"Shake hands with him, Bob—Mr. Robert Kane, your mining inspector."
Tennant's self-possession bridged the surprise. "So he's your trump-card!"
"Can you put it over?"
"Whatever you say goes with me, Paul; whatever I say, goes with the state. You won't mind frankness, Mr. Kane; we're practical men. You didn't want to run yourself, Paul?"
The magnate walked the length of the office, smoothing a cigar between his fingers. He tore off the silver wrapper, rolled it into a ball, and flung it deftly into an open basket. "There's a lot of soreness about that strike still, Bob; it's hardly worth the trouble. Jerry Florence agrees with my idea. Kane'll make a good man; his gift union card is worth a few votes. You have something else we need."
"Speak it out," Tennant nodded with vigorous affability. "Anything in heaven or hell for a friend—ain't that what they all say about Bob Tennant, old man?"
"Yes.... Todd Johnson's an old man, Bob; ready to retire. You can keep me in mind for the next senatorial vacancy; say within two years."
"Why didn't I think of that! Well, gentlemen, we'll regard that as settled. Let's go by the club, and do a little celebrating."
"We'll join you there in an hour," the astute iron man, half-pitying the other's craving, assured him. "Wait for us."
When Tennant had gone, the master walked throughout the office, rolling the unlighted cigar with satisfaction around the rim of his teeth. "He'll do as he says, Kane; we furnish the funds.... You'll have a job, the next four years."
"Matters in general? The war?"
Judson regarded him thoughtfully. "It won't last four years. There's certain victory, now that our country's in. I'm thinking about conditions to follow. You see what's happening in Russia——"
Kane laughed self-consciously. "We wouldn't be safe there. In some mining corner, where the radicals control, they jailed all the mine-owners; even shot one, for being a monarchist. But here, in this country——"
"That's the idea. We've got to convince the American workingman that he is never to turn on the creator of his prosperity. We'll have sporadic unrest; and that spineless bunch at Washington add to it, by kowtowing to the railroad brotherhoods, and even allowing unions among government employees. We can stiffen up their back-bones."
"Why, our workingman is not only the best paid in the world, he's getting a larger share all the time—even in some lines in Adamsville."
"Yes.... That's what we must stop. We did it, to the miners. What we've done here, we can do elsewhere. Patriotism, prosperity—these answer any discontent. Elections or strikes, we can't lose, with these as achieved slogans. Now that we're in National Steel, we have their backing as well. The mines are safe; we've got to keep them so. If once we give way an inch, they'll demand two more. I know you'll hold fast."
"Yes.... As governor, I'll hold fast."
"Now to find Bob Tennant, and keep him alive until he has you elected."
They left the watchman to darken the office, and departed for the Steelmen's Club.
The weeks that followed that last strike meeting pushed Pelham into deepening despondency. The Charities work was over; at the end he noticed a growing aloofness in the philanthropy offices. His father and the iron men contributed heavily; why should the son be welcomed?
Louise was gone; he had made no effort to fill her place, although Dorothy Meade had stopped him on the street one morning, and looked searchingly into his face—less as friend of Jane, than as if to appraise the changes in him, and measure him for a vacancy in her days.... She need not look there; he felt that that yesterday was not worth reviving. Jane's absence removed a substantial joy from his life; the mere bodily gap was not insistent enough to warrant casual or commercial filling.
A burst of energy sent him after permanent employment. The doors were shut kindly in his face; the mines would have none of him; and he found that the corporations' fingers were upon the whole city.
"Of course, I can find something for you," Lane Cullom consoled, "but—mere office work; not what you're fitted for, my boy."
Adamsville was locked to him. The moribund socialist movement would use his voluntary services; but he needed a livelihood. Serrano, Jensen, Mrs. Spigner, on a hurried visit, had called by; the comrades were reacting to him, though the unions held off. But Adamsville would need a scorifying industrial schooling before solidarity could come. He had lost his craving for the rôle of teacher ... even if he had been acceptable.
He must leave Adamsville. He confided this to Jensen, and the Hernandezes. "I might organize for the National Socialist Office, or do something for the New York Philanthropy Bureau."
"That's bourgeois, comrade," objected Mrs. Hernandez.
"I must make a living."
The morning's mail, a few days later, contained a curt note from Jane; his fingers tore it open with awkward haste.
"I hear that you are planning to leave Adamsville," it ran. "Even if we can't live together, I can not see you waste your possibilities, here or elsewhere. Come by and see me, before doing anything definite. I am your friend, as long as you will have me."
He hurried to the phone, pausing a moment, with hand over the transmitter, to steady his voice.
She told him he could come at once.
There was no buoyancy in his greeting. "I've made a mess of things, Jane."
"It was disgraceful," she sympathized vigorously, "raking up that old story. Pig-headed fools always turn on you."
"They were sick of the whole thing; they couldn't see that the strike had brought them closer to victory."
