and tall buildings and men + and machines that make guns.” + </p> + <p> + Sam grinned. “You are like your father, driving the mowing machine up and + down under the church windows on Sunday mornings,” he declared; “you think + you could remake the world by shaking your fist at it. I should like to go + and see you fined in a court room for starving sheep.” + </p> + <p> + Janet, closing her eyes and lying back in her chair, laughed with delight + and declared that they would have a splendid quarrelsome evening. + </p> + <p> + After Edith had gone out, Sam sat through the evening with Janet, + listening to her exposition of life and what she thought it should mean to + a strong capable fellow like himself, as he had been listening ever since + their acquaintanceship began. In the talk, and in the many talks they had + had together, talks that rang in his ears for years, the little black-eyed + woman gave him a glimpse into a whole purposeful universe of thought and + action of which he had never dreamed, introducing him to a new world of + men: methodical, hard-thinking Germans, emotional, dreaming Russians, + analytical, courageous Norwegians, Spaniards and Italians with their sense + of beauty, and blundering, hopeful Englishmen wanting so much and getting + so little; so that at the end of the evening he went out of her presence + feeling strangely small and insignificant against the great world + background she had drawn for him. + </p> + <p> + Sam did not understand Janet’s point of view. It was all too new and + foreign to everything life had taught him, and in his mind he fought her + ideas doggedly, clinging to his own concrete, practical thoughts and + hopes, but on the train homeward bound, and in his own room later, he + turned over and over in his mind the things she had said and tried in a + dim way to grasp the bigness of the conception of human life she had got + sitting in a wheel chair and looking down into Wabash Avenue. + </p> + <p> + Sam loved Janet Eberly. No word of that had ever passed between them and + he had seen her hand flash out and grasp the shoulder of Jack Prince when + she was laying down to him some law of life as she saw it, as it had so + often shot out and grasped his own, but had she been able to spring out of + the wheel chair he should have taken her hand and gone with her to the + clergyman within the hour and in his heart he knew that she would have + gone with him gladly. + </p> + <p> + Janet died suddenly during the second year of Sam’s work for the gun + company without a direct declaration of affection from him, but during the + years when they were much together he thought of her as in a sense his + wife and when she died he was desolate, overdrinking night after night and + wandering aimlessly through the deserted streets during hours when he + should have been asleep. She was the first woman who ever got hold of and + stirred his manhood, and she awoke something in him that made it possible + for him later to see life with a broadness and scope of vision that was no + part of the pushing, energetic young man of dollars and of industry who + sat beside her wheeled chair during the evenings on Wabash Avenue. + </p> + <p> + After Janet’s death, Sam did not continue his friendship with Edith, but + turned over to her the ten thousand dollars to which the six thousand of + Janet’s money had grown in his hands and did not see her again. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER IV + </h2> + <p> + One night in April Colonel Tom Rainey of the great Rainey Arms Company and + his chief lieutenant, young Sam McPherson, treasurer and chairman of the + board of directors of the company, slept together in a room in a St. Paul + hotel. It was a double room with two beds, and Sam, lying on his pillow, + looked across the bed to where the colonel’s paunch protruding itself + between him and the light from a long narrow window, made a round hill + above which the moon just peeped. During the evening the two men had sat + for several hours at a table in the grill down stairs while Sam discussed + a proposition he proposed making to a St. Paul jobber the next day. The + account of the jobber, a large one, had been threatened by Lewis, the Jew + manager of the Edwards Arms Company, the Rainey Company’s only important + western rival, and Sam was full of ideas to checkmate the shrewd trade + move the Jew had made. At the table, the colonel had been silent and + taciturn, an unusual attitude of mind for him, and Sam lay in bed and + looked at the moon gradually working its way over the undulating abdominal + hill, wondering what was in his mind. The hill dropped, showing the full + face of the moon, and then rose again obliterating it. + </p> + <p> + “Sam, were you ever in love?” asked the colonel, with a sigh. + </p> + <p> + Sam turned and buried his face in the pillow and the white covering of his + bed danced up and down. “The old fool, has it come to that with him?” he + asked himself. “After all these years of single life is he going to begin + running after women now?” + </p> + <p> + He did not answer the colonel’s question. “There are breakers ahead for + you, old boy,” he thought, the figure of quiet, determined, little Sue + Rainey, the colonel’s daughter, as he had seen her on the rare occasions + when he had dined at the Rainey home or she had come into the LaSalle + Street offices, coming into his mind. With a quiver of enjoyment of the + mental exercise, he tried to imagine the colonel as a swaggering blade + among women. + </p> + <p> + The colonel, oblivious of Sam’s mirth and of his silence regarding his + experience in the field of love, began talking, making amends for the + silence in the grill. He told Sam that he had decided to take to himself a + new wife, and confessed that the view of the matter his daughter might + take worried him. “Children are so unfair,” he complained; “they forget + about a man’s feelings and can’t realise that his heart is still young.” + </p> + <p> + With a smile on his lips, Sam began trying to picture a woman’s lying in + his place and looking at the moon over the pulsating hill. The colonel + continued talking. He grew franker, telling the name of his beloved and + the circumstances of their meeting and courtship. “She is an actress, a + working girl,” he said feelingly. “I met her at a dinner given by Will + Sperry one evening and she was the only woman there who did not drink + wine. After the dinner we went for a drive together and she told me of her + hard life, of her fight against temptations, and of her brother, an + artist, she is trying to get started in the world. We have been together a + dozen times and have written letters, and, Sam, we have discovered an + affinity for each other.” + </p> + <p> + Sam sat up in bed. “Letters!” he muttered. “The old dog is going to get + himself involved.” He dropped again upon the pillow. “Well, let him. Why + need I bother myself?” + </p> + <p> + The colonel, having begun talking, could not stop. “Although we have seen + each other only a dozen times, a letter has passed between us every day. + Oh, if you could see the letters she writes. They are wonderful.” + </p> + <p> + A worried sigh broke from the colonel. “I want Sue to invite her to the + house, but I am afraid,” he complained; “I am afraid she will be + wrong-headed about it. Women are such determined creatures. She and my + Luella should meet and know each other, but if I go home and tell her she + may make a scene and hurt Luella’s feelings.” + </p> + <p> + The moon had risen, shedding its light in Sam’s eyes, and he turned his + back to the colonel and prepared to sleep. The naive credulity of the + older man had touched a spring of mirth in him and from time to time the + covering of his bed continued to quiver suggestively. + </p> + <p> + “I would not hurt her feelings for anything. She is the squarest little + woman alive,” the voice of the colonel announced. The voice broke and the + colonel, who habitually roared forth his sentiments, began to dither. Sam + wondered if his feelings had been touched by the thoughts of his daughter + or of the lady from the stage. “It is a wonderful thing,” half sobbed the + colonel, “when a young and beautiful woman gives her whole heart into the + keeping of a man like me.” + </p> + <p> + It was a week later before Sam heard more of the affair. Looking up from + his desk in the offices in LaSalle Street one morning, he found Sue Rainey + standing before him. She was a small athletic looking woman with black + hair, square shoulders, cheeks browned by the sun and wind, and quiet grey + eyes. She stood facing Sam’s desk and pulled off a glove while she looked + down at him with amused, quizzical eyes. Sam rose, and leaning over the + flat-topped desk, took her hand, wondering what had brought her there. + </p> + <p> + Sue Rainey did not mince matters, but plunged at once into an explanation + of the purpose of her visit. From birth she had lived in an atmosphere of + wealth. Although she was not counted a beautiful woman, she had, because + of her wealth and the charm of her person, been much courted. Sam, who had + talked briefly with her a half dozen times, had long had a haunting + curiosity to know more of her personality. As she stood there before him + looking so wonderfully well-kept and confident he thought her baffling and + puzzling. + </p> + <p> + “The colonel,” she began, and then hesitated and smiled. “You, Mr. + McPherson, have become a figure in my father’s life. He depends upon you + very much. He tells me that he has talked with you concerning a Miss + Luella London from the theatre, and that you have agreed with him that the + colonel and she should marry.” + </p> + <p> + Sam watched her gravely. A flicker of mirth ran through him, but his face + was grave and disinterested. + </p> + <p> + “Yes?” he said, looking into her eyes. “Have you met Miss London?” + </p> + <p> + “I have,” answered Sue Rainey. “Have you?” + </p> + <p> + Sam shook his head. + </p> + <p> + “She is impossible,” declared the colonel’s daughter, clutching the glove + held in her hand and staring at the floor. A flush of anger rose in her + cheeks. “She is a crude, hard, scheming woman. She colours her hair, she + cries when you look at her, she hasn’t even the grace to be ashamed of + what she is trying to do, and she has got the colonel into a fix.” + </p> + <p> + Sam looked at the brown of Sue Rainey’s cheek and thought the texture of + it beautiful. He wondered why he had heard her called a plain woman. The + heightened colour brought to her face by her anger had, he thought, + transfigured her. He liked her direct, forceful way of putting the matter + of the colonel’s affair, and felt keenly the compliment implied by her + having come to him. “She has self-respect,” he told himself, and felt a + thrill of pride in her attitude as though it had been inspired by himself. + </p> + <p> + “I have been hearing of you a great deal,” she continued, glancing up at + him and smiling. “At our house you are brought to the table with the soup + and taken away with the liqueur. My father interlards his table talk, and + introduces all of his wise new axioms on economy and efficiency and + growth, with a constant procession of ‘Sam says’ and ‘Sam thinks.’ And the + men who come to the house talk of you also. Teddy Foreman says that at + directors’ meetings they all sit about like children waiting for you to + tell them what to do.” + </p> + <p> + She threw out her hand with an impatient little gesture. “I am in a hole,” + she said. “I might handle my father but I cannot handle that woman.” + </p> + <p> + While she had been talking to him Sam looked past her and out at a window. + When her eyes wandered from his face he looked again at her brown firm + cheeks. From the beginning of the interview he had been intending to help + her. + </p> + <p> + “Give me the lady’s address,” he said; “I’ll go look her over.” + </p> + <p> + Three evenings later Sam took Miss Luella London to a midnight supper at + one of the town’s best restaurants. She knew the motive of his taking her, + as he had been quite frank in the few minutes’ talk near the stage door of + the theatre when the engagement was made. As they ate, they talked of the + plays at the Chicago theatres, and Sam told her a story of an amateur + performance that had once taken place in the hall over Geiger’s drug store + in Caxton when he was boy. In the performance Sam had taken the rôle of a + drummer boy killed on the field of battle by a swaggering villain in a + grey uniform, and John Telfer, in the rôle of villain, had become so in + earnest that, a pistol not exploding at a critical moment, he had chased + Sam about the stage trying to hit him with the butt of the weapon while + the audience roared with delight at the realism of Telfer’s rage and at + the frightened boy begging for mercy. + </p> + <p> + Luella London laughed heartily at Sam’s story and then, the coffee being + served, she fingered the handle of the cup and a shrewd look came into her + eyes. + </p> + <p> + “And now you are a big business man and have come to see me about Colonel + Rainey,” she said. + </p> + <p> + Sam lighted a cigar. + </p> + <p> + “Just how much are you counting on this marriage between yourself and the + colonel?” he asked bluntly. + </p> + <p> + The actress laughed and poured cream into her coffee. A line came and went + on her forehead between her eyes. Sam thought she looked capable. + </p> + <p> + “I have been thinking of what you told me at the stage door,” she said, + and a childlike smile played about her lips. “Do you know, Mr. McPherson, + I can’t just figure you. I can’t just see how you get into this. Where are + your credentials, anyway?” + </p> + <p> + Sam, keeping his eyes upon her face, took a jump into the dark. + </p> + <p> + “It’s this way,” he said, “I’m something of an adventurer myself. I fly + the black flag. I come from where you do. I had to reach out my hand and + take what I wanted. I do not blame you in the least, but it just happens + that I saw Colonel Tom Rainey first. He is my game and I do not propose to + have you fooling around. I am not bluffing. You have got to get off him.” + </p> + <p> + Leaning forward, he stared at her intently, and then lowered his voice. + “I’ve got your record. I know the man you used to live with. He’s going to + help me get you if you do not drop it.” + </p> + <p> + Sitting back in his chair Sam watched her gravely. He had taken the odd + chance to win quickly by a bluff and had won. But Luella London was not to + be defeated without a struggle. + </p> + <p> + “You lie,” she cried, half springing from her chair. “Frank has never—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh yes, Frank has,” answered Sam, turning as though to call a waiter; “I + will have him here in ten minutes if you wish to be shown.” + </p> + <p> + Picking up a fork the woman began nervously picking holes in the table + cloth and a tear appeared upon her cheek. She took a handkerchief from a + bag that hung hooked over the back of a chair at the side of the table and + wiped her eyes. + </p> + <p> + “All right! All right!” she said, bracing herself, “I’ll drop it. If + you’ve dug up Frank Robson you’ve got me. He’ll do anything you say for a + piece of money.” + </p> + <p> + For some minutes the two sat in silence. A tired look had come into the + woman’s eyes. + </p> + <p> + “I wish I was a man,” she said. “I get whipped at everything I tackle + because I’m a woman. I’m getting past my money-making days in the theatre + and I thought the colonel was fair game.” + </p> + <p> + “He is,” answered Sam dispassionately, “but you see I beat you to it. He’s + mine.” + </p> + <p> + Glancing cautiously about the room, he took a roll of bills from his + pocket and began laying them one at a time upon the table. + </p> + <p> + “Look here,” he said, “you’ve done a good piece of work. You should have + won. For ten years half the society women of Chicago have been trying to + marry their daughters or their sons to the Rainey fortune. They had + everything to help them, wealth, good looks, and a standing in the world. + You have none of these things. How did you do it? + </p> + <p> + “Anyway,” he went on, “I’m not going to see you trimmed. I’ve got ten + thousand dollars here, as good Rainey money as ever was printed. You sign + this paper and then put the roll in your purse.” + </p> + <p> + “That’s square,” said Luella London, signing, and with the light coming + back into her eyes. + </p> + <p> + Sam beckoned to the proprietor of the restaurant whom he knew and had him + and a waiter sign as witnesses. + </p> + <p> + Luella London put the roll of bills into her purse. + </p> + <p> + “What did you give me that money for when you had me beat anyway?” she + asked. + </p> + <p> + Sam lighted a fresh cigar and folding the paper put it in his pocket. + </p> + <p> + “Because I like you and I admire your skill,” he said, “and anyway I did + not have you beaten until right now.” + </p> + <p> + They sat studying the people getting up from the tables and going through + the door to waiting carriages and automobiles, the well-dressed women with + assured airs serving Sam’s mind to make a contrast for the woman who sat + with him. + </p> + <p> + “I presume you are right about women,” he said musingly, “it must be a + stiff game for you if you like winning on your own hook.” + </p> + <p> + “Winning! We don’t win.” The lips of the actress drew back showing her + white teeth. “No woman ever won who tried to play a straight fighting game + for herself.” + </p> + <p> + Her voice grew tense and the lines upon her forehead reappeared. + </p> + <p> + “Woman can’t stand alone,” she went on, “she is a sentimental fool. She + reaches out her hand to some man and that in the end beats her. Why, even + when she plays the game as I played it against the colonel some rat of a + man like Frank Robson, for whom she has given up everything worth while to + a woman, sells her out.” + </p> + <p> + Sam looked at her hand, covered with rings, lying on the table. + </p> + <p> + “Let’s not misunderstand each other,” he said quietly, “do not blame Frank + for this. I never knew him. I just imagined him.” + </p> + <p> + A puzzled look came into the woman’s eyes and a flush rose in her cheeks. + </p> + <p> + “You grafter!” she sneered. + </p> + <p> + Sam called to a passing waiter and ordered a fresh bottle of wine. + </p> + <p> + “What’s the use being sore?” he asked. “It’s simple enough. You staked + against a better mind. Anyway you have the ten thousand, haven’t you?” + </p> + <p> + Luella reached for her purse. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know,” she said, “I’ll look. Haven’t you decided to steal it back + yet?” + </p> + <p> + Sam laughed. + </p> + <p> + “I’m coming to that,” he said, “don’t hurry me.” + </p> + <p> + For several minutes they sat eyeing each other, and then, with an earnest + ring in his voice and a smile on his lips, Sam began talking again. + </p> + <p> + “Look here!” he said, “I’m no Frank Robson and I do not like giving a + woman the worst of it. I have been studying you and I can’t see you + running around loose with ten thousand dollars of real money on you. You + do not fit into the picture and the money will not last a year in your + hands. + </p> + <p> + “Give it to me,” he urged; “let me invest it for you. I’m a winner. I’ll + double it for you in a year.” + </p> + <p> + The actress stared past Sam’s shoulder to where a group of young men sat + about a table drinking and talking loudly. Sam began telling an anecdote + of an Irish baggage man in Caxton. When he had finished he looked at her + and laughed. + </p> + <p> + “As that shoemaker looked to Jerry Donlin so you, as the colonel’s wife, + looked to me,” he said. “I had to make you get out of my flower bed.” + </p> + <p> + A gleam of resolution came into the wandering eyes of Luella London and + she took the purse from the back of the chair and brought out the roll of + bills. + </p> + <p> + “I’m a sport,” she said, “and I’m going to lay a bet on the best horse I + ever saw. You may trim me, but I always would take a chance.” + </p> + <p> + Turning, she called a waiter and, handing him a bill from her purse, threw + the roll on the table. + </p> + <p> + “Take the pay for the spread and the wine we have had out of that,” she + said, handing him the loose bill and then turning to Sam. “You ought to + beat the world. Anyway your genius gets recognition from me. I pay for + this party and when you see the colonel say good-bye to him for me.” + </p> + <p> + The next day, at his request, Sue Rainey called at the offices of the Arms + Company and Sam handed her the paper signed by Luella London. It was an + agreement on her part to divide with Sam, half and half, any money she + might be able to blackmail out of Colonel Rainey. + </p> + <p> + The colonel’s daughter glanced from the paper to Sam’s face. + </p> + <p> + “I thought so,” she said, and a puzzled look came into her eyes. “But I do + not understand this. What does this paper do and what did you pay for it?” + </p> + <p> + “The paper,” Sam answered, “puts her in a hole and I paid ten thousand + dollars for it.” + </p> + <p> + Sue Rainey laughed and taking a checkbook from her handbag laid it on the + desk and sat down. + </p> + <p> + “Do you get your half?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “I get it all,” answered Sam, and then leaning back in his chair launched + into an explanation. When he had told her of the talk in the restaurant + she sat with the checkbook lying before her and with the puzzled look + still in her eyes. + </p> + <p> + Without giving her time for comment, Sam plunged into the midst of what + had been in his mind to say to her. + </p> + <p> + “The woman will not bother the colonel any more,” he declared; “if that + paper won’t hold her something else will. She respects me and she is + afraid of me. We had a talk after she had signed the paper and she gave me + the ten thousand dollars to invest for her. I promised to double it for + her within a year and I want to make good. I want you to double it now. + Make the check for twenty thousand.” + </p> + <p> + Sue Rainey wrote the check, making it payable to bearer, and pushed it + across the table. + </p> + <p> + “I cannot say that I understand yet,” she confessed. “Did you also fall in + love with her?” + </p> + <p> + Sam grinned. He was wondering whether he would be able to get into words + just what he wanted to tell her of the actress soldier of fortune. He + looked across the table at her frank grey eyes and then on an impulse + decided that he would tell it straight out as though she had been a man. + </p> + <p> + “It’s like this,” he said. “I like ability and good brains and that woman + has them. She isn’t a good woman, but nothing in her life has made her + want to be good. All her life she has been going the wrong way, and now + she wants to get on her feet and squared around. That’s what she was after + the colonel for. She did not want to marry him, she wanted to make him + give her the start she was after. I got the best of her because somewhere + there is a snivelling little whelp of a man who has taken all the good and + the fineness out of her and who now stands ready to sell her out for a few + dollars. I imagined there would be such a man when I saw her and I bluffed + my way through to him. But I do not want to whip a woman, even in such an + affair, through the cheapness of some man. I want to do the square thing + by her. That’s why I asked you to make that check for twenty thousand.” + </p> + <p> + Sue Rainey rose and stood by the desk looking down at him. He was thinking + how wonderfully clear and honest her eyes. + </p> + <p> + “And what about the colonel?” she asked. “What will he think of all this?” + </p> + <p> + Sam walked around the desk and took her hand. + </p> + <p> + “We’ll have to agree not to consider him,” he said. “We really did that + you know when we started this thing. I think we can depend upon Miss + London’s putting the finishing touches on the job.” + </p> + <p> + And Miss London did. She sent for Sam a week later and put tweny-five + hundred dollars into his hand. + </p> + <p> + “That’s not to invest for me,” she said, “that’s for yourself. By the + agreement I signed with you we were to split anything I got out of the + colonel. Well, I went light. I only got five thousand dollars.” + </p> + <p> + With the money in his hand Sam stood by the side of a little table in her + room looking at her. + </p> + <p> + “What did you tell the colonel?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + “I called him up here to my room last night and lying here in bed I told + him that I had just discovered I was the victim of an incurable disease. I + told him that within a month I would be in bed for keeps and asked him to + marry me at once and to take me away with him to some quiet place where I + could die in his arms.” + </p> + <p> + Coming over to Sam, Luella London put a hand upon his arm and laughed. + </p> + <p> + “He began to beg off and make excuses,” she went on, “and then I brought + out his letters to me and talked straight. He wilted at once and paid the + five thousand dollars I asked for the letters without a murmur. I might + have made it fifty and with your talent you ought to get all he has in six + months.” + </p> + <p> + Sam shook hands with her and told her of his success in doubling the money + she had put into his hands. Then putting the twenty-five hundred dollars + in his pocket he went back to his desk. He did not see her again and when, + through a lucky market turn, he had increased the twenty thousand dollars + she had left with him to twenty-five, he placed it in the hands of a trust + company for her and forgot the incident. Years later he heard that she was + running a fashionable dressmaking establishment in a western city. + </p> + <p> + And Colonel Tom Rainey, who had for months talked of nothing but factory + efficiency and of what he and young Sam McPherson were going to do in the + way of enlarging the business, began the next morning a tirade against + women that lasted the rest of his life. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER V + </h2> + <p> + Sue Rainey had long touched the fancy of the youths of Chicago society + who, while looking at her trim little figure and at the respectable size + of the fortune behind it, were yet puzzled and disconcerted by her + attitude toward themselves. On the wide porches at golf clubs, where young + men in white trousers lounged and smoked cigarettes, and in the down-town + clubs, where the same young men spent winter afternoons playing Kelly + pool, they spoke of her, calling her an enigma. “She’ll end by being an + old maid,” they declared, and shook their heads at the thought of so good + a connection dangling loosely in the air just without their reach. From + time to time, one of the young men tore himself loose from the group that + contemplated her, and, with an opening volley of books, candy, flowers and + invitations to theatres, charged down upon her, only to have the youthful + ardour of his attack cooled by her prolonged attitude of indifference. + When she was twenty-one, a young English cavalry officer, who came to + Chicago to ride in the horse show had, for some weeks, been seen much in + her company and a report of their engagement had been whispered through + the town and talked of about the nineteenth hole at the country clubs. The + rumour proved to be without foundation, the attraction to the cavalry + officer having been a certain brand of rare old wine the colonel had + stored in his cellar and a feeling of brotherhood with the swaggering old + gun maker, rather than the colonel’s quiet little daughter. + </p> + <p> + After the beginning of his acquaintanceship with her, and all during the + days when he stirred things up in the offices and shops of the gun + company, tales of the assiduous and often needy young men who were camped + on her trail reached Sam’s ears. They would be in at the office to see and + talk with the colonel, who had several times confided to Sam that his + daughter Sue was already past the age at which right-minded young women + should marry, and in the absence of the father two or three of them had + formed a habit of stopping for a word with Sam, whom they had met through + the colonel or Jack Prince. They declared that they were “squaring + themselves with the colonel.” Not a difficult thing to do, Sam thought, as + he drank the wine, smoked the cigars, and ate the dinners of all without + prejudice. Once, at luncheon, Colonel Tom discussed these young men with + Sam, pounding on a table so that the glasses jumped about, and calling + them damned upstarts. + </p> + <p> + For his own part, Sam did not feel that he knew Sue Rainey, and although, + after their first meeting one evening at the Rainey house, he had been + pricked by a mild curiosity concerning her, no opportunity to satisfy it + had presented itself. He knew that she was athletic, travelled much, rode, + shot, and sailed a boat; and he had heard Jack Prince speak of her as a + woman of brains, but, until the incident of the colonel and Luella London + threw them for the moment into the same enterprise and started him + thinking of her with real interest, he had seen and talked with her for + but brief passing moments brought about by their mutual interest in the + affairs of her father. + </p> + <p> + After Janet Eberly’s sudden death, and while he was yet in the midst of + his grief at her loss, Sam had his first long talk with Sue Rainey. It was + in Colonel Tom’s office, and Sam, walking hurriedly in, found her sitting + at the colonel’s desk and staring out of the window at a broad expanse of + flat roofs. A man, climbing a flag pole to replace a slipped rope, caught + his attention and standing by the window looking at the minute figure + clinging to the swaying pole, he began talking of the absurdity of human + endeavour. + </p> + <p> + The colonel’s daughter listened respectfully to his rather obvious + banalities and getting up from her chair came to stand beside him. Sam + turned slyly to look at her firm brown cheeks as he had looked on the + morning when she had come to see him about Luella London and was struck by + the thought that she in some faint way reminded him of Janet Eberly. In a + moment, and rather to his own surprise, he burst into a long speech + telling of Janet, of the tragedy of her loss and something of the beauty + of her life and character. + </p> + <p> + The nearness of his loss and the nearness also of what he thought might be + a sympathetic listener spurred him and he found himself getting a kind of + relief for the aching sense of loss for his dead comrade by heaping + praises upon her life. + </p> + <p> + When he had finished saying what was in his mind, he stood by the window + feeling awkward and embarrassed. The man who climbed the flag pole having + put the rope through the ring at the top slid suddenly down the pole and + thinking for the moment that he had fallen Sam made a quick clutch at the + air with his hand. His gripping fingers closed over Sue Rainey’s hand. + </p> + <p> + He turned, amused by the incident, and began making a halting explanation. + There were tears in Sue Rainey’s eyes. + </p> + <p> + “I wish I had known her,” she said and drew her hand from between his + fingers. “I wish you had known me better that I also might have known your + Janet. They are rare—such women. They are worth much to know. Most + women like most men—” + </p> + <p> + She made an impatient gesture with her hand and Sam, turning, walked + toward the door. He felt that he might not trust himself to answer her. + For the first time since coming to manhood he felt that tears might at any + moment come into his eyes. Grief for the loss of Janet surged through him + disconcerting and engulfing him. + </p> + <p> + “I have been doing you an injustice,” said Sue Rainey, looking at the + floor. “I have thought of you as something different from what you are. + There is a story I heard of you which gave me a wrong impression.” + </p> + <p> + Sam smiled. Having conquered the commotion within himself, he laughed and + explained the incident of the man who had slid down the pole. + </p> + <p> + “What was the story you heard?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + “It was a story a young man told at our house,” she explained + hesitatingly, refusing to be carried away from her mood of seriousness. + “It was about a little girl you saved from drowning and a purse made up + and given you. Why did you take the money?” + </p> + <p> + Sam looked at her squarely. The story was one that Jack Prince had delight + in telling. It concerned an incident of his early business life in the + city. + </p> + <p> + One afternoon, when he was still in the employ of the commission firm, he + had taken a party of men for a trip on an excursion steamer on the lake. + He had a project into which he wanted them to go with him and had taken + them aboard the steamer to get them together and present the merits of his + scheme. During the trip a little girl had fallen overboard and Sam, + springing after her, had brought her safely aboard the boat. + </p> + <p> + On the excursion steamer a cheer had arisen. A young man in a + broad-brimmed cowboy hat ran about taking up a collection. People crowded + forward to grasp Sam’s hand and he had accepted the money collected and + had put it in his pocket. + </p> + <p> + Among the men aboard the boat were several who, while they did not draw + back from going into Sam’s project, had thought his taking the money not + manly. They had told the story, and it had come to the ears of Jack + Prince, who never tired of repeating it and always ended the story with + the request that the listener ask Sam why he had taken the money. + </p> + <p> + Now in Colonel Tom’s office facing Sue Rainey, Sam made the explanation + that had so delighted Jack Prince. + </p> + <p> + “The crowd wanted to give me the money,” he said, slightly perplexed. “Why + shouldn’t I have taken it? I did not save the little girl for the money, + but because she was a little girl; and the money paid for my ruined + clothes and the expenses of the trip.” + </p> + <p> + With his hand on the doorknob he looked steadily at the woman before him. + </p> + <p> + “And I wanted the money,” he announced, a ring of defiance in his voice. + “I have always wanted money, any money I could get.” + </p> + <p> + Sam went back to his own office and sat down at his desk. He had been + surprised by the cordiality and friendliness Sue Rainey had shown toward + him. On an impulse, he wrote a letter, defending his position in the + matter of the money taken on the excursion steamer and setting forth + something of the attitude of his mind toward money and business affairs. + </p> + <p> + “I cannot see myself believing in the rot most business men talk,” he + wrote at the end of the letter. “They are full of sentiment and ideals + which are not true. Having a thing to sell they always say it is the best, + although it may be third rate. I do not object to that. What I do object + to is the way they have of nursing a hope within themselves that the third + rate thing is first rate until the hope becomes a belief. In the talk I + had with that actress Luella London I told her that I myself flew the + black flag. Well, I do. I would lie about goods to sell them, but I would + not lie to myself. I will not stultify my own mind. If a man crosses + swords with me in a business deal and I come out of the affair with the + money, it is no sign that I am the greater rascal, rather it is a sign + that I am the keener man.” + </p> + <p> + With the note lying before him on the desk Sam wondered why he had written + it. It seemed to him an accurate and straightforward statement of the + business creed he had adopted for himself, but a rather absurd note to + write to a woman. And then, not allowing himself time to reconsider his + action, he addressed an envelope and going out into the general offices + dropped it into the mail chute. + </p> + <p> + “It will let her know where I stand anyway,” he thought, with a return of + the defiant mood in which he had told her the motive of his action on the + boat. + </p> + <p> + Within the next ten days after the talk in Colonel Tom’s office Sam saw + Sue Rainey several times coming to or going from her father’s office. + Once, meeting in the little lobby by the office entrance, she stopped and + put out her hand which Sam took awkwardly. He had a feeling that she would + not have regretted an opportunity to continue the sudden little intimacy + that had sprung up between them in the few minutes’ talk of Janet Eberly. + The feeling did not come from vanity but from a belief in Sam that she was + in some way lonely and wanting companionship. Although she had been much + courted she lacked, he thought, the talent for comradeship or quick + friendliness. “Like Janet she is more than half intellect,” he told + himself, and felt a pang of regret for the slight disloyalty of the + further thought that there was in Sue a something more substantial and + solid than there had been in Janet. + </p> + <p> + Suddenly Sam began wondering whether or not he would like to marry Sue + Rainey. His mind played with the idea. He took it with him to bed, and it + went with him all day in his hurried trips through offices and shops. The + thought having come to him persisted, and he began seeing her in a new + light. The odd half awkward little movements of her hands, and their + expressiveness, the brown fine texture of her cheeks, the clearness and + honesty of her grey eyes, the quick sympathy and understanding of his + feeling for Janet, and the subtle flattery of the notion he had got that + she was interested in him—all of these things came and went in his + mind while he ran through columns of figures and laid plans for the + expansion of the business of the Arms Company. Unconsciously he began to + make her a part of his plans for the future. + </p> + <p> + Later, Sam discovered that during the days after the first talk together + the thought of a marriage between them was in Sue’s mind also. After the + talk she went home and stood for an hour before the glass studying herself + and she once told Sam that in her bed that night she shed tears because + she had never been able to arouse in a man the note of tenderness that had + been in his voice when he talked to her of Janet. + </p> + <p> + And then two months after the first talk they had another. Sam, who had + not allowed his grief over the loss of Janet or his nightly efforts to + drown the sting of it in hard drinking, to check the big forward movement + that he felt he was getting into the work of the offices and shops, sat + one afternoon deeply absorbed in a pile of factory cost sheets. His shirt + sleeves were rolled to the elbow, showing his white muscular forearms. He + was absorbed, intent upon the sheets. + </p> + <p> + “I stepped in,” said a voice above his head. + </p> + <p> + Glancing up quickly, Sam sprang to his feet. “She must have been there + some minutes looking down at me,” he thought, and had a thrill of pleasure + in the thought. + </p> + <p> + Into his mind came the contents of the letter he had written her, and he + wondered if after all he had been a fool, and whether the thoughts of a + marriage with her were but vagaries. “Perhaps it would not be attractive + to either her or myself when we came up to it,” he decided. + </p> + <p> + “I stepped in,” she began again. “I have been thinking. Some things you + said—in the letter and when you talked of your friend Janet who died—some + things of men and women and work. You may not remember them. I—I got + interested. I—are you a socialist?” + </p> + <p> + “I believe not,” Sam answered, wondering what had given her that thought. + “Are you?” + </p> + <p> + She laughed and shook her head. + </p> + <p> + “Just what are you?” she went on. “What do you believe? I am curious to + know. I thought your note—you will pardon me—I thought it a + kind of pretence.” + </p> + <p> + Sam winced. A shadow of doubt of the sincerity of his business philosophy + crossed his mind accompanied by the swaggering figure of Windy McPherson. + He came around the desk and leaning against it looked at her. His + secretary had gone out of the room and they were alone together. Sam + laughed. + </p> + <p> + “There was a man in the town where I was raised used to say that I was a + little mole working underground, intent upon worms,” he said, and then, + waving his arms toward the papers on the desk, added, “I am a business + man. Isn’t that enough? If you could go with me through some of these cost + sheets you would agree they are needed.” + </p> + <p> + He turned and faced her again. + </p> + <p> + “What should I be doing with beliefs?