Because, way beyond the voice of Dr. Bunting she heard the songs of far-away birds, and because beneath the rumble of a printing press she could get the babble of a brook, because Z was near and life was strong, the woman vanquished the girl, and she threw this over to his desk:
“CHAFING-DISH, n. That out of which Miss Noah asks Mr. Webster to eat his Sunday night lunch tomorrow. All the other Miss Noahs are going to be away, and if Mr. Webster does not come, Miss Noah will be all alone. Miss Noah does not like to be lonely.”
She ate no lunch that day; she only drank a cup of coffee and walked around.
He did not come back that afternoon. It passed from one to two, from two to three, and then very slowly from three to four, and still he had not come.
He too was walking about. He had walked down to the lake and was standing there looking out across it.
Why not?—he was saying to himself—fiercely, doggedly. Over and over again—Well,whynot?
A hundred nights, alone in his room, he had gone over it. Had not life used him hard enough to give him a little now?—longing had pleaded. And now there was a new voice—more prevailing voice—the voice of her happiness. His face softened to an almost maternal tenderness as he listened to that voice.
Too worn to fight any longer, he gave himself up to it, and sat there dreaming. They were dreams of joy rushing in after lonely years, dreams of stepping into the sunlight after long days in fog and cold, dreams of a woman before a fireplace—her arms about him, her cheer and her tenderness, her comradeship and her passion—all his to take! Ah, dreams which even thoughts must not touch—so wonderful and sacred they were.
A long time he sat there, dreaming dreams and seeing visions. The force that rules the race was telling him that the one crime was the denial of happiness—his happiness, her happiness; and when at last his fight seemed but a puerile fight against forces worlds mightier than he, he rose, and as one who sees a great light, started back toward Dearborn Street.
On the way he began to cough. The coughing was violent, and he stepped into a doorway to gain breath. And after he had gone in there he realised that it was the building of Chicago's greatest newspaper.
He had been city editor of that paper once. Facts, the things he knew about himself, talked to him then. There was no answer.
It left him weak and dizzy and crazy for a drink. He walked on slowly, unsteadily, his white face set. For he had vowed that if it took the last nerve in his body there should be no more of that until after they had finished with Z. He knew himself too well to vow more. He was not even sure of that.
He did not turn in where he wanted to go, but resistance took the last bit of force that was in him. He was trembling like a sick man when he stepped into the elevator.
She was just leaving. She was in the little cloak room putting on her things. She was all alone in there.
He stepped in. He pushed the door shut, and stood there leaning against it, looking at her, saying nothing.
“Oh—you are ill?” she gasped, and laid a frightened hand upon him.
The touch crazed him. All resistance gone, he swept her into his arms; he held her fiercely, and between sobs kissed her again and again. He could not let her go. He frightened her. He hurt her. And he did not care—he did not know.
Then he held her off and looked at her. And as he looked into her eyes, passion melted to tenderness. It was she now—not he; love—not hunger. Holding her face in his two hands, looking at her as if getting something to take away, his white lips murmured words too inarticulate for her to hear. And then again he put his arms around her—all differently. Reverently, sobbingly, he kissed her hair. And then he was gone.
He did not come out that Sunday afternoon, but Harold dropped in instead, and talked of some athletic affairs over at the university. She wondered why she did not go crazy in listening to him, and yet she could answer intelligently. It was queer—what onecoulddo.
They had come at last to Z. There would be no more work upon the dictionary after that day. And it was raining—raining as in Chicago alone it knows how to rain.
They wrote no notes to each other now. It had been different since that day. They made small effort to cover their raw souls with the mantle of commonplace words.
Both of them had tried to stay away that last day. But both were in their usual places.
The day wore on eventlessly. Those men with whom she had worked, the men of yesterday, who had been kind to her, came up at various times for little farewell chats. The man in the skull cap told her that she had done excellent work. She was surprised at the ease with which she could make decent reply, thinking again that it was queer—what one could do.
He was moving. She saw him lay some sheets of yellow paper on the desk in front. He had finished with his “take.” There would not be another to give him. He would go now.
He came back to his desk. She could hear him putting away his things. And then for a long time there was no sound. She knew that he was just sitting there in his chair.
Then she heard him get up. She heard him push his chair up to the table, and then for a minute he stood there. She wanted to turn toward him; she wanted to say something—do something. But she had no power.
She saw him lay an envelope upon her desk. She heard him walking away. She knew, numbly, that his footsteps were not steady. She knew that he had stopped; she was sure that he was looking back. But still she had no power.
And then she heard him go.
Even then she went on with her work; she finished her “take” and laid down her pencil. It was finished now—and he had gone. Finished?—Gone?She was tearing open the envelope of the letter.
This was what she read:
“Little dictionary sprite, sunshine vender, and girl to be loved, if I were a free man I would say to you—Come, little one, and let us learn of love. Let us learn of it, not as one learns from dictionaries, but let us learn from the morning glow and the evening shades. But Miss Noah, maker of dictionaries and creeper into hearts, the bound must not call to the free. They might fittingly have used my name as one of the synonyms under that word Failure, but I trust not under Coward.
“And now, you funny little Miss Noah from the University of Chicago, don't I know that your heart is blazing forth the assurance that you don'tcarefor any of those things—the world, people, common sense—that you want just love? They made a grand failure of you out at your university; they taught you philosophy and they taught you Greek, and they've left you just as much the woman as women were five thousand years ago. Oh, I know all about you—you little girl whose hair tried so hard to be red. Your soul touched mine as we sat there writing words—words—words, the very words in which men try to tell things, and can't—and I know all about what you would do. But you shall not do it. Dear little copy maker, would a man standing out on the end of a slippery plank have any right to cry to someone on the shore—'Come out here on this plank with me?' If he loved the someone on the shore, would he not say instead—'Don't get on this plank?' Me get off the plank—come with you to the shore—you are saying? But you see, dear, you only know slippery planks as viewed from the shore—God grant you may never know them any other way!