She leaned forward, lips parted in the old bewitching way, her brown eyes radiant. "Did your father arrange that?"
"He's strong on family."
"It was a shame."
"I meant more than that.... My savage report as mining inspector.... Then—with you."
Her head remained averted.
"Maybe you'd rather I wouldn't mention that——"
Gradually she faced him. "I think I understand that ... too. You're not worse than most husbands.... Only, I wish you'd finished sowing your wild oats before your marriage."
"I felt——"
"You see how it is, Pelham," she explained as gravely as to a little child. "You had to choose between me, and other women. You made your choice."
"Was it ... necessarily ... final, Jane?"
Her frank eyes searched his face. "Sometimes I tell myself it ought to be. It's hard.... You see, I love you, Pelham."
"Suppose I came to you, on your terms...."
"I should reserve the right to act as you did, if I ever wished to."
He nodded, trying to make out what was going on within her mind.
"I would tell you, though," she went on. "With that understanding ... yes."
He did not touch her, sensing the physical revulsion she must still feel. His voice trembled in joyful disbelief. "You'll really——"
"I am your wife. And I love you."
Her fingers brushed his hand; he shivered in passionate repression.
"Jane——" A troubled crease roughened his forehead, "I'll try——"
"That's all I can ask."
They sat in dynamic silence, intent on their diverse thoughts. He relaxed into restful satisfaction, havened again; her doubtful fancies strove to shape of crumbling material some firm future for them both.
Her words came with difficulty. "What you ought to do, Pell, is to get work with the Federal Mining Commission. Washington outlooks are broader than Adamsville; particularly in war-time. That's your chance."
Worn with multiplied disappointments, he was unable to follow her enthusiasm. "We couldn't——"
She filled in details. "Senator Johnson would put in a word for you. Congressman Head's practically a socialist. Why not get it?"
"If you realized how downhearted——"
"You write to-morrow." She smoothed his tousled hair with the old familiar gesture. "It's an endless fight, dear."
"I think you'd better sell the car," she told him, the morning the federal commission arrived. "You may be sent anywhere now—our bank balance is low." She stopped halfway down the stairs, to wipe off a picture dusty from its weeks of neglect.
"It's fine to be back in harness again!"
"Marital, Pell?"
His comfortable grin answered her. "Both kinds."
"You'll be sorry to leave Adamsville?"
"The iron-hearted city.... Sorry—and glad, too. It's one of the finest places in America—to leave."
Her nostrils wrinkled with the old-time intimate charm. "You have deteriorated."
"What could you expect, with myself as my only audience?"
Then he regretted leaving the way open for reference to another auditor; but, after a noncommittal scrutiny, she did not pursue that topic.
"And then," Pelham continued hurriedly, "we're not leaving it forever. We'll return for another round with the triumphant malefactors."
"You think there's a chance?" Her question was from the heart.
"The South is twoscore years behind the rest of the country. We were premature.... But the South can't lag forever. Even the dreadful war will quicken intellects everywhere; every day's headlines mention 'socialism,' where it was never heard of three years ago. If we are wise—as we weren't in '61—it may come sensibly; if not, God help my respected father, and the rest of the monied vultures, in that day!
"I remember my first view of the city—the furnaces, and the coke ovens; it looked like the pit of hell to me.... Well——"
Word came at last of his detail to duty at Washington. It was hard to end the home they had built together in the Haviland Avenue house; but the prospect ahead salved the regret.
The work, when Pelham came to it, proved congenial and illuminating. He was nearer the core of the matter now; the mining industry of a country passed before his eyes.
At the suggestion of the deputy commissioner, he accompanied that official on a special trip to New York, the port from which the manufactured steel was being hurried over to the hungry fields of France. Jane went along; the three stood together in the arc-lit glow of the vast freight station.
"I thought you wanted to see it," the friendly commissioner repeated. "Rails, guns, gun-stocks, wire, a thousand sundries—and every car your eye can see straight from the Adamsville mills. There's enough steel railing there to triple-track from the Marne to Berlin, with lots to spare!"
They drew together at the vastness of the spectacle.
"The metallic sinews of war, my boy—just as the boys of Adamsville and the country are the human sinews. I understand your feelings, Judson; but can't you see that they are spreading the same ideal of democracy that your comrades work for?"
"I hope some good will result; it's not easy to see clearly," Pelham answered slowly.
As the commissioner left, the son of Adamsville placed his arm around Jane. "And our mountain did all of this! What pawns it made of us! We flung up here, the miners scattered, endless change and turmoil.... I used to say the mountain mothered me; but it flung me out like my father too. Perhaps it embodied all of us. Perhaps"—a sudden surge of bitter memory turned the drift of his thinking—"perhaps autocracy would suit the mountain, as well as democracy."
"I think not," Jane replied slowly. "When its products are washed away by the streams, they quicken the whole soil. Humanity can afford culture now for all; all must win their chance at it."
"The war sets us back...."
