The Memoirs of an American Citizen
by Robert Herrick · English · Gutenberg #41338 · 474,540 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Memoirs of an American Citizen
Author: Robert Herrick
Illustrator: F. B. Masters
Release date: November 10, 2012 [eBook #41338]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MEMOIRS OF AN AMERICAN CITIZEN ***
THE MEMOIRS
OF
AN AMERICAN CITIZEN
[Illustration]
THE MEMOIRS
OF
AN AMERICAN CITIZEN
BY
ROBERT HERRICK
AUTHOR OF "THE WEB OF LIFE," "THE REAL WORLD,"
"THE COMMON LOT," ETC.
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD.
1905
_All rights reserved_
COPYRIGHT, 1905,
BY THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY.
COPYRIGHT, 1905,
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and electrotyped. Published July, 1905.
Norwood Press
J.S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
TO
WILL PAYNE
"O Commander of the Faithful," said the other, "shall I tell thee
what I have seen with my eyes or what I have only heard tell?"
"If thou hast seen aught worth telling," replied the Khalif, "let us
hear it: for report is not like eye-witness."
"O Commander of the Faithful," said the other, "lend me thine ear
and thine heart."
"O Ibn Mensour," answered the Khalif, "behold I am listening to thee
with mine ears, and looking at thee with mine eyes, and attending to
thee with mine heart."
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE LAKE FRONT IN CHICAGO 1
II. THE HARRISON STREET POLICE COURT 12
III. JASONVILLE, INDIANA 19
IV. THE PIERSONS 37
V. A MAN'S BUSINESS 53
VI. FIRST BLOOD 61
VII. THE BOMB 74
VIII. THE TRIAL OF THE ANARCHISTS 82
IX. ANOTHER BOOST 98
X. LOVE 104
XI. MARRIAGE 124
XII. AN HONORABLE MERCHANT 134
XIII. THE WILL OF A WOMAN 149
XIV. THE FIRST MOVE 167
XV. THE ATLAS ON THE FLOOR 175
XVI. THE STRUGGLE 185
XVII. NO GOSPEL GAME 196
XVIII. THE STRIKE 204
XIX. DENOUNCED 211
XX. TREACHERY 219
XXI. A SQUEEZE 230
XXII. JUDGMENTS 237
XXIII. HAPPINESS 252
XXIV. WAR 265
XXV. THE LAST DITCH 276
XXVI. VICTORY 288
XXVII. DOUBTS 293
XXVIII. A NEW AMBITION 304
XXIX. THE SENATORSHIP 315
XXX. THE COST 327
XXXI. FURTHER COST 336
XXXII. THE END 347
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
"Feeling that I had come to the end of things in Chicago
mighty quick" 12
"I believe she would have let me kiss her had I wanted to
then" 24
"Earning mighty little but my keep" 25
"'I guess she don't want much to see you'" 30
"'I want you to take this'" 34
"'Ma Pierson's'" 38
"The Enterprise Market" 44
"'That's Strauss!'" 49
"'Do you hear?' the Irishman roared" 58
"My part was to drive a wagon for Dround at fifteen a
week" 59
"'What do you know about sausage?' he asked" 65
"'All right,' he called out, 'we'll take his deal'" 71
"His long arms twitched with horror" 78
"From another man it might have been just slobber, but
Henry I. Dround meant it, every word" 88
"'My! I tell you I'll be glad to get home to-night'" 94
"Big John was one of the first to welcome me back" 96
"The door of the inner office was pulled back and Strauss
himself walked into the room" 102
"'Why, of course, you are the Mr. Harrington who--But
you have changed!'" 106
"She was reading me like a book of large print" 116
"'I have been offering your young man some advice, Sarah'" 119
"I could see that they would come together very soon" 126
"'You aren't much troubled with scruples, Van!'" 137
"'I paid the right people ninety-five hundred dollars. Now
what are you going to do about it?'" 142
"'Young feller, do you reckon you can buck up against me
and the Strauss crowd with that one-horse rig?'" 153
"'I think you could put up the right kind of a fight,' she
remarked quietly" 160
"That comedy took place on the court-house steps according
to law" 172
"I pointed out the great currents of world trade" 181
"The black rocks starting right out of the water" 189
"'When the time comes that you want help, when you cannot
go on alone--'" 194
"He undertook to give me a lesson then and there on the
rights of the anarchist" 208
"'You have done something the taste of which will never
get out of your mouth'" 223
"'When a man comes out of the alley and puts a pistol in
your face, and asks for all the money you have on you,
you don't wait to see where you hit him, do you?'" 228
"'Only this,' I said slowly, 'I don't sell out to you'" 234
"'Couldn't you find any one else to do your dirty work but
your own brother?'" 242
"Somehow years had gone by in that evening" 249
"'No, child, you are wrong! There is no truth in your cruel
words'" 259
"To-day I should like to slip back once more to the bum that
landed in Chicago--unattached, unburdened, unbound" 271
"It was a messenger boy with a delayed telegram" 275
"'For this is the last ditch, sure enough!'" 278
"'If you grasp them in a strong hand, they will become
diamonds'" 284
"'There isn't enough money coined to bring me to him'" 292
"'And we are the crowd that's got the combination to the
safe'" 312
"Men paused to read the bulletin, and I stopped, too" 321
"'He's the man who sold scraps and offal to the Government
for canned beef--'" 322
"'So you see there is nothing, Van, that you can give me
that I should want to take'" 333
"'Do you remember how I used to wash while you wiped,
when we wanted to get out buggy-riding, May?'" 341
"'It was good sausage, Slo! At least it was when _we_
made it'" 350
[Illustration]
CHAPTER I
THE LAKE FRONT IN CHICAGO
_I sleep out--A companion--Hunting a job--Free lunch and a bad
friend--Steele's store and what happened there--A positive young
woman--Number twelve_
It was a raw, blustering September night when I rounded up for the first
time at the lake front in Chicago. There was just a strip of waste land,
in those days, between the great avenue and the railroad tracks that
skirted the lake. In 1876 there were no large hotels or skyscrapers
fronting a tidy park; nothing but some wooden or brick houses, and,
across the tracks, the waves lapped away at the railroad embankment. I
was something more than twenty, old enough, at any rate, to have earned
a better bed than a few feet of sand and sooty grass in a vacant lot. It
was the first night I had ever slept out,--at least, because there was
no place I had a right to go to. All that day I had been on the tramp
from Indiana, and reached the city with only a few cents in my pockets.
I was not the only homeless wanderer by any means. Early in the evening
a lot of bums began to drop in, slinking down the avenue or coming over
from the city through the cross streets. It was early in the season;
but to-night the east wind raked the park and shook gusts of rain from
the low clouds, making it comfortable to keep moving. So we wandered up
and down that sandy strip, footing it like dogs on the hunt for a hole,
and eying each other gloomily when we passed.
Early in the evening a big wooden building at the north end was lighted
up, and some of us gathered around the windows and hung there under the
eaves watching the carriages drive up to the door to leave their
freight. There was a concert in the hall, and after it began I crawled
up into the arch of a window where I was out of the rain and could hear
the music. Before the concert was over a watchman caught sight of me and
snaked me to the ground. He was making a round of the building, stirring
up the bums who had found any hole out of the reach of the wind. So we
began once more that dreary, purposeless tramp to keep from freezing.
"Kind of chilly!" a young fellow called out to me.
"Chillier before morning, all right," I growled back, glad enough to
hear a voice speaking to me as if it expected an answer.
"First night?" he inquired, coming up close to me in a friendly way.
"'Tain't so bad--when it's warm and the wind don't blow."
We walked on together slowly, as though we were looking for something.
When we came under the light of the lamps in the avenue we eyed each
other. My tramp companion was a stout, honest-looking young fellow
about my age. His loose-fitting black clothes and collarless shirt made
me think that he too had come from the country recently.
"Been farming?" I ventured.
"Pine Lake, across there in Michigan--that's where I come from.
Hostetter, Ed Hostetter, that's my name."
We faced about and headed toward the lake without any purpose. He told
me his story while we dragged ourselves back and forth along the high
board fence that guarded the railroad property. He had got tired of
working on his father's farm for nothing and had struck out for the big
city. Hostetter had a married aunt, so he told me, living somewhere in
Chicago, and he had thought to stay with her until he could get a start
on fortune's road. But she had moved from her old address, and his money
had given out before he knew it. For the last week he had been wandering
about the streets, hunting a job, and looking sharp for that aunt.
"We can't keep this up all night!" I observed when his story had run
out.
"Last night I found an empty over there in the yards, but some of the
railroad fellers got hold of me toward morning and made me jump high."
A couple of tramps were crouching low beside the fence just ahead of us.
"Watch 'em!" my companion whispered.
Suddenly they burrowed down into the sand and disappeared. We could hear
their steps on the other side of the fence; then a gruff voice. In a few
moments back they came, burrowing up from under the fence.
"That's what you get!" Ed grunted.
Well, in the end we had to make the best of it, and we camped right
there, hugging the fence for protection against the east wind. We
burrowed into the loose sand, piling it up on the open side until we
were well covered. Now and then a train rushing past shook us awake with
its heavy tread. Toward morning there were fewer trains, and though it
began to mist pretty hard, and the water trickled into our hole, I
managed to get some sleep.
At daylight we got up and shook ourselves, and then wandered miserably
into the silent streets of the downtown district. Between us we had
fifteen cents, and with that we got some coffee and a piece of bread at
a little shanty stuck on the side of the river. A fat man with a greasy,
pock-marked face served us, and I can see him now as he looked us over
and winked to the policeman who was loafing in the joint.
After our coffee we began the hunt for an odd job, and Ed talked of his
hopes of finding that aunt--Mrs. Pierson. We kept together because we
were so lonesome, I suppose, and Ed was good company--jolly and
happy-hearted. That night we slept on the back porch of an empty house
'way south, where the streets were broad, and there were little strips
of green all about the houses. The owners of the large house we picked
out must have been away for the summer. Toward morning we heard some one
stirring around inside, opening and shutting doors, and we made up our
minds there were thieves at work in the house.
Ed stayed to watch, while I ran out to the avenue to get some help. It
was a long time before I could find a policeman, and when we got back to
the house there was Hostetter sitting on the curbstone hugging his
belly. One of the thieves had come out of the house the back way, and
when Ed tried to hold him had given him such a kick that Ed was glad to
let him go. The officer I had brought evidently thought we were playing
some game on him or weren't quite straight ourselves, and he tried to
take us to the station. We gave him a lively chase for a couple of
blocks; the last we saw of him he was shaking his fist at us and cussing
loud enough to wake the dead.
That day was much like the one before, only worse. The weather was mean
and drizzly. I earned a quarter lugging a valise across the city, and we
ate that up at breakfast. At noon we turned into one of the flashy
saloons on State Street. We hoped to be overlooked in the crowd before
the bar while we helped ourselves to the crackers and salt fish. We were
making out pretty well when a man who was standing near the bar and
drinking nothing spied us and came over to the lunch table.
"Wet day," he observed sociably.
"That's about it," I replied cautiously, looking the man over.
He wore a long black coat, a dirty light-colored waistcoat, and a silk
hat, underneath which little brown curls sprouted out. He fed himself
delicately out of the common bowl, as if the free lunch didn't tempt his
appetite.
"Seeing the town?" he asked next, looking pointedly at Ed's dirty
shoes.
"Some part of it, I reckon," Ed laughed.
"Looking for a job?"
"You bet we're looking!" Ed growled back. "Know where we can find it?"
Before long we were on easy terms with the stranger. He insisted on
paying for beer all around, and on the strength of that Ed and I made
another raid on a platter of beans. Dinner that night didn't look very
promising.
"It seems to me I know of the very thing for you young fellers," our
friend finally remarked, and we pricked up our ears.
He said he had a friend in one of the large stores on State Street, who
had found fine places for some young men he had recommended. They were
making big money now. Ed's eyes began to glisten. But suddenly another
idea struck our good friend. He lowered his voice and drew us to one
side. Would one of us like a fat job, where there wasn't much work
except special times--a gay kind of place, where we could see something
of life? Ed was pretty eager, but I rather suspected what he was after.
"I guess the other place is more what we want," I said.
"Ain't up to snuff just yet?" he giggled. "Wait a week or two, and you
will be as quick as the next one."
As we made no reply, and I was moving toward the door, he remarked:--
"Sure, it's stopped raining! Let's be moving up the street, and see what
my friend can do for you."
So we started up State Street with the man in the silk hat. At the door
of a big dry-goods store, where we had tried unsuccessfully that morning
to obtain work, he remarked:--
"We'll just look in here. I know a man in the gents' underwear
department, and p'r'aps he can help you."
I didn't think it very likely, for I hadn't much faith in our smooth
acquaintance. But there was nothing better to do. So we all passed in
through the heavy doors of Steele & Co.'s establishment. Even on that
rainy afternoon the place was pretty well filled; mostly with women, who
were bunched together at certain counters. We had some trouble in
following our guide, who squirmed into the thick of every jam. I began
to think that, having talked big to two green young fellows, he now
wanted to give us the slip. But I determined, just to tease him, he
shouldn't get out of our sight as easily as he thought to.
The "gents' underwear" department, as I happened to have observed in the
morning, was on the State Street side, near the door which we had just
entered. Nevertheless, our friend was leading us away from that part and
seemed to prefer the most crowded aisles, where "ladies' goods" were
displayed. At the glove counter there was a press of women who were
trying to get near a heap of ninety-eight-cent gloves. Our guide was
just ahead of us at this point, and near his elbow I noticed an old
gentleman and a young lady. The latter, who was trying on a pair of
gloves, kept asking the old gentleman a string of questions. He was
smiling at her without taking the trouble to reply. The girl was pretty
and nicely dressed, and I suppose I must have looked at her hard, for
she suddenly glanced up at me and then turned her back and faced the
counter. As she turned I noticed something white drop from her hand, and
I pressed closer to her to pick it up. It was a little handkerchief. As
I reached down I saw a thin hand stretch out around the young lady's
waist and then give a little jerk. I had just straightened myself with
the handkerchief in my fingers when I heard the young lady exclaim:--
"Father! My purse has gone!"
"Why, why!" the old man stammered. "Your purse has gone? Where could it
have gone to?"
Just then some one grabbed my arm, and a voice said in my ear:--
"Not so slick as that, young feller!"
A man who looked like an official of the store had hold of me.
"Don't make any fuss, and hand over that lady's purse," he added in a
low voice.
"I haven't got her purse. I was just going to give her this
handkerchief, which I saw her drop," I protested, holding up the silly
thing I had picked from the floor.
"That's all right," the man said with a grin. "And now hand over the
purse, too."
He began to feel my pockets, and, of course, I resented his familiarity,
and, like a country jake, kicked up a muss then and there. A crowd began
to collect. The floor-manager rushed up at this point, and between them
I was hustled across the store and into one of the private offices. The
first thing I heard when I got there was the old gentleman just behind
me, stuttering, too much excited to talk plain.
"Yes, yes, my daughter's purse! She just lost it!"
"That's all right," I said. "And I saw the fellow who took it...."
"I saw this man take it," I heard the girl say to the manager.
"Yes, yes, my daughter saw the thief take her purse," the old man put in
excitedly.
"I was watching him all the time," said the man who had laid hold of me
first. "He came in at the State Street entrance a few minutes ago with a
green one and an old sneak. I didn't think he had the time to pass the
stuff over."
I was cool now, and laughed as the manager and the detective went
through my pockets carefully.
"The old one's got the stuff fast enough," the detective remarked
disgustedly. "Shall we have this one locked up, Mr. Marble?"
"You'll do it at your risk!" I put in loudly.
"Where's the young woman?" the manager demanded.
"It happened just while my daughter was buying a pair of gloves," the
old man began to chatter. "You were asking me, my love...."
The young woman looked a little confused, I thought, and not so sure of
herself. But she answered the manager's questions by saying promptly:--
"He must have taken it!"
"You saw him?" the detective questioned.
"Yes--I must have seen him--I saw him, of course!"
"I don't believe you could have seen me, ma'am," I said with a grin,
"for you had just turned your back on me."
"How did you know that?" she asked triumphantly.
"I know it because when I first began to look at you, you didn't like
it, and so you turned your back on me to show it."
"You know too much, young man," the manager remarked. "You'll prosecute
him?" he added, turning to the old man.
"Prosecute? Why, yes, of course," he stammered; "though, if he hasn't
the purse--"
"Come on, m'boy," the detective said to me. "You and I'll take a stroll
down the street and find a good night's lodging for you."
* * * * *
That was before the day of patrol wagons. So the detective locked his
right arm securely in my left, and in this intimate fashion we walked
through the streets to the police station.
When we reached that foul-smelling pen we were kept waiting by a large
"order" that had just been rounded up from a gambling-house in the
neighborhood. There were about twenty men and women in this flock. They
were filing, one by one, before the desk-sergeant. I had never heard
such a family gathering of names. They were all Smiths, Browns, and
Joneses, and they all lived a good way from town, out in the
fifty-hundreds, where there are many vacant lots. At the end of the file
there was a little unshaven Jew, who seemed very mad about it all. He
was the only one who had any money; he gave up a fat roll of bills that
took the officer some time to count.
"I know who did this!" the Jew sputtered at the man behind the desk.
"And I can make it hot for some of youse, all right."
"That's good," the sergeant replied pleasantly. "Another time you'll
have the sense to know when you are well off."
I thought this was fatherly advice addressed to the Jew for his moral
health. I congratulated myself that I had fallen into clean hands. So
when my turn came, I said to the desk-sergeant confidentially:--
"I am quite innocent!"
"Is that so, m'son?" he remarked pleasantly.
"They haven't any right to arrest me. I was--"
"Of course, of course! Keep all that for his Honor to-morrow morning.
What's your name, m'son?"
"E.V. Harrington," I replied quite innocently.
"And where do you hail from?"
"Jasonville, Indiana."
It did not occur to me then that, guilty or innocent, it made no
difference after I had given my real name and home. Thanks to the
enterprise of metropolitan journalism, the folks in Jasonville, Indiana,
would be reading at their breakfast to-morrow morning all about how Van
Harrington had been taken up as a thief.
"Here!" the fat sergeant called out to one of the officers, after I had
handed over to his care the few odds and ends that I still had about me;
"show the gent from Indiany to number twelve."
CHAPTER II
THE HARRISON STREET POLICE COURT
_A night in jail--A rapid-fire judge--The young lady is not so
positive--The psychology of justice--What's the matter with
Jasonville?--I tell my story to his Honor_
[Illustration: _Feeling that I had come to the end of things in Chicago
mighty quick._]
There was a greasy bench at one end of number twelve, where I sat myself
down, feeling that I had come to the end of things in Chicago mighty
quick. A measly gas-jet above the door showed what a stinking hole I had
got myself into. I could hear the gambling party across the way,
laughing and talking, taking their lot rather easily. Pretty soon a man
was put into the cell next mine. He kept groaning about his head. "My
head!" he would say, "oh, my head! My head! oh, my head!" until I
thought my own head was going wrong.
I wondered what had become of Hostetter. Apparently he had cleared out
when he saw his chance friend getting into trouble. Perhaps he thought I
had been working with our smooth acquaintance all along. Then I thought
what a fool I had been to give my real name and home to the
desk-sergeant. To-morrow the wise ones down in Jasonville would be
calling Van Harrington bad names all over again, and thinking how clever
they had been.
Some bad-smelling mess was shoved at me for supper, but I had no stomach
for food, good or bad. The jail quieted down after a time, but I
couldn't sleep. My mind was full of the past, of everything that had
happened to me from the beginning. Only forty-eight hours before I had
been tramping my way into the city, as keen as a hungry steer for all
the glory I saw there ahead of me under the bank of smoke that was
Chicago. Boylike, I had looked up at the big packing-houses, the
factories, the tall elevators that I passed, and thought how one day I
should be building my fortune out of them as others had built theirs
before me. And the end of that boyish dream was this bed in a jail!
* * * * *
The next morning they hustled us all into court. I was crowded into the
pen along with some of the numerous Smiths and Joneses who hadn't been
able to secure bail the night before. These were disposed of first in
the way of routine business, together with a few drunks and
disorderlies. There were also in the pen some sickly-looking fellows
who had been taken up for smoking opium in a Chinese cellar, a woman in
whose house there had been a robbery, and a well-dressed man with a
bandage over one eye. He must have been my neighbor of the bad head.
