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[pgbrk] McCLURE’S MAGAZINE
Contents for May, 1904
COVER DESIGN BY WILLIAM JORDAN
“Rajah" . ......
DRAWN BY CHARLES R. KNIGHT
Frontispiece
The Rogues of a Zoo....... . A. W. Rolker 3
ILLUSTRATED BY CHARLES R. KNIGHT
A Spring Sunday....... Sarah Orne Jewett 13
ILLUSTRATED BY MARGARET ECKERSON
The House of Fulfilment.....George Madden Martin 19
PART I--ALEXINA
Ben Zoni’s Matinee........ 34
ILLUSTRATED BY ANNA WHELAN BETTS
Joseph Blethen
The Reign of Lawlessness...... Ray Stannard Baker 43
On the Saddle Bow Range .... Alvah Milton Kerr 57
ILLUSTRATED BY POWER O'MALLEY
The History of the Standard Oil Company The Editor 67
EDITORIAL ANNOUNCEMENT
The Poet Moon........ Florence Wilkinson 67
POEM
The Doubting of the Doctor .... Henry C. Rowland 68
ILLUSTRATED BY URQUHART WILCOX
How Hayes Became President . Joseph M. Rogers 76
ILLUSTRATED WITH PORTRAITS
North of Fifty-Three...... Rex E. Beach 88
ILLUSTRATED BY HARRY RALEIGH
The Negro: The Southerner’s Problem . Thomas Nelson Page 96
THIRD AND CONCLUDING PAPER
H. R. H. The Prince of Hester Street. . Myra Kelly 103
ILLUSTRATED BY W. D. STEVENS
Entered as Second-Class Matter at New York (N. Y.) Post-Office, June 9, 1893.
Copyright, 1904, and published monthly by The S. S. McClure Company, 141 East Twenty-fifth Street, New York.
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[pgbrk]
[pgbrk] "Rajah”
"let out a vicious blood-curdling cry, and shot through the air ”
[pgbrk] McCLURE'S MAGAZINE
VOL. XXIII MAY, 1904 No. 1
THE ROGUES OF A ZOO
BY
A. W. ROLKER
AUTHOR OF ‘‘BABIES OF THE ZOO"
ILLUSTRATED BY CHARLES R. KNIGHT
IN our menageries there are good animals and bad animals ; bad individuals among the good species, and occasionally good ones among the bad — exactly as we have good and bad tribes among the races of men, and bad and good individuals among those tribes. As might be expected, the most confirmed, incorrigible scamps of a menagerie are among the felines, those great, splendid cats of gorgeous-colored pelts, whose every impulse and instinct seem treachery and destruction. And yet, the lion and his family contribute but partly to the list of dangerous captives. Almost every family, including even those of birds, has its dangerous members — taken all in all, a surprisingly numerous and formidable array of “ zoo ” rogues.
Of all the big, dangerous cats, none is more unapproachable and more treacherous than the black panther. Hailing from the heart of the deepest African jungle, lithe and supple of body, alert and nervous, this stealthy marauder exceeds in ferocity even a Bengal tiger. He is the only big feline that the lion trainer does not venture to train ; and he is the only cat so absolutely distrustful that he shuns even the light of day. Often he will lie all day long in a dusky corner of his cage, his yellow slit-eyes shifting and gleaming restlessly. Even the feeding hour, when pandemonium
breaks loose among the big cages, when hungry roars and squeals mingle with impatient snarls and impacts of heavy bodies against steel bars, is apt to have no effect on him. He may lie eyeing his chunk of raw beef suspiciously, and not venture forth until day has waned and the last visitor has left, to tear meat from bones with his long, white fangs. In fact, so ugly and vicious is this beast, that, frequently, he turns on his own kind, and in many instances it is impossible to cage him, even with a mate.
In the Walter Main Circus menagerie, a fierce duel, which did not end even after life was extinct, happened one night between “Bob” and “Bess,” a pair of fine black panthers but recently imported from Africa direct. In the small, dark hours of morning, the keeper on watch was startled by angry snarls, soft pads falling heavily, and the clatter of steel bars in their sockets. The animals, both with wide gashes laid open in their thick, glossy pelts, were rolling over and over, panting and snarling, and each sinking fangs and claws deep into the other, unmindful of the prods of a pitchfork with which the lone witness tried to separate them. The frightful pace of the fight soon told, and with a piercing cry one fastened his jaws on the other’s throat and, although seemingly lifeless, held on in a death grip that brought the victor to the ground.
Copyright, 1904, by The S. S. McClure Co. All rights reserved.
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THE ROGUES OF A ZOO
In too many cases, but little chivalry exists between a pair of cat animals, and sometimes, in “ turning" violently, a beast exhibits the most cunning treachery, as in the case of “ Senor Lopez,” the New York Zoological Park jaguar, who killed ‘ ‘ Ray-da,” his new cage mate, in one of the foulest attacks of which even a human traitor might be guilty. Of all the splendid cat animals in the Park's splendid lion house, Lopez was the last whom the experts considered treacherous. He was a fine, tall, noble beast, big and powerful as many an Indian tiger, with a skin of rich yellow, beautifully marked with clear, black spots,
and a quick, intelligent, handsome face. He was considered an exemplary animal. Unlike vicious cats, he neither snarled nor charged the bars of his cage, but delighted in lying on his back, kitten fashion, while the keeper scratched with a stick the thick, glossy pelt, and the big fellow purred with satisfaction. Both physically and in disposition he was such a splendid animal that it was decided to secure him a mate. And all the way from Hamburg, in a little oak traveling cage, Rayda came, a beautiful, almost full-grown female jaguar, so docile that she answered to name, and fawned against the bars of her cage for the caress and pats of her keeper.
Before a pair of wild animals are caged together it is necessary to find how they will get along. Rayda s little cage was raised to the level of Lopez s spacious one. The big fellow was greatly interested in his visitor. He bounded back and forth, showing every evidence of joy and, when the cages were pushed bars to bars, he reached through and passed a- huge, soft paw across her back while she fawned as near as possible, not only without the least sign of fear, but purring with satisfaction and interested only in the prospects of a larger cage and a companion in captivity.
For two days the cages were face to face, Lopez continuing to coax and court his new-found friend ; and all the time with murder in his mind. Not even Rayda’s keen, wild instinct penetrated the treachery ; for, when the doors were opened, with every evidence of glee she bounded into the den. From the instant she entered the true purpose of the jaguar was shown. He lay in a far corner— his entire bearing, even to the expression of his face, changed. Crouching low, every nerve and sinew tense and twitching nervously for his aim, the great beast was on the verge of a spring. Suddenly the yellow body darted through the cage in a long high bound, and, before the friendly animal could raise a paw in defense, he had her by the neck and held on like a bull-dog, sinking his teeth deeper and deeper till they crunched on the vertebrae. From the first bite Rayda seemed utterly helpless. The enraged jaguar was beaten over the head and prodded in the face with iron bars and poles. But he merely closed his eyes and tightened his grip until the punishment rained so thick that he jumped to his feet, took the one hundred and fifty pound body as a cat holds a kitten, and bounded to a far corner of his cage. It was fully a minute before the murderer could be forced from his prey ; and what so recently had been a lovable although wild creature lay dead.
At first it was supposed that Lopez’s canine teeth had penetrated the jugular vein, but an autopsy revealed the strength of the jaguar's frightful jaws. Two of the neck vertebra had been crushed and splintered and the spinal cord had been penetrated by fragments of the bone, causing paralysis almost from the very first.
“ this crooked-necked servant of man has turned rogue ”
[pgbrk] A. W. ROLKER
5
Often, especially in trained wild-animal shows, an obedient and perfectly manageable feline develops into a rogue ; in fact, when these huge cats grow old and lazy they become slow to obey their masters, and, upon being urged repeatedly, the day comes when they resent and turn on their trainers. Such a case was that of the splendid performing tiger, “Rajah,'’ of the Frank C. Bostock animal show. Rajah was a mighty, handsome beast, measuring nearly twelve feet from tip to tip, with a face full of grim wrinkles and a bright, smooth, deep orange pelt, black-striped as if painted. As a performer he had few equals ; he was quick to learn and quick to obey and, best of all, he seemed to like his work. He had learned to sit on his haunches like a poodle, to wrestle with his trainer, to jump through a hoop, and to play see-saw on a huge plank with another big tiger.
For five years Rajah was a model animal, and then the inevitable change came. He seemed to lose interest. He became slow to obey and sulked. A sulking tiger who threatens to turn adds spectacularly to the interest of a performance and, always within limits, a trainer prizes an animal of this kind. Rajah passed this limit one afternoon while performing in the big stage cage. He got his cue but never budged and, when the long whalebone trainer's whip flicked him lightly, back went the ears, the mouth opened, the lips drew back showing long, yellow teeth, and, as the tail switched, the beast crouched for a spring. It was high time to have it out on the spot. With a whip in each hand the trainer cut the fine fellow right and left, and it seemed as if the tiger were cowed when, quick as lightning, he turned with an angry snarl, let out a vicious bloodcurdling cry, and shot through the air. Down went the man, the tiger’s claws fastened in a shoulder, splintering the blade.
When a tiger attacks a man, generally he tries to “ get all over him ” at once, but, strangely, this beast kept his hold like a bulldog, dragged the yelling prey to a corner of the huge cage, and made ready for defense. From all sides ran trainers and keepers, with whips and clubs and bars and pitchforks, to fight the blood-mad brute ; but it was not until the muzzle of a six-shooter was thrust against his face and a singeing blank cartridge emptied that
he let go his hold to wander into an exhibiting cage, where he will finish his days.
Another distinct type of a zoo rogue is the beast that goes wrong owing to accidental temptation — like “Shaggy,” a colleague of Rajah, and an exceedingly intelligent, tractable Rocky Mountain grizzly, who reverted to savagery and turned man-killer in a twinkling, owing to the unfortunate misstep and fall of his trainer. Shaggy was a big, handsome, gray old fellow, with a jungle-thick coat and a lumbering, awkward gait, and a funny twinkle that, made him particularly adaptable for his part of clown in a remarkably trained group of fourteen bears. He had come under the hands of his teacher when but a helpless cub, had never lost his liking for caresses, and, although the mightiest beast in the collection, was least suspected of being dangerous. Once, when a striped hyena hung to the ankle of his friend, he had run to the rescue, had cut loose right and left with his ponderous fore paws, and had bitten and torn and mangled the ugly beast to death before he could be beaten off. Among his accomplishments were that of turning admirably grotesque somersaults, and the more difficult feat of balancing himself on his hind legs on a three-foot wooden sphere. Not a scratch or a scar had his trainer to show for the years of work he had put in with the bear. And yet, without an instant’s warning, this same beast attacked and injured his master so that, when rescued, he was semi-demented, and so dreadfully cut and lacerated that the surgeons decided it useless to try to save his life.
The accident happened one winter afternoon in Hednesford, a colliery town in
The jaguar "Rayda"
[pgbrk] 6
THE ROGUES OF A ZOO
Staffordshire, when the show was unusually thronged as the result of a coal strike, and when frost on the ground was trampled to slippery mud by the feet of the crowd. The trainer, a man named Daniels, ascended the short ladder leading to the door of the bears’ cage, the soles of his boots clotted with mud from the mess underfoot.
Nagged by the excitement of a riotous, half-drunken army of spectators, and sleepy and ill-tempered after the rough-road journey of the night before, the bears lay, ugly and forbidding, huddled in a heap. As the band struck up a sharp fanfare — the warning of the coming of the master — contrary to training, and as if preconcertedly, not a bear stirred. The next moment, when Daniels, entering and closing the door after him, slipped and fell heavily to the floor, a dozen of the big angry customers, every ferocious instinct aroused at seeing the conqueror prostrate, were on their feet. With a deep savage growl, Shaggy, the grizzly, jumped to the fore with incredible agility, and before the unfortunate man could move a hand in defense, the bear was upon him — ‘'worrying” him. As if starved and plunging into a long-expected meal, the mad monster sank his teeth into the man’s side, and rolled him and tumbled him, and picked him up and shook him as a terrier shakes a rat, while, contrary to rule in such experiences, the riotous throng, a typical strike mob, crowded nearer and nearer the cage for closer view, thus making arrival of assistance almost impossible. Keepers and trainers tried in vain to butt through the press of humanity, while shouts and cries and yells threatened a riot and spurred the bear who, crazed by the taste of blood, bit and tore and pawed and mangled his helpless victim until the owner of the show, a man of herculean strength, picked up an oak club, clubbed his way through the crowd, entered the cage, and attacked the bear. Three times the rescuer, dragging his burden by the neck and fighting with his free arm, took the man from the bear, and each time, at the very door of the cage, the beast regained his prey, until a terrific, luckily placed blow across the nose sent him prostrate and stunned. Then the quivering, mangled, whimpering Thing, a brave man fifteen minutes before, was borne on a shutter to a near-by inn, where he died, blessing his rescuer over
and over again, a half dozen surgeons gazing helplessly on — a victim of a rogue supposed by some a rarely vicious and much maligned beast.
Formidable and treacherous though all zoo rogues are, by the profession none probably is so thoroughly despised as the hyena, that striped or spotted, slope-backed, bristly, loping, gawky, green-eyed ghoul that laughs in shrieks when she should cry, and whose iron jaws can crush and crunch bones that would seem too thick and tough even for those of a lion or tiger. Abject cowards to the core, these creatures rarely attack man or beast unless they can grab treacherously from behind or unless they greatly outnumber the enemy, as happened in the Barnum and Bailey “show" when, in the darkness, an animal surgeon blundered into a hyena den in the circus winter quarters at Bridgeport, Conn.
There was in this Noah’s Ark, alongside a cage of hyenas, a duplicate cage containing a young lion cub. The little fellow, prized because one of an exceptionally fine litter, was indisposed and under treatment by the menagerie surgeon, who, one night, shortly before retiring, planned a last call on his patient. Anxious to finish his work, the man took a lantern, hastened to a cage, opened the door, and was in the midst of half a dozen snarling, ugly hyenas. In the semi-darkness he had mistaken the cages. With bristling hair, teeth gnashing, snarling, the beasts attacked, now darting forward to fasten their fangs and again dodging back to escape the blows from the lantern, while one ugly customer who had been struck stood in a corner, loping up and down in one spot, giving vent to the most freakish, fiendish laughter. The surgeon, not a practical wild-animal man, beat right and left with his lantern, instinctively doing the only proper thing for defense, until the brutes stood cowed and cornered. Instead of backing toward the door, however, the captive lost his head, and had scarcely turned to make a break for liberty when he went down with a yell, grabbed at an ankle and a calf by a pair of hyenas. Like a flash the others were upon him. Into both arms, a hip, a leg and two ankles, sank the sharp teeth, holding tight and tearing, while the tortured man cried for help. Night keepers with iron scrapers ran to the rescue and soon drove off the cowardly foe. Much
[pgbrk] "Shaggy,” the grizzly bear “who reverted to savagery and turned man-killer in a twinkling”
bruised and considerably torn, the victim picked himself up, while the loping dancer's mad laughter grated hard and shrill in the night.
Among the birds is at least one dangerous wild captive whom few would pick as a formidable rogue. This is the ostrich — that huge, grayish-brown bird, whose long, stout, fleet legs can outrun the fastest horse ever put on a track, and would put to blush the business end of a mule. Gazing at one of these greatbodied, snake-necked, small-headed, and big-eyed creatures as he stands stupidly in a stall of a menagerie, one would never suspect him of the tremendous execution of which he is capable. A single kick from an ostrich is enough to fell a hyena,
to knock over a full grown leopard, or to break the leg of a man as if it were pipestem.
A serious attack by an angry ostrich happened a couple of years ago, when a green keeper entered the cage of one of these birds at the Glen Island menagerie and prodded him with a fork. The ostrich, a crabbed old bird, had turned repeatedly on a former keeper and driven him from the stall, and it required little provocation to madden him to attack a stranger. While spreading straw, the man carelessly pricked the animal with a prong of the fork, and like a flash the great bird began to fight. He jumped high in the air and, on coming down, kicked out forward, ripping downward with frightful force, the long, sharp
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THE ROGUES OF A ZOO
claws of his toes cutting through clothes and gashing the breast in two wide, parallel slashes, clean to the bones. Down went the man and, with one of those lion-like roars which so often deceives the African desert traveler, the furious bird jumped in the air and brought his two hundred and eighty pounds down upon him, kicking, sending sledge-hammer pecks from his long hard bill, and using his weight to trample and jounce the life out of the prostrate one. Under the fierce charge the man was helpless as a child and was unconscious
when rescued. Examination showed that if the claws had struck six inches lower, the victim would have been disemboweled.
From time immemorial the camel has been considered a docile beast; but there are instances when even this tall, gawky, hump-backed, crooked-necked servant of man has turned rogue. When the camel attacks, it is with teeth and feet. The broad, flat, dull grinders, intended by nature to masticate grass and grain, turn to frightful weapons when used as a means
of attack and defense, and yet, the biting of an infuriated camel is as nothing compared to the terrific execution of which the beast is capable with its legs. Like most wild animals of heavy weight, the camel utilizes it so that a victim, once under its feet, rarely escapes being trampled to a pulp. What happens to an enemy attacked by one of these creatures was shown in the Adam Forepaugh Circus menagerie, when a rogue camel trampled a half-grown one hundred and fifty pound pet black bear who had escaped from his cage.
Among a herd of twenty fine camels belonging to this show was “Bedouin,” a beautiful “racing camel,” fresh from Arabia. His back still showed half-healed scars of saddle-galls : he had been otherwise abused and, despite the depressing effect of a long sea voyage, was so extremely ugly that he had to be muzzled. In fact, he was so vicious that only the aweinspiring presence of a huge elephant on each side prevented his running away and clearing the streets. As an inmate of a
Hyenas
“ the green-eyed ghouls that laugh in shrieks when they should cry”
[pgbrk] A. W. ROLKER
9
stationary zoo, Bedouin would not have been so dangerous ; but in a circus menagerie, where men and beasts are crowded and where frequent handling of the animals is necessary, he was a risky captive to have around. Exactly like an ugly horse, he poked back his ears, gave vent to a harsh, weird, rasping cry, and snapped and bit and kicked so no one could near him.
One morning a mischievous, half-grown black bear found a plank loose in his cage, ripped it up, widened the hole, and darted from tent to tent, pursued by a score of animal-men who finally cornered him in front of the stall of the bad camel. From the moment the intruder appeared the ugly beast prepared for attack. Ears thrown back, mouth and nostrils wide open, the ordinarily stolid camel-face was distorted with demon-like fury. In vain the men tried to head off the bear. He backed more and more toward the rogue, unmindful of danger until, with incredible speed, the yellow head shot forth like that of a python. With a weird cry of defiance, as if the heavy bear were a mere whisp of hay, with his big mouth he grasped the unfortunate by the neck, lifted him high from the floor, and the next moment poor Bruin was under foot. The mad camel jumped up and down on his forelegs until the fine young beast lay unrecognizable and flattened like a piece of blotting-paper.
If the camel is only occasionally a sinner, as a species of hardened criminals among placid herbiverous animals none is worse than the bison or American buffalo. Toward man and beast and even among themselves, these vicious, vindictive and agile brutes, whose half-brothers on other continents do not fear even the terrific onslaughts of lions and tigers, are in a state of almost continual warfare. Eagerly-cropping grass from a meadow, or luxuriously wallowing in the swamp-mud of their ranges, a herd of these giant, brown, ponderous-headed, shaggy patriarchs make a scene of peace and contentment. Yet they are among the wickedest rogues and most aggressive fighters ever seen in a zoo. Sullen and ugly, they often become furious to madness without the least provocation, and frequently attack one another with serious or fatal results.
A fight of this sort was that between “Antonio,” a king of rogues in the fine
herd at the New York Zoological Park, and “Black Beauty,” a young, magnificent, full-grown bull. The fight began when, without the least apparent cause, Antonio attacked his rival. Battering-ram head lowered, tail stiff, and eyes red, the wickedhorned brute galloped across the range, bearing down on the distant inoffensive youngster, who stood sniffing the air, pawing the ground, and working himself into a fury, until, with a snort and a toss of the head, he started to meet the foe. Down went the nose toward the ground, the short, thick horns showing through the shaggy tangle of hair, and with the "Hugh!" hugh ! " of fury escaping the wide, red nostrils at every bound, he charged headlong, like an animated, irresistible catapult. With the frightful momentum of two 2000-pound bodies moving at the speed of race-horses, the bulls came together in a cloud of dust and sod. Antonio went down. Had the bulls met head on, their necks must have been broken. However only Antonio lay prostrate, trying desperately to rise and to bellow, while, contrary to bison custom, the victor refused to follow his advantage, and turned to take his place at the head of the herd.
Antonio's wound was a dreadful one. With the full impact of his ton weight. Black Beauty had battered against the breast of his antagonist, burying his frightful horn to the butt, at the same time rooting upward with the full strength of his wonderful neck. Torn and ragged was the wound, ten inches long, four inches wide, and clear into a lung. Every time the poor creature breathed, the air wheezed out of the awful gore, and within twelve hours he was dead — a rogue killed and another evolved ; for to-day Black Beauty is as vicious as Antonio was at his worst.
One of the most mighty and most formidable zoo rogues is that rare captive, the rhinoceros. Among numerous distinct species of this animal some, like the Javanese rhinoceros, become so docile that natives saddle and ride them much as we ride horses. But some of these hideous-headed, ponderous, and wonderfully agile beasts are among the most ferocious in captivity. The Central Park menagerie in New York has one of this sort, “Smiles,” the black “rhino” cow from Africa, a sad instance, showing how a wild animal may be made irreparably ugly by neglect and abuse.
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THE ROGUES OF A ZOO
For ten years this unfortunate was cooped in a cage too small to turn around in, traveling five thousand miles a season with a circus, and when finally turned loose in a spacious elephant stall in the Park she proved one of the most vicious beasts in the menagerie. Unable to see well ahead in a straight line (owing to the position of the eyes), and guided mainly by most acute scent and hearing, at first the least suspicious noise excited the cow to a frenzy, and she would rush like a mad bull, driving her
fourteen-inch horn through the two-inch sheathing of her stall, and knocking the planks into splinters. In time, after her stall was lined with sheet iron, she calmed down ; but even to-day, after the “ rhino” has spent seventeen years in her new home, it would be worth his life for a keeper to enter the stall without first roping and tying the beast. And, at that, she once managed to break loose and came within an ace of getting her man.
Early one morning Smiles’s keeper was alone in the big elephant house, forking straw in a corner of her stall, ropes creaking, the “rhino” working and straining furiously against the fetters around her neck and head, when, with a crack, one of the ropes parted. Startled, the man tried to make a rush for the door, but with a mighty twist of the ugly head and neck, the animal broke the remaining rope, and at a glance the keeper saw he was not only headed off but cornered. The beast rushed with lowered head and horn tilted forward to run its keeper through. With a yell for
help, the man bounded toward the wall. About eight feet from the floor was a horizontal joist, and with a superhuman effort he jumped for this, reached it, and drew himself up in the very nick of time. The “rhino” struck him head first, rooting upward with her horn. The murderous thing struck in the opening of the trousers leg, ripped overalls, uniform breeches, and drawers from ankle to hip, but not as much as scratched the skin. The noise and rumpus of the attack brought assistance, and with pitchforks and iron bars the bad cow was driven off, and the keeper rescued from his perch.
Numerous as the menagerie rogues and their diverse and perilous attacks may appear, the greatest rogue and murderer of them all remains to be described. This is the rogue or “must” elephant. In his frightful paroxysms of rage, the enormous animal recognizes neither friend nor foe. To sweep like lightning with the huge python trunk, grasp a keeper and hurl him from on high or under frightful feet, to impale him on polished, four-foot tusks, or kneeling, crush him to an unrecognizable mass, this becomes the aim of the erstwhile gentle, willing friend. With the supernatural strength of madness, a rogue will snap massive leg chains as if they were of bog grass, splinter his stall with his tusks, and smash six-inch square timbers to flinders.
One of the more recent instances of bad elephants was Barnum and Bailey’s famous clown “ Mandarin,” who killed three men and maimed a fourth, and was finally strangled by a steam winch on board the steamship “Minneapolis,” just before the menagerie reached New York harbor from its tour abroad. As a tall, gaunt, hungry, five-year-old, Mandarin had joined the show thirty years ago, had grown into a splendid, intelligent, gray mountain of good nature, and never showed even a trace of ugliness until the circus was “ doing ” France. Flap ears cocked forward, trunk swinging restlessly and little eyes growing more and more bloodshot, the fine fellow stood, ceaselessly swaying his six tons from side to side. The animal, however, showed no inclination toward ugliness until a substitute trainer was duped into putting the tricky old rascal through his paces. The man laid himself flat on the ground to have the elephant walk over him, exactly as the
Black “ rhino” cow from Africa
[pgbrk] A. W. ROLKER
11
big clown had walked over men thousands of times before. As usual, the beast advanced, head bobbing with every step ; he lifted his ponderous foot, let it hover over the man, then, with shrill trumpeting of fury, planted it squarely on the unfortunate's chest with all the pressure of his four thousand pounds. Blasting madly, the animal started on a run, picked up a hyena cage and smashed it, with one blow of his trunk broke the back of a mule, and would have cleared out the show were it not for a pair of equally huge tuskers that were brought in on a run to butt and prod the crazy one back to his senses.
In the old days, likely, the huge policemen would have been made to rope and throw and tie the mutineer and he would have been seared with red-hot crowbars and sledge-heads until he “squealed” as a sign of submission — or else, died under the torture. But the modern way of handling a bad elephant is to fill him up with opiates. Mandarin’s spell yielded to the treatment ; but within six months it returned, worse than before. This time a stable boy who was cleaning the rogue's stall was the victim. Without an instant’s warning the crazy beast sent forth a scalp-raising trumpet-call, like a flash wound his big trunk, raised the lad on high, hurled him to the floor, smashing every bone in , his body, ran him through and through with his tusks, and was just kneeling on the lifeless thing when assistance arrived. With elephant-hooks, crowbars, axes, pitchforks, and rhinoceros-hide whips, the beast was beaten off—and never a squeal out of him.
There was a consultation on the spot as to whether elephants should be led forth to strangle the villain. In fact, the noose of cable-rope for the giant throat and the blocks and tackle and elephant-harness, with which the tame beasts were to choke the murderer, were gotten ready. But the circus was on the point of moving to another town and just then had no time to bother with the execution. And thereafter, as if his appetite were appeased by the murderous spree, Mandarin became a model of propriety and earned a respite. As a precaution, however, a four-inch leather-covered chain was passed around the gigantic barrel, and chains running from this surcingle, between the fore legs, were connected with the tusks, thus form-
ing a martingale that prevented the free use of the head. Double chains were fastened around the fat hind legs, and so the rogue stood remorsefully until he was put aboard the “ Minneapolis.’’
There an intoxicated longshoreman, not knowing the character of the dangerous animal, ventured near him, began to tease, and finally entered the big, crate-like cage. The giant simply threw his full weight against the intruder, crushing him instantly. The trumpetings of rage aroused
keepers and trainers, and one of the former, a negro, ran with uplifted ele-phant-hook to bury it into the wicked trunk. Quick as thought, the great, black flail was poised over the man. Down it came with the force of a trip-hammer, knocking him thirty feet, unconscious, across the deck of the vessel, with both shoulder-blades broken — which sealed the doom of Mandarin.
When thirty miles off Sandy Hook the crazy tusker was killed. Ashore, probably, a bran mash of cyanide of potassium would have ended the wicked life ; or it might have been snuffed out by electrocution, as was that of the bad Coney Island elephant, “Topsy,” who dropped like a log when 6,000 volts were sent darting through her system. But on board ship, strangulation by a steam winch was the easiest method. A ship's cable was bent into a huge noose, which was slipped over the great head, while the donkey-engine began to rattle and clatter, drawing the noose tighter and tighter. Details of the execution are neither
Black panther
[pgbrk] ‘"Mandarin ”
“who killed three men and maimed a fourth"
necessary nor "nice.” The animal died game, without a scream or whisper, holding breath for the enormously long period of two minutes and forty seconds before he went crashing headlong, breaking an eight by eight timber as his six tons toppled in a
heap. Then the huge cage, weighted with five thousand pounds of old chains and scrap iron, was raised by derrick and, with a tremendous splash, disappeared into the sea — the last tragic scene in the life of a King of Rogues.
[pgbrk] A SPRING SUNDAY
BY
SARAH ORNE JEWETT
ILLUSTRATED BY MARGARET ECKERSON
I
ALONZO HALLETT and his wife had just finished an excellent Sunday morning breakfast and gone into their comfortable sitting-room together. Mr. Hallett had taken up the clumsy Sunday newspaper and then laid it aside with a gesture of disinclination. Mrs. Hallett was standing at the hay window in her handsome black silk dress with a gold chain for discreet decoration ; she looked as if she meant to go to church ; her smooth hair was dressed with security and care, as if in anticipation of a best bonnet. One of the window sashes was open and the spring breeze was blowing in and ruffling the light locks about her calm, motherly forehead.
“ Oh, what a lovely morning this is ! ’’ she exclaimed wistfully, and then they waited for each other to speak. They had arrived long ago at the complete certainty of such a thing as thought-transference ; and Mr. Hallett knew that there was something on his wife's mind.
"I don’t know’s I want to sit cooped up in that close church all the morning, ” he announced gruffly. “ Seems to me I want to get out doors and go off somewhere ; I've got real spring-feelings, just like a boy. Can't you think of something else, Mary Ann ? "
Mrs. Hallett looked pleased, and then unexpectedly reproachful. “ We ought to think of the example toothers,” she answered, but she spoke half-heartedly.
“ If living an honest decent life, so far's both of us know, for sixty-two years, ain't going to carry us over just this one Sunday, why, then, there ain't no such thing as the power of example in this world,” responded the man aggressively. “And
what's more — you know it, Mary Ann ! ”
“There now, Alonzo, don't you go to arguing about nothing and getting all stirred up. I'll tell you what did come to my mind this morning when we were gettin’ us dressed, and I must say I put on this silk dress to go to meeting with a real unwilling heart: I was thinking how I should like to go out to Miller Falls, where we lived when we were first married, and see how it looks. You know the trolley car runs way out there now, and we could take what we needed to eat in your coat pockets and go over on the hill where we used to go just such spring days as this an' sit an' talk about what we were goin’ to do for the children, and you'd tell me all about your business freer than ever you would in the house. I could go right to the same place under those old beech trees "
Alonzo’s face was beaming like a boy’s. “ You’d better take a little basket or one o’ your fancy hand-bags or something,” he commanded. “ I ain’t going to lug round my great winter overcoat any such day as this, I can tell you ! ”
“Why don’t you wear your light-colored fall one ? ” she suggested, still standing in the bay window, and looking pleased and young. "I think tis goin’ to be warm. I'll tell you what we’ll do ; I'm glad's I can be that I told Nora she should have the day and I'd get what dinner we wanted myself. She said her sister's baby was going to be christened. We’ll let her go off quick's she gets the kitchen cleared, and then we'll wait ourselves till folks have all got into church and we sha’n’t attract notice, and we’ll slip down to Blossom Street and take the car. I ain't goin’
[pgbrk] “ ‘ I could go right to the same place under those old beech trees’ ”
to wear this dress now, Lonzo ; of course, I ain't : and you'd better take off those best pantaloons, but we ought to go looking nice and fit for Sunday. What if we chanced to meet somebody ? ”
“ I’m goin' to wear my old gray suit of all ; I want to feel free and have some comfort ! Now don’t you go all prepared for an extra occasion, Mary Ann ! "
‘ ‘ Remember what day ’tis, Alonzo,’’ the wife said firmly. “Folks knows us now wherever we go, and we’ve got to consider it. If you’re goin' to sneak a fish-line into your pocket and toll me way over back o’ Miller's Hill, same’s you did once when we were first married an’ I hadn't learnt suspicion, I'll sit right down here now an’ make you go to meetin’ same's usual. I expect the sexton'll make a bigger fire’n he’s had all winter too, and there won t be a single window let down at the top.
An’ "
“ Oh, you go along, Mary Ann ; none o’
those threats are goin' to move me. You scoot Nora right off quick's you can, an’ get us somethin' hearty to eat, an' don’t forget to lay me out the right pair o' pantaloons. I want a pair that you won't be tellin' me all day I’m goin' to ruin — ” but Mary Ann had already vanished from the room, and with a cheerful smile Mr. Alonzo Hallett betook himself to the front door. He stood there smiling, and gazing up and down the street to see and feel if the weather were really as pleasant as it looked.
II
An hour or two later, the church-goers of the neighborhood having gone their ways and disappeared from sight, this large, prosperous looking couple set forth together. The car station on Blossom Street was directly on the way to their usual place of worship.
