He laughed a little treble laugh, cracked and yet gleeful. "Nice girls—all of 'em. But Grant says Jap's a kind of shining around your Ruth—that's the singing one, isn't it? Well, I suppose, Ezry, either of 'em might do worse. Of course, this singing one doesn't remember her mother much, so I suppose she won't be much affected by your surprise?" He asked a question, but after his manner went on, "Well, maybe it was Jap and Ruth that was bothering Mary last night. I kind of thought someway, for the first time maybe I'd get her. But nothing much came of it," he said sadly. "It's funny about the way I've never been able to get her direct, when every one else comes—isn't it?"

The Captain was in no humor for occult things, so he cut in with: "Now listen here, Amos—what do you think of me asking Mrs. Herdicker to sit at one end of the table, eh? Of course I know what the girls will think—but then," he winked with immense slyness, "that's all right. I was talking to her about it, and she's going to have a brand new dress—somepin swell—eh? By the jumping John Rogers, Amos—there's a woman—eh?"

And tightening up his necktie—a scarlet creation of much pride—he pulled his hat over his eyes, as one who has great affairs under it, and marched double-quick out of the office.

You may be sure that some kind friend told the Morton girls of what was in store for them, the kind friend being Mr. George Brotherton, who being thoroughly married, regarded any secret from his wife in the light of a real infidelity. So he told her all that he and Market Street knew. Now the news of the party—a party in whose preparations they were to have no share, roused in the Misses Morton, and their married sister, jointly and severally, that devil of suspicion which always tormented their dreams.

"And, Emma," gasped Martha, when Emma came over for her daily visit, "just listen! Mrs. Herdicker is having the grandest dress made for the party! She told the girls in the store she had twenty-seven dollars' worth of jet on it—just jet alone." Here the handsome Miss Morton turned pale with the gravity of the news. "She told the girls to-day, this very afternoon, that she was going to take the three o'clock morning train right after the party for New York to do her fall buying. Fall buying, indeed! Fall buying," the handsome Miss Morton's voice thickened and she cried, "just because papa's got a little money, she thinks—"

But what she thought Miss Morton never said, for Mrs. Brotherton, still familiar with the gossip of the schoolhouse, cut in to say: "And, Martha, what do you think those Copini children say? They say father's got their father's orchestra to practice all the old sentimental music you ever heard of—'Silver Threads Among the Gold,' and 'Do You Love Me, Molly Darling,' and 'Lorena,' and 'Robin Adair,'—and oh," cried Mrs. Brotherton, shaking a hopeless head, "I don't know what other silly things."

"And yes, girls," exclaimed the youngest Miss Morton flippantly, "he's sent around to the Music School for Miss Howe to come and sing 'O Promise Me'!"

"The idea!" cried the new Mrs. Brotherton.

"Why, the very idea!" broke out the handsome Miss Morton, sitting by the dining-room table.

"The idea!" echoed the youngest Miss Morton, putting away her music roll, and adding in gasping excitement: "And that isn't the worst. He sent word for her to sing it just after the band had finished playing the wedding march!"

Now terror came into the house of Morton, and when the tailor's boy brought home a package, the daughters tore it open ruthlessly, and discovered—as they sat limply with it spread out in its pristine beauty on the sofa before them—a white broadcloth dinner suit—with a watered silk vest. Half an hour later, when a pleated dress shirt with pearl buttons came, it found three daughters sitting with tight lips waiting for their father—and six tigers' eyes glaring hungrily at the door through which he was expected. At six o'clock, when they heard his nimble step on the porch, they looked at one another in fear, and as he burst into the room, each looked decisively at the other as indicating a command to begin.

He came in enveloping them in one all-encompassing hug and cried:

"Well 'y gory, girls, you certainly are the three graces, the three fates, and the world, the flesh and the devil all in one—what say?"

But the Morton daughters were not to be silenced. Ruth took in a deep breath and began:

"Well, now see here, father, do you know what people are saying about—"

"Of course—I was just coming to that, Ruthie," answered the Captain. "Amos Adams he says, 'Well, Cap,' say he, 'I was talking to Cleopatra and she says Queen Victoria had a readin' to the effect that there was a boy named Amos Ezra Morton Adams over on one of the stars in the southwest corner of the milky way that would be busting into this part of the universe in about three years, more or less'—what say?"

The old man laughed and Ruth flushed red, and ran away. The Captain saw his suit lying on the sofa.

"Somepin new—" interjected the Captain. "Thought I'd kind o' bloom out; sort o' to let folks know that the old man had a little kick in him yet—eh? And now, girls—listen; let's all go out to the Country Club for dinner to-night, and I'll put on my new suit and you kind of rig up in your best, and we'll make what George calls a killing—what say?" He put his hands in his pockets and looked critically at his new clothes. The flight of Ruth had quieted Emma, but Martha came swooping down on him with "Now, father—look here—about that Country Club party—"

The Captain shot a swift glance at Martha, and saw Emma looking at him from the kitchen door.

"What party?" he exclaimed. "Can't I ask my girls out for a little innocent dinner without its being called a party—eh? Now, you girls get your things on and come on. As for me, the limousine will be at the door at eight!"

He disappeared up the stairs and in the Morton household, two young women, woeful and heavy hearted, went about their toilets, while in the Brotherton establishment, one large fat man in suspenders felt the rush of sudden tears on his shirt front and marveled at the ways of the sex. When the Mortons were in the midst of their moist and lugubrious task, the thin, cracked little voice of the Captain called out:

"Girls—before you go, don't forget to put that cold beef on and stew it to-night for hash in the morning—eh?"

It was a beautiful party that Captain Morton gave at the Country Club house that evening. And at the end of a most gorgeously elaborate dinner, wherein were dishes whose very names the Captain did not know, he rose among his guests seated at the U-shaped table in the big dining room with the heavy brown beams in the ceiling, a little old man by his big chair, which stood beside a chair unoccupied.

"Friends," he said, "when a man gets on in his seventies, at that uncertain time, when he does not know whether to be ashamed of his years or proud of his age," he smiled at Daniel Sands, who clicked his false-teeth in appreciation of the phrase, "it would seem that thoughts of what the poet calls 'the livelier iris' on the 'burnished dove' would not inconvenience him to any great extent—eh? At seventy-five a young fellow's fancy ought to be pretty well done lightly turning to thoughts of love—what say? But by cracky—they don't."

He paused. The Morton girls in shame looked at their plates. "So, I just thought I'd have this little party to tell you about it. I wanted to surprise the girls." There was only a faint clapping of hands; for tears in the eyes of the three Morton daughters discouraged merriment.

"A man, as I was saying, never gets too old—never gets too crabbed, for what my friend Amos's friend Emerson calls 'a ruddy drop of manly blood'—eh? So, when that 'ruddy drop of manly blood' comes a surging up in me, I says I'll just about have a party for that drop of manly blood! I'm going to tell you all about it. There's a woman in my mind—a very beautiful woman; for years—a feller just as well breakdown and confess—eh?—well for years she's been in my mind pretty much all the time—particularly since Ruthie there was a baby and left alorn and alone—as you may say—eh? And so," he reached down and grasped a goblet of water firmly, and held it before him, "and so," he repeated, and his old eyes glistened and his voice broke, "as it was just fifty years ago to-night that heaven opened and let her come to me, before I marched off to war—so," he hurried along, "I give you this toast—the vacant chair—may it always, always, always be filled in my heart of hearts!"

He could not drink, but sank with his head on his arms, and when they had ceased clapping their hands, the old man looked up, signaled to the orchestra, and cried in a tight, cracked voice, "Now, dern ye—begin yer fiddlin'!"

Whereupon the three Morton daughters wept and the old ladies gathered about them and wept, and Mrs. Hilda Herdicker's ton of jet heaved as in a tidal wave, and the old men dried their eyes, and only Lila Van Dorn and Kenyon Adams, holding hands under the table, really knew what it was all about.

Now they have capered through these pages of this chapter—all of the people in this story in their love affairs. Hand in hand, they have come to the footlights, hand in hand they have walked before us. We have seen that love is a passion with many sides. It varies with each soul. In youth, in maturity, in courtship, in marriage, in widowhood, in innocence, and in the wisdom of serpents, love reflects the soul it shines on. For love is youth in the heart—youth that always beckons, that always shapes our visions. Love ever sheens and shimmers brightly from within us; but what it shows to the world—that is vastly different with each of us. For that is the shadow of his inmost being.



CHAPTER XLIII

WHEREIN WE FIND GRANT ADAMS CALLING UPON KENYON'S MOTHER, AND DARKNESS FALLS UPON TWO LOVERS

Once in a while an item appeared in the Harvey Tribune that might have been found nowhere else, and for reasons. For instance, the issue of the Tribune that contained the account of the Captain's party also contained this item, which Daniel Sands had kept out of every other paper in town:

"Mortimer Sands, son of D. Sands of the Traders' Bank, has returned from Arizona, where he has been seeking health. He is hopeful of ultimate recovery."

Another item of interest appeared in the same issue of the paper. It related that T. Van Dorn, former Judge of the District Court, is in Washington, D. C., on legal business.

The Adams family item, which the paper never failed to contain, was this:

"K. Adams will leave next week for New York, where his new opera, 'Rachel,' will have its first appearance next autumn. He will be missed in our midst."

And for a paper with no subscribers and no patronage, it is curious to note that the Tribune carried the news above mentioned to all of Harvey, and all of Harvey discussed the news. Not that the town did not know more or less of the facts as hereinabove related; but when a fact is read in print it becomes something different from a fact. It becomes a public matter, an episode in the history of the world.