"And pushes us on too. After it is over, these metallic and human sinews will rebuild a world democracy at peace. Men have failed; the women come to their tasks now."
"Yes; the aching past surely has taught us something. We must build right, now. Old standards are gone; the world furnace of war has quickened all the people...."
"We've done our small part."
"With the biggest part still to do. We are to see the beginning of the building of the New World in the hearts and souls of men.... For that is the final building."
They walked out to the jutting end of the vast pier, studying the aimless restlessness of the ocean drift sloshing against the clustered piles.
She turned to stroke a raveling from his coat. Upon the bright flush of her cheek he brushed a fleeting kiss.
A resting gull flopped heavily from a water-swung stake, skimmed low over the gray sparkle, and lessened on beating wings into the sun-glitter to the west.
Spring on the mountain. Over the eastern rim of sand hills the sturdy sun of May flared up. The neutral gray pooled in the valleys woke to a rustling flame of green; the wind whipped from the crest the last shred of clinging cloud, and dried the wet kiss of the mist upon cottage and bungalow, rumpling the summit as far as eye could cover.
The sibilant buzz of motor trucks, returning to the distant dairies beyond the second mountain, died eastward. Lawn mowers clicked rhythmically, school tardy bells rang, chatting nursemaids chose the stone benches under the deepest shade of the parked roadways. Jays flickered noisily through the ringed oaks still rising from the sparse areas of fenced outcrop.
A gray limousine disturbed the sunny height with its alien whirr—turning from Logan Avenue to reach the great flowery green on the crest left of the gap. Two men climbed out, stretching cramped limbs; the first with firm carefulness, testing each footing before he rested upon it, the second with deferential assistance.
The elder man walked over to a curved bench facing the spread of the city below. From old habit he pulled out a cigar, twisted the silver wrapper into a ball, and spun it deftly into smooth grass covering a healed scar caused by the old mining. His teeth crunched into the well-packed leaves; his tongue rolled the unlit Havana around the rim of his mouth.
The other stopped a step or two behind. "It's rough on you, Paul.... You're all alone in the new Hillcrest Cottage now, aren't you?"
"Yes, Governor...."
He pondered soberly, and spoke again with a deprecating cough. "Your wife was an exceptional woman."
"Death makes no exceptions," the other mused aloud; there was small feeling within him that this was anything else than a philosophic excuse for weakness in others. After a few minutes silence, he took up the thread again. "You know, Kane, Mary hadn't been strong for some years. Life on the mountain was hard on a woman. She took the strike very much to heart; her house was burnt then.... That was why I declined the Senatorship ... then." His squinting gaze took in the panorama before and to the rear. "It's changed.... Not a mine within ten miles now; nothing nearer than those wonderful new openings this side of Coalstock.... Houses, houses, houses...." His eyes looked from the ample homes along the crest estate, to the cheap frame houses crowding the foot of the hill, on the side toward Adamsville; and then to the negro settlement of Lilydale behind, which a pushing real estate firm had continued to the very border of the Hillcrest lands.
"It's a pity the land fringing yours hadn't your development. When the riff-raff once move into a neighborhood——"
"I know, I know. The mountain's held out, so far."
Paul achieved a moment's isolation by walking to the edge of the summit. The children would return soon to their scattered homes; he was the last Judson living in Adamsville.... He—and the mountain. He had risen to the crest of his ambition—he asked no more.
The mountain soil was still iron-stained; but much of its strength had passed to him—had given him this iron grip upon things and people. Power, iron power ... wherever men were, the iron sinews of the mountain had carried the name of Paul Judson.
"Have we time for that trip to North Adamsville?" Kane at last interrupted.
"Get in. Something's wrong out there; dissatisfaction, that should have been squelched. I'm going to make a change."
Following the northward trail of robin and flicker, the gray limousine whirred away from the smoothed crags and their reddened memories.
The children dawdled back from school. The homing older people returned from office and club, from mill and furnace and store. The artificial lights by night made golden wounds on the darkness. One by one these blended with the black, except for the street-globes reared below the damp green of the leaves.
The sprinkled glitter of city lights below cast a quiet shimmer over the drowsy hillside. Far away, in a giant semicircle, an intermittent surf of furnace glare and coke-oven glow mottled with dusky crimson the low haze of the sky.
Following the sun trail, the silver glitter of the Lyre climbed from the east, the northern cross spread its ungainly form, the soft brightness of Vega poised like a fleck of white light above the somber fringe of Shadow Mountain. The soft glamor of the May night reaffirmed its immemorial sway over the sleeping hulk of the mountain.
Two screech-owls sent their shivery call through the dark. Shreds of cloud drifted lower and lower, until they rested lightly on the foliage above the healed scars of ramp and gulley. The stars sagged westward; after them the clouds, and all the trespassers by night, were quietly driven by a faint breeze rustling its promise of dawn.
[Transcriber's Note: Hyphen variations left as printed.]