“ What you hurryin’ so for, Mary Ann ? ” protested the husband. “We shall be all
[pgbrk] SARAH ORNE JEWETT
15
beat out, both of us, and have to sit down an' get our breath and come to on some o' these doorsteps. I do believe you've been thinkin’ somebody’s lookin' out, and you want to cheat 'em into supposin' we're belated for church. Come now ; we’ve got safe by Miss Pecker’s house anyway, but she’s seen us striking out at a pace we can't neither of us maintain. The bell stopped tollin’ before I locked the front door, so the mischief's done anyway.”
“ She's a regular spy-cat ; I didn't know what talk she might make ; askin’ everybody, as she would, if they knew where we was goin’ on a Sunday morning,” answered Mrs. Hallett frankly. “Yes ; do let's walk a mite slower ; we ain't either of us so light on our feet as we were once. I seem to gain right along, and I don't sit still near as much as I used to when I had such a sight of sewing to set and do for the children.”
"I think you look all the better for it.” said Alonzo eagerly. “You keep your looks better’n any o’your mates, say what they may,” and Mary Ann flushed with pleasure. Her husband had always been a good-natured man, but not much versed in the language of compliment.
“ You're the finest looking man that goes into our church, Alonzo,” she insisted.
‘ ‘ There ain't nobody I see ”
‘ ‘ Oh, come ; yes, there is ! ” said Alonzo, joking easily. “ You're far too partial ; all I can say is, I'm full o’ heartfelt pleasure that I ain’t goin’ into our church to-day. Some other man can bear off the palm for beauty just this once ! ” and they both laughed heartily. There was a car in sight, and a golden robin was singing on an elm branch overhead as if spring never could come without his help.
There was nobody in the trolley car whom they knew except the conductor, who was very lenient and gave no occasion for the least apology. He knew that Mr, Hallett had been settled in business at Miller Falls early in life, and appeared to think nothing wrong of his choice of a day to revisit it. “You an' Mis’ Hallett ain't never seen this new route, have you?” he asked as he returned from his careful round of fare-taking. “It’s a pretty piece of road, but needs a little more ballasting out by Dougherty’s place where we had a washout this spring. Great convenience for the Miller Falls folks, ain't it?" he
added as lie went out to the platform. “ They began to look kind o' mossy.”
“I guess it is. 'Twas always hard to get anywhere from there,” commented Mr. Hallett to his wife, settling back into his seat. “ This was a very hard road for teams, and the heavy loads always went the way that was a steady drag up hill. Best thing I ever done was when I pulled up stakes and come into the city. How scared you felt about it, thinkin' ’twas too much risk, and we ought to wait till we’d got ahead more. First year's business I done where I am now was over three times what it had ever been out there. Our expenses were heavier, of course.”
“You knew all about that better'n I did ; yes, it's all turned out just as you said,” agreed the wife, moving a little nearer to him as a new passenger came in. “ I'd just got the house to look sort of pretty and feel comfortable out there and ’twas just like pullin' us right up by the roots. Little Addie died that winter before, you remember, and I always associated that house with her. I couldn't bear to go out there for a long while after we come away ; that settin’-room window was the one she always ran to when twas time for you to come home from the store, or when I'd been out and hadn't taken her — I most always did. It seems to me I can see her little bright face there now ! ” Alonzo’s fatherly face clouded over. “I don't want to get talkin’ that all over,” he said kindly enough. “ I want us to have a good nice time to-day, mother. Yes, she certain was the prettiest one of all our children ; ’twas the hardest thing ever happened to me in all my life that we should have to lose her,” and he gave a deep sigh and looked sharply at an old house that the car was passing.
“Didn't that house used to be painted white ? ” asked Mary Ann Hallett, without looking at him again, for the quick tears had sprung to her eyes. “I can't bear these fancy cheap colors on good old-fashioned buildings. That time, you know, when you stopped 'em painting our
church---- ”
“I gave ’em warning in parish meeting that I should withdraw my subscription. Two shades o’ olive green they wanted it, some of 'em with bright red trimmin's ! White's best or a good plain light gray — none o’ your makeshifts o’ splendor for me, says I, and I cowed ’em right down. Taste
[pgbrk] “ they smiled at each other as they used to smile a very long time ago ”
is taste,” announced Mr. Hallett with final emphasis. He was completely freed from his sad memories, hut the mother could not yet see clearly by reason of her bright, unfallen tears. She was thinking that it would be best not to pass the plain little house where they used to live in their early married life, if she could possibly help it. They were rich people now, and there had been a time when this present prosperity had often been compared with their early struggles and seemed to have all the ad-
vantage. Yet little Addie had bloomed and faded there, the one perfect flower that had fallen into their dull lives, while they still lived in the tiny house at Miller Falls. She had gladdened their cheerful poverty, and now in their worldly comfort they were the poorer for her loss.
Ill
The straggling village looked very much as it used to look, as they drew near. It had never grown at all, for, soon after the
[pgbrk] SARAH ORNE JEWETT
17
Halletts had moved away, the small manufactory that had been the mainspring of activity had failed and had been abandoned. The tall chimney stood like a monument of something dead and almost forgotten. There was a short business street with a few shops, and even a tavern, a very poor looking establishment, and two or three side streets with scattered dwellings went a little way up the hill. On the other side of the deep river that had turned the factory wheels was a high hill once covered with evergreens, but these had recently been cut and the chief charm of the place was lost. There was a steep cliff that almost overhung the great chimney, and one side of the hill sloped gently toward the south in rough pastures.
The Halletts eagerly stopped the car as they came to the first houses. “ Let’s get out and have our walk now; I'm tired sitting still,” said Alonzo; but as they strolled along they were conscious of a strange uncertainty of feeling, as if they had come in search of something not easy to find. To enter the village seemed like meeting a stranger when they had unconsciously expected the warm response of a friend. Mrs. Hallett glanced toward the little house where they used to live, then she looked across the river at the rocky pastures. “I don’t see the old beeches either ! ” she exclaimed fretfully.
“Oh, yes; you do! there they are; you’re looking too high up, Mary Ann ! ” declared her husband convincingly. ‘ ‘Why,
I should think you hadn’t been out here for a good deal more than twenty years ! ”
“Twenty’s long enough,’’assented Mary, Ann gloomily. “ It doesn’t look as it used to me — do you mean down there, those little trees ? Do you mean that was where we used to sit and have that lovely wide view down country ? ”
“The leaves aren’t all out yet,” explained Alonzo. “You’d know those trees if the leaves were out; why, you used to go and sit right there in the afternoons and take the children.”
“I don’t know as I can walk so far now,” said Mary Ann. She looked a little pale and tired and Alonzo began to laugh. “It’s just as pretty as ever it was ; perhaps you can get some May-flowers,” he said. “I don't think the old place here looks as if we wanted to spend much
time loungin’ about; these houses look all winter-killed.”
"Perhaps we’d better just catch the car and go back towards home. I saw some real pretty places under the pine trees along the road,” said Mary Ann. Her voice quavered and she looked apprehensively at two women in the distance who were coming toward them down the street.
“Why, what makes you act so timid? I'll tell you what’s the matter with us,” said Mr. Hallett after a moment’s reflection ; “ I guess we’re both getting hungry ! Come along, Mary Ann ; we can’t take back-tracks now, and we’ve come off a good ten miles for a little pleasurin’ an’ I’m bound to have it. Here, let’s cut right down the next street towards the old foot-bridge. I saw somebody pass over it while we’ve been standin’ here, so it’s all safe. All the cows used to pasture t’other side of the river, and I suppose they must have to keep it in repair, even if they let everything else drop to pieces.”
The crisis was passed, and Mary Ann began to smile again When Alonzo took the lead she was always happy enough to follow. At last their feet struck a familiar path, and it seemed at once as if they had walked there together only the day before, with their young children clinging to their hands and chattering. The sober father and mother whose children were all married and settled, with children of their own, unconsciously returned to those first years that they had lived together, with all their natural hopes and cares. The pasture path again became the path of life, and all their thoughts and memories were so clear that they hardly missed the children themselves from the bit of rustic landscape. There was the old pine stump behind which Oliver used to hide, to spring out like an Indian at his younger brothers, and there, down the southerly slope, was the very place where little Addie, the dear child who had died, first saw a pretty company of windflowers crowded together, and toddled down in her pale pink dress to pick the frail blossoms that looked so strangely like her own delicate, wistful little face.
“She always saw flowers everywhere, when none of the others did,” said Mary Ann softly. To-day was almost like having all the children young again and all walking by her side. She turned and looked back at Alonzo, who was coming steadily along in
[pgbrk] 18
A SPRING SUNDAY
the foot-path behind her, and they smiled at each other as they used to smile a very long time ago, when life was all before them and such spring days as these were brimful of hard work and hopeful happiness.
IV
"There now ; don’t the old beeches look big enough to you?” said Alonzo triumphantly, as they went straight to the place where they always used to sit on the soft bank of turf, among the twisting roots.
“Yes, but how little the village looks from here. I used to think it was almost a city; they must have taken away a good many of the houses,” his wife answered wonderingly. “There is our old house over there. I always thought it stood in a pretty place facing south. When we used to dally here too late the sun always caught the end windows, and once or twice I thought ’twas all afire and sent Oliver and Joseph hurrying ahead to see. ’Twas a nice place for them all to play over here. 1 used to bring my sewing and watch them and work away hard as I could. I dare say twas one reason why they all grew up so strong and healthy, having this good play-place.”
“ Yes, they did miss it a good deal when we first moved into town,” acknowledged the father. “ They soon got used to their new mates, though, and going to the big school, and it seems now as if they all scattered very quick. When Oliver thought he must get married, that next winter after he came into the store, do you remember how put out I was, and you recalled the fact that he was six months older than I was when you and I set up together? Come now, let’s see if there's anything good to eat in these pockets ! I wish we’d thought to bring something to drink out of. I’m as thirsty as when we stayed over here all the afternoon huckleberrying ; you most always thought to bring something then. I'll go down and see if the old spring’s clear; I guess I can manage. 'Twouldn’t be so convenient to lie out flat and drink as it used to be,” and the big man laughed at himself and his comfortable, well-clad roundness.
“ I’ve brought that nice foldin' cup you got when we went to the World’s Fair,” said Mary Ann. “You run along down to the spring, Alonzo, and get a good drink
if you want to, and I’ll have your luncheon all ready by the time you get back.
She sat and watched him go away with affectionate pride. The happy thoughts of their long life together fluttered and quivered in her mind. They had had many a day’s hard pull ; Alonzo’s quick temper and her own attack of solid reluctance and unpersuadableness in the face of any new proposition had often pulled down the shadows about their heads, but, whatever the experiences of life had been, he had been the only man in the world for her ; he had held the love of her heart from first to last. Yet she had never, when it came to the final issue, kept him back from taking his own way in business affairs, or the mastery of his home. They had a good deal of money now. Alonzo was looked up to by everybody, not alone by her; they even talked of his being Mayor — he was one of the first citizens in the fast-growing, wide-awake little city where they lived. All their children, too, were respected, and lived comfortably in their own homes.
“I have everything to be thankful for," said good Mary Ann to herself. Her heart began to beat fast and she felt for her handkerchief hastily ; it was a moment of rare happiness. The old beeches had listened to many a lover's vows that had been kept less well than Alonzo’s.
Alonzo himself was looking back at his wife from the spring, after he had taken a long drink of the cool water with its flavor of brown earth and all the roots of herbs that grew about its tiny shores. ‘ ‘ I never was half good enough for her,” he said to himself as Mary Ann waved her hand to him like a girl. “She's kept me back from a sight of rash foolishness. I always went wrong when I went against her judgment ; she looks real young and pretty up there, now that she’s got that prim old bonnet off!” When this constant lover returned he brought an offering of late May-flowers and bright checkerberries held clumsily in his big hand, and gave them to the only woman he had ever loved. There were no anemones, though they were just in bloom and he had stood with a heart full of tenderness looking down at their childish little faces — they would only make her think all over again of little Addie.
Then they had their luncheon; their good hearty sandwiches and squares of
[pgbrk] THE HOUSE OF FULFILMENT
19
spice-cake that Mary Ann always made herself because Alonzo was never satisfied with any other. She had brought food enough, though at first he did not think so, and at the end appeared a bottle of coffee, strong and bright-flavored with just enough sugar in it, the best coffee that Alonzo had ever tasted. It renewed their cheerfulness when Mary Ann divulged the secret of its possession and explained how she had concealed it all the way in the shawl she carried. They laughed and talked together like a boy and girl; the soft air blew in their faces, and it was fragrant with all the spicy fragrance of the spring, of the fields that lay below, warm in the midday sun and cool with the forest airs that drew down from the deep pine and hemlock woods, which still kept the dark secrets of winter.
At last, with one consent, they rose ; by
this time spring clouds thicker than any in the morning sky were hiding away the sun’s warmth and brightness. The elderly man and woman stood there a moment, looking again at the village, where the plain, forsaken houses stood together like a forlorn, unshepherded flock above the river, so small, so meagre, so incapable of charm and pleasantness, for it was not yet the time when June would lend even this dull village some beauty of vines and thick leafage.
“ I wonder if there’s any young couple there now, starting out just as we did, without any more than we had, and just as full of ambition ? ” whispered Mary Ann.
Alonzo Hallett smiled cheerfully. “Well, I hope so, bless their hearts ! ” he said.
Then Mary Ann took his arm and they started back along the foot-path, to take the trolley car again, and go home together.
THE HOUSE OF FULFILMENT
BY GEORGE MADDEN MARTIN
AUTHOR OF “EMMY LOU: HER BOOK AND HEART ”
“Love is enough: ho ye who seek saving,
Go no further: come hither: there have been who have found it,
And these know the House of Fulfilment of craving;
These know the Cup with the roses around it;
These know the World’s Wound and the balm that hath bound it.’’
William Morris.
PART I — ALEXINA
— “ Elements, breeds, adjustments . . .
A new race dominating previous ones.”
Walt Whitman.
CHAPTER 1
HARRIET BLAIR was seventeen when she went with her father and mother and her brother Austen to New Orleans, to the marriage of an older brother, Alexander, his father’s business representative at that place. It was characteristic of the Blairs
that they declined the hospitality of the bride's family, and from the hotel attended, punctiliously and formally, the occasions for which they had come. It takes ease to accept hospitality.
Alexander Blair, the father, banker and capitalist, of Vermont stock, now the richest man in Louisville, was of a stern
[pgbrk] 20
THE HOUSE OF FULFILMENT
ruggedness unsoftened by a long and successful career in the South, while his wife, the daughter of a Scotch schoolmaster settled in Pennsylvania, was the possessor of a thrifty closeness and strong, practical sense.
Alexander, their oldest son, a man of thirty, to whose wedding they had come, was what was natural to expect, a literal, shrewd man with a strong sense of duty as he saw it. His long, clean-shaven upper lip, above a beard, looked slightly grim, and his straight-gazing, blue-gray eyes were stern.
The second son, Austen, was clean-featured, handsome and blond, but he was also, by report, the shrewd and promising son of his father, even as his brother was reported before him.
Harriet, the daughter, was a silent, cold-looking girl, who wrapped herself in reserve as a cover for self-consciousness, but, observing closely, thought to her own conclusions. She had a disillusioning way of baring facts, in these communings, which showed life to her very honestly but without romance or glamour.
At the wedding, sitting in her white dress by her father and mother in the flower-bedecked parlors of the Randolphs, Harriet looked at her brother, standing by the girl of seventeen whom he had just married, and saw things much as they were. In Molly, the bride of an hour, with her child’s face and red-brown hair and shadowy lashes, she saw a descendant of pleasure-loving, ease-taking Southerners. Molly’s father, from what Austen had said, was the dispenser of a lavish and improvident hospitality and a genial dweller on the edge of bankruptcy, while the mother, a belle of the '40’s, some one had just told the Blairs, seemed just the woman to marry her only child to a man opposed to her people in creed, politics, and habits — which in 1860 meant something — but son of one of the richest men in the South.
Harriet ate her supper close by her father and mother. She did not know how to mix with these gay, incidental Southerners, and sitting there, went on with her communings. She could explain it on the Randolph side, but why Alexander was marrying Molly she could not understand. Shy and self-conscious, she knew vaguely of a thing called love. She had met it in
her reading rather than seen its acting forces anywhere about her. To be sure, her brother Austen had been engaged to a Miss Ransome, of Woodford County, a fashionable Kentucky beauty. The Blairs were a narrowly religious people. Harriet, a school-girl then, had stood at the window of the stately new stone house in Louisville which the Blairs called home, and, watching the fashionable world flow in and out of the high old brick cottage across the street, where Miss Ransome spent much time with a great-aunt, had wondered.
But love had not proved such a factor after all. Austen's engagement had been broken.
Harriet went back to Kentucky with the question of Alexander and Molly still open.
A year later her father went South again. War was loudly threatening, and he had large interests in Louisiana and Mississippi. There was a certain sympathy and understanding between the grim-lipped man and his daughter, and he suggested that she go with him and see the child newly born to Alexander and Molly.
But, reaching New Orleans to find his son gone to Mobile, on the same business, Mr. Blair decided to join him, and Molly being about to leave for her father's plantation with the baby and nurse, that she might the more rapidly convalesce, it was decided that Harriet accompany her.
The two weeks at Cannes-Brulee were strange to the girl, thus introduced to a Southern house overflowing with guests and servants, and she moved amid the idling and irresponsibility, the laughter an-d persiflage, with a sense of being outside of it all, and the fault, try as she would, her own.
This feeling was strongest that Sunday afternoon when the gayety and badinage seemed to center about a new arrival, a handsome, silver-aureoled Catholic priest, confessor to half the parish. Genial, polished, and affable, his very charm seemed to the Calvinistic-bred Harriet to invest him the more with the seductions of Romanism, as she had been taught to regard them.
There were music, cards, a huge bowl frosted with the icy beverage within, and to the stunned young Puritan the genial little priest in the midst seemed smiling a bacchanalian benediction over all.
[pgbrk] GEORGE MADDEN MARTIN
21
Suddenly above chatter and music Molly’s voice arose, gay but insistent — Molly there in the big chair, pale and big-eyed, her strength so slow to return, herself a child in her little muslin dress.
“Baby is four weeks old,” Molly was declaring, "and here is Father Bonot from service at Cannes-Brulee and so with his vestments. I’m here and Harriet’s here, and mamma’s here, and everybody else is a cousin or something. I’m sure I don’t know when I can get to church. P’tite shall be baptized here, now.”
And before the slower comprehension of the dazed Harriet had grasped the meaning of the ensuing preparations — the draping of the pier-table, the lighting of waxen candles — a sudden silence had fallen ; the gay abandon of these mercurial Southerners had given place to reverent awe, even to tears, as the new-born representative of the Puritan Blairs was brought in, in robes like cascades of lace, while of all that followed, the one thing seeming to reach the comprehension of Harriet was the chanting monotone of Father Bonot saying above the child, “ Mary Alexina---- ”
Later Molly and Harriet went back to New Orleans, to find Alexander there but his father gone up to Vicksburg. Molly was to keep Harriet with her until his return.
Only the girl knew what it meant to find herself near her brother. It was as if here was something sane, rational, stable, by which to reestablish poise and standards. Harriet would have trembled to oppose her brother, so that to see Molly and Alexander together was a revelation. His sternness and his displeasure alike broke as a wave upon Molly, and as a wave receded, leaving her, as a wave would leave the sand, pretty and sparkling and smiling. Other things were revelations to Harriet too.
Going down to breakfast one morning, she found her brother clean shaven, immaculate, monosyllabic, awaiting the overdue meal. The French windows were open to the scent of myriads of roses outside, and also to the morning sun, far too high. The negro servants were hurrying to and fro, Molly nowhere visible.
Later, as the dishes were being uncovered, she appeared, her unstockinged little feet thrust into pretty French slippers, and her cambric nightgown by no means
concealed by a negligee, all lace and ribbons, hastily caught together. Yet she was pretty, pretty like a lovely and naughty child.
Nor did the embarrassment of Harriet, the presence of the servants, or her husband's cold preoccupation with his breakfast, disturb Molly, who trailed along with apparent unconcern until, reaching his elbow, she threw a wicked glance at Harriet, then kissed him on that spot on his head which, but for a few carefully disposed strands, must have been termed bald.
At the thing, absurd as it was, there swept over Harriet the hot shrinking of one made conscious of sex for the first time. With throbbing at throat and ears, she gazed into her plate, her feeling, oddly enough, centering in keen revulsion against her brother.
But Molly was dragging a chair to his elbow. “What’s the fricassee made of, Alexander ? ”
And, her husband vouching her no reply, she slipped an arm about his neck, and, leaning over, drew his fork to her mouth and tasted the morsel thereon.
Then she turned her head sideways to regard him. “Don't frown it back, Alec, the smile I mean. I adore you when you don't want to and have to let it come. Acknowledge now, this is the way to breakfast.”
And Harriet, who had been led to regard playfulness as little less than vice, was conscious of Molly trying to force a ripe fig between Alexander’s lips, repressed thin lips upon which softening sat as if afraid of itself and her.
“You see,” Molly was explaining, “I couldn’t get down sooner. P’tite was making the most absurd catches at her mosquito bar, and Celeste refusing to laugh at her. You haven't finished your breakfast? Why must you always hurry off? No,”—her hand against his mouth — he, risen now, she on a knee in her chair, clinging to him; “don’t tell me any more about Sumter having been fired upon, and your being worried over business. I hate business. What’s anything this moment, if you would only see it, compared with me, and ripe figs dipped in cream ? ”
And then the triumph of her laugh, as, his arms suddenly around her, he grasped her, lifted, enfolded her for a moment,
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then as fiercely put her from him and went out, leaving Harriet sick, shaken, at this sight of human passion seen for the first time.
The following day Harriet's father returned and she went home.
When she next saw her brother it was in Louisville where he was driven back to his own people by reason of his Northern creed and sympathies. His father-in-law had been among the first to fall in defense of the Confederacy, and with Alexander, now, was his mother-in-law, widowed and dependent, and a wife in this sense changed from child to woman:—that she was a fiercely avowed Southerner to the fiber of her.
With his little family he remained in Louisville a year. If his own people wondered at the extravagance of his wife and mother-in-law at a time when incomes were so seriously shrunken, Alexander was too much a Blair for even a Blair to approach the subject.
The child was sent daily to his mother's — he saw to that — a pretty baby, the little Mary Alexina, and robed like a young princess ; but beyond this he seemed to discourage intimacy between the households. Certainly there was no common ground, the business judgment, large experience, and the integrity of the Blairs being in the constant service of the Government, while rumor had it that the home of young Mrs. Alexander Blair was the social rallying place for Southern sympathizers generally.
Suddenly, in the midst of big affairs, Alexander arranged otherwise for the maintenance of his wife’s mother, whom it was his to support for the few remaining years of her life, and went to Europe with Molly and the child. Long after it came to Harriet’s hearing that the frequent presence of a young Confederate officer at his house had led to the step.
It was four years from this time, in 1867, that Alexander Blair, the senior, died, to be shortly followed by his wife.
Though the son Alexander returned to Louisville of necessity, following these events, he left Molly and the child in Washington with some of her people there. And though his interests became centered in Louisville again, he never brought his family back, but went and came between the two places. In domestic infelicity it is our own people we would hide it from
longest. It was two years after, in '69, that Alexander met his end with the shocking suddenness of accidental death as he was returning East to Molly and the child.
CHAPTER II
The leisure of a summer evening had fallen with the twilight. Along that street in Louisville wherein stood the Blair house, with its porte-cochere, its splendid lawn, its carriage driveway issuing through a tall, iron gate, front doors were opening and family groups gathering. The yards wore the fresh green of June. A home coming crumple-horn ambled by, her bag swinging heavily. In the South, in 1870, cities were villages overgrown.
In the parlor of her home, Harriet Blair sat awaiting the arrival of her brother Austen from Washington, where he had gone to bring back their dead brother’s child.
Harriet, at twenty-six, in lusterless mourning, was handsome and, some might have said, cold. Her face was finely chiseled and framed with light hair waving from its parting in curves regular as the flutings of a shell. There was a poise, a composure about this Harriet, making her unlike the tall, shy girl of nine years before.
As the bell rang she laid down her book and rose, and a second later Austen entered, leading a little girl with a round short-cropped head. His eyes met his sister’s in greeting, then he loosed the child’s hand. “This is your Aunt Harriet, Alexina,” he said, and stepped across the room to stand before the mantel and watch the two.
Harriet bent and kissed the small cheek. Demonstration, even to this extent, meant much for a Blair. Then she crossed the room. She was more than ordinarily tall for a woman, with form proportioned to length of limb, and the beauty of her carriage gained by her unconsciousness of'it.
Having pulled the bell-cord she came back, smiling, calmly expectant, looking from Austen to the child, who, seated now on the edge of a chair, was regarding her with grave eyes.
“She has a strong look of Alexander,” said Harriet, consideringly, “and a little look of you— and of me. She is a Blair, though I can see her mother, too, about the mouth.”
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The child moved under the scrutiny, but her gaze, returning the study, did not falter.
Harriet laughed ; was it at this imperturbability ? “I think,” she decided, “we
may consider her a Blair.” Then to the white maid-servant entering: “You may order supper, Nelly, for Mr. Blair and myself. This is Alexina, and, I should say, tired out. Suppose you give her a warm bath and let her go right to bed — have you her trunk key, Austen? — and I will send a tray up with her supper afterward.”
Then, as Nelly took the key and went out, Harriet addressed her brother. “For, apart from the hygienic advantages of the bath before the supper, I confess,” with faintly discernible amusement, “ to a fancy for the ceremony as a form, so to speak, emblematic of a moral washing and a fresh start.” She ended with a raising of her brows as she regarded her brother.
Austen Blair had no use for levity. Mild as this was, he dismissed it curtly. “I would suggest,” he said, “that you avoid personalities ; it can but be injudicious for any child to hear itself discussed.”
Again Harriet laughed ; she was provokingly good-humored. “ Coming from her nine years of life beneath Molly’s expansive nature, I don't think you need fear for what she’ll gather from me.” She took the child's hand and lifted her from the chair. “ Here is Nelly, Alexina ; go with her and do what she says. Say good-night to your uncle. Supper, Austen.”
The dining-room being somber, one might have said it accorded with the master, whose frown had not all cleared away.
Harriet was speaking : "What of Molly ? Was there a scene at parting with her voluntarily given-up offspring? For her moods, like her tempers, used to delight in being somewhat inconsistent and mixed.”
“She has in no way changed,” replied Austen. Was it this flat conciseness in all he said that made levity irresistible to Harriet in turn ? "My interview with her was confined to business. That ended, she told me, as an afterthought, apparently, that the colored woman was going to remain with her, and she supposed Alexina could manage on the train. She also told me that her husband had severed connection with
the legation and was going back to Paris. Alexina was not with them at the hotel, but with her uncle, Senator Randolph, from whose house Molly was married.”
“ And Molly’s parting with the child — ” “Was a piece with it all, tears and relief, just as you would have expected.” “And the husband’s, this Mr. Garnier's attitude ? ”
“Was enigmatical; how far he understands the situation 1 had no means of judging.”
“ I’m sorry for the child, though,” said Harriet suddenly, “ for if there is anything of Molly in her, life according to the Blair standard may pall, and,” whimsically, “her mixture of natures be vexed within her.”
Austen took the Blairs seriously, and at any time he disliked the personal or the playful. He spoke coldly. “ Having given the child over to you from the moment of arrival, of this initiatory tone you are taking I shall say no more. Duties you assume you do best your own way.”
Harriet arched her brows. “ You mean, having found better results followed the withdrawal of your over-sight of me as mistress of our house, you are going to let me alone in this ? ”
“ Exactly,” said her brother, “ and therefore on the subject, now or hereafter, I shall say no more.” And it was eminently characteristic of him that he never did.
Meanwhile up-stairs the child had gone through with the bath and the supper like an automaton in Nelly’s hands.
“ She said ‘ yes ’ when I asked her anything," Nelly reported later to the cook ; “ or she said ‘ no.’ And her lips were set that hard she might a’most have been Mr. Austen’s own child.”
And that was all Nelly saw in the little creature she tucked into the huge square bedstead under the bobinet mosquito bar. But no sooner had Nelly’s footsteps ceased along the hall than the child, as one throwing off an armor of repression, rolled out of the high bed and from under the bar, flinging and disarranging the neat covers with passionate fury, sobbing wildly. A bead of gas lit the room. She pattered across the floor to the opened trunk, and when the little figure, stumbling over its gown, stole back to bed, a heart-rendingly battered, plaster-headed doll was clasped in its arms. And, as the voices of children
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at play on the sidewalk came up through the open windows, the child, shaken with crying — the more passionate because of long repression — was declaring: “Sally Ann, baby, I couldn’t never have given you up, not even if I was your own truly mother, Sally Ann, I couldn’t, never.”
CHAPTER III
Down-stairs the evening passed as evenings usually did when Harriet and Austen were alone. There were not even the varyings from parlor to front door that the heat seemed to necessitate for the rest of the neighborhood. Front porches are sociable things. The Blairs’ was the only house on the street without one.
The evening passed with the brother and sister at opposite sides of the black marble-topped table in the long parlor, she embroidering on a strip of cambric with nice skill, he quickly and deftly cutting the wrappers and pages of papers and magazines accumulated in his absence. To undertake just what he could do justice to and keep abreast of it, was the method by which he accomplished more than any two men, in business, in church affairs, in civic duties, for the man took his citizenship seriously. Both brother and sister had been raised to economy of time, yet sometimes she mocked at herself for her many excellencies and sometimes sighed, while he------
At ten o’clock Harriet rolled her work together and said good-night, ascending the crimson carpeted stairway with the unhurried movement of an Olympian goddess; that is, if an Olympian goddess could have been so genuinely above concern about it.
Her room, a front one on the second floor, had a look of spaciousness and exquisite order. She moved about, adjusting a shade, setting a gas-bracket at some self-imposed angle of correctness, giving the sheets of the opened bed a touch of adjustment.
It was the price paid for the free exercise of individuality. Already, at twenty-six, ways were becoming habits.
These things arranged, she passed to the adjoining room, from to-night given to Alexina. Turning up the gas, Harriet glanced about at Nelly’s disposition of things, then moved to the bed.
Whatever were the emotions called forth by the relaxed little form, softly and regularly breathing against a battered doll, or by the essentially babyish face with the fine, flaxen hair damp and clinging about the forehead, the Blairs were people to whom restraint was second nature. Whatever Harriet felt showed only in solicitude for the child who had thrown aside all cover. But as she drew the sheet and light blanket up, her hand touched the smoothness of a bared little limb. It brought embarrassment. She had but once before touched the bareness of another’s body, and that her mother’s, and in death.
Was it shame, this surging of strange hotness through her ?
The refuge of a Blair was always action. She stepped to the bay of the room and drew the shutters against the night-wind.
Between the windows stood the bureau. Harriet paused, arrested by a daguerreotype in a velvet case open upon it. The child must have left it there. She sat down, and laying the picture on her knee, regarded it, her chin in her palm.
It was the face of the father of the sleeping child, dead less than a year, for whom his sister was wearing this black, trailing in folds about her.
And looking on his face, she recalled another, exquisite in pallor, with the shadowy lashes, the face of Molly, who ten months after Alexander’s death had married again ; and not only married but given up her child. Had it been the purpose of Alexander to test Molly for the child’s sake ? Molly had been given her third and the child the same, with Austen as executor and guardian. In the event of Molly marrying again, she had been given choice. She might relinquish all right in the remaining third and keep the child, or by giving up the child could claim the portion. And the estate was large. In ten months Molly had chosen.
And yet, thinking of these things, Harriet bade herself be just — chief tenet in the Blair creed. Was she so certain Alexander had been altogether unhappy in his marriage ? May not compensations arise out of a man’s own nature if he cares for the woman ? For Harriet no longer asked why her brother had married Molly. She knew, knew that the thing called love is stronger than reason, than life — some even claimed, than death. Not that she knew it
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of herself, this calm, poised Harriet, but, watching, she had seen its miracles.
And out of this Alexander may have drawn his compensation, for, stronger than the hourly friction of his daily life, stronger than the hurt of outraged conventionality, thrift, and pride, stronger than the jealousy which must have often assailed him, had not love survived in Alexander to the end, love that protected and concealed Molly’s failings from his own people ?
Suddenly, over Harriet swept the breath of roses coming into an open breakfast room, and she saw a stern-lipped man lift, enfold a child-woman to him for a moment, and as fiercely put her from him and go out.
Harriet, breathing quickly, put her brother’s picture back, and going to the bed, lifted the bar and drew the sheet again over the child. Then she stood looking down. What manner of little creature was this child of Alexander and Molly ?
Glancing about to assure herself all was in order, she put out the light, and, with hand outstretched against the darkness, moved to the door, when there swept over her again the vision of Molly clinging to Alexander, and again she felt the surrender of the man, the fierce closing of his arms, and again she was shaken by his passion.
And even after she reached her room and sat down at her desk to the ledger of household accounts, it came over her, and she paused, her hand pressed to her hot cheek.