In the same issue of the paper was a statement from Grant Adams that he had decided to throw his life with the Socialists and with that group known as the revolutionary Socialists. Grant was enough of a personage, and the declaration was short enough and interesting enough, to give it a place in the newspapers of the country for a day. In the State where he lived, the statement created some comment—mostly adverse to Dr. Nesbit, whose political association with Grant Adams had linked the Doctor's name with Grant's. Being out of power, Dr. Nesbit felt these flings. So it happened that when, the Sunday following the announcement, Grant came with his father and Kenyon in the rattling old buggy up to the Nesbit home on Elm Street, Amos Adams found a rollicking, frivolous, mischievous host—but Grant Adams found a natty, testy, sardonic old man, who made no secret of his ill-humor.

Kenyon found Lila, and the two with their music indoors made a background for the talk on the veranda. Nathan Perry, who came up for a pill or a powder for one of his flock, sat for a time on the veranda steps. For all his frivoling with the elder Adams, Nathan could see by the way the loose, wrinkled skin on the Doctor's face kept twitching when Grant spoke, that the old man had something on his mind.

"Grant," cried the Doctor, in his excited treble, "do you realize what an ornate, unnecessary, unmitigated conspicuous, and elaborate jack you've made of yourself? Do you—young man? Well, you have. Your revolution—your revolution!" shrilled the old man. "Damn sight of revolution you'll kick up charging over the country with your water-tank patriots—your—your box-car statesmen—now, won't you?"

"Here—Doctor,—come—be—"

But the Doctor would not let Grant talk. The chirrup of the shrill old voice bore in upon the younger man's protest with, "Now, you let me say my say. The world's moving along—moving pretty fast and generally to one end, and that end is to put food in the bellies, clothes on the back, and brains in the head of the working man. The whole trend of legislation all over the world has gone that way. Hell's afire, Grant—what more do you want? We've given you the inheritance tax and the income tax and direct legislation to manipulate it, and, by Ned, instead of staying with the game and helping us work these things out in wise administration, you fly the coop, and go squawking over the country with your revolution and leave me—damn it, Grant," piped the little, high voice, sputtering with rage, "you leave me—with my linen pants on a clothes-line four miles from home!"

Then slowly the little lines began to break in his loose skin. A faint smile, then a grin and then a laugh, spread over the old face, and he wiped his watering eyes as he shook his head mournfully.

Grant was gathering himself to reply when Nate Perry rasped in with his high-keyed Yankee voice: "I guess that about covers my views, Grant—if any one should ask you."

The crusader rose in Grant: "It's you men who have no sense," he cried. "You think because I declare war on the profit system that I propose to sail out and overturn it with a few bombs over night. Look here, men; what I propose to do is to demonstrate right here in the Wahoo Valley, where there are all sorts of laboring people, skilled, unskilled, continuous, overpaid and underpaid, foreign and American—utterly unlike, incoherent, racially and industrially—that they have in them capacities for organizing; unused abilities, untried talents that will make them worthy to take a higher place in the economic scale than they now have. If I can amalgamate them, if I can weld them into a consistent, coherent labor mass—the Irish, the Slav, the Jews, the Italians, the Poles, the French, the Dutch, the Letts, and the Mexicans—put to some purpose the love of the poor for the poor, so that it will count industrially, you can't stop the revolution." He was wagging his head, waving his stump of an arm and his face showed the temperamental excitement that was in him.

"Go ahead, Grant," said Perry. "Play out all your line—show us your game."

"Well, then—here's my game. For five years we've been collecting a district strike fund—all our own, that doesn't belong to any other organization or federation anywhere. It's ours here in the Wahoo. It's independent of any state or national control. I've collected it. It's been paid because these men here in the Valley have faith in me. We have practically never spent a penny of it. There are about ten thousand workers in the Valley—some, like the glassblowers, are the aristocracy of labor; others, like the breaker boys, are at the bottom of the scale. But we've kept wages up, kept conditions as high as they are anywhere in the country—and we've done it without strikes. They have faith in me. So we've assessed them according to their wages, and we have on hand, with assessments and interest, over a third of a million dollars."

He looked at Perry, and nodded his head at the Doctor. "You fellows think I'm a cream-puff reformer. I'm not. Now, then—I've talked it over with our board—we are going to invest that money in land up and down the Valley—put the women and children and old men on it—in tents—during the growing season, and cultivate that land in three-acre tracts intensively. Our Belgian glassblowers and smelter men have sent for their gardeners to teach us. Now it's merely a question of getting the land and doing the preliminary organization. We want to get as much land as we can. Now, there's my game. With that kind of a layout we can win any strike we call. And we can prove to the world that labor has the cohesive cooperating faculty required to manage the factories—to take a larger share of the income of industry, if you please. That's my revolution, gentlemen. And it's going to begin right here in the Wahoo Valley."

"Well," returned Nate Perry, "your revolution looks interesting. It's got some new gears, at least."

"Go it while you're young," piped the Doctor. "In just about eighteen months, you will be coming to me to go on your bond—to keep out of jail. I've seen new-fangled revolutions peter out before."

"Just the same," replied Grant, "I've pinned my faith to these men and women. They are now working in fear of poverty. Give them hope of better things instead of fear and they will develop out of poverty, just as the middle class came out under the same stimulus."

"I don't know anything about that," interrupted Perry, "but I do know that I could take that money and put three thousand families to work on the land in the Wahoo Valley and develop the best labor in the country."

He laughed, and Grant gazed, almost flared, so eager was his look, at Perry for a moment, and said: "When the day of the democracy of labor comes—and it will come and come soon—men like you will take leadership."

There was more high talk, and Nathan Perry went home with his pill.

When he was gone, the music from indoors came to the three men. "That's from his new opera, father," said Grant, as his attention was attracted to the violin and piano.

"Good Lord," exclaimed the Doctor, "I've heard so much of that opera that I caught myself prescribing a bar from the opening chorus for the grip the other day!"

The two elder men looked at each other, and the Doctor said, "Well, Amos—that's mostly why I asked you to come up to-day. It wasn't for the society of your amateur revolutionist—you may be sure of that."

The Doctor tempered his words with a smile, but they had pricks, and Grant winced. "I suppose we may as well consider Lila and Kenyon as before the house?"

"Kenyon came to me last night," said Grant, "wanting to know whether he should come to father first, or go to Dr. Nesbit, or—well, he wondered if it would be necessary to talk with Lila's own father." All the grimness in Grant's countenance melted as he spoke of Kenyon and the battered features softened.

"And that is what I wish to talk about, Grant," said the Doctor gently. "They don't know who Kenyon is—I mean, they don't know about his parentage." Grant looked at the floor. Slowly as the old shame revived in him, its flush rose from his neck to his face and met his tousled hair. The two old men looked seriously at one another. The Doctor emphasized the solemnity of the occasion by lighting a pipe.

"I don't know—I really don't know what is right here," he said finally. "Is it fair to Laura to let her daughter marry the son of a woman who, more than any other woman in the world, has wronged her? I'm sure Laura cherishes no malice toward Kenyon's mother. Yet, of course," the Doctor spoke deliberately and puffed between his words, "blood is blood. But I don't know how much blood is blood, I mean how much of what we call heredity in human beings is due to actual blood transmission of traits, and how much is due to the development of traits by family environment. I'm not sure, Amos, that this boy's bad blood has not been entirely eliminated by the kindly, beautiful family environment he has had with you and yours. There seems to be nothing of the Muellers in him, but his face and his music—I take it his music is of German origin."

"I don't know—I don't know, Doctor," answered Amos. "I've tried to take him apart, and put him together again, but I can't find where the parts belong."

And so they droned on, those three wiseacres—two oldish gentlemen and a middle-aged man, thinking they could change or check or dam the course of true love. While inside at the piano on the tide of music that was washing in from God only knows what bourne where words are useless and passions speak the primitive language of souls, Lila and Kenyon were solving all the problems set for them by their elders and betters. For they lived in another world from those who established themselves in the Providence business out on the veranda. And on this earth, even in the same houses, and in the same families, there is no communication between the worlds. With our powerful lenses of memory we men and women in our forties gaze earnestly and long at the distant planets of youth, wondering if they are really inhabited by real people—or mere animals, perchance—if they have human institutions, reasonable aspirations or finite intelligences. We take temperatures, make blood counts and record blood pressure, reckon the heart-beats, and think we are wondrous wise. But wig-wag as we may, signal with what mysterious wireless of evanescent youth-fire we still hold in our blood, we get nothing but vague hints, broken reminiscences, and a certain patchwork of our own subconscious chop logic of middle age in return. There is no real communication between the worlds. Youth remains another planet—even as age and childhood are other planets.

Now, after the three wise men had considered the star glowing before them, they decided thus:

"Well," quoth the Doctor, "it seems absolutely just that Lila should know who her husband is, and that Laura should know whom her child is marrying. So far as I am concerned, I know this Adams blood; I'll trust it to breed out any taint; but I have no right to decide for Lila; I have no right to say what Laura will do—though, Grant, I know in my heart that she would rather have her child marry yours than to have anything else come about that the world could hold for her. And yet—she should know the truth."

Grant sat with his head bowed, and his eyes on the floor, while the Doctor spoke. Without looking up, he said: "There's some one else to consider, Doctor—there's Margaret—after all, it's her son; it's her secret. It's—I don't know what her rights are—perhaps she's forfeited them. But she is at least physically his mother."

The Doctor looked up with a troubled face. He ran his hand over the place where his pompadour once used to rise, and where only a fuzz responded to the stroke of his dry palm, and answered:

"Grant—through it all—through all the tragedy that she has brought here, I've kept that secret for Margaret. And until she releases me, I can never break my silence. A doctor—one of the right sort—never could. Whatever you feel are her rights—you and she must settle. It must be you, not I, to tell this story, even to my own flesh and blood, Grant."