“It was you, was it not, who wrote our definition of happiness? Yes, I remember the day you did it. You were so interested; your cheeks grew so very red, and you pulled and pulled at your wavy hair. You said it was such an important definition. And so it is, Miss Noah, quite the most important of all. And on the page of life, Miss Noah, may happiness be written large and unblurred for you. It is because I cannot help you write it that I turn away. I want at least to leave the page unspoiled.
“I carry a picture of you. I shall carry it always. You are sitting before a fireplace, and I think of that fireplace as symbolising the warmth and care and tenderness and the safety that will surround you. And sometimes as you sit there let a thought of me come for just a minute, Miss Noah—not long enough nor deep enough to bring you any pain. But only think—I brought him happiness after he believed all happiness had gone. He was so grateful for that light which came after he thought the darkness had settled down. It will light his way to the end.
“We've come to Z, and it's good-bye. There is one thing I can give you without hurting you,—the hope, the prayer, that life may be very, very good to you.”
The sheets of paper fell from her hands. She sat staring out into Dearborn Street. She began to see. After all, he had not understood her. Perhaps men never understood women; certainly he had not understood her. What he did not know was that she was willing topayfor her happiness—pay—pay any price that might be exacted. And anyway—she had no choice. Strange that he could not see that! Strange that he could not see the irony and cruelty of bidding her good-bye and then telling her to be happy!
It simplified itself to such an extent that shegrewvery calm. It would be easy to find him, easy to make him see—for it was so very simple—and then....
She turned in her copy. She said good-bye quietly, naturally, rode down in the lumbering old elevator and started out into the now drenching rain toward the elevated trains which would take her to the West Side; it was so fortunate that she had heard him telling one day where he lived.
When she reached the station she saw that more people were coming down the stairs than were going up. They were saying things about the trains, but she did not heed them. But at the top of the stairs a man in uniform said: “Blockade, Miss. You'll have to take the surface cars.”
She was sorry, for it would delay her, and there was not a minute to lose. She was dismayed, upon reaching the surface cars, to find she could not get near them; the rain, the blockade on the “L” had caused a great crowd to congregate there. She waited a long time, getting more and more wet, but it was impossible to get near the cars. She thought of a cab, but could see none, they too having all been pressed into service.
She determined, desperately, to start and walk. Soon she would surely get either a cab or a car. And so she started, staunchly, though she was wet through now, and trembling with cold and nervousness.
As she hurried through the driving rain she faced things fearlessly. Oh yes, she understood—everything. But if he were not well—should he not have her with him? If he had that thing to fight, did he not need her help? What did men think women were like? Did he think she was one to sit down and reason out what would be advantageous? Better a little while with him on a slippery plank than forever safe and desolate upon the shore!
She never questioned her going; were not life and love too great to be lost through that which could be so easily put right?
The buildings were reeling, the streets moving up and down—that awful rain, she thought, was making her dizzy. Labouriously she walked on—more slowly, less steadily, a pain in her side, that awful reeling in her head.
Carriages returning to the city were passing her, but she had not strength to call to them, and it seemed if she walked to the curbing she would fall. She was not thinking so clearly now. The thing which took all of her force was the lifting of her feet and the putting them down in the right place. Her throat seemed to be closing up—and her side—and her head....
Someone had her by the arm. Then someone was speaking her name; speaking it in surprise—consternation—alarm.
It was Harold.
It was all vague then. She knew that she was in a carriage, and that Harold was talking to her kindly. “You're taking me there?” she murmured.
“Yes—yes, Edna, everything's all right,” he replied soothingly.
“Everything's all right,” she repeated, in a whisper, and leaned her head back against the cushions.
They stopped after a while, and Harold was standing at the open door of the cab with something steaming hot which he told her to drink. “You need it,” he said decisively, and thinking it would help her to tell it, she drank it down.
The world was a little more defined after that, and she saw things which puzzled her. “Why, it looks like the city,” she whispered, her throat too sore now to speak aloud.
“Why sure,” he replied banteringly; “don't you know we have to go through the city to get out to the South Side?”
“Oh, but you see,” she cried, holding her throat, “but you see, it's theotherway!”
“Not to-night,” he insisted; “the place for you to-night is home. I'm taking you where you belong.”
She reached over wildly, trying to open the door, but he held her back; she began to cry, and he talked to her, gently but unbendingly. “But you don'tunderstand!” she whispered, passionately. “I'vegotto go!”
“Not to-night,” he said again, and something in the way he said it made her finally huddle back in the corner of the carriage.
Block after block, mile after mile, they rode on in silence. She felt overpowered. And with submission she knew that it was Z. For the whole city was piled in between. Great buildings were in between, and thousands of men running to and fro on the streets; man, and all man had builded up, were in between. And then Harold—Harold who had always seemed to count for so little, had come and taken her away.
Dully, wretchedly—knowing that her heart would ache far worse to-morrow than it did to-night—she wondered about things. Did things like rain and street-cars and wet feet and a sore throat determine life? Was it that way with other people, too? Did other people have barriers—whole cities full of them—piled in between? And then did the Harolds come and take them where they said they belonged? Were there notsomepeople strong enough to go where they wanted to go?
The elements without were not in harmony with the spirit which it was desired should be engendered within. By music, by gay decorations, by speeches from prominent men, the board in charge of the boys' reformatory was striving to throw about this dedication of the new building an atmosphere of cheerfulness and good-will—an atmosphere vibrant with the kindness and generosity which emanated from the State, and the thankfulness and loyalty which it was felt should emanate from the boys.
Outside the world was sobbing. Some young trees which had been planted along the driveway of the reformatory grounds, and which were expected to grow up in the way they should go, were rocking back and forth in passionate insurrection. Fallen leaves were being spit viciously through the air. It was a sullen-looking landscape which Philip Grayson, he who was to be the last speaker of the afternoon, saw stretching itself down the hill, across the little valley, and up another little hill of that rolling prairie state. In his ears was the death wail of the summer. It seemed the spirit of out-of-doors was sending itself up in mournful, hopeless cries.
