"So you see there is nothing, Van, that you can give me that I should want to take."
"So you see there is nothing, Van, that you can give me that I should want to take."
He reached for another cigar, and stretched his long legs. It was the first time he had ever spoken to me from the bottom of his heart, and now that he had revealed the truth about himself, there was nothing to be said. He was not just the ordinary corporation lawyer, who sells his learning and his shrewdness for a fat fee. I had run up against that kind often enough. They are an indispensable article to the modern man of affairs; for the strategy of our warfare is largely directed by them. But Jaffrey Slocum was much more than such a trained prostitute: he was a man of learning and a lover of the law for its own sake. I suspect that if he had ever sat on the bench he would have been a tough nut for the corporations....
"There's no better proverb, my friend, than the old one about the way you make your bed," Slocum summed up, rising to go. "It don't trouble you, perhaps, because you are made different. You are made to fit the world as it is to-day."
With that he bade me good night and went away. I sat on by myself for some time afterward, thinking, thinking of it all! Very likely if Slocum could have had his desire, and gone on the Supreme Bench, he would not have found it all he had painted it as a boy. But whether it was foolish or not for him to set such store by that prize, it was beyond his reach, and the man who had done most to put him out of the race was I. I hadneeded him, and I had taken him—that was all there was to that. He had sold himself to me, not just for money, but for friendship and admiration,—for what men of his kind sell themselves. For in all the world there was not enough money to pay him for selling himself—he had as much as said so to-night. Now, when I wanted to give him the gift that he had earned by years of devotion, there was nothing in my hands that was worth his taking!
Thinking of this, I forgot for the time being that I was Senator from the state of Illinois.
FURTHER COST
I go to see May—A cottage on the West Side—May comes to the door—Pleading—Stiff-necked virtue—A discussion of patriotism—We wash dishes and dispute—Old times—One woman's character—Possibilities—Hard words—Rejected gifts—Even to the children—Who shall judge?—Another scale and a greater one
I go to see May—A cottage on the West Side—May comes to the door—Pleading—Stiff-necked virtue—A discussion of patriotism—We wash dishes and dispute—Old times—One woman's character—Possibilities—Hard words—Rejected gifts—Even to the children—Who shall judge?—Another scale and a greater one
The cab drew up before a one-story frame house that stood back in the lot, squeezed between two high brick buildings. This was the number on Ann Street, over on the West Side, that Will had given me when I had pressed him for his address. The factories had pretty well surrounded this section of the city, leaving here and there some such rickety shanty as this one. There were several children playing in the strip of front yard, and as I opened the gate one of them called out, "Hello, Uncle Van!"
It was Will's second son, little Van. He said his mother was at home, and, taking my hand, he showed me around the cottage to the back door. The boy pounded on the door, and May came to see what was the matter.
"Is that you, Van?" she asked, as if she expected me. "Will said he saw you the other day."
She did not invite me in, but the little boy held open the door and I walked into the kitchen. The breakfast things were piled up in the sink, unwashed. A boiler of clothes was on the fire, and May had her sleeves rolled up, ready to begin the wash. Her arms were as thin as pipe-stems, and behind her glasses I saw deep circles of blue flesh. She had grown older and thinner in the three years since she and Will left my house for good.
"Will's gone to the city," May remarked.
"He don't look strong, May. It made me feel bad to see him so—changed, not a bit like himself."
She seemed to bridle a little at this.
"He hasn't been real well since he had the fever at Montauk. He was reinfected at the hospital, and nearly died. When he got out he tried farming down in Texas, but his strength didn't come back as we expected, and the climate was too hot for him. So we came North to see if he could get some easier work."
"How are the children?" I asked, seeing a strange baby face peep around the corner of the clothes-basket.
"We lost the baby boy while Will was at Montauk. Another little girl has come since then. We call her Sarah."
She waited a moment, and then asked hesitatingly:—
"How's your Sarah? She didn't look well when I saw her last."