The court room was pretty well jammed with these prisoners, the police
officers, and a few loafers. The air smelled like a sewer, and the
windows were foul with dirt. The judge was a good-looking, youngish man,
with a curling black mustache, and he wore a diamond-studded circlet
around his necktie. Behind the judge on the platform sat the young woman
whose purse I was accused of stealing, and her father. She saw me when I
was brought into the pen, but tried not to let me know it, looking away
all the time.
When I arrived on the scene the judge was administering an oath to a
seedy-looking man, who kissed eagerly the filthy Bible and began to
mumble something in a hurry to the judge.
"Yes, I know that pipe dream," his Honor interrupted pleasantly. "Now,
tell me the straight story of what you have been doing since you were
here last week."
"You insult me, Judge," the prisoner replied haughtily. "I'm an educated
man, a graduate of a great institution of learning. You know your
Horace, Judge?"
"Not so well as the revised statutes of the state of Illinois," his
Honor snapped back with what I thought was a lack of respect for
learning. "Two months. Next!"
"Why, Judge--"
There was a titter in the court room as the graduate of a great
university was led from the pen. His Honor, wearing the same easy smile,
was already listening to the next case. He flecked off a stray particle
of soot that had lodged on the big pink in his buttonhole as he remarked
casually:--
"Is that so? Twenty-five dollars. It will be fifty the next time."
The judge nodded blandly to the prisoner and turned to my neighbor of
the night, the man who had had so much trouble with his head. I was
getting very uneasy. That smiling gentleman up there on the bench seemed
to have his mind made up about most folks beforehand, and it didn't seem
to be favorably inclined this morning. I was beginning to wonder how
many months he had me down for already. It didn't add to my peace of
mind to see him chatting genially with the old gentleman and his
daughter as he listened to the poor criminals at the bar.
His Honor went on disposing of the last cases at a rapid rate, with a
smile, a nod, a joke--and my time was coming nearer. The sweat rolled
down my cheeks. I couldn't keep my eyes off the young lady's face;
somehow I felt that she was my only hope of safety. Finally the judge
leaned back in his chair and smelled at his pink, as if he had 'most
finished his morning's work.
The clerk called, "Edward V. Harrington." I jumped.
"Well, Edward?" the judge inquired pleasantly as I stood before him.
"The first time we have had the pleasure, I believe?"
I mumbled something, and the store detective began to tell his story.
"Is that it, Doctor?" the judge asked the old man.
"Why, I suppose so--I don't know. He was caught in the act, wasn't he?"
Then, as the old man sat down, he added peevishly: "At least, that's
what my daughter says, and she ought to know. It was her purse, and she
got me down here this morning."
"How about it, miss?" the judge asked quickly, wheeling his chair the
other way and smiling at the young lady. "Did you see the prisoner here
take your purse?"
"Why, of course--" She was just going to say "yes" when her eyes caught
mine for a moment, and she hesitated. "No, I didn't exactly see him,
but--" her look swept haughtily over my head. "But he was very close to
me and was stooping down just as I felt a jerk at my belt. And then the
purse was gone. He must have taken it!"
"Stooping to beauty, possibly?" the judge suggested.
"Stooping to pick up the lady's handkerchief, which I saw her drop," I
ventured to put in, feeling that in another moment I should find myself
blown into prison with a joke.
"Oh! So you were picking up the lady's handkerchief? Very polite, I am
sure!" His Honor glared at me for an instant for the first time. "And
you thought you might as well take the purse, too? For a keepsake, eh?"
He had wheeled around to face me. A sentence was on his lips. I could
feel it coming, and hadn't an idea how to keep it back. I looked
helplessly at the young woman. Just as his Honor opened his mouth to
speak, she exclaimed:--
"Wait a moment! I am not sure--he doesn't look bad. I thought, Judge,
you could tell whether he had really taken my purse," she ended
reproachfully.
"Do you consider me a mind reader, miss?" the judge retorted, suspending
that sentence in mid-air.
"Let him say something! Let him tell his story," the young lady urged.
"Perhaps he isn't guilty, after all. I am sure he doesn't look it."'
"Why, Sarah!" the old gentleman gasped in astonishment. "You said this
morning at breakfast that you were sure he had stolen it."
Here the detective put in his oar.
"I know him and the one that was with him--they're old sneaks, your
Honor."
"That's a lie!" I said, finding my tongue at last.
"Good!" the judge exclaimed appreciatively. "I am inclined to think so,
too, Edward," he went on, adjusting his diamond circlet with one finger.
"This young lady thinks you have a story of your own. Have you?"
"Yes, I have, and a straight one," I answered, plucking up my courage.
"Of course," he grunted sarcastically. "Well, let's have it, but make it
short."
It did sound rather lame when I came to tell what I had done with myself
since I had entered the city. When I got to that part about the house
where Ed and I had been disturbed by thieves, the old gentleman broke
in:--
"Bless my soul! That must be the Wordens' house. The officer said there
were two suspicious characters who ran away up the boulevard. This
fellow must be one of them. Of course he took the purse! You know the
Wordens, don't you, Judge?"
His Honor merely nodded to the old gentleman, smiled at the young lady,
and said to me:--
"Go on, young man! Tell us why you left home in the first place."
I got red all over again at this invitation, and was taken with a new
panic.
"Who are your folks? What's the name of the place?" the judge asked
encouragingly.
"Jasonville, Indiana."
"What's the matter with Jasonville, Edward?" he asked more sharply. "Why
do you blush for it?"
"I had rather not tell with all these folks around," I answered, looking
at the young lady.
* * * * *
His Honor must have found something in my case a little out of his
ordinary experience, for he took me back into his own room. He got me
started on my story, and one thing led to another. His manner changed
all of a sudden: he no longer tried to be smart, and he seemed to have
plenty of time. After that long night in the jail I wanted to talk. So I
told his Honor just how it had been with me from the beginning.
CHAPTER III
JASONVILLE, INDIANA
_The Harringtons--The village magnate--A young hoodlum--On the road to
school--The first woman--Disgrace, and a girl's will--An unfortunate
coincidence--In trouble again--May loses faith--The end of
Jasonville--Discharged--A loan--Charity--The positive young lady
hopes I shall start right--The lake front once more--I preach myself
a good sermon_
The Harringtons were pretty well known in Greene County, Indiana. Father
moved to Jasonville just after the war, when the place was not much more
than a cross-roads with a prospect of a railroad sometime. Ours was the
first brick house, built after the kind he and mother used to know back
in York State. And he set up the largest general store in that district
and made money. Then he lost most of it when the oil boom first came.
Mother and he set great store by education,--if father hadn't gone to
the war he wouldn't have been keeping a country store,--and they helped
start the first township high school in our part of the state. And he
sent Will, my older brother, and me to the Methodist school at Eureka,
which was the best he could do for us. There wasn't much learning to be
had in Eureka "College," however; the two or three old preachers and
women who composed the faculty were too busy trying to keep the boys
from playing cards and smoking or chewing to teach us much.
Perhaps I was a bit of a hoodlum as a boy, anyway. The trouble started
with the judge--Judge Sorrell. He was a local light, who held a mortgage
on 'most everything in town (including our store--after father went into
oil). We boys had always heard at home how hard and mean the judge was,
and dishonest, too; for in some of the oil deals he had tricked folks
out of their property. It wasn't so strange, then, that we youngsters
took liberties with the judge's belongings that the older folks did not
dare to. The judge's fine stock used to come in from the field done up,
raced to death, and the orchard by the creek just out of town (which had
belonged to us once) rarely brought a good crop to maturity. We made
ourselves believe that the judge didn't really own it, and treated him
as a trespasser. So one night, when the judge made a hasty visit to our
house after one of the "raids," my father found me in bed with a wet
suit of clothes on, which I had been forced to sacrifice in the creek.
The end of that lark was that father had to pay a good sum for my
private interpretation of the laws of property, and I spent the rest of
the summer on a farm doing a man's work.
Perhaps if it hadn't been for that ducking in the river and what
followed, I might have come out just a plain thief. While I was sweating
on that farm I saw the folly of running against common notions about
property. I came to the conclusion that if I wanted what my neighbor
considered to be his, I must get the law to do the business for me. For
the first time it dawned on me how wonderful is that system which shuts
up one man in jail for taking a few dollars' worth of truck that doesn't
belong to him, and honors the man who steals his millions--if he robs in
the legal way! Yes, the old judge knocked some good worldly sense into
me.
(Nevertheless, old Sorrell needn't have hounded me after I came back to
Jasonville, and carried his malice to the point of keeping me from
getting a job when I was hoping to make a fair start so that I could ask
May Rudge to marry me. But all that was some time later.)
May was one of that handful of young women who in those days stood being
sneered at for wanting to go to college with their brothers. We were in
the same classes at Eureka two years before I noticed her much. She was
little and pale and delicate--with serious, cold gray eyes, and a mouth
that was always laughing at you. I can see to-day the very spot where
she stood when I first spoke to her. Good weather I used to drive over
from father's to Eureka, and one spring morning I happened to drive by
the Rudge farm on my way to school instead of taking the pike, which was
shorter. There was a long level stretch of road straightaway between two
pieces of green meadow, and there, ahead of me, I saw the girl, walking
steadily, looking neither to the right nor to the left. I slowed up with
the idea that she might give me a nod or a word; but she kept her pace
as though she were thinking of things too far off to notice a horse and
buggy on the road. Somehow I wanted to make her speak. Pretty soon I
said:--
"Won't you ride to school with me, Miss May?"
Then she turned her head, not the least flustered like other girls, and
looked me square in the eye for a minute. I knew she was wondering what
made me speak to her then, for the boys at school never took notice of
the college girls. But she got into the buggy and sat prim and solemn by
my side. We jogged along between the meadows, which were bright with
flowers and the soft, green grass of spring. The big timber along the
roadside and between the pasture lands had just leaved out, and the long
branches hung daintily in the misty morning air. All of a sudden I felt
mighty happy to be there with her. I think her first words were,--"Do
you come this way often?"
"Perhaps I shall be coming this way oftener now," I made bold to answer.
Her lips trembled in a little ironical smile, and the least bit of red
sprang into her white face. I said, "It isn't as short as the pike, but
it is a prettier road."
The smile deepened, and I had it on my tongue to add, "I shall be coming
this way every morning if you will ride with me." But I was afraid of
that smiling mouth.
(Of course I didn't tell his Honor all this, but I add it now, together
with other matters that concern me and belong here. It will help to
explain what happened later.)
So that fine spring morning, when I was seventeen, I first took note of
what a woman is. The rest of that year I used to drive the prim little
girl back and forth between her father's farm and school. I was no
scholar like her, and she never went about with the other girls to
parties. She wasn't in the least free and easy with the boys. In those
days most girls didn't think much of a fellow who wouldn't take his
chances to kiss them when he could. Evenings, when we called, we used to
pull the parlor door to and sit holding hands with the young woman of
our admiration. And no harm ever came of it that I know: most of those
girls made good wives when the time came, for all they were easy and
tender and ready to make love in the days of their youth.
But once, when I tried to put my arm about May Rudge, as we were driving
along the lonely road, she turned and looked at me out of those cold
gray eyes. Her mouth rippled in that little ironical way, as if she were
laughing down in her mind. She never said a word or pulled away from me,
but I didn't care to go on.
May gave me ambition, and she made me want to be steady and good, though
she never said anything about it. But now and then I would break away
and get myself into some fool scrape. Such was the time when I came back
from a Terre Haute party pretty light-headed, and went with some others
to wake up the old Methodist president of the college. I don't remember
what happened then, but the next morning at chapel the old boy let loose
on "wine and wantoning," and called me by name. I knew that I had done
for myself at Eureka, and I was pretty mad to be singled out for
reprobation from all the offenders. I got up from my seat and walked
out while the school stared. As I was getting my horse from the place
where I kept it, May Rudge came into the yard.
"You aren't going this way?" she demanded quickly.
"I don't see as there's much use waiting for bouquets."
"You aren't going without apologizing!" she flashed out.
To tell the truth, that had never occurred to me. It seemed she cared
less for the disgrace than for the way I took it. So in the end, before
I left town, I drove up to the president's house, apologized, and got my
dismissal in due form, and was told I should go to hell unless I was
converted straightway. Then May drove down the street with me in face of
the whole school, who contrived to be there to see my departure.
[Illustration: _I believe she would have let me kiss her had I wanted to
then._]
"I guess this ends my education, and being a lawyer, and all that," I
said gloomily, as we drew near the Rudge farm. "Dad will never forgive
this. He thinks rum is the best road to hell, the same as the old
preacher. He won't sell a glass of cider in the store."
"There are other kinds of work," she answered. "You can show them just
the same you know what's right."
"But you'll never marry a man who isn't educated," I said boldly.
"I'll never marry a man who hasn't principles--and religion," she
replied without a blush.
"So I must be good and pious, as well as educated?"
"You must be a man"--and her lips curved ironically--"and now you are
just a boy."
But I held her hand when I helped her from the buggy, and I believe she
would have let me kiss her had I wanted to then.
[Illustration: _Earning mighty little but my keep._]
Father and mother took my expulsion from school very hard, as I
expected. Father especially--who had begun to brag somewhat at the store
about my being a lawyer and beating the judge out--was so bitter that I
told him if he would give me fifty dollars I would go off somewhere and
never trouble him again.
"You ask me to give you fifty dollars to go to hell with!" he shouted
out.
"Put me in the store, then, and let me earn it. Give me the same money
you give Will."
But father didn't want me around the store for folks to see. So I had to
go out to a farm once more, to a place that father was working on shares
with a Swede. I spent the better part of two years on that farm, living
with the old Swede, and earning mighty little but my keep. For father
gave me a dollar now and then, but no regular wages. I could get sight
of May only on a Sunday. She was teaching her first school in another
county. Father and mother Rudge had never liked me: they looked higher
for May than to marry a poor farm-hand, who had a bad name in the town.
My brother Will, who was a quiet, church-going fellow, had learned his
way to the Rudge place by this time, and the old people favored him.
After a while I heard of a chance in a surveyor's office at Terre Haute,
but old Sorrell, who had more business than any ten men in that part of
the country, met the surveyor on the train, and when I reached the
office there wasn't any job for me. That night, when I got back from
Terre Haute, I told my folks that I was going to Chicago. The next day I
asked my father again for some money. Mother answered for him:--
"Will don't ask us for money. It won't be fair to him."
"So he's to have the store and my girl too," I said bitterly.
"May Rudge isn't the girl to marry a young man who's wild."
"I'll find that out for myself!"
Always having had a pretty fair opinion of myself, I found it hard to be
patient and earn good-will by my own deserts. So I said rather foolishly
to father:--
"Will you give me a few dollars to start me with? I have earned it all
right, and I am asking you for the last time."
It was a kind of threat, and I am sorry enough for it now. I suspect he
hadn't the money, for things were going badly with him. He answered
pretty warmly that I should wait a long time before he gave me another
dollar to throw away. I turned on my heel without a word to him or
mother, and went out of the house with the resolve not to return.
But before I left Jasonville to make my plunge into the world I would
see May Rudge. I wanted to say to her: "Which will you have? Choose
now!" So I turned about and started for the Rudge farm, which was about
a mile from the town, beyond the old place on the creek that used to
belong to us. Judge Sorrell had put up a large new barn on the place,
where he kept some fine blooded stock that he had been at considerable
expense to import. I had never been inside the barn, and as I passed it
that afternoon, it came into my mind, for no particular reason, to turn
in at the judge's farm and go by the new building. Maybe I thought the
old judge would be around somewhere, and I should have the chance
before I left Jasonville to tell him what I thought of his dirty,
sneaking ways.
But there was no one in the big barn, apparently, or anywhere on the
place, and after looking about for a little I went on to May's. I came
up to the Rudge farm from the back, having taken a cut across the
fields.
As I drew near the house I saw Will and May sitting under an apple tree
talking. I walked on slowly, my anger somehow rising against them both.
There was nothing wrong in their being there--nothing at all; but I was
ready to fire at the first sign. By the looks of it, mother was right:
they were already sweethearts. Will seemed to have something very
earnest to say to May. He took hold of one of her hands, and she didn't
draw it away at once.... There wasn't anything more to keep me in
Jasonville.
I kept right on up the country road, without much notion of where I was
going to, too hot and angry to think about anything but those two under
the apple tree. I had not gone far before I heard behind me a great
rushing noise, like the sudden sweep of a tornado, and then a following
roar. I looked up across the fields, and there was the judge's fine new
barn one mass of red flame and black smoke. It was roaring so that I
could hear it plainly a quarter of a mile away. Naturally, I started to
run for the fire, and ran hard all the way across the fields. By the
time I got there some men from town had arrived and were rushing around
crazily. But they hadn't got out the live stock, and there was no chance
now to save a hen. The judge drove up presently, and we all stood
around and stared at the fire. After a time I began to think it was time
for me to move on if I was to get to any place that night. I slipped off
and started up the road once more. I hadn't gone far, however, before I
was overtaken by a buggy in which was one of the men who had been at the
fire.
"Where be yer goin', Van?" he asked peremptorily.
"I don't know as I am called on to tell you, Sam," I answered back.
"Yes, you be," he said more kindly. "I guess you'll have to jump right
in here, anyways, and ride back with me. The judge wants to ask you a
few questions about this here fire."
"I don't answer any of the judge's questions!" I replied sharply enough,
not yet seeing what the man was after. But he told me bluntly enough
that I was suspected of setting fire to the barn, and drove me back to
the town, where I stayed in the sheriff's custody until my uncle came
late that night and bailed me out. Will was with him. Father didn't want
me to come home, so Will let me understand. Neither he nor my uncle
thought I was innocent, but they hoped that there might not be enough
evidence to convict me. Some one on the creek road had seen me going
past the barn a little time before the fire was discovered, and that was
the only ground for suspecting me.
The next morning I got my uncle (who wouldn't trust me out of his sight)
to drive me over to the Rudge place. He sat in the team while I went up
to the house and knocked. I was feeling pretty desperate in my mind,
but if May would only believe my story, I shouldn't care about the
others. She would understand quick enough why I never appeared at the
farm the day before. Old man Rudge came to the door, and when he saw me,
he drew back and asked me what my business was.
[Illustration: "_I guess she don't want much to see you._"]
"I want to see May," I said.
"I guess she don't want much to see you."
"I must see her."
The sound of our voices brought Mrs. Rudge from the kitchen.
"Mother," old Rudge said, "Van wants to see May."
"Well, Cyrus, it won't do any harm, I guess."
When May came to the door she waited for me to speak.
"I want to tell you, May," I said slowly, "that I didn't have any hand
in burning the judge's barn."
"I don't want to believe you did," she said.
"But you do all the same!" I cried sharply.
"Every one says you did, Van," she answered doubtfully.
"So you think I could do a mean, sneaky thing like that?" I replied
hotly, and added bitterly: "And then not have sense enough to get out of
the way! Well, I know what this means: you and Will have put your heads
together. You're welcome to him!"
"You've no reason to say such things, Van!" she exclaimed.
"There ain't no use in you talking with my girl, Harrington," put in
Rudge, who had come back to the door. "And I don't want you coming here
any more."
"How about that, May?" I asked. "Do you tell me to go?"
Her lips trembled, and she looked at me more kindly. Perhaps in another
moment she would have answered and not failed me. But hot and heady as I
was by nature, and smarting from all that had happened, I wanted a ready
answer: I would not plead for myself.
"So you won't take my word for it?" I said, turning away.
"The word of a drunkard and a good-for-nothing!" the old man fired after
me.
"Oh, father! don't," I heard May say. Then perhaps she called my name.
But I was at the gate, and too proud to turn back.
I was discharged the next week. Although there was nothing against me
except the fact that I had been seen about the barn previous to the
fire, and the well-known enmity between me and the judge, it would have
gone hard with me had it not been for the fact that in the ruins of the
burned barn they found the remains of an old farm-hand, who had probably
wandered in there while drunk and set the place on fire with his pipe.
When I was released my uncle said the folks were ready to have me back
home; but without a word I started north on the county road in the
direction of the great city.
* * * * *
"So," said his Honor, when I had finished my story in the dingy chamber
of the police court, "you want me to believe that you really had no hand
in firing that barn any more than you took this lady's purse?"
But he smiled to himself, at his own penetration, I suppose, and when we
were back in the court room that dreaded sentence fell from his lips
like a shot,--"Officer, the prisoner is discharged."
"I knew he was innocent!" the young lady exclaimed the next instant.
"But, Judge, where is the purse and my friend Worden's fur coat?" the
old gentleman protested.
"You don't see them about him, do you, Doctor?" the judge inquired
blandly. Then he turned to me: "Edward, I think that you have told me an
honest story. I hope so."