The speaker who had been delivering himself of pedantic encouragement about the open arms with which the world stood ready to receive the most degraded one, would that degraded one but come to the world in proper spirit, sat down amid perfunctory applause led by the officers and attendants of the institution, and the boys rose to sing. The brightening of their faces told that their work as performers was more to their liking than their position as auditors. They threw back their heads and waited with well-disciplined eagerness for the signal to begin. Then, with the strength and native music there are in some three hundred boys' throats, there rolled out the words of the song of the State.
There were lips which opened only because they must, but as a whole they sang with the same heartiness, the same joy in singing, that he had heard a crowd of public-school boys put into the song only the week before. When the last word had died away it seemed to Philip Grayson that the sigh of the world without was giving voice to the sigh of the world within as the well-behaved crowd of boys sat down to resume their duties as auditors.
And then one of the most important of the professors from the State University was telling them about the kindness of the State: the State had provided for them this beautiful home; it gave them comfortable clothing and nutritious food; it furnished that fine gymnasium in which to train their bodies, books and teachers to train their minds; it provided those fitted to train their souls, to work against the unfortunate tendencies—the professor stumbled a little there—which had led to their coming. The State gave liberally, gladly, and in return it asked but one thing: that they come out into the world and make useful, upright citizens, citizens of which any State might be proud. Was that asking too much? the professor from the State University was saying.
The sobbing of the world without was growing more intense. Many pairs of eyes from among the auditors were straying out to where the summer lay dying. Did they know—those boys whom the State classed as unfortunates—that out of this death there would come again life? Or did they see but the darkness—the decay—of to-day?
The professor from the State University was putting the case very fairly. There were no flaws—seemingly—to be picked in his logic. The State had been kind; the boys were obligated to good citizenship. But the coldness!—comfortlessness!—of it all. The open arms of the world!—how mocking in its abstractness. What did it mean? Did it mean that they—the men who uttered the phrase so easily—would be willing to give these boys aid, friendship when they came out into the world? What would they say, those boys whose ears were filled with high-sounding, non-committal phrases, if some man were to stand before them and say, “And so, fellows, when you get away from this place, and are ready to get your start in the world, just come around to my office and I'll help you get a job?” At thought of it there came from Philip Grayson a queer, partly audible laugh, which caused those nearest him to look his way in surprise.
But he was all unconscious of their looks of inquiry, absorbed in the thoughts that crowded upon him. How far away the world—his kind of people—must seem to these boys of the State Reform School. The speeches they had heard, the training that had been given them, had taught them—unconsciously perhaps, but surely—to divide the world into two great classes: the lucky and the unlucky, those who made speeches and those who must listen, the so-called good and the so-called bad; perhaps—he smiled a little at his own cynicism—those who were caught and those who were not.
There came to him these words of a poet of whom he used to be fond:
In men whom men pronounce as ill,I find so much of goodness still;In men whom men pronounce divine,I find so much of sin and blot;I hesitate to draw the lineBetween the two, when God has not.
When God has not! He turned and looked out at the sullen sky, returning—as most men do at times—to that conception of his childhood that somewhere beyond the clouds was God. God! Did God care for the boys of the State Reformatory? Was that poet of the western mountains right when he said that God was not a drawer of lines, but a seer of the good that was in the so-called bad, and of the bad in the so-called good, and a lover of them both?
If that was God, it was not the God the boys of the reformatory had been taught to know. They had been told that God would forgive the wicked, but it had been made clear to them—if not in words, in implications—that it was they who were the wicked. And the so-called godly men, men of such exemplary character as had been chosen to address them that afternoon, had so much of the spirit of God that they, too, were willing to forgive, be tolerant, and—he looked out at the bending trees with a smile—disburse generalities about the open arms of the world.
What would they think—those three hundred speech-tired boys—if some man who had been held before them as exemplary were to rise and lay bare his own life—its weaknesses, its faults, perhaps its crimes—and tell them there was weakness and there was strength in every human being, and that the world-old struggle of life was to overcome one's weakness with one's strength.
The idea took strange hold on him. It seemed the method of the world—at any rate it had been the method of that afternoon—for the men who stood before their fellows with clean hands to plant themselves on the far side of a chasm of conventions, or narrow self-esteem, or easily won virtue, and cry to those beings who struggled on the other side of that chasm—to those human beings whose souls had never gone to school: “Look at us! Our hands are clean, our hearts are pure. See how beautiful it is to be good! Come ye, poor sinners, and be good also.” And the poor sinners, the untaught, birthmarked human souls, would look over at the self-acclaimed goodness they could see far across the chasm, and even though attracted to it (which, he grimly reflected, would not seem likely) the thing that was left with them was a sense of the width of the chasm.
He had a sense of needless waste, of unnecessary blight. He looked down at those three hundred faces and it was as if looking at human waste; and it was human stupidity, human complacency and cowardice kept those human beings human drift.
With what a smug self-satisfaction—under the mask of benevolence—the speakers of that afternoon had flaunted their virtue—their position! How condescendingly they had spoken of the home which we, the good, prepare for you, the bad, and what namby-pambyness there was, after all, in that sentiment which all of them had voiced—and now you must pay us back by being good!
Oh for a man of flesh and blood to stand up and tell how he himself had failed and suffered! For a man who could bridge that chasm with strong, broad, human understanding and human sympathies—a man who would stand among them pulse-beat to pulse-beat and cry out, “I know! I understand! I fought it and I'll help you fight it too!”
The sound of his own name broke the spell that was upon him. He looked to the centre of the stage and saw that the professor from the State University had seated himself and that the superintendent of the institution was occupying the place of the speaker. And the superintendent was saying:
“We may esteem ourselves especially fortunate in having him with us this afternoon. He is one of the great men of the State, one of the men who by high living, by integrity and industry, has raised himself to a position of great honour among his fellow men. A great party—may I say the greatest of all parties?—has shown its unbounded confidence in him by giving him the nomination for the governorship of the State. No man in the State is held in higher esteem to-day than he. And so it is with special pleasure that I introduce to you that man of the future—Philip Grayson.”