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + “Well, I think you have them—some kind of beliefs,” she insisted, + “you must have them. You get things done. You should hear the men talk of + you. Sometimes at the house they are quite foolish about what a wonderful + fellow you are and what you are doing here. They say that you drive on and + on. What drives you? I want to know.” + </p> + <p> + For the moment Sam half suspected that she was secretly laughing at him. + Finding her quite serious he started to reply and then stopped, regarding + her. + </p> + <p> + The silence between them went on and on. A clock on the wall ticked + loudly. + </p> + <p> + Sam stepped nearer to her and stood looking down into the face she slowly + turned up to his. + </p> + <p> + “I want to have a talk with you,” he said, and his voice broke. He had the + illusion of a hand gripping at his throat. + </p> + <p> + In a flash he had definitely decided that he would try to marry her. Her + interest in the motives of his life had clinched the sort of half decision + he had made. In an illuminating moment during the prolonged silence + between them he had seen her in a new light. The feeling of vague intimacy + brought to him by his thoughts of her became a fixed belief that she + belonged to him—was a part of him—and he was charmed with her + manner, and her person, standing there, as with a gift given him. + </p> + <p> + And then into his mind came a hundred other thoughts, clamouring thoughts, + come out of the hidden parts of him. He began to think that she could lead + the way on a road he wanted to travel. He thought of her wealth and what + it would mean to a man filled with his hunger for power. And through these + thoughts shot others. Something in her had taken hold of him—something + that had been also in Janet. He was curious concerning her curiosity about + his beliefs, and wanted to question her concerning her own beliefs. He + could see none of Colonel Tom’s blustering incompetence in her and thought + her filled with truth as a deep spring is filled with clear water. He + believed she would give him something, something that all his life he had + been wanting. An old aching hunger that had haunted his nights as a boy + came back and he thought that at her hand it might be fed. + </p> + <p> + “I—I must read a book about socialism,” he said lamely. + </p> + <p> + Again they stood in silence, she looking at the floor, he past her head + and out at the window. He could not bring himself to speak again of the + proposed talk. He had a boyish dread of having her notice the tremor in + his voice. + </p> + <p> + Colonel Tom came into the room, bursting with an idea Sam had given him at + the lunch hour and which in working its way into his mind had become to + the colonel’s entirely honest belief an idea of his own. The interruption + brought to Sam an intense feeling of relief and he began talking of the + colonel’s idea as though it had taken him unawares. + </p> + <p> + Sue, walking to a window, began tying and untying the curtain cord. When + Sam, raising his eyes, looked at her, he caught her eyes watching him + intently and she smiled, continuing to look at him squarely. It was his + eyes that first broke away. + </p> + <p> + From that day Sam’s mind was afire with thoughts of Sue Rainey. In his + room he sat, or going into Grant Park stood by the lake, looking at the + silent, moving water as he had looked in the days when he first came to + the city. He did not dream of having her in his arms or of kissing her + lips; he thought, instead, with a glowing heart, of a life lived with her. + He wanted to walk beside her through the streets, to have her come + suddenly in at his office door, to look into her eyes and to have her + question him, as she had questioned, concerning his beliefs and his hopes. + He thought that in the evening he would like to go to a house of his own + and find her sitting there waiting for him. All the charm of his aimless, + half-dissolute way of life died in him, and he believed that with her he + could begin to live more fully and completely. From the moment when he had + definitely decided that he wanted Sue as a wife, Sam stopped overdrinking, + going to his room or walking through the streets or in the parks instead + of seeking his old companions in the clubs and drinking places. Sometimes + pushing his bed to the window overlooking the lake, he would undress + immediately after dinner and opening the window would spend half the night + watching the lights of boats far away over the water and thinking of her. + He would imagine her in the room, moving here and there, and coming + occasionally to put her hand in his hair and look down at him as Janet had + done, helping by her sane talk and quiet ways to get his life straightened + out for good living. + </p> + <p> + And when he had fallen asleep the face of Sue Rainey came to visit his + dreams. One night he thought she had become blind and sat in the room with + sightless eyes saying over and over like one demented, “Truth, truth, give + me back the truth that I may see,” and he awoke sick with horror at the + thought of the look of suffering that had been in her face. Never did Sam + dream of having her in his arms or of raining kisses on her lips and neck + as he had dreamed of other women who in the past had won his favour. + </p> + <p> + For all that he thought of her so constantly and built so confidently his + dream of a life to be spent with her, months passed before he saw her + again. Through Colonel Tom he learned that she had gone for a visit to the + East and he went earnestly about his work, keeping his mind on his + business during the day and only in the evening allowing himself to become + absorbed in thoughts of her. He had a feeling that although he had said + nothing she knew of his desire for her and that she wanted time to think + it over. Several times in the evening in his room he wrote her long + letters filled with minute, boyish explanations of his thoughts and + motives, letters which after writing he immediately destroyed. A woman of + the west side, with whom he had once had an affair, met him one day on the + street, and put her hand familiarly on his arm and for the moment + reawakened in him an old desire. After leaving her he did not go back to + the office, but taking a south-bound car, spent the afternoon walking in + Jackson Park, watching the children at play on the grass, sitting on + benches under the trees, getting out of his body and his mind the + insistent call of the flesh that had come back to him. + </p> + <p> + Then in the evening, he came suddenly upon Sue riding a spirited black + horse in a bridle path at the upper end of the park. It was just at the + grey beginning of night. Stopping the horse, she sat looking at him and + going to her he put a hand on the bridle. + </p> + <p> + “We might have that talk,” he said. + </p> + <p> + She smiled down at him and the colour began to rise in her brown cheeks. + </p> + <p> + “I have been thinking of it,” she said, the familiar serious look coming + into her eyes. “After all what have we to say to each other?” + </p> + <p> + Sam watched her steadily. + </p> + <p> + “I have a lot of things to say to you,” he announced. “That is to say—well—I + have, if things are as I hope.” She got off the horse and they stood + together by the side of the path. Sam never forgot the few minutes of + silence that followed. The wide prospects of green sward, the golf player + trudging wearily toward them through the uncertain light, his bag upon his + shoulder, the air of physical fatigue with which he walked, bending + slightly forward, the faint, soft sound of waves washing over a low beach, + and the intense waiting look on the face she turned up to him, made an + impression on his mind that stayed with him through life. It seemed to him + that he had arrived at a kind of culmination, a starting point, and that + all the vague shadowy uncertainties that had, in reflective moments, + flitted through his mind, were to be brushed away by some act, some word, + from the lips of this woman. With a rush he realised how consistently he + had been thinking of her and how enormously he had been counting on her + falling in with his plans, and the realisation was followed by a sickening + moment of fear. How little he actually knew of her and of her way of + thought. What assurance had he that she would not laugh, jump back upon + the horse, and ride away? He was afraid as he had never been afraid + before. Dumbly his mind groped about for a way to begin. Expressions he + had caught and noted in her strong serious little face when he had + achieved but a mild curiosity concerning her came back to visit his mind + and he tried desperately to build an instant idea of her from these. And + then turning his face from her he plunged directly into his thoughts of + the past months as though she had been sharing talking to the colonel. + </p> + <p> + “I have been thinking we might marry, you and I,” he said, and cursed + himself for the blundering bluntness of the declaration. + </p> + <p> + “You do get things done, don’t you?” she replied, smiling. + </p> + <p> + “Why should you have been thinking anything of the sort?” + </p> + <p> + “Because I want to live with you,” he said; “I have been talking to the + colonel.” + </p> + <p> + “About marrying me?” She seemed about to begin laughing. + </p> + <p> + He hurried on. “No, not that. We talked about you. I could not let him + alone. He might have known. I kept making him talk. I made him tell me + about your ideas. I felt I had to know.” + </p> + <p> + Sam faced her. + </p> + <p> + “He thinks your ideas absurd. I do not. I like them. I like you. I think + you are beautiful. I do not know whether I love you or not, but for weeks + I have been thinking of you and clinging to you and saying over and over + to myself, ‘I want to live my life with Sue Rainey.’ I did not expect to + go at it this way. You know me. What you do not know I will tell you.” + </p> + <p> + “Sam McPherson, you are a wonder,” she said, “and I do not know but that I + will marry you in the end, but I can’t tell now. I want to know a lot of + things. I want to know if you are ready to believe what I believe and to + live for what I want to live.” + </p> + <p> + The horse, growing restless, began tugging at the bridle and she spoke to + him sharply. She plunged into a description of a man she had seen on the + lecture platform during her visit to the East and Sam looked at her with + puzzled eyes. + </p> + <p> + “He was beautiful,” she said. “He was past sixty but looked like a boy of + twenty-five, not in his body, but in an air of youth that hung over him. + He stood there before the people talking, quiet, able, efficient. He was + clean. He had lived clean, body and mind. He had been companion and + co-worker with William Morris, and once he had been a mine boy in Wales, + but he had got hold of a vision and lived for it. I did not hear what he + said, but I kept thinking, ‘I want a man like that.’ + </p> + <p> + “Can you accept my beliefs and live for what I want to live?” she + persisted. + </p> + <p> + Sam looked at the ground. It seemed to him that he was going to lose her, + that she would not marry him. + </p> + <p> + “I am not accepting beliefs or ends in life blindly,” he said stoutly, + “but I want them. What are your beliefs? I want to know. I think I haven’t + any myself. When I reach for them they are gone. My mind shifts and + changes. I want something solid. I like solid things. I want you.” + </p> + <p> + “When can we meet and talk everything over thoroughly?” + </p> + <p> + “Now,” answered Sam bluntly, some look in her face changing his whole + viewpoint. Suddenly it seemed as though a door had been opened, letting in + a strong light upon the darkness of his mind. His confidence had come back + to him. He wanted to strike and keep on striking. The blood rushed through + his body and his brain began working rapidly. He felt sure of ultimate + success. + </p> + <p> + Taking her hand, and leading the horse, he began walking with her along + the path. Her hand trembled in his and as though answering a thought in + his mind she looked up at him and said, + </p> + <p> + “I am not different from other women, although I do not accept your offer. + This is a big moment for me, perhaps the biggest moment of my life. I want + you to know that I feel that, though I do want certain things more than I + want you or any other man.” + </p> + <p> + There was a suggestion of tears in her voice and Sam had a feeling that + the woman in her wanted him to take her into his arms, but something + within him told him to wait and to help her by waiting. Like her he wanted + something more than the feel of a woman in his arms. Ideas rushed through + his head; he thought that she was going to give him some bigger idea than + he had known. The figure she had drawn for him of the old man who stood on + the platform, young and beautiful, the old boyish need of a purpose in + life, the dreams of the last few weeks—all of these were a part of + the eager curiosity in him. They were like hungry little animals waiting + to be fed. “We must have it all out here and now,” he told himself. “I + must not let myself be swept away by a rush of feeling and I must not let + her be. + </p> + <p> + “Do not think,” he said, “that I haven’t tenderness for you. I am filled + with it. But I want to have our talk. I want to know what you expect me to + believe and how you want me to live.” + </p> + <p> + He felt her hand stiffen in his. + </p> + <p> + “Whether or not we are worth while to each other,” she added. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” he said. + </p> + <p> + And then she began to talk, telling him in a quiet steady voice that + steadied something in him what she wanted to make out of her life. Her + idea was one of service to mankind through children. She had seen girl + friends of hers, with whom she had gone to school, grow up and marry. They + had wealth and education, fine well-trained bodies, and they had been + married only to live lives more fully devoted to pleasure. One or two who + had married poor men had only done so to satisfy a passion in themselves, + and after marriage had joined the others in the hungry pursuit of + pleasure. + </p> + <p> + “They do nothing at all,” she said, “to repay the world for the things + given them, the wealth and well-trained bodies and the disciplined minds. + They go through life day after day and year after year wasting themselves + and come in the end to nothing but indolent, slovenly vanity.” + </p> + <p> + She had thought it all out and had tried to plan for herself a life with + other ends, and wanted a husband in accord with her ideas. + </p> + <p> + “That isn’t so difficult,” she said, “I can find a man whom I can control + and who will believe as I believe. My money gives me that power. But I + want him to be a real man, a man of ability, a man who does things for + himself, one fitted by his life and his achievements to be the father of + children who do things. And so I began thinking about you. I got the men + who come to the house to talk of you.” + </p> + <p> + She hung her head and laughed like a bashful boy. + </p> + <p> + “I know much of the story of your early life out in that Iowa town,” she + said. “I got the story of your life and your achievements out there from + some one who knew you well.” + </p> + <p> + The idea seemed wonderfully simple and beautiful to Sam. It seemed to add + tremendously to the dignity and nobility of his feeling for her. He + stopped in the path and swung her about facing him. They were alone in + that end of the park. The soft darkness of the summer night had settled + over them. In the grass at their feet a cricket sang loudly. He made a + movement to take her into his arms. + </p> + <p> + “It is wonderful,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “Wait,” she demanded, putting her hand against his shoulder. “It isn’t so + simple. I am wealthy. You are able and you have a kind of undying energy + in you. I want to give both my wealth and your ability to children—our + children. That will not be easy for you. It means giving up your dreams of + power. Perhaps I shall lose courage. Women do after two or three have + come. You will have to furnish that. You will have to make a mother of me + and keep making a mother of me. You will have to be a new kind of father + with something maternal in you. You will have to be patient and studious + and kind. You will have to think of these things at night instead of + thinking of your own advancement. You will have to live wholly for me + because I am to be their mother, giving me your strength and courage and + your good sane outlook on things. And then when they come you will have to + give all these things to them day after day in a thousand little ways.” + </p> + <p> + Sam took her into his arms and for the first time in his memory the hot + tears stood in his eyes. + </p> + <p> + The horse, unattended, wheeled, threw up his head and trotted off down the + path. They let him go, walking along after him hand in hand like two happy + children. At the entrance to the park they came up to him, held by a park + policeman. She got on the horse and Sam stood beside her looking up. + </p> + <p> + “I’ll tell the colonel in the morning,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “What will he say?” she murmured, musingly. + </p> + <p> + “Damned ingrate,” Sam mimicked the colonel’s blustering throat tones. + </p> + <p> + She laughed and picked up the reins. Sam laid his hand on hers. + </p> + <p> + “How soon?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + She put her head down near his. + </p> + <p> + “We’ll waste no time,” she said, blushing. + </p> + <p> + And then in the presence of a park policeman, in the street by the + entrance to the park with the people passing up and down, Sam had his + first kiss from Sue Rainey’s lips. + </p> + <p> + After she rode away Sam walked. He had no sense of the passing of time, + wandering through street after street, rearranging and readjusting his + outlook on life. What she had said had stirred every vestige of sleeping + nobility in him. He thought that he had got hold of the thing he had + unconsciously been seeking all his life. His dreams of control of the + Rainey Arms Company and the other big things he had planned in business + seemed, in the light of their talk, so much nonsense and vanity. “I will + live for this! I will live for this!” he kept saying over and over to + himself. He imagined he could see the little white things lying in Sue’s + arms, and his new love for her and for what they were to accomplish + together ran through him and hurt him so that he felt like shouting in the + darkened streets. He looked up at the sky and saw the stars and thought + they looked down on two new and glorious beings living on the earth. + </p> + <p> + At a corner he turned and came into a quiet residence street where frame + houses stood in the midst of little green lawns and thoughts of his + boyhood in the Iowa town came back to him. And then his mind moving + forward, he remembered nights in the city when he had stolen away to the + arms of women. Hot shame burned in his cheeks and his eyes felt hot. + </p> + <p> + “I must go to her—I must go to her at her house—now—tonight—and + tell her all of these things, and beg her to forgive me,” he thought. + </p> + <p> + And then the absurdity of such a course striking him he laughed aloud. + </p> + <p> + “It cleanses me! this cleanses me!” he said to himself. + </p> + <p> + He remembered the men who had sat about the stove in Wildman’s grocery + when he was a boy and the stories they sometimes told. He remembered how + he, as a boy in the city, had run through the crowded streets fleeing from + the terror of lust. He began to understand how distorted, how strangely + perverted, his whole attitude toward women and sex had been. “Sex is a + solution, not a menace—it is wonderful,” he told himself without + knowing fully the meaning of the word that had sprung to his lips. + </p> + <p> + When, at last, he turned into Michigan Avenue and went toward his + apartment, the late moon was just mounting the sky and a clock in one of + the sleeping houses was striking three. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VI + </h2> + <p> + One evening, six weeks after the talk in the gathering darkness in Jackson + Park, Sue Rainey and Sam McPherson sat on the deck of a Lake Michigan + steamer watching the lights of Chicago blink out in the distance. They had + been married that afternoon in Colonel Tom’s big house on the south side; + and now they sat on the deck of the boat, being carried out into darkness, + vowed to motherhood and to fatherhood, each more or less afraid of the + other. They sat in silence, looking at the blinking lights and listening + to the low voices of their fellow passengers, also sitting in the chairs + along the deck or strolling leisurely about, and to the wash of the water + along the sides of the boat, eager to break down a little reserve that the + solemnity of the marriage service had built up between them. + </p> + <p> + A picture floated in Sam’s mind. He saw Sue, all in white, radiant and + wonderful, coming toward him down a broad stairway, toward him, the + newsboy of Caxton, the smuggler of game, the roisterer, the greedy + moneygetter. All during those six weeks he had been waiting for this hour + when he should sit beside the little grey-clad figure, getting from her + the help he wanted in the reconstruction of his life. Without being able + to talk as he had thought of talking, he yet felt assured and easy in his + mind. In the moment when she had come down the stairway he had been half + overcome by a feeling of intense shame, a return of the shame that had + swept over him that night when she had given her word and he had walked + hour after hour through the streets. It had seemed to him that from among + the guests standing about should arise a voice crying, “Stop! Do not go + on! Let me tell you of this fellow—this McPherson!” And then he had + seen her holding to the arm of swaggering, pretentious Colonel Tom and he + had taken her hand to become one with her, two curious, feverish, + strangely different human beings, taking a vow in the name of their God, + with the flowers banked about them and the eyes of people upon them. + </p> + <p> + When Sam had gone to Colonel Tom the morning after that evening in Jackson + Park, there had been a scene. The old gun maker had blustered and roared + and forbidden, pounding on his desk with his fist. When Sam remained cool + and unimpressed, he had stormed out of the room slamming the door and + shouting, “Upstart! Damned upstart!” and Sam had gone smiling back to his + desk, mildly disappointed. “I told Sue he would say ‘Ingrate,’” he + thought, “I am losing my skill at guessing just what he will do and say.” + </p> + <p> + The colonel’s rage had been short-lived. Within a week he was boasting of + Sam to chance callers as “the best business man in America,” and in the + face of a solemn promise given Sue was telling news of the approaching + marriage to every newspaper man he knew. Sam suspected him of secretly + calling on the telephone those newspapers whose representatives had not + crossed his trail. + </p> + <p> + During the six waiting weeks there had been little of love making between + Sue and Sam. They had talked instead, or, going into the country or to the + parks, had walked under the trees consumed with a curious eager passion of + suspense. The idea she had given him in the park grew in Sam’s brain. To + live for the young things that would presently come to them, to be simple, + direct, and natural, like the trees or the beasts of the field, and then + to have the native honesty of such a life illuminated and ennobled by a + mutual intelligent purpose to make their young something finer and better + than the things in Nature by the intelligent use of their own good minds + and bodies. In the shops and on the streets the hurrying men and women + took on a new significance to him. He wondered what secret mighty purpose + might be in their lives, and read a newspaper report of an engagement or a + marriage with a little jump of the heart. He looked at the girls and the + women at work over the typewriting machines in the office, with + questioning eyes, asking himself why they did not seek marriage openly and + determinedly, and saw a healthy single woman as so much wasted material, + as a machine for producing healthy new life standing idle and unused in + the great workshop of the universe. “Marriage is a port, a beginning, a + point of departure, from which men and women go forth upon the real voyage + of life,” he told Sue one evening as they walked in the park. “All that + goes before is but a preparation, a building. The pains and the triumphs + of all unmarried people are but the good oak planks being driven into + place to make the vessel fit for the real voyage.” Or, again, one night + when they were in a rowboat on the lagoon in the park and all about them + in the darkness was the plash of oars in the water, the screams of excited + girls, and the sound of voices calling, he let the boat float in against + the shores of a little island and crept along the boat to kneel, with his + head in her lap and whisper, “It is not the love of a woman that grips me, + Sue, but the love of life. I have had a peep into the great mystery. This—this + is why we are here—this justifies us.” + </p> + <p> + Now that she sat beside him, her shoulder against his own, being carried + away with him into darkness and privacy, the personal side of his love for + her ran through Sam like a flame and, turning, he drew her head down upon + his shoulder. + </p> + <p> + “Not yet, Sam,” she whispered, “not with these hundreds of people sleeping + and drinking and thinking and going about their affairs almost within + touch of our hands.” + </p> + <p> + They got up and walked along the swaying deck. Out of the north the clean + wind called to them, the stars looked down upon them, and in the darkness + in the bow of the boat they parted for the night silently, speechless with + happiness and with a dear, unmentioned secret between them. + </p> + <p> + At dawn they landed at a little lumbering town, where boat, blankets, and + camping kit had gone before. A river flowed down out of the woods passing + the town, going under a bridge and turning the wheel of a sawmill that + stood by the shore of the river facing the lake. The clean sweet smell of + the new-cut logs, the song of the saws, the roar of the water tumbling + over a dam, the cries of the blue-shirted lumbermen working among the + floating logs above the dam, filled the morning air, and above the song of + the saws sang another song, a breathless, waiting song, the song of love + and of life singing in the hearts of husband and wife. + </p> + <p> + In a little roughly-built lumberman’s hotel they ate breakfast in a room + overlooking the river. The proprietor of the hotel, a large red-faced + woman in a clean calico dress, was expecting them and, having served the + breakfast, went out of the room grinning good naturedly and closing the + door behind her. Through the open window they looked at the cold + swiftly-flowing river and at a freckled-faced boy who carried packages + wrapped in blankets and put them in a long canoe tied to a little wharf + beside the hotel. They ate and sat staring at each other like two strange + boys, saying nothing. Sam ate little. His heart pounded in his breast. + </p> + <p> + On the river he sank his paddle deep into the water, pulling against the + current. During the six weeks’ waiting in Chicago she had taught him the + essentials of the canoeist’s art and, now, as he shot the canoe under the + bridge and around a bend of the river out of sight of the town, a + superhuman strength seemed in his arms and back. Before him in the prow of + the boat sat Sue, her straight muscular little back bending and + straightening again. By his side rose towering hills clothed with pine + trees, and piles of cut logs lay at the foot of the hills along the shore. + </p> + <p> + At sunset they landed in a little cleared space at the foot of a hill and + on the top of the hill, with the wind blowing across it, they made their + first camp. Sam brought boughs and spread them, lapped like feathers in + the wings of a bird, and carried blankets up the hill, while Sue, at the + foot, near the overturned boat, built a fire and prepared their first + cooked meal out of doors. In the failing light, Sue got out her rifle and + gave Sam his first lesson in marksmanship, his awkwardness making the + lesson half a jest. And then, in the soft stillness of the young night, + with the first stars coming into the sky and the clean cold wind blowing + into their faces, they went arm in arm up the hill under the trees to + where the tops of the trees rolled and pitched like the stormy waters of a + great sea before their eyes, and lay down together for their first long + tender embrace. + </p> + <p> + There is a special kind of fine pleasure in getting one’s first knowledge + of the great outdoors in the company of a woman a man loves and to have + that woman an expert, with a keen appetite for the life, adds point and + flavour to the experience. In his busy striving, nickel-seeking boyhood in + the town surrounded by hot cornfields, and in his young manhood of + scheming and money hunger in the city, Sam had not thought of vacations + and resting places. He had walked on country roads with John Telfer and + Mary Underwood, listening to their talk, absorbing their ideas, blind and + deaf to the little life in the grass, in the leafy branches of the trees + and in the air about him. In clubs, and about hotels and barrooms in the + city, he had heard men talk of life in the open, and had said to himself, + “When my time comes I will taste these things.” + </p> + <p> + And now he did taste them, lying on his back on the grass along the river, + floating down quiet little side streams in the moonlight, listening to the + night call of birds, or watching the flight of frightened wild things as + he pushed the canoe into the quiet depths of the great forest about them. + </p> + <p> + At night, under the little tent they had brought, or beneath the blankets + under the stars, he slept lightly, awakening often to look at Sue lying + beside him. Perhaps the wind had blown a wisp of hair across her face and + her breath played with it, tossing it about; perhaps just the quiet of her + expressive little face charmed and held him, so that he turned reluctantly + to sleep again thinking that he might, with pleasure, go on looking at her + all night. + </p> + <p> + For Sue the days also passed lightly. She also awoke in the night and lay + looking at the man sleeping beside her, and once she told Sam that when he + awoke she feigned sleep dreading to rob him of the pleasure that she knew + these secret love passages gave to both. + </p> + <p> + They were not alone in those northern woods. Everywhere along the rivers + and on the shores of little lakes they found people, to Sam a new kind of + people, who dropped all the ordinary things of life, and ran away to the + woods and the streams to spend long happy months in the open. He + discovered with surprise that these adventurers were men of modest + fortunes, small manufacturers, skilled workingmen, retail merchants. One + with whom he talked was a grocer from a town in Ohio, and when Sam asked + him if the coming to the woods with his family for an eight-weeks stay did + not endanger the success of his business he agreed with Sam that it did, + nodding his head and laughing. + </p> + <p> + “But there would be a lot more danger in not leaving it,” he said, “the + danger of having my boys grow up to be men without my having any real fun + with them.” + </p> + <p> + Among all of the people they met Sue passed with a sort of happy freedom + that confounded Sam, as he had formed a habit of thinking of her always as + one shut within herself. Many of the people they saw she knew, and he came + to believe that she had chosen the place for their love making because she + admired and held in high favour the lives of these people of the + out-of-doors and wanted her lover to be in some way like them. Out of the + solitude of the woods, along the shores of little lakes, they called to + her as she passed, demanding that she come ashore and show her husband, + and among them she sat talking of other seasons and of the inroads of the + lumber men upon their paradise. “The Burnhams were this year on the shores + of Grant Lake, the two school teachers from Pittsburgh would come early in + August, the Detroit man with the crippled son was building a cabin on the + shores of Bone River.” + </p> + <p> + Sam sat among them in silence, renewing constantly his admiration for the + wonder of Sue’s past life. She, the daughter of Colonel Tom, the woman + rich in her own right, to have made her friends among these people; she, + who had been pronounced an enigma by the young men of Chicago, to have + been secretly all of these years the companion and fellow spirit of these + campers by the lakes. + </p> + <p> + For six weeks they led a wandering, nomadic life in that half wild land, + for Sue six weeks of tender love making, and of the expression of every + thought and impulse of her fine nature, for Sam six weeks of readjustment + and freedom, during which he learned to sail a boat, to shoot, and to get + the fine taste of that life into his being. + </p> + <p> + And then one morning they came again to the little lumber town at the + mouth of the river and sat upon the pier waiting for the Chicago boat. + They were bound once more into the world, and to that life together that + was the foundation of their marriage and that was to be the end and aim of + their two lives. + </p> + <p> + If Sam’s life from boyhood had been, on the whole, barren and empty of + many of the sweeter things, his life during the next year was strikingly + full and complete. In the office he had ceased being the pushing upstart + tramping on the toes of tradition and had become the son of Colonel Tom, + the voter of Sue’s big stock holdings, the practical, directing head and + genius of the destinies of the company. Jack Prince’s loyalty had been + rewarded, and a huge advertising campaign made the name and merits of the + Rainey Arms Company’s wares known to all reading Americans. The muzzles of + Rainey-Whittaker rifles, revolvers, and shotguns looked threateningly out + at one from the pages of the great popular magazines, brown fur-clad + hunters did brave deeds before one’s eyes, kneeling upon snow-topped crags + preparing to speed winged death to waiting mountain sheep; huge + open-mouthed bears rushed down from among the type at the top of the pages + and seemed about to devour cool deliberate sportsmen who stood undaunted, + swinging their trusty Rainey-Whittakers into place, and presidents, + explorers, and Texas gun fighters loudly proclaimed the merits of + Rainey-Whittakers to a gun-buying world. It was for Sam and for Colonel + Tom a time of big dividends, mechanical progress, and contentment. + </p> + <p> + Sam stayed diligently at work in the offices and in the shops, but kept + within himself a reserve of strength and resolution that might have gone + into the work. With Sue he took up golf and morning rides on horseback, + and with Sue he sat during the long evenings, reading aloud, absorbing her + ideas and her beliefs. Sometimes for days they were like two children, + going off together to walk on country roads and to sleep in country + hotels. On these walks they went hand in hand or, bantering each other, + raced down long hills to lie panting in the grass by the roadside when + they were out of breath. + </p> + <p> + Near the end of the first year she told him one night of the realisation + of their hopes and they sat through the evening alone by the fire in her + room, filled with the white wonder of it, renewing to each other all the + fine vows of their early love-making days. + </p> + <p> + Sam never succeeded in recapturing the flavour of those days. Happiness is + a thing so vague, so indefinite, so dependent on a thousand little turns + of the events of the day, that it only visits the most fortunate and at + rare intervals, but Sam thought that he and Sue touched almost ideal + happiness constantly during that time. There were weeks and even months of + their first year together that later passed out of Sam’s memory entirely, + leaving only a sense of completeness and well being. He could remember, + perhaps, a winter walk in the moonlight by the frozen lake, or a visitor + who sat and talked an evening away by their fire. But at the end he had to + come back to this: that something sang in his heart all day long and that + the air tasted better, the stars shone more brightly, and the wind and the + rain and the hail upon the window panes sang more sweetly in his ears. He + and the woman who lived with him had wealth, position, and infinite + delight in the presence and the persons of each other, and a great idea + burned like a lamp in a window at the end of the road they travelled. + </p> + <p> + Meanwhile, in the world about him events came and went. A president was + elected, the grey wolves were being hunted out of the Chicago city + council, and a strong rival to his company flourished in his own city. In + other days he would have been down upon this rival fighting, planning, + working for its destruction. Now he sat at Sue’s feet, dreaming and + talking to her of the brood that under their care should grow into + wonderful reliant men and women. When Lewis, the talented sales manager of + the Edwards Arms Company, got the business of a Kansas City jobber, he + smiled, wrote a sharp letter to his man in that territory, and went for an + afternoon of golf with Sue. He had completely and wholly accepted Sue’s + conception of life. “We have wealth for any emergency,” he said to + himself, “and we will live our lives for service to mankind through the + children that will presently come into our house.” + </p> + <p> + After their marriage Sam found that Sue, for all her apparent coldness and + indifference, had in Chicago, as in the northern woods, her own little + circle of men and women. Some of these people Sam had met during the + engagement, and now they began gradually coming to the house for an + evening with the McPhersons. Sometimes there would be several of them for + a quiet dinner at which there was much good talk, and after which Sue and + Sam sat for half the night, continuing some vein of thought brought to + them. Among the people who came to them, Sam shone resplendent. In some + indefinable way he thought they paid court to him and the thought + flattered him immensely. The college professor who had talked brilliantly + through an evening turned to Sam for approval of his conclusions, a writer + of tales of cowboy life asked him to help him over a difficulty in the + stock market, and a tall black-haired painter paid him the rare compliment + of repeating one of Sam’s remarks as his own. It was as though, in spite + of their talk, they thought him the most gifted of them all, and for a + time he was puzzled by their attitude. Jack Prince came, sat at one of the + dinner parties, and explained. + </p> + <p> + “You have got what they want and cannot get—the money,” he said. + </p> + <p> + After the evening when Sue told him the great news they gave a dinner. It + was a sort of welcoming party for the coming guest, and, while the people + at the table ate and talked, Sue and Sam, from opposite ends of the table, + lifted high their glasses and, looking into each other’s eyes, drank off + the health of him who was to come, the first of the great family, the + family that was to have two lives lived for its success. + </p> + <p> + At the table sat Colonel Tom with his broad white shirt front, his white, + pointed beard, and his grandiloquent flow of talk; at Sue’s side sat Jack + Prince, pausing in his open admiration of Sue to cast an eye on the + handsome New York girl at Sam’s end of the table or to puncture, with a + flash of his terse common sense, some balloon of theory launched by + Williams of the University, who sat on the other side of Sue; the artist, + who hoped for a commission to paint Colonel Tom, sat opposite him + bewailing the dying out of fine old American families; and a serious-faced + little German scientist sat beside Colonel Tom smiling as the artist + talked. The man, Sam fancied, was laughing at them both, perhaps at all of + them. He did not mind. He looked at the scientist and at the other faces + up and down the table and then at Sue. He saw her directing and leading + the talk; he saw the play of muscles about her strong neck and the fine + firmness of her straight little body, and his eyes grew moist and a lump + came into his throat at the thought of the secret that lay between them. + </p> + <p> + And then his mind ran back to another night in Caxton when first he sat + eating among strange people at Freedom Smith’s table. He saw again the + tomboy girl and the sturdy boy and the lantern swinging in Freedom’s hand + in the close little stable; he saw the absurd housepainter trying to blow + the bugle in the street; and the mother talking to her boy of death + through the summer evening; the fat foreman making the record of his loves + on the walls of his room, the narrow-faced commission man rubbing his + hands before a group of Greek hucksters, and then this—this home + with its safety and its secret high aim and him sitting there at the head + of it all. Like the novelist, it seemed to him that he should admire and + bow his head before the romance of destiny. He thought his station, his + wife, his country, his end in life, when rightly seen, the very apex of + life on the earth, and to him in his pride it seemed that he was in some + way the master and maker of it all. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VII + </h2> + <p> + Late one evening, some weeks after the McPhersons had given the dinner + party in secret celebration of the future arrival of what was to be the + first of the great family, they came together down the steps of a north + side house to their waiting carriage. They had spent, Sam thought, a + delightful evening. The Grovers were people of whose friendship he was + particularly proud and since his marriage with Sue he had taken her often + for an evening to the house of the venerable surgeon. Doctor Grover was a + scholar, a man of note in the medical world, and a rapid and absorbing + talker and thinker on any subject that aroused his interest. A certain + youthful enthusiasm in his outlook on life had attracted to him the + devotion of Sue, who, since meeting him through Sam, had counted him a + marked addition to their little group of friends. His wife, a + white-haired, plump little woman, was, though apparently somewhat + diffident, in reality his intellectual equal and companion, and Sue in a + quiet way had taken her as a model in her own effort toward complete + wifehood. + </p> + <p> + During the evening, spent in a rapid exchange of opinions and ideas + between the two men, Sue had sat in silence. Once when he looked at her + Sam thought that he had surprised an annoyed look in her eyes and was + puzzled by it. During the remainder of the evening her eyes refused to + meet his and she looked instead at the floor, a flush mounting her cheeks. + </p> + <p> + At the door of the carriage Frank, Sue’s coachman, stepped on the hem of + her gown and tore it. The tear was slight, the incident Sam thought + entirely unavoidable, and as much due to a momentary clumsiness on the + part of Sue as to the awkwardness of Frank. The man had for years been a + loyal servant and a devoted admirer of Sue’s. + </p> + <p> + Sam laughed and taking Sue by the arm started to help her in at the + carriage door. + </p> + <p> + “Too much gown for an athlete,” he said, pointlessly. + </p> + <p> + In a flash Sue turned and faced the coachman. + </p> + <p> + “Awkward brute,” she said, through her teeth. + </p> + <p> + Sam stood on the sidewalk dumb with astonishment as Frank turned and + climbed to his seat without waiting to close the carriage door. He felt as + he might have felt had he, as a boy, heard profanity from the lips of his + mother. The look in Sue’s eyes as she turned them on Frank struck him like + a blow and in a moment his whole carefully built-up conception of her and + of her character had been shaken. He had an impulse to slam the carriage + door after her and walk home. + </p> + <p> + They drove home in silence, Sam feeling as though he rode beside a new and + strange being. In the light of passing street lamps he could see her face + held straight ahead and her eyes staring stonily at the curtain in front. + He didn’t want to reproach her; he wanted to take hold of her arm and + shake her. “I should like to take the whip from in front of Frank’s seat + and give her a sound beating,” he told himself. + </p> + <p> + At the house Sue jumped out of the carriage and, running past him in at + the door, closed it after her. Frank drove off toward the stables and when + Sam went into the house he found Sue standing half way up the stairs + leading to her room and waiting for him. + </p> + <p> + “I presume you do not know that you have been openly insulting me all + evening,” she cried. “Your beastly talk there at the Grovers—it was + unbearable—who are these women? Why parade your past life before + me?” + </p> + <p> + Sam said nothing. He stood at the foot of the stairs and looked up at her + and then, turning, just as she, running up the stairs, slammed the door of + her own room, he went into the library. A wood fire burned in the grate + and he sat down and lighted his pipe. He did not try to think the thing + out. He felt that he was in the presence of a lie and that the Sue who had + lived in his mind and in his affections no longer existed, that in her + place there was this other woman, this woman who had insulted her own + servant and had perverted and distorted the meaning of his talk during the + evening. + </p> + <p> + Sitting by the fire filling and refilling his pipe, Sam went carefully + over every word, gesture, and incident of the evening at the Grovers and + could get hold of no part of it that he thought might in fairness serve as + an excuse for the outburst. In the upper part of the house he could hear + Sue moving restlessly about and he had satisfaction in the thought that + her mind was punishing her for so strange a seizure. He and Grover had + perhaps been somewhat carried away, he told himself; they had talked of + marriage and its meaning and had both declared somewhat hotly against the + idea that the loss of virginity in women was in any sense a bar to + honourable marriage, but he had said nothing that he thought could have + been twisted into an insult to Sue or to Mrs. Grover. He had thought the + talk rather good and clearly thought out and had come out of the house + exhilarated and secretly preening himself with the thought that he had + talked unusually forcefully and well. In any event what had been said had + been said before in Sue’s presence and he thought that he could remember + her having, in the past, expressed similar ideas with enthusiasm. + </p> + <p> + Hour after hour he sat in the chair before the dying fire. He dozed and + his pipe dropped from his hand and fell upon the stone hearth. A kind of + dumb misery and anger was in him as over and over endlessly his mind kept + reviewing the events of the evening. + </p> + <p> + “What has made her think she can do that to me?” he kept asking himself. + </p> + <p> + He remembered certain strange silences and hard looks from her eyes during + the past weeks, silences and looks that in the light of the events of the + evening became pregnant with meaning. + </p> + <p> + “She has a temper, a beast of a temper. Why shouldn’t she have been square + and told me?” he asked himself. + </p> + <p> + The clock had struck three when the library door opened quietly and Sue, + clad in a dressing gown through which the new roundness of her lithe + little figure was plainly apparent, came into the room. She ran across to + him and putting her head down on his knee wept bitterly. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Sam!” she said, “I think I am going insane. I have been hating you as + I have not hated since I was an evil-tempered child. A thing I worked + years to suppress in me has come back. I have been hating myself and the + baby. For days I have been fighting the feeling in me, and now it has come + out and perhaps you have begun hating me. Can you love me again? Will you + ever forget the meanness and the cheapness of it? You and poor innocent + Frank—Oh, Sam, the devil was in me!” + </p> + <p> + Reaching down, Sam took her into his arms and cuddled her like a child. A + story he had heard of the vagaries of women at such times came back to him + and was as a light illuminating the darkness of his mind. + </p> + <p> + “I understand now,” he said. “It is a part of the burden you carry for us + both.” + </p> + <p> + For some weeks after the outbreak at the carriage door events ran smoothly + in the McPherson house. One day as he stood in the stable door Frank came + round the corner of the house and, looking up sheepishly from under his + cap, said to Sam: “I understand about the missus. It is the baby coming. + We have had four of them at our house,” and Sam, nodding his head, turned + and began talking rapidly of his plans to replace the carriages with + automobiles. + </p> + <p> + But in the house, in spite of the clearing up of the matter of Sue’s + ugliness at the Grovers, a subtle change had taken place in the + relationship of the two. Although they were together facing the first of + the events that were to be like ports-of-call in the great voyage of their + lives, they were not facing it with the same mutual understanding and + kindly tolerance with which they had faced smaller things in the past—a + disagreement over the method of shooting a rapid in a river or the + entertainment of an undesirable guest. The inclination to fits of temper + loosens and disarranges all the little wires of life. The tune will not + get itself played. One stands waiting for the discord, strained, missing + the harmony. It was so with Sam. He began feeling that he must keep a + check upon his tongue and that things of which they had talked with great + freedom six months earlier now annoyed and irritated his wife when brought + into an after-dinner discussion. To Sam, who, during his life with Sue, + had learned the joy of free, open talk upon any subject that came into his + mind and whose native interest in life and in the motives of men and women + had blossomed in the large leisure and independence of the last year, this + was trying. It was, he thought, like trying to hold free and open + communion with the people of an orthodox family, and he fell into a habit + of prolonged silences, a habit that later, he found, once formed, + unbelievably hard to break. + </p> + <p> + One day in the office a situation arose that seemed to demand Sam’s + presence in Boston on a certain date. For months he had been carrying on a + trade war with some of the eastern manufacturers in his line and an + opportunity for the settlement of the trouble in a way advantageous to + himself had, he thought, arisen. He wanted to handle the matter himself + and went home to explain to Sue. It was at the end of a day when nothing + had occurred to irritate her and she agreed with him that he should not be + compelled to trust so important a matter to another. + </p> + <p> + “I am no child, Sam. I will take care of myself,” she said, laughing. + </p> + <p> + Sam wired his New York man asking him to make the arrangements for the + meeting in Boston and picked up a book to spend the evening reading aloud + to her. + </p> + <p> + And then, coming home the next evening he found her in tears and when he + tried to laugh away her fears she flew into a black fit of anger and ran + out of the room. + </p> + <p> + Sam went to the ‘phone and called his New York man, thinking to instruct + him in regard to the conference in Boston and to give up his own plans for + the trip. When he had got his man on the wire, Sue, who had been standing + outside the door, rushed in and put her hand over the mouthpiece of the + ‘phone. + </p> + <p> + “Sam! Sam!” she cried. “Do not give up the trip! Scold me! Beat me! Do + anything, but do not let me go on making a fool of myself and destroying + your peace of mind! I shall be miserable if you stay at home because of + what I have said!” + </p> + <p> + Over the ‘phone came the insistent voice of Central and putting her hand + aside Sam talked to his man, letting the engagement stand and making some + detail of the conference answer as his need of calling. + </p> + <p> + Again Sue was repentant and again after her tears they sat before the fire + until his train time, talking like lovers. + </p> + <p> + To Buffalo in the morning came a wire from her. + </p> + <p> + “Come back. Let business go. Cannot stand it,” she had wired. + </p> + <p> + While he sat reading the wire the porter brought another. + </p> + <p> + “Please, Sam, pay no attention to any wire from me. I am all right and + only half a fool.” + </p> + <p> + Sam was irritated. “It is deliberate pettiness and weakness,” he thought, + when an hour later the porter brought another wire demanding his immediate + return. “The situation calls for drastic action and perhaps one good + stinging reproof will stop it for all time.” + </p> + <p> + Going into the buffet car he wrote a long letter calling her attention to + the fact that a certain amount of freedom of action was due him, and + saying that he intended to act upon his own judgment in the future and not + upon her impulses. + </p> + <p> + Having begun to write Sam went on and on. He was not interrupted, no + shadow crossed the face of his beloved to tell him he was hurting and he + said all that was in his mind to say. Little sharp reproofs that had come + into his mind but that had been left unsaid now got themselves said and + when he had dumped his overloaded mind into the letter he sealed and + mailed it at a passing station. + </p> + <p> + Within an hour after the letter had left his hands Sam regretted it. He + thought of the little woman bearing the burden for them both, and things + Grover had told him of the unhappiness of women in her condition came back + to haunt his mind so that he wrote and sent off to her a wire asking her + not to read the letter he had mailed and assuring her that he would hurry + through the Boston conference and get back to her at once. + </p> + <p> + When Sam returned he knew that in an evil moment Sue had opened and read + the letter sent from the train and was surprised and hurt by the + knowledge. The act seemed like a betrayal. He said nothing, going about + his work with a troubled mind and watching with growing anxiety her + alternate fits of white anger and fearful remorse. He thought her growing + worse daily and became alarmed for her health. + </p> + <p> + And, then, after a talk with Grover he began to spend more and more time + with her, forcing her to take with him daily, long walks in the open air. + He tried valiantly to keep her mind fixed on cheerful things and went to + bed happy and relieved when a day ended that did not bring a stormy + passage between them. + </p> + <p> + There were days during that period when Sam thought himself near insanity. + With a light in her grey eyes that was maddening Sue would take up some + minor thing, a remark he had made or a passage he had quoted from some + book, and in a dead, level, complaining tone would talk of it until his + head reeled and his fingers ached from the gripping of his hands to keep + control of himself. After such a day he would steal off by himself and, + walking rapidly, would try through pure physical fatigue to force his mind + to give up the remembrance of the persistent, complaining voice. At times + he would give way to fits of anger and strew impotent oaths along the + silent street, or, in another mood, would mumble and talk to himself, + praying for strength and courage to keep his own head during the ordeal + through which he thought they were passing together. And when he returned + from such a walk and from such a struggle with himself it often occurred + that he would find her waiting in the arm chair before the fire in her + room, her mind clear and her little face wet with the tears of her + repentance. + </p> + <p> + And then the struggle ended. With Doctor Grover it had been arranged that + Sue should be taken to the hospital for the great event, and they drove + there hurriedly one night through the quiet streets, the recurring pains + gripping Sue and her hands clutching his. An exalted cheerfulness had hold + of them. Face to face with the actual struggle for the new life Sue was + transfigured. Her voice rang with triumph and her eyes glistened. + </p> + <p> + “I am going to do it,” she cried; “my black fear is gone. I shall give you + a child—a man child. I shall succeed, my man Sam. You shall see. It + will be beautiful.” + </p> + <p> + When the pain gripped she gripped at his hand, and a spasm of physical + sympathy ran through him. He felt helpless and ashamed of his + helplessness. + </p> + <p> + At the entrance to the hospital grounds she put her face down upon his + knees so that the hot tears ran through his hands. + </p> + <p> + “Poor, poor old Sam, it has been horrible for you.” + </p> + <p> + At the hospital Sam walked up and down in the corridor through the + swinging doors at the end of which she had been taken. Every vestige of + regret for the trying months now lying behind had passed, and he paced up + and down the corridor feeling that he had come to one of those huge + moments when a man’s brain, his grasp of affairs, his hopes and plans for + the future, all of the little details and trivialities of his life, halt, + and he waits anxious, breathless, expectant. He looked at a little clock + on a table at the end of the corridor, half expecting it to stop also and + wait with him. His marriage hour that had seemed so big and vital seemed + now, in the quiet corridor, with the stone floor and the silent + white-clad, rubber-shod nurses passing up and down and in the presence of + this greater event, to have shrunk enormously. He walked up and down + peering at the clock, looking at the swinging door and biting at the stem + of his empty pipe. + </p> + <p> + And then through the swinging door came Grover. + </p> + <p> + “We can get the child, Sam, but to get it we shall have to take a chance + with her. Do you want to do that? Do not wait. Decide.” + </p> + <p> + Sam sprang past him toward the door. + </p> + <p> + “You bungler,” he cried, and his voice rang through the long quiet + corridor. “You do not know what this means. Let me go.” + </p> + <p> + Doctor Grover, catching him by the arm, swung him about. The two men stood + facing each other. + </p> + <p> + “You stay here,” said the doctor, his voice remaining quiet and firm; “I + will attend to things. Your going in there would be pure folly now. Now + answer me—do you want to take the chance?” + </p> + <p> + “No! No!” Sam shouted. “No! I want her—Sue—alive and well, + back through that door.” + </p> + <p> + A cold gleam came into his eyes and he shook his fist before the doctor’s + face. + </p> + <p> + “Do not try deceiving me about this. By God, I will——” + </p> + <p> + Turning, Doctor Grover ran back through the swinging door leaving Sam + staring blankly at his back. A nurse, one whom he had seen in Doctor + Grover’s office, came out of the door and taking his arm, walked beside + him up and down the corridor. Sam put his arm around her shoulder and + talked. An illusion that it was necessary to comfort her came to him. + </p> + <p> + “Do not worry,” he said. “She will be all right. Grover will take care of + her. Nothing can happen to little Sue.” + </p> + <p> + The nurse, a small, sweet-faced, Scotch woman, who knew and admired Sue, + wept. Some quality in his voice had touched the woman in her and the tears + ran in a little stream down her cheeks. Sam continued talking, the woman’s + tears helping him to regain his grip upon himself. + </p> + <p> + “My mother is dead,” he said, an old sorrow revisiting him. “I wish that + you, like Mary Underwood, would be a new mother to me.” + </p> + <p> + When the time came that he could be taken to the room where Sue lay, his + self-possession had returned to him and his mind had begun blaming the + little dead stranger for the unhappiness of the past months and for the + long separation from what he thought was the real Sue. Outside the door of + the room into which she had been taken he stopped, hearing her voice, thin + and weak, talking to Grover. + </p> + <p> + “Unfit—Sue McPherson unfit,” said the voice, and Sam thought it was + filled with an infinite weariness. + </p> + <p> + He ran through the door and dropped on his knees by her bed. She turned + her eyes to him smiling bravely. + </p> + <p> + “The next time we’ll make it,” she said. + </p> + <p> + The second child born to the young McPhersons arrived out of time. Again + Sam walked, this time through the corridor of his own house and without + the consoling presence of the sweet-faced Scotch woman, and again he shook + his head at Doctor Grover who came to him consoling and reassuring. + </p> + <p> + After the death of the second child Sue lay for months in bed. In his + arms, in her own room, she wept openly in the presence of Grover and the + nurses, crying out against her unfitness. For several days she refused to + see Colonel Tom, harbouring in her mind the notion that he was in some way + responsible for her physical inability to bear living children, and when + she got up from her bed, she remained for months white and listless but + grimly determined upon another attempt for the little life she so wanted + to feel in her arms. + </p> + <p> + During the days of her carrying the second baby she had again the fierce + ugly attacks of temper that had shattered Sam’s nerves, but having learned + to understand, he went quietly about his work, trying as far as in him lay + to close his ears to the stinging, hurtful things she sometimes said; and + the third time, it was agreed between them that if they were again + unsuccessful they would turn their minds to other things. + </p> + <p> + “If we do not succeed this time we might as well count ourselves through + with each other for good,” she said one day in one of the fits of cold + anger that were a part of child bearing with her. + </p> + <p> + That second night when Sam walked in the hospital corridor he was beside + himself. He felt like a young recruit called to face an unseen enemy and + to stand motionless and inactive in the presence of the singing death that + ran through the air. He remembered a story, told when he was a child by a + fellow soldier who had come to visit his father, of the prisoners at + Andersonville creeping in the darkness past armed sentries to a little + pool of stagnant water beyond the dead line, and felt that he too was + creeping unarmed and helpless in the neighbourhood of death. In a + conference at his house between the three some weeks before, it had been + decided, after tearful insistence on the part of Sue and a stand on the + part of Grover, who declared that he would not remain on the case unless + permitted to use his own judgment, that an operation should be performed. + </p> + <p> + “Take the chances that need be taken,” Sam had said to Grover after the + conference; “she will never stand another defeat. Give her the child.” + </p> + <p> + In the corridor it seemed to Sam that hours had passed and still he stood + motionless waiting. His feet felt cold and he had the impression that they + were wet although the night was dry and a moon shone outside. When, from a + distant part of the hospital, a groan reached his ears he shook with + fright and had an inclination to cry out. Two young interns clad in white + passed. + </p> + <p> + “Old Grover is doing a Caesarian section,” said one of them; “he is + getting out of date. Hope he doesn’t bungle it.” + </p> + <p> + In Sam’s ears rang the remembrance of Sue’s voice, the Sue who that first + time had gone into the room behind the swinging doors with the determined + smile on her face. He thought he could see again the white face looking up + from the wheeled cot on which they had taken her through the door. + </p> + <p> + “I am afraid, Dr. Grover—I am afraid I am unfit,” he had heard her + say as the door closed. + </p> + <p> + And then Sam did a thing for which he cursed himself the rest of his life. + On an impulse, and maddened by the intolerable waiting, he walked to the + swinging doors and, pushing them open, stepped into the operating room + where Grover was at work upon Sue. + </p> + <p> + The room was long and narrow, with floors, walls and ceiling of white + cement. A great glaring light, suspended from the ceiling, threw its rays + directly down on a white-clad figure lying on a white metal operating + table. On the walls of the room were other glaring lights set in shining + glass reflectors. And, here and there through an intense, expectant + atmosphere, moved and stood silently a group of men and women, faceless, + hairless, with only their strangely vivid eyes showing through the white + masks that covered their faces. + </p> + <p> + Sam, standing motionless by the door, looked about with wild, half-seeing + eyes. Grover worked rapidly and silently, taking from time to time little + shining instruments from a swinging table close at his hand. The nurse + standing beside him looked up toward the light and began calmly threading + a needle. And in a white basin on a little stand at the side of the room + lay the last of Sue’s tremendous efforts toward new life, the last of + their dreams of the great family. + </p> + <p> + Sam closed his eyes and fell. His head, striking against the wall, aroused + him and he struggled to his feet. + </p> + <p> + Without stopping his work, Grover began swearing. + </p> + <p> + “Damn it, man, get out of here.” + </p> + <p> + Sam groped with his hand for the door. One of the white-clad, ghoulish + figures started toward him. And then with his head reeling and his eyes + closed he backed through the door and, running along the corridor and down + a flight of broad stairs, reached the open air and darkness. He had no + doubt of Sue’s death. + </p> + <p> + “She is gone,” he muttered, hurrying bareheaded along the deserted + streets. + </p> + <p> + Through street after street he ran. Twice he came out upon the shores of + the lake, and, then turning, went back into the heart of the city through + streets bathed in the warm moonlight. Once he turned quickly at a corner + and stepping into a vacant lot stood behind a high board fence as a + policeman strolled along the street. Into his head came the idea that he + had killed Sue and that the blue-clad figure walking with heavy tread on + the stone pavement was seeking him to take him back to where she lay white + and lifeless. Again he stopped, before a little frame drugstore on a + corner, and sitting down on the steps before it cursed God openly and + defiantly like an angry boy defying his father. Some instinct led him to + look at the sky through the tangle of telegraph wires overhead. + </p> + <p> + “Go on and do what you dare!” he cried. “I will not follow you now. I + shall never try to find you after this.” + </p> + <p> + Presently he began laughing at himself for the instinct that had led him + to look at the sky and to shout out his defiance and, getting up, wandered + on. In his wanderings he came to a railroad track where a freight train + groaned and rattled over a crossing. When he came up to it he jumped upon + an empty coal car, falling as he climbed, and cutting his face upon the + sharp pieces of coal that lay scattered about the bottom of the car. + </p> + <p> + The train ground along slowly, stopping occasionally, the engine shrieking + hysterically. + </p> + <p> + After a time he got out of the car and dropped to the ground. On all sides + of him were marshes, the long rank marsh grasses rolling and tossing in + the moonlight. When the train had passed he followed it, walking + stumblingly along. As he walked, following the blinking lights at the end + of the train, he thought of the scene in the hospital and of Sue lying + dead for that—that ping livid and shapeless on the table under the + lights. + </p> + <p> + Where the solid ground ran up to the tracks Sam sat down under a tree. + Peace came over him. “This is the end of things,” he thought, and was like + a tired child comforted by its mother. He thought of the sweet-faced nurse + who had walked with him that other time in the corridor of the hospital + and who had wept because of his fears, and then of the night when he had + felt the throat of his father between his fingers in the squalid little + kitchen. He ran his hands along the ground. “Good old ground,” he said. A + sentence came into his mind followed by the figure of John Telfer + striding, stick in hand, along a dusty road. “Here is spring come and time + to plant out flowers in the grass,” he said aloud. His face felt swollen + and sore from the fall in the freight car and he lay down on the ground + under a tree and slept. + </p> + <p> + When he woke it was morning and grey clouds were drifting across the sky. + Within sight, down a road, a trolley car went past into the city. Before + him, in the midst of the marsh, lay a low lake, and a raised walk, with + boats tied to the posts on which it stood, ran down to the water. He went + down the walk, bathed his bruised face in the water, and boarding a car + went back into the city. + </p> + <p> + In the morning air a new thought took possession of him. The wind ran + along a dusty road beside the car track, picking up little handfuls of + dust and playfully throwing them about. He had a strained, eager feeling + like some one listening for a faint call out of the distance. + </p> + <p> + “To be sure,” he thought, “I know what it is, it is my wedding day. I am + to marry Sue Rainey to-day.” + </p> + <p> + At the house he found Grover and Colonel Tom standing in the breakfast + room. Grover looked at his swollen, distorted face. His voice trembled. + </p> + <p> + “Poor devil!” he said. “You have had a night!” + </p> + <p> + Sam laughed and slapped Colonel Tom on the shoulder. + </p> + <p> + “We will have to begin getting ready,” he said. “The wedding is at ten. + Sue will be getting anxious.” + </p> + <p> + Grover and Colonel Tom took him by the arm and began leading him up the + stairs, Colonel Tom weeping like a woman. + </p> + <p> + “Silly old fool,” thought Sam. + </p> + <p> + When, two weeks later, he again opened his eyes to consciousness Sue sat + beside his bed in a reclining chair, her little thin white hand in his. + </p> + <p> + “Get the baby!” he cried, believing anything possible. “I want to see the + baby!” + </p> + <p> + She laid her head down on the pillow. + </p> + <p> + “It was gone when you saw it,” she said, and put an arm about his neck. + </p> + <p> + When the nurse came back she found them, their heads together upon the + pillow, crying weakly like two tired children. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VIII + </h2> + <p> + The blow given the plan of life so carefully thought out and so eagerly + accepted by the young McPhersons threw them back upon themselves. For + several years they had been living upon a hill top, taking themselves very + seriously and more than a little preening themselves with the thought that + they were two very unusual and thoughtful people engaged upon a worthy and + ennobling enterprise. Sitting in their corner immersed in admiration of + their own purposes and in the thoughts of the vigorous, disciplined, new + life they were to give the world by the combined efficiency of their two + bodies and minds they were, at a word and a shake of the head from Doctor + Grover, compelled to remake the outline of their future together. + </p> + <p> + All about them the rush of life went on, vast changes were impending in + the industrial life of the people, cities were doubling and tripling their + population, a war was being fought, and the flag of their country flew in + the ports of strange seas, while American boys pushed their way through + the tangled jungles of strange lands carrying in their hands + Rainey-Whittaker rifles. And in a huge stone house, set in a broad expanse + of green lawns near the shores of Lake Michigan, Sam McPherson sat looking + at his wife, who in turn looked at him. He was trying, as she also was + trying, to adjust himself to the cheerful acceptance of their new prospect + of a childless life. + </p> + <p> + Looking at Sue across the dinner table or seeing her straight, wiry body + astride a horse riding beside him through the parks, it seemed to Sam + unbelievable that a childless womanhood was ever to be her portion, and + more than once he had an inclination to venture again upon an effort for + the success of their hopes. But when he remembered her still white face + that night in the hospital, her bitter, haunting cry of defeat, he turned + with a shudder from the thought, feeling that he could not go with her + again through that ordeal; that he could not again allow her to look + forward through weeks and months toward the little life that never came to + lie upon her breast or to laugh up into her face. + </p> + <p> + And yet Sam, son of that Jane McPherson who had won the admiration of the + men of Caxton by her ceaseless efforts to keep her family afloat and clean + handed, could not sit idly by, living upon the income of his own and Sue’s + money. The stirring, forward-moving world called to him; he looked about + him at the broad, significant movements in business and finance, at the + new men coming into prominence and apparently finding a way for the + expression of new big ideas, and felt his youth stirring in him and his + mind reaching out to new projects and new ambitions. + </p> + <p> + Given the necessity for economy and a hard long-drawn-out struggle for a + livelihood and competence, Sam could conceive of living his life with Sue + and deriving something like gratification from just her companionship, and + her partnership in his efforts—here and there during the waiting + years he had met men who had found such gratification—a foreman in + the shops or a tobacconist from whom he bought his cigars—but for + himself he felt that he had gone with Sue too far upon another road to + turn that way now with anything like mutual zeal or interest. At bottom, + his mind did not run strongly toward the idea of the love of women as an + end in life; he had loved, and did love, Sue with something approaching + religious fervour, but the fervour was more than half due to the ideas she + had given him and to the fact that with him she was to have been the + instrument for the realisation of those ideas. He was a man with children + in his loins and he had given up his struggles for business eminence for + the sake of preparing himself for a kind of noble fatherhood of children, + many children, strong children, fit gifts to the world for two + exceptionally favoured lives. In all of his talks with Sue this idea had + been present and dominant. He had looked about him and in the arrogance of + his youth and in the pride of his good body and mind had condemned all + childless marriages as a selfish waste of good lives. With her he had + agreed that such lives were without point and purpose. Now he remembered + that in the days of her audacity and daring she had more than once + expressed the hope that in case of a childless issue to their marriage one + or the other of them would have the courage to cut the knot that tied them + and venture into another effort at right living at any cost. + </p> + <p> + In the months after Sue’s last recovery, and during the long evenings, as + they sat together or walked under the stars in the park, the thought of + these talks was often in Sam’s mind and he found himself beginning to + speculate on her present attitude and to wonder how bravely she would meet + the idea of a separation. In the end he decided that no such thought was + in her mind, that face to face with the tremendous actuality she clung to + him with a new dependence, and a new need of his companionship. The + conviction of the absolute necessity of children as a justification for a + man and woman living together had, he thought, burned itself more deeply + into his brain than into hers; to him it clung, coming back again and + again to his mind, causing him to turn here and there restlessly, making + readjustments, seeking new light. The old gods being dead he sought new + gods. + </p> + <p> + In the meantime he sat in his house facing his wife, losing himself in the + books recommended to him years before by Janet, thinking his own thoughts. + Often in the evening he would look up from his book or from his + preoccupied staring at the fire to find her eyes looking at him. + </p> + <p> + “Talk, Sam; talk,” she would say; “do not sit there thinking.” + </p> + <p> + Or at another time she would come to his room at night and putting her + head down on the pillow beside his would spend hours planning, weeping, + begging him to give her again his love, his old fervent, devoted love. + </p> + <p> + This Sam tried earnestly and honestly to do, going with her for long walks + when the new call, the business had begun to make to him, would have kept + him at his desk, reading aloud to her in the evening, urging her to shake + off her old dreams and to busy herself with new work and new interests. + </p> + <p> + Through the days in the office he went in a kind of half stupor. An old + feeling of his boyhood coming back to him, it seemed to him, as it had + seemed when he walked aimlessly through the streets of Caxton after the + death of his mother, that there remained something to be done, an + accounting to be made. Even at his desk with the clatter of typewriters in + his ears and the piles of letters demanding his attention, his mind + slipped back to the days of his courtship with Sue and to those days in + the north woods when life had beat strong within him, and every young, + wild thing, every new growth renewed the dream that filled his being. + Sometimes on the street, or walking in the park with Sue, the cries of + children at play cut across the sombre dulness of his mind and he shrank + from the sound and a kind of bitter resentment took possession of him. + When he looked covertly at Sue she talked of other things, apparently + unconscious of his thoughts. + </p> + <p> + Then a new phase of life presented itself. To his surprise he found + himself looking with more than passing interest at women in the streets, + and an old hunger for the companionship of strange women came back to him, + in some way coarsened and materialised. One evening at the theatre a + woman, a friend of Sue’s and the childless wife of a business friend of + his own, sat beside him. In the darkness of the playhouse her shoulder + nestled down against his. In the excitement of a crisis on the stage her + hand slipped into his and her fingers clutched and held his fingers. + </p> + <p> + Animal desire seized and shook him, a feeling without sweetness, brutal, + making his eyes burn. When between the acts the theatre was again flooded + with light he looked up guiltily to meet another pair of eyes equally + filled with guilty hunger. A challenge had been given and received. + </p> + <p> + In their car, homeward bound, Sam put the thoughts of the woman away from + him and taking Sue in his arms prayed silently for some help against he + knew not what. + </p> + <p> + “I think I will go to Caxton in the morning and have a talk with Mary + Underwood,” he said. + </p> + <p> + After his return from Caxton Sam set about finding some new interest to + occupy Sue’s mind. He had spent an afternoon talking to Valmore, Freedom + Smith, and Telfer and thought there was a kind of flatness in their jokes + and in their ageing comments on each other. Then he had gone from them for + his talk with Mary. Half through the night they had talked, Sam getting + forgiveness for not writing and getting also a long friendly lecture on + his duty toward Sue. He thought she had in some way missed the point. She + had seemed to suppose that the loss of the children had fallen singly upon + Sue. She had not counted upon him, and he had depended upon her doing just + that. He had come as a boy to his mother wanting to talk of himself and + she had wept at the thought of the childless wife and had told him how to + set about making her happy. + </p> + <p> + “Well, I will set about it,” he thought on the train coming home; “I will + find for her this new interest and make her less dependent upon me. Then I + also will take hold anew and work out for myself a programme for a way of + life.” + </p> + <p> + One afternoon when he came home from the office he found Sue filled indeed + with a new idea. With glowing cheeks she sat beside him through the + evening and talked of the beauties of a life devoted to social service. + </p> + <p> + “I have been thinking things out,” she said, her eyes shining. “We must + not allow ourselves to become sordid. We must keep to the vision. We must + together give the best in our lives and our fortunes to mankind. We must + make ourselves units in the great modern movements for social uplift.” + </p> + <p> + Sam looked at the fire and a chill feeling of doubt ran through him. He + could not see himself as a unit in anything. His mind did not run out + toward the thought of being one of the army of philanthropists or rich + social uplifters he had met talking and explaining in the reading rooms of + clubs. No answering flame burned in his heart as it had burned that + evening by the bridle path in Jackson Park when she had expounded another + idea. But the thought of a need of new interest for her coming to him, he + turned to her smiling. + </p> + <p> + “It sounds all right but I know nothing of such things,” he said. + </p> + <p> + After that evening Sue began to get a hold upon herself. The old fire came + back into her eyes and she went about the house with a smile upon her face + and talked through the evenings to her silent, attentive husband of the + life of usefulness, the full life. One day she told him of her election to + the presidency of a society for the rescue of fallen women, and he began + seeing her name in the newspapers in connection with various charity and + civic movements. At the house a new sort of men and women began appearing + at the dinner table; a strangely earnest, feverish, half fanatical people, + Sam thought, with an inclination toward corsetless dresses and uncut hair, + who talked far into the night and worked themselves into a sort of + religious zeal over what they called their movement. Sam found them likely + to run to startling statements, noticed that they sat on the edges of + their chairs when they talked, and was puzzled by their tendency toward + making the most revolutionary statements without pausing to back them up. + When he questioned a statement made by one of these people, he came down + upon him with a rush that quite carried him away and then, turning to the + others, looked at them wisely like a cat that has swallowed a mouse. “Ask + us another question if you dare,” their faces seemed to be saying, while + their tongues declared that they were but students of the great problem of + right living. + </p> + <p> + With these new people Sam never made any progress toward real + understanding and friendship. For a time he tried honestly to get some of + their own fervent devotions to their ideas and to be impressed by what + they said of their love of man, even going with them to some of their + meetings, at one of which he sat among the fallen women gathered in, and + listened to a speech by Sue. + </p> + <p> + The speech did not make much of a hit, the fallen women moving restlessly + about. A large woman, with an immense nose, did better. She talked with a + swift, contagious zeal that was very stirring, and, listening to her, Sam + was reminded of the evening when he sat before another zealous talker in + the church at Caxton and Jim Williams, the barber, tried to stampede him + into the fold with the lambs. While the woman talked a plump little member + of the <i>demi monde</i> who sat beside Sam wept copiously, but at the end + of the speech he could remember nothing of what had been said and he + wondered if the weeping woman would remember. + </p> + <p> + To express his determination to continue being Sue’s companion and + partner, Sam during one winter taught a class of young men at a settlement + house in the factory district of the west side. The class in his hands was + unsuccessful. He found the young men heavy and stupid with fatigue after + the day of labour in the shops and more inclined to fall asleep in their + chairs, or wander away, one at a time, to loaf and smoke on a nearby + corner, than to stay in the room listening to the man reading or talking + before them. + </p> + <p> + When one of the young women workers came into the room, they sat up and + seemed for the moment interested. Once Sam heard a group of them talking + of these women workers on a landing in a darkened stairway. The experience + startled Sam and he dropped the class, admitting to Sue his failure and + his lack of interest and bowing his head before her accusation of a lack + of the love of men. + </p> + <p> + Later by the fire in his own room he tried to draw for himself a moral + from the experience. + </p> + <p> + “Why should I love these men?” he asked himself. “They are what I might + have been. Few of the men I have known have loved me and some of the best + and cleanest of them have worked vigorously for my defeat. Life is a + battle in which few men win and many are defeated and in which hate and + fear play their part with love and generosity. These heavy-featured young + men are a part of the world as men have made it. Why this protest against + their fate when we are all of us making more and more of them with every + turn of the clock?” + </p> + <p> + During the next year, after the fiasco of the settlement house class, Sam + found himself drifting more and more rapidly away from Sue and her new + viewpoint of life. The growing gulf between them showed itself in a + thousand little household acts and impulses, and every time he looked at + her he thought her more apart from him and less a part of the real life + that went on within him. In the old days there had been something intimate + and familiar in her person and in her presence. She had seemed like a part + of him, like the room in which he slept or the coat he wore on his back, + and he had looked into her eyes as thoughtlessly and with as little fear + of what he might find there as he looked at his own hands. Now when his + eyes met hers they dropped, and one or the other of them began talking + hurriedly like a person who has a consciousness of something he must + conceal. + </p> + <p> + Down town Sam took up anew his old friendship and intimacy with Jack + Prince, going with him to clubs and drinking places and often spending + evenings among the clever, money-wasting young men who laughed and made + deals and talked their way through life at Jack’s side. Among these young + men a business associate of Jack’s caught his attention and in a few weeks + an intimacy had sprung up between Sam and this man. + </p> + <p> + Maurice Morrison, Sam’s new friend, had been discovered by Jack Prince + working as a sub-editor on a country daily down the state. There was, Sam + thought, something of the Caxton dandy, Mike McCarthy, in the man, + combined with prolonged and fervent, although somewhat periodic attacks of + industry. In his youth he had written poetry and at one time had studied + for the ministry, and in Chicago, under Jack Prince, he had developed into + a money maker and led the life of a talented, rather unscrupulous man of + the world. He kept a mistress, often overdrank, and Sam thought him the + most brilliant and convincing talker he had ever heard. As Jack Prince’s + assistant he had charge of the Rainey Company’s large advertising + expenditure, and the two men being thrown often together a mutual regard + grew up between them. Sam believed him to be without moral sense; he knew + him to be able and honest and he found in the association with him a fund + of odd little sweetnesses of character and action that lent an + inexpressible charm to the person of his friend. + </p> + <p> + It was through Morrison that Sam had his first serious misunderstanding + with Sue. One evening the brilliant young advertising man dined at the + McPhersons’. The table, as usual, was filled with Sue’s new friends, among + them a tall, gaunt