Grant rose and walked the long, straight stretch of the veranda. His shoulders, pugnacious, aggressive, and defiant, swayed as he walked heavily and he gazed at the floor as one in shame. Finally he whirled toward the Doctor and said:

"I'm going to his mother. I'm going now. She may have mighty few rights in this matter—she cast him off shamefully. But she has just one right here—the right to know that I shall tell her secret to Laura, and I'm going to talk to her before I tell Laura. Even if Margaret clamors against what I think is right, I shall not stop. But I'm not going to sneak her secret away without her knowing it. I suppose that's about the extent of her rights in Kenyon: to know before I tell his wife who he really is, so that Margaret will know who knows and who does not know her relation to him. It seems to me that is about the justice of the case." The Doctor puffed at his pipe, and nodded a slow assent.

"Now's as good a time as any," answered the Doctor, and added: "By the way, Amos—I had a telegram from Washington this morning, saying that Tom is to be made Federal judge in the new district. That's what he's doing in Washington just now. He is one of those ostensible fellows," piped the Doctor. "Ostensibly he's there trying to help land another man; but Tom's the Van Dorn candidate."

He smoked until his pipe revived and added, "Well, Tom can afford it; he's got all the money he needs."

Grant, who heard the Doctor's news, did not seem to be disturbed by it. His mind was occupied with more personal matters. He stood by a pillar, looking off into the summer day.

"Well, I suppose," he looked at his clothes, brushed the dust from the top of his shoes by rubbing them separately against the calves of his legs, straightened his ready-made tie and felt of the buttons on his vest, "I suppose," he repeated, "I may just as well go now as at any other time," and he strode down the steps and made straight for the Van Dorn home.

When he came to the Van Dorn house he saw Margaret sitting alone in the deep shade of a vine-screened piazza. She wore a loose flowing purple house garment, of a bizarre pattern which accented her physical charms. But not until he had begun to mount the steps before her did he notice that she was sound asleep in a gaping and disenchanting stupor. Yet his footstep aroused her, and she started and gazed wildly at him: "Why—why—you—why, Grant!"

"Yes, Margaret," he answered as he stood hat in hand on the top step before her, ignoring her trembling and the terror in her eyes. "I've come to have a talk with you—about Kenyon."

She looked about her, listened a second, shuddered, and said with quivering facial muscles and shaky voice, "Yes—oh, yes—about Kenyon—yes—Kenyon Adams. Yes, I know."

The eyes she turned on him were dull and her face was slumped, as though the soul had gone from it. A tremor was visible in her hands, and the color was gone from her drooping lips. She stared at him for a moment, stupidly, then irritation came into her voice, as he sat unbidden in a porch chair near her. "I didn't tell you to sit down."

"No." He turned his face and caught her eyes. "But I'll be comfortable sitting down, and we've got more or less talking to do."

He could see that she was perturbed, and fear wrote itself all over her face. But he did not know that she was vainly trying to get control of herself. The power of the little brown pellets left her while she slept, and she was uncertain of herself and timid. "I—I'm sick—well—I—I—why, I can't talk to you now. Go 'way," she cried. "Go 'way, won't you, please—please go 'way, and come some other time."

"No—now's as good a time as any," he replied. "At any rate, I'll tell you what's on my mind. Mag, now pay attention." He turned his face to her. "The time has come when Lila Van Dorn and her mother must know who Kenyon is."

She looked vacantly at him, then started and chattered, "Wh-wh-wh-wha-what are you s-s-sas-saying—do you mean?"

She got up, closed the door into the house, and came tottering back and stood by her chair, as the man answered:

"I mean, Maggie, exactly what I said. Kenyon wants to marry Lila. But I think, and Doctor Nesbit thinks, that before it is settled, Lila and her mother, and you might as well include Mrs. Nesbit, must know just who their daughter is marrying—I mean what blood. Now do you get my idea?"

As he spoke, the woman, clutching at her chair back, tried to quiet her fluttering hands. But she began panting and a sickly pallor overcame her and she cried feebly: "Oh, you devil—you devil—will you never let me alone?"

He answered, "Look here, Mag—what's the matter with you? I'm only trying to play fair with you. I wouldn't tell 'em until you—"

"Ugh!" She shut her eyes. "Grant—wait a minute. I must get my medicine. I'll be back." She turned to go. "Oh, wait a minute—I'll be back in five minutes—I promise, honest to God, I'll be right back, Grant." She was at the door. As she fumbled with the screen, he nodded his assent and smiled grimly as he said, "All right, Maggie."

When he was alone, he looked about him, at the evidence of the Van Dorn money in the temple of Love. The outdoor room was furnished with luxuries he had never seen. He sniffed as though he smelled the money that was evident everywhere. Beside Margaret's chair, where she had dropped it when she went to sleep, was a book. It was a beautifully bound copy of the Memoirs of some titled harlot of the old French court. He was staring absent-mindedly at the floor where the book lay when she came to the door.

She came out, sat down, looked steadily at him and began calmly: "Now, what is it you desire?"

She said "desiah," and Grant grunted as she went on: "I'm shuah no good can come and only hahm, great suffering—and Heaven knows what wrong, by this—miserable plan. What good can it do?"

Her changed attitude surprised him. "Well, now, Maggie," he returned, "since you want to talk it over sensibly, I'll tell you how we feel—at least how I feel. The chief business of any proper marriage is children. This marriage between Kenyon and Lila—if it comes—should bring forth fruit. I claim Lila has a right to know that he has my blood and yours in him before she goes into a life partnership with him."

"Oh, Grant, Grant," cried Margaret passionately, "the sum of your hair-splitting is this: that you bring shame upon your child's mother, and then cant like a Pharisee about its being for a good purpose. That's the way with you—you—you—" She could not quite finish the sentence.

She sat breathing fast, waiting for strength to come to her from the fortifying little pill. Grant picked up his hat. "Well—I've told you. That's what I came for."

She caught his arm and cried, "Sit down—haven't I a right to be heard? Hasn't a mother any rights—"

"No," cut in Grant, "not when she strangles her motherhood!"

"But how could I take my motherhood without disgracing my boy?" she asked.

He met her eyes. They were steady eyes, and were brightening. The man stared at her and answered: "When I brought him to you after mother died, a little, toddling, motherless boy, when I wanted you to come with us to mother him—and I didn't want you, Maggie, any more than you wanted me, but I thought his right to a mother was greater than either of our rights to our choice of mates—then and there, you made your final choice."

"What does God mean," she whined, "by hounding me all my life for that one mistake!"

"Maggie—Maggie," answered the man, sitting down as she sank into a chair, "it wasn't the one mistake that has made you unhappy."

"That's twaddle," she retorted, "sheer twaddle. Don't I know how that child has been a cancer in my very heart—burning and gnawing and making me wretched? Don't I know?"

"No, you don't, Mag. If you want the truth," replied Grant bluntly, "you looked upon the boy as a curse. He has threatened you every day of your life. The very love you think you have for him, which I don't doubt for a minute, Mag, made you do a mad, foolish, infinitely cruel, spiteful thing—that night at the South Harvey riot. Perhaps you might care for Kenyon's affection now, but you can't have that even remotely. For all his interest in you is limited by the fact that you robbed Lila of her father. All your cancer and heart burnings, Mag, have been your own selfishness. Lord, woman—I know you."

He turned his hard gaze upon her and she winced. But she clearly was enjoying the quarrel. It stimulated her taut nerves. The house behind her was empty. She felt free to brawl.

"And you? And you?" she jeered. "I suppose he's made a saint of you."

The man's face softened, as he said simply, "I don't claim to be a saint, Mag. But I owe Kenyon everything I am in the world—everything."

"Well, it isn't much of a debt," she laughed.

"No," he repeated, "it's not much of a debt." After a moment he added, "Doctor Nesbit has kept this secret all these years. Now it's time to let these people know. You can see why, and the only reason I came to you—"

"You came to me, Grant," she cried, "to tell me you were going to shame me before that—that—before her—that old, yellow-haired tabby, who goes around doing good! Ugh—"

Grant stared at her blankly a full, uncomprehensive minute. Finally Margaret went on: "And I suppose the next thing you long-nosed busybodies will do will be to get chicken hearted about Tom Van Dorn's rights in the matter. Ah, you hypocrites!" she cried.

"Well, I don't know," answered Grant sternly; "if Lila should go to her father for advice—why shouldn't he have all the facts?"

Margaret rose. Her bright, glassy eyes flashed. Anger colored her face. Her bosom rose and fell as she exclaimed: "But she'll not go to him. Oh, he's perfectly foolish about her. Every time a photographer in this town takes her picture, he snoops around and gets one. He has her picture in his watch, in which he thinks she looks like the Van Dorns. When he goes away he takes her picture in a leather frame and puts it on his table in the hotel—except when I'm around." She laughed. "Ain't it funny? Ain't it funny," she chattered hysterically, "him doddering the way he does about her, and her freezing the life out of him?" She shook with mirth, and went on: "Oh, the devil's coming round for Tom Van Dorn's soul—and all there is of it—all there is of it is the little green spot where he loves this brat. The rest's all rotted out!"

She laughed foolishly. Then Grant said:

"Well, Mag—I must be going. I just thought it would be square to tell you before I go any further. About the other—the affair of Lila and her father is no concern of mine. That's for Lila and her mother to settle. But you and I and Kenyon are bound together by the deepest tie in the world, Maggie. And I had to come to you." She stared into his gnarled face, then shut her eyes, and in an instant wherein they were closed she lapsed into her favorite pose and disappeared behind her mask.

"Vurry kind of you, I'm shuah. Chahmed to have this little talk again."

He gazed at the empty face, saw the drugged eyes, and the smirking mouth, and felt infinitely sad as a flash of her girlhood came back to his memory. "Well, good-by, Mag," he said gently, and turned and went down the steps.

The messenger boy whom Grant Adams passed as he went down the walk to the street from the Van Dorn home, put a telegram into Mrs. Van Dorn's lap. It was from Washington and read:

"Appointment as Federal Judge assured. Notify Sands. Have Calvin prepare article for Monday's Times and other papers."

She re-read it, held it in her hand for a time as she looked hungrily into the future.