He took a coin from his pocket.
"Here's a dollar, my boy. Buy a ticket for as far as this will take
you, and walk the rest of the way home."
"I guess I have come to Chicago to stay," I answered. "They aren't
breaking their hearts over losing me down home."
"Well, my son, as you think best. In this glorious Republic it is every
man's first privilege to take his own road to hell. But, at any rate,
get a good dinner to start on. We don't serve first-class meals here."
"I'll return this as soon as I can," I said, picking up the coin.
"The sooner the better; and the less we see of each other in the future,
the better, eh?"
I grinned, and started for the door through which I had been brought
into court, but an officer pointed to another door that led to the
street. As I made for it I passed near the young lady. She called to
me:--
"Mister, mister, what will you do now?"
"Get something to eat first, and then look for another purse, perhaps,"
I replied.
She blushed very prettily.
"I am sorry I accused you, but you were looking at me so hard just
then--I thought.... I want you to take this!"
She tried to give me a bill rolled up in a little wad.
"No, thanks," I said, moving off.
"But you may need it. Every one says it's so hard to find work."
"Well, I don't take money from a woman."
"Oh!" She blushed again.
Then she ran to the old gentleman, who was talking to the judge, and got
from him a little black memorandum-book.
[Illustration: "_I want you to take this._"]
"You see, my cards were all in the purse. But there!" she said, writing
down her name and address on the first page. "You will know now where to
come in case you need help or advice."
"Thank you," I replied, taking the book.
"I do so want to help you to start right and become a good man," she
said timidly. "Won't you try to show your friends that they were
mistaken in you?"
She turned her eyes up at me appealingly as if she were asking it as a
favor to her. I felt foolish and began to laugh, but stopped, for she
looked hurt.
"I guess, miss, it don't work quite that way. Of course, I mean to
start fresh--but I shan't do it even for your sake. All the same, when
you see me next it won't be in a police station."
"That's right!" she exclaimed, beaming at me with her round blue eyes.
"I should like to feel that I hadn't hurt you--made you worse."
"Oh, you needn't worry about that, miss. I guess I'm not much worse off
for a night in the police station."
She held out her hand and I took it.
"Sarah! Sarah!" the old gentleman called as we were shaking hands. He
seemed rather shocked, but the judge looked up at us and smiled
quizzically.
* * * * *
Outside it was a warm, pleasant day; the wind was blowing merrily
through the dirty street toward the blue lake. For the moment I did not
worry over what was to come next. The first thing I did was to get a
good meal.
After that refreshment I sauntered forth in the direction of the lake
front--the most homelike place I could think of. The roar of the city
ran through my head like the clatter of a mill. I seemed to be just a
feeble atom of waste in the great stream of life flowing around me.
When I reached the desolate strip of weeds and sand between the avenue
and the railroad, the first relay of bums was beginning to round up for
the night. The sight of their tough faces filled me with a new disgust;
I turned back to the busy avenue, where men and women were driving to
and fro with plenty to do and think, and then and there I turned on
myself and gave myself a good cussing. Here I was more than twenty, and
just a plain fool, and had been ever since I could remember. When I had
rid myself of several layers of conceit it began to dawn on me that this
was a world where one had to step lively if he wasn't to join the ranks
of the bums back there in the sand. That was the most valuable lot of
thinking I ever did in my life. It took the sorehead feeling of wronged
genius out of me for good and all. Pretty soon I straightened my back
and started for the city to find somewhere a bite of food and a roof to
cover my head.
And afterward there would be time to think of conquering the world!
CHAPTER IV
THE PIERSONS
_A familiar face--A hospitable roof--The Pierson family, and
others--The Enterprise Market, and ten dollars a week--Miss Hillary
Cox--Crape--From the sidewalk--The company of successful
adventurers--The great Strauss_
"Hello! Here you be! Ain't I glad I found yer this soon," and Ed's brown
eyes were looking into mine. His seemed to me just then about the best
face in the world. "Seems though I was bound to be chasin' some one in
this city!" he shouted, grabbing me by the arm. "But I've found all of
'em now."
He had missed me at the police station by a few minutes, and I had left
no address. After looking up and down a few streets near by, Ed had
thought of lying in wait for me on the lake front, feeling that unless
some extraordinary good luck had happened to me I should bring up at
that popular resort. He had not seen the little incident when the
detective grabbed me in the great store, for just at that moment his
attention had been attracted to a girl at one of the counters, who had
called him by name. The girl, who was selling perfumes and tooth-washes,
turned out to be his cousin Lou, his Aunt Pierson's younger daughter.
After the surprise of their meeting Ed had looked for me, and the
floor-walker told them of my misfortune. Then the cousin had made Ed go
home with her. Mrs. Pierson, it seems, took in boarders in her
three-story-and-basement house on West Van Buren Street. She and the two
girls had given Ed a warm welcome, and for the first time in many days
he had had the luxury of a bed, which had caused him to oversleep, and
miss me at the station.
[Illustration: "_Ma Pierson's._"]
All this I learned as we walked westward toward Ed's new home. At first
I was a little shy about putting another burden on the boy's relations.
But my friend would not hear of letting me go. When Ed tucked his arm
under mine and hauled me along with country heartiness, saying I could
share his bed and he had a job in view for us both, I felt as though the
sun had begun to shine all over again that day. Through all the
accidents of many years I have never forgotten that kindness, and my
heart warms afresh when I stop to think how Ed grabbed my arm and pulled
me along with him off those city streets....
So it happened at dinner-time that night I found myself in the basement
dining room and made my first bow to some people who were to be near me
for a number of years--one or two of them for life. I can remember just
how they all looked sitting about the table, which was covered with a
mussed red table-cloth, and lit by a big, smelly oil lamp. Pa Pierson
sat at the head of the table, an untidy, gray-haired old man, who gave
away his story in every line of his body. He had made some money in his
country store back in Michigan; but the ambition to try his luck in the
city had ruined him. He had gone broke on crockery. He was supposed to
be looking for work, but he spent most of his time in this basement
dining room, warming himself at the stove and reading the boarders'
papers.
The girls and the boy, Dick, paid him even less respect than they did
their mother. They were all the kind of children that don't tolerate
much incompetence in their parents. Dick was a putty-faced, black-haired
cub, who scrubbed blackboards and chewed gum in a Board of Trade man's
office. Neither he nor his two sisters, who were also working downtown,
contributed much to the house, and except that now and then Grace, the
older one, would help clean up the dishes in a shamefaced way, or bring
the food on the table when the meal was extra late or she wanted to get
out for the evening, not one of the three ever raised a finger to help
with the work. The whole place, from kitchen to garret, fell on poor old
Ma Pierson, and the boarders were kinder to her than her own children.
Lank and stooping, short-sighted, with a faded, tired smile, she came
and went between the kitchen and the dining room, cooking the food and
serving it, washing the dishes, scrubbing the floors, and making the
beds--I never saw her sit down to the table with us except one Christmas
Day, when she was too sick to cook. She took her fate like an Indian,
and died on the steps of her treadmill.
There were two other regular boarders besides myself and Ed--a man and a
woman. The latter, Miss Hillary Cox, was cashier in the New Enterprise
Market, not far from the house. She was rather short and stout, with
thick ropes of brown hair that she piled on her head in a solid mass to
make her look tall. She had bright little eyes, and her rosy face showed
that she had not been long in the city.
The man was a long, lean, thin-faced chap, somewhat older than I was.
His name was Jaffrey Slocum; he was studying law and doing stenographic
work in a law office in the city. When I first looked at him I thought
that he would push his way over most of the rocks in the road--and he
did. Slocum was a mighty silent man, but little passed before his eyes
without his knowing what it meant. I learned later that he came from a
good Maine family, and had been to college in the East. And he had it
much on his mind to do several things with his life--the first of which
was to buy back the old home in Portland, and put his folks there where
they belonged. Old Sloco, we called him! For all his slow, draggy ways
he had pounds of pressure on the gauge. He and I have fought through
some big fights since then, and there's no man I had as soon have beside
me in a scrap as that thin-faced, scrawny-necked old chip of Maine
granite.
* * * * *
When Ed introduced me at the table, Grace made a place beside her, and
her sister Lou hospitably shoved over a plate of stew. Then Lou smiled
at me and opened fire:--
"We read all about you in the papers this morning, Mr. Harrington!"
"Heh, heh!" Pa Pierson cackled.
"Say, Lou, I don't call that polite," Grace protested in an affected
tone.
"Don't mind me," I called out. "I guess I'm a public character, anyway."
"What did the lady say when she found she was wrong?" Lou went on. "I
should think she'd want to die, doing a mean thing like that."
"Did she give you any little souvenir of the occasion?" Dick inquired.
"If they are real nice folks, I should think they'd try to make it up
some way," Grace added.
"But what we want to know first," Slocum drawled gravely, "is, did you
take the purse, and, if so, where did you put it?"
"Why, Mr. Slocum!" Miss Cox sputtered, not catching the joke. "What a
thing to insinuate! I am sure Mr. Harrington doesn't look like that--any
one could see he wouldn't _steal_."
In this way they passed me back and forth, up and down the table, until
the last scrap of meat was gnawed from the bone. Then they sniffed at
Jasonville. Where was it? What did I do there? Why did I come to the
city? Miss Cox was the sharpest one at the questions. She wanted to know
all about my father's store. She had already got Ed a place as delivery
clerk in the Enterprise Market, and there might be an opening in the
same store for me. I could see that there would be a place all right if
I met the approval of the smart little cashier. It has never been one of
my faults to be backward with women,--all except May,--and as Miss
Hillary Cox was far from unprepossessing, I fixed my attention on her
for the rest of the evening.
The Pierson girls tired of me quickly enough, as they had already tired
of Ed. Lou soon ceased to smile at me and open her eyes in her silly
stare when I made a remark. After dinner she went out on the steps to
wait for a beau, who was to take her to a dance. Grace sat awhile to
chaff with the lawyer's clerk. He seemed to make fun of her, but I could
see that he liked her pretty well. (It must be a stupid sort of woman,
indeed, who can't get hold of a man when he has nothing to do after his
work except walk the streets or read a book!) There was nothing bad in
either of the girls: they were just soft, purring things, shut up all
day long, one in a big shop and the other in a dentist's office. Of
course, when they got home, they were frantic for amusement, dress, the
theatre--anything bright and happy; anything that would make a change.
They had a knack of stylish dressing, and on the street looked for all
the world like a rich man's daughters. Nothing bad in either one,
then--only that kind gets its eyes opened too late!...
The next morning I stepped around to the Enterprise Market, and Miss Cox
introduced me to the proprietors. They were two brothers, sharp-looking
young men, up-to-date in their ideas, the cashier had told me, and bound
to make the Enterprise the largest market on the West Side. Miss Cox had
evidently said a good word for me, and that afternoon I found myself
tying up parcels and taking orders at ten dollars a week.
Not a very brilliant start on fortune's road, but I was glad enough to
get it. The capable cashier kept a friendly eye on me, and saved me from
getting into trouble. Before long I had my pay raised, and then raised
again. Ed had taken hold well, too, and was given more pay. He was more
content with his job than I was. The work suited him--the driving about
the city streets, the rush at the market mornings, the big crates of
country stuff that came smelling fresh from the fields. The city was all
that he had hoped to find it. Not so to me--I looked beyond; but I
worked hard and took my cues from the pretty cashier, who grew more
friendly every day. We used to go to places in the evenings,--lectures
and concerts mostly,--for Miss Cox thought the theatre was wicked. She
was a regular church attendant, and made me go with her Sundays. She was
thrifty, too, and taught me to be stingy with my quarters and halves.
[Illustration: _The Enterprise Market._]
The first day I could take off I went to the police station and paid my
loan from the judge. I had to wait an hour before I could speak to him,
while he ground out a string of drunks and assaults, shooting out his
sentences like a rapid-fire battery. When I finally got his attention,
he turned one eye on me:--
"Well, Edward, so you haven't gone home yet!" And that was all he said
as he dropped the coin into his pocket. (I hope that my paying back that
money made him merciful to the next young tramp that was cast up there
before him!)
After I had paid the judge I strolled down to the South Side, into the
new residence district, with some idea of seeing where the young lady
lived who had first had me arrested and then wanted to reform me. When I
came to the number she had written in the memorandum-book, there was a
piece of crape on the door. It gave me a shock. I hung around for a
while, not caring to disturb the people inside, and yet hoping to find
out that it was not the young lady who had died. Finally I came away,
having made up my mind, somehow, that it was the young lady, and feeling
sorry that she was gone. That night I opened the memorandum-book she had
given me, and began a sort of diary in a cramped, abbreviated hand. The
first items read as follows:--
_September 30._ Giv. this book by young la. who tho't I stole her purse.
She hopes I may take the right road.
_October 1._--Got job in Ent--mark., 1417 W. VanB St. $10. Is this the
right road?
_October 23._--Went to address young lad. gav. me. Found crape on the
door. Hope it's the old man.
* * * * *
From time to time since then I have taken out the little black
memorandum-book, and made other entries of those happenings in my life
that seemed to me especially important--sometimes a mere list of figures
or names, writing them in very small. It lies here before me now, and
out of these bare notes, keywords as it were, there rise before me many
facts,--the deeds of twenty-five years.
* * * * *
When I got back to the Piersons' for dinner, Miss Cox was curious to
know what I had done with my first day off.
"I bet he's been to see that girl who had him arrested," Lou suggested
mischievously. "And from the way he looks I guess she told him she
hadn't much use for a butcher-boy."
Pa Pierson laughed; he was a great admirer of his daughter's wit.
"I don't think he's that much of a fool, to waste his time trapesing
about after _her_," Hillary Cox snapped back.
"Well, I did look up the house," I admitted, and added, "but the folks
weren't at home."
After supper we sat out on the steps, and Hillary asked me what kind of
a place the young woman lived in. I told her about the crape on the
door, and she looked at me disgustedly.
"Why didn't you ask?" she demanded.
"I didn't care to know if it was so, perhaps."
"I don't see as you have any particular reason to care, one way or the
other," she retorted. And she went off for that evening somewhere with
Ed. For the want of anything better to do I borrowed a book from the law
student, who was studying in his room, and thus, by way of an accident,
began a habit of reading and talking over books with Slocum.
So I was soon fitted into my hole in the city. In that neighborhood
there must have been many hundreds of places like Ma Pierson's
boarding-house. The checker-board of prairie streets cut up the houses
like marble cake--all the same, three-story-and-mansard-roof, yellow
brick, with long lines of dirty, soft stone steps stretching from the
wooden sidewalks to the second stories. And the group of us there in the
little basement dining room, noisy with the rattle of the street cars,
and dirty with the smoke of factory chimneys in the rear, was a good
deal like the others in the other houses--strugglers on the outside of
prosperity, trying hard to climb up somewhere in the bread-and-butter
order of life, and to hold on tight to what we had got. No one, I
suppose, ever came to Chicago, at least in those days, without a hope in
his pocket of landing at the head of the game sometime. Even old Ma
Pierson cherished a secret dream of a rich marriage for one or other of
her girls!
Hillary Cox smiled on me again the next day, and we were as good friends
as ever. As I have said, the energetic cashier of the Enterprise Market
had taken me in hand and was forming me to be a business man. She was a
smart little woman, and had lots of good principles besides. She
believed in religion on Sundays, as she believed in business on week
days. So on the Sabbath morning we would leave Ed and Lou and Dick
Pierson yawning over the breakfast table, while Slocum and I escorted
Grace and Hillary downtown to hear some celebrated preacher in one of
the prominent churches. Hillary Cox had no relish for the insignificant
and humble in religion, such as we might have found around the corner.
She wanted the best there was to be had, she said, and she wanted to see
the people who were so much talked about in the papers.
Perhaps the rich and prominent citizens made more of a point of going to
church in those days than they do now. It was a pretty inferior church
society that couldn't show up two or three of the city's solid
merchants, who came every Sunday with their women, all dressed in their
smartest and best. Hillary and Grace seemed to know most of these people
by sight. Women are naturally curious about one another, and I suppose
the girls saw their pictures and learned their names in the newspapers.
And in this way I, too, learned to know by sight some of the men whom
later it was my fortune to meet elsewhere.
There was Steele, the great dry-goods merchant, and Purington, whose
works for manufacturing farming tools were just behind Ma Pierson's
house; Lardner, a great hardware merchant; Maybricks, a wholesale
grocer; York, a rich lumberman--most of them thin-faced, shrewd Yankees,
who had seized that tide of fate which the poet tells us sweeps men to
fortune. And there were others, perhaps less honorably known as
citizens, but equally important financially: Vitzer, who became known
later as the famous duke of gas, and Maxim, who already had begun to
stretch out his fingers over the street-car lines. This man had made his
money buying up tax titles, that one building cars, and another laying
out railroads, and wrecking them, too. They were the people of the land!
[Illustration: "_That's Strauss!_"]
One fine winter morning, as the four of us idled on the sidewalk
opposite a prominent South Side church that was discharging its
prosperous congregation into the street, Slocum nudged me and pointed to
a group of well-dressed people--two or three women and a short, stout,
smooth-shaven man--who were standing on the steps of the church,
surveying the scene and bowing to their neighbors.
"That's Strauss!"
It was not necessary to say more. Even in those days the great Strauss
had made his name as well known as that of the father of our country. He
it was who knew each morning whether the rains had fallen on the plains
beneath the Andes; how many cattle on the hoof had entered the gates of
Omaha and Kansas City; how tight the pinch of starvation set upon
Russian bellies; and whether the Sultan's subjects had bought their
bread of Liverpool. Flesh and grain, meat and bread--Strauss held them
in his hand, and he dealt them forth in the markets of the world!
Is it any wonder that I looked hard at the portly, red-faced man,
standing there on the steps of his temple, where, with his women and
children, he had been worshipping his God?
"My!" said Grace, "Mrs. Strauss is plain enough, and just
common-looking."
(I have noticed that women find it hard to reconcile themselves to a
rich man's early taste in their sex.)
"She don't dress very stylish, that's true," Hillary observed
thoughtfully. "But it weren't so very long ago, I guess, that she was
saving his money."
Strauss, surrounded by his women folk, marched up the avenue in solemn
order. We followed along slowly on the other side of the street.
"He didn't make his pile at the Enterprise Market," Grace remarked. She
spoke the idea that was in all our minds: how did he and the others make
their money?
"I guess they began like other folks," Hillary contended, "saving their
earnings and not putting all their money in their stomachs and on their
backs."
This last was aimed at Grace, who was pretty smartly dressed.
"Well," said Slocum, dryly, "probably by this time Strauss has something
more than his savings in the bank."
Thus we followed them down the street, speculating on the great packer's
success, on the success of all the fortunate ones in the great game of
the market, wondering what magic power these men possessed to lift
themselves out of the mass of people like ourselves. Pretty simple of
us, perhaps you think, hanging around on the street a good winter
morning and gossiping about our rich neighbors! But natural enough, too:
we had no place to loaf in, except Ma Pierson's smelly dining room, and
nothing to do with our Sunday holiday but to walk around the streets and
stare up at the handsome new houses and our well-dressed and prosperous
neighbors. Every keen boy who looks out on life from the city sidewalk
has a pretty vigorous idea that if he isn't as good as the next man, at
least he will make as much money if he can only learn the secret. We
read about the rich and their doings in the newspapers; we see them in
the streets; their horses and carriages flash by us--do you wonder that
some poor clerks on a Sunday gape at the Steeles and the Strausses from
the sidewalk?
What was the golden road? These men had found it--hundreds, thousands of
them,--farming tools, railroads, groceries, gas, dry-goods. It made no
matter what: fortunes were building on every side; the flowers of
success were blooming before our eyes. To take my place with these
mighty ones--I thought a good deal about that these days! And I remember
Grace saying sentimentally to Slocum that Sunday:--
"You fellers keep thinkin' of nothin' but money and how you're goin' to
make it. Perhaps rich folks ain't the only happy ones in the world."
"Yes," Hillary chimed in, "there's such a thing as being too greedy to
eat."
"What else are we here for except to make money?" Slocum demanded more
bitterly than usual.
He raised his long arm in explanation and swept it to and fro over the
straggling prairie city, with its rough, patched look. I didn't see what
there was in the city to object to: it was just a place like any
other--to work, eat, and sleep in. Later, however, when I saw the little
towns back East, the pleasant hills, the old homes in the valleys, and
the red-brick house on the elm-shaded street in Portland, then I knew
what Slocum meant.
Whatever was there in Chicago in 1877 to live for but Success?