The superintendent sat down then, and he himself—Philip Grayson—was standing in the place where the other speakers had stood. It was with a rush which almost swept away his outward show of calm that it came to him that he—candidate for the governorship—was well fitted to be that man of flesh and blood for whom he had sighed. That he himself was within grasp of an opportunity to get beneath the jackets and into the very hearts and souls of those boys, and make them feel that a man of sins and virtues, of weaknesses and strength, a man who had had much to conquer, and for whom the fight would never be finally won, was standing before them stripped of his coat of conventions and platitudes, and in nakedness of soul and sincerity of heart was talking to them as a man who understood.
Almost with the inception of the idea was born the consciousness of what it might cost. And as in answer to the silent, blunt question, Is it worth it? there looked up at him three hundred pairs of eyes—eyes behind which there was good as well as bad, eyes which had burned with the fatal rush of passion, and had burned, too, with the hot tears of remorse—eyes which had opened on a hostile world.
And then the eyes of Philip Grayson could not see the eyes which were before him, and he put up his hand to break the mist—little caring what the men upon the platform would think of him, little thinking what effect the words which were crowding into his heart would have upon his candidacy. But one thing was vital to him now: to bring upon that ugly chasm the levelling forces of a common humanity, and to make those boys who were of his clay feel that a being who had fallen and risen again, a fellow being for whom life would always mean a falling and a rising again, was standing before them, and—not as the embodiment of a distant goodness, not as a pattern, but as one among them, verily as man to man—was telling them a few things which his own life had taught him were true.
It was his very consecration which made it hard to begin. He was fearful of estranging them in the beginning, of putting between them and him that very thing he was determined there should not be.
“I have a strange feeling,” he said, with a winning little smile, “that if I were to open my heart to-day, just open it clear up the way I'd like to if I could, that you boys would look into it, and then jump back in a scared kind of way and cry, 'Why—that's me!' You would be a little surprised—wouldn't you?—if you could look back and see the kind of boy I was, and find I was much the kind of boy you are?
“Do you know what I think? I think hypocrisy is the worst thing in the world. I think it's worse than stealing, or lying, or any of the other bad things you can name. And do you know where I think lots of the hypocrisy comes from? I think it comes from the so-called self-made men—from the real good men, the men who say 'I haven't got one bad thing charged up to my account.'
“Now the men out campaigning for me call me a self-made man. Your superintendent just now spoke of my integrity, of the confidence reposed in me, and all that. But do you know what is the honest truth? If I am any kind of a man worth mentioning, if I am deserving of any honour, any confidence, it is not because I was born with my heart filled with good and beautiful things, for I was not. It is because I was born with much in my heart that we call the bad, and because, after that bad had grown stronger and stronger through the years it was unchecked, and after it had brought me the great shock, the great sorrow of my life, I began then, when older than you boys are now, to see a little of that great truth which you can put briefly in these words: 'There is good and there is bad in every human heart, and it is the struggle of life to conquer the bad with the good.' What I am trying to say is, that if I am worthy any one's confidence to-day, it is because, having seen that truth, I have been able, through never ceasing trying, through slow conquering, to crowd out some of the bad and make room for a little of the good.
“You see,” he went on, three hundred pairs of eyes hard upon him now, “some of us are born to a harder struggle than others. There are people who would object to my saying that to you, even if I believed it. They would say you would make the fact of being born with much against which to struggle an excuse for being bad. But look here a minute; if you were born with a body not as strong as other boys' bodies, if you couldn't run as far, or jump as high, you wouldn't be eternally saying, 'I can't be expected to do much; I wasn't born right.' Not a bit of it! You'd make it your business to get as strong as you could, and you wouldn't make any parade of the fact that you weren't as strong as you should be. We don't like people who whine, whether it's about weak bodies or weak souls.
“I've been sitting here this afternoon wondering what to say to you boys. I had intended telling some funny stories about things which happened to me when I was a boy. But for some reason a serious mood has come over me, and I don't feel just like those stories now. I haven't been thinking of the funny side of life in the last half-hour. I've been thinking of how much suffering I've endured since the days when I, too, was a boy.”
He paused then; and when he went on his voice tested to the utmost the silence of the room: “There is lots of sorrow in this old world. Maybe I'm on the wrong track, but as I see it to-day human beings are making a much harder thing of their existence than there is any need of. There are millions and millions of them, and year after year, generation after generation, they fight over the same old battles, live through the same old sorrows. Doesn't it seem all wrong that after the battle has been fought a million times it can't be made a little easier for those who still have it before them?
“If a farmer had gone over a bad road, and the next day saw another farmer about to start over the same road, wouldn't he send him back? Doesn't it seem too bad that in things which concern one's whole life people can't be as decent as they are about things which involve only an inconvenience? Doesn't it seem that when we human beings have so much in common we might stand together a little better? I'll tell you what's the matter. Most of the people of this world are coated round and round with self-esteem, and they're afraid to admit any understanding of the things which aren't good. Suppose the farmer had thought it a disgrace to admit he had been over that road, and so had said: 'From what I have read in books, and from what I have learned in a general way, I fancy that road isn't good.' Would the other farmer have gone back? I rather think he would have said he'd take his chances. But you see the farmer said heknew; and how did he know? Why, because he'd been over the road himself.”
As he paused again, looking at them, he saw it all with a clarifying simplicity. He himself knew life for a fine and beautiful thing. He had won for himself some of the satisfactions of understanding, certain rare delights of the open spirit. He wanted to free the spirits of these boys to whom he talked; wanted to show them that spirits could free themselves, indicate to them that self-control and self-development carried one to pleasures which sordid self-indulgences had no power to bestow. It was a question of getting the most from life. It was a matter of happiness.
It was thus he began, slowly, the telling of his life's story:
“I was born with strange, wild passions in my heart. I don't know where they came from; I only know they were there. I resented authority. If someone who had a right to dictate to me said, 'Philip, do this,' then Philip would immediately begin to think how much he would rather do the other thing. And,” he smiled a little, and some of the boys smiled with him in anticipation, “it was the other thing which Philip usually did.