"No—she's been delicate some time—since our boy died, last summer. She's gone to Europe with the girls for a change."
Then we were silent; there was not much more wecould say without touching the quick. But at last I burst out:—
"May, why wouldn't you take that money I sent you while Will was away at the war?"
"We could manage without it. It was kind of you, though. You have always been kind, Van!"
"You might have known it would make us happy to have you take it. It was only what I owed to the country, too, seeing that I was so placed I couldn't go to Cuba. I wanted then to leave everything and enlist. But it wouldn't have been fair to others. I sent some men in my place, though."
Perhaps it sounded a little like apologizing. May listened with a smile on her lips that heated me.
"You are just like that preacher!" I exclaimed. "You can see no good in folks unless it'syourkind of good. Don't you believe I have got some real patriotism in me?"
"It's hard to think of Van Harrington, the new Senator, as a patriot," she laughed back. "Those men you sent to the front must have come in handy for the election!"
I turned red at her little fling about the Senatorship: my managershadworked that company I equipped for all it was worth.
"I guess there are a good many worse citizens than I am. I wanted to fight for those fellows down in Cuba. And you wouldn't let me do the little I could—help Will to take my place."
"After all that happened, Van, we couldn't take it."
"And I suppose you don't want to touch anything from me now! See here, May, I came over this morning to do something for you and Will. Did he tell you about my wanting him to go down to my place in the country until he got well and strong?"
"He's much interested in this paper, and thinks he can't get away," she said evasively.
"Darn his paper! You don't believe Will was cut out to be a thinker? Anyhow, he ought to get his health back first, and give you an easier time, too."
"I am all right. Will is very much in earnest about his ideas. You can't get him to think about himself."
"Well, I don't mind his trying to reform the earth. If later on he wants a paper to whack the rich with, I'll buy him one. Come, that's fair, isn't it?"
May laughed at my offer, but made no reply.
"If you folks are so obstinate, if I can't get you to go down to my place, I'll have to turn it into a school or something. A fellow I was talking with on the train the other day gave me an idea of making it into a sort of reform school for boys. What would you think of that? Sarah is taken with the idea—she never liked the place and won't want to go back, now that the baby died there."
"That's a good plan—turning philanthropist, Van? That's the right way to get popular approval, Senator."
She mocked me, but her laugh rang out good-naturedly.
"Popular approval never worried me much. But, May, I wantyourgood-will, and I mean to get it, too."
For the more obstinate she was, the more she mademe eager to win my point, to bring her and Will back to me. She understood this, and a flash of her old will and malice came into her thin face. She got up to stir the clothes on the fire, and when the water began to run over I stripped off my coat and put my hand to the job. Then I stepped over to the sink.
"Do you remember how I used to wash while you wiped, when we wanted to get out buggy-riding, May?"
"Yes, and you were an awful shiftless worker, Senator," May retorted, fetching a dish-towel from the rack and beginning to wash, while I wiped. "And you had the same smooth way with you, though in those days you hadn't ten cents to your name. And now, how much is it?"
"Oh, say a quarter!"
"Then it must have cost you a sight of money to become Senator."
"It did some, but I kept back a little."
When we had finished the dishes we began on the clothes. A child's dress caught on the wringer and tore. It was marked in a fine embroidery with the initials, J.S. II., for Jaffrey Slocum Harrington—as we had thought to call the little chap. May saw me look at the initials.
"Sarah sent it to me along with a lot of baby things when my Jack came. Perhaps she might like to have them back now."
"She and the girls come home next week. Won't you come and see her? She'd care more for that than for anything."
"Do you remember how I used to wash while you wiped, when we wanted to get out buggy-riding, May?"
"Do you remember how I used to wash while you wiped, when we wanted to get out buggy-riding, May?"
"You were always awfully persistent in getting your own way, Van!"
"But I didn't always get it, I remember."
"It might have been just as well if you hadn't had it so much of the time since."
"Well, maybe—"
"There are a few other people in the world besides Van Harrington, and they have their rights, too."