CHAPTER V
A MAN'S BUSINESS
_Signs of trouble at the Enterprise--A possible partnership--He
travels fastest who travels alone--John Carmichael--Feeding the
peoples of the earth--I drive for Dround_
"Do you see that big, fat fellow talking with Mr. Joyce?" the cashier
whispered to me one morning as I passed her cage. "He's Dround's
manager--his name is Carmichael. When he shows up, there is trouble
coming to some one."
Dround & Co. was the name of the packing firm that the Enterprise dealt
with. I tied up my bundles and made up my cash account, thinking a good
deal about the appearance of the burly manager of the packing-house.
Pretty soon Mr. Carmichael came out into the front store very red in the
face, followed by the elder Joyce, who had been drinking, and they had
some words. The cashier winked at me.
The Enterprise had been doing a good business. It was run on a new
principle for those days--strictly cash and all cut prices, a cent off
here and there, a great sale of some one thing each day, which the house
handled speculatively. The brothers Joyce kept branching out, but there
wasn't any money to speak of behind the firm. The Drounds and a
wholesale grocer had backed it from the start. Nevertheless, we should
have got on all right if the elder Joyce had given up drinking and the
younger one had not taken to driving fast horses. Latterly no matter how
big a business we did, the profits went the wrong way.
That evening, as Hillary Cox and I walked over to the Piersons', she
said to me abruptly, "There's going to be a new sign at the Enterprise
before long!"
The smart little cashier must have divined the situation as I had.
"Cox's Market?" I suggested jokingly.
"Why not Harrington & Cox?" she retorted with a nervous little laugh. We
were on the steps then, and Ed joined us, so that I did not have to
answer her invitation. But all through the meal I kept thinking of her
suggestion. It was nearly two years since she had introduced me to the
Enterprise, and I had saved up several hundred dollars in the meantime,
which I wanted to put into some business of my own. But it did not quite
suit my card to run a retail market. After supper the others left us in
the dining room, and when we were alone Hillary said:--
"Well, what do you think of the firm name? It wouldn't be so impossible.
I've got considerable money saved up, and I guess you have some in the
bank, too. It wouldn't be the first time in this town that a clerk's
name followed a busted owner's over the door."
She spoke in a light kind of way, but a tone in her voice made me look
up. It struck me suddenly that this thing might mean a partnership for
life, as well as a partnership for meat and groceries. Hillary Cox was
an attractive woman, and she would make a splendid wife for a poor man,
doing her part to save his money. Between us, no doubt, we could make a
good business out of the old Enterprise, and more, too!
"That firm name sounds pretty well," I answered slowly, somewhat
embarrassed.
"Yes--I thought it pretty good."
Suddenly she turned her face shyly away from my eyes. She was a woman,
and a lovable, warm-hearted one. Perhaps she was dreaming of a home and
a family--of just that plain, ordinary happiness which our unambitious
fathers and mothers took out of life. I liked her all the better for it;
but when I tried to say something tender, that would meet her wish, I
couldn't find a word from my heart: there was nothing but a hollow
feeling inside me. And the thought came over me, hard and selfish, that
a man like me, who was bound on a long road, travels best alone.
"I don't know as I want to sell coffee and potatoes all my life," I said
at last, and my voice sounded colder than I meant to make it.
"Oh!" she gave a little gasp, as if some one had struck her. "You're
very ambitious, Mr. Harrington," she said coldly. "I hope you'll get all
you think you deserve, I am sure."
"Well, that wouldn't be much--only I am going to try for more than I
deserve--see?" I laughed as easily as I could.
We talked a little longer, and then she made some kind of excuse--we
had planned to go out that evening--and left me, bidding me good night
as if I were a stranger. I felt small and mean, yet glad, too, to speak
the truth--that I hadn't made a false step just there and pretended to
more than I could carry through.
Some time later Slocum looked in at the door, and, seeing me alone, came
into the room. He had a grim kind of smile on his face, as if he
suspected what had been happening.
"Where's Grace?" I asked him.
"Just about where your Hillary is," he answered dryly; "gone off with
another fellow."
I laughed. We looked at each other for some time.
"Well?" I said.
"He travels fastest who travels alone," he drawled, using the very words
that had been in my mind. "But it is a shame--Miss Cox is a nice woman."
"So is the other."
"Yes, but it can't be--or anything like it."
And the difference between us was that I believe he really cared.
* * * * *
So the Enterprise Market crumbled rapidly to its end, while I kept my
eye open for a landing-place when I should have to jump. One day I was
sent over to Dround's to see why our usual order of meats hadn't been
delivered. I was referred to the manager. Carmichael, as I have said,
was a burly, red-faced Irishman--and hot-tempered. His black hair stood
up all over his head, and when he moved he seemed to wrench his whole
big carcass with the effort. As I made my errand known to him, he
growled something at me. I gathered that he didn't think favorably of
the Enterprise and all that belonged thereto.
"They can't have any more," he said. "I told your boss so the last time
I was over."
I hung on, not knowing exactly what to say or do.
"I guess they must have it this time," I ventured after a while.
"'Guess they must have it'! Who are you?"
He thrust his big head over the top of his desk and looked at me, laying
his cigar down deliberately, as if he meant to throw me out of the
office for my impudence.
"Oh!" I said as easily as I could, "I'm one of their help."
"Well, my son, maybe you know better than I what they do with their
money? They don't pay us."
I knew he was trying to pump me about the Enterprise. I smiled and told
him nothing, but I got that order delivered. Once or twice more, having
been successful with the manager, I was sent on the same errand.
Carmichael swore at me, bullied me, and jollied me, as his mood happened
to be. Finally he said in earnest:--
"Joyce's got to the end of his rope, kid. You needn't come in here
again. The firm will collect in the usual way."
I had seen all along that this was bound to come, and had made up my
mind what I should do in the event.
"Do you hear?" the Irishman roared. "What are you standing there for?
Get along and tell your boss I'll put a sheriff over there."
"I guess I have come to stay," I replied easily.
"Come to stay?" he said with a grin. "How much, kid?"
[Illustration: _"Do you hear?" the Irishman roared._]
"All you will give me."
"What are you getting?"
"Twenty."
"I'll give you fifteen to drive a wagon," he said offhand, "and I'll
fire you in a week if you haven't anything better with you than your
cheek."
"All right," I said coolly, not letting him see that I was ruffled by
his rough tongue.
In that way I made the second round of the ladder, and went whistling
out of Dround's packing-house into the murky daylight of the Stock
Yards.
[Illustration: _My part was to drive a wagon for Dround at fifteen a
week._]
I liked it all. Something told me that here was my field--this square
plot of prairie, where is carried on the largest commissariat business
of the world. In spite of its filth and its ugly look, it fired my blood
to be a part of it. There's something pretty close to the earth in all
of us, if we have the stomach to do the world's work: men of bone and
sinew and rich blood, the strong men who do the deeds at the head of the
ranks, feed close to the earth. The lowing cattle in the pens, the
squealing hogs in the cars, the smell of the fat carcasses in the heavy
wagons drawn by the sleek Percherons--it all made me think of the soft,
fertile fields from which we take the grain--the blood and flesh that
enter into our being.
The bigness of it all! The one sure fact before every son and daughter
of woman is the need of daily bread and meat. To feed the people of the
earth--that is a man's business. My part was to drive a wagon for Dround
at fifteen a week, but I walked out of the Yards with the swagger of a
packer!
CHAPTER VI
FIRST BLOOD
_Wholesale--The little envies of life--Learning how to read--What
there might be in sausage--Schemes--A rise in life--Big John's
favoring eye--Going short of pork--Uncertainty--Five thousand
dollars in the bank_
I told them all at the supper table that evening how I was going into
wholesale with Henry I. Dround & Co. Slocum nodded approvingly, but
before any one could say a word of congratulation, Hillary Cox snapped
this at me:--
"So you were looking out for yourself with that Carmichael man! I
thought the Enterprise wasn't big enough for your talents. A desk in the
inside office, I s'pose?"
"Not quite yet," I laughed; but I didn't say how little my job was to
be.
Miss Cox had given me up. I don't believe she meant to be disagreeable,
but somehow we had become strangers, all at once. There were no more
gossips on the front steps or Sunday parties. Ed went to church with her
in my place. They were getting very close, those two, and it didn't take
a shrewd eye to see what was going to happen sometime soon.
The others were more generous than the little cashier and inclined to
make too much of my good fortune. For the first time in my life I had
the pleasure of knowing that folks were looking up at me and envying me,
and I liked the feeling of consequence. I let them think I was to get
big wages.
"I suppose you'll be leaving this ranch before long?" Lou suggested.
"Oh, I shouldn't wonder if I might move over to the Palmer House."
A look of consternation spread over Ma Pierson's face at my joking
words. She saw a quarter of her regular income wiped off the slate.
After the others had gone I told her it was only a joke, and that I
should stay with her "until I got married." She cried a little, and said
things were bad with her and getting worse all the time. Lately Lou had
taken to going with such kind of men that she had no peace at all. I
tried to cheer her up, and it was a number of years after that before I
could bring myself to leave her place, although the food got worse and
worse, and the house more messy and slack.
Even when, later, I began to make a good deal of money, I did not care
to change my way of life. At Ma Pierson's were the only people I knew
well in the city, and though Grace, and Lou, and Ed, and Dick weren't
the most brilliant folks in the city, they were honest, warm-hearted
souls and good enough company. And the law clerk, Slocum, was much more.
He meant a good deal to me. He taught me how to read--I mean how to take
in ideas as they were thought out by those who put them in books. He
lent me his own books, all marked and pencilled with notes and
references, which showed me how a well-trained mind stows away its
information, how it compares and weighs and judges--in short, how it
thinks.
We had many a good talk, sitting on the dusty stone steps in our shirt
sleeves late summer nights, when it was too hot to sleep. He had read a
deal of history and politics and economics as well as his law, and when
it came to argument, he could shut me up with a mouthful of facts that
showed me how small my lookout on the world was. I remember how he put
me through his old Mill, making me chew hard at every point until I had
mastered the theory; then he fed me Darwin and Spencer, and Stubbs and
Lecky, and a lot more hard nuts. And I think that I owe no one in the
world quite so much as I do that keen, silent Yankee, who taught me how
to read books and know what is in them.
Meantime I was not doing anything wonderful over at the Yards. For
several months the big manager scarce looked my way when he came across
me, while I drove and made deliveries to the city trade. Dround & Co.'s
customers were mostly on the West Side, in the poorer wards along the
river, where Jews and foreigners live. I used to wonder why the firm
didn't try for a better trade; but later, when I learned something about
the private agreements among the packers, I saw why each kept to his own
field. I soon came to know our territory pretty well, and got acquainted
with the little markets. My experience at the Enterprise gave me an
idea that I thought to turn to some account with Dround's manager. One
day, as I was driving into the Yards, I met the Irishman, and he threw
me a greeting:--
"Hello, kid! What's the good word?" And he climbed affably into the seat
beside me to drive up to the office.
Here was my chance, and I took it.
"Why don't Dround's handle sausage?" I said to the manager.
"What do you know about sausage?" he asked.
I told him what I had in mind. When I worked for the Enterprise we used
to have trouble in selling our sausage. Women were afraid of it,
thinking it was made from any foul scraps in the store. So, to make the
customers take it, I hit on the plan when we had fresh sausage meat of
putting some of the sausages by in clean little pasteboard boxes, and
the next time a particular customer came in I would call her attention
to one of the boxes, "which I had put aside for her specially." And she
would take it every time. In this way the Enterprise built up a
considerable trade in sausages. The same condition existed in other
markets, as I knew; good customers were afraid to eat the ordinary
sausage. So, I thought, why shouldn't the packing-house put up a
superior kind of sausage in nice little boxes, with a fancy name? The
marketmen could retail them handily. Carmichael seemed to be impressed
with my idea: he asked questions and said he would think it over. That
encouraged me to spring another scheme on him. Dround's trade was in
the Jewish quarters, but of course we didn't sell to the real Jews.
[Illustration: _"What do you know about sausage?" he asked._]
"Why not get some old rabbi and make kosher meat--the real article?
Strauss and the other packers don't handle it. We might have the market
to ourselves, and it is a big one, too."
"Kid, you've got a head on you," big John said to me with warmth. And I
saw myself a member of the firm next week!
It didn't work as easily as that, however. The next time I saw the
manager I asked him about sausage and kosher meat, and he scowled. It
seems he had presented my ideas to Mr. Henry I. Dround, and that
gentleman had turned them down. He was a packer, so the head of the
house said, and no cat's-meat man, to retail sausages in paper packages
to the public. The same way with the kosher meat idea: his business was
the packing business, and the firm wasn't trying any ventures. It seemed
to me that Mr. Henry I. Dround lacked enterprise; I felt that his
manager would have given my ideas a trial.
It was not long after that, however, before Carmichael took me into the
office and made me a kind of helper to him, sending me up and down the
city to collect accounts, look after the little markets that traded with
Dround's, and try on the sly to steal some other fellow's business--that
is, to break secretly one of those trade agreements which the packers
were always making together, and always breaking here and there, and,
when caught, promising each other to be good, and never do it
again--until the next opportunity offered, of course! This was more or
less confidential and delicate business, and I was not let into the
inside all at once. But I said nothing, and kept my eyes open. I began
to know some things about the business, and I could guess a few more. I
learned pretty soon that Henry I. Dround & Co. was not one of the
strongest concerns in the city; that it was being squeezed in the ribs
by the great Strauss over the way--that, if it had not been for the
smart Irishman, Strauss might take the bread out of our mouths.
Next to Slocum, I owe big John Carmichael more than I could ever pay in
money. He was an ignorant, hot-tempered, foul-mouthed Irishman, who had
almost been born in the Yards, and had seen little else than the inside
of a packing-house all his life. He couldn't write a grammatical letter
or speak an unblasphemous sentence. But it didn't take me long to see
that Dround & Co. was Carmichael, the manager, and that I was in the
best kind of luck to be there under him, and, so to speak, part way in
his confidence....
Well, as I said, I got an inkling from time to time how there was a
private agreement between the large firms to carve up the market, retail
as well as wholesale, and that when one of the firms felt that they
could do it safely they would sneak around the agreement (which, of
course, was illegal) and try to steal their neighbors' trade. Carmichael
managed this business himself, and now and then, when he saw I knew how
to keep my mouth shut, he would trust some detail of it to me.
But I was getting only twenty dollars a week, and no rosy prospects. My
little schemes of making sausages on a large scale and kosher meat had
been turned down. I stowed them away in my mind for future use.
Meantime, after working at the Yards for nearly two years, I had managed
to lay by about a thousand dollars, what with my savings when I was at
the Enterprise. That thousand dollars was in a savings-bank downtown,
and it made me restless to think that it was drawing only three and a
half per cent, when chances to make big money were going by me all the
time just out of my grasp. I kept turning over and over in my mind how I
might use that thousand and make it breed money. There were lively times
then on the Board of Trade. Nothing much was done in the stock market in
Chicago in those early days, but when a man wanted to take his flyer he
went into pork or grain. I used to hear more or less about what was
being done on the Board of Trade from Dick Pierson, who had been
promoted from scrubbing blackboards to a little clerkship in the same
office, which operated on the Board.
Dick had grown to be a sallow-faced, black-mustached youth who had his
sisters' knack of smart dressing, and a good deal of mouth. He was
always talking of the deals the big fellows were carrying, and how this
man made fifty thousand dollars going short on lard and that man had his
all taken away from him in the wheat pit. He was full of tips that he
picked up in his office--always fingering the dice, so to speak, but
without the cash to make a throw. Dick knew that I had some money in the
bank, and he was ever at me to put it up on some deal on margin. Slocum
used to chaff him about his tips, and I didn't take his talk very
seriously. It was along in the early summer of my third year at Dround's
when Dick began to talk about the big deal Strauss was running in pork.
Pork was going to twenty dollars a barrel, sure. According to Dick, all
any one had to do to make a fortune was to get on the train now. This
time his talk made some impression on me; for the boys were saying the
same thing over in the office at the Yards. I thought of asking
Carmichael about it, but I suspected John might lie to me and laugh to
see the "kid" robbed. So I said nothing, but every time I had occasion
to go by the bank where I kept my money it seemed to call out to me to
do something. And I was hot to do something! I had about made up my mind
after turning it over for several weeks, to make my venture in Strauss's
corner. Pork was then selling about seventeen dollars a barrel, and
there was talk of its going as high as twenty-five dollars by the
October delivery.
It happened that the very day I made up my mind to go down to the city
and draw out my money I was in the manager's office talking to him about
one of our small customers. Carmichael was opening his mail and
listening to me. He would rip up an envelope and throw it down on his
desk, then let the letter slide out of his fat hand, and pick up
another. I saw him grab one letter in a hurry. On the envelope, which
was plain, was printed JOHN CARMICHAEL in large letters. As he tore open
the enclosure I could see that it was a broker's form, and printed in
fat capitals beneath the firm name was the word SOLD, and after it a
written item that looked like pork. As Carmichael shoved this slip of
paper back in the envelope I took another look and was sure it was pork.
I went out of the office thinking to myself: "Carmichael isn't buying
any pork this trip: he's selling. What does that mean?"
As I have said, the manager had charge of those private agreements with
which the trade was kept together. In this way he came in contact with
all our rivals, and among them the great Strauss. After thinking for a
time, it was clear to me that the Irishman had some safe inside
information about this deal which Dick did not have, nor any one else on
the street. That afternoon when I could get off I went down to the bank
and drew my money. At first I thought I would take five hundred dollars
and have something left in the bank in case I was wrong on my guess. But
the nearer I got to the bank the keener I was to make all I could. I
took the thousand and hurried over to the office on La Salle Street,
where Dick worked. I beckoned him out of the crowd in front of the board
and shoved my bunch of money into his hand.
"I want you to sell a thousand barrels of pork for me," I said.
"Gee!" Dick whistled, "you've got nerve. What makes you want to go short
of pork?"
"Never you mind," I said; "go on and tell your boss to sell, and there's
your margin."
"I'll have to speak to the old man himself about this," Dick replied
soberly. "This ain't any market to fool with."
"Well, if he don't want the business there are others," I observed
coolly.
[Illustration: _"All right," he called out, "we'll take his deal."_]
Dick disappeared into the back office, and I had to wait some time.
Presently a fat little smooth-shaven man shoved his head through the
door and looked me over for a moment with a grin on his face. I suppose
he thought me crazy, but he didn't object to taking my money all the
same.
"All right," he called out with another grin, "we'll take his deal." And
Dick came out from the door and told me in a big voice:--
"All right, old man! We sell a thousand for you."
When I got out into the street I wasn't as sure of what I had done as I
had been when I went into the broker's office; but I had too much nerve
to admit that I wished I had my money back in my fist. And I kept my
courage the next week, while pork hung just about where it was or maybe
went up a few cents. Then it began to slide back just a
little--$16.87-1/2, $16.85, $16.80, were the quotations--and so on until
it reached $16.50, where it hung for a week. Then it took up its retreat
again until it had slid to an even $16. Dick, who congratulated me on my
luck, advised me to sell and be content with doubling my money. Strauss
was just playing with the street, he said. This was only the end of
August: by the middle of September there would be a procession. But my
head was set. To be sure, when, after the first of September, pork began
to climb, I rather wished I had been content with doubling my money. But
I pinned my faith on Carmichael. I didn't believe he was selling yet.
For a fortnight at the close of September, pork hung about $16.37-1/2,
with little variation either way. Then the last three days of the month,
as the time for October deliveries drew near, it began to sag and
dropped to $16.10. I hung on.
It was well for me that I did. October first Strauss began delivering,
and he poured pork into the market by the thousand barrels. Pork
dropped, shot down, and touched $13. One morning I called at the
broker's office and gave the order to buy. I had cleared four thousand
dollars in my deal.
It was first blood!
There was about five thousand dollars in the bank that day when I went
back to the Yards, and I was as proud as a millionnaire. Somehow, I
seemed to forget how I had learned the right tip, and thought of myself
as a terribly smart young man. Perhaps I looked what I was thinking, for
when the manager stepped out of his office a little later and eyed me
there was a queer kind of smile on his lips.
"What's happened, kid?" he asked, quizzing me. "Been selling any more
pork this morning?"
Then I suspected that somehow he had learned about my little venture in
the market. I was doubtful just how he might take it.
"No," I said. "It's the time to buy now, isn't it?"
"Covering?" he chuckled. "Well, that's good. Say, some one telephoned
out from Cooper's office for you this morning--about a little deal in
pork. I answered the 'phone."