But that a little creature had cried itself to sleep in the next room she did not dream. She would have cried herself, had she known it, she, to whom tears came seldom and hard. But she was a slow awakening soul, groping, and she did not know.
CHAPTER IV
The next morning Harriet sat in Alexina’s room putting criss-cross initials on a pile of unmarked little garments. It was part of the creed that clothes be marked.
Presently, as the child came to her aunt’s knee for a completed garment, Harriet laid a hand on the little shoulder. Demonstration came hard and brought a flush of embarrassment with it.
“ Alexina,” she said, “you haven’t mentioned your mother ! ”
The child stood silent, but there came a repeated swallowing in her throat, while a slow red welled up over the little face.
Harriet had a feeling of sudden liking and understanding. “You would rather — you prefer not?”
The child nodded. But later, as if from some fear of appearing unresponsive, she brought an album from her trunk and spread it open on Harriet’s knee. She seemed a loyal small soul to her kinsfolk, mainly her mother’s people, and turning the leaves went through the enumeration.
At one page— “ Daddy,” she said.
"Daddy ” applied in a baby’s cadence to Alexander ! Daddy ! It was a revelation of that part of her brother’s life which Harriet had forgotten in accounting assets. “Daddy," called fearlessly, with intonation all unconsciously dear and appealing. And Alexander had been that to his child !
There was no picture of Molly, but there was a torn and vacant space facing Alexander. Had the child removed one ? She bore resentment then ? Harriet had no idea how far a child of nine could comprehend and feel the situation.
She would have been surprised at other things a child of nine can feel. If the routine of the house dragged dully to Alexina, Harriet never suspected it. The personal attention was detailed to Nelly, who divined more — Nelly, the freckle-faced, humorous-eyed house girl, taken from the Orphans' Home and trained by Harriet’s mother. But then Nelly had been orphaned herself, and had known those first days following asylum consignment and perhaps had not forgot. Her sympathy expressed itself through the impersonal, the Blair training not having encouraged the other.
“ Such a be-yewtiful dress,” said Nelly, laying out the clothes for her charge.
Which was true; no child of Molly’s would have suffered for clothes, Molly loving them too well herself.
“And such be-yewtiful slippers,” said Nelly, with Alexina in her lap, pulling up the little stocking and buttoning the strap about the ankle.
Alexina’s hand held tight to Nelly’s hard, firm arm, steadying herself. Perhaps she divined the intention. “Can I come too, when you go to set the table ? ” she asked.
But Harriet never suspected. Nor again, that evening while she and Austen read under the lamp, did Harriet know that
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Alexina, standing at the open parlor window gazing at the children playing on the sidewalk, was fighting back passionate tears of an outraged love and a baffling sense of injustice.
All at once a child’s treble came in from the pavement.
"Can't you come play ? ”
Alexina turned, with backward look of eager inquiry to her aunt, who had come behind her to see who called.
"As you please; go if you want to,” said Harriet good-humoredly.
Austen, too, glanced out. Tiptoe on the stone curbing of the iron fence perched a little girl, spokesman for the group of children behind her.
“Who is the child?” he asked his sister.
“Her name is Carringford. She is a grand-daughter of the old Methodist minister who lives at the corner ; secretary of his church board, or something, isn’t he ? I’ve noticed two or three little Carringfords playing in the yard as I go by, and all of them handsome.”
Austen placed them at once. The child’s mother was the daughter of the old minister, and, with husband and children, lived in the little brown house with him. An interest in the details of the human affairs about him was an unexpected phase in Austen’s character. He liked to know what a man was doing, his income, his habits, his family ties.
“I know Carringford,” he remarked; “he is book-keeper for Williams, a good, steady man. As you say, a handsome child, exceedingly so.”
Harriet watched until the little niece joined the group outside. “Gregarious little creatures they seem to be,” she remarked. There was good-humor in her tone, but there was no understanding.
The next day was Sunday. On Monday it rained. Tuesday evening Alexina stood at the parlor window as before, looking out. The little figure looked very solitary.
"May I go play?” suddenly she asked. The voice was low, there was no note even of wistfulness, it was merely the question. There are children who suffer silently.
“Why not?” Harriet rejoined, looking up from her magazine. She was the last person to restrict any one needlessly.
The little niece went forth. The children had not come for her again. Perhaps
they did not want her. but, even with this fear upon her, go she must.
At the gate she paused, and with the big house in its immaculate yard behind her, gazed up and down.
It was a quiet street, with the houses set irregularly back from fences of varying patterns, and the brick sidewalks were raised and broken in places by the roots of huge sycamores and maples along the curbs.
But the cropped head of Alexina turned this way and that in vain. The street was deserted, the stillness lonesome. She swallowed hard. She knew where the little girl named Emily lived, for Emily had pointed out the house that first evening as they ran past in play. Alexina slowly crossed the street. Emily might be at her gate.
But first, as she went along, came a wide brick cottage, sitting high above a basement, a porch across the front. Alexina gazed in between the pickets of the fence. It seemed nice in there. The ground was mossy under the trees, and the untrimmed bushes made bowers with their branches. She would like to play in this yard. Her eyes traveled on to the house. A gentleman sat in a cane arm-chair at the foot of the steps, smoking, and on the porch was a lady in a white dress with ribbons. The house looked old and the yard looked old, and so did the gentleman, but the lady was young. Maybe she was going to a party, for it was a gauzy dress and the ribbons were rosy.
Alexina liked the cottage and the lady, and the big, wide yard. Somehow she did not feel as lonesome as she had. She started on to find Emily. But at that moment the gate of the cottage swung out across her path. How could she know that the boy upon it, lonely too, had planned the thing from the moment of her starting up the street ?
“Oh,” said Alexina, and stopped. She looked at the boy, uncomfortably immaculate in fresh white linen clothes, but he was absorbed in the flight of a bird across the rosy western sky.
"Come and play,” said the straightforward Alexina. Companionship was what she was in search of.
The boy, without looking at her, shook his head, not so much as if he meant no, but rather as if he did not know how to say yes.
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Perhaps she divined this. Approaching the gate and fingering its hasp, she asked, “Why?'’
The boy, assuming a sort of passivity of countenance as for cover to shyness, kicked at the gate, then scowled as he twisted his neck within the stiff circle of his round collar. He had the combative air of one who wars against starch. “There’s nobody to play with,” he said ; “they’ve all gone to the Sunday-school picnic. I don't go to that church,” nodding in the direction of a brick structure down the street.
“You go to the same one as my Aunt Harriet and my uncle,” Alexina informed him. “I saw you there. Your name is William. I heard the lady calling you that, coming out.”
The gate which had swung in swung out again, bringing the boy nearer this outspoken little girl, whose unconsciousness was putting him more at his ease. He had seen her at church, too, but he could not have told her so.
“ What’s the rest of your name ; William what ? ”
Such a question makes a shy person very miserable, but the interest was pleasing.
“William Leroy,” said the boy tersely. Then, as if in amend for the abruptness, he added : ‘ ‘ Sometimes they call it the other way, King William, you know.”
‘‘ Who do ? ”
“ Father and mother.”
“You mean when you’re pretending?” The gate stopped in its jerkings. There had been enough about the name. He was an imperious youngster. “No, I don't,” he said ; “ it’s William Leroy backward.”.
The little girl looked mystified, but evidently thought best to change a subject about which the person concerned seemed testy. “ I saw one once,” she said sociably ; “a real one. He was in a carriage, with horses and soldiers, and a star on his coat.”
“One what?” demanded the boy.
“A king, a real one, you know.”
Now, this princeling on the gate knew when his own sex were guying and he knew the remedy. He did not know this little girl, but he would not have thought it of her. “A real — what?” he demanded.
“A real king, but they don’t say king; they say ‘ l’empereur."’
William looked stern. “I don't know what you mean," he returned; “where did you see any king ? ”
The grave eyes were not one bit abashed. “ In Paris, where we lived," said the little girl. “There was a boy named Tommy, watching at the hotel window too, and he said, ‘Vive le roi,’ and Marie, my bonne, she said, ‘ Sh — h: l'empereur ! ’ ”
The effect of this was unexpected. The boy, descending from the gate, turned a keenly irradiated countenance upon her. “Do you mean Paris, my father’s Paris, Paris in France ? ”
“Why,” said the little girl, regarding him with some surprise, “yes." For he was takingher by the hand in a masterful fashion.
“Come in,” he commanded. “I want you to tell father ; that's father there.”
But Alexina, friendly soul, went willingly enough with him through the gate and up the wide pavement between bordering beds of unflourishing perennials.
“Listen, father," William Leroy was calling to the gentleman at the foot of the steps; “she’s been in Paris, your Paris.”
The gentleman’s ivory-tinted fingers removed the cigar from his lips. As he turned the western light fell on his lean, clean-shaven face, thin-flanked beneath high cheek bones. From between gray brows thick as a finger, rose a Louis Philippe nose, its Roman prominence accentuated by the hollowness of the cheeks. The iron-gray hair, thrown back off the face, fell, square-cut, to the coat collar behind.
Never a word spoke the gentleman, only, cigar in hand, waited, eagle-countenanced, sphinx-like. Yet straight Alexina came to his side and her baby eyes, quick to dilate, now confidingly calm, met the ones looking out piercingly from their retreat beneath the heavy brows. Quite as a matter of course a little hand rested on his knee as she, stood there, and equally as naturally, his face impassive, did the fingers of the gentleman close upon it.
A silent compact, silently entered into, for before a word was interchanged, the animated contralto of the lady came down from above.
“Who is the little girl, son? What is your name, dear ? ”
Son’s wince was visible. He had no knowledge of the little girl’s name, but he did not want to say so.
But she was answering for herself, looking up at the pretty lady, dressed as though for a party. “It’s Mary Alexina Blair,”
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she was saying, ‘ ‘ but my Aunt Harriet says it’s to be just Alexina now.”
“Oh,” said the lady. There was a little silence before she spoke again. “It must be Alexander Blair’s child, Georges. Come up, dear, and let me see you.”
But King William, balancing himself on the back of his father’s chair, objected. “Hurry, then, mother,” he demanded; ‘‘ we want to play.”
But Alexina had gone up the steps obediently. The eyes of the lady were dark and slumberous, but in them was the slightly helpless look of short vision. She drew the child close for inspection.
The fair hair, the even brows, the clear-gazing eyes, she seemed to have expected, but the dilation in those same wondering eyes raised to hers, the short upper-lip, the full under one that trembled, these the lady did not know. “A sensitiveness, a warmth,” she said, half aloud. What did she mean ? Then she raised her voice.
“See, Willy Leroy, how she stands for me, while you pull away if I so much as lay my hand on you.”
“ But you look so close,” objected Willy, “and you fix my hair, and you say my collar ain’t straight. You’ve seen her now, mother ; you’ve seen her close. I want her to come sit on the step.”
“Go then, little Mary Alexina Blair,” said the lady ; “ he’s a little ingrate whose mother has to barter with him for every concession he makes her.” And smiling at herself, her face alight and arch with the animation of her smile, Charlotte Leroy sat back in the scarlet settee and respread her draperies as a bird its plumage, touching the ribbons at her waist and throat, resettling them with the air of one who takes frank pleasure in their presence and becomingness. This done, she viewed her hands, charming hands heavy with costly rings, and finally, reassured at all points, she relaxed her buoyant figure and looked around with smiling return to her surroundings. It was for no party she was dressed, but for her own satisfaction.
CHAPTER V
“Your initials spell Mab,” King William was telling Alexina as they sat on the step ; “that means you’ll be rich. Mine don't spell anything. I’m named for my grandfather up in Woodford, William Ransome.
He's dead. Father’s don’t either —Georges Gautier Hippolyte Leroy. His father ran away from France because he was a Girondist, and came to Louisville because it was French. Father's been to Paris too ; haven’t you, father?”
The gentleman thus adjured removed his cigar and addressed his wife. ‘ ‘ It begins to amount to garrulity. If the opposite sex produces this at ten, what are we to expect later on ? ”
Mrs. Leroy's voice had a note of defense in it, as if she could not brook even humorous criticism of the boy. It was plain where the passionate ardor in her nature was centered. “ I’m glad, I’m glad to see it,” she declared. “ I was afraid it was not in him. I was beginning to fear he was a self-sufficient little monster.”
But her son was continuing the family history. “Mother's name was Charlotte Ransome; wasn’t it, mother? When I’m a man I'm going to buy my grandfather’s stock farm back, and we'll live there; won't we, mother ? ”
But the impulsive Charlotte, veering around, here took her husband’s side. “‘I'm going to — I'm going to,’” she mimicked the boy, then began to chant derisively as in words familiar to both.
“And if you don't believe me And think I tell a lie ”
But it only gave him an idea. He was not often a host, it was going to his head. “ Wait! ” he ordered, to whom it was not quite clear, and tore into the house, to be back almost at once, bearing a beribboned guitar.
“Now,” he said, depositing it upon his mother's lap ; “ now, sing it for her ; sing it right, mother. It’s the ‘ Ram of Derby.’ ” This to Alexina, with a sudden shyness as he found himself addressing her.
But she, unconscious soul, did not recognize it, hers being an all-absorbed interest. Reassured, young William went on.
“There was a William Ransome once, when he was little, sat on General Washington's knee, and General Washington sang him ‘The Ram of Derby.’ Goon, mother, sing it.”
And Charlotte, with eyes laughing down on the two upturned faces, “went on,” her jeweled fingers bringing touch of a practiced hand upon the strings, her buoyant figure responsive to the rhythm, while
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into the Munchausen recital she threw a dash, a swing that rendered the interest breathless.
“There was a Ram of Derby I've often heard it said.
He leas the greatest sheep, sir,
That ever wore a head.
And if you don’t believe me And think I tell a lie,
Just go down to Derby And see as well as I.
The horns upon this ram, sir,
They reached up to the sky,
The eagles built their nests there.
For I heard the young ones cry, And if you don’t believe me, etc., etc.
The wool upon this ram, sir,
It grew down to the ground,
The devil cut it off, sir,
To make a morning gown,
And if you don’t believe me, etc., etc.”
And so on through the tale. Ring William at her knees, clapped his hands. Alexina. by him, clapped hers too, for joy of companionship, while the third listener sat with unchanging countenance below. But he liked it, somehow one knew he liked it, knew he was listening down there in the dusk.
Perhaps Charlotte knew it too. The vibrant twang slowed to richer chords, broke into rippling chromatic, caught a new measure, a minor note, and her contralto began :
“I am going far away, far away to leave you now,
To the Mississippi River I am going---- ”
But this was only so much suggestion for her son’s active brain. “Tell her, mother,” he begged, pulling at Charlotte's sleeve ; “tell her about the ‘King William.’” “And it has lain dormant, this egotism, unsuspected,” came up from out of the dusk.
Charlotte’s fingers swept the chords, her eyes fixed adoringly on her little son’s face, the while she sang on, absently, softly :
‘ ‘ Down in my ol’ cabin home,
There lies my sister an my brother,
There lies my wife, the joy of my life,
An the child in the grave with its mother.”
But King William, far from being harrowed by the woeful enumeration, laid an imperious hand on the strings. “Tell her, mother ; I want you to tell her.”
"Come then,and kiss mother,and I will." He moved the intervening step and submitted a cheek reluctantly, “just one, and you said you’d tell.”
But Charlotte, imperious now herself, waved him off; she'd none of him now. “It’s because he’s a vain boy, little Mary Alexina Blair, and filled with self-importance that he wants you to know. And he only wants me to tell you because he has not quite the assurance to do it himself. That is why he wants me to tell about the
great, white-prowed Argo---- ”
“ We call them bows, not prows,” came up out of the dusk.
But she refused the correction. ‘‘ — the white-prowed Argo that is building across the river, to go in search of a golden fleece for little Jason here, a boat large, oh larger even than those other boats of little Jason’s father, the Captain, down there, which used to float up and down the Mississippi, and which vanished one day into the maw
of the Confederacy ”
But Jason was lifting his voice. “Not that way ; make her stop, father ; that ain't the way ! ”
But mother was not to be hurried out of her revenge. “And this big white ark is one day going to float off on the flood of Hope, bearing Jason and his father and his mother, the last plank of fortune between
them and---- ”
Jason was beating with his hands on the step. “Make her stop, father; make her tell it right; she don't understand what mother means. Do you ?” with an appeal to the absorbed Alexina.
That small soul jumped. She looked embarrassed to know what to say. Direct admissions are not always polite. “ I had an ark once,” she stated, “ but I sucked the red off Noah, and Marie, my bonne, took it away.”
Leaning down, Charlotte Leroy swept the baby-voiced creature up into her lap. There was a passion of maternity in the act. “ You innocent,” she said, and held her fast.
It was nice to be there ; the ribbons and the lacy ruffles were soft beneath her cheek, and the dark eyes of the lady were smiling down -----
[pgbrk] 30
THE HOUSE OF FULFILMENT
The child turned suddenly and clung to Charlotte with passionate responsiveness.
“It’s about the boat his father is building, Willy wants you to know, little Mab,” the lady was telling her, “and how, the other day, the Captain down there and Willy and I and our friends went aboard her, on the ways at the shipyard over the river, and how, at the ax-stroke, as the boat slid down and out across the water, Willy broke the bottle on her bow and christened her ‘ King William.’ ”
"Just so,” came up in the Captain’s voice. The moon was rising slowly.
“There's some one at the gate,” cried Willy.
“ It’s for me,” said Alexina, starting up ; “it’s Nelly and she’s hunting me.”
Later, Nelly, leading her across the street, was saying, “I don’t believe Miss Harriet is going to like it when she knows where you’ve been.”
“Why?”
But Nelly couldn’t say, “except that they’re the only ladies on the street not knowing each other.”
The two went in. Alexina dropped Nelly’s hand and walked into the parlor and across to Harriet’s knee. Austen sat reading on the other side of the table.
“ I’ve been over to a boy’s house,” said Alexina; “his name is King William and their other name is Leroy.”
Harriet held the cambric strip of embroidery from her and viewed it. ‘‘ Austen,” she asked, “ is Alexina to play indiscriminately with the children on the square?” Austen looked across at his sister. “It is within your authority to decide,” he returned, “ but I know of no reason why she should not.”
Harriet made no response. Outwardly, she was concerned with some directions to Nelly, waiting to take the child to bed, but inwardly she was wondering if Austen ever could have cared for this Charlotte Ransome.
He sat long after Harriet had gone. Then, rising abruptly, he went out the front door and walked to the corner of the house. The light was out in the coachman’s room above the stable, and the master could go to bed secure that his oil was not being wasted.
That was all, yet he did not go in. The night was perfect, full of moonlight and the scent of earth and growing things.
It was so still the houses along the street seemed asleep.
Almost furtively, the gaze of Austen lifted to the cottage, dark and silent across the way. He had been the one who would not forgive ; the other had been only an impetuous girl.
He stood there long. Perhaps his face was colder, his lips pressed to a thinner line ; perhaps it was the moonlight. Then he turned and went into the house.
CHAPTER VI
Alexina came to Harriet with information.
“ Emily goes to school to her aunt, and King William goes there too.”
“Do they?” returned Harriet. Her interest was good-humored rather than ardent. “ I’d like to go too,” said her niece. “Oh,” from Harriet, understanding at last ; “but isn’t school about over?” “There’s two weeks more."
“ If it will make you happy, why not, if the teacher does not object ?”
So Alexina went with Emily to school. King William was there, but he hardly noticed her ; he seemed gloomy and given to taking his slate off into corners.
“He don’t want to come,” explained Emily ; “ he’s the only boy.”
“ Then what does he come for ? ” queried the practical Alexina.
“ His mother won’t let him go to a public school.”
There was more to be learned about William. He fought the boys who went to the public school, because they jeered him in his ignominy. Alexina saw it happening up the alley but, strangely enough, when William appeared at school he seemed cheered up, though something of a wreck.
Out of school, Alexina often went over to Emily’s house to play. There were no servants there, but her mamma beat up things in crocks, and her great-aunty, a brisk little old woman with sharp eyes, made yeast cakes and dried them out under the arbor and milked the cow, too, and Emily’s little brother, Oliver, carried milk to the neighbors. Once, in the oil-cloth covered kitchen, Alexina was allowed to wield a mop in a dish-pan and, still again, to stir at batter in a bowl.
In the room which would have been the parlor in another house, Emily’s grandfather Pryor, sat at a table with books
[pgbrk] GEORGE MADDEN MARTIN
31
around him, and wrote on big sheets of paper in close writing. He was a stern old man and his hair stood out fine and white about his head. Once, as she passed across the front porch, he looked at Emily, then stopped, pointing to the chain about her neck. It was Alexina's little gold necklace which Emily had begged to wear.
“ Take it off," he said.
Emily obeyed, but her cheeks were flaming, and when he had gone she threw her head back. “When I’m grown, I mean to have them of my own, and wear them, too, ’’ she said.
Emily seemed happier away from home. “ Let’s go over to your house,” she always said. She liked grown people, too, and Uncle Austen once even patted her head, and after she had gone said to Aunt Harriet: “ A handsome child, an unusually pleasing child." .
But while Alexina played thus with Emily, more often she trudged across to King William’s.
The nature of engrossment was different over there. Often as not it was theology, though this, to be sure, was the Captain’s word for it, not his son’s.
Willy’s mother, like Aunt Harriet, was a Presbyterian. “ If I had been a better one," she lamented to her husband one evening, “I would know how to meet his questions now. You don’t take one bit of the responsibility of his religious training, Captain Leroy.”
The creed of King William's mamma, when she came to formulate it, seemed a stern one, and it lost nothing in its setting forth by reason of her determination to do her duty by her son.
"Thank Heaven I had to sit under these things when I was a child, however I hated it then, or I could not do my part by him now,” she told the Captain. “I want him,” fervently, “to be everything I am not.”
“ Which might," suggested the Captain, “be a prig, you know."
But King William, listening, drank in these things. He had a garden patch in the back yard and knew the nature and habits of every vegetable in it. He was strictly a utilitarian and weeded out sickly plants and unknown cotyledons with a ruthless hand.
Alexina expostulated. “ Maybe it hurts ’em," she feared.
“Maybe it does,” said the inexorable William ; "but they are like the souls born to be damned. Put ’em on the brush pile there, and after a while we’ll burn ’em."
At other times the yard was a sea-girt coral reef and they the stranded mariners. Generally Alexina accepted everything. The stories were new to her. But when she did have knowledge of a thing she stood firm ; for instance, about the ocean, that you could not land every few moments of your progress and throw out gang-planks.
“For I’ve been there,” she insisted, “and you couldn't, you know."
At times they adjourned to the commons behind the stable which, in reality, were plains frequented by Indians, or, if the yard palled or rain drove them in, there was a fat, black, plausible Aunt Rose in the basement kitchen to talk to, and if Aunt Rose proved fractious and drove them out together with her own brood, generally skulking around, before a threatening dish-rag or broom, there was Charlotte to be beguiled from more serious occupation into doing her son’s bidding.
Charlotte was always busy. The cottage and all in it had come to her from her father's aunt. She had been accustomed to seeing the windows, the furniture, the mirrors, the silver door knobs shining. Therefore, she knew such things ought to shine, and since there was no one in these days but herself to do it, she cleaned, polished, rubbed, and went to bed limp.
One afternoon in the late fall the children sought her. She was pasting papers over glasses of jelly. “We went over the river to see the boat yesterday,” King William was saying to Alexina as they came in. “Tell her about it, mother; about the gold star at the bow- "
The papers did not want to stick. "He’s a bad boy, little Mab,” Charlotte informed her. “ He made me take him over before he’d promise to go to the party he’s asked to. He wants to be a little boor who won't know how to act when he grows up."
“I'm never goin’ to parties when I’m grown up, so what’s the use learning how to act at 'em now?” argued her son.
Charlotte dropped a mucilaged paper. “But you promised," she reminded him anxiously; “you promised ”
“Oh, well — ” admitted her son.
Charlotte kept a fire in her parlor. Coal was at a fabulous price in the South that
[pgbrk] 32
THE HOUSE OF FULFILMENT
winter, but she had never known a parlor without a fire. Here she and the children sat in the afternoons. Often the Captain, returning early, joined them there.
“ Georges,” said Charlotte upon one of these occasions, “we are poor.”
The Captain smoked in silence. Perhaps he had realized it before. His keen eyes however were regarding her.
“ But,” said Charlotte, “ we go on acting as though we were rich.”
“Just so,” said the Captain.
“When your trousers get shabby, you order more like them. Did you ever ask your tailor if he has anything cheaper ? ” Now, trousers of that pearl tint peculiar to the finest fabrics were as characteristic a part of the Captain’s garb as were the black coat, the low cut vest, the linen cambric handkerchiefs, like small tablecloths for size, the tall silk hat, and the Henry Clay collar above the black silk stock.
“Did you ever ask him if he had anything cheaper, Georges?”
“I can’t say,” admitted Georges, “that I ever did.” For the Captain had never asked his tailor a price in his life. When the bill came he paid it. But it takes income to meet eccentricities of this sort,
while now---------
Did the Captain, glancing from his wife to the boy on the floor, seem to age, to shrink in his chair ? For Charlotte was thirty-two and the boy was ten and the Captain nearing sixty.
“And when your shirts and Willy’s things and mine give out, I’ve been going right on to the sisters ordering more. Convent prices are high, Georges.”
The Captain had nothing to say.
‘' Adele has been telling me that she cuts down her eldest boy’s things for the little one.” Adele was the widow of a Confederate general. “ So I borrowed her patterns. Listening to Adele talk, I realized, Georges, that you and Willy and I have to learn how to be poor.”
It was at this point that Charlotte brought forth from the chair behind her a voluminous broadcloth cape, such as men then wore for outer wrap, and spread it on the mahogany center-table.
“It’s perfectly good, if you did discard it, and I’m going to cut it into something for Willy. I didn’t tell Adele I never had tried, she is so capable, but I borrowed her
patterns.” And Charlotte brought forth a paper roll.
The Captain, in the arm-chair, sat and watched. Alexina, from his knee, where he had a way of lifting her, watched too. Willy, from a perch on the arm of the sofa, offered suggestions.
This was early in the afternoon. At six o'clock, the Captain, lighting another of an uninterrupted series of cigars, was still watching silently. On the sofa sat Charlotte, in tears. On the table, tailor fashion, sat King William, sorting patterns, while Nelly, who had come for Alexina, stood by and directed,
“How does he know?” Mrs. Leroy, watching her son a little anxiously, asked the Captain. "I wouldn’t like him to develop such a bent. He doesn’t get it from you — or from me.”
“ I look at my legs,” said William, “ and then 1 build it that way.”
Another afternoon the Captain looked up from his smoking and spoke to Charlotte. The children were on the floor turning the pages of a picture paper.
“We have succeeded in securing the loan on a mortgage on the boat. Cowan arranged it through his bank. It was at a higher rate than we had agreed on, but we’d lost all the time we could spare. We’ll push ahead now and have things finished by spring.”
That night, over at the Blairs’, as Alexina climbed into her place at the table Austen was speaking to Harriet. “ You remember I told you I was looking for an investment of the proceeds of those bonds of Alexina’s, which matured the other day ? This morning I took a mortgage on a boat Cowan is building at his yard.”
Alexina heard her name, but did not understand.
CHAPTER VII
There came a day the following spring when Alexina, seeking her aunt, wept.
Harriet gazed at her dismayed, at a loss. Heretofore Alexina had taken her tears to Nelly or had kept them to herself.
“They are going away,” she said, “King William and them; going in the boat.”
This, as a matter to cry about, was a mystery to Harriet. “ Going where ? ” she asked.
[pgbrk] GEORGE MADDEN MARTIN
33
“ To get the golden fleece,” her weeping niece assured her.
"Well,” said Harriet amused, “ let us hope they may find it, but why the tears ? ”
Alexina got up and carried her tears to her own room. It spoke her infantile capacity to discriminate that she bore away no resentment; there are things that the Aunt Harriets with the best wills in the world need not be expected to understand.
King William's mother, telling her, had held her tight and rocked her ; King William's father, when he saw her lip trembling afterward, had lifted her on his knee.
Going into the big, high room which was her own, Alexina shut the door. Then she cast herself on the floor. A little hand, beating about wildly, came upon Sally Ann, lying unregarded there. Gathering her in fiercely, presently the sobs grew quieter. Later she wiped her eyes upon her child and, kissing her tenderly, put her down, and went over to King William’s ; the time was short and she could have Sally Ann afterward.
The next day the cottage was closed and the shutters made fast. Alexina felt lonesome even to look over there, and Sally Anns are but silent comforters.
But in a year the Leroys came back from St. Louis, between which city and New Orleans the splendid new “ King William ” had been plying. The judgment of Captain Leroy had been at fault, which is a sad thing when a man is sixty. The day of the steamboat had passed, because that of the railroad had come. The "King William ” as a venture was a failure.
So, one morning, the cottage windows were open to the Virginia creeper outside them. Nelly whispered the news to Alexina at breakfast, and the child could not eat for hurry to be through and go over.
It was as if King William had been watching for her, for he came running to the gate and took her hand to conduct her in. He was taller and thinner, and looked different. Neither could find anything to say on the way.
Charlotte was sitting in the parlor, her wraps half-removed. They had only just arrived, and the stillness and closeness of a newly opened house was about. " How
does one pack furniture for moving, Willy?” Charlotte began as he appeared.
But he was bringing Alexina. "Tell her about it, mother,” he said, "so she'll know.”
Charlotte, brightening, held out her arms. Then, having lifted the child to her lap and kissed her. her face grew wan again. "There was no fleece for Jason, little Mab ; there is no Land of Colchis, never believe it. And those seeking, like Willy and me, are like to wander until youth and hope and opportunity are gone. ” She was crying against a little cropped head. King William stood irresolute, then put an arm around her. "Not that way, mummy; don't tell it that way.” But control had given way. "And there is nothing for little Jason. He must go and fight with his bare hands like any poor churl's child—oh, Willy, Willy, my little
son---- ”
Alexina in her lap, sat very still ; King William was staring hard into space.
Charlotte went on. "We are going away, little Mab, Willy and his father and I ; going away for good. Every thing that ever was ours, this cottage and all, is gone. We are going to a place in the South called Aden, where there are a few acres that still are ours, only because they would not sell."
A moment they all were still. Then the little breast of Alexina began to heave. The Leroys had never seen her this way. Sally Ann had. many times, and Nelly, once or twice. She threw herself upon Charlotte. " I want to go too ; I want to go; I hate it — there,” with a motion of self towards the big, white house visible through the window. "I hate it, and I want to go too.”
They were all crying now. Suddenly King William stood forth in front of the child. " When we get rich, I'll come for you,” he said.
The practical Alexina looked through the arrested tears as she sat up. " But if you don't get rich?” she questioned.
Charlotte laughed. She was half child herself. The laugh died. The other half was woman. "Then he won't come; if he is the son of his father, he won t come. ”
(To be continued)
[pgbrk] BEN ZONI’S MATINEE
BY
JOSEPH BLETHEN
ILLUSTRATED BY ANNA WHELAN BETTS
WHEREIN, AS IN ALL GOOD PLAYS, THE COMEDY OF SPEECH COVERED THE PATHOS OF REALITY
THE engagement of Miss Dorea Drexheim and Mr. William Penn Prescot was considered in the exclusive set to he very near perfection. She, the well-dowered daughter of an old family, was a brunette of brown eyes, brown tresses, and an active disposition ; he, the sole head of the Prescot estate, was
fair with the sunshine of blue eyes, light hair, and a methodical coolness. Even the July quarrel of these lovers, preceding a wedding for September, was looked upon as a proper incident to the establishment of so perfect a match. But to Ben Zoni, who was caught therein as an innocent third party, the crisis brought a particular seriousness which resulted both in a brilliant financial coup for the lad and a firmer uniting of the lovers.
It made no difference to Mr. William Penn Prescot that his friends smiled over his two hours a day at the office and referred to them as “Willie Prescot's daily interruption.” To Mr. Prescot the self-appointed task of managing his own well-invested, scarcely vulnerable estate was a serious matter. What if the organization consisted only of a cashier, a secretary, and a messenger ? Many organizations ten times bigger did not manage estates one-tenth of the size with any such success. The air of quiet, of decorum, of immeasurable stability pervaded the offices with its scheme of dark shades. Dark, Mr. Prescot said, stood for depth, for power and stability ; but his friends said that a man of light complexion, with a beautiful brunette fiancee, was to be excused under the circumstances.
From several hundred applicants for the position of messenger, the cashier chose Ben Zonislovonski, aged fifteen, dark-eyed, dark-curled, and with a curve to his nose that fitted his slight accent and suggested uncountable generations of financial talent somewhere in middle Asia. To the cashier’s sense of humor the choice appealed strongly. Those dark eyes and curls would become the uniform of dark cloth prescribed
[pgbrk] JOSEPH BLETHEN
35
by Mr. Prescot ; the curve of the nose betrayed a financial talent worthy of development ; and Zonislovonski was just long enough for the cashier to gravely declare it to be too long a name for use in business hours and to register the lad as Ben Zoni.