While Grant Adams and Margaret were talking, the two old men on the porch, who once would have grappled with the problems of the great first cause, dropped into cackling reminiscences of the old days of the sixties and seventies when they were young men in their twenties and Harvey was an unbleached yellow pine stain on the prairie grass. So they forgot the flight of time, and forgot that indoors the music had stopped, and that two young voices were cooing behind the curtains. Upstairs, Laura Van Dorn and her mother, reading, tried with all their might and main to be oblivious to the fact that the music had stopped, and that certain suppressed laughs and gasps and long, silent gaps in the irregular conversation meant rather too obvious love-making for an affair which had not been formally recognized by the family. Yet the formality was all that was lacking. For if ever an affair of the heart was encouraged, was promoted, was greeted with everything but hurrahs and hosannas by the family of the lady thereunto appertaining, it was the love affair of Kenyon Adams and Lila Van Dorn.

The youth and the maiden below stairs were exceedingly happy. They went through the elaborate business of love-making, from the first touch of thrilling fingers to such passionately rapturous embraces as they might steal half watched and half tolerated, and the mounting joy in their hearts left no room for fear of the future. As they sat toying and frivoling behind the curtains of the wide living room in the Nesbit home, they saw Grant Adams's big, awkward figure hurrying across the lawn. He walked with stooping shoulders and bowed head, and held his claw hand behind him in his flinty, red-haired hand.

"Where has he been?" asked Kenyon, as he peered through the open curtain, with his arm about the girl.

"I don't know. The Mortons aren't at home this afternoon; they all went out in the Captain's big car," answered the girl.

"Well,—I wonder—" mused the youth.

Lila snatched the window curtain, and closing it, whispered: "Quick—quick—we don't care—quick—they may come in when he gets on the porch."

Through a thin slit in the closed curtains they watched the gaunt figure climb the veranda steps and they heard the elders ask:

"Well?" and the younger man replied, "Nothing—nothing—" he repeated, "but heartbreak."

Then he added as he walked to the half-open door, "Doctor—it seems to me that I should go to Laura now; to Laura and her mother."

"Yes," returned the Doctor, "I suppose that is the thing to do."

Grant's hand was on the door screen, and the Doctor's eyes grew bright with emotion, as he called:

"You're a trump, boy."

The two old men looked at each other mutely and watched the door closing after him. Inside, Grant said: "Lila—ask your mother and grandmother if they can come to the Doctor's little office—I want to speak to them." After the girl had gone, Grant stood by Kenyon, with his arm about the young man, looking down at him tenderly. When he heard the women stirring above on the stairs, Grant patted Kenyon's shoulder, while the man's face twitched and the muscles of his hard jaw worked as though he were chewing a bitter cud.

The three, Grant and the mother and the mother's mother, left the lovers in such awe as love may hold in the midst of its rapture, and when the office door had closed, and the women were seated, Grant Adams, who stood holding to a chair back, spoke:

"It's about Kenyon. And I don't know, perhaps I should have spoken sooner. But I must speak now."

The two women gazed inquiringly at him with sympathetic faces. He was deeply embarrassed, and his embarrassment seemed to accentuate a kind of caste difference between them.

"Yes, Grant," said Mrs. Nesbit, "of course, we know about Lila and Kenyon. Nothing in the world could please us more than to see them happy together."

"I know, ma'am," returned Grant, twirling his chair nervously. "That's just the trouble. Maybe they can't be happy together."

"Why, Grant," exclaimed Laura, "what's to hinder?"

"Stuff!" sniffed Mrs. Nesbit.

He looked up then, and the two women could see that he flinched.

"Well,—I don't know how to say it, but you must know it." He stopped, and they saw anguish in his face. "But I—Laura," he turned to the younger woman and made a pitiful gesture with his whole hand, "do you remember back when you were a girl away at school and I stopped writing to you?"

"Yes, Grant," replied Laura, "so well—so well, and you never would say—"

"Because I had no right to," he cut in, "it was not my secret—to tell—then."

Mrs. Nesbit sat impatiently on her chair edge, as one waiting for a foolish formality to pass. She looked at the clumsy, bulky figure of a man in his ill-fitting Sunday clothes, and obviously was rather irritated at his ill-timed interjection of his own childhood affair into an entirely simple problem of true love running smoothly. But her daughter, seeing the anguish in the man's twisted face, was stricken with a terror in her heart. Laura knew that no light emotion had grappled him, and when her mother said, "Well?" sharply, the daughter rose and went to him, touching his hand gently that had been gripping the chair-back. She said, "Yes, Grant, but why do you have to tell it now?"

"Because," he answered passionately, "you should know, and Lila should know and your mother should know. Your father and I and my father all think so."

Mrs. Nesbit sat back further in her chair. Her face showed anxiety. She looked at the two others and when Laura's eyes met her mother's, there was a warning in the daughter's glance which kept her mother silent.

"Grant," said Laura, as she stood beside the gaunt figure, on which a mantle of shame seemed to be falling, "there is nothing in the world that should be hard for you to tell me—or mother."

"It isn't you," he returned, and then lifting his face and trying to catch the elder woman's eyes, he said slowly:

"Mrs. Nesbit—I'm Kenyon's father."

He caught Laura's hand in his own, and held her from stepping back. Laura did not speak. Mrs. Nesbit gazed blankly at the two and in the silence the little mantel clock ticked into their consciousnesses. Finally the elder woman, who had grown white as some old suspicion or fatal recollection flashed through her mind, asked in an unsteady voice: "And his mother?"

"His mother was Margaret Mueller, Mrs. Nesbit," answered the man.

Then anger glowed in the white face as Mrs. Nesbit rose and stepped toward the downcast man. "Do you mean to tell me you—" She did not finish, but began again, not noticing that the door behind her had let in her husband: "Do you mean to say that you have let me go on all these years nursing that—that, that—creature's child and—"

"Yes, my dear," said the Doctor, touching her arm, and taking her hand, "I have." She turned on her husband her startled, hurt face and exclaimed, "And you, Jim—you too—you too?"

"What else could I do in honor, my dear? And it has been for the best."

"No," she cried angrily; "no, see what you have brought to us, Jim—that hussy's—her, why, her very—"

The years had told upon Doctor Nesbit. He could not rise to the struggle as he could have risen a decade before. His hands were shaking and his voice broke as he replied: "Yes, my dear—I know—I know. But while she bore him, we have formed him." To her darkening face he repeated: "You have formed him—and made him—you and the Adamses—with your love. And love," his soft, high voice was tender as he concluded, "love purges everything—doesn't it, Bedelia?"

"Yes, father,—love is enough. Oh, Grant, Grant—it doesn't matter—not to me. Poor—poor Margaret, what she has lost—what she has lost!" said the younger woman, as she stood close to Grant and looked deeply into his anguished face. Mrs. Nesbit stood wet-eyed, and spent of her wrath, looking at the three before her.

"O God—my God, forgive me—but I can't—Oh, Laura—Jim—I can't, I can't, not that woman's—not her—her—" She stopped and cried miserably, "You all know what he is, and whose he is." Again she stopped and looked beseechingly around. "Oh, you won't let Lila—she wouldn't do that—not take that woman's—that woman who disgraced Lila's mother—Lila must not take her child—Oh, Jim, you won't let that—"

As she spoke Mrs. Nesbit sank to a sofa near the door, and turned her face to the pillow. The three who watched her turned blank, inquiring faces to one another.

"Perhaps," the Doctor began hesitatingly and impotently, "Lila should—"

"What does she know—what can a child of twenty know," answered the grandmother from her pillow, "of the taint of that blood, of the devil she will transmit? Why, Jim—Oh, Jim—Lila's not old enough to decide. She mustn't—she mustn't—we mustn't let her." Mrs. Nesbit raised her body and asked as one who grasps a shadow, "Won't you ask her to wait—to wait until she can understand?"

A question passed from face to face among those who stood beside the elder woman, and Dr. Nesbit answered it. Strength—the power that came from a habit of forty years of dominating situations—came to him and he stepped to his wife's side. The two stood together, facing the younger pair. The Doctor spoke, not as an arbiter, but as an advocate:

"Laura, your mother has her right to be considered here. All three of you; Kenyon himself, and you and Lila—she has reared. She has made you all what you are. Her wishes must be regarded now." Mrs. Nesbit rose while the Doctor was speaking. He took her hand as was his wont and turned to her, saying: "Mother, how will this do: Let's do nothing now, not to-day at any rate. You must all adjust yourselves to the facts that reveal this new relation before you can make an honest decision. When we have done that, let Laura and her mother tell Lila the truth, and let each tell the child exactly how she feels; and then, if you can bring yourself to it, leave it to her; if she will wait for a time until she understands her grandmother's point of view—very well. If not—"

"If not, mother, Lila's decision must stand." This came from Laura, who stepped over and kissed her mother's hand. The father looked tenderly at his daughter and shook his head as he answered softly: "If not—no, I shall stand with mother—she has her right—the realest right of all!"

And so it came to pass that the course of true love in the hearts of Lila Van Dorn and Kenyon Adams had its first sharp turning. And all the world was overclouded for two souls. But they were only two souls and the world is full of light. And the light falls upon men and women without much respect for class or station, for good deeds or bad deeds, for the weak or for the strong, for saints or sinners. For know well, truly beloved, that chance and circumstance fall out of the great machine of life upon us, hodge podge and helter skelter; good is not rewarded by prizes from the wheel of fortune nor bad punished by its calamities. Only as our hearts react on life, do we get happiness or misery, not from the events that follow the procession of the days.

Now for a moment let us peep through the clouds that lowered over the young souls aforesaid. Clouds in youth are vastly black; but they are never thick. And peering through those clouds, one may see the lovers, groping in the umbrage. It does not matter much to us, and far less does it matter to them how they have made their farewell meeting. It is night and they are coming from Captain Morton's.