"That's true enough, if they can get 'em."
"Maybe their consciences are a little stronger to hold them back from getting things. You never held off long when you wanted a thing, Van. You took the peaches, you remember?"
Her lips curled in the way that used to set me mad for her.
"I didn't eat a peach," I protested. "I gave them to your brothers, and Budd Haines."
"Yes,yougave them!"
"I don't believe you think me half as bad as you make me out!" I said, stopping the wringer and looking into her eyes.
"You don't know how bad I make you out," she challenged my look.
It was not hard to see why I had been crazy to marry her in the old days. There was a fire in her which no other woman I ever saw possessed. Jane was large-minded, keen as an eagle, and like steel. But there was a kind of will in this worn woman, a hanging to herself, which gave her a character all her own. Nevertheless, we two couldn't have travelled far hitched together.She would have tried her best to run me, and life would have been hell for us both.
"Well," I protested in my own defence, "there's no man and no woman living has the right to say he's the worse off on my account. I have treated the world fairly where it has treated me fairly."
"So that's your boast, Van Harrington! It's pretty hard when a man has to say a thing like that to defend his life. You don't know how many men you have ruined like that poor Hostetter. But that isn't the worst. The very sight of men like you is the worst evil in our country. You are successful, prosperous, and you have ridden over the laws that hindered you. You have hired your lawyers to find a way for you to do what you please. You think you are above the law—just the common laws for ordinary folks! You buy men as you buy wheat. And because you don't happen to have robbed your next-door neighbor or ruined his daughter, you make a boast of it to me. It's pretty mean, Van, don't you think so?"
We had sat down facing each other across the tub of clothes. As she spoke her hot words, I thought of others who had accused me in one way or another,—Parson, Will, Slocum,—most of all, Slocum. But I dismissed this sentimental reflection.
"Those are pretty serious charges you are making, May," I replied after a time. "And what do you know? What the newspapers say. There are thousands of newspaper men all over this country who get a dollar or two a column for that sort of mud. Then these samefellows come around to us and hold out their hands for tips or bribes. You take their lies for proved facts. I have never taken the trouble to answer their charges, and never shall. I will answer for what I have done."
"To whom?" May asked ironically. "To God? I should like to see Van Harrington's God! He must be different from the One I have prayed to all these years."
"Maybe he has more charity, May!"
"Are you asking for charity—my charity as well as God's?" she blazed.
"Well, let that go! I shall answer to the people now."
"Yes! And God help this country, now that men like you have taken to buying seats there at Washington!"
We said nothing for a while after this, and then I rose to go.
"We don't get anywhere this way, May. I came here wanting to be friends with you and Will—wanting to help my brother. You needn't take my money if you think it's tainted. But can't you feel friendly? You are throwing me off a second time when I come to you asking for your love."
She flushed at the meaning under my words, and replied in a lower voice:—
"It would do no good, Van. You are feeling humble just now, and remorseful, and full of old memories. But you don't want my love now, in real truth, more than you did before." Her face crimsoned slowly. "If you had wanted it then, you would have stayed and earned it."
"And I could have had it?"
Instead of answering she came up to me and took my arms in her two hands and pulled my head to her.
"Good-by, Van!" she said, kissing me.
As I stepped out of the door I turned for the last time:—
"Can't you let me do something for my brother, who is a sick man?"
Tears came to her eyes, but she shook her head.
"I know he's sick, and likely to fail in what he's doing. But it can't be helped!"
Outside little Van was sitting on the ground playing with a broken toy engine. I put my hand on his little tumbled head, and turned to his mother:—
"I suppose you wouldn't let him touch my money, either?"
She smiled back her defiance through her tears.
"You had rather he'd grow up in the alley here than let me give him an education and start him in life!"
I waited several moments for her answer.
"Yes!" she murmured at last, very faintly.
The little fellow looked from his mother to me curiously, trying to make out what we were saying.
