CHAPTER IV.
CONDITIONS improved steadily with the Wycliffs. Mrs. Wycliff and Robert were both gaining slowly, but surely. From various sources, some of them unexpected, came sufficient income to pay all bills promptly when due. Wycliff had dabbled in literature since boyhood, and his income from this source, though small, was helpful.
While he was still at home, helping about the house, and frequently consulted by Hugh Maxwell, and by those whose political fortunes were linked with his, a stranger called. He was a keen-looking man, who wasted no time in ceremony.
“John Wycliff, I believe?�
“Yes, sir.�
“I am Wilfrid Terry, of the ElmfieldStar. We are not satisfied with our sales in Papyrus. We sell only a thousand papers here, whereas we ought to sell fifteen hundred. We are told that youhave had experience in newspaper work, and a gentleman who is acquainted with your former work, thinks you could bring our sales in Papyrus up to what they ought to be.�
“I don’t believe that I could work for you.�
“Indeed, and why not?�
“As I have learned it, good journalism is no respecter of persons. I could not, or rather I would not, work under your system, which tells the truth about the poor man, but conceals the truth about the rich man.�
“I don’t understand you.�
“I can tell you in a way that you will understand,� replied Wycliff sharply: “When Rudolph Hartland, a small contractor, had trouble with his workmen, and a dozen of them went on a strike, you devoted columns of valuable space to the occurrence; but when hundreds of employees in the Liberty Mill of the Baldwin Paper Company, struck against a cut in wages, your paper never mentioned it. Here was an important event, in whichthe public had a vital interest, but you would not allow any reference to it in the paper. You have never allowed the facts to be presented in your publication regarding the partial disfranchisement of workingmen in Papyrus, by which all mill-hands are prevented from having any voice in town-government, except to vote for town-officers, being shut out from voting for appropriations. Only a short time ago you refused to publish Reverend Ralph Cutter’s farewell sermon, the most notable sermon, perhaps, ever preached in Papyrus. Why have you refused publicity to these things, which the people want to know, and which the people are entitled to know? Simply because you are afraid of offending the Baldwins. You ought to wear a brass collar, with your owner’s name on it.�
John Wycliff’s voice and features were not expressive. He could never have been an actor. But he was getting waked up, and a little light was creeping into his one lonesome, dull gray eye. Such expression as there was in his featureswas of loathing and contempt. He looked as if he would have been glad to take up his visitor with a pair of tongs, deposit him gently in some out-of-the-way place, and cover him up so that he would not offend the senses of decent people.
“I didn’t come here to listen to abuse of this kind,� exclaimed Terry angrily.
“Never mind what you came here for,� retorted Wycliff. “If you stay around me you will hear a grain of truth occasionally. There may be something to be said for a man like Deacon Surface, who serves the devil for a fat salary, but you serve him for nothing. The Baldwins despise you, as such men always despise their slaves, and the public despises you, too. And what do you get out of it? You complain that you are selling only one thousand papers in Papyrus. Why not give the facts that the people are entitled to know, and sell fifteen hundred?�
Terry was angry, but the money was what he was after, and possibly Wycliffwas right, after all, in what he said.
“Let’s talk business,� he said. “Come out to Lawyer Sturgis’ office to-morrow, and we’ll sign an agreement. If you can bring our circulation in Papyrus up to fifteen hundred copies, you shall have fifteen hundred dollars a year, and one year’s salary guaranteed. You shall handle the Papyrus news and comment upon it as you see fit, so long as you do not render the publisher of the paper liable to an action at law. If we differ on this point, Lawyer Sturgis’ decision shall be final.�
“It’s a bargain,� said Wycliff, and his caller departed.
The details were arranged, and contract signed, the next day. A few evenings later Wycliff was sitting in what he humorously called his “office.� It contained a few books, mostly for reference, a convenient desk, a small safe, a stuffed cougar, or mountain lion, from the Rockies, and a mounted moosehead from Maine—all of these things being reminders of more prosperous times.Frowning upon all, and seemingly out of place, was a good likeness of Congressman Baldwin, of whom Wycliff had been a great admirer.
Answering a timid knock, Wycliff found a fellow-laborer at the door, a weak-minded French Canadian, a mere boy, who went by the name of “Half-witted Joe.�
“How do you do, Joe?� he asked when his old comrade was seated.