So that was the way he had learned! That fool Dick had got nervous, and
been telephoning to me.
"I hope you made it all right," Carmichael added.
"You bet," I answered cheerily. And that was all that was ever said
about the matter.
CHAPTER VII
THE BOMB
_I become a packer on my own account--What there is in sausage--The
Duchess--The Piersons' again--At the Haymarket--The path of the
bomb--Another kind of evil_
Not long after my little deal in pork Carmichael promoted me. Instead of
running around the city to look after the markets, I was sent out on the
road to the towns that were building up all along the railroad lines
throughout the neighboring states. My business was to secure as many of
these new markets as I could, and, wherever it was possible, to
dispossess any rival that had got hold before. It gave me a splendid
chance to know a great section of our country which was teeming with
life.
That five thousand dollars in the bank burned worse than the first
thousand. I took no more chances on pork, however, but I managed to turn
a dollar here and there, and after a time something rather big came my
way. There were a couple of German Jews, the brothers Schunemann, who
were trying to run a packing business at Aurora. They had started as
small butchers, and had done well; but they wanted to get into the
packing business, and they were having a hard time to compete with the
big fellows in Chicago. Their little plant was covered with a mortgage,
and Dround and Strauss had taken away most of their trade. The
Schunemann brothers were such small fish that they could make no
agreements with the large companies, and they weren't important enough
to be bought out.
That was what I told one of the brothers when he asked me to say a good
word for him with Carmichael. His concern was pretty near bankruptcy
then, and it was plainly out of the question for them to go on as they
had been without capital. If they had tried to build up a small business
in _delicatessen_ and such things, they might have succeeded better. I
had never given up the idea of the money that might be made in putting
up sausages and preparing kosher meat for the city market. Here, I
thought, was just the opportunity. If I could buy out the Schunemann
brothers or get a controlling interest, I might try my experiment. The
scheme grew in my mind, and I went to Aurora several times to see the
brothers. After a while I made the man an offer, and then we talked
terms for several months. Slocum advised me and drew up the agreement. I
was ready to put my stake into the venture, all that I had in the world.
It hurt them to sell me the control of their business for seven thousand
dollars, which was all that I could scrape together--and part of that
was Slocum's savings, which he lent me.
At last we made the arrangement, and the Schunemann brothers put up the
"Duchess" brand of sausage after my plan, and we began to handle kosher
meat in a small way. I managed the sausage trade with Dround's
business, working the two together very well; for the retailers who
dealt with Dround's took to my idea and pushed our Duchess brand, which
was packed in nice little boxes. It was a new idea in those days, and
nothing takes like something that hasn't been tried before. We began to
make money--not a fortune all at once; but the business promised to
grow. Thus I became a packer, after a fashion!
* * * * *
In the years that immediately preceded the troublous times of 1886, I
was a very busy man and often out of the city, too much engrossed with
the growing business on my hands to consider very seriously the
disturbances of that period. The fight with labor, which seems to be a
necessary feature of our progress, had come a kind of crisis in that
year. But the events in Chicago during that crisis are still so near to
many of us that even with the rapid forgetfulness of our days they have
not quite escaped the memory of thoughtful men.
I remember that now and then, around Ma Pierson's table, the talk turned
on the strike over at the harvesting works. We were all on the same
side, I guess--the side of capital; there was enough for all of the good
things of life, we thought, if men would only stop their kicking and
keep at work. Slocum, for all that he was a lawyer, was the only easy
one on the strikers: so long as they respected the laws he was with them
in their struggle to get all they could from their employers.
"Mr. Renshaw says they're too well off now," Lou observed.
"Who is Mr. Renshaw?" I asked, surprised that Lou should take an
interest in such matters.
Slocum looked across the table at me, and Grace quickly began on
something else....
Well, on the night of the fourth of May I was on my way to the Piersons'
from the Union Station. It was very late, for I had just returned from
Aurora, where I had been during the afternoon on my own business. As I
got on the street car the men on the platform were talking excitedly
about the shooting over at the harvester works. When I reached home, I
was surprised to find no one on the steps, the door wide open, and a
kind of emptiness in the whole place.
"What's up?" I asked old Pierson.
"That Cox girl's got her cheek blowed open with a bomb or suthin'. Times
like this folks can't go gallivantin' about the streets," the old man
snarled.
Slocum came in at the sound of my voice and told me what had happened.
His face was white, and his long arms still twitched with the horror of
what he had seen that night. It seems that Dick Pierson had come home to
supper full of the news about the row between the police and the
strikers. His talk had worked up the girls,--that is, Hillary Cox and
Grace,--for Lou hadn't come home,--until all of them had started off
after supper in the direction of the harvester works, where the trouble
was reported to be.
[Illustration: _His long arms twitched with horror._]
Then they had strolled down to the Haymarket, where, instead of the
great crowd they had expected to find, there were only some hundreds of
men and women listening quietly to several workingmen who were
speechifying from a cart. It didn't look very lively, and as a thunder
storm was coming up in the north Sloco was for going home. But Ed, who,
like a country galoot, was curious to hear what the orator in the cart
had to say, pressed up close to the truck, in the front of the crowd,
with Hillary Cox on his arm. Suddenly, so Slocum said, there was a shout
from somewhere behind them:--
"The police! Look out for the police!"
In the rush that followed, Slocum and Grace were jammed back by the
press and separated from the others. He remembered only a little of what
happened those next moments. And what he did remember didn't tally with
the stories that were told later at the trial. In the darkness of the
lowering storm, above the heads of the close-packed, swaying mass in the
square, there sounded a dull whir. Then came a terrific explosion. The
next thing Slocum knew he was crawling on his hands and knees, groping
in the darkness for Grace, while all around them crackled the pistol
shots of the police. Then he heard Ed's voice shrieking:--
"The bloody brutes have shot her!"...
"And Hillary?" I asked. "Is it bad?"
"A piece of iron ploughed across her cheek."
"Scar?"
Slocum nodded. (The truth is that if it hadn't been for the ignorant
doctor who got hold of the girl first her looks might have been saved.
But he took eleven stitches, and there was left a long, ugly, furrowed
scar across her pretty face!)
We went up to Slocum's room, and sat there far into the night,
discussing what had happened.
"Oh, I suppose you law pills will mouse around in it considerable," I
said. "The way to do is to string 'em up to the nearest lamp-post, as
they do out West."
As I was saying that, a cab drove up hurriedly in the quiet street and
stopped at our door. Slocum and I put our heads out of his window,
curious to know what was happening now at two o'clock in the morning. We
saw a man get out, then turn and lift a woman from the cab to the
street. The woman staggered as she started to walk across the sidewalk.
"It's Lou Pierson!" Slocum exclaimed. He drew in his head suddenly and
bolted from the room. I waited long enough to see the man who was with
Lou pull the doorbell, and then leave the poor girl half-fallen on the
steps, while he went back to the cab and spoke to the driver. Then I
followed Slocum downstairs, two steps at a time. Slocum had wrenched
open the house door and leaped down the long flight of steps, not
pausing at the girl, who was making feeble attempts to rise and calling:
"Fred! Fred!" But the man, having given his directions to the driver,
paid no attention and got into the cab.
I helped Lou to her feet; she was still calling in a drowsy voice:
"Fred! Fred!" I could see Slocum with his hand on the door of the cab.
He spoke to the man inside, but I could not hear what he said. Suddenly
his hand shot out; there was a tussle, half in and half out of the cab;
the driver whipped up his horses, and Slocum was thrown to his knees.
He picked himself up holding in his fist something that looked like a
necktie.
As Slocum helped me carry the girl up the steps, he said:--
"That's who Renshaw is. A bit of a bomb would be about the right thing
for him!"
Generalizations, I have learned, are silly things to play with. But
there are some experiences in a man's life that tempt him to make them.
It was only a mere accident that the man who was Lou Pierson's companion
in the cab that night had taken a prominent part against the striking
workmen. But when, later, I was called upon to sit in judgment on some
hot-headed fools because they, in their struggle to get an eight-hour
day, fomented strife, my thoughts would go back sourly to this example
of the men I was expected to side with.
CHAPTER VIII
THE TRIAL OF THE ANARCHISTS
_The terror of good citizens--Henry Iverson Dround--Righteous
indignation--Leaders of industry get together "to protect
society"--A disagreeable duty--Selecting the jury--The man from
Steele's--What is evidence?--What is justice?--In behalf of
society--Life is for the strong--All there is in it!--I take my
side_
The morning after the fourth of May the city was sizzling with
excitement. From what the papers said you might think there was an
anarchist or two skulking in every alley in Chicago with a basket of
bombs under his arm. The men on the street seemed to rub their eyes and
stare up at the buildings in surprise to find them standing. There was
every kind of rumor flying about: some had it that the police had
unearthed a general conspiracy to dynamite the city; others that the
bomb throwers had been found and were locked up. It was all a parcel of
lies, of course, but the people were crazy to be lied to, and the
police, having nothing better, fed them lies. At the Yards, men were
standing about in little groups discussing the rumors; they seemed
really afraid to go into the buildings.
In front of our office a brougham was drawn up--an unusual sight at any
time, and especially at this hour. It was standing close to the door,
and as I picked my way through the crowd I looked in at the open window.
My eyes met the eyes of a woman, who was leaning against the cushioned
back of the carriage. She was dressed in a white, ruffled gown that
appeared strange there in the yards, and her eyes were half closed, as
if she were napping or thinking thoughts far removed from the agitated
city. But when I came closer she gave me the sharpest look I ever saw in
a woman's eyes. It was a queer face, dark and pale and lifeless--except
for that power of the eyes to look into you. I stopped, and my lips
opened involuntarily to speak. As I went on upstairs, I wondered who she
could be.
My desk was just outside the manager's private office, and, the door
happening to be ajar, I could see Mr. Dround within, striding up and
down in great excitement. Carmichael was trying to quiet him down. I
could hear the chief's high, thin voice denouncing the anarchists:--
"It is a dastardly crime against God and man! It threatens the very
foundations of our free country--"
"Yes, that's all right," big John was growling in his heavy tone. "But
we don't want to make too much fuss; it won't do no good to poke around
in a nest of rattlers."
"Let them do their worst! Let them blow up this building! Let them
dynamite my house! I should call myself a craven, a poltroon, if I
wavered for one moment in my duty as a citizen."
Carmichael sighed and bit off the end of a fat cigar that he had been
rolling to and fro in his mouth. He seemed to give his boss up, as you
might a talkative schoolboy.
Henry Iverson Dround was a tall, dignified gentleman, with thick gray
hair, close-cut gray whiskers, and a grizzled mustache. He always
dressed much better than most business men of my acquaintance, with a
sober good taste. The chief thing about him was his manners, which, for
a packer, were polished. I knew that he had been to college: there was a
tradition in the office that he had gone into the business against his
will to please his father, who had begun life as a butcher in the good
old way and couldn't understand his son's prejudices. Perhaps that
explains why all the men in the house thought him haughty, and the other
big packers were inclined to make fun of him. However that might be, Mr.
Dround had a high reputation in the city at large for honorable dealing
and public spirit. There was little set afoot for the public good that
Henry I. Dround did not have a hand in.
I had met the chief once or twice, big John having called his attention
to me, but he never seemed to remember my existence. To-day Mr. Dround
blew out of the manager's office pretty soon and brushed against my
desk. Suddenly he stopped and addressed me in his thin, high voice:--
"What do you think, Mr. Harrington, of this infernal business?"
My answer was ready, pat, and sufficiently hot to please the boss. He
turned to Carmichael, who had followed him.
"That is what young America is thinking!"
Carmichael put his tongue into his cheek instead of spitting out an
oath; but after Mr. Dround had gone, he growled at me:--
"That's all right for young America, but I am no damn fool, either! My
father saw the riots back home in Dublin. It's no good sitting too close
on the top of a chimney--maybe you'll set the house on fire. The police?
The police are half thieves and all blackguards! They got this up for a
benefit party, most likely. Why, didn't they kill more'n twice as many
men over at McCormick's only the other day, just because the boys were
making a bit of a disturbance? And nobody said anything about it! What
are they kicking for, anyway?"
Mr. Dround's view, however, was the one generally held. That very
evening there was a meeting of the prominent men of the city to take
counsel together how anarchy might be suppressed with a strong hand. We
little people heard only rumors of what took place in that gathering,
but it leaked out that there had been two minds among those wealthy and
powerful men--the timid and the bold. The timid were overridden by the
bolder-hearted. Good citizens, like Strauss and Vitzer, so Carmichael
told me with a sneer, talked strong about encouraging the district
attorney to do his duty, and raised a fund to pay for having justice
done.
"It means that some of those rats the police have been ferreting out of
the West Side saloons will hang to make them feel right. The swells are
bringing pressure to bear, and some one must be punished. It's grand!"
He chuckled bitterly at his own wit. But the swells meant business, and
when Henry I. Dround was drawn for the grand jury, to indict those
anarchists that the police had already netted, big John swore:--
"He needn't have done that! There are plenty to do the fool things. It's
his sense of duty, I s'pose, damn him! It's some of his duty to come
over here and help us make enough money to keep his old business
afloat!"
The Irishman thought only of the business, but Henry I. Dround was not
the man to let any personal interest stand in the way of what he
considered his duty to society. Perhaps he was a little too proud of his
sacrifices and his civic virtues. Some years later he told me all about
that grand jury. All I need say here is that this famous trial of the
anarchists was engineered from the beginning by prominent men to go
straight.
The hatred and the rage of all kinds of men during those months while
the anarchists were on our hands, before they were finally hanged or
sent to prison, is hard to understand now at this distance from the
event. That bomb in its murderous course had stirred our people to the
depths of terror and hate: even easy-going hustlers like myself seemed
to look at that time in the face of an awful fate. The pity of it all
was--I say it now openly and advisedly--that our one motive was hate.
Stamp this thing out! that was the one cry. Few stopped to think of
justice, and no one of mercy. We were afraid, and we hated.
Finally it came time for the trial; the _venire_ for the jury was
issued. One night, to my consternation, I found a summons at the house.
When I showed it to a fellow-clerk at the office the next morning, he
whistled:--
"I thought I saw the bailiff in here yesterday, looking around for
likely men. They are after a safe jury this time, sure!"
I asked Carmichael to use his influence to get me excused, as I knew he
usually did for the boys when they were summoned for jury duty. But all
he said was:--
"You're a nervy youngster. You'd better do the thing, if you are
accepted."
"It means weeks, maybe months, off," I objected.
"We'll make that all right: you won't lose nothing by it. But you
mustn't mind finding a stick of dynamite under your bed when you go home
after the trial," he grinned.
"I guess there's no trouble with my nerve," I said stiffly, thinking he
was chaffing me. "But I don't want the job, all the same."
"Well, you'll have to see the old man this time. Maybe he can get you
off."
So I went into Mr. Dround's private office and made my request. The
chief asked me to take a chair and handed me a cigar. Then he began to
talk about the privileges and duties of citizenship. From another man it
might have been just slobber, but Henry I. Dround meant it, every word.
"Why don't you serve?" I asked him pretty bluntly.
He flushed.
"I haven't been drawn. Besides, it has been thought wiser not to give
the jury too capitalistic a character. This is a young man's duty. And I
understand from Mr. Carmichael that you are one of the most energetic
and right-minded of our young men, Mr. Harrington."
[Illustration: _From another man it might have been just slobber, but
Henry I. Dround meant it, every word._]
He stood facing the window and talked along for some time in a general
way. His talk was rather simple and condescending, but kind. He spoke of
the future before me, of my having the right influence in the community.
When I left him I knew perfectly well that the house expected me to
serve on that jury if I was chosen, and that Mr. Dround would take
personally the warmest interest in a young man who had the courage to do
his duty "in behalf of society," as he kept saying.
Still I hoped to escape. I was tolerably far down the list. So day after
day I listened to the wrangle among the lawyers over the selection of
the jurors. It was clear enough from the start that the State wanted
only one kind of man on that jury--an intelligent, well-to-do clerk or
small manufacturer. No laboring man need apply: his class was suspect.
As a clerk in Steele's store said to me while we waited our turn:--
"That bailiff came into our place and walked down past our department
with the manager. I heard him say to Mr. Bent: 'I'm running this case.
Let me tell you there won't be no hung jury.'"
"Do you want to serve?" I asked the man from Steele's.
"Well, I do and I don't." Then he leaned over and whispered into my ear:
"It looks to me that there might be a better place for me at Steele's if
everything goes off to suit and I am a part of it!" He nudged me and
pulled a straight face. "I guess they ought to be hanged, all right," he
added, as if to square himself with what he was ready to do.
After the defence had used up its challenges, which naturally was pretty
soon, the real business of getting the jury began. Much the same thing
happened in every case. First the man said he was prejudiced so that he
couldn't render a fair verdict on the evidence. Then his Honor took him
in hand and argued with him to convince him that his scruples were
needless. His Honor drove him up and down hill until the man was forced
to admit that he had some sense of fairness and could be square and
honest if he tried hard. And then he was counted in. In every case it
went pretty much as it did in the case of the man from Steele's.
"I feel," so the man from Steele's said, "like any other good citizen
does. I feel that some of these men are guilty; we don't know which
ones, of course. We have formed this opinion by general report from the
newspapers. Now, with that feeling it would take some very positive
evidence to make me think that these men were not guilty, if I should
acquit them.... But I should act entirely upon the testimony."
"But," said the defence, "you say that it would take positive evidence
of their innocence before you could consent to return them not guilty?"
"Yes, I should want some strong evidence."
"Well, if that strong evidence of their innocence was not introduced,
then you want to convict them?"
"Certainly!"
Then the judge took him in hand, and after a time his Honor got him to
say:--
"I believe I could try the case on the evidence alone, fairly."
And so they took him, and they took me in the same way, when it came my
turn.
* * * * *
This is scarcely the place to tell the story of that famous trial. It
has kept me too long as it is. The trial of the anarchists was an odd
accident in my life, however, which, coming, as it did, when I had my
foot placed on the ladder of fortune, had something to do with making me
what I am to-day. Up to this time I had never reflected much upon the
deeper things of life. The world seemed good to me--a stout, hearty
place to fight in. I had made money in the scheme of things as they are,
and I found it good. I wanted to make some more money, and I had little
patience with the kickers who tried to upset the machine. But I had not
reasoned it out. There in the court room, and later shut up in the jury
quarters, day after day, cut off from my usual habits, I thought over
some of the real questions of our life, and made for myself a kind of
philosophy.
To-day, after the lapse of eighteen years, I can see it all as I saw it
then: the small, dirty court room; the cold, precise face of the judge;
the faces of the eight men whom the police had ferreted out of their
holes for us to try. There wasn't much dignity in the performance: some
pretty, fashionably dressed girls sat up behind the judge, almost
touching elbows with his Honor. They came there as though to the play,
whispering and eating candy. There was the wrangling among the lawyers,
snarling back and forth to show their earnestness. But my eyes came back
oftenest to the faces of those eight men, for whose lives the game was
being played. Two were stupid; three were shifty; but the other three
had an honest glow, a kind of wild enthusiasm, that came with their
foreign blood, maybe. They were dreamers of wild dreams, but no thugs!
From the start it seemed plain that the State could not show who threw
that fatal bomb, nor who made it, nor anything about it: the best the
State could do would be to prove conspiracy. The only connection the
lawyers could establish between those eight men and the mischief of that
night was a lot of loose talk. His Honor made the law--afterward he
boasted of it--as he went along. He showed us what sedition was, and
that was all we needed to know. Then we could administer the lesson. Now
that eighteen years have passed, that looks to me like mighty dangerous
law. Then I was quick enough to accept it.
When we filed into the court room the last morning to listen to the
judge's charge, the first face I saw was that of Hillary Cox. A big red
scar, branching like a spider's web, disfigured her right cheek. It drew
my eyes right to her at once. All her color and the plump, pretty look
of health had gone for good. She looked old and sour and excited. And I
wished she hadn't come there: it seemed as though she was waiting for
her revenge for the loss of her youth and good looks. She was counting
on me to give it to her! Ed sat beside her, holding her hand in a
protecting way. He was an honest, right-feeling sort of fellow, and I
guessed that her loss of good looks would make no difference in his
marrying her.
Near the district attorney sat Mr. Dround. He listened to the judge's
charge very closely, nodding his head as his Honor made his points and
rammed conviction into us....
"In behalf of society"--his phrase ran in my head all through the trial.