At first the new office was an unalloyed delight to Ben Zoni. Such sums of money as the cashier handled ! Such big checks as were carried by Ben into Mr. Prescot's private office for signature ! Such words of ridicule as the jealousy of other messengers in the building prompted them to utter when he strutted in and out ! And such reverence as was paid, out among the shacks that crowded about a great shipyard, to a lad who, when down-town, belonged high up in financial circles and, when at home, was the head of a household of three !
But when Ben Zoni's home necessities tightened about him, the contrast between his needs and the wealth of the office furniture became painful. First, his sister Rebecca lost her position behind the ribbon counter; then an unfortunate neighbor took their spare money, saved to give Rebecca a course in stenography ; then Mrs. Volunski, the adopted housekeeper of these two orphaned citizens, suffered a relapse. But the culminating blow came when Miss Drexheim and Mr. Prescot quarreled, and Mr. Prescot fled to the woods, where a splendidly appointed hotel conveniently awaited him. Then, with the cashier absent on his summer vacation, and Miss Charming, the secretary, coming down mornings only to open the mail, Ben sat amid the costly chairs and, with busy thoughts for weathering Mr. Prescot’s absence, gave battle to strong temptations to steal and pawn. Ben hoped to arrange an overdraft on the cashier when Mr. Prescot should return. To ask aid of Miss Charming was out. of the question ; Ben knew that she, like himself, was the breadwinner for a household. Money he must have. His credit at the stores was exhausted, and it was fifteen days to the next settlement day at the office. Only the feeble help of equally poor neighbors was keeping his household together.
Coming down-town on foot on the tenth day of Mr. Prescot’s absence, Ben was accosted by a neighbor, for his uniform had attracted the eye of Levi Benninghausen,
thereby calling attention to a break of the rule which prohibited the messenger from wearing his uniform to and from home. But Ben's other suit was past all patching, and it was uniform or nothing in his present financial stress. Ben's first thought was for the honor of the house.
“ Mr. Bresgot is gone away and we are rushed mit de office,” said he with an air of confidence. “It makes a emergency.”
“Mr. Bresgot is very rich,” suggested Levi Benninghausen, eyeing Ben enviously.
Ben Zoni made a gesture that suggested things unlimited. Levi believed and betrayed himself.
"I’d give fifty cents to see inside one of dem big offices, ” said he, and Ben immediately closed the deal for four P. M.
Fifty cents ! Not much in itself, but large in the suggested possibilities. If Levi would pay fifty cents to see the inside of a millionaire's office, why would not others from the neighborhood of the shipyards pay to see it ? If Levi should, when lie called, be satisfied, then Ben could — Ben made that same gesture suggestive of millions !
At four o’clock Levi came, looked with all his eyes, caught his breath at the wonders of the Lion's den, but, unlike his biblical ancestor, did not pray for deliverance. Ben exhibited Mr. Prescot's own desk, and Levi reverently asked if that was where the check book was kept. Ben showed the cashier's desk, and Levi felt of it as though surprised that it, like other desks, was made of wood. Ben described the inside of the safe and Levi pressed his hand over that part of the door that covered a pigeon-hole containing the Prescot check book.
“Six figures?” asked Levi in an awed whisper. Ben made that gesture of unspeakable quantity, and said: “Sefen.” Levi gasped, lingered in ecstasy, and departed in a daze. Then Ben grasped that fifty-cent piece and sped out towards the shacks behind the great shipyards.
Rebecca, a dark beauty of twenty, was attending Mrs. Volunski’s rheumatism. The cloths, wrung out of hot water for the sufferer, were hardly more worn than her own tattered home dress. Ben bounded in with a half dozen packages, for he had spent twenty-five cents for food and twenty-five cents for liniment. Rebecca's first question of her brother was as to the source
[pgbrk] “Rebecca, a dark beauty of twenty, was attending Mrs. Volunski’s rheumatism"
of the money. Mrs. Volunski's were those of tearful thanks.
“I’m that burden on you two!” she exclaimed. “You better send me to the farm. ’'
“Oh, no! When Becky gets her new blace we vill needs you mit the housekeeping,” said Ben.
“ If Becky only could,” echoed the dark maiden with a sigh.
“Levi Benninghausen gimme fifty cents to see inside mit the office,” said Ben.
“The fool!” exclaimed Rebecca. Then she laughed. “I’m glad of it, though. 1 cannot remember when we needed fifty cents so much as to-day.”
‘ ‘ He said it was vyorth de money, and I am thinking of making a shows.”
“And charge admittance? Oh, Ben, you wouldn't dare ! Mr. Prescot's office ! ” Ben made that racial gesture that cannot be answered. “We needs the money,” said he, and Rebecca sat down to give
respectful attention to the man of the house.
“ Theyursday Miss Charming is coming in yearly to open the mail and then she's going home at onct. You gotter come down at noon, Beck. Then we'll have a rehearsals, and at free the show can makes a commencing. You can sit mit Miss Charming's desk and act like you was the private secretary. I'll be Mr. Bresgot and dictate mit you.”
Rebecca laughed outright, but felt a wave of nervousness at the suggestion of her becoming an actress. But Ben rushed along.
“ I'll open the big glass doors in between mit the cashier's room and Mr. Bresgot's office. I'll fix chairs for the people. I will sit mit Mr. Bresgot's desk and dictate mit you.”
“ But, Ben, I don't know what to do.”
“ It don’t make such a difference. The people will just want to see mit the office.
[pgbrk] JOSEPH BLETHEN
37
Anything we do just goes mit the scenery. All we gotter do is tell 'em that Mr. Bres-got, the millionaire, makes it like that. There's Calahan, an' old Isaacstein an' his wife, an' the Dooleys, an' the Hanrahans, an' the Bauermeisters, an' the Christensens, an' the Smiths, an’ the Du Prays, an' that Turk that runs the eatin' house by the works ; they'll all come. Fifty cents admissions and fifty cents extra for reserved seats mit one of the big leather chairs.
Ben’s eyes and chest vied in expansion, and Rebecca trembled under evident excitement. The plan was good and she knew it; but was it not meddling with a millionaire’s private office?
“ Suppose Mr. Prescot hears of it, Ben ? ” The darkness before the dawn ; the last wave of faintness before the plunge. Ben blinked hard. “I’ll tell him they called to answer mit a adveyertisements,” said he.
“God bless the boy,” murmured Mrs. Volunski. “He has the big brain of his dead father.”
After the frugal supper Ben rushed away among the shacks to become his own advance man. He thanked his stars for the forbidden uniform. It was the bait that tempted the shyest fish.
Old Isaacstein, who was in his shop, admired the uniform, felt the texture, commented on the cut, and made Ben a cash offer for it.
“I give you t’ree dollars mit sixty-fi’ cents for der suit.”
‘‘ It cost Mr. Bresgot twenty-five and I have it not three months yet,” replied Ben loftily. “You ought to see inside mit Mr. Bresgot’s office and you wouldn't make such a breaks.”
“Mr. Bresgot, he’s rich, eh?”
No one understood that inherited gesture better than gray-headed Isaacstein. He nodded politely when Ben made it, but remained stolid.
“The chair Mr. Bresgot sits in cost two hundred, and his desk fife hundred,” said Ben.
Isaacstein blinked as when flashes of light play before the eyes, but he was silent.
“He writes his checks mit that desk,” said Ben, taking a long breath before setting the hook in deep. “Last June — it was on the fift’ — when he bought the Denny Hotel, he drew a check mit two hundret siventy-fi’ t’ousand. I know ’cause
I carried it from the cashier to Mr. Bresgot to be signed.”
“Mr. Bresgot owns de Denny? An' you vyorks mit his office ? Vat’s your wages ? ”
“T’irty a month — but think mit the association ! ”
“Vat association ? ”
Ben made the gesture and Isaacstein wilted. “ Why I am Ben Zoni mit Mr. Bresgot’s
“ insisted on dusting their shoes ”
[pgbrk] 38
BEN ZONI' S MATINEE
office. I could associate myself mit any bank I pick out. My acquaintance mit these big men who comes mit Mr. Bresgot’s office is vyorth a stock of goods.”
“ Vat is de office like inside ? ”
Ben became confidential, and in the end Isaacstein bought two tickets of admission and the privilege of two leather chairs. The other ticket sales were easy, for Ben prepared a list of the chosen and the name of Isaacstein led all the others.
On Thursday morning Miss Charming hurried through the necessary duties of the moment and rushed away. To push back the great glass doors and arrange his few chairs was Ben's first task. He placed the big leather ones in the front row, the reception chairs next, the cashier's chairs last. Counting them, he found the number short of the advance sale, and went out into the building to search for another messenger whose employer might be away and from whom he could borrow.
At noon Rebecca arrived in the neat dress
which she had worn behind the counter at her last employment. It was a red waist with white collar and cuffs, and a black skirt. She brought luncheon for two and, as they ate it from the corner of the long table in the reception room, neither noticed that it consisted of cold boiled potatoes, salt, pepper, and a crust. Each lived in the anticipation of the financial deluge that was due at three o'clock, and felt no hunger. The girl, though older and better spoken than he, looked the more of a child, for her years gave her a plumpness beside which his thin body looked careworn and old. Each had a look of earnestness, for their laughter was but the flashes from overcharged nerves.
To be so close to the chair and desk of a young millionaire was to Rebecca as keen a delight as is the tale of Prince Bountiful to the tiny miss of the nursery, and it seemed equally, unreal. But when Ben suggested a rehearsal of the quarrel between Mr. Prescot and Miss Drexheim, the young woman promptly objected.
"But it was great!” persisted Ben, to whose boyish mind the quarrel had been a magnificent spectacle.
Ben and the cashier had been in the further room when it happened. Mrs. Drexheim sat in the reception room. Miss Drexheim was by Mr. Prescot at his desk, and Miss Charming was writing on her machine. The two ladies frequently called to take Mr. Prescot away with them, but on that day the brunette’s eyes had snapped with something besides fun. Never before had Ben witnessed a quarrel where the voices were low and firm, where faces paled and hands trembled. It was like the low rumbling of hidden power, and Ben had been frightened. When Miss Drexheim had stripped her fingers of rings, sent them whirling over Mr. Prescot's desk, and swept quickly out with a low, quick, “ Come, mamma,” Ben had felt like cheering. though just who had scored he could not have told.
"No, Ben, you must not speak of Mr. Prescot's affairs,” said Rebecca. "You said you would dictate letters to me, like Mr. Prescot does to his secretary. That will be enough. But, Ben, what did Miss Drexheim— What was the— I can't see why people like they are should quarrel.”
“ She wanted him to make a calls mit a poor family and he wouldn’t.”
“ ‘ Beck vyorked all night mit Mrs. Swanson’s baby ’ ”
[pgbrk] JOSEPH BLETHEN
39
‘'Oh!" The young woman looked at the millionaire's desk. The uncharitable suggestion was rough on Prince Bountiful.
"He said he made a big subscribe mit de Society. He said a big subscribe was plenty. He said that if a rich man made a visits mit a poor family he made a foolishness and the family got stuck up.”
"And then Miss Drexheim went away ? ” said Rebecca, her own eyes dancing. “ She did right. I guess rich women have to teach their men charity, just as we do. I don't care if your Mr. Prescot does come in and catch us. It would make him angry and that would please her! ”
"Why, Beck! Your eyes look just like Miss Drexheim's did ! ”
Miss Charming’s shorthand book was found in her desk. Ben showed Rebecca how to imitate the taking of dictation. Then he spent an unpleasant hour thinking out the letters he was to dictate.
The nervousness of rehearsal passed with the coming of the visitors. Ben and Rebecca acted as guides about the magnificent offices for the wide-eyed, expectant dwellers from the neighborhood of the shipyard. Carpets, woodwork, decorations, and furnishings were of that dark tone and massive effect that mean impossible wealth to those whose measure of luxury is gaudy color and tinseled veneer. Admiration, instant and genuine, was followed by a flood of affected indifference. The visitors quickly became disdainful. Isaacstein and his wife sat in the big leather chairs and scoffed.
"Such a fool, sneered the old man. " So much for chairs, ven money could be vyorkin' mit chattel mortgages.”
"How pretty Becky looks at that desk ! ” said another. "I bet Mr. Prescot’s typewriter ain’t in it with her.”
Ben Zoni, with admissions jingling in his pocket, was indulgent. He had insisted on dusting their shoes when they arrived, and Rebecca had gone over the furniture with a cloth after the fingering was finished. Now that they were seated they might gabble all they pleased. Sitting in Mr. Prescot's chair, Ben called the acting stenographer to him and began a dictation. It was aimed at the audience as cleverly as a great oration might aim at a partizan throng.
"Take a letter,” said Ben. " Mose Greenbaum, Yesler Way, City. Your offer to sell your pawnshop for fifteen t'ousand dollars is a jokes. Your own figures show
that you makes only t'irty-seven per cent, last year. I have a friend mit the shipyard who makes forty-t’ree per cent., and he ain't got half your business.”
Rebecca's pencil danced along the page, but her eyes sought to catch a glimpse of Ben Zoni's face. The audience was silent, but, looking in a small mirror on Mr. Prescot’s closed desk, Ben saw that old Isaacstein was leaning forward listening in open-mouthed wonder. Ben went on.
“ You better go learn the business before you try to stick me mit fancy prices. I got associations that don’t run pawnshops for their health Yours, et-sets-try.”
“What's that, Ben? That ‘et-sets-try’?” demanded a voice from the back row. Ben inflated his chest.
“ That’s a private code mit millionaires. When Mr. Bresgot puts it mit the bottom of a letter it means how much the bank balance is.”
The audience gasped and was silent. The mysterious ways of the very rich !
” ‘ I makes thirteen dollars mit this shows, sir '"
[pgbrk] 40
BEN ZONI'S MATINEE
“ Take a letter, ” said Ben. “Mr. John Worth, President Elliott Bay National Bank, City. I have my bank book been looking over. The bank balance was nothing less den eight hundred t'ousand any day last month. On rent day it went up mit eight t'ousand more. When I sold the Blocker Block it jumped over a billion. I write to give you notice that unless you can pay me four per cent. mit daily balances I starts a bank mit my money.”
Old Isaacstein stood up and then sat down again. Such carelessness rendered him speechless. Four per cent.! When all that money in the pawn business would bring forty ! Mahula !
Ben continued. “ I consider this letter mit importance. So I sent it mit my messenger. He knows all the big fynanseers. You better remember his name. He will be in business mit himself some day. His
name is ”
Ben's head was very erect, and the audience listened for the name they knew so well. They took Ben's sudden silence as a bit of acting. But they had not heard a key turn in Mr. Prescot’s private door, nor had they seen that door open to admit to the room Mr. Prescot himself. For one long, chilling minute Ben sat still. Then he sprung to the great doors and drew them to, shutting himself and the audience out of the private office.
"That's him ! ” explained Ben in an awed whisper. “ Make a sneaks ! ”
The audience stayed to take one more look through the glass at Mr. Prescot’s back, and then fled.
"Miss Charming, if you have anything of importance there I will look at it before going to the club,'' said Mr. Prescot.
"I—I am not Miss Charming,” said a low, surprised voice.
Mr. Prescot looked quickly toward Miss Charming’s desk, to which Rebecca had fled, and saw a vision of brown-haired, blushing girlhood. Perhaps it was his heart-hunger for another vision of brown hair and brown eyes that brought him to his feet at the sight.
"I am Ben's sister. I came down to help him.”
"Help him ? Why were all those rough-looking people here?”
"Please, sir, it was no more Ben's fault than mine. We needed the money so very much, sir.”
‘‘ The money ? ”
“From the—the matinee, sir.”
The truth flashed over the young millionaire and his brow wrinkled into a very severe frown. Rebecca saw it and trembled for Ben. But even she had forgotten the curve of her brother’s nose.
Ben returned from dismissing his audience. With the warmest assurance he went to Mr. Prescot.
“ hugged the great roses "
[pgbrk] JOSEPH BLETHEN
41
"They said it was vyorth the money, sir.”
‘‘ Do you mean that you charged those people admission to view my office ? ” The frown was deep.
“ You once makes me some instructions, sir, that the poor should vyork to pay somethings mit what they got. I needed the money, sir. I know I makes you a better satisfaction if I vyorks for it mitout I borrows it.”
Even Rebecca’s eyes showed surprise as she raised them to her brother’s face. Mr. Prescot felt it easier to ask a new question.
"Don’t you think thirty dollars a month is quite enough for a boy ? ”
“But there’s Beck and Mrs. Volunski, sir. Beck lost her positions and Mrs. Vo-lunski’s pain is bad.”
Mr. Prescot did not seem to understand, so Rebecca explained. “ But how did you lose your position?” objected the young millionaire, to whose calm mind a discharge meant a fault in the employed.
“ Beck vyorked all night mit Mrs. Swanson’s baby, and the floor-walkers fired her ’cause she was late,” exclaimed Ben.
Mr. Prescot frowned again. Poverty and sickness bored him. But Ben was relentless. “Beck makes six dollars a week,” said he. ‘‘ We was plentiful mit her salary and mine. We paid Mrs. Swanson’s rent. We paid part mit the doctor’s bill mit the baby. The Society paid mit the rest. But the Society wouldn't make a sits up nights mit the baby, sir. So Beck makes it. Then she lost her place and we couldn’t buy liniment for Mrs. Volunski. But I makes thirteen dollars mit this shows, sir. We get on till pay day.”
Mr. Prescot might have frowned again, and might have brushed it all away in disgust ; but his days in the woods had been days of struggle in which just such tales as these had been ringing in his brain, tales told in the tense, angered tones of browneyed, brown-haired Dorea Drexheim. Ben’s words seemed to corroborate the unpleasant memory of the quarrel which had occurred in that very room. Mr. Prescot had returned very firm in his resolution that he was right. But when Rebecca, all browns and reds, added her low voice of appeal to the memory-tones of the angered Dorea, the young millionaire dropped down to his desk and sighed.
“ We tried to make a savings for Beck to go mit business college,” said Ben. “ But the baby was expensive. It’s hard to find a place mit a store, so many girls are vyork-ing. But a stenographer can get mit a position.”
‘‘ But I don’t see that this baby belongs to you,” said the millionaire fretfully. “Why should you and your sister pay its bills ? ”
It now became Ben’s turn to be puzzled. The poor of his neighborhood always helped the poor. Twice, since Mr. Prescot’s flight into the woods, Mrs. Swanson, returning home from a day’s washing, had left a loaf in Rebecca's hands when she took her baby from Rebecca’s arms, a loaf that had been the day’s food for the three who constituted Ben Zoni’s household.
‘‘ The secretary of the Society said he would help, but that we must pay some,” said Rebecca in her low tones.
The millionaire began to reply, but stopped. It suddenly occurred to him that such was one of the conditions which he had imposed on the Society with his subscription. He had quarreled with Miss Drexheim for that, yet here was a brownhaired girl losing her position because the money subscribed by such as he would not sit up nights with a neighbor's baby. He was silent a long while, and Ben and Rebecca dared not stir till he spoke.
“I will double your matinee money, Ben. But you shall use part of it for that baby.”
The light that sprang to Ben’s brown eyes went straight to the millionaire’s heart. How handsome the boy was! How it did become him to be natural ! How much it was like a flash of pleasure from those other brown eyes which, when last seen, had flamed with indignation ! Before he knew why, the millionaire was seeking to bring another such look to the boy’s face.
“ What would it cost to provide a commercial course for your sister ? ” he asked.
“ Seventy-fife dollars for the course, including books and typewriter for practice,” said Ben, quoting from a circular long ago memorized by frequent, wistful reading. The millionaire was surprised. So small a sum to buy the chance of a lifetime !
“ During your sister’s studies, how large a salary would you require to maintain her and Mrs. Volunski, and Mrs. Volunski’s pain, and Mrs. Somebody’s baby?”
[pgbrk] 42
BEN ZONI'S MATINEE
The millionaire caught the flash in the boy’s eyes. Looking, he saw it again in those of the girl. He did not know it, but his own had become bright.
“ If I got the liniment, then I got plenty salary now — and make something mit de baby.”
Maturity in youth ; fatherhood in childhood's thoughts I The rich man saw and wondered that this had been required to teach him his own power. He was surprised yet pleased when he heard his own voice, with an unusual note of pleasure, say : “ Ben Zoni, I will stand for the liniment— unlimited liniment — and we will raise your salary to forty a month for the sake of the baby.”
Mr. William Penn Prescot, millionaire, had seen the great talents counterfeit the deepest emotions ; he now saw emotion itself. Keen, unabashed, self-atoning emotion, that swept conventionality aside and flamed out of the heart of a race of emotional people into the very soul of a cold man. Sitting like one stunned, he realized that Ben Zonislovonski had uttered an inarticulate cry, and had grasped his hand to fall upon his knees and carry it to his hot lips. He dimly saw the boy wave a summons to the brown-haired creature by the window and, before he could prevent, he felt his other hand clasped in the impulsive palms of girlhood, felt hot tears, hot lips, and soft, heavy folds of hair upon it. Two brown heads were bowed before him, two forms shook with excitement, two voices uttered wordless sounds of joy ; the man who was rich felt a wave go over him that left him abashed and speechless.
Deftly, gently, the man carried the maiden’s hands to her brother’s neck, and placed the boy’s arm around his sister. Then he fled to the outer room, for he was ashamed of the tears that blinded his own eyes.
Returning to his desk, Mr. Prescot saw Ben and Rebecca standing by the window, looking out. The world seemed to have become suddenly warm to them, and they were smiling upon it. Mr. Prescot wrote an order on the florist; then a note :
Dearest: —You were right. Ben Zoni has reached the heart of a very humble man. I am going to you this evening to tell you how he did it, and to ask you to again wear the ring. I know you will be glad to welcome The Penitent.
The young millionaire turned to send Ben Zoni with the two messages, but hesitated. There was one thing more he wished to do, but found himself suddenly diffident. He could not make Rebecca, brown-eyed, brown-haired, and girdled with a becoming red waist, an offer of money with which to buy things for a baby ; neither could he take her to a store and pay for such articles as she might select. Only one plan seemed acceptable, and he surrendered with a sigh. He would go then and there, with Rebecca, to see the baby and slip a crisp note in its own tiny fingers.
Miss Drexheim recognized Ben Zoni’s dark uniform as he ascended her steps. She saw the blossoms of her favorite flower in the package the boy carried and knew the signs. She hoped for something almost beyond hope, but, when she read the note, could hardly realize its great import to herself. Trembling over her own words, she asked Ben what he had done to Mr. Prescott, and Ben, telling that which he knew, yet told the eager, listening girl more than he dreamed.
“And he’s gone back with mit Beck to make a visits mit the baby,” said Ben in closing.
Then Miss Dorea Drexheim, in her sudden joy, did much as Rebecca had done, but this time Ben did not understand. Just why Beck and Mr. Prescot and the baby should make a lady who lived in the big Drexheim mansion, laugh and cry all at once, was beyond Ben’s present understanding. After she had alternately hugged the great roses and tossed them about the room, kissed the note, and hid her eyes behind the back of her hand, she did something more to Ben’s mind.
Ordering her brougham, she bundled Ben Zoni into it and gave an order to the footman.
“ Drive to the address which this young man will give you. Mr. Prescot is there. Say to him that he has just time to return with you for dinner.”
As the smart turn-out glided through the business streets, a great peace fell upon Ben Zoni. “If old Isaacstein could see me now,” he mused, “he would understand what we fynanseers mean mit ‘ association.’ ”
[pgbrk] THE REIGN OF LAWLESSNESS
ANARCHY AND DESPOTISM IN COLORADO
BY
RAY STANNARD BAKER
AUTHOR OF " A CORNER IN LABOR,’’ ‘‘THE TRUST’S NEW TOOL: THE LABOR BOSS,’’ ETC.
President Roosevelt, in a letter to Mr. Baker, commenting on a former article in this series, says : —
I believe in corporations ; I believe in trade-unions. Both have come to stay, and are necessities in our present industrial system. But where, in either the one or the other, there develops corruption or mere brutal indifference to the rights of others, and shortsighted refusal to look beyond the moment’s gain, then the offender, whether union or corporation, must be fought, and if the public sentiment is calloused to the iniquity of either, by just so much the whole public is damaged.
DURING much of the past year, and continuing until the present moment, certain parts of the state of Colorado have been governed by military law. Governor Peabody, a banker himself, closely identified with the conservative business interests of the state, and therefore unlikely to make exaggerated statements, has proclaimed the existence of a condition of "insurrection and rebellion.”
And martial law has been neither gentle nor forbearing ; when accused of violating the Constitution, Judge Advocate McClelland remarked :
“ To hell with the Constitution ; we are not following the Constitution.”
Colonel Verdeckberg, commanding officer in the Cripple Creek district, declared :
“We are under orders only from God and Governor Peabody."
But, if military rule has been despotic, many citizens have been lawless, and civil government ineffective. The miners’ union has broken the law, there have been dynamiting and assassination ; the corporations have broken the law, there have been bribery and corruption ; the citizens’ organizations, representing in some degree the great third party — the public — have broken the law ; even the Legislature itself, wherein the law is made, has been lawless. We have to-day, indeed, in certain parts of
Colorado, a breakdown of democracy and, through anarchy, a reversion to military despotism.
What are the causes of these appalling conditions ?
Insurrection and Rebellion Proclaimed
Martial law was declared in the Cripple Creek district on December 4th, and a month later in Telluride. The Cripple Creek proclamation was read in the city of Victor by a cavalry major guarded by fifty troopers, the citizens of the town gathered about, silent. After proclaiming that a condition of anarchy there existed, that civil government had become abortive, that life was in peril, and property unsafe, the Governor pronounced judgment upon this commonwealth :
Now, therefore, I, James H. Peabody, Governor of the State of Colorado, by virtue of the authority in me vested, do hereby proclaim and declare the said County of Teller, in the State of Colorado, to be in a state of insurrection and rebellion.
Rebellion, then, must be stamped out ! The silent citizens return to their homes. The Major, well backed by his troopers, seizes for military headquarters a building owned by a private citizen. He marches to the seat of government and informs the mayor and the chief of police that unless they obey military orders he, the Major, will seize the City Hall. He visits the office of the Victor Record and establishes a military censorship. The editor is
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THE REIGN OF LAWLESSNESS
forbidden to print an editorial concerning these military doings, and the next morning, or maybe the morning after, the paper appears with a black-bordered column, significantly blank, as it happens in Russia.
Having violated the rights of private property, overturned the people’s government, suppressed free speech and a free press, the Major left armed men to patrol the city streets, and clattered away up the hill with his troop.
But the Proclamation of the Fourth of December was only the formal dramatic declaration on the part of the Governor of a condition long existent. For some two months prior to this time the military forces had been practically in control. And it had not been pleasant — martial rule. Soldiers are not that way.
Character of Cripple Creek Miners
Cripple Creek and Victor are American towns. Most of the citizens are miners, long resident in Colorado. They have played no unimportant part in making this district, among the tops of the Rocky Mountains, the greatest gold producing camp in the world. In 1902 they dug $25,000,000 from the hills. This is their home ; they have here bought land and built houses ; have here raised their children. They have given the Cripple Creek district the well-merited reputation of having an unusually high class of miners, largely men of American birth, who have gone to American schools, read American newspapers, who have voted and paid taxes, and held public offices. You will go far, indeed, to find working-men living, or who did live, in better homes, with more of the comforts of civilization around them.
Arrests Without Warrants
Well, some of these men were arrested by the military forces arrested without warrants and without charges, locked up in an unsavory place called the Bull-Pen, and kept incommunicado, often for weeks. Just at this place I am not discussing the reasons for these arrests, nor asserting that the men were not guilty; the point is : every right of the individual citizen was here trodden upon and disregarded.
Friends of the men arrested had immediate recourse to the civil courts. They began habeas corpus proceedings
before District Judge Seeds, of Cripple Creek.
As every one knows, the writ of habeas corpus is one of the most precious rights of the Anglo-Saxon, called by Blackstone the “second Magna Charta.” It has for its object the protection of the precious personal liberty of the free citizen — it provides that he shall not be held a prisoner without due process of law. Judge Seeds ordered that the Bull-Pen prisoners be brought into court, that an orderly inquiry might be made as to whether any innocent man was deprived of his liberty. General Chase and General Bell, then in command, obeyed the writ in their own significant way. They surrounded the court house with armed men ; they planted sharpshooters on the roofs of the buildings roundabout; they set a gatling gun in the street outside, and then they marched into court with an overawing force of troopers which they planted squarely in front of the judge’s bench. When the judge approached his own court he was halted with a bayonet brought to his breast, and kept waiting the pleasure of an officer from Denver ! After the bailiff rapped for order, Eugene Engley, former attorney-general of the state of Colorado, one of the attorneys for the prisoners, declaring that no real justice could be administered in a court intimidated by armed men, left the room. “ The constitutional guarantee that courts shall be open and free has been invaded and overthrown,” he said. But the judge finally decided that the prisoners, whatever their offense, must not be deprived of their liberty without charges, and ordered that they be surrendered to the civil court.
Writ of Habeas Corpus Suspended
The generals deliberately violated the court order, and marched the prisoners back to the Bull-Pen, with the sharpshooters and the gatling gun. They were subsequently released by special order of the Governor, but others were arrested repeatedly and held for considerable periods. And finally the Governor himself took the gravest step which any executive officer in this country can take, a step forbidden, except under the most stringent safeguards, by the constitution of practically every state in the Union, including that of Colorado — he suspended the writ of habeas corpus in the case of one Victor Poole, keeping him
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locked up without due process of law, for weeks.
Censorship of the Press
Nor was this all. I have already spoken of the censorship of the Victor Record. Some weeks before this occurred, a company of cavalry, under the command of General Chase himself, appeared one night after eleven o'clock, surrounded the Record office, arrested the entire force, and marched them off to the Bull-Pen, without warrant and without charges, although it was understood that Mr. Kyner, the editor, had criticized the methods of the soldiery. Here they were kept without proper food for twenty-four hours. It so happened that the plucky wife of one of the linotype operators, herself an operator, Mrs. Emma F. Langdon, hurried to the office after the force was arrested, and she and the office boy and the business manager, aroused from his bed, barricaded the doors, refused to admit a military guard which demanded entrance, and at three o’clock in the morning got out the paper. At the head of the first page there was this line : ‘‘ Somewhat Disfigured, but Still in the Ring.”
And in the gray of the next morning she stuffed her sleeves with damp copies of the paper, and climbed the hill to the Bull-Pen, there to be halted by the guard and not allowed to see the editor and his force, among whom was her own husband.
Small boys, and even women, one the wife of a merchant, were actually arrested for speaking disparagingly of the soldiers and sent to the Bull-Pen. Private homes, the castles of the citizens, were entered and searched without warrant. A squad of soldiers visited the home of Sherman Parker in the night, while Parker himself was away, aroused his wife from bed, forced her, in her night-clothes, in the presence of these men, to hold the lamp while they searched the house—and found no arms.
In Cripple Creek, on December 28th, John M. Glover, former United States Congressman from Missouri, who stood upon his constitutional right to own and keep arms (with undue truculency, it may be, though this does not alter the facts of the case), was attacked in his law office by a squad of soldiers. He barricaded the door, and, when the troops attempted to force an entrance, he opened fire through the panels. The soldiers replied with a
volley through the door and walls. Glover, shot through the arm, finally surrendered. His revolvers were seized and he himself detained a prisoner.
Doings not dissimilar to these also took place at Telluride. Citizens, some of whom owned property and had been long residents of the town, were arrested for vagrancy. Most of them were strikers ; strikers by right, if they wished to strike, neither beggars nor vagrants, and having no specific charges of crime against them. Some of them were put to work like criminals in a chain gang on the streets.
Leaders Expelled from their Homes
On January 4th, twenty-six men, including Attorney-General Engley, lawyer for the union; Guy E. Miller, president of the union ; J. C. Williams, vice-president of the Western Federation of Miners ; Charles D. Sumner, a newspaper man, and many strikers, all of whom had money, were taken by force, placed on board of a train under military guard, deported to the boundary line of the county, and ordered not to return. Some of these men had long been citizens of Telluride, owned property there, had their wives and families there. Soldier guards turned back the banished citizens when they attempted to return to their homes.
To this, then, have we come in these American towns at the beginning of the twentieth century! And why is this so? Why have the people borne these appalling usurpations ?
Charges Against the Miners’ Union
Nearly any mine owner or prominent citizen in Colorado will answer this question instantly, and with the full belief that he has answered it correctly. He will say ; “ The Western Federation of Miners.”
He will say that this is a socialistic organization of lawless and violent men, not more worthy of respect because it now numbers, or numbered, among its members, most of the metalliferous miners and mine workers in the West; that it had its birth in Butte City as an incident of the lawless copper war between Senator Clark and Marcus Daly ; that it practised rebellion in the Coeur d’Alene conflict of Idaho ; that it has called unwarranted strikes in Cripple Creek, Telluride, and elsewhere in Colorado, and that in places where its members are
[pgbrk] 46
THE REIGN OF LAWLESSNESS
striking, life and property are not safe. I heard conservative men, connected with neither side of the controversy, indulge in a hardly believable bitterness of denunciation against this miners’ organization. So intense has the feeling become that citizens' alliances have sprung up all over the state and have worked with the associations of mine owners in fighting the Western Federation of Miners.