Hand in hand they skip across the lawn, and soon are hidden in the veranda. They sit arm in arm, on a swinging porch chair, and have no great need for words. "What is it—what is the reason?" asked the youth.

"Well, dear"—it is an adventure to say the word out loud after whispering it for so many days—"dear," she repeated, and feels the pressure of his arm as she speaks, "it's something about you!"

"But what?" he persisted.

"We don't know now," she returns. "And really what does it matter, only we can't hurt grandma, and it won't be for long. It can't be for long, and then—"

"We don't care now,—not to-night, do we?" She lifts her head from his shoulder, and puts up her lips for the answer. It is all new—every thrill of the new-found joy of one another's being is strange; every touch of the hands, of cheeks, every pressure of arms—all are gloriously beautiful.

Once in life may human beings know the joy these lovers knew that night. The angels lend it once and then, if we are good, they let us keep it in our memories always. If not, then God sends His infinite pity instead.



CHAPTER XLIV

IN WHICH WE SUFFER LITTLE CHILDREN, WITH GEORGE BROTHERTON, AND IN GENERAL CONSIDER THE HABITANTS OF THE KINGDOM

Mr. Brotherton had been pacing the deck of his store like the captain of a pirate ship in a storm. Nothing in the store suited him; he found Miss Calvin's high facade of hair too rococo for the attenuated lines of gray and lavender and heliotrope that had replaced the angular effects in red and black and green and brown of former years. He had asked her to tone it down to make it match the long-necked gray jars and soft copper vases that adorned the gray burlapped Serenity, and she had appeared with it slopping over her ears, "as per yours of even date!" And still he paced the deck.

He picked up Zola's "Fecundite," which he had taken from stock; tried to read it; put it down; sent for "Tom Sawyer"; got up, went after Dickens's "Christmas Books," and put them down; peeped into "Little Women," and watched the trade, as Miss Calvin handled it, occasionally dropping his book for a customer; hunted for "The Three Bears," which he found in large type with gorgeous pictures, read it, and decided that it was real literature.

Amos Adams came drifting in to borrow a book. He moved slowly, a sort of gray wraith almost discarnate and apart from things of the earth. Brotherton, looking at the old man, felt a candor one might have in addressing a state of mind. So the big voice spoke gently:

"Here, Mr. Adams," called Brotherton. "Won't you come back here and talk to me?" But the shopkeeper felt that he should put the elder man at his ease, so he added: "You're a wise guy, as the Latin fathers used to say. Anyway, if Jasper ever gets to a point where he thinks marriage will pay six per cent. over and above losses, you may be a kind of step-uncle-in-law of mine. Tell me, Mr. Adams—what about children—do they pay? You know, I've always wanted children. But now—well, you see, I never thought but that people just kind of picked 'em off the bushes as you do huckleberries. I'm getting so that I can't look at a great crowd of people without thinking of the loneliness, suffering and self-denial that it cost to bring all of them into the world. Good Lord, man, I don't want lots of children—not now. And yet, children—children—why, if we could open a can and have 'em as we do most things, from sardines to grand opera, I'd like hundreds of them. Yet, I dunno," Mr. Brotherton wagged a thoughtful head.

But Amos Adams rejoined: "Ah, yes, George, but when you think of what it means for two people to bring a child into the world—what the journey means—the slow, inexorable journey into the valley of the shadow means for them, close together; what tenderness springs up; what sacrifices come forth; what firm knitting of lives; what new kind of love is bred—you are inclined to think maybe Providence knew what it was about when it brought children into life by the cruel path."

Mr. Brotherton nodded a sympathetic head.

"Let me tell you something, George," continued Amos. "It's through their hope of bettering the children that Grant has moved his people in the Valley out on the little garden plots. There they are—every warmish day thousands of mothers and children and old men, working their little plots of ground, trudging back to the tenements in the evening. The love of children is the one steady, unswerving passion in these lives, and Grant has nearly harnessed it, George. And it's because Nate Perry has that love that he's giving freely here for those poor folks a talent that would make him a millionaire, and is running his mines, and his big foundry with Cap Morton besides. It's perfectly splendid to see the way a common fatherhood between him and the men is making a brotherhood. Why, man," cried Amos, "it refreshes one's faith like a tragedy."

"Hello, Aunt Avey," piped the cheery voice of the little old Doctor, as he came toddling through the front door. "It's a boy—Joe Calvin the Third." The Doctor came back to the desk where Amos was standing and took a chair, and as Amos drifted out of the store as impersonally as he came, the Doctor began to grin.

"We were just talking of children," said Brotherton with studied casualness. "You know, Doctor," Brotherton smiled abashed, "I've always thought I'd like lots of children. But now—"

"I see 'em come, and I see 'em go every day. I'm kind of getting used to death, George. But the miracle of birth grows stranger and stranger."

"So young Joe Calvin's a proud parent, is he? Boy, you say?"

"Boy," chuckled the Doctor, "and old Joe's out there having a nervous breakdown. They've had ten births in the Calvin family. I've attended all of 'em, and this is the first time old Joe's ever been allowed in the house. To-day the old lady's out there with a towel around her head, practically having that baby herself. The poor daughter-in-law hasn't seen it. You'd think she was only invited in as a sort of paying guest. And old lady Calvin comes in every few minutes and delivers homilies on the joys of large families!"

The Doctor laughed until his blue old eyes watered, and he chirped when he had his laugh out: "How soon we forget! Which, I presume, is one of God's semi-precious blessings!"

When the Doctor went out, Brotherton found the store deserted, except for Miss Calvin, who was in front. Brotherton carried a log to the fireplace, stirred up the fire, and when he had it blazing, found Laura Van Dorn standing beside him.

"Well, George," she said, "I've just been stealing away from my children in the Valley for a little visit with Emma."

"Very well, then," said Mr. Brotherton, "sit down a minute with me. Tell me, Laura—about children—are they worth it?"

She was a handsome woman, with youth still in her eyes and face, who sat beside George Brotherton, looking at the fire that March day. "George—good old friend," she said gently, "there's nothing else in the world so worth it as children."

She hesitated before going so deeply into her soul, perhaps picking her verbal way. "George—no man ever degraded a woman more than I was degraded. Yet I brought Lila out of it, and I thank God for her, and I don't mind the price—not now." She turned to look at Mr. Brotherton inquiringly as she said: "But what I come in to talk to you about, George, was Grant. Have you noticed in the last few months—that growing—well—it's more than enthusiasm, George; it's a fanaticism. Since he has been working on the garden plan—Grant has been getting wilder and wilder in his talk about the Democracy of labor. Have you noticed it—or am I oversensitive?"

Brotherton, poking idly in the fire, did not answer at once. At length he said:

"Grant's a zealot. He's full of this prisms, prunes and peace idea, this sweetness and light revolution, this notion of hitching their hop-dreams to these three-acre plots, and preaching non-resistance. It's coming a little fast for me, Laura—just a shade too many at times. But, on the other hand—there's Nate Perry. He's as cold-blooded a Yankee as ever swindled a father—and he's helping with the scheme. He's—"

"He has no faith in the Democracy of Labor. He hoots," interrupted Laura. "What he's doing is working for a more efficient lot of laboring men, so that when the time comes when the unions shall ask and get more definite control of the factories and mines, in the way of wage-setting, and price-making, they will bring some sense with their control. He's merely looking after himself—in the last analysis; but Grant's going mad. George, he actually believes that when this thing wins here in the Valley—the peaceful strike, the rise of labor, and the theory of non-resistance—he's going over the world, and in a few years will have labor emancipated. Have you heard him—that is, recently?"

"Well, yes, a week or so ago," answered Brotherton, "and he was going it at a pretty fair clip for a minute then. Well, say—I mean—what should we do?" he asked, drumming with the poker on the hearth. "Laura," Brotherton ran his eyes from the poker until they met her frank, gray eyes, "Grant would listen to you before he would listen to any one else on earth or in Heaven—I'm sure of that."

"Then what shall we do?" she asked. "We mustn't let him wreck himself—and all these people? What ought I—"

A shadow fell across the door, and in another moment there stood in the opening of the alcove the tall, lean figure of Thomas Van Dorn.

When Laura was gone, Van Dorn, after more or less polite circumlocution, began to unfold a plan of Market Street to buy the Daily Times and bring Jared Thurston back to Harvey to run it in the interests of the property owners in the town and in the Valley. Incidentally he had come to warn George on behalf of Market Street that he was harboring Grant Adams, contrary to the judgment of Market Street. But George Brotherton's heart was far from Market Street; it was out on the hill with Emma, his wife, and his mouth spoke from the place of his treasure.

"Tom—tell me, as between man and man, what do you think of children? You're sort of in the outer room of the Blue Lodge of grandfatherdom, with Lila and Kenyon getting ready for the preacher, and you ought to know, Tom—honest, man, how about it?"

A wave of self-pity enveloped the Judge. His voice broke as he answered: "George, I haven't any little girl—she never even has spoken to me about this affair that the whole town knows about. Oh, I haven't any child at all."

He looked a miserable moment at Brotherton, perhaps reviewing the years which they had lived and grown from youth to middle age together and growled: "Not a thing—not a damned thing in it—George, in all this forty years of fighting to keep ahead of the undertaker! Not a God damned thing!" And so he left the Sweet Serenity of Books and Wall Paper and went back to the treadmill of life, spitting ashes from his gray lips!

And then Daniel Sands toddled in to get the five-cent cigars which he had bought for a generation—one at a time every day, and Brotherton came to Daniel with his problem.