That was the point of it all--a struggle between sensible folks who went
about their business and tried to get all there was in it--like
myself--and some scum from Europe, who didn't like the way things are
handed out in this world. We must hang these rebels for an example to
all men. To be sure, the police had killed a score or two of their
kind--"rioters," they were called: now we would hang these eight in a
proper, legal, and ordinary way. And then back to business! I suppose
that the world seemed to me so good a place to hustle in that I
couldn't rightly appreciate the complaint of these rebels against
society. And at any rate I was convinced that we sensible folks who had
the upper hand could not tolerate any bomb foolishness. "In behalf of
society"--yes, before we had left our seats in the court room my mind
was made up: guilty or not, these men must suffer for their foolish
opinions, which were dead against the majority.
Thus I performed my duty to society.
* * * * *
When our verdict was ready, and we came in to be discharged, I saw
Hillary Cox again. As the foreman rose to give our verdict, her scarred
face flushed with excitement, and an ugly scowl crept over her brow. I
turned away. Queer thoughts came into my mind--for the bad air and the
weeks of close confinement had made me nervous, I suppose.... Society! I
seemed to see old Strauss with his puffy, ashen face, and his broad
hands that hooked in the dollars, dirty or clean, and Vitzer, who kept
our honorable council on his pay-roll for convenience, and the man who
had been with Lou Pierson that night, and many others. Were they better
men before the eyes of God these eight misguided fools whom we were
about to punish? Who did the most harm to society, they or that
pale-faced Fielden, who might have been a saint instead of an
anarchist?...
The judge was still making remarks; the jury were listening restlessly;
the prisoners at the bar seemed little interested in the occasion. I
kept saying to myself: "Society! In behalf of society! I have done my
duty in behalf of society." But what was this almighty society, anyhow,
save a lot of fools and scamps with a sprinkling of strong souls, who
were fighting for life--all of them fighting for what only a few could
get? My eyes rested on Hostetter's face in the crowd. His jaw was
hanging open, and he was staring at the judge, trying to understand it
all. Poor Ed! _He_ wouldn't have much show in the scramble if society
didn't protect him. Suddenly a meaning to it all came to me like a great
light. The strong must rule: the world was for the strong. It was the
act of an idiot to deny that truth. Yes, life was for the strong, all
there was in it! I saw it so then, and I have lived it so all my
life....
[Illustration: "_My! I tell you I'll be glad to get home to-night._"]
The man from Steele's nudged my elbow:--
"My! I tell you I'll be glad to get home to-night. Won't the old woman's
food taste slick to-night? You bet."
"The jury is discharged."
The play was over. The spectators were moving from the crowded room. At
the door my friends were waiting for me. Hillary Cox stretched up a thin
hand.
"Thank you, Van," she said.
"You fellows did just right," Hostetter added.
Slocum said nothing, but there was a dubious smile on his lips.
"We're going to blow you off for a dinner at the Palmer House, the best
you ever ate," Dick Pierson called out loudly. Then he added for the
benefit of the onlookers, "To hell with the anarchists!"
"Quit that!" I said sharply, some of those queer doubts about the
justice of the act I had been concerned in returning to me. "It's over
now, and let's drop it."
It was good to be out on the streets once more, knocking elbows with
folks, and my heart soon began to feel right. In the lobby of the hotel
men I didn't know, who recognized me as one of the famous jury, came up
to me and shook hands and said pleasant things. Before the dinner was
far along I was quite myself again, and when Slocum set up the champagne
for the party, I had begun to feel rather proud of the part I had taken
in public affairs. After all, it was a fine thing to live and hustle
with your neighbors for the dollars. I had done my part to make the game
go on smoothly. At the Yards, the next morning, it was the same thing:
my desk was covered with flowers, and the boys kept me busy shaking
hands and taking in the cigars until I thought I was at a church
presentation party. Big John was one of the first to welcome me back.
"Say! do you want a vacation? The old man thinks a month or two would be
the right thing. Enjoy yourself, my boy, after your arduous duty!"
"Shoo!" I replied. "What would I do with a month's vacation, John? I've
just pined to be back here at work. What do I want to light out for
now?"
"Supposing some of 'em should try to fix _you_?" he grinned.
"I guess we've fixed _them_ for good and all."
"Well, your nerve is all right."
So I sat down to my desk, quite the cock of the walk, and felt so
pleased with myself that you would think I had saved the whole town from
being blown up. I was for society as it is, first, last, and all the
time, and I felt good to be in it.
[Illustration: _Big John was one of the first to welcome me back._]
Once, some months later, I saw those eight men again, when they were
brought into court to be sentenced. They all had a chance to speechify,
and I listened to them for a time. I didn't take much stock in Spies and
Parsons--long-winded, talky, wild fellows. But the others, who weren't
as glib as those two, had a kind of simple sincerity about them. They
had the courage to stand up there in the face of death and say what they
believed. No one plead for mercy. I was sorry for them.
But, nevertheless, it was comfortable to be of the strong. The world is
for the strong, I said to myself as I left the court, and I am one of
them!
CHAPTER IX
ANOTHER BOOST
_I become of importance in Dround's--Making money--The end of Ma
Pierson's--Rivals in sausage--I conclude to sell my
business--Bluffing old Strauss--Carmichael regards me with respect_
After the trial came another boost at Dround's. Thanks to the big
Irishman, I had done pretty well before; but now there was some one at
the top watching me. I was given a chance to see what I could do to make
markets in the new Southwest, which was developing rapidly and in my
opinion offered a weak house like ours a better opportunity than the
older fields.
And my little venture with the brothers Schunemann was booming all the
time. Ed and Sloco had looked out for my interests during the trial, and
had kept my partners from robbing me. Pretty soon I was able to buy out
their interest in the Aurora plant and get rid of them altogether,
putting Ed in as my manager. The Schunemanns took to peddling our kosher
meat in Chicago, and worked up a good trade. In my trips for Dround &
Co. I was able to make a large business for the Duchess brand of
sausage, which soon began to attract attention. One day Carmichael said
to me:--
"So you're a sausage maker, after all, Van?"
"Yes, and coining money, too," I replied. "Perhaps Mr. Dround would
think differently now about the cat's-meat business."
Carmichael grunted. I suspected that he might like to have me offer the
firm a chance to come into my business, but I had no such idea. I saw a
great future in sausage, and, after that, other things--down a long
vista of golden years.
* * * * *
About this time Lou Pierson disappeared from the house and never came
back. Slocum went East and did his best to find the girl. He may have
been too proud to marry her sister, but he felt badly enough over Lou's
going that way. Later, when I saw the girl in New York, I concluded her
return could do no good to any one, and said nothing. After Lou
disappeared the old man began to drink pretty hard, and finally had to
go to the hospital. The Van Buren Street house was a drearier place than
ever, and Slocum and I decided to move and start housekeeping together.
Ma Pierson needed us no longer. The Hostetters were keeping house for
the old lady; for Ed married Hillary shortly after the trial, and
together they tried running the Enterprise. But they could not make it
go, somehow; so later I made Ed my manager, as I have said. Some time
after this, when the old lady Pierson got sick, Slocum and I saw that
she had a little rest and comfort to the end of her days. For her son
Dick could never look after anybody but himself.
We had not been long in our comfortable flat on the South Side before
an unexpected chance came to me to make a lot of money. As I have said,
the Duchess brand of sausage, packed in dainty little boxes, was making
a name for itself and attracting the attention of the trade. I began to
have rivals, and my profits were cut somewhat; but they could never
drive out the Duchess, which had a good start. One day Carmichael asked
me if I would like to sell my sausage factory, as he called the Aurora
plant. I told him jokingly he hadn't the money to buy it. But in reality
I was ready to sell, for I saw that if the big packers went into the
business in earnest, I could not compete. And it was only a matter of
time before they would see, as I had seen, the immense profit in such
small things. So when, a few days later, Carmichael said that one of
Strauss's men had asked him to bring me over to their place, I went
quick enough.
Carmichael took me into Strauss's office and introduced me to one of the
men, a shrewd little fellow, who managed some of the old man's deals for
him. After a little while, the man, Gooch, began to talk of my sausage
business, praised the idea, and hinted that his boss might consider
buying me out "for a proper figure." So we began to deal, and pretty
soon Gooch named a figure, twenty-five thousand dollars or something of
the sort, expecting me to bite. I laughed, and Carmichael, who was
sitting by enjoying the fun, said: "He's no kid, Gooch, though he looks
it. Better go your whole figure straight off." Gooch then said
thirty-five thousand dollars--that was the limit. I began to talk about
the kosher meat business the Schunemann brothers were handling for me,
and I could see Gooch's eyes open. He got up and went back into an inner
office, and when he returned he made the figure fifty thousand dollars.
Carmichael expected me to take his offer, and if I had been asked that
morning I should have said it was a big price. But suddenly it came into
my mind that in that inner office was the great Strauss himself. He
thought I was too small fry to deal with: he left me to his lieutenant.
And I had a good mind to bring him out to buy my plant of me. So I
talked on, and Gooch asked me to name my figure.
"Seventy thousand," I answered pretty quick.
Gooch turned to his desk, as if to tell me to go home, and Carmichael
grunted, thinking how he would laugh at me about my cheek. I began to
think I had gone too far, when the door of that inner office was pulled
back and Strauss himself walked into the room. He nodded to Carmichael
and gave me a look from head to foot, but said nothing. Gooch waited for
the great man to speak.
"We'll take your figure, Mr. Harrington," Strauss said, after he had
looked me up and down, and walked out again.
It took my breath away: the next moment I was sorry I hadn't said a
hundred, it seemed so easy. But Strauss was back in his office and the
door was pulled to.
The next I knew I was on the street, and big John was laughing so that
men turned to look at him. "Pretty good for a kid," he kept saying
between his bursts of laughter. "You had the old fox on the run. He
wanted your cat's-meat place bad, though."
[Illustration: _The door of the inner office was pulled back and Strauss
himself walked into the room._]
We went into a saloon, and I set up a bottle of champagne.
"You're all right," Carmichael said to me when we had drunk to my good
luck. "You couldn't have run that place much longer. The big ones would
have eaten you up, hide and all."
"I knew that!" I said calmly.
Carmichael looked at me with considerable respect, and that was one of
the pleasantest moments of my life.
CHAPTER X
LOVE
_A poor stenographer--The positive young lady under altered
circumstances--Miss Gentles's story--A hard road for tender
feet--Social and sentimental--A misunderstanding--Which is made
right in the only way--My boss invites us to dinner--Another kind of
woman--A woman's shrewdness--The social gift--At the opera--Business
and pleasure--Sarah on Mrs. Dround_
It was a hot day in August three years after the trial; I was sitting in
Carmichael's office trying to get a breath of fresh air from his west
windows. I called old Peters and asked him to send me up a stenographer.
"Haven't a good one in the place, Mr. Harrington," he said. "All the
smart ones are off on their vacation. There's Miss Gentles, though--the
old man generally keeps her for himself, but he's gone home by this
time."
"Send up anything so long as it can write!"
"Well, she _ain't_ much good," Peters replied.
I had my head down behind my desk when the stenographer came in, and I
began to dictate without looking up. These stenographer ladies were all
of a piece to me,--pert, knowing misses,--all but Miss Harben: she was
fifty and sour, and took my letters like biting off thread. This one
evidently wasn't in her class, for pretty soon she sang out:--
"Please wait! I can't go so fast."
So I waited, and looked up to see what I had to do with. This young
woman was a good-looking, ladylike person, with a mass of lovely brown
hair and long brown eyelashes. She was different from the other girls in
the office, and yet it seemed to me I had seen her before. She was
dressed in black, a sort of half mourning, I judged. Pretty soon she got
stuck again and asked me to repeat. This time she looked at me
imploringly.
"I am not very good," she said with a smile.
"No, you are not," I replied.
She laughed at my blunt answer--laughed pleasantly, like a lady who
knows how to turn off a harsh truth, not flirtatiously, like most of her
profession.
"Been long at it?" I asked the next time she broke down.
"Not so very. I graduated from the school about six months ago, and I
have always worked for Mr. Dround since then. He doesn't talk as fast as
you do, not nearly."
She smiled again at me, frankly and naturally. Suddenly I remembered
where I had seen that face before, and when she looked up again I
said:--
"Did you ever find that purse, Miss Gentles?"
She looked puzzled at first; then a light spread over her face, and she
stammered:--
"Why, of course, you are _the_ Mr. Harrington who--But you have
changed!"
"Rather, I hope! And the light wasn't good in the police station that
morning."
Miss Gentles leaned back in her chair and laughed, a blush spreading
prettily over her face.
"It's all so funny!" she exclaimed.
"Funnier now than it was then," I admitted.
[Illustration: "_Why, of course, you are the Mr. Harrington who--But you
have changed!_"]
"I am very glad to meet you again. No, I never found that purse. The
judge still twits me, when he sees me, about changing my mind. He
thinks--" Then she stopped in embarrassment, and it was some time before
I found out what the judge did think.
"Have you been back to that place in Indiana?" she asked. And we had
quite a chat. She talked to me like a young lady who was receiving a
caller in her father's house. It took a long time to finish the few
letters I had started to write. When she went, I got up and opened the
door for her. I had to.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Harrington," she said, holding out her hand. "I am
so glad to have met you again."
Old Peters, who was in the outer office, looked at us in considerable
surprise. When Miss Gentles had gone he remarked in a gossiping way:--
"So you know the young woman?"
"I met her once years ago," I admitted. "How did she land here? She
doesn't seem to have had much experience as a stenographer."
"No, she hasn't. Her father died several years ago, and didn't leave a
cent. He was a very popular doctor, though--a Southerner. They lived
kind of high, I guess, while there was anything. The Drounds knew them
in their better days, and when the doctor died Mrs. Dround tried to help
the girl in one way and another. Then they fixed up this job for her. I
guess Mr. Dround don't work her very hard. Sorry you were troubled with
her. We'll see that you get a rattler the next time, Mr. Harrington," he
ended. (The men in the office were pretty nice to "Mr. Harrington" these
days!)
"Oh, she isn't so bad!" I said to Peters. For I rather looked forward to
seeing the pretty, pleasant-mannered girl again. "I'd just as soon have
Miss Gentles next week when Mr. Dround goes East, if no one else wants
her."
Old Peters had a twinkle in his eyes as he answered:--
"Just as you say, Mr. Harrington."
So I came to see a good deal of Miss Gentles that summer while Mr.
Dround was away on his vacation. I can't say that the young lady
developed much business ability. She forgot most things with a wonderful
ease, and she was never very accurate. But she tried hard, and it seemed
to worry her so when I pointed out her mistakes that I took to having in
another stenographer in the afternoon to finish what she hadn't done.
Miss Gentles boarded with an old aunt of her mother's near where Slocum
and I lived. I gathered that the aunt and her husband were not very kind
to her. They thought she ought to marry, having good looks and no money.
Miss Gentles let me call on her, and before the summer was over we were
pretty well acquainted. For a long time the thought of May had kept me
from looking at a woman; I always saw that little white face and those
searching eyes, and heard that mocking laugh. But Miss Gentles was so
different from May that she never made me think of the woman I had once
loved.
I took Slocum to call on my new acquaintance, but they didn't get on
well together. She thought his old Yankee ways were hard, and I suppose
he thought I was bound on the voyage of life with a pleasure-loving
mate. He used to growl to me about tying myself to a woman, but I always
said he needn't worry about me--I wasn't the marrying kind.
"Oh, you'll be wanting to get married the same as the rest of the
world," Sloco would answer, "and have a wife and children to spend your
money on and make you earn more!"
But I thought differently. A man of my sort, I replied to him, works
and fights just the same without wife or child, because of the fight in
him, because he can't help himself, any more than the man who wants to
drink can keep his lips from the glass. It's in his blood and bone....
Miss Gentles had seen a good deal of society,--the best there was in the
city in those early days. It was odd to hear her talking about people
who were just big names to me, as if she had known them all her life. I
must have struck her as pretty green. But she made me feel from the
first like some one she had always known. She was proud enough, but
simple, and not in the least reserved. She told me all about her people,
the easy times and the hard times. And never a word of complaint or
regret for all the parties and good things that were gone out of her
life. She was one to take her beer with a joke when she couldn't have
champagne. Of course, I told her, first and last, all my story. She made
me take her to see the Hostetters at the old place on Van Buren Street.
Then the four of us went up the lake on a picnic one Sunday. Hillary, I
remember, was sullen because Ed paid so much attention to Miss Gentles
on this trip.
So we became good friends. Yet I never felt really intimate with her, as
I had with Hillary, and when I tried to step past a certain line she had
her own way of keeping me off, not haughtily or pertly, but like a lady
who knew how people of the great world, where I had never been, behaved
to one another. One day, I remember, I was fool enough to send her a
little fancy purse with a gold eagle in it, and a line saying that it
was time for me to make restitution, or something of the sort. My gift
came back quick enough, with a clever little note tucked inside, saying
she couldn't let me admit that I had taken her purse. It was a good
lesson for me.
When Mr. Dround returned in the fall she reported to him for work, and I
was not altogether sorry. I had plenty of chances to see her outside of
the office now, and I was desperately busy. In a few days, however, when
I happened to be in Mr. Dround's office on some matter, he began to talk
about Miss Gentles. Peters had told him that I had had her as my
stenographer during his absence, and Mr. Dround would like to have me
continue, as she wasn't adapted to his needs. Then he spoke of her
people, and how he and Mrs. Dround had held them in the highest esteem,
and had tried to do something for this girl. But there had seemed to be
nothing that she was really fitted to do.
So we began again our work together, only it was worse; for her
fashionable friends were back in the city now, and they kept inviting
her out to parties and one thing and another, until she was too sleepy
to do her work in the morning and was rather irregular. Then she was
ill, off for a fortnight. I had Peters hire me another stenographer, a
man, and Miss Gentles still drew her pay. Peters winked at me when I
suggested that he needn't mention the fact of her absence in his report.
I suppose, if I had stopped to think of it, I should have considered it
more businesslike of her to quit her society and parties when she found
they were interfering with her work. It was human, though, that she
should want to get a little fun out of her life, and not lose sight
altogether of the gay world where they have time to amuse themselves.
And a pretty woman like her could hardly be expected to take stenography
in a stock-yards office seriously.
Well, I missed her more and more, especially as I couldn't see her now
that she was ill, and had to content myself with nice little notes of
thanks for the flowers and fruit I sent. She came back at last, looking
weak and droopy, for the first time rather hopeless, as if she saw that
she wasn't fitted for the job and couldn't keep up with her friends,
either. I felt very sorry for her. She wasn't made for work--any one
could see that--and it was a cruel shame to let her boggle on with it.
Just then I had to go to Texas on business; when I got back a week or so
later, Peters told me that Miss Gentles had left five days before. A
cold little note on my desk said good-by, and thanked me for my kindness
to her--never a word of explanation.
I was so upset that I didn't wait to open my letters, but called a cab
and started for the aunt's to find out what was the matter. It was just
as well I had been in a hurry, for in another ten minutes Miss Gentles
would have been on her way to Louisville, and it would have taken a week
to hunt out the small place in Kentucky where she was going. Her trunk
was packed, and she was sitting with her aunt in the large, ugly parlor,
waiting for the expressman to come. When I walked in, following the
servant, she didn't draw back her veil, but merely stood up and touched
fingers with me. I saw that something was so wrong that it had to be
made right at once, with no time to spare.
"You will kindly let me speak to Miss Gentles alone," I said to the
aunt, who was inclined to stick. She went out of the room ungraciously.
"Now," I said, taking the girl's hand and looking through her veil into
her eyes, "what is the matter? Tell me."
Her eyes were large and moist, and her lips quivered. But she shut her
teeth down hard and said stiffly: "Nothing whatever, Mr. Harrington. You
are very kind to come to see me before I leave."
"You aren't going to put me off with any such smooth answer as that," I
said, "or you will have my company all the way you're going, wherever it
may be. Tell me the straight truth, and all of it."
She began to laugh at my bluffing words, and ended with a nervous sob.
After a while I learned the whole story. It seems that the man I
employed talked out in the office about how he did all my work, and
while I was South one of the "lady" stenographers had said something to
Miss Gentles--a something she would not tell me. So she got up and took
her leave, and knowing that her old aunt wouldn't want her around if she
had no job, she had written some cousins in Kentucky and was going to
them.
The expressman came about this time, but he didn't take her trunk. And
when I left that chilly parlor we were engaged to be married. She said
at the last, putting her hands on my coat: "You know I always liked you,
even in the police station, Mr. Harrington--and--and I am so very, very
happy, now, Van! It was terrible to think of going away. I had to,
before you were due home. I was never so miserable before in my life!"