The representatives of these various interests do not varnish their words. They have declared that nothing short of the extinction of the Western Federation of Miners will suffice, and many even go so far as to declare for the demolition of all unions among working-men.
Has Unionism Brought Anarchy?
It will be instructive, then, to see what the Western Federation of Miners has done to merit this weight of public opposition. Unionism — one sort of unionism — is on trial in Colorado ; has it brought anarchy or has it not ?
The two chief centers of the metalliferous strike are Cripple Creek and Telluride. In both of these districts the union was strongly intrenched. It had been able, in past strikes, to get from the employers practically everything the men wanted; they had the eight-hour day, they were paid the wages they demanded. No miners in the world, perhaps, worked under more favorable conditions and were more generally contented. In Telluride the union had a contract with the employers assuring the workers the continuance of these excellent conditions. In Cripple Creek there had been peace and prosperity since the strike of 1894; in Telluride since the strike of 1901. One would have said, looking superficially at either of these towns, that here, indeed, were ideal industrial conditions.
Attempt to Secure Labor Monopoly
But there was a fly in the ointment. A few mines in Cripple Creek were still “open," still defied the union, still employed “scabs.” In order to force these bold ones into line the leaders of the Western Federation, early in the year 1903, began a campaign among the workers in the reduction mills and smelters of the state, seeking to bring them into the same organization with the miners. It is a
general policy among many of the greater American unions — like Mr. Mitchell’s United Mine Workers and the Longshoremen— to get control of every worker in any way connected with the industry. It is the trust idea applied to unionism ; the reaching out toward labor monopoly. The leaders of the Western Federation knew that if they could get control of the millmen and smeltermen they would be able not only to go far toward dictating their own wages and hours,_ but to drive the “scab” competitor out of existence. At the same time they had another and equally important purpose — that of forcing a universal eight-hour day, especially in the smelters. Of this purpose I shall have more to say a little later.
Beginning of the Great Strike
The Federation began its attack on the Standard Mill of the United States Reduction and Refining Company, at Colorado City, meeting here the determined opposition of Charles M. MacNeill, the manager. A strike finally developed, followed by a long, costly, and bitter conflict, even involving the Cripple Creek miners in a brief sympathetic strike; but after months of effort the Standard Mill was still non-union, or nearly so. In the meantime the Federation had pursued a vigorous campaign of organization among other mill and smelter workers of the state, but with indifferent success. The leaders finally attempted, by calling strikes, to close down the two great plants of the “ Smelter Trust ” — the American Smelting and Refining Company, at Denver — but only one of them was disabled, the other continuing with non-union men and the twelve-hour day. Strikes were also called on other mills and smelters at Durango and Telluride.
Threatened with defeat in their attempt to organize these new classes of workingmen and to force the eight-hour day by a direct campaign, the Federation decided to bring the recalcitrant mill and smelter owners to time by cutting off their supplies of ore. They proposed to do this by ordering the union miners of Cripple Creek and Telluride to refuse to work in any mine shipping ore to the “unfair" mills and smelters — particularly to MacNeill’s mill at Colorado City.
In August, 1903, the Federation used its really great power, and nearly all the mines
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in the Cripple Creek district, and later in the Telluride district, were closed down. The miners of Cripple Creek and Telluride had no grievance of any sort whatsoever ; in Telluride, indeed, they indirectly broke their contract with their employers in order to go out. In both places it was, in short, a sympathetic strike.
Worse than this, these contented miners were ordered to strike without being consulted as to whether they wished to go out or not. In most unions and the best unions, the power of calling strikes is hedged about with restrictions, and the men themselves must vote on the question. Indeed, the referendum method was practised by the Western Federation of Miners until its last convention, when a resolution was put through placing the extraordinary power of calling strikes in the hands of President Moyer, Secretary Haywood, and the Executive Committee.
Thus we find in the Western Federation of Miners that same tendency toward the centralization of power in the hands of a few men which is one of the chief dangers of unionism. We have already seen it in varying forms in the cases of such Labor Bosses as Parks of New York and McCarthy of San Francisco. In this great miners’ union, with its 225 locals in seventeen Western states and territories and in British Columbia, and its 80,000 members, we find a small, autocratic executive committee practically in control, and Haywood and Moyer practically autocratic in the committee.
Haywood, Boss of the Federation I place Haywood’s name first : he is the man of force in the Federation. And a man who can rise to supremacy over such an organization must be endowed with not a few high qualities of leadership. Haywood is a powerfully built man, built with the physical strength of an ox. He has a big head and a square jaw. A leader is here judged by the very force of his impact. Risen from the mines himself, from the “ bowels of the earth,” as he describes it, this man has become a sort of religious zealot; and socialism is his religion. He is a type of the man, not unfamiliar now in America, equipped with a good brain, who has come up struggling and fighting, giving blows and taking them, who, knowing deeply the wrongs of his own class,
sees nothing beyond ; whose mind, groping hopelessly for remedies, seizes eagerly upon a scheme like socialism which so smoothly and perfectly solves all difficulties. Take a character like this, hard, tough, warped, immensely resistent, and give him a final touch of idealism, a Jesuitic zeal that carries the man beyond himself, and you have a leader who, like Haywood, will bend his people to his own beliefs. And we do not expect to find such a leader patient of obstacles, nor far-sighted, nor politic, nor withholding a blow when there is power to inflict the blow, nor careful of means when ends are to be gained. What is a man, or a state, when a cause is to be served !
We are not surprised, then, to find Haywood and his associates, turned aside from their purpose of organizing the millmen and having secured despotic power in the organization, ordering out three thousand contented, prosperous working-men in the Cripple Creek district and some two thousand in Telluride—apparently without a thought of the enormous responsibility involved— rendering unproductive millions of dollars’ worth of property, disorganizing one of the greatest industries of the West, threatening the prosperity of a state. And all this without allowing the miners themselves to vote on the weighty question of earning their own bread and butter. It may be truthfully said that most of the miners did not want to strike ; not a few of them told me that the strike had been a terrible mistake.
Results of the Sympathetic Strike
Mistakes are punished equally with crimes, and we see now the inevitable results that follow upon a sympathetic strike. The union forgets that there is quite as much sympathy on one side of an industrial conflict as on the other, that the use of the sympathetic strike drives the employers to the use of the same weapon. Here were the mine owners of Cripple Creek, innocent of any offense in this connection, working on good terms with their men ; they are suddenly subjected to a disastrous strike and great losses ; they are used as a club to drive certain outside but friendly business interests into dealing with the very organization which is responsible for their present difficulties ! Is it surprising that these mine owners should be forced together by mutual indignation into a powerful defensive association ? The union itself sowed
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the dragons’ teeth that raised up a formidable enemy where none existed before. “An injury to one is the concern of all,” argued the union leaders, quoting their familiar motto when they called out the miners in sympathy with the millmen ; is it surprising that they should hear the same motto from the other side ? And the sympathetic strike has been one of the factors in turning public opinion against the union.
Mine Owners Organize
Having organized, the Mine Owners’ Associations of Cripple Creek and Telluride began, exactly after the manner of the new trade-union — for human nature is the same among employers as among workmen — to sum up all the exactions and grievances to which they had been subjected by the union for years — things that might have been passed over but for the fight now forced upon them. And the more they summed up the angrier they grew, finally deciding that this was the opportunity to throw off the yoke of the union altogether.
So the fight began. The mine owners saw plainly that they could not open their mines on a non-union basis without protection from the state troops, and so they brought influence to bear on the governor, and the troops were sent to Cripple Creek and Telluride. The mine owners even advanced the money to pay the troops. In analyzing the action of the governor, the Army and Navy Journal, one of the best authorities in this country on military affairs, has said :
But that he (the governor) should virtually borrow money from the mine owners to maintain the troops whom he had assigned to guard their property was a serious reflection upon the authorities of the state. That arrangement virtually placed the troops, for the time being, in the relation of hired men to the mine operators, and morally suspended their function of state military guardians of the public peace. It was a rank perversion of the whole theory and purpose of the National Guard, and more likely to incite disorder than prevent it.
When I first reached Colorado I was surprised to find so little violence, so little apparent cause for this display of force. Viciousness existed, but not to be compared in extent with that of the anthracite coal strike in 1902, nothing like the riots which the writer saw in Chicago in 1894, and there was surely not as much ‘ ‘ slugging ” in Cripple Creek as there was in New York
City under the Parks regime. Indeed, Sheriff Robertson, of Teller County, a union sympathizer, would not call for troops; and the governor sent the troops in spite of the sheriff.
The subsequent developments show that the troops really made no attempt to do impartial police duty : they sided openly with the mine owners, were paid and directed by the mine owners. The governor himself sided with the mine owners. The troops came out not merely to prevent violence, but to break the strike, “to do up this anarchistic federation,” as General Sherman Bell himself told me. The simple fact is this : the mine owners had a friendly governor and they used him to accomplish their ends, exactly as the miners, in 1894, used Governor Waite, their friend, to accomplish their ends. In short, the labor problem has here been dragged into politics, raising the most unfortunate complications, to which I shall refer again.
On the other hand, no one who knows anything of the history of the miners’ union in Colorado can doubt that there would have been violence and assassination if the operators had attempted to open their mines without military protection. A consideration of this history is necessary to an understanding of the character of the miners’ union and as an explanation in part of the trend of public opinion in Colorado, which undoubtedly supported the governor and condemned the Western Federation of Miners.
Battle at Telluride
In 1901 a strike was called in Telluride, backed by the Western Federation of Miners. It was a strike primarily against the contract or piece-work system, the union demanding a uniform work-day with a minimum wage.
After a month of idleness, Superintendent Arthur L. Collins, of the Smuggler-Union property, opened his mine with non-union men.
The local union ordered 250 rifles and 50,000 rounds of ammunition from Denver — the order being written on Western Federation stationery, and signed by St. John, the union leader ; the draft in payment also bore the signature of St. John.
On the morning of July 3d, as the ‘ * scab ” miners of the night shift were leaving the Smuggler-Union, they were fired upon from
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every direction by men hidden among the rocks of the mountain side. It was a complete ambush. Several men fell wounded ; the others returned the fire. Becker, a brother-in-law of Manager Collins, had his arm shattered above the elbow, an injury from which he has never recovered. Jordan, a shift boss, shot through the hip, limps to this day ; Nicholson, badly wounded, lay in the hospital for weeks. One attacking striker, an Italian, was killed.
Surrender of the ‘ ‘ Scabs ’ ’
After a battle lasting several hours, the party at the mine, outnumbered and outclassed in arms, displayed a flag of truce. A parley was arranged between St. John and a representative of the mine owners, exactly as in real war. Possession of the mine was finally yielded to the strikers upon the promise that the ‘‘ scab ” workers, the foreman and others, should be allowed to depart in peace with their wounded. But when the “scabs” had given up their arms and were left unprotected, the strikers surrounded them, tore open their bundles, stole everything worth appropriating, then, instead of letting them depart in peace, subjected them to all manner of abuse and violence. Finally the “scabs’’ were formed in line, driven up the mountain side, over a rocky trail, and out of the district. On the way, Thomas Ballard, one of the non-union miners, an American citizen, was shot through both arms by the strikers and left on the trail. It was not until the next day that he was able to drag himself into Silverton ; to-day he has one useless arm. Edwin Thomas, a Cornish miner of small stature, was beaten and left for dead. He managed to reach an abandoned cabin where, in the night, two men appeared, denounced him as a “ scab,” and gave him another beating. The remaining non-union men were warned that if they returned to Telluride they would lose their lives. After this riot the sheriff called for troops, but a state senator, who favored the strikers, telegraphed: “No
occasion for troops; mine in peaceful possession of miners” — the miners here referred to being the strikers who had captured the property by force of arms, and wounded, beaten, and driven out the representatives of the owners — and the governor then in office refused to take any action.
Left thus in undisputed supremacy, the union made such terms as it desired with the operators, finally signing a three years’ contract covering the matter of hours and wages.
Burial of a Union ‘‘ Hero ’’
The Italian who was killed in the attack, a foreigner, only a short time resident in the country, was now given a most imposing funeral, buried like a hero, and a monument costing $600 (appropriated by the union), was set at his head. It was dedicated July 3, 1902, the anniversary of the battle, and an excommunicated Catholic priest, Father Haggerty, made a socialistic speech in which he used these words :
‘‘ That railroad is yours ; the trains are yours; those large business blocks and office buildings down-town that bring in big rents are yours ; the mercantile stocks of goods are yours ; the banks and the moneys there on deposit are yours ; if you want them, go and take them.”
What must have been the deductions drawn from such a series of events as these — the mob battle, the capture of the mine, the abuse of the “scabs,” the honored union hero, the address of the Socialist priest — upon the undigested mass of foreigners, Italians, Finns, Austrians, which chiefly constitutes the population of the Telluride district?
Assassination of Collins The result of this sort of teaching in Americanism was evident in a record of blood and assassination, the climax of which occurred on November 19, 1902, over a year after the strike was over. On the night of that day, while apparently there was no trouble of any sort brewing, Manager Collins, of the Smuggler-Union Mine, sitting at a lighted window in his house, was shot and instantly killed by an assassin out in the dark. The last and greatest grudge of the union was thus settled — though the union eagerly disclaims any part in the crime, and the assassin is not known to this day. Collins was a mining engineer respected throughout Colorado, and his assassination did more than any other one thing to intensify the feeling of hatred of the union.
Similar violences occurred in Cripple Creek in 1894. The strikers armed and
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fortified themselves on Bull Hill, taking control of certain of the mines. An army of deputy sheriffs was organized, and, had it not been for the arrival of the troops, a bloody battle must have followed. In this instance the governor — Waite — favored the strikers, and the operators were compelled to grant, under what is known as the Waite Agreement, practically all of their demands.
Just before the troops were called into the field last fall, an inoffensive old Scotch carpenter named Stewart, a respectable citizen who owned his own home, but who was unfortunate in not being a union man, went to work in one of the Cripple Creek mines. On the night of September 2d four masked men appeared at his home. The old man, who had been quietly reading a newspaper, let them in ; they set upon him and beat him frightfully with a pistol butt before the eyes of his wife, and then dragged him out. shot him through the back, and left him for dead.
On November 21st, while the troops were in control, Superintendent McCormick, and Beck, shift boss, were descending into the Vindicator Mine, which had opened with “scab" labor. At the sixth level a terrific explosion wrecked the cage and killed both men instantly. An infernal machine, the remains of which were found, had been set so that the descent of the cage would explode a keg of powder. No one knows who did this awful deed, and the coroner's jury could fix no blame.
Is the Union Responsible for Violence ?
Union leaders here, as in every other strike, deny that the union is responsible for this bloodshed and violence. Sometimes they try to shift the blame to rascals and camp followers, not union men, who take advantage of the strike disturbance to give play to their criminal instincts; sometimes, in cases especially of property destruction, they accuse the mine owners themselves, or their agents, of acts of violence which, by arousing public sentiment, may help to bring in the troops ; and rarely they admit that violences are committed by irresponsible members of their own organization.
It is always difficult to fix definitely the blame for these secret crimes, and especially difficult in towns like Cripple Creek, Telluride, and other Colorado camps, where
the population is made up so largely of members of the union, or union sympathizers ; where the officials, the sheriff and the coroner, the district attorney and the juries are often union men, or at least look to union votes to keep their places. Sheriff Robertson, the chief executive officer of Teller County, for instance, is a member of Miners’ Union No. 40, and practically all of the other county officers are union men or union sympathizers. What is the result? Union men arrested for assaults on "scabs,” or for other deeds of violence, are rarely punished. Scab-beating is not a crime in Teller County. It is hardly surprising, then, that the more terrible assassinations and dynamitings of the strike-periods should be laid at the door of the union. And we know this positively : the union does not frown upon the slugging of nonunion men. Indeed, the constant villification of “ scabs" in the union papers, in the union meetings, is a direct encouragement and incentive to this crime, which, in time of strike excitement, leads inevitably to killing. Not only does the union not discourage these things, but, when a union man is caught, every resource of political influence, as in Teller County, is used to get him free. For instance, a union man named Minster was arrested in Cripple Creek, charged with various assaults. While the legal complaints were being made out. Sheriff Robertson, asserting that the lawyers were slow, and that he could not hold Minster without formal charges, let him go ! Under-Sheriff Gaughan said concerning this case : “We can’t afford to antagonize a whole raft of people." In short, the sheriff did not want to antagonize the union that elected him, and so he administered law to suit, not the whole people, but the union.
On the other hand, an officer who does not execute the law to suit the union sometimes pays high for his temerity. For instance, in August the union was instrumental in having several non-union workers at the El Paso Mine arrested for carrying concealed weapons. Justice of the Peace John T. Hawkins fined one man five dollars and discharged the others— a judgment far too lenient for these “scabs,” the union thought. On September 2d, in full daylight, on the main street of Altman, while on his way to the post-office, Justice Hawkins was assaulted from behind, knocked down, and
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then jumped upon and kicked. When he recovered he walked across the street and asked a man — a union man — if he knew who had struck him. This was the reply : “I saw him and I know him, but I will not tell you, you scab protector. If it had been me, you can bet your life I would have done a better job.”
Evasion, excuse, and the attempt to shift responsibility will not avail the union ; the union or its elected sheriffs must sift these crimes and punish the offenders, no matter who they are. When they have done this, they can come to the public with irresistible claims upon its sympathy.
The strike at Cripple Creek in 1894, and that of Telluride in 1901, were called great victories for unionism. They were not. They were defeats. Victories obtained by such violence and bloodshed are always defeats. They laid the foundation for other violence. They encouraged the unions, once successful with rifles and fists, to use rifles and fists again. They inspired arrogance, they begot petty exactions, which heaping up, heaping up, year after year, finally brought the catastrophe of 1903, which is not unlikely to wipe the Western Federation of Miners out of all the important mining camps in Colorado, and give unionism a setback from which it will limp to recovery only after years of humble and painful effort.
What Socialism Means to Unionism Another influence has been potent in the strike. The Western Federation of Miners has declared itself Socialistic ; preaches the Socialistic doctrine, urges its members to vote the Socialist ticket, although a large proportion of the membership is not Socialistic. In this respect it departs widely from the conservative trade-union movement of the country. It is not affiliated with the American Federation of Labor, nor do its leaders agree with the trade-union idea as advanced by Mr. Gompers, Mr. Mitchell, Mr. Keefe, Mr. White, Mr. Clark, and other prominent leaders. One of the fundamental purposes of trade-unionism is to deal with the employer or the employers’ organization in a friendly business spirit, to make mutually agreeable settlements and contracts. Witness the system of agreements under which the Typographical Union, the United Mine Workers, and the Railroad Brotherhoods have worked for years. It is
the desire of the legitimate trade-unionist to join with the employer and work out the problems of each industry. But the Socialist sets himself on a different plane. He regards the employer as a robber, an exploiter, of whom he is the victim ; and no matter how much the employer might give him in increased wages and shorter hours, he would still be a robber and the Socialist still the victim. He even tends to lose respect for property, regarding it as the accumulation of robber wealth ; on the card which every member of the Western Federation of Miners carries, and printed on the cover of the official organ of the union, The Miners’ Magazine, is this slogan of Socialism: “Labor produces all wealth: wealth belongs to the producer thereof.”
I listened several times to the speeches of President Moyer, “ Mother” Jones, and other leaders. Here is a sample from “ Mother" Jones :
“ These robber exploiters take the wealth that we have produced by the toil of our hands and the sweat of our brows. Before the warfare comes to an end labor must be given all, capital itself must be destroyed, and Socialism must take its place.”
How can President Moyer and Secretary Haywood go from a meeting in which they have been making their followers believe these things and talk calm business agreements with employers who have no right to existence ?
And they take quite a different position upon a strike from that of the conservative trade-unionist. Any disturbance with them, for good or for bad, is helpful in calling attention to the “burden borne by the masses ” ; it serves to stir up that ‘ ‘ class consciousness” which is the present dream of the Socialist, to separate employer and employee by a wider and wider chasm, thereby hastening the day when the “ government must step in and take control.”
A Secession from Society Indeed, the policy of the Western Federation of Miners in Colorado, would suggest a sort of secession from society. Everything is all wrong — government, politics, industry, religion. So we find the union opening its own stores, trying to run its own hospital, negotiating for a coal mine to dig its own coal, encouraging its members to avoid a ‘ ‘ capitalistic press ” and read only good socialistic papers. They
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not only want socialism, but they want it this morning. Meanwhile the old world moves onward, and things grow, not by miracles, but slowly and painfully.
But in spite of the mistakes, the violences, the arrogance, the unreasoning sympathetic strikes of the Federation in Colorado — mistakes now inexorably winnowed out and punished — the union is by no means entirely to blame for the sorry conditions existing in Colorado.
Deeper Causes of the Great Strike
One of the great underlying reasons for the existing struggle, as I have said, was the demand for an eight-hour day in the smelters and mills of Colorado. The eight-hour agitation has been long-continued and bitter. Several years ago the unions began a systematic effort to secure legislation limiting the hours of work in reduction mills, in underground mine workings, and in smelters — all occupations more or less dangerous and injurious to health — where the employees now work from nine to twelve hours a day. And twelve hours a day in the often poisonous atmosphere of a smelter, any one will admit, is not humanizing toil. In 1899 the Legislature passed an eight-hour law restricting employment in these occupations. When an attempt to enforce it was made, the Smelter Trust, the Coal Operators, and other interests fought it before the State Supreme Court, which finally declared the law unconstitutional, although the United States Supreme Court had already approved a similar law passed in Utah. Such legislation, indeed, now exists in Kansas, Utah, Montana, Nevada, Arizona, British Columbia, and elsewhere.
Fight for Eight-Hour Legislation
The unions then began the work of getting an amendment to the Constitution. In November, 1902, the question was submitted to the people of Colorado, and an amendment carried by the tremendous majority of 46,714 votes. Both Democratic and Republican parties solemnly pledged themselves in their platforms to execute the will of the people and make laws to enforce this amendment in the Legislature of 1902-3.
Well, the Legislature met, and at once a powerful lobby appeared, such prominent citizens of Colorado as J. B. Grant,
representing the American Smelting and Refining Company (the Smelter Trust), Crawford Hill of the Boston Smelting Company, Caldwell Yeaman of the Victor Coal and Coke Company, and J. C. Osgood of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, one of the greatest corporations in the West — these were the same interests that had fought the former eight-hour law. They now appeared before the Legislature, they and others, confusing the issue with multitudinous suggestions, disagreeing, “jockeying”— but all the time really endeavoring to prevent the passage of the laws necessary to make the amendment effective. It was nothing to them that the people of Colorado had declared such a law to be their will by an immense majority ; it interfered with their business interests ! And they had a lawless Legislature to deal with. At the very beginning of the session the House, which was Republican, unseated a number of the Democratic minority, in order to get a majority in the joint conference which was to elect a United States Senator. Then the Senate, largely Democratic, retaliated by expelling some of its Republican members. Both Senate and House sat for days guarded by armed men. General Sherman Bell, afterwards in command at Cripple Creek, protected the Republican House with members of the state troops !
Lobby Defeats the Will of the People
When the eight-hour bill came up, neither party wanted to pass it; each sought to throw the odium for its rejection upon the other. And all the while the lobby experts were working silently underneath, as such lobbies know how to work. By the wording of the amendment it was made mandatory on the Legislature to pass the eight-hour law — “The General Assembly shall provide by law”—and yet they adjourned without passing it.
Rarely, indeed, has there been in this country a more brazen, conscienceless defeat of the will of the people, plainly expressed, not only at the ballot, but by the pledges of both parties. And the great corporations of Colorado continued smugly with their nine, ten, and twelve hour days—-earning a little more profit.
J. B. Grant, of the Smelter Trust, in a published statement, asserted that the additional cost involved in granting an
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eight-hour day, the establishment of three shifts instead of two, would render it impossible for his company to conduct a profitable business in Colorado.
Let us look at the Smelter Trust. Born in the period of inflated corporate enterprises, it was capitalized at $100,000,000, about $50,000,000 of which was water. Here, then, we have a condition not dissimilar to the cause underlying Parksism in New York — the managers of the Smelter Trust trying to squeeze out dividends on a capitalization half of which had no existence in values. Indeed, no dividends have yet been paid on the $50,000,000 of common stock. Is it surprising that they should squeeze their working-men; that they should fight an eight-hour day, bring pressure to bear on a pledged Legislature, and defeat the will of the people ? Compare this lawlessness which, beginning with watered stock, must undermine the honor of a state in order to earn dividends, with the lawlessness that knocks a “scab” on the head. Which is worse ? Who is the greater anarchist, the millionaire magnate or the Italian miner who goes out in the night and shoots a fellow workman in the back?
Where the Ballot Has No Value
The effect of this defeat upon the unions may well be imagined. They had worked long and hard to secure this legislation, they had voted for pledged legislators only to see the plainly expressed will of the people deliberately defeated ! Is it a wonder that they were discouraged, even desperate ? Here they were compelled to strike to enforce what should have been a state law ! It is just such doings as these that drive men to Socialism. We preach to the agitators : "Your remedy is the ballot : vote and get your rights.”
Here voting did no good. In nearly all the strike speeches I heard in Colorado, this defeat of the will of the people was the strongest argument that could be used.
I heard President Moyer say in a speech at Pueblo :
‘‘ What is the use of your ballots anyway? You might as well tear them up and throw them in the gutter.”
The conclusion drawn by the leaders is that union men must vote the Socialist ticket: and the logic is not unconvincing.
No doubt the Smelter Trust and the Coal Operators called the defeat of the eight-hour law in the Legislature a great victory, as the union spoke of the former strikes in Cripple Creek and Telluride as victories. But it was not a victory. It was a defeat. The present scourge in Colorado, which has not spared these great money interests, found one of its chief sources there in the State-house in the definite place where the lobby and the Legislature met, where the legislator considered his political and private interests above the sacred interests of his state.
Lawlessness by Bludgeon and Lawlessness by Finesse
These dark deeds of the lobby are no more definitely provable and punishable than the dynamitings and assassinations in the strike districts, and yet no one in Colorado has any more doubt that the corporations and political corruption were behind the defeat of the eight-hour law than that the unions and their political sheriffs and other officers are responsible for the violence in the gold camps. Each sort of lawlessness, darkly planned, secretly executed, comes oozing to the surface in loss of dividends, in destruction of property, in hunger and want, in assassination. And when mines and mills are tied up, business suffering, banks failing, industry paralyzed, we hear a cry of horror going up, not unhumorously, that Capital is being frightened away from Colorado ! The great god Business has been disturbed ! We cannot defend for a moment the lawless methods of unionism — anarchy by bludgeon; but neither can we excuse that other sort of lawlessness— anarchy by finesse: that crawling, underhanded lawlessness that corrupts legislators and breaks the greater laws.
In November, 1903, came the strike of the United Mine Workers of America, John Mitchell’s organization, against , the Coal Operators of Colorado — and chiefly against the Victor Fuel Company and the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, a huge corporation controlled by John D. Rockefeller and George J. Gould.
There is not space here to consider fully all the significant features of the strike of the coal miners of Colorado, but one thing is important in this connection. Out of the five principal demands of the union on their employers, two of them are to enforce
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laws already on the statute books of Colorado, and a third, the eight-hour demand, was already a constitutional law, and would have been on the statute books, had the Legislature of last winter carried out the will of the people.
Why Laws Are Not Obeyed I asked several officials of the coal-mining corporations why these laws were not obeyed, why the unions must strike to enforce state laws, and the answer was to this effect:
‘‘ Nobody observes those laws ; they’re unconstitutional anyway.”
Lincoln said in his first inaugural address :
It will be much safer for all, both in official and private stations, to conform to and abide by all those acts which stand unrepealed, than to violate any of them, trusting to find immunity in having them held to be unconstitutional.
The excuse of these corporations for disregarding the law is only a little different from that of the union in excusing the slugging of “scabs." Why are the laws not enforced in both cases ? Because the State must be prosecutor, and both sides really hold the State in contempt. The corporations have the best and shrewdest lawyers that money can hire to fight the enforcement of such laws ; they find legal fees cheaper than obedience. The unions on their side threaten the State's attorney, or the sheriff, or the coroner, with a withdrawal of votes. So both sides escape.
Here is the bed-rock fact as to the situation in Colorado: if the laws on the
statute books, including the eight-hour law, which should have been enacted, had been obeyed, there would have been no disturbance last year.
Who Has Suffered Most by the Strike ?
Follow the trail a step further. The chief sufferers by these strikes have not been the combatants themselves: they never are. The Western Federation strike was primarily against the offending smelters and mills, but the Smelter Trust, having works elsewhere, has suffered comparatively little. The real sufferers are the unoffending miners and mine owners of Cripple Creek and Telluride — upon whom rests the weight of a sympathetic strike — and the merchants, bankers, and business men of these and other towns. In the coal strike the larger owners of the Colorado
Fuel and Iron Company are Rockefeller and Gould — and they are surely not suffering. And the coal miners who are striking are being supported from the funds of the United Mine Workers of America, so they are not suffering especially. The real sufferers here are the 7,000 workers in the steel mills at Pueblo, closed on account of the strike ; the people of Colorado who must pay higher prices for their coal; the starving employees of the Overland Cotton Mills and like enterprises, closed on account of the lack of coal, and in general the public of Colorado whose business has been injured.
Citizens’ Alliances Organized
And this leads us to the consideration of another great factor in the present struggle —the Citizens’ Alliance. The Citizens’ Alliance is the expression in some degree of this suffering third party, pinched into organization. Often the citizens’ alliances are composed largely of employers and are engines for fighting unionism, but they usually contain also many citizens and business men, who, not connected directly with any industrial struggle, have yet been injured. In some cities the alliances sprung into being with the spontaneity of a vigilance committee -- and at once went to extremes. One extreme provokes another; violence and lawlessness breed violence and lawlessness.
One of the Colorado camps in which the Western Federation of Miners struck last year was Idaho Springs. The mines were closed down, with the usual blight on local business, the usual friction over a settlement, and, finally, the usual attempt to hire non-union men. On the night of July 28, 1903, while the Sun and Moon Mine was thus operating, a terrific explosion occurred which blew up the electrical transformer house and cut off the power from the mine. An Italian, with a union card in his pocket, supposedly a member of the attacking party, was found dead shortly afterward, either killed by the explosion or shot by the guards, so the crime was at once laid at the door of the union, rightly or wrongly. Deputy sheriffs arrested all the leaders of the union, taking most of them from their homes, some of them from their beds. Then the Citizens’ Alliance called a meeting, which was presided over by Lafayette Hanchette, president of
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the First National Bank, and one of the foremost citizens of the town. There were impassioned speeches. Mr. Hanchette himself said :
It was the design of these men to remove us as they did Arthur Collins at Telluride. The officers of the Western Federation of Murderers know who committed that foul deed. It is not pleasant to do business and try to build up our city with the consciousness that there are men ready to pick you off from behind bushes or boulders. These assassins will not shoot a man in the front, but will creep up on him like cowards from behind. I know that the men down in the city jail were too cowardly to roll kegs of powder down upon the Sun and Moon Mine, attempting to kill all the men at work there, but they got some ignorant Italians to do the job for them.
Union Leaders Expelled by the Citizens' Alliance
The Deputy District Attorney, Smith, a Southerner, tried to counsel moderation, urged the alliance to proceed lawfully. “ I have seen mobs in the South," he said, “and I know what they come to.” But the citizens would not listen to him. They marched out of the meeting, wrought to a high pitch, took the fourteen union men, including President Tressider, Secretary Olcott, and Treasurer Bender, formed them in line, and marched them to the limits of the town. There they were halted, and Lafayette Hanchette said to them :
Never show your faces in Clear Creek County again, for, if you do, we will not be responsible for what happens to you. A very considerable element here has been for hanging you men, but the conservative citizens have prevailed. They expect you to keep moving until you get out of the state.
Then the men moved off into the darkness on foot. Four of them left their wives and families behind, and one an aged mother— not knowing what was to be the result of this rising of the citizens.
How the story of these strike leaders, lawlessly driven from their town and their homes, brings up the picture of the “scabs,” abused, beaten, shot at, driven over the mountains at Telluride, by union men after the capture of the Smuggler-Union Mine !
Well, the deported union men did not stay away. They returned shortly with lawyers, and had eighty-four members of the Citizens’ Alliance arrested and placed under bonds ; then the Citizens’ Alliance turned and had the union leaders arrested
— and after that there were interminable trials, nearly bankrupting the county, falling heavily upon every taxpayer, costing the Federation large sums of money, costing the Citizens’ Alliance large sums of money.