So I went back to the city, having failed in my purpose. I couldn't get that woman to yield an inch. She had weighed me in her scales and found me badly wanting. I was Senator of these United States, from the great state of Illinois; but there was Hostetter, and the old banker Farson, and my best friend Slocum, and my brother Will, and May, and their little children, who stood to one side and turned away.
The smoke of the city I had known for so long drifted westward above my head. The tall chimneys of the factories in this district poured forth their stream to swell the canopy that covered the heavens. The whir of machinery from the doors and windows of the grimy buildings filled the air with a busy hum; the trucks ground along in the car tracks. Traffic, business, industry,—the work of the world was going forward. A huge lumber boat blocked the river at the bridge, and while the tugs pushed it slowly through the draw, I stood and gazed at the busy tracks in the railroad yards below me, at the line of high warehouses along the river. I, too, was a part of this. The thought of my brain, the labor of my body, the will within me, had gone to the making of this world. There were my plants, my car line, my railroads, my elevators, my lands—all good tools in the infinite work of the world. Conceived for good or for ill, brought into being by fraud or daring—what man could judgetheirworth? There they were, a part of God's great world. They were done; and mine was the hand. Let another, more perfect, turn them to a larger use; nevertheless, on my labor, on me, he must build.
Involuntarily my eyes rose from the ground and looked straight before me, to the vista of time. Surely there was another scale, a grander one, and by this I should not be found wholly wanting!
THE END
The senatorial party—Mrs. Jenks's pearls—Gossip—One good deed—The Duchess brand—I take my seat in the Senate—Red roses
The senatorial party—Mrs. Jenks's pearls—Gossip—One good deed—The Duchess brand—I take my seat in the Senate—Red roses
When it came time to go to Washington to take my seat, my friend Major Frederickson, of the Atlantic and Great Western road, placed his private car at my disposal and made up a special train for my party. Sarah and the girls had come back from Paris in time to accompany me to Washington. The girls were crazy over going; they saw ahead a lot of parties and sights, and I suppose had their ideas about making foreign matches some day. The boy was to meet us there, and he was rather pleased, too, to be the son of a Senator.
Among those who made the trip with us there were Slocum and his wife, of course, John Carmichael, young Jenks and his pretty little wife, and a dozen or more other friends. We had a very pleasant and successful journey. A good deal of merriment was occasioned by a string of pearls that young Mrs. Jenks wore, which had lately been the talk of the city. The stones were of unusual size and quality, and had been purchased through a London dealer from some titled person. Jenks hadgiven them as a present to his wife because of the success of the beef merger, which had more than doubled the fortune old Randolph Jenks left him when he died. The pearls, being so perfect and well known in London, caused a lot of newspaper talk. They were said to be the finest string in the United States; there were articles even in the magazines about Mrs. Jenks and her string of pearls. Finally, some reporter started the story that there was a stone for every million dollars Jenks had "screwed out of the public by the merger"—twenty-seven in all. (For these days there was beginning to be heard all over the clamor about the price of food, and how the new combination of packers was forcing up prices—mere guesswork on the part of cheap socialistic agitators that was being taken seriously by people who ought to know better.) One paper even had it that pretty little Mrs. Jenks "flaunted around her neck the blood-bought price of a million lives!"
So it had come to be a sort of joke among us, that string of pearls. Whenever I saw it, I would pretend to count the stones and ask Mrs. Jenks how many more million lives she was wearing around her neck to-night. She would laugh back in her pretty little Southern drawl:—
"The papers do say such dreadful things! Pretty soon I shan't dare to wear a single jewel in public. Ralph says it's dangerous to do it now, there are so many cranks around. Don't you think it's horrid of them to talk so?"
Sarah had her string of pearls, too, but it was muchsmaller than the famous one of Mrs. Jenks. Sarah didn't altogether like Mrs. Jenks, and used to say that she plastered herself with jewels to show who she was.