The old man, whose palsied head forever was denying something, as if he had the assessor always in his mind, shut his rheumy eyes and answered: "My children—bauch—" He all but spat upon their names. "Morty—moons around reading Socialist books, with a cold in his throat and dishwater in his brains. And the other, she's married a dirty traitor and stands by him against her own flesh and blood. Ba-a-a-ch!" He showed his blue, old mouth, and cried:

"I married four women to give those children a home—and what thanks do I get? Ingrates—one a milk-sop—God, if he'd only be a Socialist and get out and throw dynamite; but he won't; he won't do a thing but sit around drooling about social justice when I want to eat my meals in peace. And he goes coughing all day and night, and grunting, and now he's wearing a pointed beard—he says it's for his throat, but I know—it's because he thinks it's romantic. And that Anne—why, she's worse," but he did not finish the sentence. His old head wagged violently. Evidently another assessor had suddenly pounced in upon his imagination. For he shuffled into the street.

Mr. Brotherton sat by the fire, leaning forward, with his fingers locked between his knees. The warning against Grant Adams that Tom Van Dorn had given him had impressed him. He knew Market Street was against Grant Adams. But he did not realize that Market Street's attitude was only a reflex of the stir in the Valley. All Market streets over the earth feel more or less acutely changes which portend in the workshops, often before those changes come. We are indeed "members one of another," and the very aspirations of those who dream of better things register in the latent fears of those who live on trade. We are so closely compact in our organization that a man may not even hope without crowding his neighbor. And in that little section of the great world which men knew as Market Street in Harvey, the surest evidence of the changing attitude of the men in the Valley toward their work, was found not in the crowds that gathered in Belgian Hall week after week to hear Grant Adams, not in the war-chest which was filling to overflowing, not in the gardens checkered upon the hillsides, but rather in the uneasiness of Market Street. The reactions were different in Market Street and in the Valley; but it was one vision rising in the same body, each part responding according to its own impulses. Of course Market Street has its side, and George Brotherton was not blind to it. Sitting by his fire that raw March day, he realized that Market Street was never a crusader, and why. He could see that the men from whom the storekeepers bought goods on ninety days' time, 3 per cent. off for cash, were not crusaders. When a man turned up among them with a six-months' crusade for an evanescent millennium, flickering just a few years ahead, the wholesalers of the city and the retailers of Market Street nervously began thumbing over their rapidly accumulating "bills payable" and began using crisp, scratchy language toward the crusader.

It made Brotherton pause when he thought how they might involve and envelop him—as a family man. For as he sat there, the man's mind kept thinking of children. And his mind wandered to the thought of his wife and his home—and the little ones that might be. As his mind clicked back to Amos Adams, and to the strange family that would produce three boys as unlike as Grant and Jasper and Kenyon, he began to consider how far Kenyon had come for a youth in his twenties. And Brotherton realized that he might have had a child as old as Kenyon. Then Mr. Brotherton put his hands over his face and tried to stop the flying years.

A shadow fell, and Brotherton greeted Captain Morton, in a sunburst of mauve tailoring. The Captain pointed proudly to a necktie pin representing a horse jumping through a horseshoe, and cried: "What you think of it? Real diamond horseshoe nails—what say?"

"Now, Captain, sit down here," said Mr. Brotherton. "You'll do, Captain—you'll do." But the subject nearest the big man's heart would not leave it. "Cap," he said, "what about children—do they pay?"

"That's just it," put in the Captain. "That's just what I said to Emmy this morning. I was out to see her after you left and stayed until Laura Van Dorn came and chased me off. Emmy's mighty happy, George—mighty, mighty happy—eh? Her mother always was that way. I was the one that was scared." George nodded assent. "But to-day—well, we just sat there and cried—she's so happy about it—eh? Wimmin, George, ain't scared a bit. I know 'em. I've been in their kitchins for thirty years, George, and let me tell you somepin funny," continued the Captain. "Old Ahab Wright has taken to smoking in public to get the liberal vote! Let me tell you somepin else. They've decided to put the skids under Grant Adams and his gang down in the Valley, and the other day they ran into a snag. You know Calvin & Calvin are representing the owners since Tom's got this life job, though he's got all his money invested down there and still advises 'em. Well, anyway, they decided to put a barbed-wire trocha around all the mines and the factories. Well, four carloads of wire and posts shows up down in the Valley this week, and, 'y gory, man,—they can't get a carpenter in town or down there to touch it. Grant's got 'em sewed up. But Tom says he'll fix 'em one of these days, if they get before him in his court—what say?"

"I suppose he will, Captain," replied Mr. Brotherton, and took up his theme. "But getting back to the subject of children—I've been talking all morning about 'em to all kinds of folks, and I've decided the country's for 'em. Children, Cap," Mr. Brotherton rose, put on his coat and took the Captain's arm, "children, Captain," he repeated, as they reached the sidewalk and were starting for the street car, "children, I figure it out—children are the see-ment of civilization! Well, say—thus endeth the reading of the first lesson!"

As they stood in the corner transfer shed waiting for the car, Grant Adams came up. "Say, Grant," called Brotherton, "what you goin' to do about that barbed wire trocha?"

"Oh," smiled Grant, "I've just about settled it. The boys will begin on it this afternoon. A lot of them were angry when they heard what the owners were up to, but I said, 'Here: we've got justice on our side. We claim a partnership interest in all those mines and factories down there. We contend that we who labor there now are the legatees of all the labor that's been killed and maimed and cheated by long hours and low wages down in the Valley for thirty years, and if we have a partnership right in those mines and factories, it's our business to protect them.' So I talked the boys into putting up the trocha. I tell you, George," said Grant, and the tremor of emotion strained his voice as he spoke, "it won't be long until we'll have a partnership in that trocha, just as we'll have an interest in every hammer and bolt, and ledge and vein in the Valley. It's coming, and coming fast—the Democracy of Labor. I have faith, the men and women have faith—all over the Valley. We've found the right way—the way of peace. When labor has proved its efficiency—"

"Ah—you're crazy, Grant," snapped the Captain. "This class of people down here—these ignorant foreigners—why, they couldn't run a peanut stand—eh?"

Dick Bowman and his son came up, and not knowing a discussion was in the wind, Dick shook hands around. And after the Captain had taken his uptown car, Grant stood apart, lost in thought, but Dick said: "Well, Benny, we got here in time for the car!" Then craning his long neck, the father laughed: "Ben, here's a laboring man and his shift goes on at one—so he's in a hurry, but we'll make it."

"Dick," began Brotherton, looking at the thin shadow of a man who was hardly Brotherton's elder by half a dozen years. "Dick, you're a kind of expert father, you and Joe Calvin, and to-day Joe's a granddaddy—tell me about the kiddies—are they worth it?"

Bowman threw his head back and craned his long neck. "Not for us—not for us poor—maybe for you people here," said Bowman, who paused and counted on his fingers: "Eight born, three dead—that's too many. Joe Calvin, he's raised all his and they're doing fairly well. That's his girl in here—ain't it?" Bowman sighed. "Her and my Jean played together back in their little days; before we moved to South Harvey." He lowered his voice.

"George, mother hasn't heard from Jean for going on two year, now. She went off with a fellow; told us she married him—she was just a child—but had been working around in the factories—and, well, I don't say so, but I guess she just has got where she's ashamed to write—maybe."

His voice rose in anger as he cried: "Why didn't she have a show, like this girl of Joe's? He's no better than I. And you know my wife—well, she's no Mrs. Joe Calvin—she's been as happy about 'em when they came as if they were princes of the blood." He stopped.

"Then there's Mugs—I dunno, George,—it seems like we tried with Mugs, but all them saloons and—well, the gambling and the women under his nose from the time he was ten years old—well, I can't make him work. Little Jack is steady enough for a boy of twenty—he's in the Company mines, and we've put Ben in this year. He is twelve—though, for Heaven's sake, don't go blabbing it; he's supposed to be fourteen. And little Betty, she's in school yet. I don't know how she'll turn out. No, George," he went on, "children for us poor, children's a mighty risky, uncertain crop. But," he smiled reflectively, "I'm right here to tell you they're lots of fun as little shavers—growing up. Why, George, you ought to hear Benny sing. Them Copinis of the Hot Dog found he had a voice, and they've taught him some dago songs." Ben was a bright-faced boy of twelve—big for his age, with snappy, brown eyes and apples of cheeks and curly hair. He slipped away to look into a store window, leaving the two men alone. Mr. Brotherton was in a mellow mood. He put his great paw on the small man's shoulder and said huskily:

"Say, Dick, honest, I'd rather have just one boy like that than the whole damn Valley—that's right!"

The car came bowling up and the South Harvey people boarded it. Grant Adams rode down into the Valley with great dreams in his soul. He talked little to the Bowmans, but looked out of the window and saw the dawn of another day. It is the curse of dreamers that they believe that when they are convinced of a truth, they who have pursued it, who have suffered for it, who have been exalted by it, they have only to pass out their truth to the world to remake the universe. But the world is made over only when the common mind sees the truth, and the common heart feels it. So the history of reform is a history of disappointment. The reform works, of course. But in working it does only the one little trick it is intended to do, and the long chain of incidental blessings which should follow, which the reformers feel must inevitably follow, wait for other reformers to bring them into being. So there is always plenty of work for the social tinker, and no one man ever built a millennium. For God is ever jealous for our progeny, and leaves an unfinished job always on the work bench of the world.

Grant Adams believed that he had a mission to bring labor into its own. The coming of the Democracy of Labor was a real democracy to him—no mere shibboleth. And as he rode through the rows of wooden tenements, where he knew men and women were being crushed by the great industrial machine, he thought of the tents in the fields; of the women and children and of the old and the sick going out there to labor through the day to piece out the family wage and secure economic independence with wholesome, self-respecting work. It seemed to him that when he could bring the conditions that were starting in Harvey, to every great industrial center, one great job in the world would be done forever.

So he drummed his iron claw on the seat before him, put his hard hand upon his rough face, and smiled in the joy of his high faith.