Fate of the Decent Union Man
Out of this also grew greater bitternesses, greater hatreds, greater distrust—• and, finally, the determination of the Citizens’ Alliance to crush unionism forever in the Idaho Springs district. And this fell hard on individuals who, honest, hardworking, respectable American citizens, perhaps, were members of the union. Probably these very men remained at home on stormy nights when there was a union meeting ; probably they didn’t like “ union politics” ; probably they did not know of the “ slugging” of “ scabs,” or the plan to blow up the Sun and Moon Mine, if there was a plan — and didn’t want to know. So the union fell into the hands of unwise, perhaps criminal, leaders — and they, these honest, decent union members, like the honest, decent members of our political parties, allowed the Boss to get control. And who now suffers ? Why, these very same honest, self-respecting citizens ! Who pays the taxes ? Not the rowdy union element that commits the crimes : they have no property to tax; but these same saving, industrious union men, who do not like union politics !
Public Officials Taking Sides
Another appalling feature of this Colorado contest is the lining up of public officials on one side or the other of the industrial conflict. I have no wish to attack any official of Colorado, especially any judge — these are trying times, and men are prone to call names and misjudge motives — and yet no student looking into the Colorado situation, if he honestly desire to see every condition, bad or good, can escape seeing also this political side of the industrial question.
We find, for instance, Governor Peabody violently abused by all union men as a friend of the corporations. They say he was elected on a well understood anti-union platform, that he has been eager to call out the troops and help crush unionism. The employers, on the other hand, call him a “fair man,” a “brave governor.” I am
[pgbrk] 56
THE REIGN OF LAWLESSNESS
not here discussing these charges. I am merely reporting them. A few years ago Governor Waite sat in the State-house : "Bloody Bridles” Waite they called him. Even to this day you will hear the employers of Colorado speaking of Waite as an anarchist, a demagogue, telling how he called out the troops to help the miners during the Cripple Creek strike. Union men, on the other hand, call him a hero, a “fair governor,” a “fearless man.” Is not, then, Governor Peabody, or was not Governor Waite, the governor for both union men and employers ?
Union Judges and Corporation Judges
You will hear District Judge Owers, the judge before whom the members of the Citizens' Alliance of Idaho Springs were brought after they had driven the union men out of town, called by many employers an anarchist, a partizan of the unions.
“Just wait till we get Judge De France back,” a prominent citizen of Idaho Springs said to me. “ He’ll teach these union murderers a lesson.”
The union, on the other hand, speaks of Judge Owers as a “friend.” In the same way I heard Judge Seeds, of Cripple Creek, criticized by employers and praised by union leaders. Attorney-General Miller is reported as saying :
The governor and his attorneys will try to prevent an immediate hearing of the cases, to permit the people to become composed. Their hope lies in the fact that Judge Seeds will leave the district, January 1st, giving up his seat temporarily to Judge Lewis.
Does justice, then, come and go with the judges in Colorado ?
Similarly I heard legislators spoken of as “union men,” or as “owned by the corporations,” and sheriffs designated and counted off as favoring employers or employees.
And this, as we Americans all know, is by no means a condition peculiar to Colorado, although the present strike has brought it strongly into prominence. Colorado, too, is made up of American citizens, and its faults are American faults, not Colorado faults.
Are we, then, becoming so much unionists, so much corporationists, that we forget that we are also American citizens ? Are our own private or class interests absorbing our allegiance so strongly that we forget our broad, national, state, and civic duties ?
When we vote, are we voting for Americans who will make and execute laws for all citizens, or are we voting for union legislators, corporation judges, citizens’ alliance sheriffs ?
Who is to Blame for Anarchy ?
These, then, are the conditions in Colorado, all too briefly sketched. Who is to blame for this condition of anarchy ? We hear the military forces roundly abused for their despotism, but, without wishing to excuse any of their usurpations or excesses, it is yet pertinent to inquire whether they have done anything that the citizens have not long been doing. Has not the union broken into the homes of citizens ? Has not the union interfered with the personal liberty of many a “scab,” driven him from his home and his work, as many a strike-leader is now being driven by the bayonet ? Has it not even killed its enemies ?
Have not the corporations of Colorado defeated the will of the people ; have they not broken laws every day, without punishment ? Have not the citizens' alliances driven men from their homes and their families ?
Has not even the Legislature itself broken the highest law of the Republic, the will of the people, for private, or political, or selfish ends ?
Democracy and Despotism
And, finally, as a result of all this long-continued brazen law-breaking, we see the privileges of free government taken from the people and placed in the hands of an outside despot who rules by powder and shot. In the long run, the law gets itself executed, inevitably, mercilessly; if not by the ordinary machinery of the civil officials, then by the extraordinary machinery of martial rule.
Getting down at last to fundamental principles, this is the condition in Colorado : the people have broken the law and they are being punished. Not part of the people, but every person in Colorado ; not only he who bludgeoned or bribed, but he who, greedily, in the pursuit of his private business, has forgotten his civic duties, who has not, himself obedient to the law, demanded the election of men who will enforce the law, not union men, nor corporation men, but Americans.
ON THE SADDLE BOW RANGE
57
There is no better evidence of the responsibility of every voter in Colorado than that every voter has suffered — if not directly in the strike, then in loss of business, in increased cost of coal and other commodities, in rising taxes. Colorado will long bend under the burden of paving for its troops, now for many months in the field, and for the endless lawsuits arising out of these disturbances. It is not cheap — lawlessness.
Perhaps just this appalling punishment was necessary to shake the people of Colorado— and of the country—from their indolent indifference. The white-hot anger of the people of Colorado, though it may be directed at the wrong thing — at the union, at the citizens' alliance, at the trust, when it should be directed at lawlessness— is a sign of hope : through the passion of this anger changes may be wrought.
ON THE SADDLE BOW RANGE
BY ALVAH MILTON KERR
ILLUSTRATED BY POWER O’MALLEY
IF it is true, as some assert, that opportunity is half of greatness, is it not also true that good environment is half of righteousness ? We build ourselves, mentally and physically, out of our surroundings ; we are forced to use the material that lies nearest; we naturally absorb that which lies against us. Suppose one does go wrong? Why should we coddle the physically sick and kick and punish the spiritually ill ?” Chief Dispatcher Manvell looked at Superintendent Burke in his kind, earnest way. Burke puckered his bearded lips, lifted his shaggy brows, and waited.
Manvell sat just inside the big arch of the alcove room. Outside the arch was an apartment forty feet long by perhaps twenty wide. In the corners and along the walls were several desks ; near the center of the room were three tables given over to train sheets, message hooks, and telegraph instruments ; heads, some bald, some stoutly haired, bowed at the desks and tables ; the room was pervaded by pipe odors and chattering Morse.
Burke tapped with his pencil a paperweight that lay on his desk. He had several casts of utterance — an arid, impersonal one that totally disguised his feelings ; a dry, grating one that took you into
consideration, yet, somehow, rubbed the skin off you, and a quick, explosive fashion of speech on occasion that was welcoming and cordial. His tone was now dry and grating.
“Which means,” he said, “that the young fellow waiting out in the anteroom is to get a position or, at least, consideration, while I have a letter here before me saying that he is — well, plainly, a dangerous man, and ought to be on the black-list. Am I right? ” He looked from under his heavy brows sidewise at Manvell.
“Yes,” said the chief quietly. “It so happens that I knew a good deal about this chap back in Chicago. He used to sell papers in front of the A. and T. depot when 1 was fourth man in the dispatcher's office back there. I saw him pull a ragged little fellow out from under the feet of an advancing truck team one day. For a moment the two youngsters were mixed up with the legs of the horses ; then the larger boy rolled out of the tangle and pulled the little one after him. He looked at the squalling unfortunate with vast displeasure, then gave him a fierce shake and said : ‘Now, you skip home, Runty, t' y'r mudder ; y'r not big enough t' be out here mixin' wid us men!’ 1 was crossing the street and 1 laughed and stopped and asked the rescuer if he were hurt. He rubbed
[pgbrk] “ '1 don’t sneak; I ain’t that kind ’ ”
the top of his head and said : 'Got a knob on me belfry, dat’s all. Say, mister, buy a paper, won’t ye ? ’ I purchased a paper,
he whistled, danced a clog, and flew away among the teams and people and clanging cars, looking for customers.
“He looked to be about twelve years old, though I think lie was older. It struck me that a boy who met the daily dangers and emergencies that he did would, if trained, make a good railroad man. I got him into the office as messenger boy ; we liked him ; sent him to night school, and
had him taught telegraphy. Afterward he took a position as operator in the block system. Now, I know him pretty well, and I don’t believe that the charges laid against him in the letter you have are wholly true. It was natural, reared as he was, that he should have sympathized with the switchmen in their strike, but that he could have been capable of deserting his post at a critical moment and for the purpose of wrecking a train the officials were trying to run out of the city, I don’t believe. It's not like Jimmy at all."
[pgbrk] ALVAH MILTON KERR
59
Burke rapped the desk in front of him sharply and turned toward a lad who sat at a table folding rate sheets. “Tell that young fellow out there — What is his name, Manvell?”
“Jimmy Hogan."
“Yes—tell him to come in here,” added Burke impatiently.
The applicant was ushered in. Exteriorly he appeared to be eighteen or nineteen years of age, was profusely freckled, slightly stoop-shouldered, and small for his years, but had a keen, alert expression of countenance and a fearless way of looking at people and things. The cruel conditions of his early years had written themselves into his face and figure past any means of total erasure, yet clearly the good that was native to him had enlarged in answer to the better state that had later been his. He glanced around the long room at Tommy Loomis and Arch Jordan, who were working on way messages and car reports, and at Bunch Wilson, who was hanging over the East End train sheet, immersed in that clear brown concentration through which dispatchers see things throughout a hundred miles of track, then the youth's eyes came across Manvell's face. His greeting was fine to see. He did not presume to take the chiefs hand, but his brown eyes and his freckles and every fleshy part of him glowed.
Manvell beamed. “Well, you thought you'd come out to Colorado and try the high hills, Jimmy? I have your letter asking for a job, but Mr. Burke here has a letter from Superintendent Taylor saying that you ought to be on the black-list, as you sided with the strikers in Chicago. I presume Mr. Burke wishes to ask you about it.” He nodded toward the grizzled veteran at the desk.
“Yes,” said the superintendent dryly.
‘‘How was it you left your tower one night in Chicago without giving the dispatcher notice, thus causing a wreck?”
“Some strikers, or their friends — four men they was, sir — climbed into the signal box and took me away by force, sir. I fought ’em, but they was too much for me. I wanted the switchers t’ win, sir, but I wouldn't ’a' deserted without tellin’ the dispatcher I was goin’. I wouldn't 'a’ done that if me mudder had been dyin’. I don't sneak; I ain't that kind.” The freckled youth looked at Burke with a
gleam of indignation in his eyes. “ I told Mr. Taylor that, but he was mad an' wouldn't believe me. If Mr. Manvell had been there he'd 'a' knowed I wouldn't do such a thing.”
Manvell was looking at the Middle Division train sheet. Burke hesitated a moment. “You wanted the strikers to win, you say? Then I'm with Taylor — I don't believe you. People act in keeping with their sympathies; that’s a law. ”
“Not always,” said Manvell, turning around.
“Well,” said Burke, “if you want to send him out on the wire, all right ; you'll have to be responsible.”
Manvell smiled at Jimmy. ‘ ‘ Come ’round in the morning ; I think I'll have a place for you,” he said, and quietly continued his work.
Within the week “Freckle” Hogan, as he presently was dubbed, found himself telegraph operator in a little sheet-iron station on the Saddle Bow, away out on the West End. That was when the Western Central had been pushed clear across Colorado, and a path for the steam-driven wheels was being blasted and torn through the Saddle Bow Range, beyond Pecos Pass, in northern Arizona. Down that way nearly a thousand men were at work on construction, and the things that were done with powder and dynamite were things to hear, but not safely see. “Yellow” Logan, one' of the most pushing men ever in the employ of the Western Central, was at the front as chief foreman, and Superintendent Burke, naturally, made frequent visits to the scene of operations.
Freckle’s ‘‘office” was a movable affair, being by times folded up like a patent lunch box and thrown on a flat car to be transported to the point where an operator was most needed. In this fashion he worked his way well over the Range during the summer ; at the cool end of September he was half way down the west side of the mighty, tumbled billow of mountains. Besides Freckle, there were three other operators in lunch-box stations on the Range, from eight to ten miles apart and progressing by occasional removals toward the west. There were two tunnels on the Saddle Bow stretch — Number Twelve, just west of Freckle’s September stand, and Number Thirteen, eighteen miles farther
[pgbrk] 60
ON THE SADDLE BOW RANGE
down the western slope, piercing a towering mass of granite that blocked the right of way at the head of Bear Paw canyon. Late in August Number Twelve was practically completed and the rails laid down by many a twist and turn into the yawning bore of Number Thirteen.
All through that heaving, jumbled country there were camps and men and mules and scrapers; derricks, steam drills, carloads of picks and shovels ; piles of steel rails and switch-frogs ; trains of ties and structural bridge-iron, and at many points, all through the crystalline days and cool, starry nights, dynamite and powder crashed and thundered in the blastings. The mountain eagle, frightened from his crag and soaring in vast circles in the pale sky, looked down many times during the summer on the work of the madly toiling pigmies and, seeing a long, ragged, zigzagging gash cut across the knotted breast of his lifted realm, screamed harshly and was troubled.
To Freckle, who had spent his whole life amid the dirt and ugly confusion of a great city, the strength and serenity of the great peaks, the infinite purity of the air, the green clouds of pines hanging here and there on mountain steeps, the white bath of pellucid sunshine, seemed strangely beautiful. At times he was oddly exhilarated by it all, again he was touched with lonely awe. Had it not been for the noise of the work and the presence of the rough laborers, he would have no doubt experienced something like fear, so startling was the change from his former condition.
Freckle lived the long days through with a sort of rapture at the bottom of his heart; he felt consecrated, equal to any task.
On the last day of September it came ; peril was abroad, and Freckle found his part. Ames Burke, superintendent, and Pierce Fuller, chief engineer, went over the West End that day, looking for weak spots and ‘‘ stirring things up.”
They rode on several trains, chiefly construction, during the journey, dropping off here and there on errands of inspection. By sunset they were at Summit, on the Saddle Bow Range. There they boarded a train for Tunnel Thirteen, where, in the upper Bear Paw Camp, hard by the black mouth, they purposed spending the night.
The train on which they took final passage for Tunnel Thirteen was a light one, nine
flat cars of cedar ties, a box-car containing five tons of powder, and a caboose. The cars of ties were ahead, the car of explosive was next rearward, then the caboose, then Tart Morgan with engine 382, pushing the train. This formation was well enough coming up the eastern grades of the Range, but in dropping down the western slope the engine ought to have been hooked in ahead, more effectively to hold the train. Burke and Fuller flagged the train and boarded it at a bridge a half mile west of Summit station or, unquestionably, Burke would have ordered Conductor Rawlins, who was in charge, to run the engine through the Summit siding and couple in ahead. As it was, Rawlins wished very sincerely that he had done so of his own accord, for Burke roundly criticized him as exercising bad judgment or being lukewarm with laziness. However, Rawlins meekly pointed out that the train was not a heavy one ; besides, he had always held the notion that it was good policy to keep an engine to the rear of powder, so that sparks from the stack might not blow back in its direction. Burke pooh-poohed the “notion,” but none the less it carried a grain of sense.
It chanced, as so often falls, that several things having an influence on the ultimate situation had happened within that hour. One thing : Frank McGuire, stationed in a lunch-box office near the mouth of Tunnel Thirteen, had gone into the bore with a message for the foreman, and had been hit by a falling rock and his right arm broken. The plucky lad had telegraphed the fact to Manvell with his left hand, and the chief at once called Freckle, sitting in his box near Tunnel Twelve.
“ Flag Rawlins's special and go down to Number Thirteen and take charge until further orders,” said the chief. ‘‘ McGuire has been injured. I will send a man out to Number Twelve to-night to do your work. An operator at present is needed far more at Number Thirteen than at your station.”
“ O. K.,” said Freckle. “I hear a train comin’ ; expect it's Rawlins’s. I’ll flag ’em and report to you from Thirteen.”
He scrambled up the caboose steps when the special stopped and told Rawlins the situation. “What’s that?” sharply inquired Burke, who had heard.
Freckle repeated Manvell's order. “All right, let him ride,” said the superintendent, glancing at Rawlins. He looked
[pgbrk] “ struggling madly for the top of the car ”
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ON THE SADDLE BOW RANGE
again at Freckle. “ Are you that Chicago boy — Manvell’s pet — the one Taylor wrote me about ? ” he asked abruptly.
Freckle’s face flushed. "Yes, sir,” he replied.
Burke’s lips puckered in his beard but he said nothing further. Freckle went out on the front platform of the caboose where the rear brakeman was standing. The head man, the train being so light, had been dropped for the night at Summit, where his family lived.
"Got the engine behind the train — funny way to run down grade,” said Freckle, looking about.
" Car of powder — this box-car — right here next to us,” said the brakeman. "Rawlins likes to have the engine back when we got powder in the string ; not a bad idee, I reckon.”
At that moment they entered Tunnel Twelve. Ahead of them, through quite the fourth of a mile, stretched darkness illumined here and there by lanterns depending from rods of iron wedged into crevices of the rocky walls, for workmen were still chiseling at the rough spots of the ragged sides and ceiling. Now one of these lanterns, no doubt loosened from its support by the jar of the hurrying train, fell down unobserved among the dry ties of the head flat car, spilling its oil and flame among them, and in three minutes’ time Tragedy lifted its wild face on the western slope of Saddle Bow Range.
Had they observed the fire earlier, had no panic supervened, the final peril might have been averted. As it was, Burke and Fuller, at Rawlins’s little desk, were figuring a rectification estimate. Rawlins himself, near the rear door and steadying himself with feet wide apart, was laboriously penciling a report to the Supply Department from his train memorandum book. Tart Morgan, at the right-hand window of the engine cab, could not see the head end. as the train was moving on a long tangent to the left; the fireman was busy at the furnace ; Freckle and the brakeman, talking on the platform close behind the car of powder, could see nothing directly in front. The cuts and hollows were filling with evening's purple dusk, the tops of the mountains were foiled with gold.
The train had left the tunnel a half mile behind when, suddenly, Morgan snatched the whistle lever and blew for
brakes. The brakeman swung out to the left by the hand rods of the platform. The heaped ties of the first two cars were spotted with tufts of flame; smoke and burning bits of bark blew back in his face. As by a flash of lightning, he beheld a mental vision that swept him into panic. He leaped to the caboose door and flung it open and yelled, then dropped on the platform and seized the head of the pin in the coupling between the caboose and car of powder. Freckle jumped upon him crying out for him not to draw the pin. Rawlins and Burke and Fuller spilled themselves unceremoniously out the front door, shouting, "What’s the matter? What’s the matter here ? ”
"Head cars are on fire! Powder — powder — powder!” cried the brakeman, dragging madly at the obstinate coupling-pin.
At that moment, getting no brakes, Morgan put the reversing lever over ; the couplings clanked, and the pin came out in the brakeman’s hand. Every man on the platform was shouting and struggling ; in every man’s brain was fear tangling with protests and fleeting glimpses of what ought to be done.
Burke stamped at the brakeman and roared hoarsely, "Put the pin back! put the pin back ! ” but that could not be done. The cars instantly parted, yet, in that instant Freckle Hogan leaped. The brakeman was on his knees, and Freckle went over his head and landed on the bunter-block and draw-head of the powder car, with his right hand clutching the brake-wheel rod that extended up the end of the car. In Freckle's brain flashed an imagined spectacle that for the time being drowned all fear — a picture of a train on fire hurling itself into the mouth of Tunnel Thirteen, for the rails led directly into the great bore — of a car of powder crumbling in a mass of bursting fire, of men and machinery and all things flying into atoms.
He began hastily climbing up the brake-wheel rod, slipping back and climbing again, struggling madly for the top of the car with the one thought of setting the brakes and bringing the surging string of cars to a standstill. He vaguely heard Rawlins shouting angrily at the brakeman somewhere behind him : "I told you at Summit to go over ahead and hold the train if anything happened ; why didn't you do it ? ” He also
[pgbrk] “The train, free of all restraint, rushed down the steep grade”
heard Burke's voice, mingling terror and command and encouragement in hoarse cries: “Set 'em, boy ! Get to the top! If you can set 'em on three or four cars you’ve got ’em ! Hold fast ! Don’t give up ! ”
Freckle slipped down the rod and hung dangling and gasping ; the train, free of all restraint, rushed down the steep grade, jarring and jerking and swaying as it flew. He got his feet again on the bunter-block and struggled a moment for breath, then again began to climb. Up, up, little by little, he followed the slippery rod, flung momentarily to right and left and all but torn loose by the swaying of the car. A cloud of smoke streamed back over the top of the car, and into that stream those on the caboose and engine through the growing darkness saw him finally scramble.
He lay for a moment, spent and choking, on top of the car, then rose to his feet and laid hold of the brake-wheel and set it with all his strength. Upon the flying train of cars, the setting of the brake seemingly had not the slightest effect. He clambered along the running-board through the driving smoke and sparks to the front
end of the car ; the powder in the cases beneath him, to his excited fancy, seemed to writhe and boil, but more wild and terrible than all was that picture which never for a moment quit his mind, of fire and powder crashing together among the men in Tunnel Thirteen.
From the front end of the box-car he peered down on the next car, a gray mass of ties swaying and jarring in smoke and shadow, and down upon that he leaped and fell and clutched fast and crept along to the forward end and found the brake and twisted it hard. Then he climbed upon the next load, but there he faltered and turned his back against the biting, strangling flood of heated smoke, coughing, clutching at his breast, and all but swooning. Toppling, he knit his fingers as best he could in the barked edges of the ties and strove to keep hold of his faculties as he watched the jumbled landscape wheeling by, then he crept forward again. But he found progress impossible. The forward three loads were cars of leaping flame, the ricked ties of the next four cars were tufted as with blowing torches, back over him and lapping against the top of the box-car,
[pgbrk] “ ‘ He’s—gone — after the — men,’ filtered dreamily through Freckle’s teeth”
the driving smoke streamed like some sort of awful hair, tangled with a million fireflies.
Freckle could breathe the stuff no longer. He sprawled and swayed and strangled, got to the rear end of the car upon which he was, slipped down behind the rick of ties and covered up his burning eyes. His head seemed filled with a hundred swirling images threaded with darting thoughts. When would the car of powder explode ? How long before the fire would drive him from the train ? If he jumped, how would it
feel to be dashed among jagged rocks ? Would he have the courage to leap to such a fate ? And the fiery wreck in Tunnel Thirteen ! What a vision !
Then something came to Freckle Hogan. What is it that sometimes whispers, saying things to those who strive to save others, when the heart cries for help though the lips may only gasp for breath ? The whisper in Freckle's brain said :
“Jump near the first Bear Paw bridge — at the track walker’s station — he has a box-relay on the wire there — telegraph
[pgbrk] ALVAH MILTON KERR
65
Thirteen to get the men out of the tunnel
— save lives — let the train go !”
Freckle was on the bottom of the flat
car where there was a narrow space at the rear of the load. He crept to the edge and looked down at the earth, a gray sheet of stones and logs and suddenly heaving walls whirled dizzily rearward. The sparks and hot smoke beat into his face ; the noise and lurching and twisting of the train appalled him. How far the train had gone he could only surmise, but from the first Bear Paw bridge to Tunnel Thirteen the distance was about eight miles, that he knew. He lay flat on his breast with his head over the edge, watching. The heat increased, the smoke and sparks thickened, the cases of powder in the box-car were leaping. Two and three and four minutes passed, year-long stretches of time, then he saw a crooked road of tumbling froth below him
— the plunging train had struck the banks of the upper Bear Paw. He drew himself farther over the edge, staring hard through the smoke; he must be near the first bridge. Suddenly something seemed to shout in his ear the one wild word — “Jump!” and he drew his knees under him and sprang at the white, wavering, woolly thing below. He went feet over head, turning in air, and the next moment felt the earth tear his scalp, and the next instant heard and felt his right leg snap and thrill him with awful pain, then he was in ice-cold water; and the wheeled train of fire went roaring on down Bear Paw canyon.
At many points between Tunnel Twelve and Tunnel Thirteen men in camps along the half-finished line saw the terrible thing go by through the gray dusk, and ran to and fro like frightened ants. But there seemed no means of help. There was only the little box-relay on the wire in the walker's sheet-iron hut, near the first Bear Paw bridge.
Burke, grim and pale, stood on the front platform of the flying caboose, now and again catching a glimpse of the blazing thing ahead. His lips worked in his beard ; his big hands gripped the hand-rod in front of him until his knuckles were white. Morgan had the throttle open, but they could not get nearer than a half mile or more of the fiery snake ahead of them ; besides, who wished or dared to approach closer than that, when at any moment the car of powder might ignite ?
“Stop at the walker's station by the bridge,” Burke finally shouted to Rawlins. “ If he’s in maybe we can catch Thirteen by the wire and get the men out of the tunnel. Go back on the engine and tell Morgan to let her out until we approach the station, then to plug her so we can act quick.” He glanced ahead and saw the flying wraith of smoke and flame wheeling downward through a bending grove toward the Bear Paw. And that freckled boy from Chicago was on the blazing thing, trying to stop it ! He bent forward and muttered odd words in his blowing beard.
With whistling jets of steam from her cocks and the tearing snarl of reversed drivers, 382 jolted and stopped at the walker’s station. Fuller, Burke, and Rawlins lunged from the caboose while the wheels were still turning, and made for the sheet-iron shed by leaps and bounds. Burke kicked the door open — Prindle, the walker, was not there! Two miles up the track they had nearly run over him without being aware of it; at the present moment he was running toward the station but was far up the mountain side. The little box-relay on the table in the mimic station was rattling softly. The men glanced at it, then came out; no man among them knew the Morse code. Burke looked up at the gray sky into which big, soft stars were blossoming, and his lips moved. As his glance fell back to earth, something came crawling across the track in front of the caboose, a wet, smallish figure that dragged itself forward on its hands and knees. Burke leaped at it. “The boy — Hogan ! ” he shouted, and gathered the bedraggled figure in his arms.
Freckle’s face was close to the superintendent’s ; each looked in the other’s eyes. “My leg’s broke — get me int’ the table quick—t’ the relay — so’s I can call Thirteen,” came from the boy’s bloody lips.
Burke turned and literally ran with him into the station. He placed him in the chair before the instrument and stood steadying him with his hands. Fuller and Rawlins ran in after them ; the faces of all were white, only that Freckle’s was dripping blood. He put a shaking hand on the key, his brows drawn into a knot, his nostrils distended, his lips pulled tight across his teeth ; he was faint with agony. The key went up and down. “ Tc, tc, tc,” it said.
[pgbrk] 66
ON THE SADDLE BOW RANGE
“Why, boy, didn’t you say the tunnel operator got hurt'—his arm broken this afternoon? He cannot answer ! ” exclaimed Burke in sudden fearful disgust.
“ Yes, he will,” said Freckle through his teeth ; “if Frank's in his bunk in the box, no matter if his neck’s broke, he’ll answer
— he’s Irish.”
He pushed the wet hair from his puckered forehead and went on calling, but no reply came back. Then he ticked out a full and terrifying sentence : “If you’re in your bunk, Frank, run to the tunnel and get the men out'—runaway train on fire, car of powder at tail of train'—if it don’t blow up before it gets there, it’ll explode in the tunnel ! Get the men ”
Then the current broke. ‘‘ Who — says
— that?” ticked the instrument bunglingly, falteringly.
‘‘ Freckle Hogan — first Bear Paw bridge
— that you, Frank?”
“Yes.”
"Git the night shift out of---- ”
“ O. K.”
“He’s — gone-—after the — men,” filtered dreamily through Freckle’s teeth, and he rolled back in Burke’s arms and darkness flooded over him.
Almost at the same moment a young redheaded fellow with an arm in slats burst out of the iron shed near the mouth of Tunnel Thirteen.
“ Get away from in front of the tunnel ! Get out of it!" he yelled, as he bolted headlong into the ragged bore. “ Out of here —out of here — every mother's son of you ! Runaway train— on fire — powder in train ! Out of here ! ” Thus all the way to the breast of the blasting, seven hundred feet from the tunnel’s mouth, his strong, young voice roared the warning as he ran.
Sixty men came out of the works with such speed as terror of death alone can put into human legs. Logan, head foreman, was with them.
“Scatter! Get off the right of way! Get back!” he yelled, for the steel rails were whining and Bear Paw canyon was roaring and clapping with echoes.
Then around a bulging point the thing of fear reeled suddenly into view, and all the rugged walls of the gorge and the foaming Bear Paw and the faces of the hiding men were whitened. The loaded ties were
ablaze clear to the powder car and the forward end of that was sheeted over with fire, and coals and sparks had begun dropping down upon the cases. The flaming thing went into the tunnel with a seething roar, then in a moment came an appalling crash and the Saddle Bow Range quivered down to its last strata. A vomit of stones and twisted rails and broken machinery gushed from the tunnel’s mouth, a breath that turned boulders over went up the canyon, then silence fell.
Burke, tenderly laying Freckle on the seat cushions in the caboose, up by Prindle’s station, heard the detonation. His mouth worked in his beard oddly. After a moment he said quietly: “Rawlins, we’ll run on down to Thirteen; tell your engineer.”
He straightened Freckle’s limp form on the cushions, wiped the lad’s wet face softly with his handkerchief, and walked up and down the car. Fuller and Rawlins looked at him furtively; in each man’s mind worked the thought: “If the men in Thirteen did not get the warning in time, then — ” but they said nothing. When they got down from the caboose near Tunnel Thirteen, Foreman Logan met them.
“ Well ? ” said Burke.
“No one hurt — machinery, everything gone,” replied Logan.
“All right,” said the superintendent, with a long, relieving breath. “Order new machinery sent here at once. Clear the tunnel as soon as it cools. Where’s your doctor ? ”
“Over there in the shed with McGuire.”
‘‘ Get him ; boy with broken leg here in the caboose. Fetch McGuire, if he’s able; I want to promote him.”
Afterward Freckle went to the company’s hospital at Paley Fork. He went in a special car. One morning Burke and Manvell stepped into the accident ward ; Freckle looked up from his cot and his brown eyes glistened.
“Mr. Burke thinks we’d better make a place for you on the wires here at headquarters,” said Manvell smilingly.
Freckle picked at the white counterpane. “Don’t — know as — I’m good enough.
But if you think---- ”
“We’ll manage that all right,” laughed Burke ; “ you know, we're Irish ! ”
[pgbrk] EDITORIAL ANNOUNCEMENT
THE next chapters of THE HISTORY OF THE STANDARD OIL COMPANY will appear in the June and July numbers of the magazine. In the June number Miss Tarbell, under the title of “A Latter Day War for Independence,” will take up the fight of the Independents against the Standard. The July paper will be on “The Price of Oil.”—The Editor.
THE POET MOON
BY FLORENCE WILKINSON
HOW the palms tossed at Bordighera, How the gray olives blew,
How vivid shone the Mediterranean ’Twixt shaken plumes of yew !
Then those dim miles of violets,
The depth, the hue,
The scents that flew,
The shell-pink villas, cypress-closes And walls that gushed with heavy roses.
At twilight that fantastic rock,
A castle by the sea,
And the long flaming ribboned west,
A road to Memory.
And the bright trembling crescent moon,
A poet-thing That seemed to sing,
Inscribing with its fairy feather Lyrics of love and golden weather.
[pgbrk]
THE DOUBTING OF THE DOCTOR
BY HENRY C. ROWLAND
AUTHOR OF “SEA SCAMPS,’’ ETC.
ILLUSTRATED BY URQUHART WILCOX
THE sudden shying of his hunter almost threw the doctor into the road; then the outer wheel of the high dog-cart struck a rock upon the bank and for a while the doctor hovered in mid-air, as it seemed to him, at least three feet above the seat. So perfect, however, was his Park form that, when he alighted, his former correct position was unchanged by the breadth of a hair.
Somewhat startled and decidedly annoyed by the unlooked for manoeuvre, the
doctor brought in his hunter with a vigor that almost hauled him back over the dashboard. At the same moment a suspicious ripple came from the bushes that fringed the side of the winding road, and, bringing his hunter to a full stop, the doctor looked in the direction with an air of pained surprise. It was in his mind that a few terse but dignified words of reproach on the impropriety of scaring ramping hunters might not be amiss.
Standing in the alders at the foot of an ivy-covered elm there stood a lady, who, aside from her more conventional drapings,
[pgbrk] HENRY C. ROWLAND
69
looked as if she might just have been released from the hollow trunk of the tree behind her.
Dr. Livingston Wentworth gathered whip and reins affectionately to the second button of his driving-coat, and with the other hand stiffly raised his hat. Something in the precision of his movements might have suggested the idea that his confidence in his balance had been destroyed by his recent shock.
“ I beg your pardon—-” he began.