“I didn't go to a reform school, for the very good reason that there wasn't any in the State where I lived.” Some of he boys smiled again, and he could hear the nervous coughing of one of the party managers sitting close to him. “I was what you would call a very bad boy. I didn't mind any one. I was defiant—insolent. I did bad things just because I knew they were bad, and—and I took a great deal of satisfaction out of it.”
The sighing of the world without was the only sound which vibrated through the room. “I say,” he went on, “that I got a form of satisfaction from it. I did not say I got happiness; there is a vast difference between a kind of momentary satisfaction and that thing—that most precious of all things—which we call happiness. Indeed, I was very far from happy. I had hours when I was so morose and miserable that I hated the whole world. And do you know what I thought? I thought there was no one in all the world who had the same kind of things surging up in his heart that I did. I thought there was no one else with whom it was as easy to be bad, or as hard to be good. I thought that no one understood. I thought that I was all alone.
“Did you ever feel like that? Did you ever feel that no one else knew anything about such feelings as you had? Did you ever feel that here was you, and there was the rest of the world, and that the rest of the world didn't know anything about you, and was just generally down on you? Now that's the very thing I want to talk away from you to-day. You're not the only one. We're all made of the same kind of stuff, and there's none of us made of stuff that's flawless. We all have a fight; some an easy one, and some a big one, and if you have formed the idea that there is a kind of dividing-line in the world, and that on the one side is the good, and on the other side the bad, why, all I can say is that you have a wrong notion of things.
“Well, I grew up to be a man, and because I hadn't fought against any of the stormy things in my heart they kept growing stronger and stronger. I did lots of wild, ugly things, things of which I am bitterly ashamed. I went to another place, and I fell in with the kind of fellows you can imagine I felt at home with. I had been told when I was a boy that it was wrong to drink and gamble. I think that was the chief reason I took to drink and gambling.”
There was another cough, more pronounced this time, from the party manager, and the superintendent was twisting uneasily in his seat. It was the strangest speech that had ever been delivered at the boys' reformatory. The boys were leaning forward—self-forgetful, intent. “One night I was playing cards with a crowd of my friends, and one of the men, the best friend I had, said something that made me mad. There was a revolver right there which one of the men had been showing us. Some kind of a demon got hold of me, and without so much as a thought I picked up that revolver and fired at my friend.”
The party manager gave way to an exclamation of horror, and the superintendent half rose from his seat. But before any one could say a word Philip Grayson continued, looking at the half-frightened faces before him: “I suppose you wonder why I am not in the penitentiary. I had been drinking, and I missed my aim; and I was with friends, and it was hushed up.”
He rested his hand upon the table, and looked out at the sullen landscape. His voice was not steady as he went on: “It's not an easy thing to talk about, boys. I never talked about it to any one before in all my life. I'm not telling it now just to entertain you or to create a sensation. I'm telling it,” his voice grew tense in its earnestness, “because I believe that this world could be made a better and a sweeter place if those who have lived and suffered would not be afraid to reach out their hands and cry: 'I know that road—it's bad! I steered off to a better place, and I'll help you steer off, too.'”
There was not one of the three hundred pairs of eyes but was riveted upon the speaker's colourless face. The masks of sullenness and defiance had fallen from them. They were listening now—not because they must, but because into their hungry and thirsty souls was being poured the very sustenance for which—unknowingly—they had yearned.
“We sometimes hear people say,” resumed the candidate for Governor, “that they have lived through hell. If by that they mean they've lived through the deepest torments the human heart can know, then I can say that I, too, have lived through hell. What I suffered after I went home that night no one in this world will ever know. Words couldn't tell it; it's not the kind of thing words can come anywhere near. My whole life spread itself out before me; it was not a pleasant thing to look at. But at last, boys, out of the depths of my darkness, I began to get a little light. I began to get some understanding of the battle which it falls to the lot of some of us human beings to wage. There was good in me, you see, or I wouldn't have cared like that, and it came to me then, all alone that terrible night, that it is the good which lies buried away somewhere in our hearts must fight out the bad. And so—all alone, boys—I began the battle of trying to get command of my own life. And do you know—this is the truth—it was with the beginning of that battle I got my first taste of happiness. There is no finer feeling in this world than the sense of coming into mastery of one's self. It is like opening a door that has shut you in. Oh, you don't do it all in a minute. This is no miracle I'm talking about. It's a fight. But it's a fight that can be won. It's a fight that's gloriously worth the winning. I'm not saying to you, 'Be good and you'll succeed.' Maybe you won't succeed. Life as we've arranged it for ourselves makes success a pretty tough proposition. But that doesn't alter the fact that it pays to be a decent sort. You and I know about how much happiness there is in the other kind of thing. And there is happiness in feeling you're doing what you can to develop what's in you. Success or failure, it brings a sense of having done your part,—that bully sense of having put up the best fight you could.”
He leaned upon the table then, as though very weary. “I don't know, I am sure, what the people of my State will think of all this. Perhaps they won't want a man for their Governor who once tried to kill another man. But,” he looked around at them with that smile of his which got straight to men's hearts, “there's only one of me, and there are three hundred of you, and how do I know but that in telling you of that stretch of bad road ahead I've made a dozen Governors this very afternoon!”
He looked from row to row of them, trying to think of some last word which would leave them with a sense of his sincerity. What he did say was: “And so, boys, when you get away from here, and go out into the world to get your start, if you find the arms of that world aren't quite as wide open as you were told they would be, if there seems no place where you can get a hold, and you are saying to yourself, 'It's no use—I'll not try,' before you give up just remember there was one man who said he knew all about it, and give that one man a chance to show he meant what he said. So look me up, if luck goes all against you, and maybe I can give you a little lift.” He took a backward step, as though to resume his seat, and then he said, with a dry little smile which took any suggestion of heroics from what had gone before, “If I'm not at the State-house, you'll find my name in the directory of the city where your programme tells you I live.”
