In the Heart of a Fool Part 35

Shame on you--you greedy ones, you dollar wors.h.i.+pers--you dam the stream, you muddy the waters, you poison the well of life--shame--shame!" he cried and then paused, gloated perhaps in his pause, for the storm he saw gathering in the crowd, to break. His face was transfigured by the pa.s.sion in his heart and seemed illumined with wrath.

"The flag--the flag!" bawled deaf John Kollander, rising, "He is desecrating Old Glory!"

Then fire met fire and the conflagration was past control. It raged over the church noisily.

"Look-a here, young man," called Joseph Calvin, standing in his seat.

"The flag--will no one defend the flag!" bellowed John Kollander, while Rhoda, his wife, looked on with amiable approval.

"P-put him out," stuttered Kyle Perry, and his clerks and understrappers joined the clamor.

"Well, say, men," cried George Brotherton in the confusion of hissing and groaning, "can't you let the man talk? Is free speech dead in this town?" His great voice silenced the crowd, and John Dexter was in the pulpit holding out his hands. As he spoke the congregation grew silent, and they heard him say:

"This is a free pulpit; this man shall not be disturbed." But Joseph Calvin stamped noisily out of the church. John Kollander and his wife marched out behind him with military tread and Kyle Perry and Ahab Wright with their families followed, amid a shuffling of feet and a clamor of voices. The men from South Harvey kept their places. There was a whispering among them and Grant, fearing that they would start trouble, called to them sternly:

"My friends must respect this house. Let property riot--poverty can wait. It has waited a long time and is used to it."

When Market Street was gone, the speaker drew a deep breath and said in a low, quiet voice charged with pent-up emotion: "Now that we are alone, friends,--now that they are gone whose hearts needed this message, let me say just this: G.o.d has given you who live beautiful lives the keeping of his treasure. Let us ask ourselves this: Shall we keep it to share it with our brethren in love, or shall we guard it against our brethren in hate?"

He walked back to the rear of the room and sat, with his head bowed down, beside his friends, spent and weary while the services closed.

At the church door Laura Van Dorn saw the despair that was somewhat a physical reaction from weariness. So she cut her way through the group and went to him, taking his arm and drawing him aside into the homebound walk, as quickly as she could. He remained grim and spoke only in answer to challenge or question from Laura. It was plain to her that he felt that his speech was a failure; that he had not made himself understood; that he had overstated his case. She was not sure herself that he had not lost more ground than he had gained in the town. But she wrapped him about in a garment of kindness--an almost maternal tenderness that was balm to his heart. She did not praise his speech but she let him know that she was proud of him, that her heart was in all that he had said, even if he felt definitely that there were places in his adventure where her head was not ready to go. She held no check upon the words that came to her lips, for she felt, even deeper and surer than she felt her own remoteness from the love which her girlhood had known, that in him it was forever dead. No touch of his hand; no look of his eye, no quality of his voice had come to her since her childhood, in which she could find trace or suggestion that s.e.x was alive in him. The ardor that burned so wildly upon his face, the fire in his eyes that glowed when he spoke of his work and his problems, seemed to have charred within him all flower and beauty of romance. But they left with him a hunger for sympathy. A desire to be mothered and a longing for a deep and sweet understanding which made Laura more and more necessary to him as he went into his life's pilgrimage. As they reached a corner, he left her with her family while he turned away for a night walk.

As he walked, he was continually coming upon lovers pa.s.sing or meeting him in the night; and Grant seeing them felt his sense of isolation from life renewed, but was not stirred to change his course. For hours he wandered through the town and out of it into the prairies, with his heart heavy and wroth at the iniquities of men which make the inequities of life. For his demon kept him from sleep. If another demon, and perhaps a gentler, tried to whisper to him that night of another life and a sweeter, tried to turn him from his course into the normal walks of man, tried to break his purpose and tempt him to dwell in the comely tents of Kedar--if some gentler angels that would have saved him from a harsher fate had beckoned to him and called him that night, through pa.s.sing lovers' arms and the murmur of loving voices, his eyes were blind and his ears were deaf and his heart was hot with another pa.s.sion.

Amos Adams was in bed when Grant came into the house. On the table was a litter of writing paper. Grant sat down for a minute under the lamp. His father in the next room stirred, and asked:

"What kept you?" And then, "I had a terrific time with Mr. Left to-night." The father appeared in the doorway. "But just look there what I got after a long session."

On the page were these words written in a little round, old-fas.h.i.+oned hand, some one's interminably repeated prayer. "Angels guide him--angels strengthen him; angels pray for him." These words were penned clear across the page and on the next line and the next and the next to the very bottom of the page, in a weary monotony, save that at the bottom of the sheet the pen had literally run into the paper, so heavily was the hand of the writer bearing down! Under that, written in the fine hand used by Mr. Left was this:

"Huxley:--On earth I wrote that I saw one angel--'the strong, calm angel playing for love.' Now I see the forces of good leading the world forward, compelling progress; all are personal--just as the Great All Encompa.s.sing Force is personal, just as human consciousness is personal.

The positive forces of life are angels--not exact--but the best figure.