“Oh, don't mention it,” the lady interrupted. "I was a bit startled for a moment, as you seemed to be charging right down upon us, but it was all right as soon as I
opened my parasol at your horse---- ”
“ I fear that I---- "
“Oh, don't apologize. Really, you know, it was well worth the shock to see the expression on your face as you sat there with so much dignity, about three feet above the seat — ” Rising mirth interrupted her, then suddenly her face grew serious, and she glanced down at her side. Following her eyes, the doctor was startled to see the prostrate figure of a man. Looking back at the girl, he noticed for the first time that her dress was torn at the shoulder and the earth ground into the sleeve.
‘‘ What's the matter ? ” he asked sharply. “ Have you had an accident?"
The girl threw out her hands with a pretty, deprecating gesture.
“Oh, hardly that — my father and I were driving, and as we went over this rut the hind axle broke and let us down. Father was thrown against that tree.”
Dr. Wentworth stared. “I should be inclined to call that an accident,” he remarked dryly. “ Is your father hurt ? ” Cold-blooded indifference in such an apparently charming girl jarred upon him disagreeably. He leaped to the ground and tied his horse to a sapling ; then he turned to the girl, who was watching him with a peculiar expression.
“ He is not hurt,” she said, with a touch of impatience in her voice and an imperceptible movement of her body, as if to oppose the examination. “You are very kind, but we do not need any assistance. I have sent a farmer boy for a trap.”
The doctor coldly disregarded the hint of her words and walked over to the prostrate man, who was spare and gray and
elderly ; he was lying on his back and his face was ashen. Now and then a groan was forced from between his blue lips.
“Are you in pain?” asked the doctor, bending over him.
The man emitted a quavering groan. “There is no such thing as pain,” he gasped brokenly.
A horrible suspicion threw a pale light into Wentworth’s mind. Still stooping, he swung around to the girl, who was watching him with cold hostility.
“ Once or twice he has thought he was suffering,” she remarked in a superior voice, “ but that was only a passing weakness. We do not admit the possibility of pain or disability, and just at your ill-timed arrival 1 had succeeded in convincing my father that his condition was perfectly normal.”
Wentworth's skilled fingers were making a hasty examination of limb and body. After the first shock, the horrible truth had filled him with cold disgust which even the physical beauty of the girl at his elbow was powerless to modify. Presently he turned to her, and there was a note in his voice that brought the blood into her cheeks.
“If his normal condition consists of a smashed collar bone and an arm broken in two places, with incidentally a sprained ankle thrown in, your idea is fairly accurate. Personally, I have my doubts. That ankle must be giving him the very deuce, to judge from his general condition.”
The girl drew herself up haughtily. Wentworth rose to his feet and looked her over with a cold and curious eye. She was undeniably beautiful and a lady, but, although Wentworth possessed a chivalry almost Quixotic in character, he felt for the moment that nothing would do him so much good as to seize her rounded shoulders in his strong surgeon’s hands and shake her until the big coil of red hair tumbled about her face and her pearly teeth rattled in her silly little head.
The girl surveyed him with a look of calm superiority.
“I think,” she remarked, “that if, instead of referring in a vulgar way to an entirely mythical power of evil, we were to unite in prayer, it would prove of the greatest benefit to my poor suff”— she checked herself, coloring — ‘‘misguided father.”
[pgbrk] 70
THE DOUBTING OF THE DOCTOR
Wentworth stared at her in speechless wrath, compressing his lips to restrain the flood of forceful, and, it is to be feared, profane expressions that were struggling to escape. At that moment, happening to glance past the girl, he caught sight of a country buggy ditched a few rods down the road.
“ Is that your buggy ? ” he asked.
“Yes,” said the girl shortly.
“Perhaps I can patch it up so that we can use it to drive your father to the next farm-house. My cart would jolt him too much, and I am afraid might change his views in regard to the abstract existence of pain.”
“There is no such thing as pain !—Oh, my ankle ! ” quavered the wounded man. Wentworth looked at the girl and hoped that he saw a faint indication of distress in her long gray eyes.
“You would not be able to mend the buggy, I am afraid,” she remarked less haughtily. “The axle is broken in two.”
“ Suppose you go and pray over it while I am putting a splint on your father’s arm,” suggested Wentworth. “ You might get it to knit by the time I got through. There’s no reason why it shouldn’t work just as well on the axle as on a bone ! ”
A suspicious quiver was apparent at the corners of the girl’s mouth. Her face grew slightly pale.
“Will you kindly leave us?” she remarked with dignity.
“No,” said Wentworth bluntly; “I won’t.”
The girl clenched her small hands. "I command you to go ! ” she exclaimed, stamping her little foot passionately.
"I decline to obey,” said Wentworth calmly.
For a moment she glared at him with such a vindictive look that he almost thought she was going to strike him. Wentworth stared back sternly, without taking his eyes from hers. A groan came from the prostrate man, and at the sound the girl suddenly wheeled and, placing both her graceful forearms against the trunk of the great tree, rested her forehead on them, and burst into a wild storm of tears.
Wentworth hesitated, then, whipping out his heavy clasp-knife, split a small sapling and cut three splints. Kneeling by the father he gently loosed his collar and
cravat and, with the aid of his handkerchief and that of the wounded man, proceeded to immobilize the fractured arm. Soon the girl's sobs ceased and, glancing over his shoulder as he worked, Wentworth saw that she was watching him fixedly.
‘‘ Go over and look under the seat of my cart and you will find a flask in the pocket of my overcoat,” he said, without turning his head; “mix a little brandy and water in the cover and give him a drink. His pulse is very bad ! ”
There was a moment’s pause ; then he heard a rustle behind him, and, glancing covertly back, saw that his order was being obeyed.
Together they raised the sufferer’s head and gave him to drink, and Wentworth noticed, with an inward grin, a feeble but gratified smack as the last swallow passed his lips, and a look of more than appreciation for the stimulant. A faint twinkle appeared in the mild blue eye as the patient’s head fell back on the moss.
‘‘ Get my overcoat out of the cart and spread it over him,” commanded Wentworth, as he drew the edge of his knife along the lacing of the old gentleman's shoe. Again the order was immediately carried out.
Having treated the ankle to his satisfaction with such means as he had in hand, and disposed the patient as comfortably as possible, Wentworth turned to the girl.
“Thank you very much,” he said;
‘‘ you have been of a great deal of service ; in fact, I wouldn’t ask for a better assistant— and — and — now, if there is anything else that you would like to try, a hymn, you know, or anything like that-—” He hesitated, for an ominous glitter was growing in the girl’s eye.
“ There is no such thing as pain ! ” came more confidently from the ground. “ My ankle doesn't hurt me as much—-hem— that is to say, I do not think—er — young man, do you happen to have any more of that stimulant ? It — er — appears to strengthen my faith.”
Wentworth looked at him with a slight quiver about his mouth. A faint color had crept into the pallid cheeks, and, as he met Wentworth’s look, there was just the suspicion of a flicker in the upper lid of the left eye.
[pgbrk] HENRY C. ROWLAND
71
“ Certainly," said Wentworth, encouragingly. He turned to the daughter. ‘‘ Give him another drin — er — that is, let us repeat the stimulant.” The girl obeyed in an ominous calm, and Wentworth noticed that she seemed to avoid his eye. As she was filling the flask cover from the little rill at the side of the road the rattle of wheels suddenly broke in upon them. The doctor looked up and saw a smart two-seated buckboard drawn by a pair of handsome but rather heavy grays. On the back seat were two elderly ladies. Suddenly one of them leaned forward and emitted a somewhat discordant cry of recognition.
“ Why, Honoria ! ” she called ; then to the coachman : “ Stop, Johnson. "
The coachman checked the pair’s momentum ; the girl, flask in hand, rose to her feet.
"Why, Honoria ! ” cried the lady ; ‘‘ what are you doing here ? Where is your father ? What is that you have in your hand ? A flask ? Whatever has happened ? ”
The doctor looked at the lady with interest. She was tall and somewhat angular, with decided features which showed traces of a beauty almost effaced by the indulgence of varying hysterical convictions. Just then her expression was one which went to inspire a defensive attitude on the part of the beholder. Beside her sat a woman of similar age, with a set of features which seemed perpetually at odds with themselves.
From the ladies the doctor looked at the girl. Her expression hardly seemed to indicate the pleasure or relief which the meeting might have been expected to produce.
“ Father is up there in the bushes,” replied the girl, a little defiantly, as though she feared criticism for keeping a father in such a place. “We broke down and were thrown out. There is the buggy farther on,” she added, with somewhat the air of the Russian driver who throws the lap-robe to temporarily divert the attention of a pursuing pack of wolves.
‘‘ Is your father hurt ? — And whose trap is that ? ” (indicating the dog-cart).
“ There is no such thing as pain ! ” came a decided voice from the bushes.
The lady descended hastily and stepped over to where the sufferer lay. At sight of the doctor she paused, then her piercing
eye swept the recumbent figure of her husband with strong disfavor.
“ Honoria ! ” she cried austerely, “ who is this person with your father? — but first throw that nasty bottle in the ditch ! ”
The girl hesitated and the doctor came to her aid.
“My name is Livingston Wentworth, madame. I am a surgeon, and as I was driving past——"
“A surgeon ! — and you have dared to swathe my husband's free limbs in your odious sticks and rubbish ? Remove them at once, sir ! Eliphalet, I am amazed at you ! Get on your feet at once, sir ! Honoria, how could you permit of such vandalism ? ” She made a movement toward her husband, but the doctor firmly but gently interposed his six feet of stalwart manhood. The amused expression had left his face, which was very grave.
“Pardon me, madame,” he said ; “ but I am afraid you do not understand. Your husband's arm and collar-bone are broken, and he is suffering---- ”
“ ‘ Why, Honoria ! ”
[pgbrk] 72
THE DOUBTING OF THE DOCTOR
‘‘ There is no such thing as pain ! ” came dismally from the ground. “ Ouch ! ”
For a moment the lady glared at the doctor with a set hut wrathful face.
“ Remove those bandages at once, sir !"
"I shall do nothing of the sort. I tell you the man is all smashed up.” Amazement and disgust were giving way to positive anger.
There was a moment’s pause while the lady and the doctor remained dead-locked in a silent and motionless strife. The lady turned to the coachman.
“Johnson, come here this minute.”
The coachman, whose well-trained impassivity of countenance was giving way to an expression of uncomfortable interest, saluted and wriggled uneasily upon his seat.
“ Beggin’ your pardon, ma’am, I daren’t leave the ’osses, ma’am.” The grays were dozing apathetically.
“Come here at once!” in a slightly higher and somewhat strident key.
With ostentatious care the coachman wrapped the reins about the whip and reluctantly descended.
“Remove this person!” ordered his mistress, indicating the doctor with a contemptuous nod.
The coachman approached with some misgiving. A look of positive relief spread over the doctor’s face, but there was a set look about his jaw and a gleam in his blue eyes that did not escape the observant Johnson.
“ You wouldn’t ’ave me lay ’ands on a gentleman, ma’am ! ” he protested weakly.
“ I believe you heard me order you to remove this person ! ”
The coachman shifted his weight to the other foot. The doctor smiled wickedly.
“Johnson,” he remarked suavely, “ there is no such thing as pain, but if you attempt to interfere with me or my patient you will need a course of absent treatment for the next six weeks before you are fit for service again.”
“I think the ’osses are going to start, ma’am,” said the perturbed coachman, springing to the heads of the dozing grays.
There was a somewhat embarrassing pause for a moment; then Honoria stepped quietly to her mother’s side.
“Mamma, the doctor is right! I think that we had better move papa just as he is without disturbing the dressings----”
“Yes, yes, Patience,” exclaimed the prostrate Eliphalet. “Get me home and a-bed, then, after the — er — anatomical relations are properly — er — adjusted, you may treat me according to your own excellent methods. At present I am in a great deal of—er — excitement, and do not feel equal to any more—er—manipulations !”
The mother surveyed with mingled expression the different members of the party, and when her eyes finally came back to her helpless spouse there were tears in them-— whether of vexation or sympathy the doctor was unable to determine ; nor did he much care, if the truth were known.
“Very well,” she said at length in the voice of a martyr. “ Since my own flesh and blood, and even my hired servants, will not support me, I am obliged to submit I suppose — but it is under protest — the strongest protest ! ” She turned to the doctor. “I shall refer the matter to my son, sir ! ”
The doctor bowed, striving to hide an expression of gratification.
“Johnson,” he called, “come here and help me to put your master in the carriage — that is, if you dare leave the pair,” he added maliciously.
A modest cough from the ground drew his attention. Looking at the injured man, he thought that he caught once more that almost imperceptible flutter of the eyelid, A large experience of mankind for one so young suggested something to his mind : he turned boldly to the wife and mother.
“Madame, since you have so considerately permitted my profane system of treatment to prevail in the present case, I will carry it out further, to the extent of prescribing for the patient a dose of the orthodox stimulant before he is moved.” He turned to the girl. “Will you kindly hand me my flask ? ”
In an aggrieved silence a heroic dose of the medicine indicated was poured out and given to the patient, who received it with sad but unprotesting fortitude. This done, the doctor reinforced the dressings and rigged an improvised sling, after which the unfortunate Eliphalet, with many facial contortions, was tenderly bestowed in the carriage. The wife placed herself at his side, and, the woman in her triumphing over the theorist, rested his pale face upon her shoulder. The other elderly lady took the front seat.
[pgbrk] “ ‘No, dear; I am a convert’ ”
“Honoria,” commanded the mother, ‘‘ get in front."
The doctor made a dissenting gesture. “It would not be safe,” he declared. “Johnson would be too crowded to have perfect control of his horses. If you will permit me,” turning to the girl, “ it will give me great pleasure to drive you home in my cart.” He turned to the coachman. “Rather crowded, aren't you, Johnson ? ”
A fleeting look of intelligence crossed the well ordered features.
“Oh, werry, sir — more particular as the pair is a bit skittish 'avin’ stood so long in the stable. ”
“ You see,” remarked the doctor. “We will follow close behind you. All right, Johnson — drive on.”
A rising protest from the back seat was snapped short by a quick tug at the traces. The doctor gently drew the bewildered girl aside and the vehicle passed on. As they stood in the road the girl and the man looked at one another. Mingled emotions were struggling in the pretty face, but the doctor’s was gravely respectful.
The carriage swung smartly around a bend. Above the thud of the horses’ feet on the hard-packed turf there suddenly arose another and odder sound. They listened in amazement, for, with the rhythm of the hoofs, came the quavering, uncertain air in thin but cheerful tones, of a popular drinking song.
For a moment they gazed at one another in silence, the doctor making heroic efforts to maintain his expression of polite concern.
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THE DOUBTING OF THE DOCTOR
Suddenly the girl sank back against the bank, and the next moment the woods were ringing with peal after peal of irrepressible laughter.
A high English dog-cart drawn by a road-wise hunter was bowling along a winding drive through the woods. A hunter is the most sagacious of horses, and this horse was the wisest of hunters, as was evidenced by the painstaking way in which he kept his eyes on the road ahead and carefully avoided rocks and holes.
As if to demonstrate what he could do when he really cared to try, the hunter shied violently, throwing Honoria almost into the doctor’s arms.
"Intelligent animal!" commented the doctor. “ He always shies here. He remembers how you startled him the day we first met."
“Ah, yes," murmured the girl softly ; “ I shall never forget—” She paused.
“Forget what?" asked the doctor encouragingly.
‘‘ How funny you looked holding the reins and sailing through the air so gracefully. You reminded me of one of the cupids in the ‘Aurora’ of Guido Reni ! ”
The doctor surveyed her with dignified reproach.
“It might have been very serious. If I had happened to land on the wheel when I came down instead of the seat----"
“That would have been funnier still! You would have looked like Fortuna — or a circus poster ! "
The doctor looked at her with mingled emotions.
You looked like a siren, " he remarked, and added severely, “and behaved like one too. I don’t know that I have ever come so near to being lured to my destruction, and when the fairy tale got to the approach
of the fiery---- ”
“Don't you dare call mamma a dragon ! ”
“ I wasn’t. I was going to say 'steeds,’
when you----- ’’
“ You don't deserve to have a---- ”
“ Mother-in-law ! I know it ; but Johnson believes in me. He asked me to look at one of the horses' legs yesterday and---- ”
[pgbrk] HENRY C. ROWLAND
75
" 'Remove this person ! ’ ”
"How silly you are ! Papa swears by you, and many of mamma's friends are
beginning to---- ”
“Swear at me. Yes — but they wouldn’t if they knew how miserably unhappy I am!”
“Nonsense! — I don't believe it! — really ? ” The fresh young face was turned an imperceptible angle in his direction.
“Yes,” dejectedly. “There really is not much for me to live for. I have not told any one, but I am going away this afternoon ! ”
“ Going away — where?" she cried in a startled tone.
“For a walk — in the woods probably. I want to try and see if I can conjure up in my imagination how I must have looked when Heather shied and----”
“Take me home if you please. I do not think I care to go any farther to-day.” “There is a bit of a chill in the air. I think that if we were to sit a little closer----"
"Will you be so good as to turn around ?" “Don't dare. I'm afraid of upsetting and breaking my collar-bone and arm and spraining my ankle. I've got an idea of what might happen — what! Oh, I say — oh, I am a brute.”
The little head with its mass of red-gold hair was as far from him as the narrow seat would permit. The rounded shoulders were rising and falling convulsively and the gray eyes were buried in a tiny handkerchief.
“Oh, I say — Miss Hampton — oh, by George-—’’ The doctor groaned in anguish and felt that he would like to throw the loop of the reins about his neck and be dragged in the dust behind the cart. Then suddenly a better idea came to him, like an inspiration. He slid one arm along the back of the seat. The intelligent hunter slowed into a walk.
The girl sat up and turned to him suddenly. Her face was red with laughter.
"Don't take it so to heart, Doctor Wentworth ; but every once in a while, when I think of how you looked — Sir ! ”
“ Darling ! ”
“ You are insolent! ”
“You are an angel ! ”
“Turn around this minute and take me home ! ”
The doctor gathered up the reins. The girl eyed him with furtive doubt.
“Do you think you can turn without upsetting?” timidly.
“Perhaps — if you get away over on this side ! ”
‘‘ Perhaps we had better keep straight on.”
‘‘ I think so. These crooked paths are very dangerous.”
She looked at him askance, but his face was entirely grave.
“ What do you mean by speaking to me as you did just now ?”
‘‘ Do you really want to know ? ’’
She shot a glance at him under her long lashes, and the red that flamed into her
[pgbrk] 76
HOW HAYES BECAME PRESIDENT
cheeks rivalled the scarlet ivy on the tumble-down stone wall.
The doctor dropped his voice — and the maiden dropped her head — and the next moment the intelligent but misguided hunter started suddenly, for his patrician
pointed ears had caught a familiar sound.
“But you are still a Philistine,” she pleaded.
“No, dear; I am a convert. There is no such thing as pain ! ” replied the doctor with an air of thorough conviction.
HOW HAYES BECAME PRESIDENT
BY
JOSEPH M. ROGERS
Editorial Notr.—Although twenty-seven years have passed since the Hayes-Tilden controversy was settled by the Electoral Commission, very little has been written on the subject except in partisan discussion. A generation has risen which not only does not remember the event, but has few sources of information. Most, of those who participated actively in the affair arc dead, but with the passing of years there is such a decline in political bitterness that those whose months were formerly stopped arc now willing to talk upon the subject. In preparing this article the writer has had access to new material. Shortly before his death, the late Abram S. Hewitt permitted him to read the manuscript on the subject which he had prepared for posthumous publication, but which has not vet appeared. Among others in both parties who participated in the scenes, Colonel Henry Watterson has been of assistance, and Senator Hoar has kindly furnished material which is new and interesting. None of these persons is in any way responsible for anything in this article except when quoted. The attempt has been to give a narrative without any expression of opinion, so that to most persons there will be afforded for the first time a clear understanding of the nature of the dispute which threatened civil war, the way it was settled, and the angry controversies to which it gave rise.
ON the morning of November 8, 1876, the day after the Presidential election, the newspapers of the country generally indicated the success of Tilden and Hendricks. The Democratic journals were unanimous in their verdict, giving their candidate a large majority of the electoral college. Republican journals were naturally much more conservative. Most of them practically conceded the election of Tilden by allowing their candidate a very decided minority and placing many states in the doubtful column ; some admitted that the face of the returns was against them and relied on hope of later changes. Some claimed Hayes's election without any real attempt at justification, some admitted that it looked like Tilden, but there was only one Republican newspaper — the New York Times — that announced the election of Hayes and Wheeler, by a majority of one electoral
vote, giving a table to prove it. And thereby hangs the most wondrous tale in American political history.
The Times had as much interest in the election of Hayes as any other Republican newspaper in the country, but it went to press with an edition that gave mighty little satisfaction to the Republicans. Tilden’s election was practically conceded. The managing editor, John C. Reid, sat in his chair after midnight discussing with considerable dissatisfaction the result, when a messenger boy came in with a note. This was before the day of the telephone or the history of the country might have been different in several respects.
The note was from Senator Barnum, former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and at that time chairman of the Executive Committee. The Democratic manager was a personal friend of the editor, and the note asked briefly his news from Florida, South Carolina, Oregon, and
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Louisiana. That was what is called in these days a “ psychological moment.”
The editor glanced at his published table and, with a swiftness which did justice to his education, saw that if the states asked for had gone Republican, Hayes was elected by an electoral vote of 186 to 185. He had supposed three of these states lost to the Republicans, but here was the Democratic manager ignorant of the result. If this were a tale of fiction the above incident would not be believed, much less the consequences. Notifying Mr. Barnum that the states had gone Republican, the editor stopped his presses, which had run off many papers, and got out a new edition claiming the election of Hayes. His sole basis was that Barnum was in doubt. Leaving the later news to his assistants, Mr. Reid rushed to the Fifth Avenue Hotel to see Senator Zachariah Chandler, of Michigan, chairman of the Republican National Committee. That elderly gentleman had gone to bed feeling that he had been badly beaten, but Reid had no hesitancy in arousing him. It so happened that at this juncture there arrived from New Hampshire William E. Chandler, secretary of the Republican National Committee and, later, a senator. The two men called up the aged war-horse and all power was given into their hands. It was decided to wire the situation at once to Republican managers of doubtful states, ordering them to claim everything and hold fast, while larger plans were left for the next day.
All Republican newspapers were glad to take the cue from the New York Times, and thereafter the claim as to who was elected was almost entirely on partizan lines. Visiting statesmen began their journeys. President Grant suggested that certain leading Republicans go South to investigate, and Chairman Abram S. Hewitt, of the Democratic National Committee, sent men of his own party to the same centers to look after Mr. Tilden’s interests. These investigations make a story by itself.
To those readers who are gray-haired, the recollection of the Hayes-Tilden controversy is so green that it is hard to appreciate that most of the people now living have no remembrance of it. Bitterness ? Intense. Hard language ? The very worst between neighbors and former friends. Civil war? That seemed imminent for a long time. There were plenty of men on
both sides ready to fight, and had not the recollection of the Civil War been so vivid, strife might have ensued. Within one year of his death, Abram S. Hewitt, who was largely responsible for preventing war, told this writer, with permission to publish, that military organization had been effected in eleven states and that a commander-in-chief, a man of national reputation, had been tentatively agreed upon.
The newspaper files of that day are filled 'with the wildest tales of bribery and corruption attributed to political opponents. Republicans claimed each of the three Southern states in dispute on the ground that the original county returns were in many cases fraudulent, and that the state returning boards (all Republican) had the legal right as well as the power to throw out fraudulent returns, which they proceeded to do, changing apparent or alleged Democratic majorities to Republican. If there is any one in this country who has
made close enough study of the situation
in Florida and South Carolina to tell exactly what was the verdict of the voters at the polls he ought to place himself on record. Many conservative persons think the chances of victory in these two states were even, or rather in favor of the Republicans, who had every tactical advantage. There is no intelligent claim that a free, full, and fair vote was cast and counted.
In Louisiana the case was different.
Job’s enemy could have written a large
book about Louisiana politics between 1862 and 1874, not to mention the two years following. It was in this state that Lincoln, when a sort of reconstructed government was set up after Butler’s invasion, desired to establish his very mild and tentative plan of suffrage for educated blacks. He failed, but after Reconstruction the blacks did most of the voting. Such were the rivalries of politicians and the thirst for greed that a carnival of political debauchery followed. When a committee of Congress, consisting principally of Republicans, went down to that state in 1874 to investigate, they found there had been such flagrant debauchery by the contending factions that they had to report there was no such thing in Louisiana as popular government based on the legal electorate. This also makes a separate chapter in history and a nasty one.
It may be said briefly that in the month before the meeting of Congress, most of
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the Democratic stress was laid on Louisiana, for the very reason that there was so much evidence of present and past corruption, which Republicans had admitted. It ought also to be said that while the Democratic membership of a later committee reported in favor of Tilden electors, the Republican members were of the contrary opinion. One of the most conservative of them said to the writer at the time that he had no idea what really happened at the polls since there were so many liars and ballot thieves in Louisiana. The vote of the Louisiana Returning Board was offered friends of Mr. Tilden for $200,000. If there had been any certainty of securing the vote the money would have been paid, as it was in hand. Apparently the offer was solely to make Republicans pay a larger sum. So says one Democrat concerned in the negotiations.
Congress met early in December, with both parties yelling fraud and claiming victory, and neither sure of its contention. Democracy was flushed with its popular victory. Grant had been elected so over-
whelmingly in 1872 that it then seemed as if there were no longer a chance for the Democrats. In consequence legislation was passed which, but for the overwhelming majority of Republicans, would have been impossible. The law which caused the most popular exasperation was that which raised the salary of Congressmen to $10,000 a year, retrospectively as well as prospectively. The elections in 1874 produced a Democratic majority in the House which was still in existence in the fall of 1876. Kerr, of Indiana, had been Speaker, but died during recess, and Samuel J. Randall was elected in his place, largely from the fact that in the previous Congress he had stood for seventy-two hours at his desk fighting the Force Bill, and killed it by filibustering under the then existing parliamentary rules. This particular Force Bill had been designed to make all the Southern states Republican by Federal intervention at the election just passed, and Randall’s selection was a tribute to the force of character he had shown in
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the previous contest. It was considered that his record was such that he could he counted upon to sustain the majority of the House in any controversy with the Senate. In 1876 the House chosen was also Democratic, and Tilden electors had popular majorities in the whole country.
The Senate was strongly Republican. Wilson, the Vice-President, was dead, and Senator Ferry, of Michigan, was President pro tem. The two Houses being of opposite political faith, an extraordinary situation was presented at a critical time.
The Constitution of the United States provides for the manner of electing the President and Vice-President, and says this as to canvassing the vote in the joint session of Congress: "The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and the House of Representatives, open all the certificates, and the votes shall then be counted, etc.”
This refers to the certificates of votes of electors sent from the various states, with which every reader is probably familiar.
The question immediately arose : Who shall count the votes, as provided in the Constitution ?
Naturally the Republicans had a ready answer to this question. The Vice-President is to open all the certificates and he must therefore count them. To this the Democrats replied that if the Vice-President was to be the final arbiter of the decisions in case of contested votes — which were certain to be in evidence—what was the use of a joint session ?
In fact, there had never been a contest of this kind before. In former elections votes of some states had been rejected on account of irregularities, but in no case had this action affected the result. Now the disputed votes would turn the scale, as the Republicans needed every one to elect their candidates. The story of how the precedents were investigated and of the many learned opinions put forth by statesmen and lawyers in the case on both sides is interesting to the student. The arguments read like briefs in a patent
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infringement suit rather than a discussion of a great question of justice.
Grant felt that, with the House Democratic and the Republican Senate claiming unusual powers in the count, great responsibilities reposed on him. Many years later he said to Mr. George W. Childs and Mr. Anthony J. Drexel that he always supposed from the beginning of the controversy that the vote of Louisiana would be counted for Mr. Tilden.
The situation seemed to center very largely around Abram S. Hewitt, who was a member of the House, the Democratic National Chairman, and the supposed representative of Mr. Tilden. The last assumption was to some extent an error. Throughout the controversy there was a continual uncertainty as to who was Mr. Tilden's spokesman. Mr. Hewitt naturally thought he should be, but was often as much in doubt as any one. Colonel Pelton, Tilden's nephew and private secretary, sometimes seemed to he the man, sometimes Speaker Randall, sometimes Colonel
Watterson, who accepted election to a vacancy at Mr. Tilden's urgent request, and again, David Dudley Field, who had been chosen from a New York City district, at a special election, for the very purpose of looking after the legal interests of Mr. Tilden, and seemed at times to have his sole confidence. In fact, this writer is assured that there was never a time when any man had the complete confidence of Mr. Tilden, whose frequent telegrams were often unsigned, and, though in general there was a perfect understanding as to what should be done, progress in a matter in which Mr. Tilden was most concerned was much interrupted by his occasional utter refusal to give orders or by the order being sent to the wrong person. Moreover, when Mr. Tilden was ready with his plan it was too late. He was too much a lawyer and too little a politician for the needs of the occasion.
So many persons have been claimed as authors of the idea of a mixed commission to consider the disputes, that it is of no use
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going into the matter here. As a fact, President Grant called Mr. Hewitt into frequent conference, and the general plan of a commission was tentatively agreed upon. Grant assured Mr. Hewitt that he wanted only justice done, and the latter was so certain that the right was on his side that he never objected to the selection of an impartial commission.
The idea of a commission had been gaining support because arbitration had averted a war with England a few years before and was by some considered the panacea for all ills. It was inevitable that some such tribunal should be appealed to, since it was impossible for Congress to decide when the two bodies were politically opposed and felt so bitterly on the subject. This was talked over by political leaders on both sides, and in the House Mr. McCrary, of Iowa, on December 7th, moved the appointment of a committee to meet any other similar committee from the Senate, to confer and report a measure for settling the electoral controversy, “ to the end that the votes should be counted and the result declared by a tribunal whose authority none can question and whose decision all will accept.”
This was expecting a good deal of human nature, but the resolution was passed on the 14th, and by the Senate on the 18th, without dissent or debate. These committees were not legislatively speaking, but only informally, a joint committee to which was committed the destiny of the Nation. The membership consisted of:
Representatives — Payne of Ohio, Hunton of Virginia, Hewitt of New York, and Springer of Illinois — Democrats. McCrary of Iowa, Hoar of Massachusetts, and Willard of Michigan — Republicans.
Senators — Edmunds of Vermont, Conkling of New York, Frelinghuysen of New Jersey, and Morton of Indiana — Republicans. Thurman of Ohio, Bayard of Delaware, and Ransom of North Carolina — Democrats.
It was politically an evenly balanced committee, and contained the best brains and political generalship of the country. Of the members only Hoar, Ransom, and Edmunds survive, and only the first named is in Congress, now transferred to the Senate. If it were possible to devise a plan to settle the controversy, these men ought to have been able to do so. Every
shade of political feeling and every section of the country east of the Missouri was represented. These gentlemen soon found that, although they were all for peace, they were very much at variance as to how it should be brought about. Any plan that would be acceptable must be as non-partizan as possible ; not a suggestion of advantage must inhere to either contestant. The idea of a mixed commission prevailed from the start, general opinion favoring a certain number of Republicans and Democrats from Congress or elsewhere, and the rest of the commission to be taken from the Supreme Court by lot. Now, as there were but two Democrats on the Supreme Bench (excepting David Davis, who was an Independent with supposed Democratic leanings), it was evident that any casting of lots would, on a purely mathematical basis, be in favor of the Republicans. Many Democrats claimed that it was not fair to select any arbitrator, not even the umpire, by lot, and that rather than submit to such a proceeding the idea of a commission would be abandoned. Mr. Tilden, while never opposing a commission, and never greatly favoring one, had absolutely refused to let the matter be submitted to lot in any case. His own view of the controversy was expressed in a resolution introduced in the House by Mr. Field, which asserted that the House had equal power with the Senate in determining the votes which should be accepted from any state when there was a dispute. There are many persons who to this day believe that if the House had insisted in this proposition, the Senate would have given way, and Tilden would have been seated. Mr. Blaine says in his memoirs that this would have been the case. Mr. Blaine opposed the commission.
One month was taken up by the secret meetings of this joint committee. Continuously there was pressure of all sorts being brought to bear on every person concerned, and this was so strong in favor of arbitration that certain inconsiderate persons thought property interests were willing to sacrifice justice to peace. This was the time when the movements in various states were made to organize troops as already related. The details of the way in which the committee reached a conclusion show that the idea of leaving the final decision to the Supreme Court was the one
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uppermost, and it must be said to the credit of many of the members, especially the Democrats, that they insisted that such a thing as a partizan decision from that body was not to be expected, not even to be thought of. The final composition of the commission was the result of Mr. Hewitt’s suggestion after consultation with Mr. Tilden. It named by districts the only two Democratic justices on the bench, two Republican justices, and left the four to select the fifth. Otherwise, the commission was to be composed of five Senators and five Representatives. It was understood as well as anything of the sort could be, that the four judges were to elect Judge Davis as the fifteenth member of the commission and the man who in any partizan division of the commission would be the real arbiter. Otherwise, it is not likely the plan would have been adopted. Also, it was understood that there were to be three Democrats and two Republicans from the House and three Republicans and two Democrats from the Senate. Parties or partizanship were not named in the bill. It was as bloodless as a measure to choose commissioners for an insane asylum in the District of Columbia.