Dick Bowman and his boy left Grant at the car. He waved his claw at little Ben when they parted, and sighed as he saw the little fellow scampering to shaft No. 3 of the Wahoo Fuel Company's mines. There Grant lost sight of the child, and went to his work. In two hours he and Violet Hogan had cleaned off his desk. He had promised the Wahoo Fuel Company to see that the work of constructing the trocha was started that afternoon, and when Violet had telephoned to Mechanics' Hall, Grant and a group of men went to the mines to begin on the trocha. They passed down the switch into the yards, and Grant heard a brakeman say:

"That Frisco car there has a broken brake—watch out for her."

And a switchman reply:

"Yes—I know it. I tried to get the yardmaster not to send her down. But we'll do what we can."

The brakeman on the car signaled for the engineer to pull the other cars away, and leave the Frisco car at the top of a slight grade, to be shoved down by the men when another car was needed at the loading chute. Grant walked toward the loading chute, and a roar from the falling coal filled his ears. He saw little Ben under a car throwing back the coal falling from the faulty chute on to the ground.

Through the roar Grant heard a yell as from a man in terror. He looked back of him and saw the Frisco car coming down the grade as if shot from a monster catapult!

"The boy—the boy—!" he heard the man on the car shriek. He tried to clamber over the coal to the edge of the car, but before he could reach the side, the Frisco car had hit the loading car a terrific blow, sending it a car length down the track.

One horrible scream was all they heard from little Ben. Grant was at his side in a moment. There, stuck to the rail, were two little legs and an arm. Grant stooped, picked up the little body, pulled it loose from the tracks, and carried it, running, to the company hospital.

As Grant ran, tears fell in the little, coal-stained face, and made white splotches on the child's cheeks.



CHAPTER XLV

IN WHICH LIDA BOWMAN CONSIDERS HER UNIVERSE AND TOM VAN DORN WINS ANOTHER VICTORY

For a long and weary night and a day of balancing doubt, and another dull night, little Ben Bowman lay limp and crumpled on his cot—a broken lump of clay hardly more than animate. Lida Bowman, his mother, all that time sat in the hall of the hospital outside the door of his room. The stream of sorrow that winds through a hospital passed before her unheeded. Her husband came, sat with her silently for a while, went, and came again, many times. But she did not go. In the morning of the second day as she stood peering through the door crack at the child she saw his little body move in a deep sigh, and saw his black eyes open for a second and close as he smiled. Dr. Nesbit, who stood beside her, grasped her hand and led her away.

"I think the worst is over, Lida," he said, and held her hand as they walked down the hall. He sat with her in the waiting room, into which the earliest tide of visitors had not begun to flow, and promised her that if the child continued to rally from the shock, she might stand by his bed at noon. Then for the first time she wept. He stood by the window looking out at the great pillars of smoke that were smudging the dawn, at the smelter fumes that were staining the sky, at the hurrying crowd of men and women and children going into the mines, the mills, the shops, hurrying to work with the prod of fear ever in their backs—fear of the disgrace of want, fear of the shame of beggary, fear to hear some loved one ask for food or warmth or shelter and to have it not. When the great motherly body had ceased its paroxysms, he went to Mrs. Bowman and touched her shoulder.

"Lida," he said, "it isn't much—but I'm glad of one thing. My bill is on the statutes to give people who are hurt, as Ben was, their money from the company without going to law and dividing with the lawyers. It is on the books good and tight; referred to the people and approved by them and ground clear through the state supreme court and sustained. It isn't much, Lida—Heaven knows that—but little Ben will get his money without haggling and that money will help to start him in life."

She turned a tear-swollen face to him, but again her grief overcame her. He stood with one wrinkled hand upon her broad shoulder, and with the other patted her coarse hair. When she looked up at him, again he said gently:

"I know, Lida, that money isn't what you mothers want—but—"

"But we've got to think of it, Doc Jim—that's one of the curses of poverty, but, oh, money!—It won't bring them back strong and whole—who leave us to go to work, and come back all torn and mashed."

She sat choking down the sobs that came surging up from her great bosom, and weaving to and fro as she fought back her tears. The Doctor sat beside her and took her red unshapely hands unadorned except by the thin gold wedding ring that she had worn in toil for over thirty years.

"Lida, sometimes I think only God and the doctors know how heavy women's loads are," said the Doctor.

"Ain't that so—Doc Jim!" she cried. "Ain't that the truth? I've had a long time to think these two days and nights—and I've thought it all over and all out. Here I am nearly fifty and eight times you and I have fought it out with death and brought life into this world. I'm strong—I don't mind that. I joyed at their coming, and made the others edge over at the table, and snuggle up in the bed, and we've been happy. Even the three that are dead—I'm glad they came; I'm thankful for 'em. And Dick he's been so proud of each one, and cuddled it, and muched it—"

Her voice broke and she sobbed, "Oh, little Ben—little Ben, how pappy made over his hair—he was born with hair—don't you mind, Doc Jim?"

The Doctor laughed and looked into the past as he piped, "Curliest headed little tyke, and don't you remember Laura gave him Lila's baby things she'd saved for all those years?"

"Yes, Doc Jim—don't I? God knows, Doc, she's been a mother to the whole Valley—when I got up I found I was the twentieth woman up and down the Valley she'd given Lila's little things to—just to save our pride when she thought we would not take 'em any other way. Don't I know—all about it—and she's still doing it—God bless her, and she's been here every morning, noon and night since—since—she came with a little beef tea, or some of her own wine, or a plate of hot toast in her basket—that she made me eat. Why, if it wasn't for her and Henry and Violet and Grant—what would God's poor in this Valley do in trouble—I sure dunno."

There came an unsteady minute, when the Doctor stroked her hand and piped, "Well, Lida—you folks in the Valley don't get half the fun out of it that the others get. It's pie for them."

The woman folded her hands in her lap and sighed deeply. "Doc Jim," she began, "eight times I've brought life into this world. The three that went, went because we were poor—because we couldn't buy life for 'em. They went into the mills and the mines with Dick's muscle. One is at home, waiting till the wheels get hungry for her. Four I've fed into the mills that grind up the meat we mothers make." She stared at him wildly and cried "O God—God, Doc Jim—what justice is there in it? I've been a kind of brood-mare bearing burden carriers for Dan Sands, who has sold my blood like cheese in his market. My mother sent three boys to the war who never came back and I've heard her cry and thank God He'd let her. But my flesh and blood—the little ones that Dick and me have coddled and petted and babied—they've been fed into the wheels to make profits—profits for idlers to squander—profits to lure women to shame and men to death. That's what I've been giving my body and soul for, Doc Jim. Little Ben up there has given his legs and his arms—oh, those soft little arms and the cunning little legs I used to kiss—for what? I'll tell you—he's given them so that by saving a day's work repairing a car, some straw boss could make a showing to a superintendent, and the superintendent could make a record for economy to a president, and a president could increase dividends—dividends to be spent by idlers. And idleness makes drunkards who make harlots who make hell—and all my little boy's arms and legs will go for is for sin and shame."

The Doctor returned to the window and she cried bitterly: "Oh, you know that's the truth—the God's truth, Doc Jim. Where's my Jean? She went into the glass factory—worked twelve hours a day on a job that would have crippled her for life in another year, and then went away with that Austrian blower—and when he threw her out, she was ashamed to write—and for a long time now I've read the city papers of them women who kill themselves—hoping to find she was dead. And Mugs—you know what South Harvey's made of him—"

She rose and walked to the window. Standing beside him she cried:

"I tell you, Doc Jim—I hate it." She pointed to the great black mills and mine shafts and the piles of brick and lumber and sheet iron that stretched before her for a mile. "I hate it, and I'm going to hit it once before I die. Don't talk peace to me. I've got a right to hit it and hit it hard—and if my time ever comes—"

A visitor was shown into the room, and Mrs. Bowman ceased speaking. She was calm when the Doctor left her and at noon she stood beside the cot, and saw little Ben smile at her. Then she went away in tears. As she passed out of the door of the hospital into the street, she met Grant Adams coming in to inquire about little Ben.

"He knows me now," she said. "I suppose he'll get well—without legs—and with only one arm—I've seen them on the street selling pencils—oh, little Ben!" she cried. Then she turned on Grant in anger. "Grant Adams—go on with your revolution. I'm for it—and the quicker the better—but don't come around talking peace to me. Us mothers want to fight."

"Fighting, in the long run, will do no good, Mrs. Bowman," said Grant. "It will hurt the cause.

"But it will do us good," she answered.

"Force against force and we lose—they have the guns," he persisted.

"Well, I'd rather feed my babies to good merciful guns than to wheels," she replied, and then softened as she took his hand.

"I guess I'm mad to-day, Grant. Go on up. Maybe they'll let you look at him. He smiled at me—just as he did when Doctor Nesbit showed him to me the day he was born."

She kept back her tears with an effort, and added, "Only the Doc tried to tell me that babies don't smile. But I know better, Ben smiled—just like the one to-day."

"Well, Mrs. Bowman," rejoined Grant, "there's one comfort. Dr. Nesbit's law makes it possible for you to get your damages without going to law and dividing with some lawyer. However the Doctor and I may differ—we down here in the mines and mills must thank him for that."

"Oh, Doc Jim's all right, Grant," answered Mrs. Bowman, relapsing into her lifetime silence.

It was nearly three months later and spring was at its full, before they discharged little Ben from the hospital. But the last fortnight of his stay they had let him visit outside the hospital for a few hours daily. And to the joy of a great crowd in the Hot Dog saloon, he sat on the bar and sang his little heart out. They took him down to Belgian hall at noon, and he sang the "Marseillaise" to the crowd that gathered there. In the hospital, wherever they would let him, after he had visited the Hot Dog, he sang—sang in the big ward where he sat by a window, sang in the corridors, whenever the patients could hear him, and sang Gospel hymns in his cot at bedtime.

He was an odd little bundle, that Henry Fenn carried into the offices of the Wahoo Valley Fuel Company one afternoon in early June, with Dick Bowman following proudly, as they made the proof of the claim for compensation for the accident. The people in the offices were kind and tenderly polite to the little fellow. Henry saw that all the papers were properly made out, and the clerk in the office told Dick and Henry to call for the check next day but one—which was pay day.