He sat down, and for a moment there was silence. Then, full-souled, heart-given, came the applause. It was not led by the attendants this time; it was the attendants who rose at last to stop it. And when the clapping of the hands had ceased, many of those hands were raised to eyes which had long been dry.
The exercises were drawn to a speedy close, and he found the party manager standing by his side. “It was very grand,” he sneered, “very high-sounding and heroic, but I suppose you know,” jerking his hand angrily toward a table where a reporter for the leading paper of the opposition was writing, “that you've given them the winning card.”
As he replied, in far-off tone, “I hope so,” the candidate for Governor was looking, not at the reporter who was sending out a new cry for the opposition, but into those faces aglow with the light of new understanding and new-born hopes. He stood there watching them filing out into the corridor, craning their necks to throw him a last look, and as he turned then and looked from the window it was to see that the storm had sobbed itself away, and that along the driveway of the reformatory grounds the young trees—unbroken and unhurt—were rearing their heads in the way they should go.
They began work at seven-thirty, and at ten minutes past eight every hammer stopped. In the Senate Chamber and in the House, on the stairways and in the corridors, in every office from the Governor's to the custodian's they laid down their implements and rose to their feet. A long whistle had sounded through the building. There was magic in its note.
“What's the matter with you fellows?” asked the attorney-general, swinging around in his chair.
“Strike,” declared one of the men, with becoming brevity.
“Strike of what?”
“Carpet-Tackers' Union Number One,” replied the man, kindly gathering up a few tacks.
“Never heard of it.”
“Organised last night,” said the carpet-tacker, putting on his coat.
“Well I'll—” he paused expressively, then inquired: “What's your game?”
“Well, you see, boss, this executive council that runs the State-house has refused our demands.”
“What are your demands?”
“Double pay.”
“Double pay! Now how do you figure it out that you ought to have double pay?”
“Rush work. You see we were under oath, or pretty near that, to get every carpet in the State-house down by four o'clock this afternoon. Now you know yourself that rush work is hard on the nerves. Did you ever get rush work done at a laundry and not pay more for it? We was anxious as anybody to get the Capitol in shape for the big show this afternoon. But there's reason in all things.”
“Yes,” agreed his auditor, “there is.”
The man looked at him a little doubtfully. “Our president—we elected Johnny McGuire president last night—went to the Governor this morning with our demands.”
The Governor's fellow official smiled—he knew the Governor pretty well. “And he turned you down?”
The striker nodded. “But there's an election next fall; maybe the turning down will be turned around.”
“Maybe so—you never can tell. I don't know just what power Carpet-Tackers' Union Number One will wield, but the Governor's pretty solid, you know, with Labour as a whole.”
That was true, and went home. The striker rubbed his foot uncertainly across the floor, and took courage from its splinters. “Well, there's one thing sure. When Prince Ludwig and his train-load of big guns show up at four o'clock this afternoon they'll find bare floors, and pretty bum bare floors, on deck at this place.”
The attorney-general rubbed his own foot across the splintered, miserable boards. “They are pretty bum,” he reflected. “I wonder,” he added, as the man was half-way out of the door, “what Prince Ludwig will think of the American working-man when he arrives this afternoon?”
“Just about as much,” retorted the not-to-be-downed carpet-tacker, “as he does about American generosity. And he may think a few things,” he added weightily, “about American independence.”
“Oh, he's sure to do that,” agreed the attorney-general.
He joined the crowd in the corridor. They were swarming out from all the offices, all talking of the one thing. “It was a straight case of hold-up,” declared the Governor's secretary. “They supposed they had us on the hip. They were getting extra money as it was, but you see they just figured it out we'd pay anything rather than have these wretched floors for the reception this afternoon. They thought the Governor would argue the question, and then give in, or, at any rate, compromise. They never intended for one minute that the Prince should find bare floors here. And I rather think,” he concluded, “that they feel a little done up about it themselves.”
“What's the situation?” asked a stranger within the gates.
“It's like this,” a newspaper reporter told him; “about a month ago there was a fire here and the walls and carpets were pretty well knocked out with smoke and water. The carpets were mean old things anyway, so they voted new ones. And I want to tell you”—he swelled with pride—“that the new ones are beauties. The place'll look great when we get 'em down. Well, you know Prince Ludwig and his crowd cross the State on their way to the coast, and of course they were invited to stop. Last week Billy Patton—he's running the whole show—declined the invitation on account of lack of time, and then yesterday comes a telegram saying the Prince himself insisted on stopping. You know he's keen about Indian dope—and we've got Indian traditions to burn. So Mr. Bill Patton had to make over his schedule to please the Prince, and of course we were all pretty tickled about it, for more reasons than one. The telegram didn't come until five o'clock yesterday afternoon, but you know what a hummer the Governor is when he gets a start. He made up his mind this building should be put in shape within twenty-four hours. They engaged a whole lot of fellows to work on the carpets to-day. Then what did they do but get together last night—well, you know the rest. Pretty bum-looking old shack just now, isn't it?” and the reporter looked around ruefully.
It was approaching the hour for the legislature to convene, and the members who were beginning to saunter in swelled the crowd—and the indignation—in the rotunda.
The Governor, meanwhile, had been trying to get other men, but Carpet-Tackers' Union Number One had looked well to that. The biggest furniture dealer in the city was afraid of the plumbers. “Pipes burst last night,” he said, “and they may not do a thing for us if we get mixed up in this. Sorry—but I can't let my customers get pneumonia.”
Another furniture man was afraid of the teamsters. For one reason or another no one was disposed to respond to the Macedonian cry, and when the Governor at last gave it up and walked out into the rotunda he was about as disturbed as he permitted himself to get. “It's the idea of lying down,” he said. “I'd do anything—anything!—if I could only think what to do.”
A popular young member of the House overheard the remark. “By George, Governor,” he burst forth, after a minute's deep study—“say—by Jove, I say, let's do it ourselves!”