Something stirred from the bottom of my heart. I felt pitiful for all
her trouble, her weakness, her struggle with a world she wasn't made
for. Then she said trustingly, like a little child:--
"And you will always be good to me, as papa was with mamma, and patient,
and love me a great deal, won't you? Yes, I know you will!"
I kissed her, feeling then that nothing in life could ever be like the
privilege of loving and protecting this woman in her helplessness. I
suppose that words like those she and I spoke then are common enough
between men and women when they are in love. Yet those words have always
been to me like some kind of sacred oath--the woman asking, out of her
weakness, for love and protection from the one who holds all happiness
and life for her, and the man, with his hasty passions, promising of the
best there is in him.
Many a time in later years, when it hasn't always been easy to see
things simply as it was then in our first joy, those words of hers have
come back to me and given me that same soft tug at my heart. To hurt her
would be to strike a child, to wring the neck of a bird that nestled in
your hand. There are a good many kinds of love in this world, as there
are of hate; perhaps about the best of all is this desire to protect
and cherish a woman--the feeling that any man who is worth his salt has
for the one he wants to marry....
Sarah walked part way back to the office with me that morning, then
turned north, saying she must try to find Mrs. Dround and tell her. She
was so happy she couldn't go home and sit down quietly until I got back
from the office. Mrs. Dround, she knew, would be specially glad to hear
the news.
"For she thinks you are a very smart young man," Sarah added shyly.
"The lady must be a mind reader, then; for in the ten years I have been
with the firm I can't remember seeing her once."
"Oh, yes, she has seen you. She said so. Anyway, Jane knows all about
you, you may be sure. There isn't much that goes on around her that Jane
doesn't know about."
With that she gave me a happy little nod and was off to the great stone
house of my boss up north on the lake. It was a windy, dirty December
day, but I was very content with the world as it was and thought Chicago
was the finest city in the world. As I sat down to my desk my mind began
to dance in a whirl of thoughts--of old plans and new combinations. I
wondered what Sarah would say to some of my schemes to make our fortune.
Perhaps they would merely frighten her; for a woman is a natural
conservative. I hurried up my business to get back to her and tell her
that some day, not so very distant, she would be a tolerably rich woman.
For now it seemed only a step into the greater things I had seen all
these years afar off.
* * * * *
The Drounds gave us a dinner not long afterward. I reached the house
early, expecting to have a little time with Sarah before the others
came. Pretty soon I heard the rustle of skirts, but, instead of Sarah, a
tall, thin woman in a black lace evening-dress came into the room where
the servant had left me. Instantly I knew that this was the face I had
seen in the carriage the morning after the anarchist riot. She was a
beautiful woman, with a dark, almost foreign look. She smiled cordially
as she gave me her hand.
"Sarah is not quite ready. She wants to make herself very fine--the
child! And Mr. Dround is late, too. I am glad, because it will give us a
few minutes to ourselves. Come into the library."
She led the way into a long, stately room, with a beautiful ceiling in
wood and gold. At one end, in a little arched recess, a wood fire was
blazing. There were a number of large paintings on the walls, and queer
Eastern idols and curios in cabinets. Mr. Dround had the reputation of
being something of a traveller and collector. My first glance around
that room explained a good deal to me about the head of our firm.
Mrs. Dround seated herself near the fire, where the light from a great
candelabrum filled with candles flickered above her head. Her dark eyes
gleamed under the black hair; it was a puzzle of a face!
She began pretty soon to talk of Sarah in a natural but terribly shrewd
way.
"I wonder, Mr. Harrington, if you know your treasure," she said, half
laughing. "It takes most men years to know the woman they marry, if they
ever do."
[Illustration: _She was reading me like a book of large print._]
"Well, I know enough now to begin with!"
"Sarah is such a woman--tender, loyal, loving. It needs a woman to know
a woman, Mr. Harrington. But she hasn't a particle of practical sense:
she can't keep an account straight. She has no idea what economy
is--only want or plenty. She is Southern, so Southern! Those people
never think what will happen day after to-morrow."
It seemed queer that she should be telling me this kind of thing, which
I should be finding out fast enough for myself before long. Perhaps she
wanted to see what I would say; at any rate I replied clumsily
something about not expecting to make a housekeeper of my wife.
"Yet," she said slowly, studying me, "a woman can do so much to make or
mar her husband's career."
"I guess I shan't lay it up against my wife, if I don't pull out a
winner."
She laughed at that.
"So you think you are strong enough to win a fight without a woman's
help?"
"I've done it so far," I said, thinking a little of May.
"You have made a beginning, a good beginning," she remarked judiciously.
She was reading me like a book of large print, leaning back in her great
chair, her eyes half closed, her face in shade except when the firelight
flashed.
"I suppose the only way is to keep on as you begin--keep your eyes open
and take everything in sight," I continued lightly.
"It depends on how much you want, perhaps."
"I want pretty much all that I can get," I retorted quickly, my eyes
roving over the rich room, with an idea that I might like to put Sarah
in some such place as this.
Mrs. Dround laughed a long, low laugh, as though she were speculating
why I was what I was.
"Well, you are strong enough, my friend, I see. As for Sarah, love her
and don't look for what you can't find."
Just then we heard Sarah's laugh. She came into the room with Mr.
Dround, a smile kindling graciously all over her face. The two women, as
they kissed each other, made a picture--the dark head against the light
one. Then Mrs. Dround gave Sarah a cool, motherly pat on the cheek,
saying:--
"I have been offering your young man some advice, Sarah."
"He doesn't need it!" Sarah answered in a flash.
"Well, I don't know that he does," Mrs. Dround laughed back, kissing her
again. Every one loved Sarah in the same protecting way! Soon after this
Mr. Dround came up, smiling genially at the women's talk, and gave me
his hand.
I had not seen the chief out of business hours before. I had never
thought him much of a business man in the office, and here, in his own
house, with his pictures and books and curios, he was about the last
person any one would believe spent his days over in Packington.
It wasn't to be a simple dinner that evening. Sarah whispered that Jane
had insisted on inviting a lot of people, some important people, she
said, to meet her young man. And presently the guests arrived,--Lardner
and Steele and Jefferson with their wives, and a number of others. About
the only ones I knew were big John and his very fat wife. They seemed to
be as much out of the crowd as I felt I was, with all my coolness. But
Sarah was perfectly at her ease. I admired her all afresh when I saw how
easily and gayly she took the pretty things those men said to her.
I was more at my ease in the smoking room after dinner, where I had to
tell the story about the theft of the purse in Steele's store. The
shrewd old merchant laughed heartily.
[Illustration: "_I have been offering your young man some advice,
Sarah._"]
"I trust, Mr. Harrington," he drawled, "that now you are going to marry
you will lose _your_ purse there in place of taking one."
They paid me considerable attention all around, and it gave me a
pleasant feeling--all of which, I knew, was due to Sarah. I was nothing
but a newcomer among them, but she was the daughter of an old friend.
And she had a wonderful way of her own of coming close to people.
I remember that we went later to the opera, which was being given in
that big barn of an exposition building on the lake front where I had
had my first experience of Chicago hospitality. We were in a box, and
between the acts people came in to call. Sarah introduced me to some of
them, and she held a reception then and there while Mrs. Dround looked
on and smiled.
I forget the opera that was given,--some French thing,--but I remember
how gay the place was, and all the important people of the city whom
Sarah pointed out to me. Even as a matter of business, I saw it would be
a good thing to know these people. Of course, the social side of life
doesn't count directly in making money, but it may count a good deal in
getting close to the crowd that knows how to make money. Perhaps I began
to have even a little more pride in Sarah than I had before, seeing how
she knew people and counted for something with them. In the game that we
were going to play together this social business might come in handily,
perhaps.
In one of the intervals of the opera Mrs. Dround remarked as if her mind
had been on the same idea:--
"You see Sarah's sphere, Mr. Harrington?"
"Yes," I replied. "And the girl does it tip-top!"
She laughed.
"Of course! It's in the blood."
"Well, it isn't a bad thing, some of it," I went on with pride and
content. "Strauss isn't here, is he?" I asked.
"The Strausses never go anywhere, you know."
"He's the biggest of them all, too," I said partly to myself.
"You think so? Why?" she asked, her brows coming together.
"He's the biggest dog, and it's dog eat dog in our business, as all over
nowadays," I replied.
"Why now more than ever before?" she asked.
"It's in the air. There's a change coming over business, and you feel it
the same as you feel a shift in the wind. It's harder work fighting to
live now than ever before, and it can't go on like this forever. The big
dog will eat up the rest."
"And you think Strauss is our big dog?" she asked with a smile.
I saw then where she had led me, but it was too late to be less frank.
"Yes," I answered, looking her in the eyes.
"Then how should one keep out of his jaws?" she went on, playing with
her fan.
"Well, you can always get out of a scrap and stay out--or--" I
hesitated.
"Or?" she persisted.
"Put up such a fight that the big fellow will give you good terms to get
rid of you!"
"I see. You have given me something to think about, Mr. Harrington."
"The time is coming," I went on, careless whether she repeated to Mr.
Dround my views, "and mighty quick, too, when that man Strauss will have
the food-products business of this country in his fist, and the rest of
us will be his hired men, and take what he gives us!"
"What are you two talking about in this intimate way?" Sarah broke in.
"The future," Mrs. Dround said.
"Business," I added.
"Business!" Sarah sniffed, and I knew I had done something I ought not
to do. "And Nevada singing so divinely to-night! Come, Van, I want you
to meet Mr. Morehead." And I was led away from our hostess to keep me
out of mischief.
* * * * *
On our way home after the opera Sarah and I talked of Mrs. Dround. I had
never met any woman like her, and I was loud in her praise.
"Yes," Sarah admitted slowly, "she seemed to like you. But did you see
how she treated the Carmichaels? Just civil, and hardly that. Nobody can
understand Jane. She just does as she wants always."
"I believe she must have a great head for business. If she were in Henry
I.'s shoes--"
"I don't see why you say that! I am sure you never hear the least word
about business in their house."
I smiled at Sarah's little show of temper, as she continued:--
"Anyway, it would be strange if she didn't know something about
money-making. Her father was old Joe Sanson--they say he was a
half-breed and made his money trading with the Indians and getting
Government lands. Father used to tell stories about him. We heard that
he left her a great deal of money, but nobody knows much about her or
her affairs. She's so silent."
"I didn't find her so."
Sarah apparently did not altogether share my enthusiasm for Mrs. Dround.
"Tell me," she demanded, "just what she said to you, every word."
"I can't. She talks with her eyes, most."
"Oh, I hate to have men discuss business with women. It is such bad
taste!"
"Why, Sarah, business is the whole thing for me. There isn't anything
else I can talk about except you."
"Talk about me, then. I shall have to keep you out of Jane's way. I
don't want you to talk to her about things I don't understand."
"Why not?"
She shivered and drew me closer to her.
"Because, Jane--I am afraid of Jane. She is so strong, and I am so weak.
If she wanted you, or anybody, she would take you."
For all reply to this nonsense I kissed her good night.
CHAPTER XI
MARRIAGE
_Old scenes--How home looks after the city--My sister-in-law--In the
country a man grows old--The judge once more--I make Will a
suggestion--The joy of success--My wedding breakfast--Unexpected
talk--The hand of Jane_
Just before we were married, Sarah and I went down to my old home in
Jasonville. She was determined that I should make it up with my folks;
it hurt her gentle heart to think that I had lived all these years
without any news of my kin. It was a freezing January day when we drove
up to the red brick house next the store. As we rattled over the rutty
streets in the depot carriage, and passed the small frame houses all
closed in for the winter, I couldn't help feeling a most pharisaical
pleasure in knowing that I wasn't condemned to live in this bleak little
town.
When I knocked at the door, mother came to see who was there. She knew
me at once, but she looked at me slowly, in the questioning way I
remembered so well, before she said:--
"Well, Van! You've come back?"
"Yes, mother, and brought with me the best girl in the world."
"I am glad to see you both," she said quietly.
"And how's father?" I asked nervously.
"Your father died nearly three years ago. We didn't know where to send
word to you."
There was no reproach in her voice; it was as if she expected nothing of
me. We went into the house and sat down, and began to talk. It was
solemn and painful all around, and if it hadn't been for Sarah I should
have been taking an early train for Chicago. But she was sunny and
light-hearted, and seemed to take pleasure in being there. While we were
sitting in the front room talking to mother, a young woman came in with
two small children hiding in her skirts.
"Your brother Will's wife," mother explained quickly.
"Why, May!" I exclaimed, a little embarrassed, "I didn't exactly look
for this. Will didn't let me know--I--"
"We wanted to write you, but we didn't know where you were. I am very
glad to see you, Van," May said quietly, a little smile curving up from
her lips in a way that reminded me of the girl I once loved. She took
both Sarah's hands and looked straight into her eyes.
"And this is your wife, Van?"
"Not quite, yet."
Of course I had told Sarah all about May, and I thought she might be
cold to her, meeting her in this way of a sudden as Will's wife. She
always said May had been hard that time before--had been too keen about
her good principles to be a real woman. Yet, as they stood there looking
into each other's eyes, I could see that they would come together very
soon. Sarah smiled as if to say: "It's all right, my dear! You see, I
am glad you turned him away that time. We have no reason to quarrel,
have we?"
[Illustration: _I could see that they would come together very soon._]
May began to blush under that smile, as though she knew what was in
Sarah's mind. Then mother brought up May's two little boys, who went to
Sarah at once. Will was away somewhere and didn't come home until
supper. I thought he looked pretty old for his age. Perhaps business was
poor in Jasonville. The country ages a man fast when things go hard with
him. At first he was stiffish to me, taken aback by our unexpected
visit, but pretty soon he thawed to Sarah, who talked with him about his
boys.
After dinner Will and I went to the barn and had a long smoke. He told
me that the judge had pressed father pretty hard before he died, and
after his death there wasn't much saved but the store, and that was
mortgaged. And the business didn't amount to anything, according to
Will. The mail-order business had cut into the country trade pretty
badly by that time, and country people had begun more and more to go to
the city to buy their goods. Moreover, time had shown that Jasonville
lay to one side of the main lines of traffic. In short, Will had to
scrape the barrel to get a living out of the old store.
He asked how it had been with me, and it gave me considerable pride to
tell him what I had been doing. I told him about the packing business,
my sausage factory, the deal with Strauss. He opened his eyes as he
smoked my good cigar.
"So you struck it rich after all, Van!"
There was something on his mind, and after a time he managed to say:--
"I hope you won't have any more hard feeling for mother and me. We all
treated you pretty harsh that time; we never gave you credit for what
you had in you, Van."
"I guess it would have taken a prophet to see I had anything in me more
than foolishness," I laughed. "Anyhow, it was the best thing that ever
happened to me, Will, and I can't be too thankful that you folks in
Jasonville threw me out."
"Yes, Jasonville ain't just the place for an ambitious man," he sighed.
"And, Van,--about May,--it wasn't hardly fair. She cared most for you,
then, at any rate; she wouldn't marry me, not for five years."
"Don't say another word, Will. May will make the best sort of sister.
She's the right kind."
So that was the way we made it up as two brothers should. And the next
morning, after doing some thinking over night about how I could best
help my brother and May, I followed Will over to the store. On the way I
met the old judge, looking hardly a day older than when I saw him last.
He eyed me hard, as if he didn't know me from the last tramp, but I
stopped him and greeted him.
"So you're loose once more," he grinned. "I see they shut you up as soon
as you struck Chicago." He had a good time laughing at his little joke.
"Yes," I replied, "I am out once more, judge. And, from what I hear,
the Harringtons have been paying you pretty well for all the green
peaches I ever took off your place."
He mumbled something, but I turned on my heel, rather proud of myself if
the truth be told, being well dressed, with an air of city prosperity.
Will was in the bit of an office behind the store. The old place was as
mussy and dirty as ever, with fat files of dusty old letters and
accounts. The old desk where father used to make up his bills was
littered with last year's mail. It was Sunday, and the musty smell of
the closed store came in through the door. It all gave me the forlornest
feeling I had had in years.
"This will never pay, Will," I said to my brother, who was turning the
leaves of a worm-eaten day-book. "The time when the small business would
pay a man anything worth while is pretty nearly over for good."
"I suppose so," he replied despondently. "But somehow we must get a
living out of it."
"Let the judge have it, if he'll take it. I can find you something
better."
There was a place in Dround's that Will might work into; and before long
he could be of use to me in a scheme that was coming around the corner
of my mind into sight. As I talked, Will's eyes brightened. Before we
left the little office a new kind of look, the look of hope, had come
over his face. I thought he seemed already some years younger. It takes
the steps of a treadmill, downward faced, to crush the spirit in a man!
That was a happy morning. Surely, one of the joys of success is to give
it away to the right ones. I remember a good many times in my life that
I have had the pleasure of seeing that same look of hope, of a new
spirit, come into a man's face, when I gave him his chance where he was
least expecting it.
"But, Will, mind you, if you come to the city you'll no longer be your
own man," I cautioned him. "Dround'll own you, or I shall. No doing what
you want! To work with me is to work under me. Can you stand taking
orders from your junior?"
"I guess, Van," he answered without any pride, "you have shown yourself
to be the boss. I'll follow."
That night, when Will and May had left us at the junction where we were
to take the Chicago train, Sarah brushed my arm with her cheek in a
little intimate way she had and whispered:--
"May couldn't thank you. She feels it too much. You have made them so
happy--there's a future now for them all. And I think, maybe, I can make
you as good a wife as she could--perhaps better, some ways. May said so!
Though May is a very nice woman, and I shall always love her."
"I guess you are both right," I replied, too happy to say much more.
* * * * *
A few weeks later and we were married. The Drounds gave us a pretty
little wedding breakfast, to which came the few friends I had in the
world and a few of the many Sarah had. If Mrs. Dround was a careless
hostess sometimes, that was not the day. She was specially gracious to
Will and May, who were 'most strangers. It was all just as it should be,
and I felt proud of myself to be there and to have this handsome,
high-bred woman for my wife.
It was Sarah's idea that all the others should leave the house first,
and that then we should slip away quietly to the train by ourselves. So
at the last, while I was waiting for my bride to come downstairs, Mrs.
Dround and I happened to be alone. She looked pale and worn, as if the
people had tired her. She ordered the servants to take away the great
bunches of roses that filled every nook in the room.
"They are too sweet," she explained. "I like them--but in the next
room."
Her fastidiousness surprised me, and, as always, I began to wonder about
her. Suddenly she leaned forward and spoke swiftly, intently:--
"I hope you and Sarah will be happy together--really happy!"
It was an ordinary kind of thing to say, but beneath the plain words
there seemed to lie something personal.
"We shall be happy, of course!" I answered lightly. "There's nothing
against it in sight."
"Ah, my friend, you can't count that way! Happiness is hard to get in
this world, and you pass it by at odd corners and never know it." She
smiled a little sadly, and then added in a more ordinary tone: "Sarah
tells me that you are to be away only a few days. Does business tempt
you so much that you can't resist it even now?"
"Well, I expect to love Sarah just as much when I get back to work.
Business is a man's place, as the house is a woman's. Take either out of
their places for long, and something is likely to go wrong with them."
She laughed at my satisfied wisdom.
"Are you so needed over there in the office?"
"You must ask your husband that."
"He says that you are the cleverest man they have had for years. Does
that make you proud?"
"Thank you!"
"Will you let the big dog Strauss eat us?" she laughed on.
"I'll tell you a few years later, madam."
"Yes," she mused, "you are right. A man, a strong man--and that's the
only kind that is a man--must be at work. The sweetest love can't keep
him long."
Here Sarah's voice reached us:--
"You mustn't distract him to-day of all days, Jane!"
"He can't be distracted long, my child--by anybody!"
* * * * *
We had taken a pleasant house on one of the broad avenues to the south
beyond the smoke bank, with a bit of a garden and a few trees. When we
got back from New York we found supper waiting for us, roses on the
table, a bottle of wine ready to open, and on the sideboard a box of
cigars.
"The hand of Jane!" remarked my wife, as she rearranged the flowers and
put the roses on the mantelpiece.
"The hand of Jane?" I repeated dully. "You mean Mrs. Dround did it all?"
"Yes, of course; it reaches everywhere."
And Sarah did not look as much pleased as I expected.
CHAPTER XII
AN HONORABLE MERCHANT
_Mr. Dround's little weakness--An unpleasant occurrence--To the best
of one's knowledge--"Kissing goes by favor," and other
things--Switch-tracks and rebates--Carmichael talks--An item of
charity--Our manager goes over to the enemy--I am offered his
place--A little talk on the moral side--The dilemma of the
righteous--What is, is good enough for me_
"Mr. Dround seems to be doing a good deal of talking for the benefit of
his neighbors," Slocum observed one day when I was in his office.