So they carried little Ben away and Mrs. Bowman—though it was barely five o'clock—began fixing Ben up for the wedding of Jasper Adams and Ruth Morton. It was the first public appearance as a singer that little Ben had made in Harvey. His appearance was due largely to the notion of Captain Morton, supported and abetted by George Brotherton. So little Ben Bowman was smuggled behind a palm in the choir loft and permitted to sing "O Promise Me" during the services.

"Not," explained the Captain to Mr. Brotherton in the barn where he was smoking, the afternoon before the ceremony, "not that I cared a whoop in Texas about Ben—though 'y gory, the boy sings like a canary; but it was the only excuse I could find for slipping a hundred dollars to the Bowman family, without making Dick and Lida think it was charity—eh?"

The wedding made a dull evening for Grant. He carried little Ben in his arms out of the crowd at the church, and gathering up the Bowmans and his father, went home without stopping for the reception or for the dance or for any of the subsidiary attractions of the ceremony which Jasper and the Captain, each delighting in tableaux and parades, had arranged for. Little Ben's arm was clinging to Grant's neck as he piloted his party to the street car. They passed the Van Dorn house and saw old Daniel Sands come tottering down the walk from the Van Dorn home, between Ahab Wright and young Joe Calvin. Daniel Sands stumbled as he shuffled past Amos Adams and Amos put out an arm to catch Daniel. He regained his balance and without recognizing who had helped him, cackled:

"Tom's a man of his word, boys—when he promises—that settles it. Tom never lies." And his senile voice shrilled in a laugh. Then the old banker recognized Amos Adams with Grant in the moonlight. "Hi, old spook chaser," he chirped feebly, still holding to Amos Adams's arm; "sorry I couldn't get to my nevvy's wedding—Morty went—Morty's our social man," he laughed again. "But I had some other important matters—business—very important business."

The Sands' party was moving toward the Sands' limousine, which stood purring at the curb. Ahab Wright and young Joe Calvin boosted the trembling old man into the car, and Ahab Wright slipped back and returned to the wedding reception, from which he had stolen away. Ahab was obviously embarrassed at being caught in the conference with Sands and Van Dorn, but Daniel Sands as he climbed into the car, sinking cautiously among the cushions and being swathed in robes by the chauffeur, was garrulous. He kept carping at Amos Adams who stood by with his son and the Bowmans, waiting for the street car.

"Lost your only sane son, Amos," he said. "The fool takes after you, and the fiddler after his mother—but Jap—he's real Sands—he's like me."

He laughed at his joke, and when his breath came back he went on.

"There's Morty—he's like both the fool and the fiddler—both the fool and the fiddler—and not a bit like me."

"Morty isn't very well, Daniel," said Amos Adams, ignoring all that the old man had said. "Don't you think, Daniel, you're letting that disease get too deep a hold on Morty? With all your money, Dan, I think you'd—"

"With all my money—with all my money, Amos," cried the old man, shaking his hands, "with all my money—I can just stand and wait. Amos—he's a fool, I know—but he's the only boy I've got—the only boy. And with all my money—what good will it do me? Anne won't have it—and Morty's all I've got and he's going before I do. Amos—Amos—tell me, Amos—what have I done to deserve this of God? Haven't I done as I ort? Why is this put on me?" He sat panting and blinking and shaking his ever-denying, palsied head. Amos did not reply. The chauffeur was taking his seat in the car. "Ain't I paid my share in the church? Ain't I give parks to the city? Ain't I had family prayers for fifty years? Ain't I been a praying member all my life nearly? Ain't I supported missions? Why," he panted, "is it put on me to die without a son to bear my name and take care of my property? I made over two millions to him the other day. But why, Amos," the old man's voice was broken and he whimpered, "has the Lord sent this to Morty?"

Amos did not reply, but the big voice of Grant spoke very softly: "Uncle Dan, Morty's got tuberculosis—you know that. Tuberculosis has made you twenty per cent. interest for twenty years—those hothouses for consumption of yours in the Valley. But it's cost the poor scores and scores of lives. Morty has it." Grant's voice rose solemnly. "Vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord, I will repay. You've got your interest, and the Lord has taken his toll."

The old man showed his colorless gums as he opened a raging mouth.

"You—you—eh, you blasphemer!" He shook as with a chill and screamed, "But we've got you now—we'll fix you!"

The car for Harvey came, and the Adamses climbed in.

Amos Adams, sitting on the hard seat of the street car looking into the moonlight, considered seriously his brother-in-law, and his low estate. That he had to be helped into his limousine, that he had to be wrapped up like a baby, that his head was palsied and his hands fluttering, seemed strange and rather inexplicable to Amos. He counted Daniel a young man, four years his junior, barely seventy-nine; a man who should be in his prime. Amos did not realize that his legs had been kept supple by climbing on and off a high printer's stool hourly for fifty years, and that his body had buffeted the winds of the world unprotected all those years and had kept fit. But Daniel Sands's sad case seemed pathetic to the elder Adams and he cut into some rising stream of conversation from Grant and the Bowmans inadvertently with: "Poor Daniel—Morty doomed, and Daniel himself looking like the breaking up of a hard winter—poor Daniel! He doesn't seem to have got the hang of things in this world; he can't seem to get on some way. I'm sorry for Daniel, Grant; he might have made quite a man if he'd not been fooled by money."

Clearly Amos was meditating aloud; no one replied and the talk flowed on. But the old man looked into the moonlight and dreamed dreams.

The next day was Grant's day at his carpenter's bench, and when he came to his office with his kit in his hands at five o'clock in the afternoon, he found Violet Hogan waiting with the letters he was to sign, and with the mail opened and sorted. As he was signing his letters Violet gave him the news of the day:

"Dick Bowman ran in at noon and asked me to see if I could get Dr. Nesbit and George Brotherton and Henry Fenn down here this evening to talk over his investment of little Ben's money. The check will come to-morrow." Grant looked up from his desk, but before he could ask a question Violet answered: "They'll be down at eight. The Doctor is that proud! And Mr. Brotherton is cutting lodge—the Shriners, themselves—to come down."

It was a grave and solemn council that sat by Grant Adams's desk that evening discussing the disposal of little Ben's five thousand. Excepting Mr. Brotherton, no one there had ever handled that much money at one time. For though the Doctor was a man of affairs the money he handled in politics came easy and went easy, and the money he earned Mrs. Nesbit always had invested for him. So he and Lida Bowman sat rather apart while Dick and Brotherton considered the safety of bonds and mortgages and time deposits and other staple methods of investing the vast sum which was about to be paid to them for Ben's accident. They also considered plans for his education—whether he should learn telegraphy or should cultivate his voice, or go to college or what not. In this part of the council the Doctor took a hand. But Lida Bowman kept her wonted silence. The money could not take the bitterness from her loss; though it did relieve her despair. While they talked, as a mere incident of the conversation, some one spoke of having seen Joe Calvin come down to the Wahoo Fuel Company's offices that day in his automobile. Doctor Nesbit recalled having seen Calvin conferring with Tom Van Dorn and Daniel Sands in Van Dorn's office that afternoon. Then Dick Bowman craning his neck asked for the third time when Henry Fenn would show up; and for the third time it was explained that Henry had taken the Hogan children to the High School building in Harvey to behold the spectacle of Janice Hogan graduating from the eighth grade into the High School. Then Dick explained:

"Well, I just thought Henry would know about this paper I got to-day from the constable. It's a legal document, and probably has something to do with getting Benny's money or something. I couldn't make it out so I thought I'd just let Henry figure on it and tell me what to do." And when a few minutes later Fenn came in, with a sense of duty to the Hogans well done, Dick handed Fenn the paper and asked with all the assurance of a man who expects the reassurance of an affirmative answer:

"Well, Henry—she's all right, ain't she? Just some legal formality to go through, I suppose?"

Henry Fenn took the document from Bowman's hand. Henry stood under the electric, read it and sat thinking for a few seconds, with widely furious eyes.

"Well," he said, "they've played their trump, boys. Doc Jim—your law's been attacked in the federal court—under Tom Van Dorn—damn him!"

The group barked a common question in many voices. Fenn replied: "As I make it out, they got a New York stockholder of the Wahoo Valley Fuel Company to ask for an injunction against paying little Ben his money to-morrow, and the temporary injunction has been granted with the hearing set for June 16."

"And won't they pay us without a suit?" asked Bowman. "Why, I don't see how that can be—they've been paying for accidents for a year now."

"Why, the law's through all the courts!" queried Brotherton.

"The state courts—yes," answered Fenn, "but they didn't own the federal court until they got Tom in."

Bowman's jaw began to tremble. His Adam's apple bobbed like a cork, and no one spoke. Finally Dr. Nesbit spoke in his high-keyed voice: "I presume legal verbiage is all they talk in hell!" and sat pondering.

"Is there no way to beat it?" asked Brotherton.

"Not in this court, George," replied Fenn, "that's why they brought suit in this court."

"That means a long fight—a big law suit, Henry?" asked Bowman.

"Unless they compromise or wear you out," replied the lawyer.

"And can't a jury decide?"

"No—it's an injunction. It's up to the court, and the court is Tom Van Dorn," said Fenn.

Then Dick Bowman spoke: "And there goes little Ben's school and a chance to make something out of what's left of him. Why, it don't look right when the legislature's passed it, and the people's confirmed it and nine lawyers in all the state courts have said it's law,—for the attorney for the company holding a job as judge to turn over all them forms of law. Can't we do something?"

"Yes," spoke the big voice of Grant Adams for the first time since Fenn made his announcement, "we can strike—that's one thing we can do. Why," he continued, full of emotion, "I could no more hold those men down there against a strike when they hear this than I could fly. They'll have to fight for this right, gentlemen!"