Well, the pearls went to Washington with us on this trip, and made quite a splendid show, though we used to joke Ralph Jenks about sitting up nights to watch his wife's necklace. The fame of the pearls had got to Washington ahead of us, and the WashingtonEaglehad a piece in about the arrival at the Arlington of the new Senator from Illinois and the "packers' contingent" with their pearls! People used to turn around in the corridors and stare at us—not so much at the new Senator as at Mrs. Jenks's pearls!
I had already taken a house in Washington for the winter, and Sarah soon was busy in having it done over for us. We had shut up the Chicago house, and after discussing the matter with Sarah I concluded to turn over the Vermilion County property to a society, to be used for a reform school. Sarah talked it over with the young fellow I met on the train, who first put the idea into my head, and she seemed to take great pleasure in the plan, wanting me to give an endowment for the institution, which I promised as soon as my packing-company stock was straightened out. Now that I had failed to put Will and his family down there, as I had set my heart on doing, I had no more wish to go back to the place than Sarah had. And as a home to take boys to who hadn't a fair chance in life, it might do some good in the world.
"It was good sausage, Slo! At least it was when we made it."
"It was good sausage, Slo! At least it was when we made it."
It was a pleasant, warm day when my colleague, Senator Drummond, came to escort me to the Senate. My secretary and Slocum accompanied us up the broad steps toward the Senate chamber. As we turned in from the street with the Capitol rising before us, my eye fell upon a broad advertising board beside the walk, on a vacant piece of property. One of the conspicuous advertisements caught my attention:—
THE DUCHESS BRANDSTRICTLY FARM-MADE SAUSAGEBEST IN THE WORLD
It was one of Strauss's "ads." Slocum pointed to it with a wave of his hand and glanced at me; and I thought I caught a smile on the lips of my colleague, which might have been scornful. So I paused before we passed beyond sight of the sign of the Duchess brand.
"It was good sausage, Slo! At least it was when we made it."
"And it did pretty well by you!" he laughed.
Senator Drummond had moved forward with my secretary. "Yes! The Duchess was all right." Then we followed the others slowly up the great steps....
In the Senate chamber, in one of the galleries, a group of women were sitting about Sarah, waiting to see me take the oath. One of them waved a handkerchief at me, and as I looked up I caught sight of Mrs. Jenks's pearls when she leaned forward over the rail.
On my desk there was a bunch of American Beauty roses: I did not have to look for the card to know that they had come from Jane.
THE COMMON LOT.
By ROBERT HERRICK,
Author of "The Real World," "The Web of Life," etc.
Cloth. 12mo. $1.50.
Mr. Herrick has written a novel of searching insight and absorbing interest; a first-rate story ... sincere to the very core in its matter and in its art.—Hamilton W. Mabie.
The book is a bit of the living America of to-day, a true picture of one of its most significant phases ... living, throbbing with reality.—N.Y. Evening Mail.
Novels of its style and quality are few and far between; ... he tells a story that is worth the telling; ... it is a study of life as he sees it, and as thousands of his readers try to avoid seeing it.—Boston Transcript.
It grips the reader tremendously.... It is the drama of a human soul the reader watches ... the finest study of human motive that has appeared for many a day.—The World To-day.
Such a story will hardly slip through the reader's hands until the last page is reached, and then as he slowly puts it down, he will be apt to do a lot of thinking.—Advance.
It deserves the widest reading, not only as a piece of admirable writing, but as a powerful presentation of the contemporary American tragedy.—The Outlook.
The book as a story is absorbingly interesting; as a moral study it is not less than great.—The Interior, Chicago.
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THE GOSPEL OF FREEDOM.
By ROBERT HERRICK.
12mo. Cloth extra, gilt top and side. $1.50.
The motive of the story is that of personal independence in its appeal especially to the restless, eager, egotistic woman of our new civilization. The scenes are laid in Paris, Chicago, and Florence.
A clever, vivacious book.—N.Y. Tribune.
"The Gospel of Freedom" is destined to place the author in the front ranks of the writers to whom we must look for our best and most serious fiction.—N.Y. Commercial Advertiser.