They all laughed, but the Governor's laugh stopped suddenly, and he looked hard at the young man.
“Why not?” the young legislator went on. “It's a big job, but there are a lot of us. We've all put down carpets at home; what are we afraid to tackle it here for?”
Again the others laughed, but the Governor did not. “Say, Weston,” he said, “I'd give a lot—I tell you I'd give a lot—if we just could!”
“Leave it to me!”—and he was lost in the crowd.
The Governor's eyes followed him. He had always liked Harry Weston. He was the very sort to inspire people to do things. The Governor smiled knowingly as he noted the men Weston was approaching, and his different manner with the various ones. And then he had mounted a few steps of the stairway, and was standing there facing the crowd.
“Now look here,” he began, after silence had been obtained, “this isn't a very formal meeting, but it's a mighty important one. It's a clear case of Carpet-Tackers' Union against the State. What I want to know is—Is the State going to lie down?”
There were loud cries of “No!”—“Well, I should say not!”
“Well, then, see here. The Governor's tried for other men and can't get them. Now the next thing I want to know is—What's the matter with us?”
They didn't get it for a minute, and then everybody laughed.
“It's no joke! You've all put down carpets at home; what's the use of pretending you don't know how to do it? Oh yes—I know, bigger building, and all that, but there are more of us, and the principle of carpet-tacking is the same, big building or little one. Now my scheme is this—Every fellow his own carpet-tacker! The Governor's office puts down the Governor's carpet; the Secretary's office puts down the Secretary's carpet; the Senate puts down the Senate carpet—and we'll look after our little patch in the House!”
“But you've got more fellows than anybody else,” cried a member of the Senate.
“Right you are, and we'll have an over-flow meeting in the corridors and stairways. The House, as usual, stands ready to do her part,”—that brought a laugh for the Senators, and from them.
“Now get it out of your heads this is a joke. The carpets are here; the building is full of able-bodied men; the Prince is coming at four—by his own request, and the proposition is just this: Are we going to receive him in a barn or in a palace? Let's hear what Senator Arnold thinks about it.”
That was a good way of getting away from the idea of its being a joke. Senator Arnold was past seventy. Slowly he extended his right arm and tested his muscle. “Not very much,” he said, “but enough to drive a tack or two.” That brought applause and they drew closer together, and the atmosphere warmed perceptibly. “I've fought for the State in more ways than one,”—Senator Arnold was a distinguished veteran of the Civil War—“and if I can serve her now by tacking down carpets, then it's tacking down carpets I'm ready to go at. Just count on me for what little I'm worth.”
Someone started the cry for the Governor. “Prince Ludwig is being entertained all over the country in the most lavish manner,” he began, with his characteristic directness in stating a situation. “By his own request he is to visit our Capitol this afternoon. I must say that I, for one, want to be in shape for him. I don't like to tell him that we had a labour complication and couldn't get the carpets down. Speaking for myself, it is a great pleasure to inform you that the carpet in the Governor's office will be in proper shape by four o'clock this afternoon.”
That settled it. Finally Harry Weston made himself heard sufficiently to suggest that when the House and Senate met at nine o'clock motions to adjourn be entertained. “And as to the rest of you fellows,” he cried, “I don't see what's to hinder your getting busy right now!”
There were Republicans and there were Democrats; there were friends and there were enemies; there were good, bad and—no, there were no indifferent. An unprecedented harmony of thought, a millennium-like unity of action was born out of that sturdy cry—Every man his own carpet-tacker! The Secretary of State always claimed that he drove the first tack, but during the remainder of his life the Superintendent of Public Instruction also contended hotly for that honour. The rivalry as to who would do the best job, and get it done most quickly, became intense. Early in the day Harry Weston made the rounds of the building and announced a fine of one-hundred dollars for every wrinkle. There were pounded fingers and there were broken backs, but slowly, steadily and good-naturedly the State-house carpet was going down. It was a good deal bigger job than they had anticipated, but that only added zest to the undertaking. The news of how the State officials were employing themselves had spread throughout the city, and guards were stationed at every door to keep out people whose presence would work more harm than good. All assistance from women was courteously refused. “This is solemn business,” said the Governor, in response to a telephone from some of the fair sex, “and the introduction of the feminine element might throw about it a social atmosphere which would result in loss of time. And then some of the boys might feel called upon to put on their collars and coats.”
Stretch—stretch—stretch, and tack—tack—tack, all morning long it went on, for the State-house was large—oh, very large. There should have been a Boswell there to get the good things, for the novelty of the situation inspired wit even in minds where wit had never glowed before. Choice bits which at other times would fairly have gone on official record were now passed almost unnoticed, so great was the surfeit. Instead of men going out to lunch, lunch came in to them. Bridget Haggerty, who by reason of her long connection with the boarding-house across the street was a sort of unofficial official of the State, came over and made the coffee and sandwiches, all the while calling down blessings on the head of every mother's son of them, and announcing in loud, firm tones that while all five of her boys belonged to the union she'd be after tellin' them what she thought of this day's work!
It was a United States Senator who did the awful trick, and, to be fair, the Senator did not think of it as an awful trick at all. He came over there in the middle of the morning to see the Governor, and in a few hurried words—it was no day for conversation—was told what was going on. It was while standing out in the corridor watching the perspiring dignitaries that the idea of his duty came to him, and one reason he was sure he was right was the way in which it came to him in the light of a duty. Here was America in undress uniform! Here was—not a thing arranged for show, but absolutely the thing itself! Prince Ludwig had come with a sincere desire to see America. Every one knew that he was not seeing it at all. He would go back with memories of bands and flags and people all dressed up standing before him making polite speeches. But would he carry back one small whiff of the spirit of the country? Again Senator Bruner looked about him. The Speaker of the House was just beginning laying the stair carpet; a judge of the Supreme Court was contending hotly for a better hammer. “It's an insult to expect any decent man to drive tacks with a hammer like this,” he was saying. Here were men—real, live men, men with individuality, spirit. When the Prince had come so far, wasn't it too bad that he should not see anything but uniforms and cut glass and dress suits and other externals and non-essentials? Senator Bruner was a kind man; he was a good fellow; he was hospitable—patriotic. He decided now in favour of the Prince.