So it is true that was written, 'there is more joy in Heaven'--and 'the angels sang for joy.' This also is only a figure--but the best I can get through to you. Angels guide us, angels strengthen us, angels pray for us."

CHAPTER x.x.xI

IN WHICH JUDGE VAN DORN MAKES HIS BRAGS AND DR. NESBIT SEES A VISION

It was the last day of the last year of the Nineteenth Century--and a fair, beautiful day it was. The sun shone over Harvey in spite of the clouds from the smelter in South Harvey, and in spite of the clouds that were blown by the soft, south wind up the Wahoo Valley from other smelters and other coal mines, and a score of great smoke stacks in Foley and Magnus and Plain Valley, where the discovery of coal and oil and gas, within the decade that was pa.s.sing, had turned the Valley into a straggling town almost twenty miles long. So high and busy were the chimneys that when the south wind blew toward the capital of this industrial community, often the sun was dimmed in Harvey by a haze. But on this fair winter's day the air was dry and cold and even in Harvey shadows were black and clear, and the sun's warmth had set the redbirds to singing in the brush and put so much joy into the world that Judge Thomas Van Dorn had ventured out with his new automobile--a chugging, clattering wonder that set all the horses of Greeley County on their hind feet, making him a person of distinction in the town far beyond his renown as a judge and an orator and a person of more than state-wide reputation. But the Judge's automobile was frail and p.r.o.ne to err--being not altogether unlike its owner in that regard. Thus many a time when it chugged out of his barn so proudly, it came limping back behind a span of mules. And so it happened on that bright, beautiful, December day that the Judge was sitting upon a box in Captain Morton's shop, while the Captain at his little forge was welding some bits of metal together and discoursing upon the virtues of his Household Horse, which he was a.s.sembling in small quant.i.ties--having arranged with a firm in South Chicago to cast the two iron pieces that were needed.

"Now, for instance, on a clothes wringer," the Captain was saying: "It's a perfect wonder on a clothes wringer: I have the agency of a clothes wringer that is making agents rich all over the country. But women don't like clothes wringers; why? Because they require such hard work. All right--hitch on my Household Horse, and the power required is reduced three-fifths and a day's wash may be put on the line as easy as a girl could play The Maiden's Prayer on a piano--eh? Or, say, put it on a churn--same Horse--one's all that's needed to a house. Or make it an ice cream freezer or a cradle or a sewing machine, or anything on earth that runs by a crank--and 'y gory, man, you make housework a joy. I sold Laura one--traded her one for lessons for Ruth, and she says wash-day at the Doctor's is like Sunday now--what say? Lila's so crazy about it they can't keep her out of the bas.e.m.e.nt while the woman works,--likes to dabble in the water you know like all children, was.h.i.+ng her doll clothes, what say?"

But the Judge said nothing. The Captain tinkered with the metal, and dipped it slowly in and out of a tub of dirty water to temper it, and as he tried it in the groove where it belonged upon the automobile backed up to the shop, he found that it was not exactly true, and went to work to spring it back into line. The Judge looked around the shop--a barny, little place filled with all sorts of wheels and pulleys and levers and half-finished inventions that wouldn't work, and that, even if they would work, would be of little consequence. There was an attempt to make a self-oiler for buggy wheels, a half-finished contrivance that was supposed to keep cordwood stacked in neat rows; an automatic contraption to prevent coffeepots from burning; a cornsh.e.l.ler that would all but work; a mola.s.ses faucet with an alcohol burner which was supposed to make the sirup flow faster--but which instead sometimes blew up and burned down grocery stores, and there were steamers and churns and household contrivances which the Captain had introduced into the homes of Harvey in past years, not of his invention, to be sure, but contrivances that had inspired his eloquence, and were mute witnesses to his prowess--trophies of the chase. Above the forge were rows of his patent sprockets, all neatly wrapped in brown paper, and under this row of merchandise was a clipping from the _Times_ describing the Captain's invention, and predicting--at five cents a line--that it would revolutionize the theory of mechanics and soon become a household need all over the world.

As the Judge looked idly at the Captain's treasures while the Captain tinkered with the steel, he took off his hat, and the Captain, peering through his gla.s.ses, remarked:

"Getting kind of thin on top, Tom--eh? Doc, he's leaning a little hard on his cane. Joe Calvin, he's getting rheumatic, and you're getting thin-haired. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away."

"So you believe the Lord runs things here in Harvey, do you, Cap?" asked the Judge, who was playing with a bit of wire.

"Well--I suppose if you come right down to it," answered the Captain, "a man's got to have the consolation of religion in some shape or other or he's going to get mighty discouraged--what say?"

"Why," scoffed the Judge, "it's a myth--there's nothing to it. Look at my wife--I mean Margaret--she changes religion as often as she changes dogs. Since we've been married she's had three religions. And what good does it do her?"

The Captain, sighting down the edge of the metal, shook his head, and the Judge went on: "What good does any religion do? I've broken the ten commandments, every one of them--and I get on. No one bothers me, because I keep inside the general statutes. I've beat G.o.d at his own game. I tell you, Cap, you can do what you please just so you obey the state and federal laws and pay your debts. This G.o.d-myth amuses me."