Highly entertaining and interesting.—N.Y. Times.
A novel that may truly be called the greatest study of social life in a broad and very much up-to-date sense that has ever been contributed to American fiction.—Chicago Inter-Ocean.
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64-66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK.
THE WEB OF LIFE.
By ROBERT HERRICK,
Author of "The Gospel of Freedom," etc.
Cloth. 12mo. $1.50.
Like his earlier book, "The Gospel of Freedom," which was hailed as "the great American social novel," this deals with social conditions in the young West.
One of the strongest stories of the summer.... It is strong in that it faithfully depicts many phases of American life, and uses them to strengthen a web of fiction, which is most artistically wrought out.—Buffalo Illustrated Express.
Of more than ordinary literary and artistic merit, and the lesson one learns from it will no doubt be a wholesome one.
The greatest story of American social life ... ever contributed to American fiction.—Inter-Ocean, Chicago.
As a story it is absorbing.—The Bookman.
Most emphatically worth reading.—Boston Budget.
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THE REAL WORLD
By ROBERT HERRICK,
Author of "The Web of Life," "The Gospel of Freedom," etc.
Cloth 12 mo $1.50
"It is unfortunate for our latter-day fiction that there are not more such strong, well-balanced books being brought out. Such work as Professor Herrick's is creative."—Denver Republican.
"The conception is thoughtful, the character-drawing masterly at times, and always intelligent and careful, while toward the end the emotional interests become absorbing. The most striking thing about Mr. Herrick is perhaps the absolute unconventionality of his notions. His characters are not types, they are people; and he is not so much studying a problem as recording facts. The consequence is that the course of his stories is usually as original as real life. Another strong characteristic of his is a subtle, almost feminine knowledge of character."—Washington Times.
"The title of the book, 'The Real World,' has a subtle intention. It indicates, and is true to the verities in doing so, the strange dreamlike quality of life to the man who has not yet fought his own battles, or come into conscious possession of his will,—only such battles bite into the consciousness."—Chicago Tribune.
"Intellectually 'The Real World' is an exceptionally powerful work ... prominently among the season's best books."—Boston Courier.
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TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:Illustrations have been moved to the nearest appropriate paragraph break. As a result of moving full page illustrations, there are 12 missing page numbers.Obvious typographical and printer errors have been corrected without comment.In addition to obvious errors, the following changes have been made:Page 8: "head" changed to "heard" in the phrase, "... I heard the young lady exclaim...."Page 41: "thing" changed to "think" in the phrase, "... I should think...."Page 219: "car-worn" changed to "care-worn" in the phrase, "... a care-worn sort of smile...."Page 310: "their" changed to "there" in the phrase, "... seeing that there might be...."Other than the above, no effort has been made to standardize internal inconsistencies in spelling, capitalization, punctuation, grammar, etc. The author's usage is preserved as found in the original publication.
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:
Illustrations have been moved to the nearest appropriate paragraph break. As a result of moving full page illustrations, there are 12 missing page numbers.
Obvious typographical and printer errors have been corrected without comment.
In addition to obvious errors, the following changes have been made:
Page 8: "head" changed to "heard" in the phrase, "... I heard the young lady exclaim...."Page 41: "thing" changed to "think" in the phrase, "... I should think...."Page 219: "car-worn" changed to "care-worn" in the phrase, "... a care-worn sort of smile...."Page 310: "their" changed to "there" in the phrase, "... seeing that there might be...."
Page 8: "head" changed to "heard" in the phrase, "... I heard the young lady exclaim...."
Page 41: "thing" changed to "think" in the phrase, "... I should think...."
Page 219: "car-worn" changed to "care-worn" in the phrase, "... a care-worn sort of smile...."
Page 310: "their" changed to "there" in the phrase, "... seeing that there might be...."
Other than the above, no effort has been made to standardize internal inconsistencies in spelling, capitalization, punctuation, grammar, etc. The author's usage is preserved as found in the original publication.