He had to hurry about it, for it was almost twelve then. One of the vice-presidents of the road lived there, and he was taken into confidence, and proved an able and eager ally. They located the special train bearing the Prince and ordered it stopped at the next station. The stop was made that Senator Patton might receive a long telegram from Senator Bruner. “I figure it like this,” the Senator told the vice-president. “They get to Boden at a quarter of one and were going to stop there an hour. Then they were going to stop a little while at Creyville. I've told Patton the situation, and that if he wants to do the right thing by the prince he'll cut out those stops and rush right through here. That will bring him in—well, they could make it at a quarter of two. I've told him I'd square it with Boden and Creyville. Oh, he'll do it all right.”
And even as he said so came the reply from Patton: “Too good to miss. Will rush through. Arrive before two. Have carriage at Water Street.”
“That's great!” cried the Senator. “Trust Billy Patton for falling in with a good thing. And he's right about missing the station crowd. Patton can always go you one better,” he admitted, grinningly.
They had luncheon together, and they were a good deal more like sophomores in college than like a United States Senator and a big railroad man. “You don't think there's any danger of their getting through too soon?” McVeigh kept asking, anxiously.
“Not a bit,” the Senator assured him. “They can't possibly make it before three. We'll come in just in time for the final skirmish. It's going to be a jolly rush at the last.”
They laid their plans with skill worthy of their training. The State library building was across from the Capitol, and they were connected by tunnel. “I never saw before,” said the Senator, “what that tunnel was for, but I see now what a great thing it is. We'll get him in at the west door of the library—we can drive right up to it, you know, and then we walk him through the tunnel. That's a stone floor”—the Senator was chuckling with every sentence—“so I guess they won't be carpeting it. There's a little stairway running up from the tunnel—-and say, we must telephone over and arrange about those keys. There'll be a good deal of climbing, but the Prince is a good fellow, and won't mind. It wouldn't be safe to try the elevator, for Harry Weston would be in it taking somebody a bundle of tacks. The third floor is nothing but store rooms; we'll not be disturbed up there, and we can look right down the rotunda and see the whole show. Of course we'll be discovered in time; some one is sure to look up and see us, but we'll fix it so they won't see us before we've had our fun, and it strikes me, McVeigh, that for two old fellows like you and me we've put the thing through in pretty neat shape.”
It was a very small and unpretentious party which stepped from the special at Water Street a little before two. The Prince was wearing a long coat and an automobile cap and did not suggest anything at all formidable or unusual. “You've saved the country,” Senator Patton whispered in an aside. “He was getting bored. Never saw a fellow jolly up so in my life. Guess he was just spoiling for some fun. Said it would be really worth while to see somebody who wasn't looking for him.”
Senator Bruner beamed. “That's just the point. He's caught my idea exactly.”
It went without a hitch. “I feel,” said the Prince, as they were hurrying him through the tunnel, “that I am a little boy who has run away from school. Only I have a terrible fear that at any minute some band may begin to play, and somebody may think of making a speech.”
They gave this son of a royal house a seat on a dry-goods box, so placed that he could command a good view, and yet be fairly secure. The final skirmish was on in earnest. Two State Senators—coatless, tieless, collarless, their faces dirty, their hair rumpled, were finishing the stair carpet. The chairman of the appropriations committee in the House was doing the stretching in a still uncarpeted bit of the corridor, and a member who had recently denounced the appropriations committee as a disgrace to the State was presiding at the hammer. They were doing most exquisitely harmonious team work. A railroad and anti-railroad member who fought every time they came within speaking distance of one another were now in an earnest and very chummy conference relative to a large wrinkle which had just been discovered on the first landing. Many men were standing around holding their backs, and many others were deeply absorbed in nursing their fingers. The doors of the offices were all open, and there was a general hauling in of furniture and hanging of pictures. Clumsy but well-meaning fingers were doing their best with “finishing touches.” The Prince grew so excited about it all that they had to keep urging him not to take too many chances of being seen.
“And I'll tell you,” Senator Bruner was saying, “it isn't only because I knew it would be funny that I wanted you to see it; but—well, you see America isn't the real America when she has on her best clothes and is trying to show off. You haven't seen anybody who hasn't prepared for your coming, and that means you haven't seen them as they are at all. Now here we are. This is us! You see that fellow hanging a picture down there? He's president of the First National Bank. Came over a little while ago, got next to the situation, and stayed to help. And—say, this is good! Notice that red-headed fellow just getting up from his knees? Well, he's president of the teamsters' union—figured so big in a strike here last year. I call that pretty rich! He's the fellow they are all so afraid of, but I guess he liked the idea of the boys doing it themselves, and just sneaked in and helped.—There's the Governor. He's a fine fellow. He wouldn't be held up by anybody—not even to get ready for a Prince, but he's worked like a Trojan all day to make things come his way. Yes sir—this is the sure-enough thing. Here you have the boys off dress parade. Not that we run away from our dignity every day, but—see what I mean?”
“I see,” replied the Prince, and he looked as though he really did.
“You know—say, dodge there! Move back! No—too late. The Governor's caught us. Look at him!”
The Governor's eyes had turned upward, and he had seen. He put his hands on his back—he couldn't look up without doing that—and gave a long, steady stare. First, Senator Bruner waved; then Senator Patton waved; then Mr. McVeigh waved; and then the Prince waved. Other people were beginning to look up. “They're all on,” laughed Patton, “let's go down.”
At first they were disposed to think it pretty shabby treatment. “We worked all day to get in shape,” grumbled Harry Weston, “and then you go ring the curtain up on us before it's time for our show to begin.”
But the Prince made them feel right about it. He had such a good time that they were forced to concede the move had been a success. And he said to the Governor as he was leaving: “I see that the only way to see America is to see it when America is not seeing you.”