man who, with the arrival of the coffee, began in a + high-pitched, earnest voice to talk of the coming social revolution. Sam + looked across the table and saw a light dancing in Morrison’s eyes. Like a + hound unleashed he sprang among Sue’s friends, tearing the rich to pieces, + calling for the onward advance of the masses, quoting odds and ends of + Shelley and Carlyle, peering earnestly up and down the table, and at the + end quite winning the hearts of the women by a defence of fallen women + that stirred the blood of even his friend and host. + </p> + <p> + Sam was amused and a trifle annoyed. The whole thing was, he knew, no more + than a piece of downright acting with just the touch of sincerity in it + that was characteristic of the man but that had no depth or real meaning. + During the rest of the evening he watched Sue, wondering if she too had + fathomed Morrison and what she thought of his having taken the role of + star from the long gaunt man, who had evidently been booked for that part + and who sat at the table and wandered afterward among the guests, annoyed + and disconcerted. + </p> + <p> + Late that night Sue came into his room and found him reading and smoking + by the fire. + </p> + <p> + “Cheeky of Morrison, dimming your star,” he said, looking at her and + laughing apologetically. + </p> + <p> + Sue looked at him doubtfully. + </p> + <p> + “I came in to thank you for bringing him,” she said; “I thought him + splendid.” + </p> + <p> + Sam looked at her and for a moment was tempted to let the matter pass. And + then his old inclination to be always open and frank with her asserted + itself and he closed the book and rising stood looking down at her. + </p> + <p> + “The little beast was guying your crowd,” he said, “but I do not want him + to guy you. Not that he wouldn’t try. He has the audacity for anything.” + </p> + <p> + A flush arose to her cheeks and her eyes gleamed. + </p> + <p> + “That is not true, Sam,” she said coldly. “You say that because you are + becoming hard and cold and cynical. Your friend Morrison talked from his + heart. It was beautiful. Men like you, who have a strong influence over + him, may lead him away, but in the end a man like that will come to give + his life to the service of society. You should help him; not assume an + attitude of unbelief and laugh at him.” + </p> + <p> + Sam stood upon the hearth smoking his pipe and looking at her. He was + thinking how easy it would have been in the first year after their + marriage to have explained Morrison. Now he felt that he was but making a + bad matter worse, but went on determined to stick to his policy of being + entirely honest with her. + </p> + <p> + “Look here, Sue,” he began quietly, “be a good sport. Morrison was joking. + I know the man. He is the friend of men like me because he wants to be and + because it pays him to be. He is a talker, a writer, a talented, + unscrupulous word-monger. He is making a big salary by taking the ideas of + men like me and expressing them better than we can ourselves. He is a good + workman and a generous, open-hearted fellow with a lot of nameless charm + in him, but a man of convictions he is not. He could talk tears into the + eyes of your fallen women, but he would be a lot more likely to talk good + women into their state.” + </p> + <p> + Sam put a hand upon her shoulder. + </p> + <p> + “Be sensible and do not be offended,” he went on: “take the fellow for + what he is and be glad for him. He hurts little and cheers a lot. He could + make a convincing argument in favour of civilisation’s return to + cannibalism, but really, you know, he spends most of his time thinking and + writing of washing machines and ladies’ hats and liver pills, and most of + his eloquence after all only comes down to ‘Send for catalogue, Department + K’ in the end.” + </p> + <p> + Sue’s voice was colourless with passion when she replied. + </p> + <p> + “This is unbearable. Why did you bring the fellow here?” + </p> + <p> + Sam sat down and picked up his book. In his impatience he lied to her for + the first time since their marriage. + </p> + <p> + “First, because I like him and second, because I wanted to see if I + couldn’t produce a man who could outsentimentalise your socialist + friends,” he said quietly. + </p> + <p> + Sue turned and walked out of the room. In a way the action was final and + marked the end of understanding between them. Putting down his book Sam + watched her go and some feeling he had kept for her and that had + differentiated her from all other women died in him as the door closed + between them. Throwing the book aside he sprang to his feet and stood + looking at the door. + </p> + <p> + “The old goodfellowship appeal is dead,” he thought. “From now on we will + have to explain and apologise like two strangers. No more taking each + other for granted.” + </p> + <p> + Turning out the light he sat again before the fire to think his way + through the situation that faced him. He had no thought that she would + return. That last shot of his own had crushed the possibility of that. + </p> + <p> + The fire was getting low in the grate and he did not renew it. He looked + past it toward the darkened windows and heard the hum of motor cars along + the boulevard below. Again he was the boy of Caxton hungrily seeking an + end in life. The flushed face of the woman in the theatre danced before + his eyes. He remembered with shame how he had, a few days before, stood in + a doorway and followed with his eyes the figure of a woman who had lifted + her eyes to him as they passed in the street. He wished that he might go + out of the house for a walk with John Telfer and have his mind filled with + eloquence of the standing corn, or sit at the feet of Janet Eberly as she + talked of books and of life. He got up and turning on the lights began + preparing for bed. + </p> + <p> + “I know what I will do,” he said, “I will go to work. I will do some real + work and make some more money. That’s the place for me.” + </p> + <p> + And to work he went, real work, the most sustained and clearly thought-out + work he had done. For two years he was out of the house at dawn for a long + bracing walk in the fresh morning air, to be followed by eight, ten and + even fifteen hours in the office and shops; hours in which he drove the + Rainey Arms Company’s organisation mercilessly and, taking openly every + vestige of the management out of the hands of Colonel Tom, began the plans + for the consolidation of the American firearms companies that later put + his name on the front pages of the newspapers and got him the title of a + Captain of Finance. + </p> + <p> + There is a widespread misunderstanding abroad regarding the motives of + many of the American millionaires who sprang into prominence and affluence + in the days of change and sudden bewildering growth that followed the + close of the Spanish War. They were, many of them, not of the brute trader + type, but were, instead, men who thought and acted quickly and with a + daring and audacity impossible to the average mind. They wanted power and + were, many of them, entirely unscrupulous, but for the most part they were + men with a fire burning within them, men who became what they were because + the world offered them no better outlet for their vast energies. + </p> + <p> + Sam McPherson had been untiring and without scruples in the first hard, + quick struggle to get his head above the great unknown body of men there + in the city. He had turned aside from money getting when he heard what he + took to be a call to a better way of life. Now with the fires of youth + still in him and with the training and discipline that had come from two + years of reading, of comparative leisure and of thought, he was prepared + to give the Chicago business world a display of that tremendous energy + that was to write his name in the industrial history of the city as one of + the first of the western giants of finance. + </p> + <p> + Going to Sue, Sam told her frankly of his plans. + </p> + <p> + “I want a free hand in the handling of your stock in the company,” he + said. “I cannot lead this new life of yours. It may help and sustain you + but it gets no hold on me. I want to be myself now and lead my own life in + my own way. I want to run the company, really run it. I cannot stand idly + by and let life go past. I am hurting myself and you standing here looking + on. Also I am in a kind of danger of another kind that I want to avoid by + throwing myself into hard, constructive work.” + </p> + <p> + Without question Sue signed the papers he brought her. A flash of her old + frankness toward him came back. + </p> + <p> + “I do not blame you, Sam,” she said, smiling bravely. “Things have not + gone right, as we both know, but if we cannot work together at least let + us not hurt each other.” + </p> + <p> + When Sam returned to give himself again to affairs, the country was just + at the beginning of the great wave of consolidation which was finally to + sweep all of the financial power of the country into a dozen pairs of + competent and entirely efficient hands. With the sure instinct of the born + trader Sam had seen this movement coming and had studied it. Now he began + to act. Going to that same swarthy-faced lawyer who had drawn the contract + for him to secure control of the medical student’s twenty thousand dollars + and who had jokingly invited him to become one of a band of train robbers, + he told him of his plans to begin working toward a consolidation of all + the firearms companies of the country. + </p> + <p> + Webster wasted no time in joking now. He laid out the plans, adjusted and + readjusted them to suit Sam’s shrewd suggestions, and when a fee was + mentioned shook his head. + </p> + <p> + “I want in on this,” he said. “You will need me. I am made for this game + and have been waiting for a chance to get at it. Just count me in as one + of the promoters if you will.” + </p> + <p> + Sam nodded his head. Within a week he had formed a pool of his own + company’s stock controlling, as he thought, a safe majority and had begun + working to form a similar pool in the stock of his only big western rival. + </p> + <p> + This last job was not an easy one. Lewis, the Jew, had been making + constant headway in that company just as Sam had made headway in the + Rainey Company. He was a money maker, a sales manager of rare ability, + and, as Sam knew, a planner and executor of business coups of the first + class. + </p> + <p> + Sam did not want to deal with Lewis. He had respect for the man’s ability + in driving sharp bargains and felt that he would like to have the whip in + his own hands when it came to the point of dealing with him. To this end + he began visiting bankers and the men who were head of big western trust + companies in Chicago and St. Louis. He went about his work slowly, feeling + his way and trying to get at each man by some effective appeal, buying the + use of vast sums of money by a promise of common stock, the bait of a big + active bank account, and, here and there, by the hint of a directorship in + the big new consolidated company. + </p> + <p> + For a time the project moved slowly; indeed there were weeks and months + when it did not appear to move at all. Working in secret and with extreme + caution Sam encountered many discouragements and went home in the evening + day after day to sit among Sue’s guests with a mind filled with his own + plans and with an indifferent ear turned to the talk of revolution, social + unrest, and the new class consciousness of the masses, that rattled and + crackled up and down his dinner table. He thought that it must be trying + to Sue. He was so evidently not interested in her interests. At the same + time he thought that he was working toward what he wanted out of life and + went to bed at night believing that he was finding, and would find, a kind + of peace in just thinking clearly along one line day after day. + </p> + <p> + One day Webster, who had wanted to be in on the deal, came to Sam’s office + and gave his project its first great boost toward success. He, like Sam, + thought he saw clearly the tendencies of the times, and was greedy for the + block of common stock that Sam had promised should come to him with the + completion of the enterprise. + </p> + <p> + “You are not using me,” he said, sitting down before Sam’s desk. “What is + blocking the deal?” + </p> + <p> + Sam began to explain and when he had finished Webster laughed. + </p> + <p> + “Let’s get at Tom Edwards of the Edward Arms Company direct,” he said, and + then, leaning over the desk, “Edwards is a vain little peacock and a + second rate business man,” he declared emphatically. “Get him afraid and + then flatter his vanity. He has a new wife with blonde hair and big soft + blue eyes. He wants prominence. He is afraid to venture upon big things + himself but is hungry for the reputation and gain that comes through big + deals. Use the method the Jew has used; show him what it means to the + yellow-haired woman to be the wife of the president of the big + consolidated Arms Company. THE EDWARDS CONSOLIDATED, eh? Get at Edwards. + Bluff him and flatter him and he is your man.” + </p> + <p> + Sam wondered. Edwards was a small grey-haired man of sixty with something + dry and unresponsive about him. Being a silent man, he had created an + impression of remarkable shrewdness and ability. After a lifetime spent in + hard labour and in the practice of the most rigid economy he had come up + to wealth, and had got into the firearms business through Lewis, and it + was counted one of the brightest stars in that brilliant Hebrew’s crown + that he had been able to lead Edwards with him in his daring and audacious + handling of the company’s affairs. + </p> + <p> + Sam looked at Webster across the desk and thought of Tom Edwards as the + figurehead of the firearms trust. + </p> + <p> + “I was saving the frosting on the cake for my own Tom,” he said; “it was a + thing I wanted to hand the colonel.” + </p> + <p> + “Let us see Edwards this evening,” said Webster dryly. + </p> + <p> + Sam nodded, and late that night made the deal that gave him control of the + two important western companies and put him in position to move on the + eastern companies with every prospect of complete success. To Edwards he + went with an exaggerated report of the support he had already got for his + project, and having frightened him offered him the presidency of the new + company and promised that it should be incorporated under the name of The + Edwards Consolidated Firearms Company of America. + </p> + <p> + The eastern companies fell quickly. With Webster Sam tried on them the old + dodge of telling each that the other two had agreed to come in, and it + worked. + </p> + <p> + With the coming in of Edwards and the options given by the eastern + companies Sam began to get also the support of the LaSalle Street bankers. + The firearms trust was one of the few big consolidations managed wholly in + the west, and after two or three of the bankers had agreed to help finance + Sam’s plan the others began asking to be taken into the underwriting + syndicate he and Webster had formed. Within thirty days after the closing + of the deal with Tom Edwards Sam felt that he was ready to act. + </p> + <p> + For several months Colonel Tom had known something of the plans Sam had on + foot, and had made no protest. He had in fact given Sam to understand that + his stock would be voted with Sue’s, controlled by Sam, and with the stock + of the other directors who knew of and hoped to share in the profits of + Sam’s deal. The old gunmaker had all of his life believed that the other + American firearms companies were but shadows destined to disappear before + the rising sun of the Rainey Company, and thought of Sam’s project as an + act of providence to further this desirable end. + </p> + <p> + At the moment of his acquiescence in Webster’s plan, for landing Tom + Edwards, Sam had a moment of doubt, and now, with the success of his + project in sight, he began to wonder how the blustering old man would look + upon Edwards as the titular head of the big company and upon the name of + Edwards in the title of the company. + </p> + <p> + For two years Sam had seen little of the colonel, who had given up all + pretence to an active part in the management of the business and who, + finding Sue’s new friends disconcerting, seldom appeared at the house, + living at the clubs, playing billiards all day long, or sitting in the + club windows boasting to chance listeners of his part in the building of + the Rainey Arms Company. + </p> + <p> + With a mind filled with doubt Sam went home and put the matter before Sue. + She was dressed and ready for an evening at the theatre with a party of + friends and the talk was brief. + </p> + <p> + “He will not mind,” she said indifferently. “Go ahead and do what you want + to do.” + </p> + <p> + Sam rode back to the office and called his lieutenants about him. He felt + that the thing might as well be done and over, and with the options in his + hands, and the ability he thought he had to control his own company, he + was ready to come out into the open and get the deal cleaned up. + </p> + <p> + The morning papers that carried the story of the proposed big new + consolidation of firearms companies carried also an almost life-size + halftone of Colonel Tom Rainey, a slightly smaller one of Tom Edwards, and + grouped about these, small pictures of Sam, Lewis, Prince, Webster, and + several of the eastern men. By the size of the half-tone, Sam, Prince, and + Morrison had tried to reconcile Colonel Tom to Edwards’ name in the title + of the new company and to Edwards’ coming election as president. The story + also played up the past glories of the Rainey Company and its directing + genius, Colonel Tom. One phrase, written by Morrison, brought a smile to + Sam’s lips. + </p> + <p> + “This grand old patriarch of American business, retired now from active + service, is like a tired giant, who, having raised a brood of young + giants, goes into his castle to rest and reflect and to count the scars + won in many a hard-fought battle.” + </p> + <p> + Morrison laughed as he read it aloud. + </p> + <p> + “It ought to get the colonel,” he said, “but the newspaper man who prints + it should be hung.” + </p> + <p> + “They will print it all right,” said Jack Prince. + </p> + <p> + And they did print it; going from newspaper office to newspaper office + Prince and Morrison saw to that, using their influence as big buyers of + advertising space and even insisting upon reading proof on their own + masterpiece. + </p> + <p> + But it did not work. Early the next morning Colonel Tom appeared at the + offices of the arms company with blood in his eye, and swore that the + consolidation should not be put through. For an hour he stormed up and + down in Sam’s office, his outbursts of wrath varied by periods of + childlike pleading for the retention of the name and glory of the Raineys. + When Sam shook his head and went with the old man to the meeting that was + to pass upon his action and sell the Rainey Company, he knew that he had a + fight on his hands. + </p> + <p> + The meeting was a stormy one. Sam made a talk telling what had been done + and Webster, voting some of Sam’s proxies, made a motion that Sam’s offer + for the old company be accepted. + </p> + <p> + And then Colonel Tom fired his guns. Walking up and down in the room + before the men, sitting at a long table or in chairs tilted against the + walls, he began talking with all of his old flamboyant pomposity of the + past glories of the Rainey Company. Sam watched him quietly thinking of + the exhibition as something detached and apart from the business of the + meeting. He remembered a question that had come into his head when he was + a schoolboy and had got his first peep into a school history. There had + been a picture of Indians at the war dance and he had wondered why they + danced before rather than after battle. Now his mind answered the + question. + </p> + <p> + “If they had not danced before they might never have got the chance,” he + thought, and smiled to himself. + </p> + <p> + “I call upon you men here to stick to the old colours,” roared the + colonel, turning and making a direct attack upon Sam. “Do not let this + ungrateful upstart, this son of a drunken village housepainter, that I + picked up from among the cabbages of South Water Street, win you away from + your loyalty to the old leader. Do not let him steal by trickery what we + have won only by years of effort.” + </p> + <p> + The colonel, leaning on the table, glared about the room. Sam felt + relieved and glad of the direct attack. + </p> + <p> + “It justifies what I am going to do,” he thought. + </p> + <p> + When Colonel Tom had finished Sam gave a careless glance at the old man’s + red face and trembling fingers. He had no doubt that the outburst of + eloquence had fallen upon deaf ears and without comment put Webster’s + motion to the vote. + </p> + <p> + To his surprise two of the new employé directors voted their stock with + Colonel Tom’s, and a third man, voting his own stock as well as that of a + wealthy southside real estate man, did not vote. On a count the stock + represented stood deadlocked and Sam, looking down the table, raised his + eyebrows to Webster. + </p> + <p> + “Move we adjourn for twenty-four hours,” snapped Webster, and the motion + carried. + </p> + <p> + Sam looked at a paper lying before him on the table. During the count of + the vote he had been writing over and over on the sheet of paper this + sentence. + </p> + <p> + “The best men spend their lives seeking truth.” + </p> + <p> + Colonel Tom walked out of the room like a conqueror, declining to speak to + Sam as he passed, and Sam looked down the table at Webster and made a + motion with his head toward the man who had not voted. + </p> + <p> + Within an hour Sam’s fight was won. Pouncing upon the man representing the + stock of the south-side investor, he and Webster did not go out of the + room until they had secured absolute control of the Rainey Company and the + man who had refused to vote had put twenty-five thousand dollars into his + pocket. The two employeé directors Sam marked for slaughter. Then after + spending the afternoon and early evening with the representatives of the + eastern companies and their attorneys he drove home to Sue. + </p> + <p> + It was past nine o’clock when his car stopped before the house and, going + at once to his room, he found Sue sitting before his fire, her arms thrown + above her head and her eyes staring at the burning coals. + </p> + <p> + As Sam stood in the doorway looking at her a wave of resentment swept over + him. + </p> + <p> + “The old coward,” he thought, “he has brought our fight here to her.” + </p> + <p> + Hanging up his coat he filled his pipe and drawing up a chair sat beside + her. For five minutes Sue sat staring into the fire. When she spoke there + was a touch of hardness in her voice. + </p> + <p> + “When everything is said, Sam, you do owe a lot to father,” she observed, + refusing to look at him. + </p> + <p> + Sam said nothing and she went on. + </p> + <p> + “Not that I think we made you, father and I. You are not the kind of man + that people make or unmake. But, Sam, Sam, think what you are doing. He + has always been a fool in your hands. He used to come home here when you + were new with the company and talk of what he was doing. He had a whole + new set of ideas and phrases; all that about waste and efficiency and + orderly working toward a definite end. It did not fool me. I knew the + ideas, and even the phrases he used to express them, were not his and I + was not long finding out they were yours, that it was simply you + expressing yourself through him. He is a big helpless child, Sam, and he + is old. He hasn’t much longer to live. Do not be hard, Sam. Be merciful.” + </p> + <p> + Her voice did not tremble but tears ran down her rigid face and her + expressive hands clutched at her dress. + </p> + <p> + “Can nothing change you? Must you always have your own way?” she added, + still refusing to look at him. + </p> + <p> + “It is not true, Sue, that I always want my own way, and people do change + me; you have changed me,” he said. + </p> + <p> + She shook her head. + </p> + <p> + “No, I have not changed you. I found you hungry for something and you + thought I could feed it. I gave you an idea that you took hold of and made + your own. I do not know where I got it, from some book or hearing some one + talk, I suppose. But it belonged to you. You built it and fostered it in + me and coloured it with your own personality. It is your idea to-day. It + means more to you than all this firearms trust that the papers are full + of.” + </p> + <p> + She turned to look at him, and put out her hand and laid it in his. + </p> + <p> + “I have not been brave,” she said. “I am standing in your way. I have had + a hope that we would get back to each other. I should have freed you but I + hadn’t the courage, I hadn’t the courage. I could not give up the dream + that some day you would really take me back to you.” + </p> + <p> + Getting out of her chair she dropped to her knees and putting her head in + his lap, shook with sobs. Sam sat stroking her hair. Her agitation was so + great that her muscular little back shook with it. + </p> + <p> + Sam looked past her at the fire and tried to think clearly. He was not + greatly moved by her agitation, but with all his heart he wanted to think + things out and get at the right and the honest thing to do. + </p> + <p> + “It is a time of big things,” he said slowly and with an air of one + explaining to a child. “As your socialists say, vast changes are going on. + I do not believe that your socialists really sense what these changes + mean, and I am not sure that I do or that any man does, but I know they + mean something big and I want to be in them and a part of them; all big + men do; they are struggling like chicks in the shell. Why, look here! What + I am doing has to be done and if I do not do it another man will. The + colonel has to go. He will be swept aside. He belongs to something old and + outworn. Your socialists, I believe, call it the age of competition.” + </p> + <p> + “But not by us, not by you, Sam,” she plead. “After all, he is my father.” + </p> + <p> + A stern look came into Sam’s eyes. + </p> + <p> + “It does not ring right, Sue,” he said coldly; “fathers do not mean much + to me. I choked my own father and threw him into the street when I was + only a boy. You knew about that. You heard of it when you went to find out + about me that time in Caxton. Mary Underwood told you. I did it because he + lied and believed in lies. Do not your friends say that the individual who + stands in the way should be crushed?” + </p> + <p> + She sprang to her feet and stood before him. + </p> + <p> + “Do not quote that crowd,” she burst out. “They are not the real thing. Do + you suppose I do not know that? Do I not know that they come here because + they hope to get hold of you? Haven’t I watched them and seen the look on + their faces when you have not come or have not listened to their talk? + They are afraid of you, all of them. That’s why they talk so bitterly. + They are afraid and ashamed that they are afraid.” + </p> + <p> + “Like the workers in the shop?” he asked, musingly. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, like that, and like me since I failed in my part of our lives and + had not the courage to get out of the way. You are worth all of us and for + all our talk we shall never succeed or begin to succeed until we make men + like you want what we want. They know that and I know it.” + </p> + <p> + “And what do you want?” + </p> + <p> + “I want you to be big and generous. You can be. Failure cannot hurt you. + You and men like you can do anything. You can even fail. I cannot. None of + us can. I cannot put my father to that shame. I want you to accept + failure.” + </p> + <p> + Sam got up and taking her by the arm led her to the door. At the door he + turned her about and kissed her on the lips like a lover. + </p> + <p> + “All right, Sue girl, I will do it,” he said, and pushed her through the + door. “Now let me sit down by myself and think things out.” + </p> + <p> + It was a night in September and a whisper of the coming frost was in the + air. He threw up the window and took long breaths of the sharp air and + listened to the rumble of the elevated road in the distance. Looking up + the boulevard he saw the lights of the cyclists making a glistening stream + that flowed past the house. A thought of his new motor car and of all of + the wonder of the mechanical progress of the world ran through his mind. + </p> + <p> + “The men who make machines do not hesitate,” he said to himself; “even + though a thousand fat-hearted men stood in their way they would go on.” + </p> + <p> + A line of Tennyson’s came into his mind. + </p> + <p> + “And the nation’s airy navies grappling in the central blue,” he quoted, + thinking of an article he had read predicting the coming of airships. + </p> + <p> + He thought of the lives of the workers in steel and iron and of the things + they had done and would do. + </p> + <p> + “They have,” he thought, “freedom. Steel and iron do not run home to carry + the struggle to women sitting by the fire.” + </p> + <p> + He walked up and down the room. + </p> + <p> + “Fat old coward. Damned fat old coward,” he muttered over and over to + himself. + </p> + <p> + It was past midnight when he got into bed and began trying to quiet + himself for sleep. In his dreams he saw a fat man with a chorus girl + hanging to his arm kicking his head about a bridge above a swiftly flowing + stream. + </p> + <p> + When he got down to the breakfast room the next morning Sue had gone. By + his plate he found a note saying that she had gone for Colonel Tom and + would take him to the country for the day. He walked to the office + thinking of the incapable old man who, in the name of sentiment, had + beaten him in what he thought the big enterprise of his life. + </p> + <p> + At his desk he found a message from Webster. “The old turkey cock has + fled,” it said; “we should have saved the twenty-five thousand.” + </p> + <p> + On the phone Webster told Sam of an early visit to the club to see Colonel + Tom and that the old man had left the city, going to the country for the + day. It was on Sam’s lips to tell of his changed plans but he hesitated. + </p> + <p> + “I will see you at your office in an hour,” he said. + </p> + <p> + Outside again in the open air Sam walked and thought of his promise. Down + by the lake he went to where the railroad with the lake beyond stopped + him. Upon the old wooden bridge looking over the track and down to the + water he stood as he had stood at other crises in his life and thought + over the struggle of the night before. In the clear morning air, with the + roar of the city behind him and the still waters of the lake in front, the + tears, and the talk with Sue seemed but a part of the ridiculous and + sentimental attitude of her father, and the promise given her + insignificant and unfairly won. He reviewed the scene carefully, the talk + and the tears and the promise given as he led her to the door. It all + seemed far away and unreal like some promise made to a girl in his + boyhood. + </p> + <p> + “It was never a part of all this,” he said, turning and looking at the + towering city before him. + </p> + <p> + For an hour he stood on the wooden bridge. He thought of Windy McPherson + putting the bugle to his lips in the streets of Caxton and again there + sounded in his ears the roaring laugh of the crowd; again he lay in the + bed beside Colonel Tom in that northern city and saw the moon rising over + the round paunch and heard the empty chattering talk of love. + </p> + <p> + “Love,” he said, still looking toward the city, “is a matter of truth, not + lies and pretence.” + </p> + <p> + Suddenly it seemed to him that if he went forward truthfully he should get + even Sue back again some time. His mind lingered over the thoughts of the + loves that come to a man in the world, of Sue in the wind-swept northern + woods and of Janet in her wheel-chair in the little room where the cable + cars ran rumbling under the window. And he thought of other things, of Sue + reading papers culled out of books before the fallen women in the little + State Street hall, of Tom Edwards with his new wife and his little watery + eyes, of Morrison and the long-fingered socialist fighting over words at + his table. And then pulling on his gloves he lighted a cigar and went back + through the crowded streets to his office to do the thing he had + determined on. + </p> + <p> + At the meeting that afternoon the project went through without a + dissenting voice. Colonel Tom being absent, the two employé directors + voted with Sam with almost panicky haste as Sam looking across at the + well-dressed, cool-headed Webster, laughed and lighted a fresh cigar. And + then he voted the stock Sue had intrusted to him for the project, feeling + that in doing so he was cutting, perhaps for all time, the knot that bound + them. + </p> + <p> + With the completion of the deal Sam stood to win five million dollars, + more money than Colonel Tom or any of the Raineys had ever controlled, and + had placed himself in the eyes of the business men of Chicago and New York + where before he had placed himself in the eyes of Caxton and South Water + Street. Instead of another Windy McPherson failing to blow his bugle + before the waiting crowd, he was still the man who made good, the man who + achieved, the kind of man of whom America boasts before the world. + </p> + <p> + He did not see Sue again. When the news of his betrayal reached her she + went off east taking Colonel Tom with her, and Sam closed the house, even + sending a man there for his clothes. To her eastern address, got from her + attorney, he wrote a brief note offering to make over to her or to Colonel + Tom his entire winnings from the deal and closed it with the brutal + declaration, “At the end I could not be an ass, even for you.” + </p> + <p> + To this note Sam got a cold, brief reply telling him to dispose of her + stock in the company and of that belonging to Colonel Tom, and naming an + eastern trust company to receive the money. With Colonel Tom’s help she + had made a careful estimate of the values of their holdings at the time of + consolidation and refused flatly to accept a penny beyond that amount. + </p> + <p> + Sam felt that another chapter of his life was closed. Webster, Edwards, + Prince, and the eastern men met and elected him chairman of the board of + directors of the new company and the public bought eagerly the river of + common stock he turned upon the market, Prince and Morrison doing + masterful work in the moulding of public opinion through the press. The + first board meeting ended with a dinner at which wine flowed in rivulets + and Edwards, getting drunk, stood up at his place and boasted of the + beauty of his young wife. And Sam, at his desk in his new offices in the + Rookery, settled down grimly to the playing of his role as one of the new + kings of American business. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER IX + </h2> + <p> + The story of Sam’s life there in Chicago for the next several years ceases + to be the story of a man and becomes the story of a type, a crowd, a gang. + What he and the group of men surrounding him and making money with him did + in Chicago, other men and other groups of men have done in New York, in + Paris, in London. Coming into power with the great expansive wave of + prosperity that attended the first McKinley administration, these men went + mad of money making. They played with great industrial institutions and + railroad systems like excited children, and a man of Chicago won the + notice and something of the admiration of the world by his willingness to + bet a million dollars on the turn of the weather. In the years of + criticism and readjustment that followed this period of sporadic growth, + writers have told with great clearness how the thing was done, and some of + the participants, captains of industry turned penmen, Caesars become + ink-slingers, have bruited the story to an admiring world. + </p> + <p> + Given the time, the inclination, the power of the press, and the + unscrupulousness, the thing that Sam McPherson and his followers did in + Chicago in not difficult. Advised by Webster and the talented Prince and + Morrison to handle his publicity work, he rapidly unloaded his huge + holdings of common stock upon an eager public, keeping for himself the + bonds which he hypothecated at the banks to increase his working capital + while continuing to control the company. When the common stock was + unloaded, he, with a group of fellow spirits, began an attack upon it + through the stock market and in the press, and bought it again at a low + figure, holding it ready to unload when the public should have forgotten. + </p> + <p> + The annual advertising expenditure of the firearms trust ran into millions + and Sam’s hold upon the press of the country was almost unbelievably + strong. Morrison rapidly developed unusual daring and audacity in using + this instrument and making it serve Sam’s ends. He suppressed facts, + created illusions, and used the newspapers as a whip to crack at the heels + of congressmen, senators, and legislators, of the various states, when + such matters as appropriation for firearms came before them. + </p> + <p> + And Sam, who had undertaken the consolidation of the firearms companies, + having a dream of himself as a great master in that field, a sort of + American Krupp, rapidly awoke from the dream to take the bigger chances + for gain in the world of speculation. Within a year he dropped Edwards as + head of the firearms trust and in his place put Lewis, with Morrison as + secretary and manager of sales. Guided by Sam these two, like the little + drygoods merchant of the old Rainey Company, went from capital to capital + and from city to city making contracts, influencing news, placing + advertising contracts where they would do the most good, fixing men. + </p> + <p> + And in the meantime Sam, with Webster, a banker named Crofts who had + profited largely in the firearms merger, and sometimes Morrison or Prince, + began a series of stock raids, speculations, and manipulations that + attracted country-wide attention, and became known to the newspaper + reading world as the McPherson Chicago crowd. They were in oil, railroads, + coal, western land, mining, timber, and street railways. One summer Sam, + with Prince, built, ran to a profit, and sold to advantage a huge + amusement park. Through his head day after day marched columns of figures, + ideas, schemes, more and more spectacular opportunities for gain. Some of + the enterprises in which he engaged, while because of their size they + seemed more dignified, were of reality of a type with the game smuggling + of his South Water Street days, and in all of his operations it was his + old instinct for bargains and for the finding of buyers together with + Webster’s ability for carrying through questionable deals that made him + and his followers almost constantly successful in the face of opposition + from the more conservative business and financial men of the city. + </p> + <p> + Again Sam led a new life, owning running horses at the tracks, memberships + in many clubs, a country house in Wisconsin, and shooting preserves in + Texas. He drank steadily, played poker for big stakes, kept in the public + prints, and day after day led his crew upon the high seas of finance. He + did not dare think and in his heart he was sick of it. Sick to the soul, + so that when thought came to him he got out of his bed to seek roistering + companions or, getting pen and paper, sat for hours figuring out new and + more daring schemes for money making. The great forward movement in modern + industry of which he had dreamed of being a part had for him turned out to + be a huge meaningless gamble with loaded dice against a credulous public. + With his followers he went on day after day doing deeds without thought. + Industries were organised and launched, men employed and thrown out of + employment, towns wrecked by the destruction of an industry and other + towns made by the building of other industries. At a whim of his a + thousand men began building a city on an Indiana sand hill, and at a wave + of his hand another thousand men of an Indiana town sold their homes, with + the chicken houses in the back-yards and vines trained by the kitchen + doors, and rushed to buy sections of the hill plotted off for them. He did + not stop to discuss with his followers the meaning of the things he did. + He told them of the profits to be made and then, having done the thing, he + went with them to drink in bar rooms and to spend the evening or afternoon + singing songs, visiting his stable of runners or, more often, sitting + silently about the card table playing for high stakes. Making millions + through the manipulation of the public during the day, he sometimes sat + half the night struggling with his companions for the possession of + thousands. + </p> + <p> + Lewis, the Jew, the only one of Sam’s companions who had not followed him + in his spectacular money making, stayed in the office of the firearms + company and ran it like the scientific able man of business he was. While + Sam remained chairman of the board of the company and had an office, a + desk, and the name of leadership there, he let Lewis run the place, and + spent his own time upon the stock exchange or in some corner with Webster + and Crofts planning some new money making raid. + </p> + <p> + “You have the better of it, Lewis,” he said one day in a reflective mood; + “you thought I had cut the ground from under you when I got Tom Edwards, + but I only set you more firmly in a larger place.” + </p> + <p> + He made a movement with his hand toward the large general offices with the + rows of busy clerks and the substantial look of work being done. + </p> + <p> + “I might have had the work you are doing. I planned and schemed with that + end in view,” he added, lighting a cigar and going out at the door. + </p> + <p> + “And the money hunger got you,” laughed Lewis, looking after him, “the + hunger that gets Jews and Gentiles and all who feed it.” + </p> + <p> + One might have come upon the McPherson Chicago crowd about the old Chicago + stock exchange on any day during those years, Crofts, tall, abrupt, and + dogmatic; Morrison, slender, dandified, and gracious; Webster, + well-dressed, suave, gentlemanly, and Sam, silent, restless, and often + morose and ugly. Sometimes it seemed to Sam that they were all unreal, + himself and the men with him. He watched his companions cunningly. They + were constantly posing before the passing crowd of brokers and small + speculators. Webster, coming up to him on the floor of the exchange, would + tell him of a snowstorm raging outside with the air of a man parting with + a long-cherished secret. His companions went from one to the other vowing + eternal friendships, and then, keeping spies upon each other, they hurried + to Sam with tales of secret betrayals. Into any deal proposed by him they + went eagerly, although sometimes fearfully, and almost always they won. + And with Sam they made millions through the manipulation of the firearms + company, and the Chicago and Northern Lake Railroad which he controlled. + </p> + <p> + In later years Sam looked back upon it all as a kind of nightmare. It + seemed to him that never during that period had he lived or thought + sanely. The great financial leaders that he saw were not, he thought, + great men. Some of them, like Webster, were masters of craft, or, like + Morrison, of words, but for the most part they were but shrewd, greedy + vultures feeding upon the public or upon each other. + </p> + <p> + In the meantime Sam was rapidly degenerating. His paunch became distended, + and his hands trembled in the morning. Being a man of strong appetites, + and having a determination to avoid women, he almost constantly overdrank + and overate, and in the leisure hours that came to him he hurried eagerly + from place to place, avoiding thought, avoiding sane quiet talk, avoiding + himself. + </p> + <p> + All of his companions did not suffer equally. Webster seemed made for the + life, thriving and expanding under it, putting his winnings steadily + aside, going on Sunday to a suburban church, avoiding the publicity + connecting his name with race horses and big sporting events that Crofts + sought and to which Sam submitted. One day Sam and Crofts caught him in an + effort to sell them out to a group of New York bankers in a mining deal + and turned the trick on him instead, whereupon he went off to New York to + become a respectable big business man and the friend of senators and + philanthropists. + </p> + <p> + Crofts was a man with chronic domestic troubles, one of those men who + begin each day by cursing their wives before their associates and yet + continue living with them year after year. There was a kind of rough + squareness in the man, and after the completion of a successful deal he + would be as happy as a boy, pounding men on the back, shaking with + laughter, throwing money about, making crude jokes. After Sam left Chicago + he finally divorced his wife and married an actress from the vaudeville + stage and after losing two-thirds of his fortune in an effort to capture + control of a southern railroad, went to England and, coached by the + actress wife, developed into an English country gentleman. + </p> + <p> + And Sam was a man sick. Day after day he went on drinking more and more + heavily, playing for bigger and bigger stakes, allowing himself less and + less thought of himself. One day he received a long letter from John + Telfer telling of the sudden death of Mary Underwood and berating him for + his neglect of her. + </p> + <p> + “She was ill for a year and without an income,” wrote Telfer. Sam noticed + that the man’s hand had begun to tremble. “She lied to me and told me you + had sent her money, but now that she is dead I find that though she wrote + you she got no answer. Her old aunt told me.” + </p> + <p> + Sam put the letter into his pocket and going into one of his clubs began + drinking with a crowd of men he found idling there. He had paid little + attention to his correspondence for months. No doubt the letter from Mary + had been received by his secretary and thrown aside with the letters of + thousands of other women, begging letters, amorous letters, letters + directed at him because of his wealth and the prominence given his + exploits by the newspapers. + </p> + <p> + After wiring an explanation and mailing a check the size of which filled + John Telfer with admiration, Sam with a half dozen fellow roisterers spent + the late afternoon and evening going from saloon to saloon through the + south side. When he got to his apartments late that night, his head was + reeling and his mind filled with distorted memories of drinking men and + women and of himself standing on a table in some obscure drinking place + and calling upon the shouting, laughing hangers-on of his crowd of rich + money spenders to think and to work and to seek Truth. + </p> + <p> + He went to sleep in his chair, his mind filled with the dancing faces of + dead women, Mary Underwood and Janet and Sue, tear-stained faces calling + to him. When he awoke and shaved he went out into the street and to + another down-town club. + </p> + <p> + “I wonder if Sue is dead, too,” he muttered, remembering his dream. + </p> + <p> + At the club he was called to the telephone by Lewis, who asked him to come + at once to his office at the Edwards Consolidated. When he got there he + found a wire from Sue. In a moment of loneliness and despondency over the + loss of his old business standing and reputation, Colonel Tom had shot + himself in a New York hotel. + </p> + <p> + Sam sat at his desk, fingering the yellow paper lying before him and + fighting to get his head clear. + </p> + <p> + “The old coward. The damned old coward,” he muttered; “any one could have + done that.” + </p> + <p> + When Lewis came into Sam’s office he found his chief sitting at his desk + fingering the telegram and muttering to himself. When Sam handed him the + wire he came around and stood beside Sam, his hand upon his shoulder. + </p> + <p> + “Well, do not blame yourself for that,” he said, with quick understanding. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t,” Sam muttered; “I do not blame myself for anything. I am a + result, not a cause. I am trying to think. I am not through yet. I am + going to begin again when I get things thought out.” + </p> + <p> + Lewis went out of the room leaving him to his thoughts. For an hour he sat + there reviewing his life. When he came to the day that he had humiliated + Colonel Tom, there came back to his mind the sentence he had written on + the sheet of paper while the vote was being counted. “The best men spend + their lives seeking truth.” + </p> + <p> + Suddenly he came to a decision and, calling Lewis, began laying out a plan + of action. His head cleared and the ring came back into his voice. To + Lewis he gave an option on his entire holdings of Edwards Consolidated + stocks and bonds and to him also he entrusted the clearing up of deal + after deal in which he was interested. Then, calling a broker, he began + throwing a mass of stock on the market. When Lewis told him that Crofts + was ‘phoning wildly about town to find him, and was with the help of + another banker supporting the market and taking Sam’s stocks as fast as + offered, he laughed and giving Lewis instructions regarding the disposal + of his monies walked out of the office, again a free man and again seeking + the answer to his problem. + </p> + <p> + He made no attempt to answer Sue’s wire. He was restless to get at + something he had in his mind. He went to his apartments and packed a bag + and from there disappeared saying goodbye to no one. In his mind was no + definite idea of where he was going or what he was going to do. He knew + only that he would follow the message his hand had written. He would try + to spend his life seeking truth. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0021" id="link2H_4_0021"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + BOOK III + </h2> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER I + </h2> + <p> + One day when the youth Sam McPherson was new in the city he went on a + Sunday afternoon to a down-town theatre to hear a sermon. The sermon was + delivered by a small dark-skinned Boston man, and seemed to the young + McPherson scholarly and well thought out. + </p> + <p> + “The greatest man is he whose deeds affect the greatest number of lives,” + the speaker had said, and the thought had stuck in Sam’s mind. Now walking + along the street carrying his travelling bag, he remembered the sermon and + the thought and shook his head in doubt. + </p> + <p> + “What I have done here in this city must have affected thousands of + lives,” he mused, and felt a quickening of his blood at just letting go of + his thoughts as he had not dared do since that day when, by breaking his + word to Sue, he had started on his career as a business giant. + </p> + <p> + He began to think of the quest on which he had started and had keen + satisfaction in the thought of what he should do. + </p> + <p> + “I will begin all over and come up to Truth through work,” he told + himself. “I will leave the money hunger behind me, and if it returns I + will come back here to Chicago and see my fortune piled up and the men + rushing about the banks and the stock exchange and the court they pay to + such fools and brutes as I have been, and that will cure me.” + </p> + <p> + Into the Illinois Central Station he went, a strange spectacle. A smile + came to his lips as he sat on a bench along the wall between an immigrant + from Russia and a small plump farmer’s wife who held a banana in her hand + and gave bites of it to a rosy-cheeked babe lying in her arms. He, an + American multimillionaire, a man in the midst of his money-making, one who + had realised the American dream, to have sickened at the feast and to have + wandered out of a fashionable club with a bag in his hand and a roll of + bills in his pocket and to have come on this strange quest—to seek + Truth, to seek God. A few years of the fast greedy living in the city, + that had seemed so splendid to the Iowa boy and to the men and women who + had lived in his town, and then a woman had died lonely and in want in + that Iowa town, and half across the continent a fat blustering old man had + shot himself in a New York hotel, and here he sat. + </p> + <p> + Leaving his bag in the care of the farmer’s wife, he walked across the + room to the ticket window and standing there watched the people with + definite destinations in mind come up, lay down money, and taking their + tickets go briskly away. He had no fear of being known. Although his name + and his picture had been upon the front pages of Chicago newspapers for + years, he felt so great a change within himself from just the resolution + he had taken that he had no doubt of passing unnoticed. + </p> + <p> + A thought struck him. Looking up and down the long room filled with its + strangely assorted clusters of men and women a sense of the great toiling + masses of people, the labourers, the small merchants, the skilled + mechanics, came over him. + </p> + <p> + “These are the Americans,” he began telling himself, “these people with + children beside them and with hard daily work to be done, and many of them + with stunted or imperfectly developed bodies, not Crofts, not Morrison and + I, but these others who toil without hope of luxury and wealth, who make + up the armies in times of war and raise up boys and girls to do the work + of the world in their turn.” + </p> + <p> + He fell into the line moving toward the ticket window behind a + sturdy-looking old man who carried a box of carpenter tools in one hand + and a bag in the other, and bought a ticket to the same Illinois town to + which the old man was bound. + </p> + <p> + In the train he sat beside the old man and the two fell into quiet talk—the + old man talking of his family. He had a son, married and living in the + Illinois town to which he was going, of whom he began boasting. The son, + he said, had gone to that town and had prospered there, owning a hotel + which his wife managed while he worked as a builder. + </p> + <p> + “Ed,” he said, “keeps fifty or sixty men going all summer. He has sent for + me to come and take charge of a gang. He knows well enough I will get the + work out of them.” + </p> + <p> + From Ed the old man drifted into talk of himself and his life, telling + bare facts with directness and simplicity and making no effort to disguise + a slight turn of vanity in his success. + </p> + <p> + “I have raised seven sons and made them all good workmen and they are all + doing well,” he said. + </p> + <p> + He told of each in detail. One, who had taken to books, was a mechanical + engineer in a manufacturing town in New England. The mother of his + children had died the year before and of his three daughters two had + married mechanics. The third, Sam gathered, had not done well and from + something the old man said he thought she had perhaps gone the wrong way + there in Chicago. + </p> + <p> + To the old man Sam talked of God and of a man’s effort to get truth out of + life. + </p> + <p> + “I have thought of it a lot,” he said. + </p> + <p> + The old man was interested. He looked at Sam and then out at the car + window and began talking of his own beliefs, the substance of which Sam + could not get. + </p> + <p> + “God is a spirit and lives in the growing corn,” said the old man, + pointing out the window at the passing fields. + </p> + <p> + He began talking of churches and of ministers, against whom he was filled + with bitterness. + </p> + <p> + “They are dodgers. They do not get at things. They are damned dodgers, + pretending to be good,” he declared. + </p> + <p> + Sam talked of himself, saying that he was alone in the world and had + money. He said that he wanted work in the open air, not for the money it + would bring him, but because his paunch was large and his hand trembled in + the morning. + </p> + <p> + “I’ve been drinking,” he said, “and I want to work hard day after day so + that my muscles may become firm and sleep come to me at night.” + </p> + <p> + The old man thought that his son could find Sam a place. + </p> + <p> + “He’s a driver—Ed is,” he said, laughing, “and he won’t pay you + much. Ed don’t let go of money. He’s a tight one.” + </p> + <p> + Night had come when they reached the town where Ed lived, and the three + men walked over a bridge, beneath which roared a waterfall, toward the + long poorly-lighted main street of the town and Ed’s hotel. Ed, a young, + broad-shouldered man, with a dry cigar stuck in the corner of his mouth, + led the way. He had engaged Sam standing in the darkness on the station + platform, accepting his story without comment. + </p> + <p> + “I’ll let you carry timbers and drive nails,” he said, “that will harden + you up.” + </p> + <p> + On the way over the bridge he talked of the town. + </p> + <p> + “It’s a live place,” he said, “we are getting people in here.” + </p> + <p> + “Look at that!” he exclaimed, chewing at the cigar and pointing to the + waterfall that foamed and roared almost under the bridge. “There’s a lot + of power there and where there’s power there will be a city.” + </p> + <p> + At Ed’s hotel some twenty men sat about a long low office. They were, for + the most part, middle-aged working men and sat in silence reading and + smoking pipes. At a table pushed against the wall a bald-headed young man + with a scar on his cheek played solitaire with a greasy pack of cards, and + in front of him and sitting in a chair tilted against the wall a + sullen-faced boy idly watched the game. When the three men came into the + office the boy dropped his chair to the floor and stared at Ed who stared + back at him. It was as though a contest of some sort went on between them. + A tall neatly-dressed woman, with a brisk manner and pale, inexpressive, + hard blue eyes, stood back of a little combined desk and cigar case at the + end of the room, and as the three walked toward her she looked from Ed to + the sullen-faced boy and then again at Ed. Sam concluded she was a woman + bent on having her own way. She had that air. + </p> + <p> + “This is my wife,” said Ed, introducing Sam with a wave of his hand and + passing around the end of the desk to stand by her side. + </p> + <p> + Ed’s wife twirled the hotel register about facing Sam, nodded her head, + and then, leaning over the desk, bestowed a quick kiss upon the leathery + cheek of the old carpenter. + </p> + <p> + Sam and the old man found a place in chairs along the wall and sat down + among the silent men. The old man pointed to the boy in the chair beside + the card players. + </p> + <p> + “Their son,” he whispered cautiously. + </p> + <p> + The boy looked at his mother, who in turn looked steadily at him, and got + up from his chair. Back of the desk Ed talked in low tones to his wife. + The boy, stopping before Sam and the old man and still looking toward the + woman, put out his hand which the old man took. Then, without speaking, he + went past the desk and through a doorway, and began noisily climbing a + flight of stairs, followed by his mother. As they climbed they berated + each other, their voices rising to a high pitch and echoing through the + upper part of the house. + </p> + <p> + Ed, coming across to them, talked to Sam about the assignment of a room, + and the men began looking at the stranger; noting his fine clothes, their + eyes filled with curiosity. + </p> + <p> + “Selling something?” asked a large red-haired young man, rolling a quid of + tobacco in his mouth. + </p> + <p> + “No,” replied Sam shortly, “going to work for Ed.” + </p> + <p> + The silent men in chairs along the wall dropped their newspapers and + stared, and the bald-headed young man at the table sat with open mouth, a + card held suspended in the air. Sam had become, for the moment, a centre + of interest and the men stirred in their chairs and began to whisper and + point to him. + </p> + <p> + A large, watery-eyed man, with florid cheeks, clad in a long overcoat with + spots down the front, came in at the door and passed through the room + bowing and smiling to the men. Taking Ed by the arm he disappeared into a + little barroom, where Sam could hear him talking in low tones. + </p> + <p> + After a little while the florid-faced man came and put his head through + the barroom door into the office. + </p> + <p> + “Come on, boys,” he said, smiling and nodding right and left, “the drinks + are on me.” + </p> + <p> + The men got up and filed into the bar, the old man and Sam remaining + seated in their chairs. They began talking in undertones. + </p> + <p> + “I’ll start ‘em thinking—these men,” said the old man. + </p> + <p> + From his pocket he took a pamphlet and gave it to Sam. It was a crudely + written attack upon rich men and corporations. + </p> + <p> + “Some brains in the fellow who wrote that,” said the old carpenter, + rubbing his hands together and smiling. + </p> + <p> + Sam did not think so. He sat reading it and listening to the loud, + boisterous voices of the men in the barroom. The florid-faced man was + explaining the details of a proposed town bond issue. Sam gathered that + the water power in the river was to be developed. + </p> + <p> + “We want to make this a live town,” said the voice of Ed, earnestly. + </p> + <p> + The old man, leaning over and putting his hand beside his mouth, began + whispering to Sam. + </p> + <p> + “I’ll bet there is a capitalist deal back of that power scheme,” he said. + </p> + <p> + He nodded his head up and down and smiled knowingly. + </p> + <p> + “If there is Ed will be in on it,” he added. “You can’t lose Ed. He’s a + slick one.” + </p> + <p> + He took the pamphlet from Sam’s hand and put it in his pocket. + </p> + <p> + “I’m a socialist,” he explained, “but don’t say anything. Ed’s against + ‘em.” + </p> + <p> + The men filed back into the room, each with a freshly-lighted cigar in his + mouth, and the florid-faced man followed them and went out at the office + door. + </p> + <p> + “Well, so long, boys,” he shouted heartily. + </p> + <p> + Ed went silently up the stairs to join the mother and boy, whose voices + could still be heard raised in outbursts of wrath from above as the men + took their former chairs along the wall. + </p> + <p> + “Well, Bill’s sure all right,” said the red-haired young man, evidently + expressing the opinion of the men in regard to the florid-faced man. + </p> + <p> + A small bent old man with sunken cheeks got up and walking across the room + leaned against the cigar case. + </p> + <p> + “Did you ever hear this one?” he asked, looking about. + </p> + <p> + Obviously no answer could be given and the bent old man launched into a + vile pointless anecdote of a woman, a miner, and a mule, the crowd giving + close attention and laughing uproariously when he had finished. The + socialist rubbed his hands together and joined in the applause. + </p> + <p> + “That was a good one, eh?” he commented, turning to Sam. + </p> + <p> + Sam, picking up his bag, climbed the stairway as the red-haired young man + launched into another tale, slightly less vile. In his room to which Ed, + meeting him at the top of the stairs, led him, still chewing at the + unlighted cigar, he turned out the light and sat on the edge of the bed. + He was as homesick as a boy. + </p> + <p> + “Truth,” he muttered, looking through the window to the dimly-lighted + street. “Do these men seek truth?” + </p> + <p> + The next day he went to work, wearing a suit of clothes bought from Ed. He + worked with Ed’s father, carrying timbers and driving nails as directed by + him. In the gang with him were four men, boarders at Ed’s hotel, and four + other men who lived in the town with their families. At the noon hour he + asked the old carpenter how the men from the hotel, who did not live in + the town, could vote on the question of the power bonds. The old man + grinned and rubbed his hands together. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know,” he said. “I suppose Ed tends to that. He’s a slick one, Ed + is.” + </p> + <p> + At work, the men who had been so silent in the office of the hotel were + alert and wonderfully busy, hurrying here and there at a word from the old + man and sawing and nailing furiously. They seemed bent upon outdoing each + other and when one fell behind they laughed and shouted at him, asking him + if he had decided to quit for the day. But though they seemed determined + to outdo him the old man kept ahead of them all, his hammer beating a + rattling tattoo upon the boards all day. At the noon hour he had given + each of the men one of the pamphlets from his pocket and on the way back + to his hotel in the evening he told Sam that the others had tried to show + him up. + </p> + <p> + “They wanted to see if I had juice in me,” he explained, strutting beside + Sam with an amusing little swagger of his shoulders. + </p> + <p> + Sam was sick with fatigue. His hands were blistered, his legs felt weak, + and a terrible thirst burned in his throat. All day he had gone grimly + ahead, thankful for every physical discomfort, every throb of his + strained, tired muscles. In his weariness and in his efforts to keep pace + with the others he had forgotten Colonel Tom and Mary Underwood. + </p> + <p> + All during that month and into the next Sam stayed with the old man’s + gang. He ceased thinking, and only worked desperately. An odd feeling of + loyalty and devotion to the old man came over him and he felt that he too + must prove that he had the juice in him. At the hotel he went to bed + immediately after the silent dinner, slept, awoke aching, and went to work + again. + </p> + <p> + One Sunday one of the men of his gang came to Sam’s room and invited him + to go with a party of the workers into the country. They went in boats, + carrying with them kegs of beer, to a deep ravine clothed on both sides by + heavy woods. In the boat with Sam sat the red-haired young man, who was + called Jake and who talked loudly of the time they would have in the + woods, and boasted that he was the instigator of the trip. + </p> + <p> + “I thought of it,” he said over and over again. + </p> + <p> + Sam wondered why he had been invited. It was a soft October day and in the + ravine he sat looking at the trees splashed with colour and breathing + deeply of the air, his whole body relaxed, grateful for the day of rest. + Jake came and sat beside him. + </p> + <p> + “What are you?” he asked bluntly. “We know you are no working man.” + </p> + <p> + Sam told him a half-truth. + </p> + <p> + “You are right enough about that; I have money enough not to have to work. + I used to be a business man. I sold guns. But I have a disease and the + doctors have told me that if I do not work out of doors part of me will + die.” + </p> + <p> + The man from his own gang who had invited him on the trip came up to them, + bringing Sam a foaming glass of beer. He shook his head. + </p> + <p> + “The doctor says it will not do,” he explained to the two men. + </p> + <p> + The red-haired man called Jake began talking. + </p> + <p> + “We are going to have a fight with Ed,” he said. “That’s what we came up + here to talk about. We want to know where you stand. We are going to see + if we can’t make him pay as well for the work here as men are paid for the + same work in Chicago.” + </p> + <p> + Sam lay back upon the grass. + </p> + <p> + “All right,” he said. “Go ahead. If I can help I will. I’m not so fond of + Ed.” + </p> + <p> + The men began talking among themselves. Jake, standing among them, read + aloud a list of names among which was the name Sam had written on the + register at Ed’s hotel. + </p> + <p> + “It’s a list of the names of men we think will stick together and vote + together on the bond issue,” he explained, turning to Sam. “Ed’s in that + and we want to use our votes to scare him into giving us what we want. + Will you stay with us? You look like a fighter.” + </p> + <p> + Sam nodded and getting up joined the men about the beer kegs. They began + talking of Ed and of the money he had made in the town. + </p> + <p> + “He’s done a lot of town work here and there’s been graft in all of it,” + explained Jake emphatically. “It’s time he was being made to do the right + thing.” + </p> + <p> + While they talked Sam sat watching the men’s faces. They did not seem vile + to him now as they had seemed that first evening in the hotel office. He + began thinking of them silently and alertly at work all day long, + surrounded by such influences as Ed and Bill, and the thought sweetened + his opinion of them. + </p> + <p> + “Look here,” he said, “tell me of this matter. I was a business man before + I came here and I may be able to help you fellows get what you want.” + </p> + <p> + Getting up, Jake took Sam’s arm and they walked down the ravine, Jake + explaining the situation in the town. + </p> + <p> + “The game,” he said, “is to make the taxpayers pay for a millrace to be + built for the development of the water power in the river and then, by a + trick, to turn it over to a private company. Bill and Ed are both in the + deal and they are working for a Chicago man named Crofts. He’s been up + here at the hotel with Bill talking to Ed. I’ve figured out what they are + up to.” Sam sat down upon a log and laughed heartily. + </p> + <p> + “Crofts, eh?” he exclaimed. “Say, we will fight this thing. If Crofts has + been up here you can depend upon it there is some size to the deal. We + will just smash the whole crooked gang for the good of the town.” + </p> + <p> + “How would you do that?” asked Jake. + </p> + <p> + Sam sat down on a log and looked at the river flowing past the mouth of + the ravine. + </p> + <p> + “Just fight,” he said. “Let me show you something.” + </p> + <p> + He took a pencil and slip of paper from his pocket, and, with the voices + of the men about the beer kegs in his ears and the red-haired man peering + over his shoulder, began writing his first political pamphlet. He wrote + and erased and changed words and phrases. The pamphlet was a statement of + facts as to the value of water power, and was addressed to the taxpayers + of the community. He warmed to the subject, saying that a fortune lay + sleeping in the river, and that the town, by the exercise of a little + discretion now, could build with that fortune a beautiful city belonging + to the people. + </p> + <p> + “This fortune in the river rightly managed will pay the expenses of + government and give you control of a great source of revenue forever,” he + wrote. “Build your millrace, but look out for a trick of the politicians. + They are trying to steal it. Reject the offer of the Chicago banker named + Crofts. Demand an investigation. A capitalist has been found who will take + the water power bonds at four per cent and back the people in this fight + for a free American city.” Across the head of the pamphlet Sam wrote the + caption, “A River Paved With Gold,” and handed it to Jake, who read it and + whistled softly. + </p> + <p> + “Good!” he said. “I will take this and have it printed. It will make Bill + and Ed sit up.” + </p> + <p> + Sam took a twenty-dollar bill from his pocket and gave it to the man. + </p> + <p> + “To pay for the printing,” he said. “And when we have them licked I am the + man who will take the four per cent bonds.” + </p> + <p> + Jake scratched his head. “How much do you suppose the deal is worth to + Crofts?” + </p> + <p> + “A million, or he would not bother,” Sam answered. + </p> + <p> + Jake folded the paper and put it in his pocket. + </p> + <p> + “This would make Bill and Ed squirm, eh?” he laughed. + </p> + <p> + Going home down the river the men, filled with beer, sang and shouted as + the boats, guided by Sam and Jake, floated along. The night fell warm and + still and Sam thought he had never seen the sky so filled with stars. His + brain was busy with the idea of doing something for the people. + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps here in this town I shall make a start toward what I am after,” + he thought, his heart filled with happiness and the songs of the tipsy + workmen ringing in his ears. + </p> + <p> + All through the next few weeks there was an air of something astir among + the men of Sam’s gang and about Ed’s hotel. During the evening Jake went + among the men talking in low tones, and once he took a three days’ + vacation, telling Ed that he did not feel well and spending the time among + the men employed in the plough works up the river. From time to time he + came to Sam for money. + </p> + <p> + “For the campaign,” he said, winking and hurrying away. + </p> + <p> + Suddenly a speaker appeared and began talking nightly from a box before a + drug store on Main Street, and after dinner the office of Ed’s hotel was + deserted. The man on the box had a blackboard hung on a pole, on which he + drew figures estimating the value of the power in the river, and as he + talked he grew more and more excited, waving his arms and inveighing + against certain leasing clauses in the bond proposal. He declared himself + a follower of Karl Marx and delighted the old carpenter who danced up and + down in the road and rubbed his hands. + </p> + <p> + “It will come to something—this will—you’ll see,” he declared + to Sam. + </p> + <p> + One day Ed appeared, riding in a buggy, at the job where Sam worked, and + called the old man into the road. He sat pounding one hand upon the other + and talking in a low voice. Sam thought the old man had perhaps been + indiscreet in the distribution of the socialistic pamphlets. He seemed + nervous, dancing up and down beside the buggy and shaking his head. Then + hurrying back to where the men worked he pointed over his shoulder with + his thumb. + </p> + <p> + “Ed wants you,” he said, and Sam noticed that his voice trembled and his + hand shook. + </p> + <p> + In the buggy Ed and Sam rode in silence. Again Ed chewed at an unlighted + cigar. + </p> + <p> + “I want to talk with you,” he had said as Sam climbed into the buggy. + </p> + <p> + At the hotel the two men got out of the buggy and went into the office. + Inside the door Ed, who came behind, sprang forward and pinioned Sam’s + arms with his own. He was as powerful as a bear. His wife, the tall woman + with the inexpressive eyes, came running into the room, her face drawn + with hatred. In her hand she carried a broom and with the handle of this + she struck Sam several swinging blows across the face, accompanying each + blow with a half scream of rage and a volley of vile names. The + sullen-faced boy, alive now and with eyes burning with zeal, came running + down the stairs and pushed the woman aside. He struck Sam time after time + in the face with his fist, laughing each time as Sam winced under the + blows. + </p> + <p> + Sam struggled furiously to escape Ed’s powerful grasp. It was the first + time he had ever been beaten and the first time he had faced hopeless + defeat. The wrath within him was so intense that the jolting impact of the + blows seemed a secondary matter to the need of escaping Ed’s vice-like + grasp. + </p> + <p> + Suddenly Ed turned and, pushing Sam before him, threw him through the + office door and into the street. In falling his head struck against a + hitching post and he lay stunned. When he partially recovered from the + fall Sam got up and walked along the street. His face was swollen and + bruised and his nose bled. The street was deserted and the assault upon + him had been unnoticed. + </p> + <p> + He went to a hotel on Main Street—a more pretentious place than + Ed’s, near the bridge leading to the station—and as he passed in he + saw, through an open door, Jake, the red-haired man, leaning against the + bar and talking to Bill, the man with the florid face. Sam, paying for a + room, went upstairs and to bed. + </p> + <p> + In the bed, with cold bandages on his bruised face, he tried to get the + situation in hand. Hatred for Ed ran through his veins. His hands + clenched, his brain whirled, and the brutal, passionate faces of the woman + and the boy danced before his eyes. + </p> + <p> + “I’ll fix them, the brutal bullies,” he muttered aloud. + </p> + <p> + And then the thought of his quest came back to his mind and quieted him. + Through the window came the roar of the waterfall, broken by noises of the + street. As he fell asleep they mingled with his dreams, sounding soft and + quiet like the low talk of a family about the fire of an evening. + </p> + <p> + He was awakened by a noise of pounding on his door. At his call the door + opened and the face of the old carpenter appeared. Sam laughed and sat up + in bed. Already the cold bandages had soothed the throbbing of his bruised + face. + </p> + <p> + “Go away,” begged the old man, rubbing his hands together nervously. “Get + out of town.” + </p> + <p> + He put his hand to his mouth and talked in a hoarse whisper, looking back + over his shoulder through the open door. Sam, getting out of bed, began + filling his pipe. + </p> + <p> + “You can’t beat Ed, you fellows,” added the old man, backing out at the + door. “He’s a slick one, Ed is. You better get out of town.” + </p> + <p> + Sam called a boy and gave him a note to Ed asking for his clothes and for + the bag in his room, and to the boy he gave a large bill, asking him to + pay anything due. When the boy came back bringing the clothes and the bag + he returned the bill unbroken. + </p> + <p> + “They’re scared about something up there,” he said, looking at Sam’s + bruised face. + </p> + <p> + Sam dressed carefully and went down into the street. He remembered that he + had never seen a printed copy of the political pamphlet written in the + ravine and realised that Jake had used it to make money for himself. + </p> + <p> + “Now I shall try something else,” he thought. + </p> + <p> + It was early evening and crowds of men coming down the railroad track from + the plough works turned to right and left as they reached Main Street. Sam + walked among them, climbing a little hilly side street to a number he had + got from a clerk at the drug store before which the socialist had talked. + He stopped at a little frame house and a moment after knocking was in the + presence of the man who had talked night after night from the box in the + street. Sam had decided to see what could be done through him. The + socialist was a short, fat man, with curly grey hair, shiny round cheeks, + and black broken teeth. He sat on the edge of his bed and looked as if he + had slept in his clothes. A corncob pipe lay smoking among the covers of + the bed, and during most of the talk he sat with one shoe held in his hand + as though about to put it on. About the room in orderly piles lay stack + after stack of paper-covered books. Sam sat down in a chair by the window + and told his mission. + </p> + <p> + “It is a big thing, this power steal that is going on here,” he explained. + “I know the man back of it and he would not bother with a small affair. I + know they are going to make the city build the millrace and then steal it. + It will be a big thing for your party about here if you take hold and stop + them. Let me tell you how it can be done.” + </p> + <p> + He explained his plan, and told of Crofts and of his wealth and dogged, + bullying determination. The socialist seemed beside himself. He pulled on + the shoe and began running hurriedly about the room. + </p> + <p> + “The time for the election,” Sam went on, “is almost here. I have looked + into this thing. We must beat this bond issue and then put through a + square one. There is a train out of Chicago at seven o’clock, a fast + train. You get fifty speakers out here. I will pay for a special train if + necessary and I will hire a band and help stir things up. I can give you + facts enough to shake this town to the bottom. You come with me and ‘phone + to Chicago. I will pay everything. I am McPherson, Sam McPherson of + Chicago.” + </p> + <p> + The socialist ran to a closet and began pulling on his coat. The name + affected him so that his hand trembled and he could scarcely get his arm + into the coat sleeve. He began to apologise for the appearance of the room + and kept looking at Sam with the air of one not able to believe what he + had heard. As the two men walked out of the house he ran ahead holding + doors open for Sam’s passage. + </p> + <p> + “And you will help us, Mr. McPherson?” he exclaimed. “You, a man of + millions, will help us in this fight?” + </p> + <p> + Sam had a feeling that the man was going to kiss his hand or do something + equally ridiculous. He had the air of a club door man gone off his head. + </p> + <p> + At the hotel Sam stood in the lobby while the fat man waited in a + telephone booth. + </p> + <p> + “I will have to ‘phone Chicago, I will simply have to ‘phone Chicago. We + socialists don’t do anything like this offhand, Mr. McPherson,” he had + explained as they walked along the street. + </p> + <p> + When the socialist came out of the booth he stood before Sam shaking his + head. His whole attitude had changed, and he looked like a man caught + doing a foolish or absurd thing. + </p> + <p> + “Nothing doing, nothing doing, Mr. McPherson,” he said, starting for the + hotel door. + </p> + <p> + At the door he stopped and shook his finger at Sam. + </p> + <p> + “It won’t work,” he said, emphatically. “Chicago is too wise.” + </p> + <p> + Sam turned and went back to his room. His name had killed his only chance + to beat Crofts, Jake, Bill and Ed. In his room he sat looking out of the + window into the street. + </p> + <p> + “Where shall I take hold now?” he asked himself. + </p> + <p> + Turning out the lights he sat listening to the roar of the waterfall and + thinking of the events of the last week. + </p> + <p> + “I have had a time,” he thought. “I have tried something and even though + it did not work it has been the best fun I have had for years.” + </p> + <p> + The hours slipped away and night came on. He could hear men shouting and + laughing in the street, and going downstairs he stood in a hallway at the + edge of the crowd that gathered about the socialist. The orator shouted + and waved his hand. He seemed as proud as a young recruit who has just + passed through his first baptism of fire. + </p> + <p> + “He tried to make a fool of me—McPherson of Chicago—the + millionaire—one of the capitalist kings—he tried to bribe me + and my party.” + </p> + <p> + In the crowd the old carpenter was dancing in the road and rubbing his + hands together. With the feeling of a man who had finished a piece of work + or turned the last leaf of a book, Sam went back to his hotel. + </p> + <p> + “In the morning I shall be on my way,” he thought. + </p> + <p> + A knock came at the door and the red-haired man came in. He closed the + door softly and winked at Sam. + </p> + <p> + “Ed made a mistake,” he said, and laughed. “The old man told him you were + a socialist and he thought you were trying to spoil the graft. He is + scared about that beating you got and mighty sorry. He’s all right—Ed + is—and he and Bill and I have got the votes. What made you stay + under cover so long? Why didn’t you tell us you were McPherson?” + </p> + <p> + Sam saw the hopelessness of any attempt to explain. Jake had evidently + sold out the men. Sam wondered how. + </p> + <p> + “How do you know you can deliver the votes?’” he asked, trying to lead + Jake on. + </p> + <p> + Jake rolled the quid in his mouth and winked again. + </p> + <p> + “It was easy enough to fix the men when Ed, Bill and I got together,” he + said. “You know about the other. There’s a clause in the act authorising + the bond issue, a sleeper, Bill calls it. You know more about that than I + do. Anyway the power will be turned over to the man we say.” + </p> + <p> + “But how do I know you can deliver the votes?” + </p> + <p> + Jake threw out his hand impatiently. + </p> + <p> + “What do they know?” he asked sharply. “What they want is more wages. + There’s a million in the power deal and they can’t any more realise a + million than they can tell what they want to do in Heaven. I promised Ed’s + fellows the city scale. Ed can’t kick. He’ll make a hundred thousand as it + stands. Then I promised the plough works gang a ten per cent raise. We’ll + get it for them if we can, but if we can’t, they won’t know it till the + deal is put through.” + </p> + <p> + Sam walked over and held open the door. + </p> + <p> + “Good night,” he said. + </p> + <p> + Jake looked annoyed. + </p> + <p> + “Ain’t you even going to make a bid against Crofts?” he asked. “We ain’t + tied to him if you do better by us. I’m in this thing because you put me + in. That piece you wrote up the river scared ‘em stiff. I want to do the + right thing by you. Don’t be sore about Ed. He wouldn’t a done it if he’d + known.” + </p> + <p> + Sam shook his head and stood with his hand still on the door. + </p> + <p> + “Good night,” he said again. “I am not in it. I have dropped it. No use + trying to explain.” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER II + </h2> + <p> + For weeks and months Sam led a wandering vagabond life, and surely a + stranger or more restless vagabond never went upon the road. In his pocket + he had at almost any time from one to five thousand dollars, his bag went + on from place to place ahead of him, and now and then he caught up with + it, unpacked it, and wore a suit of his former Chicago clothes upon the + streets of some town. For the most part, however, he wore the rough + clothes bought from Ed, and, when these were gone, others like them, with + a warm canvas outer jacket, and for rough weather a pair of heavy boots + lacing half way up the legs. Among the people, he passed for a rather + well-set-up workman with money in his pocket going his own way. + </p> + <p> + During all those months of wandering, and even when he had returned to + something nearer his former way of life, his mind was unsettled and his + outlook on life disturbed. Sometimes it seemed to him that he, among all + men, was a unique, an innovation. Day after day his mind ground away upon + his problem and he was determined to seek and to keep on seeking until he + found for himself a way of peace. In the towns and in the country through + which he passed he saw the clerks in the stores, the merchants with + worried faces hurrying into banks, the farmers, brutalised by toil, + dragging their weary bodies homeward at the coming of night, and told + himself that all life was abortive, that on all sides of him it wore + itself out in little futile efforts or ran away in side currents, that + nowhere did it move steadily, continuously forward giving point to the + tremendous sacrifice involved in just living and working in the world. He + thought of Christ going about seeing the world and talking to men, and + thought that he too would go and talk to them, not as a teacher, but as + one seeking eagerly to be taught. At times he was filled with longing and + inexpressible hopes and, like the boy of Caxton, would get out of bed, not + now to stand in Miller’s pasture watching the rain on the surface of the + water, but to walk endless miles through the darkness getting the blessed + relief of fatigue into his body and often paying for and occupying two + beds in one night. + </p> + <p> + Sam wanted to go back to Sue; he wanted peace and something like + happiness, but most of all he wanted work, real work, work that would + demand of him day after day the best and finest in him so that he would be + held to the need of renewing constantly the better impulses of his mind. + He was at the top of his life, and the few weeks of hard physical exertion + as a driver of nails and a bearer of timbers had begun to restore his body + to shapeliness and strength, so that he was filled anew with all of his + native restlessness and energy; but he was determined that he would not + again pour himself out in work that would react upon him as had his money + making, his dream of beautiful children, and this last half-formed dream + of a kind of financial fatherhood to the Illinois town. + </p> + <p> + The incident with Ed and the red-haired man had been his first serious + effort at anything like social service achieved through controlling or + attempting to influence the public mind, for his was the type of mind that + runs to the concrete, the actual. As he sat in the ravine talking to Jake, + and, later, coming home in the boat under the multitude of stars, he had + looked up from among the drunken workmen and his mind had seen a city + built for a people, a city independent, beautiful, strong, and free, but a + glimpse of a red head through a barroom door and a socialist trembling + before a name had dispelled the vision. After his return from hearing the + socialist, who in his turn was hedged about by complicated influences, and + in those November days when he walked south through Illinois, seeing the + late glory of the trees and breathing the fine air, he laughed at himself + for having had the vision. It was not that the red-haired man had sold him + out, it was not the beating given him by Ed’s sullen-faced son or the + blows across the face at the hands of his vigorous wife—it was just + that at bottom he did not believe the people wanted reform; they wanted a + ten per cent raise in wages. The public mind was a thing too big, too + complicated and inert for a vision or an ideal to get at and move deeply. + </p> + <p> + And then, walking on the road and struggling to find truth even within + himself, Sam had to come to something else. At bottom he was no leader, no + reformer. He had not wanted the free city for a free people, but as a work + to be done by his own hand. He was McPherson, the money maker, the man who + loved himself. The fact, not the sight of Jake hobnobbing with Bill or the + timidity of the socialist, had blocked his way to work as a political + reformer and builder. + </p> + <p> + Tramping south between the rows of shocked corn he laughed at himself. + “The experience with Ed and Jake has done something for me,” he thought. + “They bullied me. I have been a kind of bully myself and what has happened + has been good medicine for me.” + </p> + <p> + Sam walked the roads of Illinois, Ohio, New York, and other states, + through hill country and flat country, in the snow drifts of winter and + through the storms of spring, talking to people, asking their way of life + and the end toward which they worked. At night he dreamed of Sue, of his + boyhood struggles in Caxton, of Janet Eberly sitting in her chair and + talking of writers of books, or, visualising the stock exchange or some + garish drinking place, he saw again the faces of Crofts, Webster, + Morrison, and Prince intent and eager as he laid before them some scheme + of money making. Sometimes at night he awoke, seized with horror, seeing + Colonel Tom with the revolver pressed against his head; and sitting in his + bed, and all through the next day he talked aloud to himself. + </p> + <p> + “The damned old coward,” he shouted into the darkness of his room or into + the wide peaceful prospect of the countryside. + </p> + <p> + The idea of Colonel Tom as a suicide seemed unreal, grotesque, horrible. + It was as though some round-cheeked, curly-headed boy had done the thing + to himself. The man had been so boyishly, so blusteringly incompetent, so + completely and absolutely without bigness and purpose. + </p> + <p> + “And yet,” thought Sam, “he has found strength to whip me, the man of + ability. He has taken revenge, absolute and unanswerable, for the slight I + put upon the little play world in which he had been king.” + </p> + <p> + In fancy Sam could see the great paunch and the little white pointed beard + sticking up from the floor in the room where the colonel lay dead, and + into his mind came a saying, a sentence, the distorted remembrance of a + thought he had got from a book of Janet’s or from some talk he had heard, + perhaps at his own dinner table. + </p> + <p> + “It is horrible to see a fat man with purple veins in his face lying + dead.” + </p> + <p> + At such times he hurried along the road like one pursued. People driving + past in buggies and seeing him and hearing the stream of talk that issued + from his lips, turned and watched him out of sight. And Sam, hurrying and + seeking relief from the thoughts in his mind, called to the old + commonsense instincts within himself as a captain marshals his forces to + withstand an attack. + </p> + <p> + “I will find work. I will find work. I will seek Truth,” he said. + </p> + <p> + Sam avoided the larger towns or went hurriedly through them, sleeping + night after night at village hotels or at some hospitable farmhouse, and + daily he increased the length of his walks, getting real satisfaction from + the aching of his legs and from the bruising of his unaccustomed feet on + the hard road. Like St. Jerome, he had a wish to beat upon his body and + subdue the flesh. In turn he was blown upon by the wind, chilled by the + winter frost, wet by the rains, and warmed by the sun. In the spring he + swam in rivers, lay on sheltered hillsides watching the cattle grazing in + the fields and the white clouds floating across the sky, and constantly + his legs became harder and his body more flat and sinewy. Once he slept + for a night in a straw stack at the edge of a woods and in the morning was + awakened by a farmer’s dog licking his face. + </p> + <p> + Several times he came up to vagabonds, umbrella menders and other + roadsters, and walked with them, but he found in their society no + incentive to join in their flights across country on freight trains or on + the fronts of passenger trains. Those whom he met and with whom he talked + and walked did not interest him greatly. They had no end in life, sought + no ideal of usefulness. Walking and talking with them, the romance went + out of their wandering life. They were utterly dull and stupid, they were, + almost without exception, strikingly unclean, they wanted passionately to + get drunk, and they seemed to be forever avoiding life with its problems + and responsibilities. They always talked of the big cities, of “Chi” and + “Cinci” and “Frisco,” and were bent upon getting to one of these places. + They condemned the rich and begged and stole from the poor, talked + swaggeringly of their personal courage and ran whimpering and begging + before country constables. One of them, a tall, leering youth in a grey + cap, who came up to Sam one evening at the edge of a village in Indiana, + tried to rob him. Full of his new strength and with the thought of Ed’s + wife and the sullen-faced son in his mind, Sam sprang upon him and had + revenge for the beating received in the office of Ed’s hotel by beating + this fellow in his turn. When the tall youth had partially recovered from + the beating and had staggered to his feet, he ran off into the darkness, + stopping when well out of reach to hurl a stone that splashed in the mud + of the road at Sam’s feet. + </p> + <p> + Everywhere Sam sought people who would talk to him of themselves. He had a + kind of faith that a message would come to him out of the mouth of some + simple, homely dweller of the villages or the farms. A woman, with whom he + talked in the railroad station at Fort Wayne, Indiana, interested him so + that he went into a train with her and travelled all night in the day + coach, listening to her talk of her three sons, one of whom had weak lungs + and had, with two younger brothers, taken up government land in the west. + The woman had been with them for some months, helping them to get a start. + </p> + <p> + “I was raised on a farm and knew things they could not know,” she told + Sam, raising her voice above the rumble of the train and the snoring of + fellow passengers. + </p> + <p> + She had worked with her sons in the field, ploughing and planting, had + driven a team across country, carrying boards for the building of a house, + and had grown brown and strong at the work. + </p> + <p> + “And Walter is getting well. His arms are as brown as my own and he has + gained eleven pounds,” she said, rolling up her sleeves and showing her + heavy, muscular forearms. + </p> + <p> + She planned to take her husband, a machinist working in a bicycle factory + in Buffalo, and her two grown daughters, clerks in a drygoods store, with + her and return to the new country, and having a sense of her hearer’s + interest in her story, she talked of the bigness of the west and the + loneliness of the vast, silent plains, saying that they sometimes made her + heart ache. Sam thought she had in some way achieved success, although he + did not see how her experience could serve as a guide to him. + </p> + <p> + “You have got somewhere. You have got hold of a truth,” he said, taking + her hand when he got off the train at Cleveland, at dawn. + </p> + <p> + At another time, in the late spring, when he was tramping through southern + Ohio, a man drove up beside him, and pulling in his horse, asked, “Where + are you going?” adding genially, “I may be able to give you a lift.” + </p> + <p> + Sam looked at him and smiled. Something in the man’s manner or in his + dress suggesting the man of God, he assumed a bantering air. + </p> + <p> + “I am on my way to the New Jerusalem,” he said seriously. “I am one who + seeks God.” + </p> + <p> + The young minister picked up his reins with a look of alarm, but when he + saw a smile playing about the corners of Sam’s mouth, he turned the wheels + of his buggy. + </p> + <p> + “Get in and come along with me and we will talk of the New Jerusalem,” he + said. + </p> + <p> + On the impulse Sam got into the buggy, and driving along the dusty road, + told the essential parts of his story and of his quest for an end toward + which he might work. + </p> + <p> + “It would be simple enough if I were without money and driven by hard + necessity, but I am not. I want work, not because it is work and will + bring me bread and butter, but because I need to be doing something that + will satisfy me when I am done. I do not want so much to serve men as to + serve myself. I want to get at happiness and usefulness as for years I got + at money making. There is a right way of life for such a man as me, and I + want to find that way.” + </p> + <p> + The young minister, who was a graduate of a Lutheran seminary at + Springfield, Ohio, and had come out of college with a very serious outlook + on life, took Sam to his house and together they sat talking half the + night. He had a wife, a country girl with a babe lying at her breast, who + got supper for them, and who, after supper, sat in the shadows in a corner + of the living-room listening to their talk. + </p> + <p> + The two men sat together. Sam smoked his pipe and the minister poked at a + coal fire that burned in a stove. They talked of God and of what the + thought of God meant to men; but the young minister did not try to give + Sam an answer to his problem; on the contrary, Sam found him strikingly + dissatisfied and unhappy in his way of life. + </p> + <p> + “There is no spirit of God here,” he said, poking viciously at the coals + in the stove. “The people here do not want me to talk to them of God. They + have no curiosity about what He wants of them nor of why He has put them + here. They want me to tell them of a city in the sky, a kind of glorified + Dayton, Ohio, to which they can go when they have finished this life of + work and of putting money in the savings bank.” + </p> + <p> + For several days Sam stayed with the clergyman, driving about the country + with him and talking of God. In the evening they sat in the house, + continuing their talks, and on Sunday Sam went to hear the man preach in + his church. + </p> + <p> + The sermon was a disappointment to Sam. Although his host had talked + vigorously and well in private, his public address was stilted and + unnatural. + </p> + <p> + “The man,” thought Sam, “has no feeling for public address and is not + treating his people well in not giving them, without reservation, the + ideas he has expounded to me in his house.” He decided there was something + to be said for the people who sat patiently listening week after week and + who gave the man the means of a living for so lame an effort. + </p> + <p> + One evening when Sam had been with them for a week the young wife came to + him as he stood on the little porch before the house. + </p> + <p> + “I wish you would go away,” she said, standing with her babe in her arms + and looking at the porch floor. “You stir him up and make him + dissatisfied.” + </p> + <p> + Sam stepped off the porch and hurried off up the road into the darkness. + There had been tears in the wife’s eyes. + </p> + <p> + In June he went with a threshing crew, working among labourers and eating + with them in the fields or about the crowded tables of farmhouses where + they stopped to thresh. Each day Sam and the men with him worked in a new + place and had as helpers the farmer for whom they threshed and several of + his neighbours. The farmers worked at a killing pace and the men of the + threshing crew were expected to keep abreast of each new lot of them day + after day. At night the threshermen, too weary for talk, crept into the + loft of a barn, slept until daylight and then began another day of + heartbreaking toil. On Sunday morning they went for a swim in some creek + and in the afternoon sat in a barn or under the trees of an orchard + sleeping or indulging in detached, fragmentary bits of talk, talk that + never rose above a low, wearisome level. For hours they would try to + settle a dispute as to whether a horse they had seen at some farm during + the week had three, or four, white feet, and one man in the crew never + talked at all, sitting on his heels through the long Sunday afternoons and + whittling at a stick with his pocket knife. + </p> + <p> + The threshing outfit with which Sam worked was owned by a man named Joe, + who was in debt for it to the maker and who, after working with the men + all day, drove about the country half the night making deals with farmers + for other days of threshing. Sam thought that he looked constantly on the + point of collapse through overwork and worry, and one of the men, who had + been with Joe through several seasons, told Sam that at the end of the + season their employer did not have enough money left from his season of + work to pay the interest on the debt for his machines and that he + continually took jobs for less than the cost of doing them. + </p> + <p> + “One has to keep going,” said Joe, when one day Sam began talking to him + on the matter. + </p> + <p> + When told to keep Sam’s wage until the end of the season he looked + relieved and at the end of the season came to Sam, looking more worried + and said that he had no money. + </p> + <p> + “I will give you a note bearing good interest if you can let me have a + little time,” he said. + </p> + <p> + Sam took the note and looked at the pale, drawn face peering out of him + from the shadows at the back of the barn. + </p> + <p> + “Why do you not drop the whole thing and begin working for some one else?” + he asked. + </p> + <p> + Joe looked indignant. + </p> + <p> + “A man wants independence,” he said. + </p> + <p> + When Sam got again upon the road he stopped at a little bridge over a + stream, and tearing up Joe’s note watched the torn pieces of it float away + upon the brown water. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER III + </h2> + <p> + Through the summer and early fall Sam continued his wanderings. The days + on which something happened or on which something outside himself + interested or attracted him were special days, giving him food for hours + of thought, but for the most part he walked on and on for weeks, sunk in a + kind of healing lethargy of physical fatigue. Always he tried to get at + people who came into his way and to discover something of their way of + life and the end toward which they worked, and many an open-mouthed, + staring man and woman he left behind him on the road and on the sidewalks + of the villages. He had one principle of action; whenever an idea came + into his mind he did not hesitate, but began trying at once the + practicability of living by following the idea, and although the practice + brought him to no end and only seemed to multiply the difficulties of the + problem he was striving to work out, it brought him many strange + experiences. + </p> + <p> + At one time he was for several days a bartender in a saloon in a town in + eastern Ohio. The saloon was in a small wooden building facing a railroad + track and Sam had gone in there with a labourer met on the sidewalk. It + was a stormy night in September at the end of his first year of wandering + and while he stood by a roaring coal stove, after buying drinks for the + labourer and cigars for himself, several men came in and stood by the bar + drinking together. As they drank they became more and more friendly, + slapping each other on the back, singing songs and boasting. One of them + got out upon the floor and danced a jig. The proprietor, a round-faced man + with one dead eye, who had himself been drinking freely, put a bottle upon + the bar and coming up to Sam, began complaining that he had no bartender + and had to work long hours. + </p> + <p> + “Drink what you want, boys, and then I’ll tell you what you owe,” he said + to the men standing along the bar. + </p> + <p> + Watching the men who drank and played like school boys about the room, and + looking at the bottle sitting on the bar, the contents of which had for + the moment taken the sombre dulness out of the lives of the workmen, Sam + said to himself, “I will take up this trade. It may appeal to me. At least + I shall be selling forgetfulness and not be wasting my life with this + tramping on the road and thinking.” + </p> + <p> + The saloon in which he worked was a profitable one and although in an + obscure place had made its proprietor what is called “well fixed.” It had + a side door opening into an alley and one went up this alley to the main + street of the town. The front door looking upon the railroad tracks was + but little used, perhaps at the noon hour two or three young men from the + freight depot down the tracks would come in by it and stand about drinking + beer, but the trade that came down the alley and in at the side door was + prodigious. All day long men hurried in at this door, took drinks and + hurried out again, looking up the alley and running quickly when they + found the way clear. These men all drank whiskey, and when Sam had worked + for a few days in the place he once made the mistake of reaching for the + bottle when he heard the door open. + </p> + <p> + “Let them ask for it,” said the proprietor gruffly. “Do you want to insult + a man?” + </p> + <p> + On Saturday the place was filled all day with beer-drinking farmers, and + at odd hours on other days men came in, whimpering and begging drinks. + When alone in the place, Sam looked at the trembling fingers of these men + and put the bottle before them, saying, “Drink all you want of the stuff.” + </p> + <p> + When the proprietor was in, the men who begged drinks stood a moment by + the stove and then went out thrusting their hands into their coat pockets + and looking at the floor. + </p> + <p> + “Bar flies,” the proprietor explained laconically. + </p> + <p> + The whiskey was horrible. The proprietor mixed it himself and put it into + stone jars that stood under the bar, pouring it out of these into bottles + as they became empty. He kept on display in glass cases bottles of well + known brands of whiskey, but when a man came in and asked for one of these + brands Sam handed him a bottle bearing that label from beneath the bar, a + bottle previously filled by Al from the jugs of his own mixture. As Al + sold no mixed drinks Sam was compelled to know nothing the bartender’s art + and stood all day handing out Al’s poisonous stuff and the foaming glasses + of beer the workingmen drank in the evening. + </p> + <p> + Of the men coming in at the side door, a shoe merchant, a grocer, the + proprietor of a restaurant, and a telegraph operator interested Sam most. + Several times each day these men would appear, glance back over their + shoulders at the door, and then turning to the bar would look at Sam + apologetically. + </p> + <p> + “Give me a little out of the bottle, I have a bad cold,” they would say, + as though repeating a formula. + </p> + <p> + At the end of the week Sam was on the road again. The rather bizarre + notion that by staying there he would be selling forgetfulness of life’s + unhappiness had been dispelled during his first day’s duty, and his + curiosity concerning the customers was his undoing. As the men came in at + the side door and stood before him Sam leaned over the bar and asked them + why they drank. Some of the men laughed, some swore at him, and the + telegraph operator reported the matter to Al, calling Sam’s question an + impertinence. + </p> + <p> + “You fool, don’t you know better than to be throwing stones at the bar?” + Al roared, and with an oath discharged him. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER IV + </h2> + <p> + One fine warm morning in the fall Sam was sitting in a little park in the + centre of a Pennsylvania manufacturing town watching men and women going + through the quiet streets to the factories and striving to overcome a + feeling of depression aroused by an experience of the evening before. He + had come into town over a poorly made clay road running through barren + hills, and, depressed and weary, had stood on the shores of a river, + swollen by the early fall rains, that flowed along the edges of the town. + </p> + <p> + Before him in the distance he had looked into the windows of a huge + factory, the black smoke from which added to the gloom of the scene that + lay before him. Through the windows of the factory, dimly seen, workers + ran here and there, appearing and disappearing, the glare of the furnace + fire lighting now one, now another of them, sharply. At his feet the + tumbling waters that rolled and pitched over a little dam fascinated him. + Looking closely at the racing waters his head, light from physical + weariness, reeled, and in fear of falling he had been compelled to grip + firmly the small tree against which he leaned. In the back yard of a house + across the stream from Sam and facing the factory four guinea hens sat on + a board fence, their weird, plaintive cries making a peculiarly fitting + accompaniment to the scene that lay before him, and in the yard itself two + bedraggled fowls fought each other. Again and again they sprang into the + fray, striking out with bills and spurs. Becoming exhausted, they fell to + picking and scratching among the rubbish in the yard, and when they had a + little recovered renewed the struggle. For an hour Sam had looked at the + scene, letting his eyes wander from the river to the grey sky and to the + factory belching forth its black smoke. He had thought that the two feebly + struggling fowls, immersed in their pointless struggle in the midst of + such mighty force, epitomised much of man’s struggle in the world, and, + turning, had gone along the sidewalks and to the village hotel, feeling + old and tired. Now on the bench in the little park, with the early morning + sun shining down through the glistening rain drops clinging to the red + leaves of the trees, he began to lose the sense of depression that had + clung to him through the night. + </p> + <p> + A young man who walked in the park saw him idly watching the hurrying + workers, and stopped to sit beside him. + </p> + <p> + “On the road, brother?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + Sam shook his head, and the other began talking. + </p> + <p> + “Fools and slaves,” he said earnestly, pointing to the men and women + passing on the sidewalk. “See them going like beasts to their bondage? + What do they get for it? What kind of lives do they lead? The lives of + dogs.” + </p> + <p> + He looked at Sam for approval of the sentiment he had voiced. + </p> + <p> + “We are all fools and slaves,” said Sam, stoutly. + </p> + <p> + Jumping to his feet the young man began waving his arms about. + </p> + <p> + “There, you talk sense,” he cried. “Welcome to our town, stranger. We have + no thinkers here. The workers are like dogs. There is no solidarity among + them. Come and have breakfast with me.” + </p> + <p> + In the restaurant the young man began talking of himself. He was a + graduate of the University of Pennsylvania. His father had died while he + was yet in school and had left him a modest fortune, upon the income of + which he lived with his mother. He did no work and was enormously proud of + the fact. + </p> + <p> + “I refuse to work! I scorn it!” he declared, shaking a breakfast roll in + the air. + </p> + <p> + Since leaving school he had devoted himself to the cause of the socialist + party in his native town, and boasted of the leadership he had already + achieved. His mother, he declared, was disturbed and worried because of + his connection with the movement. + </p> + <p> + “She wants me to be respectable,” he said sadly, and added, “What’s the + use trying to explain to a woman? I can’t get her to see the difference + between a socialist and a direct-action anarchist and I’ve given up + trying. She expects me to end by blowing somebody up with dynamite or by + getting into jail for throwing bricks at the borough police.” + </p> + <p> + He talked of a strike going on among some girl employés of a Jewish + shirtwaist factory in the town, and Sam, immediately interested, began + asking questions, and after breakfast went with his new acquaintance to + the scene of the strike. + </p> + <p> + The shirtwaist factory was located in a loft above a grocery store, and on + the sidewalk in front of the store three girl pickets were walking up and + down. A flashily dressed Hebrew, with a cigar in his mouth and his hands + in his trousers pockets, stood in the stairway leading to the loft and + looked closely at the young socialist and Sam. From his lips came a stream + of vile words which he pretended to be addressing to the empty air. When + Sam walked towards him he turned and ran up the stairs, shouting oaths + over his shoulder. + </p> + <p> + Sam joined the three girls, and began talking to them, walking up and down + with them before the grocery store. + </p> + <p> + “What are you doing to win?” he asked when they had told him of their + grievances. + </p> + <p> + “We do what we can!” said a Jewish girl with broad hips, great motherly + breasts, and fine, soft, brown eyes, who appeared to be a leader and + spokesman among the strikers. “We walk up and down here and try to get a + word with the strikebreakers the boss has brought in from other towns, + when they go in and come out.” + </p> + <p> + Frank, the University man, spoke up. “We are putting up stickers + everywhere,” he said. “I myself have put up hundreds of them.” + </p> + <p> + He took from his coat pocket a printed slip, gummed on one side, and told + Sam that he had been putting them on walls and telegraph poles about town. + The thing was vilely written. “Down with the dirty scabs” was the heading + in bold, black letters across the top. + </p> + <p> + Sam was shocked at the vileness of the caption and at the crude brutality + of the text printed on the slip. + </p> + <p> + “Do you call women workers names like that?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + “They have taken our work from us,” the Jewish girl answered simply and + began again, telling the story of her sister strikers and of what the low + wage had meant to them and to their families. “To me it does not so much + matter; I have a brother who works in a clothing store and he can support + me, but many of the women in our union have only their wage here with + which to feed their families.” + </p> + <p> + Sam’s mind began working on the problem. + </p> + <p> + “Here,” he declared, “is something definite to do, a battle in which I + will pit myself against this employer for the sake of these women.” + </p> + <p> + He put away from him his experience in the Illinois town, telling himself + that the young woman walking beside him would have a sense of honour + unknown to the red-haired young workman who had sold him out to Bill and + Ed. + </p> + <p> + “I failed with my money,” he thought, “now I will try to help these girls + with my energy.” + </p> + <p> + Turning to the Jewish girl he made a quick decision. + </p> + <p> + “I will help you get your places back,” he said. + </p> + <p> + Leaving the girls he went across the street to a barber shop where he + could watch the entrance to the factory. He wanted to think out a method + of procedure and wanted also to look at the girl strikebreakers as they + came to work. After a time several girls came along the street and turned + in at the stairway. The flashily dressed Hebrew with the cigar still in + his mouth was again by the stairway entrance. The three pickets running + forward accosted the file of girls going up the stairs, one of whom, a + young American girl with yellow hair, turned and shouted something over + her shoulder. The man called Frank shouted back and the Hebrew took the + cigar out of his mouth and laughed heartily. Sam filled and lighted his + pipe, a dozen plans for helping the striking girls running through his + mind. + </p> + <p> + During the morning he went into the grocery store on the corner, a saloon + in the neighbourhood, and returned to the barber shop talking to men of + the strike. He ate his lunch alone, still thinking of the three girls + patiently walking up and down before the stairway. Their ceaseless walking + seemed to him a useless waste of energy. + </p> + <p> + “They should be doing something more definite,” he thought. + </p> + <p> + After lunch he joined the soft-eyed Jewish girl and together they walked + along the street talking of the strike. + </p> + <p> + “You cannot win this strike by just calling nasty names,” he said. “I do + not like that ‘dirty scab’ sticker Frank had in his pocket. It cannot help + you and only antagonises the girls who have taken your places. Here in + this part of town the people want to see you win. I have talked to the men + who come into the saloon and the barber shop across the street and you + already have their sympathy. You want to get the sympathy of the girls who + have taken your places. Calling them dirty scabs only makes martyrs of + them. Did the yellow-haired girl call you a name this morning?” + </p> + <p> + The Jewish girl looked at Sam and laughed bitterly. + </p> + <p> + “Rather; she called me a loud-mouthed street walker.” + </p> + <p> + They continued their walk along the street, across the railroad track and + a bridge, and into a quiet residence street. Carriages stood at the curb + before the houses, and pointing to these and to the well-kept houses Sam + said, “Men have bought these things for their women.” + </p> + <p> + A shadow fell across the girl’s face. + </p> + <p> + “I suppose all of us want what these women have,” she answered. “We do not + really want to fight and to stand on our own feet, not when we know the + world. What a woman really wants is a man,” she added shortly. + </p> + <p> + Sam began talking and told her of a plan that had come into his mind. He + had remembered how Jack Prince and Morrison used to talk about the appeal + of the direct personal letter and how effectively it was used by mail + order houses. + </p> + <p> + “We will have a mail order strike here,” he said and went on to lay before + her the details of his plan. He proposed that she, Frank, and some others + of the striking girls, should go about town getting the names and the mail + addresses of the girl strikebreakers. + </p> + <p> + “Get also the names of the keepers of the boarding houses at which these + girls live and the names of the men and women who live in the same + houses,” he suggested. “Then you get the striking girls and women together + and have them tell me their stories. We will write letters day after day + to the girl strikebreakers, to the women who keep the boarding houses, and + to the people who live in the houses and sit at table with them. We won’t + call names. We will tell the story of what being beaten in this fight + means to the women in your union, tell it simply and truthfully as you + told it to me this morning.” + </p> + <p> + “It will cost such a lot,” said the Jewish girl, shaking her head. + </p> + <p> + Sam took a roll of bills from his pocket and showed it to her. + </p> + <p> + “I will pay,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “Why?” she asked, looking at him sharply. + </p> + <p> + “Because I am a man wanting work just as you want work,” he replied, and + then went on hurriedly, “It is a long story. I am a rich man wandering + about the world seeking Truth. I will not want that known. Take me for + granted. You won’t be sorry.” + </p> + <p> + Within an hour he had engaged a large room, paying a month’s rent in + advance, and into the room chairs and table and typewriters had been + brought. He put an advertisement in the evening paper for girl + stenographers, and a printer, hurried by a promise of extra pay, ran out + for him several thousand letter heads across the top of which in bold, + black type ran the words, “The Girl Strikers.” + </p> + <p> + That night Sam held, in the room he had engaged, a meeting of the girl + strikers, explaining to them his plan and offering to pay all expenses of + the fight he proposed to make for them. They clapped their hands and + shouted approvingly, and Sam began laying out his campaign. + </p> + <p> + One of the girls he told off to stand in front of the factory morning and + evening. + </p> + <p> + “I will have other help for you there,” he said. “Before you go home + to-night there will be a printer here with a bundle of pamphlets I am + having printed for you.” + </p> + <p> + Advised by the soft-eyed Jewish girl, he told off others to get additional + names for the mailing list he wanted, getting many important ones from + girls in the room. Six of the girls he asked to come in the morning to + help him with addressing and mailing letters. The Jewish girl he told to + take charge of the girls at work in the room—on the morrow to become + also an office—and to superintend getting the names. + </p> + <p> + Frank rose at the back of the room. + </p> + <p> + “Who are you anyway?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + “A man with money and the ability to win this strike,” Sam told him. + </p> + <p> + “What are you doing it for?” demanded Frank. + </p> + <p> + The Jewish girl sprang to her feet. + </p> + <p> + “Because he believes in these women and wants to help,” she explained. + </p> + <p> + “Rot,” said Frank, going out at the door. + </p> + <p> + It was snowing when the meeting ended, and Sam and the Jewish girl + finished their talk in the hallway leading to her room. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know what Harrigan, the union leader from Pittsburgh, will say to + this,” she told him. “He appointed Frank to lead and direct the strike + here. He doesn’t like interference and he may not like your plan. But we + working women need men, men like you who can plan and do things. There are + too many men living on us. We need men who will work for all of us as the + men work for the women in the carriages and automobiles.” She laughed and + put out a hand to him. “See what you have got yourself into? I want you to + be a husband to our entire union.” + </p> + <p> + The next morning four girl stenographers went to work in Sam’s strike + headquarters, and he wrote his first strike letter, a letter telling the + story of a striking girl named Hadaway, whose young brother was sick with + tuberculosis. Sam did not put any flourishes in the letter; he felt that + he did not need to. He thought that with twenty or thirty such letters, + each telling briefly and truthfully the story of one of the striking + girls, he should be able to show one American town how its other half + lived. He gave the letter to the four girl stenographers with the mailing + list he already had and started them writing it to each of the names. + </p> + <p> + At eight o’clock a man came in to install a telephone and girl strikers + began bringing in new names for the mailing list. At nine o’clock three + more stenographers appeared and were put to work, and girls who had been + in began sending more names over the ‘phone. The Jewish girl walked up and + down, giving orders, making suggestions. From time to time she ran to + Sam’s desk and suggested other sources of names for the mailing list. Sam + thought that if the other working girls were timid and embarrassed before + him this one was not. She was like a general on the field of battle. Her + soft brown eyes glowed, her mind worked rapidly, and her voice had a ring + in it. At her suggestion Sam gave the girls at the typewriters lists + bearing the names of town officials, bankers and prominent business men, + and the wives of all these, also presidents of various women’s clubs, + society women, and charitable organizations. She called reporters from the + town’s two daily papers and had them interview Sam, and at her suggestion + he gave them copies of the Hadaway girl letter to print. + </p> + <p> + “Print it,” he said, “and if you cannot use it as news, make it an + advertisement and bring the bill to me.” + </p> + <p> + At eleven o’clock Frank came into the room bringing a tall Irishman, with + sunken cheeks, black, unclean teeth, and an overcoat too small for him. + Leaving him standing by the door, Frank walked across the room to Sam. + </p> + <p> + “Come to lunch with us,” he said. He jerked his thumb over his shoulder + toward the tall Irishman. “I picked him up,” he said. “Best brain that’s + been in town for years. He’s a wonder. Used to be a Catholic priest. He + doesn’t believe in God or love or anything. Come on out and hear him talk. + He’s great.” + </p> + <p> + Sam shook his head. + </p> + <p> + “I am too busy. There is work to be done here. We are going to win this + strike.” + </p> + <p> + Frank looked at him doubtfully and then about the room at the busy girls. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know what Harrigan will think of all this,” he said. “He doesn’t + like interferences. I never do anything without writing him. I wrote and + told him what you were doing here. I had to, you know. I’m responsible to + headquarters.” + </p> + <p> + In the afternoon the Hebrew owner of the shirtwaist factory came in to + strike headquarters and, walking through the room took off his hat and sat + down by Sam’s desk. + </p> + <p> + “What do you want here?” he asked. “The newspaper boys told me of what you + had planned to do. What’s your game?” + </p> + <p> + “I want to whip you,” Sam answered quietly, “to whip you good. You might + as well get into line. You are going to lose this strike.” + </p> + <p> + “I’m only one,” said the Hebrew. “There is an association of us + manufacturers of shirtwaists. We are all in this. We all have a strike on + our hands. What will you gain if you do beat me here? I’m only a little + fellow after all.” + </p> + <p> + Sam laughed and picking up his pen began writing. + </p> + <p> + “You are unlucky,” he said. “I just happened to take hold here. When I + have you beaten I will go on and beat the others. There is more money back + of me than back of you all, and I am going to beat every one of you.” + </p> + <p> + The next morning a crowd stood before the stairway leading to the factory + when the strikebreaking girls came to work. The letters and the newspaper + interview had been effective and more than half the strikebreakers did not + appear. The others hurried along the street and turned in at the stairway + without looking at the crowd. The girl, told off by Sam, stood on the + sidewalk passing out pamphlets to the strikebreakers. The pamphlets were + headed, “The Story of Ten Girls,” and told briefly and pointedly the + stories of ten striking girls and what the loss of the strike meant to + them and to their families. + </p> + <p> + After a while there drove up two carriages and a large automobile, and out + of the automobile climbed a well-dressed woman who took a bundle of the + pamphlets from the girl picket and began passing them about among the + people. Two policemen who stood in front of the crowd took off their + helmets and accompanied her. The crowd cheered. Frank came hurrying across + the street to where Sam stood in front of the barber shop and slapped him + on the back. + </p> + <p> + “You’re a wonder,” he said. + </p> + <p> + Sam hurried back to the room and prepared the second letter for the + mailing list. Two more stenographers had come to work. He had to send out + for more machines. A reporter for the town’s evening paper ran up the + stairway. + </p> + <p> + “Who are you?” he asked. “The town wants to know.” + </p> + <p> + From his pocket he took a telegram from a Pittsburgh daily. + </p> + <p> + “What about mail-order strike plan? Give name and story new strike leader + there.” + </p> + <p> + At ten o’clock Frank returned. + </p> + <p> + “There’s a wire from Harrigan,” he said. “He’s coming here. He wants a + mass meeting of the girls for to-night. I’ve got to get them together. + We’ll meet here in this room.” + </p> + <p> + In the room the work went on. The list of names for the mailing had + doubled. The picket at the shirtwaist factory reported that three more of + the strikebreakers had left the plant. The Jewish girl was excited. She + went hurrying about the room, her eyes glowing. + </p> + <p> + “It’s great,” she said. “The plan is working. The whole town is aroused + and for us. We’ll win in another twenty-four hours.” + </p> + <p> + And then at seven o’clock that night Harrigan came into the room where Sam + sat with the assembled girls, bolting the door behind him. He was a short, + strongly built man with blue eyes and red hair. He walked about the room + in silence, followed by Frank. Suddenly he stopped and, picking up one of + the typewriting machines rented by Sam for the letter writing, raised it + above his head and sent it smashing to the floor. + </p> + <p> + “A hell of a strike leader,” he roared. “Look at this. Scab machines! + </p> + <p> + “Scab stenographers!” he said through his teeth. “Scab printing! Scab + everything!” + </p> + <p> + Picking up a bundle of the letterheads, he tore them across, and walking + to the front of the room, shook his fist before Sam’s face. + </p> + <p> + “Scab leader!” he shouted, turning and facing the girls. + </p> + <p> + The soft-eyed Jewish girl sprang to her feet. + </p> + <p> + “He’s winning for us,” she said. + </p> + <p> + Harrigan walked toward her threateningly. + </p> + <p> + “Better lose than win a scab victory,” he bellowed. + </p> + <p> + “Who are you anyway? What grafter sent you here?” he demanded, turning to + Sam. + </p> + <p> + He launched into a speech. “I have been watching this fellow, I know him. + He has a scheme to break down the union and is being paid by the + capitalists.” + </p> + <p> + Sam waited to hear no more. Getting up he pulled on his canvas jacket and + started for the door. He saw that already he had involved himself in a + dozen violations of the unionist code and the idea of trying to convince + Harrigan of his disinterestedness did not occur to him. + </p> + <p> + “Do not mind me,” he said, “I am going.” + </p> + <p> + He walked between the rows of frightened, white-faced girls and unbolted + the door, the Jewish girl following. At the head of the stairway leading + to the street he stopped and pointed back into the room. + </p> + <p> + “Go back,” he said, handing her a roll of bills. “Carry on the work if you + can. Get other machines and new printing. I will help you in secret.” + </p> + <p> + Turning he ran down the stairs, hurried through the curious crowd standing + at the foot, and walked rapidly along in front of the lighted stores. A + cold rain, half snow, was falling. Beside him walked a young man with a + brown pointed beard, one of the newspaper reporters who had interviewed + him the day before. + </p> + <p> + “Did Harrigan trim you?” asked the young man, and then added, laughing, + “He told us he intended to throw you down stairs.” + </p> + <p> + Sam walked on in silence, filled with wrath. He turned into a side street + and stopped when his companion put a hand upon his arm. + </p> + <p> + “This is our dump,” said the young man, pointing to a long low frame + building facing the side street. “Come in and let us have your story. It + should be a good one.” + </p> + <p> + Inside the newspaper office another young man sat with his head lying on a + flat-top desk. He was clad in a strikingly flashy plaid coat, had a little + wizened, good-natured face and seemed to have been drinking. The young man + with the beard explained Sam’s identity, taking the sleeping man by the + shoulder and shaking him vigorously. + </p> + <p> + “Wake up, Skipper! There’s a good story here!” he shouted. “The union has + thrown out the mail-order strike leader!” + </p> + <p> + The Skipper got to his feet and began shaking his head. + </p> + <p> + “Of course, of course, Old Top, they would throw you out. You’ve got some + brains. No man with brains can lead a strike. It’s against the laws of + Nature. Something was bound to hit you. Did Roughneck come out from + Pittsburgh?” he asked, turning to the young man of the brown beard. + </p> + <p> + Then reaching above his head and taking a cap that matched his plaid coat + from a nail on the wall, he winked at Sam. “Come on, Old Top. I’ve got to + get a drink.” + </p> + <p> + The two men went through a side door and down a dark alley, going in at + the back door of a saloon. Mud lay deep in the alley and The Skipper + sloshed through it, splattering Sam’s clothes and face. In the saloon at a + table facing Sam, with a bottle of French wine between them, he began + explaining. + </p> + <p> + “I’ve a note coming due at the bank in the morning and no money to pay + it,” he said. “When I have a note coming due I always have no money and I + always get drunk. Then next morning I pay the note. I don’t know how I do + it, but I always come out all right. It’s a system—Now about this + strike.” He plunged into a discussion of the strike while men came in and + out, laughing and drinking. At ten o’clock the proprietor locked the front + door, drew the curtain, and coming to the back of the room sat down at the + table with Sam and The Skipper, bringing another bottle of the French wine + from which the two men continued drinking. + </p> + <p> + “That man from Pittsburgh busted up your place, eh?” he said, turning to + Sam. “A man came in here to-night and told me. He sent for the typewriter + people and made them take away the machines.” + </p> + <p> + When they were ready to leave, Sam took money from his pocket and offered + to pay for the bottle of French wine ordered by The Skipper, who arose and + stood unsteadily on his feet. + </p> + <p> + “Do you mean to insult me?” he demanded indignantly, throwing a + twenty-dollar bill on the table. The proprietor gave him back only + fourteen dollars. + </p> + <p> + “I might as well wipe off the slate while you’re flush,” he observed, + winking at Sam. + </p> + <p> + The Skipper sat down again, taking a pencil and pad of paper from his + pocket, and throwing them on the table. + </p> + <p> + “I want an editorial on the strike for the Old Rag,” he said to Sam. “Do + one for me. Do something strong. Get a punch into it. I want to talk to my + friend here.” + </p> + <p> + Putting the pad of paper on the table Sam began writing his newspaper + editorial. His head seemed wonderfully clear, his command of words + unusually good. He called the attention of the public to the situation, + the struggles of the striking girls and the intelligent fight they had + been making to win a just cause, following this with paragraphs pointing + out how the effectiveness of the work done had been annulled by the + position taken by the labour and socialist leaders. + </p> + <p> + “These fellows at bottom care nothing for results,” he wrote. “They are + not thinking of the unemployed women with families to support, they are + thinking only of themselves and their puny leadership which they fear is + threatened. Now we shall have the usual exhibition of all the old things, + struggle, and hatred and defeat.” + </p> + <p> + When he had finished The Skipper and Sam went back through the alley to + the newspaper office. The Skipper sloshed again through the mud and + carried in his hand a bottle of red gin. At his desk he took the editorial + from Sam’s hands and read it. + </p> + <p> + “Perfect! Perfect to the thousandth part of an inch, Old Top,” he said, + pounding Sam on the shoulder. “Just what the Old Rag wanted to say about + the strike.” Then climbing upon the desk and putting the plaid coat under + his head he went peacefully to sleep, and Sam, sitting beside the desk in + a shaky office chair, slept also. At daybreak a black man with a broom in + his hand woke them, and going into a long low room filled with presses The + Skipper put his head under a water tap and came back waving a soiled towel + and with water dripping from his hair. + </p> + <p> + “Now for the day and the labours thereof,” he said, grinning at Sam and + taking a long drink out of the gin bottle. + </p> + <p> + After breakfast he and Sam took up their stand in front of the barber shop + opposite the stairway leading to the shirtwaist factory. Sam’s girl with + the pamphlets was gone as was also the soft-eyed Jewish girl, and in their + places Frank and the Pittsburgh leader named Harrigan walked up and down. + Again carriages and automobiles stood by the curb, and again a + well-dressed woman got out of a machine and went toward three striking + girls approaching along the sidewalk. The woman was met by Harrigan, + shaking his fist and shouting, and getting back into the machine she drove + off. From the stairway the flashily-dressed Hebrew looked at the crowd and + laughed. + </p> + <p> + “Where is the new strike leader—the mail-order strike leader?” he + called to Frank. + </p> + <p> + With the words, a working man with a dinner pail on his arm ran out of the + crowd and knocked the Jew back into the stairway. + </p> + <p> + “Punch him! Punch the dirty scab leader!” yelled Frank, dancing up and + down on the sidewalk. + </p> + <p> + Two policemen running forward began leading the workingman up the street, + his dinner pail still clutched in one hand. + </p> + <p> + “I know something,” The Skipper shouted, pounding Sam on the shoulder. “I + know who will sign that note with me. The woman Harrigan drove back into + her machine is the richest woman in town. I will show her your editorial. + She will think I wrote it and it will get her. You’ll see.” He ran off up + the street, shouting back over his shoulder, “Come over to the dump, I + want to see you again.” + </p> + <p> + Sam returned to the newspaper office and sat down waiting for The Skipper + who, after a time, came in, took off his coat and began writing furiously. + From time to time he took long drinks out of the bottle of red gin, and + after silently offering it to Sam, continued reeling off sheet after sheet + of loosely-written matter. + </p> + <p> + “I got her to sign the note,” he called over his shoulder to Sam. “She was + furious at Harrigan and when I told her we were going to attack him and + defend you she fell for it quick. I won out by following my system. I + always get drunk and it always wins.” + </p> + <p> + At ten o’clock the newspaper office was in a ferment. The little man with + the brown pointed beard, and another, kept running to The Skipper asking + advice, laying typewritten sheets before him, talking as he wrote. + </p> + <p> + “Give me a lead. I want one more front page lead,” The Skipper kept + bawling at them, working like mad. + </p> + <p> + At ten thirty the door opened and Harrigan, accompanied by Frank, came in. + Seeing Sam they stopped, looking at him uncertainly, and at the man at + work at the desk. + </p> + <p> + “Well, speak up. This is no ladies’ reception room. What do you fellows + want?” snapped The Skipper, glaring at them. + </p> + <p> + Frank, coming forward, laid a typewritten sheet on the desk, which the + newspaper man read hurriedly. + </p> + <p> + “Will you use it?” asked Frank. + </p> + <p> + The Skipper laughed. + </p> + <p> + “Wouldn’t change a word of it,” he shouted. “Sure I’ll use it. It’s what I + wanted to make my point. You fellows watch me.” + </p> + <p> + Frank and Harrigan went out and The Skipper, rushing to the door, began + yelling into the room beyond. + </p> + <p> + “Hey, you Shorty and Tom, I’ve got that last lead.” + </p> + <p> + Coming back to his desk he began writing again, grinning as he worked. To + Sam he handed the typewritten sheet prepared by Frank. + </p> + <p> + “Dastardly attempt to win the cause of the working girls by dirty scab + leaders and butter-fingered capitalist class,” it began, and after this + followed a wild jumble of words, words without meaning, sentences without + point in which Sam was called a mealy-mouthed mail-order musser and The + Skipper was mentioned incidentally as a pusillanimous ink slinger. + </p> + <p> + “I’ll run the stuff and comment on it,” declared The Skipper, handing Sam + what he had written. It was an editorial inviting the public to read the + article prepared for publication by the strike leaders and sympathising + with the striking girls that their cause had to be lost because of the + incompetence and lack of intelligence of their leaders. + </p> + <p> + “Hurrah for Roughhouse, the brave man who leads working girls to defeat in + order that he may retain leadership and drive intelligent effort out of + the cause of labour,” wrote The Skipper. + </p> + <p> + Sam looked at the sheets and out of the window where a snow storm raged. + It seemed to him that a crime was being done and he was sick and disgusted + at his own inability to stop it. The Skipper lighted a short black pipe + and took his cap from a nail on the wall. + </p> + <p> + “I’m the smoothest little newspaper thing in town and some financier as + well,” he declared. “Let’s go have a drink.” + </p> + <p> + After the drink Sam walked through the town toward the country. At the + edge of town where the houses became scattered and the road started to + drop away into a deep valley some one helloed behind him. Turning, he saw + the soft-eyed Jewish girl running along a path beside the road. + </p> + <p> + “Where are you going?” he asked, stopping to lean against a board fence, + the snow falling upon his face. + </p> + <p> + “I’m going with you,” said the girl. “You’re the best and the strongest + man I’ve ever seen and I’m not going to let you get away. If you’ve got a + wife it don’t matter. She isn’t what she should be or you wouldn’t be + walking about the country alone. Harrigan and Frank say you’re crazy, but + I know better. I am going with you and I’m going to help you find what you + want.” + </p> + <p> + Sam wondered. She took a roll of bills from a pocket in her dress and gave + it to him. + </p> + <p> + “I spent three hundred and fourteen dollars,” she said. + </p> + <p> + They stood looking at each other. She put out a hand and laid it on his + arm. Her eyes, soft and now glowing with eager light looked into his. Her + round breasts rose and fell. + </p> + <p> + “Anywhere you say. I’ll be your servant if you ask it of me.” + </p> + <p> + A wave of hot desire ran through Sam followed by a quick reaction. He + thought of his months of weary seeking and his universal failure. + </p> + <p> + “You are going back to town if I have to drive you there with stones,” he + told her, and turning ran down the valley leaving her standing by the + board fence, her head buried in her arms. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0022" id="link2HCH0022"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER V + </h2> + <p> + One crisp winter evening Sam found himself on a busy street corner in + Rochester, N.Y., watching from a doorway the crowds of people hurrying or + loitering past him. He stood in a doorway near a corner that seemed to be + a public meeting place and from all sides came men and women who met at + the corner, stood for a moment in talk, and then went away together. Sam + found himself beginning to wonder about the meetings. In the year since he + had walked out of the Chicago office his mind had grown more and more + reflective. Little things—a smile on the lips of an ill-clad old man + mumbling and hurrying past him on the street, or the flutter of a child’s + hand from the doorway of a farmhouse—had furnished him food for + hours of thought. Now he watched with interest the little incidents; the + nods, the hand clasps, the hurried stealthy glances around of the men and + women who met for a moment at the corner. On the sidewalk near his doorway + several middle-aged men, evidently from a large hotel around the corner, + were eyeing, with unpleasant, hungry, furtive eyes the women in the crowd. + </p> + <p> + A large blond woman stepped into the doorway beside Sam. “Waiting for some + one?” she asked, smiling and looking steadily at him, with the harried, + uncertain, hungry light he had seen in the eyes of the middle-aged men + upon the sidewalk. + </p> + <p> + “What are you doing here with your husband at work?” he ventured. + </p> + <p> + She looked startled and then laughed. + </p> + <p> + “Why don’t you hit me with your fist if you want to jolt me like that?” + she demanded, adding, “I don’t know who you are, but whoever you are I + want to tell you that I’ve quit my husband.” + </p> + <p> + “Why?” asked Sam. + </p> + <p> + She laughed again and stepping over looked at him closely. + </p> + <p> + “I guess you’re bluffing,” she said. “I don’t believe you know Alf at all. + And I’m glad you don’t. I’ve quit Alf, but he would raise Cain just the + same, if he saw me out here hustling.” + </p> + <p> + Sam stepped out of the doorway and walked down a side street past a + lighted theatre. Along the street women raised their eyes to him and + beyond the theatre, a young girl, brushing against him, muttered, “Hello, + Sport!” + </p> + <p> + Sam wanted to get away from the unhealthy, hungry look he had seen in the + eyes of the men and women. His mind began working on this side of the + lives of great numbers of people in the cities—of the men and women + on the street corner, of the woman who from the security of a safe + marriage had once thrown a challenge into his eyes as they sat together in + the theatre, and of the thousand little incidents in the lives of all + modern city men and women. He wondered how much that eager, aching hunger + stood in the way of men’s getting hold of life and living it earnestly and + purposefully, as he wanted to live it, and as he felt all men and women + wanted at bottom to live it. When he was a boy in Caxton he was more than + once startled by the flashes of brutality and coarseness in the speech and + actions of kindly, well-meaning men; now as he walked in the streets of + the city he thought that he had got past being startled. “It is a quality + of our lives,” he decided. “American men and women have not learned to be + clean and noble and natural, like their forests and their wide, clean + plains.” + </p> + <p> + He thought of what he had heard of London, and of Paris, and of other + cities of the old world; and following an impulse acquired through his + lonely wanderings, began talking to himself. + </p> + <p> + “We are no finer nor cleaner than these,” he said, “and we sprang from the + big clean new land through which I have been walking all these months. + Will mankind always go on with that old aching, queerly expressed hunger + in its blood, and with that look in its eyes? Will it never shrive itself + and understand itself, and turn fiercely and energetically toward the + building of a bigger and cleaner race of men?” + </p> + <p> + “It won’t unless you help,” came the answer from some hidden part of him. + </p> + <p> + Sam fell to thinking of the men who write, and of those who teach, and he + wondered why they did not, all of them, talk more thoughtfully of vice, + and why they so often spent their talents and their energies in futile + attacks upon some phase of life, and ended their efforts toward human + betterment by joining or promoting a temperance league, or stopping the + playing of baseball on Sunday. + </p> + <p> + As a matter of fact were not many writers and reformers unconsciously in + league with the procurer, in that they treated vice and profligacy as + something, at bottom, charming? He himself had seen none of this vague + charm. + </p> + <p> + “For me,” he reflected, “there have been no François Villons or Sapphos in + the tenderloins of American cities. There have been instead only + heart-breaking disease and ill health and poverty, and hard brutal faces + and torn, greasy finery.” + </p> + <p> + He thought of men like Zola who saw this side of life clearly and how he, + as a young fellow in the city, had read the man at Janet Eberly’s + suggestion and had been helped by him—helped and frightened and made + to see. And then there rose before him the leering face of a keeper of a + second-hand book store in Cleveland who some weeks before had pushed + across the counter to him a paper-covered copy of “Nana’s Brother,” saying + with a smirk, “That’s some sporty stuff.” And he wondered what he should + have thought had he bought the book to feed the imagination the + bookseller’s comment was intended to arouse. + </p> + <p> + In the small towns through which Sam walked and in the small town in which + he grew to manhood vice was openly crude and masculine. It went to sleep + sprawling across a dirty beer-soaked table in Art Sherman’s saloon in + Piety Hollow, and the newsboy passed it without comment, regretting that + it slept and that it had no money with which to buy papers. + </p> + <p> + “Dissipation and vice get into the life of youth,” he thought, coming to a + street corner where young men played pool and smoked cigarettes in a dingy + poolroom, and turned back toward the heart of the city. “It gets into all + modern life. The farmer boy coming up to the city to work hears lewd + stories in the smoking car of the train, and the travelling men from the + cities tell tales of the city streets to the group about the stove in + village stores.” + </p> + <p> + Sam did not quarrel with the fact that youth touched vice. Such things + were a part of the world that men and women had made for their sons and + daughters to live in, and that night as he wandered in the streets of + Rochester he thought that he would like all youth to know, if they could + but know, truth. His heart was bitter at the thought of men throwing the + glamour of romance over the sordid, ugly things he had been seeing in that + city and in every city he had known. + </p> + <p> + Past him in a street lined with small frame houses stumbled a man far gone + in drink, by whose side walked a boy, and Sam’s mind leaped back to those + first years he had spent in the city and of the staggering old man he had + left behind him in Caxton. + </p> + <p> + “You would think no man better armed against vice and dissipation than + that painter’s son of Caxton,” he reminded himself, “and yet he embraced + vice. He found, as all young men find, that there is much misleading talk + and writing on the subject. The business men he knew did not part with + able assistance because it did not sign the pledge. Ability was too rare a + thing and too independent to sign pledges, and the + lips-that-touch-liquor-shall-never-touch-mine sentiment among women was + reserved for the lips that did not invite.” + </p> + <p> + He began reviewing incidents of carouses he had been on with business men + of his acquaintance, of a policeman knocked into a street and of himself, + quiet and ably climbing upon tables to make speeches and to shout the + innermost secrets of his heart to drunken hangers-on in Chicago barrooms. + Normally he had not been a good mixer. He had been one to keep himself to + himself. But on these carouses he let himself go, and got a reputation for + daring audacity by slapping men on the back and singing songs with them. A + glowing cordiality had pervaded him and for a time he had really believed + there was such a thing as high flying vice that glistens in the sun. + </p> + <p> + Now stumbling past lighted saloons, wandering unknown in a city’s streets, + he knew better. All vice was unclean, unhealthy. + </p> + <p> + He remembered a hotel in which he had once slept, a hotel that admitted + questionable couples. Its halls had become dingy; its windows remained + unopened; dirt gathered in the corners; the attendants shuffled as they + walked, and leered into the faces of creeping couples; the curtains at the + windows were torn and discoloured; strange snarling oaths, screams, and + cries jarred the tense nerves; peace and cleanliness had fled the place; + men hurried through the halls with hats drawn down over their faces; + sunlight and fresh air and cheerful, whistling bellboys were locked out. + </p> + <p> + He thought of the weary, restless walks taken by the young men from farms + and country towns in the streets of the cities; young men believers in the + golden vice. Hands beckoned to them from doorways, and women of the town + laughed at their awkwardness. In Chicago he had walked in that way. He + also had been seeking, seeking the romantic, impossible mistress that + lurked at the bottom of men’s tales of the submerged world. He wanted his + golden girl. He was like the naïve German lad in the South Water Street + warehouses who had once said to him—he was a frugal soul—“I + would like to find a nice-looking girl who is quiet and modest and who + will be my mistress and not charge anything.” + </p> + <p> + Sam had not found his golden girl, and now he knew she did not exist. He + had not seen the places called by the preachers the palaces of sin, and + now he knew there were no such places. He wondered why youth could not be + made to understand that sin is foul and that immorality reeks of + vulgarity. Why could not they be told plainly that there are no + housecleaning days in the tenderloin? + </p> + <p> + During his married life men had come to the house who discussed this + matter. One of them, he remembered, had maintained stoutly that the + scarlet sisterhood was a necessity of modern life and that ordinary decent + social life could not go on without it. Often during the past year Sam had + thought of the man’s talk and his brain had reeled before the thought. In + towns and on country roads he had seen troops of little girls come + laughing and shouting out of school houses, and had wondered which of them + would be chosen for that service to mankind; and now, in his hour of + depression, he wished that the man who had talked at his dinner table + might be made to walk with him and to share with him his thoughts. + </p> + <p> + Turning again into a lighted busy thoroughfare of the city, Sam continued + his study of the faces in the crowds. To do this quieted and soothed his + mind. He began to feel a weariness in his legs and thought with gratitude + that he should have a night of good sleep. The sea of faces rolling up to + him under the lights filled him with peace. “There is so much of life,” he + thought, “it must come to some end.” + </p> + <p> + Looking intently at the faces, the dull faces and the bright faces, the + faces drawn out of shape and with eyes nearly meeting above the nose, the + faces with long, heavy sensual jaws, and the empty, soft faces on which + the scalding finger of thought had left no mark, his fingers ached to get + a pencil in his hand, or to spread the faces upon canvas in enduring + pigments, to hold them up before the world and to be able to say, “Here + are the faces you, by your lives, have made for yourselves and for your + children.” + </p> + <p> + In the lobby of a tall office building, where he stopped at a little cigar + counter to get fresh tobacco for his pipe, he looked so fixedly at a woman + clad in long soft furs, that in alarm she hurried out to her machine to + wait for her escort, who had evidently gone up the elevator. + </p> + <p> + Once more in the street, Sam shuddered at the thought of the hands that + had laboured that the soft cheeks and the untroubled eyes of this one + woman might be. Into his mind came the face and figure of a little + Canadian nurse who had once cared for him through an illness—her + quick, deft fingers and her muscular little arms. “Another such as she,” + he muttered, “has been at work upon the face and body of this gentlewoman; + a hunter has gone into the white silence of the north to bring out the + warm furs that adorn her; for her there has been a tragedy—a shot, + and red blood upon the snow, and a struggling beast waving its little + claws in the air; for her a woman has worked through the morning, bathing + her white limbs, her cheeks, her hair.” + </p> + <p> + For this gentlewoman also there had been a man apportioned, a man like + himself, who had cheated and lied and gone through the years in pursuit of + the dollars to pay all of the others, a man of power, a man who could + achieve, could accomplish. Again he felt within him a yearning for the + power of the artist, the power not only to see the meaning of the faces in + the street, but to reproduce what he saw, to get with subtle fingers the + story of the achievement of mankind into a face hanging upon a wall. + </p> + <p> + In other days, in Caxton, listening to Telfer’s talk, and in Chicago and + New York with Sue, Sam had tried to get an inkling of the passion of the + artist; now walking and looking at the faces rolling past him on the long + street he thought that he did understand. + </p> + <p> + Once when he was new in the city he had, for some months, carried on an + affair with a woman, the daughter of a cattle farmer from Iowa. Now her + face filled his vision. How rugged it was, how filled with the message of + the ground underfoot; the thick lips, the dull eyes, the strong, + bullet-like head, how like the cattle her father had bought and sold. He + remembered the little room in Chicago where he had his first love passage + with this woman. How frank and wholesome it had seemed. How eagerly both + man and woman had rushed at evening to the meeting place. How her strong + hands had clasped him. The face of the woman in the motor by the office + building danced before his eyes, the face so peaceful, so free from the + marks of human passion, and he wondered what daughter of a cattle raiser + had taken the passion out of the man who paid for the beauty of that face. + </p> + <p> + On a side street, near the lighted front of a cheap theatre, a woman, + standing alone and half concealed in the doorway of a church, called + softly, and turning he went to her. + </p> + <p> + “I am not a customer,” he said, looking at her thin face and bony hands, + “but if you care to come with me I will stand a good dinner. I am getting + hungry and do not like eating alone. I want some one to talk to me so that + I won’t get to thinking.” + </p> + <p> + “You’re a queer bird,” said the woman, taking his arm. “What have you done + that you don’t want to think?” + </p> + <p> + Sam said nothing. + </p> + <p> + “There’s a place over there,” she said, pointing to the lighted front of a + cheap restaurant with soiled curtains at the windows. + </p> + <p> + Sam kept on walking. + </p> + <p> + “If you do not mind,” he said, “I will pick the place. I want to buy a + good dinner. I want a place with clean linen on the table and a good cook + in the kitchen.” + </p> + <p> + They stopped at a corner to talk of the dinner, and at her suggestion he + waited at a near-by drug store while she went to her room. As he waited he + went to the telephone and ordered the dinner and a taxicab. When she + returned she had on a clean shirtwaist and had combed her hair. Sam + thought he caught the odour of benzine, and guessed she had been at work + on the spots on her worn jacket. She seemed surprised to find him still + waiting. + </p> + <p> + “I thought maybe it was a stall,” she said. + </p> + <p> + They drove in silence to a place Sam had in mind, a road-house with clean + washed floors, painted walls, and open fires in the private dining-rooms. + Sam had been there several times during the month, and the food had been + well cooked. + </p> + <p> + They ate in silence. Sam had no curiosity to hear her talk of herself, and + she seemed to have no knack of casual conversation. He was not studying + her, but had brought her as he had said, because of his loneliness, and + because her thin, tired face and frail body, looking out from the darkness + by the church door, had made an appeal. + </p> + <p> + She had, he thought, a look of hard chastity, like one whipped but not + defeated. Her cheeks were thin and covered with freckles, like a boy’s. + Her teeth were broken and in bad repair, though clean, and her hands had + the worn, hardly-used look of his own mother’s hands. Now that she sat + before him in the restaurant, in some vague way she resembled his mother. + </p> + <p> + After dinner he sat smoking his cigar and looking at the fire. The woman + of the streets leaned across the table and touched him on the arm. + </p> + <p> + “Are you going to take me anywhere after this—after we leave here?” + she said. + </p> + <p> + “I am going to take you to the door of your room, that’s all.” + </p> + <p> + “I’m glad,” she said; “it’s a long time since I’ve had an evening like + this. It makes me feel clean.” + </p> + <p> + For a time they sat in silence and then Sam began talking of his home town + in Iowa, letting himself go and expressing the thoughts that came into his + mind. He told her of his mother and of Mary Underwood and she in turn told + of her town and of her life. She had some difficulty about hearing which + made conversation trying. Words and sentences had to be repeated to her + and after a time Sam smoked and looked at the fire, letting her talk. Her + father had been a captain of a small steamboat plying up and down Long + Island Sound and her mother a careful, shrewd woman and a good + housekeeper. They had lived in a Rhode Island village and had a garden + back of their house. The captain had not married until he was forty-five + and had died when the girl was eighteen, the mother dying a year later. + </p> + <p> + The girl had not been much known in the Rhode Island village, being shy + and reticent. She had kept the house clean and helped the captain in the + garden. When her parents were dead she had found herself alone with + thirty-seven hundred dollars in the bank and the little home, and had + married a young man who was a clerk in a railroad office, and sold the + house to move to Kansas City. The big flat country frightened her. Her + life there had been unsuccessful. She had been lonely for the hills and + the water of her New England village, and she was, by nature, + undemonstrative and unemotional, so that she did not get much hold of her + husband. He had undoubtedly married her for the little hoard and, by + various devices, began getting it from her. A son had been born, for a + time her health broke badly, and she discovered through an accident that + her husband was spending her money in dissipation among the women of the + town. + </p> + <p> + “There wasn’t any use wasting words when I found he didn’t care for me or + for the baby and wouldn’t support us, so I left him,” she said in a level, + businesslike way. + </p> + <p> + When she came to count up, after she had got clear of her husband and had + taken a course in stenography, there was one thousand dollars of her + savings left and she felt pretty safe. She took a position and went to + work, feeling well satisfied and happy. And then came the trouble with her + hearing. She began to lose places and finally had to be content with a + small salary, earned by copying form letters for a mail order medicine + man. The boy she put out with a capable German woman, the wife of a + gardener. She paid four dollars a week for him and there was clothing to + be bought for herself and the boy. Her wage from the medicine man was + seven dollars a week. + </p> + <p> + “And so,” she said, “I began going on the street. I knew no one and there + was nothing else to do. I couldn’t do that in the town where the boy + lived, so I came away. I’ve gone from city to city, working mostly for + patent medicine men and filling out my income by what I earned in the + streets. I’m not naturally a woman who cares about men and not many of + them care about me. I don’t like to have them touch me with their hands. I + can’t drink as most of the girls do; it sickens me. I want to be left + alone. Perhaps I shouldn’t have married. Not that I minded my husband. We + got along very well until I had to stop giving him money. When I found + where it was going it opened my eyes. I felt that I had to have at least a + thousand dollars for the boy in case anything happened to me. When I found + there wasn’t anything to do but just go on the streets, I went. I tried + doing other work, but hadn’t the strength, and when it came to the test I + cared more about the boy than I did about myself—any woman would. I + thought he was of more importance than what I wanted. + </p> + <p> + “It hasn’t been easy for me. Sometimes when I have got a man to go with me + I walk along the street praying that I won’t shudder and draw away when he + touches me with his hands. I know that if I do he will go away and I won’t + get any money. + </p> + <p> + “And then they talk and lie about themselves. I’ve had them try to work + off bad money and worthless jewelry on me. Sometimes they try to make love + to me and then steal back the money they have given me. That’s the hard + part, the lying and the pretence. All day I write the same lies over and + over for the patent-medicine men and then at night I listen to these + others lying to me.” + </p> + <p> + She stopped talking and leaning over put her cheek down on her hand and + sat looking into the fire. + </p> + <p> + “My mother,” she began again, “didn’t always wear a clean dress. She + couldn’t. She was always down on her knees scrubbing around the floor or + out in the garden pulling weeds. But she hated dirt. If her dress was + dirty her underwear was clean and so was her body. She taught me to be + that way and I wanted to be. It came naturally. But I’m losing it all. All + evening I have been sitting here with you thinking that my underwear isn’t + clean. Most of the time I don’t care. Being clean doesn’t go with what I + am doing. I have to keep trying to be flashy outside so that men will stop + when they see me on the street. Sometimes when I have done well I don’t go + on the streets for three or four weeks. Then I clean up my room and bathe + myself. My landlady lets me do my washing in the basement at night. I + don’t seem to care about cleanliness the weeks I am on the streets.” + </p> + <p> + The little German orchestra began playing a lullaby, and a fat German + waiter came in at the open door and put more wood on the fire. He stopped + by the table and talked about the mud in the road outside. From another + room came the silvery clink of glasses and the sound of laughing voices. + The girl and Sam drifted back into talk of their home towns. Sam felt that + he liked her very much and thought that if she had belonged to him he + should have found a basis on which to live with her contentedly. She had a + quality of honesty that he was always seeking in people. + </p> + <p> + As they drove back to the city she put a hand on his arm. + </p> + <p> + “I wouldn’t mind about you,” she said, looking at him frankly. + </p> + <p> + Sam laughed and patted her thin hand. “It’s been a good evening,” he said, + “we’ll go through with it as it stands.” + </p> + <p> + “Thanks for that,” she said, “and there is something else I want to tell + you. Perhaps you will think it bad of me. Sometimes when I don’t want to + go on the streets I get down on my knees and pray for strength to go on + gamely. Does it seem bad? We are a praying people, we New Englanders.” + </p> + <p> + As he stood in the street Sam could hear her laboured asthmatic breathing + as she climbed the stairs to her room. Half way up she stopped and waved + her hand at him. The thing was awkwardly done and boyish. Sam had a + feeling that he should like to get a gun and begin shooting citizens in + the streets. He stood in the lighted city looking down the long deserted + street and thought of Mike McCarthy in the jail at Caxton. Like Mike, he + lifted up his voice in the night. + </p> + <p> + “Are you there, O God? Have you left your children here on the earth + hurting each other? Do you put the seed of a million children in a man, + and the planting of a forest in one tree, and permit men to wreck and hurt + and destroy?” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0023" id="link2HCH0023"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VI + </h2> + <p> + One morning, at the end of his second year of wandering, Sam got out of + his bed in a cold little hotel in a mining village in West Virginia, + looked at the miners, their lamps in their caps, going through the dimly + lighted streets, ate a portion of leathery breakfast cakes, paid his bill + at the hotel, and took a train for New York. He had definitely abandoned + the idea of getting at what he wanted through wandering about the country + and talking to chance acquaintances by the wayside and in villages, and + had decided to return to a way of life more befitting his income. + </p> + <p> + He felt that he was not by nature a vagabond, and that the call of the + wind and the sun and the brown road was not insistent in his blood. The + spirit of Pan did not command him, and although there were certain spring + mornings of his wandering days that were like mountain tops in his + experience of life, mornings when some strong, sweet feeling ran through + the trees, and the grass, and the body of the wanderer, and when the call + of life seemed to come shouting and inviting down the wind, filling him + with delight of the blood in his body and the thoughts in his brain, yet + at bottom and in spite of these days of pure joy he was, after all, a man + of the towns and the crowds. Caxton and South Water Street and LaSalle + Street had all left their marks on him, and so, throwing his canvas jacket + into a corner of the room in the West Virginia hotel, he returned to the + haunts of his kind. + </p> + <p> + In New York he went to an uptown club where he owned a membership and into + the grill where he found at breakfast an actor acquaintance named Jackson. + </p> + <p> + Sam dropped into a chair and looked about him. He remembered a visit he + had made there some years before with Webster and Crofts and felt again + the quiet elegance of the surroundings. + </p> + <p> + “Hello, Moneymaker,” said Jackson, heartily. “Heard you had gone to a + nunnery.” + </p> + <p> + Sam laughed and began ordering a breakfast that made Jackson’s eyes open + with astonishment. + </p> + <p> + “You, Mr. Elegance, would not understand a man’s spending month after + month in the open air seeking a good body and an end in life and then + suddenly changing his mind and coming back to a place like this,” he + observed. + </p> + <p> + Jackson laughed and lighted a cigarette. + </p> + <p> + “How little you know me,” he said. “I would live my life in the open but + that I am a mighty good actor and have just finished another long New York + run. What are you going to do now that you are thin and brown? Will you go + back to Morrison and Prince and money making?” + </p> + <p> + Sam shook his head and looked at the quiet elegance of the man before him. + How satisfied and happy he looked. + </p> + <p> + “I am going to try living among the rich and the leisurely,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “They are a rotten crew,” Jackson assured him, “and I am taking a night + train for Detroit. Come with me. We will talk things over.” + </p> + <p> + On the train that night they got into talk with a broad-shouldered old man + who told them of a hunting trip on which he was bound. + </p> + <p> + “I am going to sail from Seattle,” he said, “and go everywhere and hunt + everything. I am going to shoot the head off of every big animal kind of + thing left in the world and then come back to New York and stay there + until I die.” + </p> + <p> + “I will go with you,” said Sam, and in the morning left Jackson at Detroit + and continued westward with his new acquaintance. + </p> + <p> + For months Sam travelled and shot with the old man, a vigorous, + big-hearted old fellow who, having become wealthy through an early + investment in stock of the Standard Oil Company, devoted his life to his + lusty, primitive passion for shooting and killing. They went on lion + hunts, elephant hunts and tiger hunts, and when on the west coast of + Africa Sam took a boat for London, his companion walked up and down the + beach smoking black cheroots and declaring the fun was only half over and + that Sam was a fool to go. + </p> + <p> + After the year of the hunt royal Sam spent another year living the life of + a gentleman of wealth and leisure in London, New York, and Paris. He went + on automobile trips, fished and loafed along the shores of northern lakes, + canoed through Canada with a writer of nature books, and sat about clubs + and fashionable hotels listening to the talk of the men and women of that + world. + </p> + <p> + Late one afternoon in the spring of the year he went to the village on the + Hudson River where Sue had taken a house, and almost immediately saw her. + For an hour he followed, watching her quick, active little figure as she + walked through the village streets, and wondering what life had come to + mean to her, but when, turning suddenly, she would have come face to face + with him, he hurried down a side street and took a train to the city + feeling that he could not face her empty-handed and ashamed after the + years. + </p> + <p> + In the end he started drinking again, not moderately now, but steadily and + almost continuously. One night in Detroit, with three young men from his + hotel, he got drunk and was, for the first time since his parting with + Sue, in the company of women. Four of them, met in some restaurant, got + into an automobile with Sam and the three young men and rode about town + laughing, waving bottles of wine in the air, and calling to passers-by in + the street. They wound up in a diningroom in a place at the edge of town, + where the party spent hours around a long table, drinking, and singing + songs. + </p> + <p> + One of the girls sat on Sam’s lap and put an arm about his neck. + </p> + <p> + “Give me some money, rich man,” she said. + </p> + <p> + Sam looked at her closely. + </p> + <p> + “Who are you?