“Mad.�
“What is the trouble?�
“Mr. Sharp no pay me. He say me no worth ten dollars.�
“Did he pay you anything?�
“Yes, five dollars for clothes.�
“You worked one month?�
“Yes, he promise me ten dollars and board.�
“I heard him.�
“Me get up early; me work late—eight o’clock, sometimes. Me work hard. Mr. Sharp say me no earn only five dollars. Damn.�
“What will you do?�
“Me go home, Canada.�
“Have you money enough to take you home?�
“No. Me sell watch, five dollar.�
He exhibited a watch, for which Wycliff thought he could safely pay that amount, and he handed Joe the money.
“Thank,� said Joe, as he stepped over the threshold, “Me fix old Sharp.�
“Don’t hurt Mr. Sharp,� Wycliff cautioned him. “Mr. Sharp has a good wife, and good children. Besides, you would go to prison.�
The tone of his visitor changed. He seemed to realize that he had blundered in making the threat.
“Me no hurt Mr. Sharp,� he finally promised, and then he went out into the darkness.
“Don’t lose your money,� was Wycliff’s parting advice.
When he was out in the night again, Joe’s anger kindled anew, as he remembered the farm-superintendent’s injustice. Although Wycliff’s warning prevented him from doing Sharp bodilyharm, he was still bent on revenge. Revenge was still the uppermost idea in Half-Witted Joe’s unbalanced mind, as he approached Beauna Vista, and the dark night had its strong influence upon his thought and purpose.
He glanced in at the farm-house windows. The family and the farm-hands were busy reading. Mr. Sharp, he knew, had gone to a public meeting. The coast was clear. He stole around to the side of the barn farthest from the house. He went through an unused stable, to where the lower part of a great mow of hay was exposed.
There was the flash of a match, the sudden darting upward of the flames on the edge of the hay-mow, and then Joe hurried out through the yard, across the meadow, and reaching the railroad track, followed it to the edge of a piece of woods.
Here he halted, cowering in some bushes, and looked. He saw the light gleam from the big barn-doors, saw the flames break through the roof, saw theinmates of the house rush out, and heard the alarm sounded from farm-house to farm-house. Soon a neighboring farmer rushed past Joe, on his way to the fire, and as the flames now lit up the landscape all around, Joe realized that he might be discovered, and passed on. But while he looked, he feasted his eyes as greedily as a former savage might have done, on the destruction of a pioneer home.
“Me fix you, Jake Sharp,� he said, in a whisper, as he shook his fist in farewell at Beauna Vista. He did not realize that the loss fell upon others, and not upon Sharp. An hour later he was aboard a train on his way to Canada.
The farm-building which is fired is usually doomed. It could not be otherwise on this occasion, when the flames had their start in a forty-ton mow of hay, dry as tinder.
The farm-laborers first saved the horses. Their next move was such as might have been expected from excited men, unused to such emergencies—they began draggingout the vehicles, until Mrs. Sharp, with more forethought than the men, exclaimed: “The cows! the cows next!�
“But we cannot get at the door of the cow-stable,� the laborers protested.
“Take crowbars and break in the side of the barn!� she ordered, and under a woman’s direction the work of rescue went on.
The fire-department of Papyrus responded tardily, owing to distance, and could do but little, except to protect the farm-house. Finally, as the glowing pageant lit up the landscape for miles in every direction, half the men of Papyrus were on the scene, but could do nothing except listen to the crackle of burning timbers, and the bellowing of imprisoned and roasting cattle.
John Wycliff knew very well that the Baldwins would not wish the story of the relations of Jacob Sharp and Half-Witted Joe published, but he considered that the public was entitled to know it. The story of the poor Canadian boy, and his treatment by Jacob Sharp, was told in theStaras graphically as the story of the fire itself. In his narrative Wycliff made a clear distinction between known facts regarding the fire, and mere suspicions or rumors.
TheTribune, theStar’sElmfield rival, the property of Congressman Baldwin, made this announcement:—
“Not a clue is obtainable regarding the origin of the fire. Mr. Sharp, the foreman of Beauna Vista, is a man who always keeps the good will of his employees, so that not a shadow of suspicion can lie in that direction.�
This way of dealing with news was entirely in harmony with the usual policy of the Baldwins, where their own interests were involved. There were several persons who were angry at the course taken by theStar. The Baldwins were angry, partly because they regarded it as an intrusion upon their private affairs and partly because the fire-story had dealt Sharp a hard blow in his fight for the office of Selectman.
As for Sharp, he threatened variousthings, but his own attorney told him to “pocket his wrath and say nothing,� as he could not maintain an action against theStar.
Terry was happy, as the sales of theStar, in Papyrus, had been lifted between two and three hundred, and the increase promised to prove permanent.