"Oh, he likes the job of making the country over! It suits him to talk
more than to sell pork."
"Did you see what he said last night?" Slocum continued.
"No, what was it? Free trade or college education?" For Mr. Henry I.
Dround was long on both subjects. He had always fooled more or less with
politics, having come out as a mugwump and free-trader under Cleveland.
That kind of doctrine wasn't much in favor among the business men of
Chicago, but Dround liked being in the minority. He was an easy,
scholarly speaker, and was always ready to talk at dinners and public
meetings. "It seems to me I saw something in the papers of his speaking
at the Jefferson Club banquet," I went on; "but I didn't pay any
attention to it. The old man is rather long on wind."
"The papers missed most of the ginger. But I was there, and it was
lively. Jimmy Birdsell, Hart's man, was there, too. It was this new
Civil Service Bill that the silk stockings are trying to push through
the legislature. Of course, Hart and the machine are fighting it like
fire. Well, your boss made the chief speech, a good little talk, about
purity and business methods in government and the rest of it. Birdsell
sat just across the table from me, and I could see from the way he
knocked his glasses about that he was getting hot. Maybe he came there
for a fight. At last he boiled over.
"'Say, Mr. Dround,' he sang out in a pause between two periods, 'how
about your new switch-track over in Ada Street?'
"Dround looked toward him over his glasses for a moment, as though he
hadn't heard what was said, and then he went ahead with his talk. But
Birdsell was some drunk and too mad to care what he did. The men beside
him couldn't keep him quiet. 'I say, Dround,' he broke out again pretty
soon, 'we should like to hear what your firm does when it wants any
little favors from the city? That might be to the point just now!'
"This time Dround couldn't pass it over. He took a drink of water and
his hand shook. Then he said: 'I do not see that this is the proper time
to introduce a personal matter, but since the gentleman seems concerned
about my business honor, I am glad to set his mind at rest. To the best
of my knowledge, Henry I. Dround & Co. have never asked and never
accepted any favors from the city. Is that satisfactory?'
"'Come, now, Mr. Dround,' Birdsell sneered, 'that isn't generally
believed, you know.'
"'I said,' your boss ripped back, '_to the best of my knowledge_, your
insinuation is a lie!' He leaned forward and glared at Birdsell. Well,
there was a kind of awkward pause, everybody waiting to see what would
come next; and then Birdsell, who must have been pretty drunk, called
back: 'Ask your man John Carmichael what he does when he wants anything
from the city. Ask him about your rebates, too. Then the next time you
come here telling us how to be good, you'll know more.' There was a
cat-and-dog time after that, some yelling to put Birdsell out, and
others laughing and clapping."
Slocum paused, and then added:--
"It put Mr. Dround in a tight place."
"What of it, anyhow?" said I. "Birdsell is nothing but a yellow dog.
Hart keeps him to lick his platters. Every one knows that."
"Yes, that's so. But he said what most every one believes is true."
"That kissing goes by favor, and most other things in this world, too.
Well, what of it?"
Slocum leaned back in his chair and laughed. Then he said to me
seriously:--
"You aren't much troubled with scruples, Van!"
"Come, what's the use of talking good? You and I know well enough that
there isn't any other way of doing business, not in any city in the
country. You have got to pay for what you get, the same as elsewhere.
Dround ought to know it, too, by this time, and not go 'round preaching
loose--or else get out of business, which might be better!"
[Illustration: "_You aren't much troubled with scruples, Van!_"]
"I suppose so," Slocum replied solemnly. "But I always liked his
sermons. Perhaps you and Carmichael could tone him down a bit just
now."
"Oh, John don't mind his speeches, so long as he don't interfere with
the business!"
We went out to lunch, and talked of other matters, and for several days
I thought no more of the incident that Slocum had related. The
switch-track business did not seem to me important. If the reformers
wanted to get after us, or any other big firm, there were many more
vulnerable points than that. Special privileges from the city we
regarded as our rights. But there was the graft of railroad rates. Any
fool could tell that, at the published tariff rates, there would be
little business for the packers outside of Chicago. It was common
knowledge that the trade was honeycombed with private agreements and
rebate privileges, and that the fiercest part of the business was to get
the right rate from the roads. Then there were the secret agreements
between the packers, which were all illegal, but necessary to keep the
trade from cutting prices all the time.
Carmichael attended to this end of the business for Dround, as he did of
everything of real importance. He was a member of the firm now, and the
wonder to me was that this smart Irishman could put up with Dround. It
could hardly be a matter of sentiment with him. I had a warm feeling for
the illiterate junior member, with a temper about an inch long, but a
big, round heart open to any friend. He had bucked his way up in the
world by main force, and I admired him. Besides, he had taught me how to
eat, so to speak. In a word, I liked his way of doing things better than
Mr. Dround's college talk.
Well, it happened that the cur Birdsell set some of the civil service
reformers on the tracks of Brother Dround, and they got a smart
newspaper reporter to work over the whole matter. There was a lively
write-up in one of the papers, all about our switch-track over in Ada
Street, with photographs and figures, and a lot more about the way the
packers did business with the city. When I read the piece in the paper I
took the trouble to pass by our new warehouse on my way to the office.
The trackage was in, sure enough. Carmichael was just the man to have a
thing done and settled by the time the public got around to talk about
it!
Mr. Dround was in his office bright and early this morning, and sent for
me.
"Harrington," he began, "what do you know about this talk in the
papers?"
Mr. Dround seemed very nervous, not sure of himself.
"Why," I smiled, "I don't know much more than what the papers said. Mr.
Carmichael, you know--"
"Yes," Mr. Dround interrupted impatiently, "Mr. Carmichael is in New
York, gets back this morning; but I thought you might--" He hesitated,
not wishing to admit his own ignorance. "I will send for you later when
Mr. Carmichael comes in," he concluded.
So when John arrived he had us both in his office.
"You want to see me?" Carmichael asked gruffly, as if he hadn't much
time that morning to waste on the senior member.
"Yes, I wish to talk over certain matters that concern us all, even
though they may have no immediate bearing upon the business." Mr.
Dround always talked like that when he got the least nervous.
"Well, what is it?" Carmichael asked. He had just arrived, and I suppose
his letters interested him more than Mr. Dround's talk.
"You may not have seen the articles in the morning papers--about--about
certain privileges which it is alleged--"
"What are the boys yapping about now?" Carmichael demanded, taking up a
newspaper from the desk and thrusting his shoulders forward in an ugly
fashion.
"It concerns our permit to lay that new switch-track," Mr. Dround
explained.
Carmichael laid the paper down and looked at the senior member in a
curious way, as if he were trying to make out just what kind of a fool
he had to deal with. But as he said nothing, Mr. Dround continued:--
"Recently I had occasion to deny categorically that, so far as I knew,
our firm ever made any such kind of arrangement as is here described. My
word was challenged. It was a very painful situation, I need not say.
Since then I have been thinking--I have been wondering whether this
charge--"
He floundered pitifully, disliking to mouth the dreadful words. John
helped him out brutally:--
"You wonder whether we had to grease anybody's paw about that
switch-track over in Ada Street?"
Dround nodded. "The papers say so!"
"They have to print something, don't they? What harm does that do us? I
wouldn't trust the whole d----n bunch of papers with a ten-dollar bill.
They're a lot of blackmailers--that's what they are!"
John bit off the end of a cigar and spat it out in front of Mr. Dround.
"We are not concerned with the newspapers or their motives, Mr.
Carmichael," the senior member observed with considerable dignity. "What
I want is your assurance that this firm--that, so far as we are
concerned, this accusation is false."
We waited for the Irishman's reply. It would be an easy matter to tell a
fib and set Mr. Dround's mind at rest. But Carmichael seemed to be in a
specially bad temper this morning. When he went to New York he was
accustomed to enjoy himself, and it was not the right time to badger a
man just off the cars. Pretty soon John said fiercely:--
"It's my business to look after such matters?"
Mr. Dround nodded.
"Don't I do it satisfactorily?"
Mr. Dround waived this point.
"Well, I guess you'll have to be content with that."
"Mr. Carmichael," the senior member leaped to his feet, "you forget
yourself! You will be good enough to answer me yes or no, to my direct
question. Did you or did you not pay money for this privilege?"
Carmichael's voice shook as he replied:--
"See here, Dround! If you don't know your own business enough to know
the answer, I don't see why I should tell you." His temper was going
with every word he said. "But if you want to know, you shall! There
hasn't been such a thing as a private switch-track put down in this city
since you began doing business for less than seven thousand dollars. I
paid the right people ninety-five hundred dollars for ours. There,
you've got it! Now what are you going to do about it?"
[Illustration: "_I paid the right people ninety-five hundred dollars.
Now what are you going to do about it?_"]
The big Irishman plumped his two red fists on Mr. Dround's desk and
glared at him. At that moment I pitied the old gentleman heartily; he
was never born to do business, at least in our day. He seemed to shrivel
up under Carmichael's words.
"How, may I ask," he said at last in a low tone, "was this done without
my knowledge? How does it appear on the books?"
Carmichael laughed at the simple question.
"Charity! We are a very charitable concern!"
Mr. Dround's lips trembled, and he cried out rather than spoke:--
"No, never! Better to fail! Better to go bankrupt at once!"
He was talking to himself. Then he recollected us and said with
dignity:--
"That is all, Mr. Carmichael. After this I shall attend to all such
matters myself. Good morning, gentlemen."
He sat down at his desk, dismissing us. Carmichael was shaking with
anger.
"No!" he cried, "it isn't all! Turn me out of your office like a boy,
with my orders, when it's me that have stood between you and ruin any
day these ten years! What would your business be worth if it weren't for
John Carmichael? Ask Harrington here. Go out and ask your bank--"
"I don't believe we need to discuss this any further--" Mr. Dround
began.
"Yes, we will! Get somebody else to do your dirty business for you. For,
let me tell you right here, Henry I. Dround, that I don't go broke with
you, not for all your college talk and prin-ci-ples."
Mr. Dround pointed to the door. He was trembling again. I took the big
Irishman by the arm and led him from the office. Outside the door he
shook me off, and hurled himself into his own office.
That was the first wind of the storm, and the rest wasn't long in
coming. Somebody told me that Carmichael had been seen with one of
Strauss's lieutenants going into a law office that did some of the big
packer's work. It looked as though he were making a deal with the
Strauss crowd. It seemed natural enough to me that Carmichael should do
this, but I was sorry for what must come. Meantime, Mr. Dround was more
assiduous at business than I had ever known him to be. He came early,
and instead of driving over to his club for luncheon took a bite in his
office, and put in the afternoons going into all departments of the
business.
In the end, the trouble came to a head in this way: in company with
every large shipper at that period we made our bargain with the roads;
no large firm and no railroad pretended to live up to the law in the
matter of rates. The roads sold their transportation, as we sold ribs
and lard--for the highest figure they could get. Before any considerable
contract was entered into the thrifty shipper saw to his rate in
advance. And some time later there came along from the railroad that got
the business a check in the way of "adjustment." The senior member, in
his new energy, discovered one of these rebates. He sent it back to the
traffic manager of the road with a letter such as the roads were not in
the habit of getting from their favored shippers. The second
vice-president and general traffic manager of that line attended the
same church the Drounds went to, and the president of the road, also,
was one of Dround's friends. I wonder what they thought when their
attention was called to this little matter!
Carmichael told me what had happened with a wicked grin on his face.
"Righteous man, Henry I. Dround, all right! D----n good business man,
too," he commented. "What do you think is going to happen to this
concern? He's chucked away the profits of that contract!"
"You aren't planning to stay, John?" I remarked casually.
He looked at me and laughed.
"Do you want to come with me when I get out?"
I smiled, but said nothing. There was no open row between Mr. Dround and
the junior member of the firm this time. But a few weeks later Mr.
Dround told me what I already knew--that he and Carmichael were about to
part. I advised him bluntly to make it up with the Irishman if he
could,--not to part with him at any cost.
"For, Mr. Dround, you will find him fighting on the other side; Strauss
will have him."
He knew as well as I what that meant to his business, but he said with
new determination:--
"Mr. Carmichael and I can never do business together again."
Then he offered to take me into partnership on the same basis that
Carmichael had. I suppose he expected me to jump at my chance, but the
prospect was not altogether inviting.
"I ought to say, Mr. Dround," I replied hesitatingly, "that I think
Carmichael was right in this rebate business, and in the other matter,
too. If I had been in his place I should have done the same thing--any
man would. It's against human nature to sit still and be eaten alive!"
Mr. Dround's eyes lowered, and he turned his face away from me. His
spirit was somewhat daunted: perhaps he began to realize what it meant
to stand out alone against the commercial system of the age.
Nevertheless, he said some things, perfectly true, about the honor and
integrity of his firm. As it had been handed over to him by his father,
so he would keep it, please God.
"That's all right," I said a little impatiently. "That might do in times
gone by. But Carmichael and I have got to live in the present. That
means a fight. I would like to stay on and fight it out with you. But I
can't see the use on your basis. Look!"
I pointed out of his window to a new refrigerator building that Strauss
was putting up under our noses.
"That is only one: you know the others. He is growing every day. You
can't expect us to sit here twiddling our thumbs and thinking of our
virtue while he gets the business! Better to sell out to Strauss right
here and now, while there is something to sell."
"Never!" Mr. Dround cried with unaccustomed vehemence. "Never to him!"
"Well, then, we've got our work cut out for us, and let us waste no more
time talking rebates and the rest of it."
"Yet that horrid scandal about the switch-track," he resumed in his old
weak way. "Nothing has done so much to hurt my position in the city as
that!"
"But what are you going to do about it?" I asked in Carmichael's very
words. "Those thieves over there in the council hold you up. What good
does it do the public for you to refuse their price? It's like paying
for the right to put up a house on your own lot--it's tough, but you had
better pay and not worry."
"Mr. Harrington, I refuse to believe that in our country an honorable
business cannot be conducted successfully by honorable methods."
"That depends on what you choose to call honorable methods. At any
rate," I concluded in disgust, "you are likely to have a good chance to
try that proposition to the bitter end, unless you take my advice and
sell to your chief competitor."
He waived this aside impatiently.
"Well, then, look for the fight of your life just to survive, not to
make money. I tell you, Mr. Dround, Strauss is out there waiting to eat
us all up. And you have thrown him your general for a beginning."
"But I trust that I have another as good or better," he said with his
usual flourish of courtesy.
We had some more talk, he urging me to stay with him, although I let him
see plainly where I stood on the matter of rebates, private agreements,
and all the rest of the underground machinery of business.
"If I take your offer," I said at last, "I shall use the old
weapons--you must know that. There are no morals in business that I
recognize except those that are written on the statute book. It is dog
eat dog, Mr. Dround, and I don't propose to be the dog that's eaten."
Even then he did not stop urging me, salving his conscience by saying:
"It saddens me to hear as young a man as you take that cynical view. It
is a strange time we are coming to. I pray it may not be a worse time
for the country!"
To my mind there was something childish in the use of those words
"better" and "worse." Every age is a new one, and to live in any age you
have got to have the fingers and toes necessary for that age. The forces
which lie in us and make those triumph who do triumph in the struggle
have been in men from the beginning of time. There's little use in
trying to stop their sweep, or to sit and cry like Dround by the
roadside, because you don't like the game. For my part, I went with the
forces that are, willingly, gladly, believing in them no matter how ugly
they might look. So history reads: the men who lead accept the
conditions of their day. And the others follow along just the same;
while the world works and changes and makes itself over according to its
destiny.
CHAPTER XIII
THE WILL OF A WOMAN
_A family scene--Sarah's ideas--We dine--Carmichael comes in--Visions
of empire--Almost persuaded--Common people--The touch of mind and
mind--Mr. Dround becomes ill, and we miss Big John--The garden by
the lake--A bit of old marble and other
things--Inspiration--Outlining a campaign--The big gamble_
After all, it was the will of a woman, perhaps of two women, that
settled this business matter, for even in business--in the groping for
position and money--the woman's share is large. Wherever a man's will is
in play she brings her influence, soft and sure and hidden.
When I left Mr. Dround that afternoon I was not ready to put the little
fortune I had made, and, what was more, my life energy, into his forlorn
enterprise. Not to hurt his feelings, I asked for time to consider his
offer, and went home to tell my wife about the change in our affairs,
considerably puzzled what to do. We had just moved into a larger house
near the lake; the place had some pretty ground around it, and a large
stable. It was all that our means warranted, and a little more. But
Sarah had a passion for having people about, and there was a boy now to
be considered. The air was supposed to be better for him farther away
from the city smoke. Sarah had been delicate and nervous ever since the
child was born, and I was glad to have her mind busy with the big new
plaything.
A nurse in uniform was just coming into the gate when I arrived. It
seems that little Ned had a cold, and though he looked lively enough
when I went into his room, Sarah was hovering over him as if he had lung
trouble.
"The doctor thought I should have a trained nurse," Sarah explained. "Of
course he doesn't expect any serious results, but one should take every
precaution. And Mary is so careless, and we have those people coming to
dinner to-night, and are going to the theatre."
I had forgotten that we were to have guests this evening. While we were
dressing, I told Sarah about the trouble between Dround and his old
manager, and how they had finally parted.
"That's just what I should have expected from Mr. Dround!" my wife
exclaimed approvingly. "It must have been annoying for Mr. Dround to
have such a dishonest person connected with him."
"Well, that is one way of looking at it I hadn't thought of!" I laughed.
"That Carmichael man is just an Irish brute! I suppose you have to put
up with such people in the packing business, but I couldn't have them in
my house."
"The Carmichaels don't trouble us much," I replied, smiling to myself at
Sarah's ideas of things. "And John's all right--as honest as most men.
This isn't just a case of stealing somebody's wash from the back yard,
you know."
"But it's just as wrong! It's dishonest!" she cried with a proud tone in
her voice. She came across the room and took hold of me by the
shoulders. "Van, you don't believe in bribing people and such things?
Why, you're too big and strong and handsome"--she gave me a kiss--"to do
such common things!"
"Well, I don't know; it depends how you call it."
But she gave me another kiss, and before we could recover from this
argument there was a knock at the dressing-room door.
"My, Van! There's the first of them, and I haven't my dress hooked. You
run and send Mary to me!" That rather closed the topic for the present.
There were ten of us at dinner, and we tried to keep up a chatter about
the little things that Sarah had trained me to talk of when I was in
company--the theatres and the opera, Mrs. Doodle's new place in the
country, or old Steele's picture by the French painter. But to-night it
was hard work: my thoughts would wander back to the Yards. At last the
ladies left us to put on their wraps, and the men were lighting their
cigars, when a servant told me that a man was waiting in the hall to see
me. It was Carmichael.
"Why didn't you come right out, John?" I exclaimed. "Some of your
friends are out there."
"No, thanks, Van," he growled. "I ain't got my fancy clothes on this
trip, and maybe your wife wouldn't think me good enough for her friends"
(which was pretty close to the truth). "But I come to see you about
something important."
Sarah rustled into the hall just then.
"Van!" she said, bowing coldly to John, "we are all waiting for you."
"Better go, Harrington," Carmichael said sarcastically, reaching for his
hat; "business don't count when there's a party goin' on."
"Oh, it's business!" Sarah's voice could carry a deal of scorn.
"Leave a ticket for me and I'll follow later," I replied impatiently,
leading Carmichael into my library.
"Very well," Sarah answered, and swept out of the hall without a look
for the Irishman.
Carmichael took a cigar, poured out a long drink of whiskey, and thrust
his ungainly figure into a chair before the fire without saying a word.
After a time he ripped out:--
"You aren't thinking of staying with old Dround?"
"That depends--" I began.
"Dround'll go broke inside of two years," he interrupted savagely. "His
credit ain't much to boast of now, and when it gets around that I have
drawn out, it won't improve."
"That's true enough," I admitted.
"The London and Chicago Company is going into the hands of receivers
this week," he went on confidentially. "That was another of your tony
houses managed from England! Strauss'll most likely get their plants at
twenty cents on the dollar, and he'll get Dround when the time comes."
I made no remark, and after smoking for a time he leaned over toward me,
saying impressively:--
"Young feller, do you reckon you can buck up against me and the Strauss
crowd with that one-horse rig?"
[Illustration: "_Young feller, do you reckon you can buck up against me
and the Strauss crowd with that one-horse rig?_"]
It seemed to me highly improbable that any man could
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