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + She began explaining that she was a clerk in a downtown store and that she + had a lover who drove a laundry wagon. + </p> + <p> + “I go on these bats to get money to buy good clothes,” she said frankly, + “but if Tim saw me here he would kill me.” + </p> + <p> + Putting a bill into her hand Sam went downstairs and getting into a + taxicab drove back to his hotel. + </p> + <p> + After that night he went frequently on carouses of this kind. He was in a + kind of prolonged stupor of inaction, talked of trips abroad which he did + not take, bought a huge farm in Virginia which he never visited, planned a + return to business which he did not execute, and month after month + continued to waste his days. He would get out of bed at noon and begin + drinking steadily. As the afternoon passed he grew merry and talkative, + calling men by their first names, slapping chance acquaintances on the + back, playing pool or billiards with skilful young men intent upon gain. + In the early summer he got in with a party of young men from New York and + with them spent months in sheer idle waste of time. Together they drove + high-powered automobiles on long trips, drank, quarrelled, and went on + board a yacht to carouse, alone or with women. At times Sam would leave + his companions and spend days riding through the country on fast trains, + sitting for hours in silence looking out of the window at the passing + country and wondering at his endurance of the life he led. For some months + he carried with him a young man whom he called a secretary and paid a + large salary for his ability to tell stories and sing clever songs, only + to discharge him suddenly for telling a foul tale that reminded Sam of + another tale told by the stoop-shouldered old man in the office of Ed’s + hotel in the Illinois town. + </p> + <p> + From being silent and taciturn, as during the months of his wanderings, + Sam became morose and combative. Staying on and on in the empty, aimless + way of life he had adopted he yet felt that there was for him a right way + of living and wondered at his continued inability to find it. He lost his + native energy, grew fat and coarse of body, was pleased for hours by + little things, read no books, lay for hours in bed drunk and talking + nonsense to himself, ran about the streets swearing vilely, grew + habitually coarse in thought and speech, sought constantly a lower and + more vulgar set of companions, was brutal and ugly with attendants about + hotels and clubs where he lived, hated life, but ran like a coward to + sanitariums and health resorts at the wagging of a doctor’s head. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0028" id="link2H_4_0028"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + BOOK IV + </h2> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0024" id="link2HCH0024"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER I + </h2> + <p> + One afternoon in early September Sam got on a westward-bound train + intending to visit his sister on the farm near Caxton. For years he had + heard nothing from Kate, but she had, he knew, two daughters, and he + thought he would do something for them. + </p> + <p> + “I will put them on the Virginia farm and make a will leaving them my + money,” he thought. “Perhaps I shall be able to make them happy by setting + them up in life and giving them beautiful clothes to wear.” + </p> + <p> + At St. Louis he got off the train, thinking vaguely that he would see an + attorney and make arrangements about the will, and for several days stayed + about the Planters Hotel with a set of drinking companions he had picked + up. One afternoon he began going from place to place drinking and + gathering companions. An ugly light was in his eyes and he looked at men + and women passing in the streets, feeling that he was in the midst of + enemies, and that for him the peace, contentment, and good cheer that + shone out of the eyes of others was beyond getting. + </p> + <p> + In the late afternoon, followed by a troop of roistering companions, he + came out upon a street flanked with small, brick warehouses facing the + river, where steamboats lay tied to floating docks. + </p> + <p> + “I want a boat to take me and my crowd for a cruise up and down the + river,” he announced, approaching the captain of one of the boats. “Take + us up and down the river until we are tired of it. I will pay what it + costs.” + </p> + <p> + It was one of the days when drink would not take hold of him, and he went + among his companions, buying drinks and thinking himself a fool to + continue furnishing entertainment for the vile crew that sat about him on + the deck of the boat. He began shouting and ordering them about. + </p> + <p> + “Sing louder,” he commanded, tramping up and down and scowling at his + companions. + </p> + <p> + A young man of the party who had a reputation as a dancer refused to + perform when commanded. Springing forward Sam dragged him out on the deck + before the shouting crowd. + </p> + <p> + “Now dance!” he growled, “or I will throw you into the river.” + </p> + <p> + The young man danced furiously, and Sam marched up and down and looked at + him and at the leering faces of the men and women lounging along the deck + or shouting at the dancer. The liquor in him beginning to take effect, a + queerly distorted version of his old passion for reproduction came to him + and he raised his hand for silence. + </p> + <p> + “I want to see a woman who is a mother,” he shouted. “I want to see a + woman who has borne children.” + </p> + <p> + A small woman with black hair and burning black eyes sprang from the group + gathered about the dancer. + </p> + <p> + “I have borne children—three of them,” she said, laughing up into + his face. “I can bear more of them.” + </p> + <p> + Sam looked at her stupidly and taking her by the arm led her to a chair on + the deck. The crowd laughed. + </p> + <p> + “Belle is after his roll,” whispered a short, fat man to his companion, a + tall woman with blue eyes. + </p> + <p> + As the steamer, with its load of men and women drinking and singing songs, + went up the river past bluffs covered with trees, the woman beside Sam + pointed to a row of tiny houses at the top of the bluffs. + </p> + <p> + “My children are there. They are getting supper now,” she said. + </p> + <p> + She began singing, laughing and waving a bottle to the others sitting + along the deck. A youth with heavy features stood upon a chair and sang a + song of the street, and, jumping to her feet, Sam’s companion kept time + with the bottle in her hand. Sam walked over to where the captain stood + looking up the river. + </p> + <p> + “Turn back,” he said, “I am tired of this crew.” + </p> + <p> + On the way back down the river the black-eyed woman again sat beside Sam. + </p> + <p> + “We will go to my house,” she said quietly, “just you and me. I will show + you the kids.” + </p> + <p> + Darkness was gathering over the river as the boat turned, and in the + distance the lights of the city began blinking into view. The crowd had + grown quiet, sleeping in chairs along the deck or gathering in small + groups and talking in low tones. The black-haired woman began to tell Sam + her story. + </p> + <p> + She was, she said, the wife of a plumber who had left her. + </p> + <p> + “I drove him crazy,” she said, laughing quietly. “He wanted me to stay at + home with him and the kids night after night. He used to follow me down + town at night begging me to come home. When I wouldn’t come he would go + away with tears in his eyes. It made me furious. He wasn’t a man. He would + do anything I asked him to do. And then he ran away and left the kids on + my hands.” + </p> + <p> + In the city Sam, with the black-haired woman beside him, rode about in an + open carriage, forgetting the children and going from place to place, + eating and drinking. For an hour they sat in a box at the theatre, but + grew tired of the performance and climbed again into the carriage. + </p> + <p> + “We will go to my house. I want to have you alone,” said the woman. + </p> + <p> + They drove through street after street of workingmen’s houses, where + children ran laughing and playing under the lights, and two boys, their + bare legs flashing in the lights from the lamps overhead, ran after them, + holding to the back of the carriage. + </p> + <p> + The driver whipped the horses and looked back laughing. The woman got up + and kneeling on the seat of the carriage laughed down into the faces of + the running boys. + </p> + <p> + “Run, you little devils,” she cried. + </p> + <p> + They held on, running furiously. Their legs twinkled and flashed under the + lights. + </p> + <p> + “Give me a silver dollar,” she said, turning to Sam, and when he had given + it to her, threw it ringing upon the pavement under a street lamp. The two + boys darted for it, shouting and waving their hands to her. + </p> + <p> + Swarms of huge flies and beetles circled under the street lamps, striking + Sam and the woman in the face. One of them, a great black crawling thing, + alighted on her breast, and taking it in her hand she crept forward and + dropped it down the neck of the driver. + </p> + <p> + In spite of his hard drinking during the afternoon and evening, Sam’s head + was clear and a calm hatred of life burned in him. His mind ran back over + the years he had passed since breaking his word to Sue, and a scorn of all + effort burned in him. + </p> + <p> + “It is what a man gets who goes seeking Truth,” he thought. “He comes to a + fine end in life.” + </p> + <p> + On all sides of him life ran playing on the pavement and leaping in the + air. It circled and buzzed and sang above his head in the summer night + there in the heart of the city. Even in the sullen man sitting in the + carriage beside the black-haired woman it began to sing. The blood climbed + through his body; an old half-dead longing, half hunger, half hope awoke + in him, pulsating and insistent. He looked at the laughing, intoxicated + woman beside him and a feeling of masculine approval shot through him. He + began thinking of what she had said before the laughing crowd on the + steamer. + </p> + <p> + “I have borne three children and can bear more.” + </p> + <p> + His blood, stirred by the sight of the woman, awoke his sleeping brain, + and he began again to quarrel with life and what life had offered him. He + thought that always he would stubbornly refuse to accept the call of life + unless he could have it on his own terms, unless he could command and + direct it as he had commanded and directed the gun company. + </p> + <p> + “Else why am I here?” he muttered, looking away from the vacant, laughing + face of the woman and at the broad, muscular back of the driver on the + seat in front. “Why had I a brain and a dream and a hope? Why went I about + seeking Truth?” + </p> + <p> + His mind ran on in the vein started by the sight of the circling beetles + and the running boys. The woman put her head upon his shoulder and her + black hair blew against his face. She struck wildly at the circling + beetles, laughing like a child when she had caught one of them in her + hand. + </p> + <p> + “Men like me are for some end. They are not to be played with as I have + been,” he muttered, clinging to the hand of the woman, who, also, he + thought, was being tossed about by life. + </p> + <p> + Before a saloon, on a street where cars ran, the carriage stopped. Through + the open front door Sam could see working-men standing before a bar + drinking foaming glasses of beer, the hanging lamps above their heads + throwing their black shadows upon the floor. A strong, stale smell came + out at the door. The woman leaned over the side of the carriage and + shouted. “O Will, come out here.” + </p> + <p> + A man clad in a long white apron and with his shirt sleeves rolled to his + elbows came from behind the bar and talked to her, and when they had + started on she told Sam of her plan to sell her home and buy the place. + </p> + <p> + “Will you run it?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + “Sure,” she said. “The kids can take care of themselves.” + </p> + <p> + At the end of a little street of a half dozen neat cottages, they got out + of the carriage and walked with uncertain steps along a sidewalk skirting + a high bluff and overlooking the river. Below the houses a tangled mass of + bushes and small trees lay black in the moonlight, and in the distance the + grey body of the river showed faint and far away. The undergrowth was so + thick that, looking down, one saw only the tops of the growth, with here + and there a grey outcrop of rocks that glistened in the moonlight. + </p> + <p> + Up a flight of stone steps they climbed to the porch of one of the houses + facing the river. The woman had stopped laughing and hung heavily on Sam’s + arm, her feet groping for the steps. They passed through a door and into a + long, low-ceilinged room. An open stairway at the side of the room went up + to the floor above, and through a curtained doorway at the end one looked + into a small dining-room. A rag carpet lay on the floor and about a table, + under a hanging lamp at the centre, sat three children. Sam looked at them + closely. His head reeled and he clutched at the knob of the door. A boy of + perhaps fourteen, with freckles on his face and on the backs of his hands + and with reddish-brown hair and brown eyes, was reading aloud. Beside him + a younger boy with black hair and black eyes, and with his knees doubled + up on the chair in front of him so that his chin rested on them, sat + listening. A tiny girl, pale and with yellow hair and dark circles under + her eyes, slept in another chair, her head hanging uncomfortably to one + side. She was, one would have said, seven, the black-haired boy ten. + </p> + <p> + The freckle-faced boy stopped reading and looked at the man and woman; the + sleeping child stirred uneasily in her chair, and the black-haired boy + straightened out his legs and looked over his shoulder. + </p> + <p> + “Hello, Mother,” he said heartily. + </p> + <p> + The woman walked unsteadily to the curtained doorway leading into the + dining-room and pulled aside the curtains. + </p> + <p> + “Come here, Joe,” she said. + </p> + <p> + The freckle-faced boy arose and went toward her. She stood aside, + supporting herself with one hand grasping the curtain. As he passed she + struck him with her open hand on the back of the head, sending him reeling + into the dining-room. + </p> + <p> + “Now you, Tom,” she called to the black-haired boy. “I told you kids to + wash the dishes after supper and to put Mary to bed. Here it is past ten + and nothing done and you two reading books again.” + </p> + <p> + The black-haired boy got up and started obediently toward her, but Sam + walked rapidly past him and clutched the woman by the arm so that she + winced and twisted in his grasp. + </p> + <p> + “You come with me,” he said. + </p> + <p> + He walked the woman across the room and up the stairs. She leaned heavily + on his arm, laughing, and looking up into his face. + </p> + <p> + At the top of the stairway he stopped. + </p> + <p> + “We go in here,” she said, pointing to a door. + </p> + <p> + He took her into the room. “You get to sleep,” he said, and going out + closed the door, leaving her sitting heavily on the edge of the bed. + </p> + <p> + Downstairs he found the two boys among the dishes in a tiny kitchen off + the dining-room. The little girl still slept uneasily in the chair by the + table, the hot lamp-light streaming down on her thin cheeks. + </p> + <p> + Sam stood in the kitchen door looking at the two boys, who looked back at + him self-consciously. + </p> + <p> + “Which of you two puts Mary to bed?” he asked, and then, without waiting + for an answer, turned to the taller of the two boys. “Let Tom do it,” he + said. “I will help you here.” + </p> + <p> + Joe and Sam stood in the kitchen at work with the dishes; the boy, going + busily about, showed the man where to put the clean dishes, and got him + dry wiping towels. Sam’s coat was off and his sleeves rolled up. + </p> + <p> + The work went on in half awkward silence and a storm went on within Sam’s + breast. When the boy Joe looked shyly up at him it was as though the lash + of a whip had cut down across flesh, suddenly grown tender. Old memories + began to stir within him and he remembered his own childhood, his mother + at work among other people’s soiled clothes, his father Windy coming home + drunk, and the chill in his mother’s heart and in his own. There was + something men and women owed to childhood, not because it was childhood + but because it was new life springing up. Aside from any question of + fatherhood or motherhood there was a debt to be paid. + </p> + <p> + In the little house on the bluff there was silence. Outside the house + there was darkness and darkness lay over Sam’s spirit. The boy Joe went + quickly about, putting the dishes Sam had wiped on the shelves. Somewhere + on the river, far below the house, a steamboat whistled. The backs of the + hands of the boy were covered with freckles. How quick and competent the + hands were. Here was new life, as yet clean, unsoiled, unshaken by life. + Sam was shamed by the trembling of his own hands. He had always wanted + quickness and firmness within his own body, the health of the body that is + a temple for the health of the spirit. He was an American and down deep + within himself was the moral fervor that is American and that had become + so strangely perverted in himself and others. As so often happened with + him, when he was deeply stirred, an army of vagrant thoughts ran through + his head. The thoughts had taken the place of the perpetual scheming and + planning of his days as a man of affairs, but as yet all his thinking had + brought him to nothing and had only left him more shaken and uncertain + then ever. + </p> + <p> + The dishes were now all wiped and he went out of the kitchen glad to + escape the shy silent presence of the boy. “Has life quite gone from me? + Am I but a dead thing walking about?” he asked himself. The presence of + the children had made him feel that he was himself but a child, a grown + tired and shaken child. There was maturity and manhood somewhere abroad. + Why could he not come to it? Why could it not come into him? + </p> + <p> + The boy Tom returned from having put his sister into bed and the two boys + said good night to the strange man in their mother’s house. Joe, the + bolder of the two, stepped forward and offered his hand. Sam shook it + solemnly and then the younger boy came forward. + </p> + <p> + “I’ll be around here to-morrow I think,” Sam said huskily. + </p> + <p> + The boys were gone, into the silence of the house, and Sam walked up and + down in the little room. He was restless as though about to start on a new + journey and half unconsciously began running his hands over his body + wishing it strong and hard as when he tramped the road. As on the day when + he had walked out of the Chicago Club bound on his hunt for Truth, he let + his mind go so that it played freely over his past life, reviewing and + analysing. + </p> + <p> + For hours he sat on the porch or walked up and down in the room where the + lamp still burned brightly. Again the smoke from his pipe tasted good on + his tongue and all the night air had a sweetness that brought back to him + the walk beside the bridle path in Jackson Park when Sue had given him + herself, and with herself a new impulse in life. + </p> + <p> + It was two o’clock when he lay down upon a couch in the living-room and + blew out the light. He did not undress, but threw his shoes on the floor + and lay looking at a wide path of moonlight that came through the open + door. In the darkness it seemed that his mind worked more rapidly and that + the events and motives of his restless years went streaming past like + living things upon the floor. + </p> + <p> + Suddenly he sat up and listened. The voice of one of the boys, heavy with + sleep, ran through the upper part of the house. + </p> + <p> + “Mother! O Mother!” called the sleepy voice, and Sam thought he could hear + the little body moving restlessly in bed. + </p> + <p> + Silence followed. He sat upon the edge of the couch, waiting. It seemed to + him that he was coming to something; that his brain that had for hours + been working more and more rapidly was about to produce the thing for + which he waited. He felt as he had felt that night as he waited in the + corridor of the hospital. + </p> + <p> + In the morning the three children came down the stairs and finished + dressing in the long room, the little girl coming last, carrying her shoes + and stockings and rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand. A cool + morning wind blew up from the river and through the open screened doors as + he and Joe cooked breakfast, and later as the four of them sat at the + table Sam tried to talk but did not make much progress. His tongue was + heavy and the children seemed looking at him with strange questioning + eyes. “Why are you here?” their eyes asked. + </p> + <p> + For a week Sam stayed in the city, coming daily to the house. With the + children he talked a little, and in the evening, when the mother had gone + away, the little girl came to him. He carried her to a chair on the porch + outside and while the boys sat reading under the lamp inside she went to + sleep in his arms. Her body was warm and the breath came softly and + sweetly from between her lips. Sam looked down the bluffside and saw the + country and the river far below, sweet in the moonlight. Tears came into + his eyes. Was a new sweet purpose growing within him or were the tears but + evidence of self pity? He wondered. + </p> + <p> + One night the black-haired woman again came home far gone in drink, and + again Sam led her up the stairs to see her fall muttering and babbling + upon the bed. Her companion, a little flashily dressed man with a beard, + had run off at the sight of Sam standing in the living-room under the + lamp. The two boys, to whom he had been reading, said nothing, looking + self-consciously at the book upon the table and occasionally out of the + corner of their eyes at their new friend. In a few minutes they too went + up the stairs, and as on that first night, they put out their hands + awkwardly. + </p> + <p> + Through the night Sam again sat in the darkness outside or lay awake on + the couch. “I will make a new try, adopt a new purpose in life now,” he + said to himself. + </p> + <p> + When the children had gone to school the next morning, Sam took a car and + went into the city, going first to a bank to have a large draft cashed. + Then he spent many busy hours going from store to store and buying + clothes, caps, soft underwear, suit cases, dresses, night clothes, and + books. Last of all he bought a large dressed doll. All these things he had + sent to his room at the hotel, leaving a man there to pack the trunks and + suit cases, and get them to the station. A large, motherly-looking woman, + an employé of the hotel, who passed through the hall, offered to help with + the packing. + </p> + <p> + After another visit or two Sam got back upon the car and went again to the + house. In his pockets he had several thousands of dollars in large bills. + He had remembered the power of cash in deals he had made in the past. + </p> + <p> + “I will see what it will do here,” he thought. + </p> + <p> + In the house Sam found the black-haired woman lying on a couch in the + living-room. As he came in at the door she arose unsteadily and looked at + him. + </p> + <p> + “There’s a bottle in the cupboard in the kitchen,” she said. “Get me a + drink. Why do you hang about here?” + </p> + <p> + Sam brought the bottle and poured her a drink, pretending to drink with + her by putting the bottle to his lips and throwing back his head. + </p> + <p> + “What was your husband like?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + “Who? Jack?” she said. “Oh, he was all right. He was stuck on me. He stood + for anything until I brought men home here. Then he got crazy and went + away.” She looked at Sam and laughed. + </p> + <p> + “I didn’t care much for him,” she added. “He couldn’t make money enough + for a live woman.” + </p> + <p> + Sam began talking of the saloon she intended buying. + </p> + <p> + “The children will be a bother, eh?” he said. + </p> + <p> + “I have an offer for the house,” she said. “I wish I didn’t have the kids. + They are a nuisance.” + </p> + <p> + “I have been figuring that out,” Sam told her. “I know a woman in the East + who would take them and raise them. She is wild about kids. I should like + to do something to help you. I might take them to her.” + </p> + <p> + “In the name of Heaven, man, lead them away,” she laughed, and took + another drink from the bottle. + </p> + <p> + Sam drew from his pocket a paper he had secured from a downtown attorney. + </p> + <p> + “Get a neighbour in here to witness this,” he said. “The woman will want + things regular. It releases you from all responsibility for the kids and + puts it on her.” + </p> + <p> + She looked at him suspiciously. “What’s the graft? Who gets stuck for the + fares down east?” + </p> + <p> + Sam laughed and going to the back door shouted to a man who sat under a + tree back of the next house smoking a pipe. + </p> + <p> + “Sign here,” he said, putting the paper before her. “Here is your + neighbour to sign as witness. You do not get stuck for a cent.” + </p> + <p> + The woman, half drunk, signed the paper, after a long doubtful look at + Sam, and when she had signed and had taken another drink from the bottle + lay down again on the couch. + </p> + <p> + “If any one wakes me up for the next six hours they will get killed,” she + declared. It was evident she knew little of what she had done, but at the + moment Sam did not care. He was again a bargainer, ready to take an + advantage. Vaguely he felt that he might be bargaining for an end in life, + for purpose to come into his own life. + </p> + <p> + Sam went quietly down the stone steps and along the little street at the + brow of the hill to the car tracks, and at noon was waiting in an + automobile outside the door of the schoolhouse when the children came out. + </p> + <p> + He drove across the city to the Union Station, the three children + accepting him and all he did without question. At the station they found + the man from the hotel with the trunks and with three bright new suit + cases. Sam went to the express office and putting several bills into an + envelope sealed and sent it to the woman while the three children walked + up and down in the train shed carrying the cases, aglow with the pride of + them. + </p> + <p> + At two o’clock Sam, with the little girl in his arms and with one of the + boys seated on either side of him, sat in a stateroom of a New York flyer—bound + for Sue. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0025" id="link2HCH0025"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER II + </h2> + <p> + Sam McPherson is a living American. He is a rich man, but his money, that + he spent so many years and so much of his energy acquiring, does not mean + much to him. What is true of him is true of more wealthy Americans than is + commonly believed. Something has happened to him that has happened to the + others also, to how many of the others? Men of courage, with strong bodies + and quick brains, men who have come of a strong race, have taken up what + they had thought to be the banner of life and carried it forward. Growing + weary they have stopped in a road that climbs a long hill and have leaned + the banner against a tree. Tight brains have loosened a little. Strong + convictions have become weak. Old gods are dying. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “It is only when you are torn from your mooring and + drift like a rudderless ship I am able to come + near to you.” + </pre> + <p> + The banner has been carried forward by a strong daring man filled with + determination. + </p> + <p> + What is inscribed on it? + </p> + <p> + It would perhaps be dangerous to inquire too closely. We Americans have + believed that life must have point and purpose. We have called ourselves + Christians, but the sweet Christian philosophy of failure has been unknown + among us. To say of one of us that he has failed is to take life and + courage away. For so long we have had to push blindly forward. Roads had + to be cut through our forests, great towns must be built. What in Europe + has been slowly building itself out of the fibre of the generations we + must build now, in a lifetime. + </p> + <p> + In our father’s day, at night in the forests of Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, + and on the wide prairies, wolves howled. There was fear in our fathers and + mothers, pushing their way forward, making the new land. When the land was + conquered fear remained, the fear of failure. Deep in our American souls + the wolves still howl. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + There were moments after Sam came back to Sue, bringing the three + children, when he thought he had snatched success out of the very jaws of + failure. + </p> + <p> + But the thing from which he had all his life been fleeing was still there. + It hid itself in the branches of the trees that lined the New England + roads where he went to walk with the two boys. At night it looked down at + him from the stars. + </p> + <p> + Perhaps life wanted acceptance from him, but he could not accept. Perhaps + his story and his life ended with the home-coming, perhaps it began then. + </p> + <p> + The home-coming was not in itself a completely happy event. There was a + house with a fire at night and the voices of the children. In Sam’s breast + there was a feeling of something alive, growing. + </p> + <p> + Sue was generous, but she was not now the Sue of the bridle path in + Jackson Park in Chicago or the Sue who had tried to remake the world by + raising fallen women. On his arrival at her house, on a summer night, + coming in suddenly and strangely with the three strange children—a + little inclined toward tears and homesickness—she was flustered and + nervous. + </p> + <p> + Darkness was coming on when he walked up the gravel path from the gate to + the house door with the child Mary in his arms and the two boys, Joe and + Tom, walking soberly and solemnly beside him. Sue had just come out at the + front door and stood regarding them, startled and a little frightened. Her + hair was becoming grey, but as she stood there Sam thought her figure + almost boyish in its slenderness. + </p> + <p> + With quick generosity she threw aside the inclination in herself to ask + many questions but there was the suggestion of a taunt in the question she + did ask. + </p> + <p> + “Have you decided to come back to me and is this your home-coming?” she + asked, stepping down into the path and looking not at Sam but at the + children. + </p> + <p> + Sam did not answer at once, and little Mary began to cry. That was a help. + </p> + <p> + “They will all be wanting something to eat and a place to sleep,” he said, + as though coming back to a wife, long neglected, and bringing with him + three strange children were an everyday affair. + </p> + <p> + Although she was puzzled and afraid, Sue smiled and led the way into the + house. Lamps were lighted and the five human beings, so abruptly brought + together, stood looking at each other. The two boys clung to each other + and little Mary put her arms about Sam’s neck and hid her face on his + shoulder. He unloosed her clutching hands and put her boldly into Sue’s + arms. “She will be your mother now,” he said defiantly, not looking at + Sue. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + The evening was got through, blunderingly by himself, Sam thought, and + very nobly by Sue. + </p> + <p> + There was the mother hunger still alive in her. He had shrewdly counted on + that. It blinded her eyes to other things and then a notion had come into + her head and there seemed the possibility of doing a peculiarly romantic + act. Before that notion was destroyed, later in the evening, both Sam and + the children had been installed in the house. + </p> + <p> + A tall strong Negress came into the room, and Sue gave her instructions + regarding food for the children. “They will want bread and milk, and beds + must be found for them,” she said, and then, although her mind was still + filled with the romantic notion that they were Sam’s children by some + other woman, she took her plunge. “This is Mr. McPherson, my husband, and + these are our three children,” she announced to the puzzled and smiling + servant. + </p> + <p> + They went into a low-ceilinged room whose windows looked into a garden. In + the garden an old Negro with a sprinkling can was watering flowers. A + little light yet remained. Both Sam and Sue were glad there was no more. + “Don’t bring lamps, a candle will do,” Sue said, and she went to stand + near the door beside her husband. The three children were on the point of + breaking forth into sobs, but the Negro woman with a quick intuitive sense + of the situation began to chatter, striving to make the children feel at + home. She awoke wonder and hope in the breasts of the boys. “There is a + barn with horses and cows. To-morrow old Ben will show you everything,” + she said, smiling at them. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + A thick grove of elm and maple trees stood between Sue’s house and a road + that went down a hill into a New England village, and while Sue and the + Negro woman put the children to bed, Sam went there to wait. In the feeble + light the trunks of trees could be dimly seen, but the thick branches + overhead made a wall between him and the sky. He went back into the + darkness of the grove and then returned toward the open space before the + house. + </p> + <p> + He was nervous and distraught and two Sam McPhersons seemed struggling for + possession of his person. + </p> + <p> + There was the man he had been taught by the life about him to bring always + to the surface, the shrewd, capable man who got his own way, trampled + people underfoot, went plunging forward, always he hoped forward, the man + of achievement. + </p> + <p> + And then there was another personality, a quite different being + altogether, buried away within him, long neglected, often forgotten, a + timid, shy, destructive Sam who had never really breathed or lived or + walked before men. + </p> + <p> + What of him? The life Sam had led had not taken the shy destructive thing + within into account. Still it was powerful. Had it not torn him out of his + place in life, made of him a homeless wanderer? How many times it had + tried to speak its own word, take entire possession of him. + </p> + <p> + It was trying again now, and again and from old habit Sam fought against + it, thrusting it back into the dark inner caves of himself, back into + darkness. + </p> + <p> + He kept whispering to himself. Perhaps now the test of his life had come. + There was a way to approach life and love. There was Sue. A basis for love + and understanding might be found with her. Later the impulse could be + carried on and into the lives of the children he had found and brought to + her. + </p> + <p> + A vision of himself as a truly humble man, kneeling before life, kneeling + before the intricate wonder of life, came to him, but he was again afraid. + When he saw Sue’s figure, dressed in white, a dim, pale, flashing thing, + coming down steps toward him, he wanted to run away, to hide himself in + the darkness. + </p> + <p> + And he wanted also to run toward her, to kneel at her feet, not because + she was Sue but because she was human and like himself filled with human + perplexities. + </p> + <p> + He did neither of the two things. The boy of Caxton was still alive within + him. With a boyish lift of the head he went boldly to her. “Nothing but + boldness will answer now,” he kept saying to himself. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + They walked in the gravel path before the house and he tried lamely to + tell his story, the story of his wanderings, of his seeking. When he came + to the tale of the finding of the children she stopped in the path and + stood listening, pale and tense in the half light. + </p> + <p> + Then she threw back her head and laughed, nervously, half hysterically. “I + have taken them and you, of course,” she said, after he had stepped to her + and had put his arm about her waist. “My life alone hasn’t turned out to + be a very inspiring affair. I had made up my mind to take them and you, in + the house there. The two years you have been gone have seemed like an age. + What a foolish mistake my mind has made. I thought they must be your own + children by some other woman, some woman you had found to take my place. + It was an odd notion. Why, the older of the two must be nearly fourteen.” + </p> + <p> + They went toward the house, the Negro woman having, at Sue’s command, + found food for Sam and respread the table, but at the door he stopped and + excusing himself stepped again into the darkness under the trees. + </p> + <p> + In the house lamps had been lighted and he could see Sue’s figure going + through a room at the front of the house toward the dining-room. Presently + she returned and pulled the shades at the front windows. A place was being + prepared for him inside there, a shut-in place in which he was to live + what was left of his life. + </p> + <p> + With the pulling of the shades darkness dropped down over the figure of + the man standing just within the grove of trees and darkness dropped down + over the inner man also. The struggle within him became more intense. + </p> + <p> + Could he surrender to others, live for others? There was the house darkly + seen before him. It was a symbol. Within the house was the woman, Sue, + ready and willing to begin the task of rebuilding their lives together. + Upstairs in the house now were the three children, three children who must + begin life as he had once done, who must listen to his voice, the voice of + Sue and all the other voices they would hear speaking words in the world. + They would grow up and thrust out into a world of people as he had done. + </p> + <p> + To what end? + </p> + <p> + There was an end. Sam believed that stoutly. “To shift the load to the + shoulders of children is cowardice,” he whispered to himself. + </p> + <p> + An almost overpowering desire to turn and run away from the house, from + Sue who had so generously received him and from the three new lives into + which he had thrust himself and in which in the future he would have to be + concerned, took hold of him. His body shook with the strength of it, but + he stood still under the trees. “I cannot run away from life. I must face + it. I must begin to try to understand these other lives, to love,” he told + himself. The buried inner thing in him thrust itself up. + </p> + <p> + How still the night had become. In the tree beneath which he stood a bird + moved on some slender branch and there was a faint rustling of leaves. The + darkness before and behind was a wall through which he must in some way + manage to thrust himself into the light. With his hand before him, as + though trying to push aside some dark blinding mass, he moved out of the + grove and thus moving stumbled up the steps and into the house. + </p> + <h3> + THE END + </h3> + <div style="height: 6em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg’s Windy McPherson’s Son, by Sherwood Anderson + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WINDY MCPHERSON’S SON *** + +***** This file should be named 7443-h.htm or 7443-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/7/4/4/7443/ + + +Text file produced by Anne Soulard, Eric Eldred, John R. Bilderback, +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + +HTML file produced by David Widger + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project +Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at + www.gutenberg.org/license. + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the Foundation” + or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the phrase “Project +Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase “Project Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +“Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, “Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.” + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +“Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right +of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm’s +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws. + +The Foundation’s principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at 809 +North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email +contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the +Foundation’s web site and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For forty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + + + +</pre> + + </body> +</html> diff --git a/old/8wmph10.zip b/old/8wmph10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..50d0ae0 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/8wmph10.zip |