Captain Morton did not care to argue with the Judge. So he said, by way of making conversation for a customer, and neighbor and guest:

"I hear, well, to be exact, George Brotherton was telling me and the girls the other night that the Company is secretly dropping out the members of the unions that Grant Adams has been organizing down in South Harvey."

"Yes--that Adams is another one of your canting, G.o.d-and-morality fellows. Always watch that kind. I tell you, Captain," barked the Judge, "about the only thing my wife and I have agreed on for a year is that this Adams fellow is a sneaking, pharisaical hound. Lord, how she hates him! Sometimes I think women hate hard enough to compete with your G.o.d, who according to the preachers, is always slipping around getting even with fellows for their sins. G.o.d and women are very much alike, anyway,"

sneered the Judge. In the silence that followed, both men were attracted by a noise behind them--the rustling of straw. They looked around and saw the figure of a little girl--a yellow-haired, blue-eyed, shy, little girl, trying to slip out of the place. She had evidently been in the loft gathering eggs, for her ap.r.o.n was full, and she had her foot on the loft ladder.

"Why, Lila, child," exclaimed the Captain, "I clean forgot you being up there--did you find any eggs? Why didn't you come down long ago?"

"Come here, Lila," called the Judge. The child stood by the ladder hesitatingly, holding her little ap.r.o.n corners tightly in her teeth basketing the eggs--too embarra.s.sed now that she was down the ladder, to use her hands.

"Lila," coaxed the Judge, reaching his hand into his pocket, "won't you let Papa give you a dollar for candy or something. Come on, daughter."

He put out his hands. She shook her head. She had to pa.s.s him to get to the door. "You aren't afraid of your Papa are you, Lila--come--here's a dollar for you--that's a good girl."

Her mouth quivered. Big tears were dropping down her cheeks. The Captain's quick eye saw that something had hurt her. He went over to her, put his arm about her, took the eggs from her ap.r.o.n, fondled her gently without speaking. The Judge drew nearer "Lila--come--that's a good girl--here, take the money. Oh Lila, Lila," he cried, "won't you take it for Papa--won't you, my little girl?"

The child looked up at him with shy frightened eyes, and suddenly she put down her head and ran past him. He tried to hold her--to put the silver into her hand, but she shrank away and dropped the coin before him.

"Shy child, Judge--very shy. Emma let her gather the eggs this morning, she loves to hunt eggs," chuckled the Captain, "and she went to the loft just before you came in. I clean forgot she hadn't come down."

The Captain went on with his work.

"I suppose, Cap," said Van Dorn quietly, "she heard more or less of what I said." The Captain nodded.

"How much did she understand?" the Judge asked.

"More'n you'd think, Judge--more'n you'd think. But," added Captain Morton after a pause, "I know the little skite like a top, Judge--and there's one thing about her: She's a loyal little body. She'll never tell; you needn't be worrying about that."

The Judge sighed and added sadly: "It wasn't that, Cap--it was--" But the Judge left his sentence in the air. The mending was done. The Judge paid the old man and gave him a dollar more than he asked, and went chugging off in a cloud of smoke, while the Captain, thinking over what the Judge had said, sighed, shook his head, and bending over his work, cackled in an undertone, s.n.a.t.c.hes of a tune that told of a land that is fairer than day. He had put together three sprockets and was working on the fourth when he looked up and saw his daughter Emma sitting on the box that the Judge had vacated. The Captain put his hand to his back and stood up, looking at his eldest daughter with loving pride.

"Emma," he said at length, "Judge Tom says women are like G.o.d." He stood near her and smoothed her hair, and patted her cheek as he pressed her head against his side. "I guess he's right--eh? Lila was in the loft getting eggs and she overheard a lot of his fool talk." The daughter made no reply. The Captain worked on and finally said: "It kind of hit Tom hard to have Lila hear him; took the tuck out of him, eh?"

Emma still waited. "My dear, the more I know of women the better I think of G.o.d, and the surer I am of G.o.d, the better I think of women--what say?" He sat on the box beside her and took her hand in his hard, cracked, grimy hand, "'Y gory, girl, I tell you, give me a line on a man's idea of G.o.d and I can tell you to a tee what he thinks of women--eh?" The Captain dropped the hand for a moment and looked out of the door into the alley.

"Well, Father, I agree with you in general about women but in particular I don't care about Mrs. Herd.i.c.ker and I wish Martha had another job, though I suppose it's better than teaching school." The daughter sighed.

"Honest, father, sometimes when I've been on my feet all day, and the children have been mean, and the janitor sticks his head in and grins, so I'll know the superintendent is in the building and get the work off the board that the rules don't allow me to put on, or one of the other girls sends a note up to watch for my spelling for he's cranky on spelling to-day, I just think, 'Lordee, if I had a job in some one's kitchen, I'd be too happy to breathe.' But then--"

"Yes--yes, child--I know it's hard work now--but 'y gory, Emmy, when I get this sprocket introduced and going, I'll buy you six superintendents in a bra.s.s cage and let you feed 'em biled eggs to make 'em sing--eh?"