The committees reported back identical bills January 18th, when, according to the law, the time for the counting of the electoral vote was near at hand. The Commission as recommended was supposed to be composed of seven Republicans, seven Democrats, and one neutral. Now, in such a case no man can be neutral, because he is obliged to vote, and, no matter how honest he be, his opponents will not concede him any honor in his act. Democrats were hilarious because they felt that Judge Davis would certainly vote for them in one case— all they needed. Republicans opposed the bill partly because, among other reasons, it seemed to them that Davis on his record was a straddler, always trying to be on both sides at once or alternately flopping from one to the other, and they had no idea that he would vote on all the four cases alike. If he voted once with the Democrats the Republicans must surely lose. Wherefore the Republicans were far from happy, but many felt they must stand by their committee’s action.* In the Senate
the authority and the argument of Senator Edmunds compelled that body, against the wishes of many members, to agree to the measure. Morton, who did not even sign the report, Blaine and Sherman, with others, were bitter against the measure, but it passed by Democratic votes under pressure brought from all sides. In the debate it was clearly laid down by Edmunds that no rules of action were binding on the Commission. It was supreme authority in the matter.
When the bill reached the House it had already been under discussion, but the real struggle was awaiting the Senate measure. It can be said on the testimony of many Republicans that the action of the Senate was distinctly depressing and that they were impelled to support the bill only because it had been recommended by such authority from the White House down, and because the alternative seemed a civil war. Many Republican leaders fought it determinedly.
And now occurred another of those extraordinary things which if introduced into fiction would be considered impossible and ruled out on the ground of violating experience. In fact, there was a series off unexpected contingencies, all of which favored the Republicans. Justice Davis, who had been tacitly agreed upon as the fifteenth man on the Commission, and who was so generally conceded or hoped to be a Tilden man in the last analysis, was suddenly chosen a member of the United States Senate from Illinois after a content that had been rather surprising in many respects. Senator Logan, the sitting member, had been balloted for by the Republicans constantly, but there were three so-called Independent members of the Legislature who had refused to support him, and at last Davis was elected by exactly the required number of votes. Mr. Hewitt believed that this was the result of a corrupt bargain to get Davis off the Commission and secure a Republican in his place; Mr. Hewitt repeatedly told this writer so, and he will one day be found so asserting over his own signature in a posthumous article on the subject. Whether there was any such bargain or not, the temperamental features of the situation at once changed completely. There was no other Democrat or Independent on the bench, so that no matter who the four judges named in the
* Stanley Matthews said after the decision that Republicans preferred Davis to Bradley, This does not seem to have been the general feeling. Senator Hoar told the writer recently that he believed Davis, though an ambitious politician, was so great a lawyer that he would have decided in favor of the Republican contentipn.
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bill selected, he was certain to be a Republican. It was assumed by all that a senator-elect could not properly act under the circumstances.
The result was that some formerly dissident Republicans at once became enthusiastic for the bill, while Democrats seemed to have lost their sense of the wonderful fitness of the plan to bring about abstract justice. Nevertheless, the Democrats, as a rule, stuck by the bill and voted for it, while most of the Republicans still voted against it, on the ground that they had carried the election fairly and ought not to be asked to give up any chances. As a result the bill passed and became a law, with the following political division in the two houses. In the Senate 26 Democrats voted for the bill, 1 against it; 21 Republicans for, 16 against. In the House, 160 Democrats voted for the bill, 17 against it; 31 Republicans for, 69 against.
In reality it was a Democratic measure.
The Congressional membership of the Commission was as follows: Senators
Edmunds, Frelinghuysen, and Morton, Republicans ; Thurman and Bayard, Democrats. Representatives Abbott, Payne, and Hunton, Democrats; Garfield and Hoar, Republicans.
During a portion of the proceedings Senator Kernan took the seat of Senator Thurman, the latter being ill. The Commission also included Justices Miller and Strong, Republicans; Clifford and Field, Democrats ; named only by circuit.
The extraordinary thing about this arrangement was that it left out Conkling, who had been a member of the Senate Committee which arranged the Commission, and was one of the strongest Republican leaders. He was left off for his known opinion that Tilden had been elected. The fifteenth member was selected with difficulty. The four members of the Supreme Court did not relish the task imposed upon them, probably foreseeing the loss of prestige, which actually took place. Justice Davis was offered the place by the four Justices named, but he declined it. Then for some hours it seemed possible that no selection would take place, and the entire scheme blocked. Justice Bradley was finally chosen and was the most acceptable man to the Democratic party of those available, since he was of independent cast of
mind and some of his recent decisions, known as the Slaughter-House Cases, while on circuit, had shown him out of sympathy with the radical Republicans.
The law provided briefly as follows : When from any state there were disputed returns received by the Vice-President in regular order, and in joint session of Congress objection was made to the receipt of any vote, all disputed sets of certificates were to be referred to the Commission which was to report its decision. This decision was to stand unless overruled by the separate vote of both houses — something most unlikely to occur in any event. Provision was made to expedite the contest and supposedly to prevent a dead-lock. All that human ingenuity could devise was enacted to make some decision effective before the rapidly approaching 4th of March — which fell on Sunday.
Promptly at noon on the first Wednesday of February, the two Houses of Congress met in joint session to count the vote, acting Vice-President Ferry in the chair. There was no opposition until the vote of Florida was reached, when certificates of Republican and Democratic electors were announced and both sent to the Commission.
The meeting of the Commission was an extraordinary event. Able counsel represented both sides and the proceedings were hastened as much as possible. In the last analysis the whole question reverted to whether the Returning Boards (which canvassed the vote and made up the final totals of the various states) had authority in the premises or whether the Commission had the right to go behind those returns and canvass the vote as actually cast. This question came up in the Senate and Edmunds refused to answer it, saying it was for the Commission to decide. Mr. Hewitt charged that Mr. Hoar on the floor of the House promised that the Commission should go behind the returns and after he became a member of the Commission voted that the Commission had no such power. Mr. Hoar denied in an emphatic speech that he had ever said or intimated any such thing, and declared that he had always been of the contrary opinion.
This question was argued long by counsel and the Commission devoted one day in secret to its consideration. On this day Democrats had an idea that the question
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was practically decided by 8 to 7—Justice Bradley siding with the Democrats — that the Commission should go behind the returns. It seems that in making up his mind, following a not uncommon course, Mr. Bradley prepared two opinions for private use, giving the whole argument on both sides of the question. Some inkling of this got out and a member of the Commission thought that Justice Bradley was siding with the Democrats. Word was carried that night to Mr. Hewitt of this alleged standing of the Commission and he considered the fight won, since the Republicans did not claim that the county returns showed a majority for the Hayes and Wheeler electors. For a few hours it was assumed by Democrats that Tilden would be the next President.
As this is the most vital point of the controversy it is well to give such testimony as is available on the subject.
In his Life of Tilden, Mr. John Bigelow says that he called upon Mr. Tilden about this time and was informed by him that for two hundred thousand dollars he could purchase the opinion of a member of the Supreme Court that the Commission had the right to go behind the returns. Mr. Bigelow. doubted this and Mr. Tilden said that the Justice in question needed the money and must have it, but he had refused the offer.
This quotation from Mr. Bigelow’s diary is controverted by Colonel Watterson to this extent: that he does not think that any money consideration was mentioned. The decision, he says, was offered to Mr. Tilden ; but the consideration was not money but certain political and other considerations which were not accepted. He thinks that Mr. Bigelow had a lapse of memory.
On the following morning Mr. Justice Bradley sided with the Republicans and ever afterwards ; for which he some time later gave in an open letter the explanation that he had written the two opinions for private use and had never decided in favor of the Democrats. The alleged witnesses to his change of mind, his Democratic colleagues, also denied any knowledge that Mr. Bradley had changed his opinion.
The charge against Justice Bradley undoubtedly embittered the last years of his life. No proof was ever offered of the charge, and all testimony was against it, but the story has survived until this day.
Senator Hoar, a few weeks ago, made for this article the following interesting statement on the subject :
I do not believe a more impartial, incorruptible and upright judge ever sat than Mr. Justice Bradley. He was as little affected or influenced in any opinion by any political or other unworthy motive as would have been any great English judge who would have been called in to settle this question as an impartial referee, caring nothing for either party. Mr. Justice Bradley never announced to the Electoral Commission or so far as I know or believe, to any member of it, an opinion in favor of the Democratic contention and, of course, never announced any change of opinion. Senators Thurman and Bayard, two of the Democratic members (of the Commission) had in debate in the Senate, before the questions arose, very strongly urged that under the Constitution the two Houses had n0 right to go behind the decisions of the tribunals appointed by the states to determine the result of the election of the Presidential electors. A little while before, Judge Abbott (also a member of the Commission) at a dinner given by a law club at the house of the late Justice Gray, had very vehemently announced the same opinion in a discussion with Judge Benjamin F. Thomas, one of our ablest lawyers. I heard this when I came home to Massachusetts after the inauguration of President Hayes, from Mr. Justice Gray himself — then Chief Justice of Massachusetts. On my way back to Washington Senator Kernan, who had taken a place on the Electoral Commission when Mr. Thurman was ill, got into the cars and we talked all the way from New York to Washington. I told him this story (about Judge Abbott). He replied : “Mr. Hoar, you will never hear me say anything to the contrary of that.” So of the eight Democratic members who sat on the Commission — though there were but seven Democrats at any one time — four were of the opinion that the majority were right. I do not know how many able Democrats have since expressed to me the same opinion, and have said that any other conclusion would have resulted, in all probability, in the overthrow of the Republic. I am willing to rest my own vindication and the vindication of the action of the Electoral Commission, if it should be necessary, with the Democratic party alone.
This statement, which undoubtedly represents the existing sentiment of the country on the subject without regard to politics, is interesting, because at the time 'of the decision the Nation was ranged in two nearly' equal hostile political camps, when there was little honor or integrity imputed by one to the other. The passions of that time have passed away, and the decision of the Commission has in law and in legislation been vindicated, but the fact must not be forgotten that at the time there were few who believed in the integrity of a political opponent, and the charges of fraud and bribery lasted for years, and are not yet entirely dispelled. In those
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days honest men did not get their dues. It is quite likely that every member of the Commission was equally honest and upright according to his existing views, no matter what his previous or later opinions upon the legal question involved.
The fact is that when the Commission met next morning to take a formal vote, Justice Bradley voted with the Republicans. As a result, by a vote of 8 to 7, it was decided not to go behind the returns. The Republican certificates from Florida were declared the true ones. This decision was reported to the joint session, the Houses separated; the Senate agreed to stand by the Commission, while the House disagreed. Under the law the votes were then counted for Hayes in joint session. The Democrats were in angry mood, but the count proceeded until Louisiana was reached, and again disputed certificates appeared, and these were sent to the Commission.
And now the irreconcilable Democrats of the House who had opposed the Commission from the first began to organize opposition to the findings of the Commission, which daily increased, until at one time it seemed to some that their plan of preventing any decision whatever, and declaring Tilden elected, would succeed. That it did not was due to the determined opposition of Mr. Hewitt and of Speaker Randall, who threw the rules of the House to the winds and controlled the House by a “ higher law.” Also to the fact that General Grant was in the White House.
The Louisiana case was a much better one for the Democracy in every way than that of Florida, even without going behind the returns, since it was claimed that the Returning Board was not legally constituted, acted fraudulently, and that the returns were not properly made out, necessitating a duplicate set which were — as it was claimed — forged in Washington, since no time was left to carry them back for amendment. The latter issue was not raised, and the averments of fraud were not sustained by the Commission. Once more, by a strict party vote, the Republican certificates were adopted and counted in joint session as before. It was now getting late, and there was feverish excitement on all hands. While it was generally felt that Hayes would get the votes of all the doubtful states, there were Democrats
who threatened bloodshed and revolution rather than submit to what they believed was a fraud. The vote of Oregon was cast for Hayes on February 24th, though it seemed to Democrats that it required some ingenious arguments for the Republicans to keep from appearing to reverse their former opinion in the case. On February 28th the vote of South Carolina was counted for Hayes after a struggle, wherein the excitement reached its height, the Democrats claiming that in every disputed contest the Republicans had advanced new arguments which were in effect opposed to what they had successfully used in others.
With the vote of South Carolina the main disputes were ended, but the contest was not closed by any means. Objections were made to the votes of several states on the ground that certain electors were ineligible, as, for instance, men who had served as members of the National Centennial Commission, or Commissioners in Bankruptcy and the like. While there was no real expectation that the Democrats would win in any of these cases, they were determined to fight to the last, the more so because a new element had entered into the situation.
The irreconcilables, now thoroughly aroused, had been growing in strength, and threatened by filibustering tactics to delay the count until it was too late to act, Congress expiring by limitation on the 4th of March. These were never in a majority, but their vote was largely increased by members who wanted delay for other purposes. In order to make the narrative continuous to this point, omissions have been made of the fiery scenes in the House, which threatened to upset all calculations and bring about chaos. Owing to the technical objections to certain electors, as already specified, the joint sessions were frequently adjourned and separate votes taken. In no case was there serious delay until February 24th, when the irreconcilables of the House, seeing “all lost but honor,” concluded to filibuster for the rest of the session. It must be remembered that in those days the chances of parliamentary filibustering were plenty, that Randall himself had held up the House for seventy-two hours consecutively and had forced the Republican majority to abandon the Force Bill. The same rules being in force, Randall being in the chair, and the
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House being Democratic, what more easy than to “filibuster to the millennium”? For a time Randall held the House in control, but on the 24th of February it attempted to get away from him. Dilatory motions of every sort were made only to be ignored by the Speaker. This unprecedented action caused surprise and anger even on the part of conservative Democrats who believed the seating of Hayes a foregone conclusion. They were not, however, willing to see the Speaker act arbitrarily. In a few moments the House was in an uproar. Members stood on their chairs and yelled, others banged their desks, while others rushed to the open space in front of the Speaker’s desk and yelled like Comanches.
When order was restored with some difficulty, the Speaker announced that he would not recognize a certain dilatory motion, which, though otherwise perfectly proper, was not legal now because of its manifest purpose. The Chair announced his reason as follows :
The Chair rules that when the Constitution of the United States directs anything to he done, or when the laws under the Constitution of the United States enacted in obedience thereto, direct any act of this House, it is not in order to make any motion to obstruct or impede the execution of the injunction of the Constitution and the laws.
For this ruling the Speaker was later assailed with a fury that cannot now be expressed in words. By members of his own party he was accused of the basest crimes, the insinuation being that he had made the ruling for a consideration. The Speaker stood firm while the contest raged round him on March 1st with renewed intensity, but it was the trying time of his life and he never fully recovered from the strain. In the maelstrom of invective and rage which followed, Randall alone was calm, though his normally dark face was white as alabaster and his nerves strained to the breaking point. Mr. James Monroe, Republican member of the House at the time, has thus described the situation :
He (the Speaker) was subjected to a strain upon voice and nerve and physical strength such as few men could have endured. At times he was visited with a storm of questions and reproaches. Would he not entertain a privileged motion? He would not. Would he not put a motion for a recess? A motion for the call of the House? A motion to excuse some member from voting ? A motion to reconsider ? A motion to lay something
on the table? He would not. Were not these motions in order under the rules ? They were. Would he not then submit some of them to the House? He would not. Was he not then an oppressor and a despot? He was not. Would he not then put some dilatory motion ? He would not. Why would he not? Because of his obligation to the law.
Mr. Hewitt and Mr. Randall, convinced at last that the Presidency was lost to Tilden except through a revolution, which they did not wish to see, had not abandoned the interests of the Democratic party. There was still something to be saved out of the wreck, something which was to a portion of the membership of vastly more importance than the Presidency-—namely, the control of the state governments in the three disputed Southern states. If Hayes should use the Federal troops to seat the Republican candidates, there was certain to be domestic violence and perhaps civil war. If the Democrats could get those state governments, it was of more importance than the Presidency, since it would restore political conditions to the status quo ante bellum.
Feelers were thrown out to the Republican leaders to the effect that it might he possible to control the irreconcilables in the House if an understanding on the state governments, particularly Louisiana, could be arrived at. The time was getting late, and the Democrats must have some assurances on the subject. A private and entirely unofficial conference was suggested and took place at Wormley’s Hotel. There were present John Sherman, James A. Garfield, Charles Foster, and Dudley Denison, all of Ohio, and with written authority to speak for Mr. Hayes ; Representatives E. J. Ellis and William Levy, of Louisiana, and Henry Watterson, of Kentucky, for the Democracy, the latter representing South Carolina’s interests.
The Republican members announced that they would see to it that things were satisfactory, but this was entirely too indefinite. The time was getting short and they wanted a guarantee that the Federal troops would not be used to uphold the Republican claimants to state offices, while on their part they were willing to agree that no Republican should be punished for his political acts though not to be free from prosecution for actual crime.
The matter was one of delicacy and difficulty, for it involved practically an
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abandonment of the whole of the Reconstruction policy of the government. But unless an arrangement was made there was the threat of filibustering and civil war. Eventually the Democrats were satisfied that the Federal troops would be withdrawn. In fact, Grant had already come to this decision.
Something already had happened to make the latter threat seem ominous. To the astonishment of everybody, it seemed that Mr. Hewitt, who from the first had labored for a peaceful settlement of the controversy, who had been maligned and threatened by members of his own party, and who had opposed the irreconcilables, had suddenly abandoned his position and had gone over to the filibusters. There was a panic on all sides and the irreconcilables were certain of victory. Some of Mr. Hewitt’s closest friends remonstrated with him, but he did not explain his purpose.
What he did was as follows : The call of states on February 28th was almost completed and it seemed as if Hayes would certainly be seated, when Mr. Hewitt objected to the vote of Vermont, saying that he understood there was another set of electoral votes. Mr. Ferry announced that there was not, that an envelope purporting to contain a set of votes had reached him after the time limit had expired and he had refused to receive it. In a most dramatic manner Mr. Hewitt drew from his pocket an envelope, claiming it to be the electoral vote of Vermont, and moved that it be sent to the Commission. The alleged vote was the work of a crank, as Mr. Hewitt knew, but he was sparring for wind. This reference to the Commission, of course, could not be made under the rules, as Mr. Hewitt well knew, but he succeeded in having the vote of Vermont objected to and it was necessary for the Houses to separate and vote, though, of course, it would have no effect on the result, as the Senate would sustain the Republican certificates. Time for the Wormley conferees to agree, however, was what Mr. Hewitt wanted, and the proceedings were adjourned until next day, March 1st, when a campaign was started in the House to have the vote of Vermont sent to the Commission or to suspend further proceedings in the court. On this proposition the contest raged all day long with a virulency that cannot be adequately de-
scribed. There were few members on either side who knew what was going on—that Mr. Hewitt was waiting first for the Wormley conference to come to an agreement, and next to have Mr. Tilden’s approval of the final close of the contest. All day long and far into the night the contest raged. In the melee Fernando Wood, of New York, was accused of being the high priest of the Republican party—a statement that amused him and his friends hugely.
In the meantime the irreconcilables were delirious with delight. On a motion which seemed to carry their contention, they noticed about midnight, with glee, that conservatives were voting with them and that they would carry the motion easily. The vote was about half over, when suddenly Mr. Levy appeared on the floor, informed Mr. Hewitt that a satisfactory agreement had been reached at the Wormley Hotel, and gave word to stop the contest. This was done, much to the discomfiture of the irreconcilables, who saw victory, so nearly in their grasp, fading suddenly from sight. They attempted to carry on the fight, but without avail. But for the Wormley agreement, filibustering might have succeeded and chaos resulted. The House did pass a resolution which declared that Mr. Tilden had been lawfully elected, but it was mere brutem fulmen. The joint session was reconvened by Speaker Randall, without orders from the House, on receipt of a telegram from Tilden that he was satisfied to have the count completed. In the early hours of March 2d Hayes and Wheeler were officially declared elected, and the contest was ended.
That Hayes and Wheeler were seated by extra-constitutional means is an incident in our history absolutely unique. Such means were employed to prevent civil war, and the result was acquiesced in rather grudgingly by the Democrats. They were the more impelled to this course because the Commission was more of a Democratic than a Republican measure, as the detailed vote given above shows.
The results of this contest lasted long in American politics. Mr. Tilden might perhaps have been elected in 1880 if he had been willing to make the race, but it is certain that Democratic success in 1884 was due in some measure to animosities aroused at this time.
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Some results of the contest were as follows :
President Hayes withdrew Federal troops from the South and the Democrats got the state offices. Republicans concerned in the Returning Board scandals generally got Federal offices.
A law was passed for canvassing the vote in future elections in a way to prevent a repetition of the contest. The Federal Government gave up any claim whatever to going behind the returns, which Republicans have held as a justification of their course before the Commission, and which Democrats have acquiesced in. To do anything else would have been to fly in the face of a century of Democratic contention as to States’ rights.
Committees of investigation delved into the subject and produced a mass of testimony that proved there were many dishonest men in both parties in the South, but did not convince either party that it was wrong in its original contention.
Charges of bribery were made and investigations held. Nothing was definitely proved in a way that led to
legislative action. On this point, in a
letter just before Mr. Hewitt’s death,
he says :
I stated publicly in the House that the vote of the Returning Board (of Louisiana) was offered to me for two hundred thousand dollars and that I declined to buy it. I know further that attempts were made in other quarters (to Colonel Pelton) to dispose of the vote of the Returning Board, that negotiations actually took place sufficient to satisfy all parties that the vote could be bought, and then the matter fell through in consequence of Mr. Tilden refusing to be a party to any such measure.
In conclusion this can be said : Tilden and Hendricks received a clear plurality of the popular vote, even as counted by the Commission. Who were chosen Presidential Electors in the three disputed states on a fair vote and honest count, even as it was cast, is known to no one and never can be known.
NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE
BY REX E. BEACH
AUTHOR OF “THE SHYNESS OF SHORTY,” ETC.
ILLUSTRATED BY HARRY RALEIGH
BIG GEORGE was drinking, and the activities of the little arctic mining camp were paralyzed. Events invariably ceased their progress and marked time when George became excessive, and now nothing of public consequence stirred except the quicksilver, which was retiring fearfully into its bulb at the song of the wind which came racing over the lonesome, bitter, northward waste of tundra.
He held the center of the floor at the Northern Club, and proclaimed his modest
virtues in a voice as pleasant as the cough of a bull-walrus.
“Yes, me! Little Georgie ! I did it. I've licked ’em all from Herschel Island to Dutch Harbor, big uns and little uns. When they didn’t suit I made ’em over. I’m the boss carpenter of the arctic and 1 own this camp; don’t I, Slim? Hey? Answer me ! ” he roared at the emaciated bearer of the title, whose attention seemed wandering from the inventory of George’s startling traits toward a card game.
“Sure ye do,” nervously smiled Slim, frightened out of a heart-solo as he returned to his surroundings.
[pgbrk] “wrenched at the circling hands which wheeled the breath from his lungs”
“Well, then, listen to what I'm saying. I'm the big chief of the village, and when I'm stimulated and happy them fellers I don't like hides out and lets me and Nature operate things. Ain't that right?” He glared inquiringly at his friends.
Red, the proprietor, explained over the bar in a whisper to Captain, the new man from Dawson : “That's Big George, the whaler. He's a squaw-man and sort of a bully — see? When he’s sober he's on the level strickly, an’ we all likes him fine, but when he gets to fightin’ the pain-killer, he ain’t altogether a gentleman. Will he fight? Oh ! Will he fight? Say ! he's there with
chimes, he is ! Why, Doc Miller’s made a grub-stake rebuildin' fellers that’s had a lingerin' doubt cached away about that, an' now when he gets the booze up his nose them patched-up guys oozes away an’ hibernates till the gas dies out in him. Afterwards he’s sore on himself an’ apologizes to everybody. Don’t get into no trouble with him, ’cause he’s two checks past the limit. They don’t make ’em as bad as him any more. He busted the mold. ”
George turned, and spying the newcomer, approached, eyeing him with critical disfavor.
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Captain saw a bear-like figure, clad cap-a-pie in native fashion : Reindeer pants; with the hair inside, clothed legs like rock pillars, while out of the loose squirrel, parka a corded neck rose, brown land strong, above which darkly gleamed a rugged face seamed and scarred by the hate of arctic winters. He had kicked off his deer-skin socks, and stood bare-footed on the cold and draughty floor, while the poison he had imbibed showed only in ‘his heated face. Silently he extended a cracked and hardened hand, which closed like the armored claw of a crustacean and tightened on the crunching fingers of the other. Captain’s expression remained unchanged and, gradually slackening his grip, the sailor roughly inquired:
" Where’d you come from ? ”
“Just got in from Dawson yesterday,” politely responded the stranger.
“Well! what’re you goin’ to do now you’re here ? ” he demanded.
‘‘ Stake some claims and go to prospecting, I guess. You see, I wanted to get in early before the rush next spring.”
“Oh! I 'spose you’re goin’ to jump some of our ground, hey ? Well, you ain’t! We don’t want no claim jumpers here,” disagreeably continued the seaman ;
‘‘ we won’t stand for it. This is my camp -— see ? I own it, and these is my little children.” Then, as the other refused to debate with him, he resumed, groping fpn a new ground of attack.
“ Say ! I’ll bet you’re one of them eddicated dudes, too, ain't you ? You talk like a feller that had been to college,” and, as the other assented, he scornfully called to his friends, saying: “Look here, fellers! Pipe the jellyfish ! I never see one of these here animals that was worth a cuss. They plays football an’ smokes cigareets at school; then when they’re weaned they come off up here an’ jump our claims ’cause we can’t write a location notice proper. They ain’t no good. I guess I’ll stop it.”
Captain moved toward the door, but the whaler threw his bulky frame against it and scowlingly blocked the way.
“No, you don’t. You ain’t goin’ to run away till I’ve had the next dance, Mister! Eddication ! Humph! I ain’t begun to tell ye yet what a useless little barnacle you are.” Red interfered, saying: “Look ’ere,
George; this guy ain’t no playmate of
yourn. We’ll all have a jolt of this disturbance promoter, an’ call it off.” Then, as the others approached, he winked at Captain, and jerked his head slightly toward the door.
The latter,'.heeding the signal, started out, but George leaped after him and, seizing an arm, whirled him back, roaring : “Well, of all the cussed impidence I ever see ! You’re too high-toned to drink with us; are you ? You don’t get out of here now till you take a lickin’ like a man.”
He reached over his head and, grasping the hood of his fur shirt, with one movement he stripped it from him, exposing a massive naked body, whose muscles swelled and knotted beneath a skin as clear as a maiden’s, while a map of angry scars strayed, across the heavy chest.
As the shirt sailed through the air Red lightly vaulted to the bar and, diving at George's naked middle, tackled beautifully, crying to Captain : “Get out quick; we’ll hold him.”
Others rushed forward and grasped the bulky sailor, but Captain’s voice replied: “ I sort of like this place, and I guess I’ll stay a while. Turn him loose.”
“Why, man, he’ll kill ye,” excitedly cried •Slirtk"‘ Get out! ”
The captive hurled his peacemakers from him and, shaking off .the clinging arms,; drove furiously at the insolent stranger.
In the cramped limits of the corner where he stood, Captain was unable to avoid the big man, who swept him with a crash against the plank door at his back, grasping hungrily at his throat. As his shoulders .struck, however, he dropped to his knees and, before the raging George could seize him, he avoided a blow which would have strained the rivets of a strength-tester and ducked under the other’s arms, leaping to the cleared center of the floor.
Seldom had the big man’s rush been avoided and, whirling, he swung a boom-like arm at the agile stranger. Before it landed, Captain stepped in to meet his adversary and, with the weight of his body behind the blow, drove a clenched and bony fist crashing into the other’s face. The big head with its blazing shock of hair snapped backward and the whaler drooped to his knees at the other’s feet.
The drunken flush of victory swept over Captain as he stood above the swaying figure ; then, suddenly, he felt the great
[pgbrk] REX E. BEACH
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bare arms close about his waist with a painful grip. He struck at the bleeding face below him and wrenched at the circling bands which wheezed the breath from his lungs, but the whaler squeezed him writhing to his breast and, rising, unsteadily wheeled across the floor and in a shiver of broken glass fell crashing against the bar and to the floor.
As the struggling men writhed upon the planks the door opened at the hurried entrance of an excited group, which paused at the sight of the ruin, then, rushing forward, tore the men apart.
The panting Berserker strained at the arms about his glistening body, while Captain, with sobbing sighs, relieved his aching lungs and watched his enemy, who frothed at the interference,
“It was George’s fault,” explained Slim
to the questions of the arrivals. “This feller tried to make a get-away , but George had to have his amusement."
A newcomer addressed the squaw-man in a voice as cold as the wind. “Cut this out, George ! This is a friend of mine. You're making this camp a reg’lar hell for strangers, and now I’m goin' to tap your little snap. Cool off—see?"
Jones’s reputation as a bad gun-man went hand in hand with his name as a good gambler, and his scanty remarks invariably evoked attentive answers, so George explained : “I don't like him, Jones, and I
was jus’ makin’ him over to look like a man. I’ll do it yet, too,” he flashed wrathfully at his quiet antagonist.
“ ’Pears to me like he’s took a hand in the remodeling himself," replied the gambler, “but if you’re lookin’ for something
Shut up, curse you, and get in! ’ ”
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to do, here's your chance. Windy Jim just drove in and says Barton and Kid Sullivan are adrift on the ice.”
“What's that?” questioned eager voices, and, forgetting the recent trouble at the news, the crowd pressed forward anxiously.
“They was crossin' the bay and got carried out by the off-shore gale,” explained Jones. “Windy was follerin' 'em when the ice ahead parted and begun movin' out. He tried to yell to ’em, but they was too far away to hear in the storm. He managed to get back to the land and follered the shore ice around. He’s over at Hunter's cabin now, most dead, face and hands froze pretty bad.”
A torrent of questions followed and many suggestions as to the fate of the men.
“They’ll freeze before they can get ashore,” said one.
“ The ice-pack’ll break up in this wind,” added another, “ and if they don’t drown, they’ll freeze before the floe comes in close enough for them to land.”
From the first announcement of his friends’ peril, Captain had been thinking rapidly. His body, sore from his long trip and aching from the hug of his recent encounter, cried woefully for rest, but his voice rose calm and clear: “We've got
to get them off,” he said. “ Who will go with me? Three is enough.”
The clamoring voices ceased, and the men wheeled at the sound, gazing incredulously at the speaker. “What !” — “In this storm?” — “You're crazy,” many voices said.
He gazed appealingly at the faces before him. Brave and adventurous men he knew them to be, jesting with death, and tempered to perils in this land where hardship rises with the dawn, but they shook their ragged heads hopelessly.
“ We must save them ! ” resumed Captain hotly. “ Barton and I played as children together, and if there's not a man among you who’s got the nerve to follow me — I'll go alone, by Heavens ! ”
In the silence of the room, he pulled the cap about his ears and, tying it snugly under his chin, drew on his huge fur mittens ; then with a scornful laugh he turned toward the door.
He paused as his eye caught the swollen face of Big George. Blood had stiffened in the heavy creases of his face like rusted
stringers in a ledge, while his mashed and discolored lips protruded thickly. His hair gleamed red, and the sweat had dried upon his naked shoulders, streaked with dirt and flecked with spots of blood, yet the battered features shone with the unconquered, fearless light of a rough, strong man.
Captain strode to him with outstretched hand. “ You're a man,” he said. “You’ve got the nerve, George, and you'll go with me, won’t you ? ”
“What! Me?” questioned the sailor vaguely. His wondering glance left Captain, and drifted round the circle of shamed and silent faces — then he straightened stiffly and cried : “ Will I go with you ?
Certainly ! I’ll go to with you.”
Ready hands harnessed the dogs, dragged from protected nooks where they sought cover from the storm which moaned and whistled round the low houses. Endless ragged folds of sleet whirled out of the north, then writhed and twisted past, vanishing into the gray veil which shrouded the landscape in a twilight gloom.
The fierce wind sank the cold into the aching flesh like a knife and stiffened the face to a whitening mask, while a fusillade of frozen ice-particles beat against the eyeballs with blinding fury.
As Captain emerged from his cabin, furred and hooded, he found a long train of crouching, whining animals harnessed and waiting, while muffled figures stocked the sled with robes and food and stimulants.
Big George approached through the whirling white, a great squat figure with fluttering squirrel-tails blowing from his parka, and at his heels there trailed a figure, skin-clad and dainty.
“ It’s my wife,” he explained briefly to Captain. “ She won’t let me go alone.” They gravely bade farewell to all, and the little crowd cheered lustily against the whine of the blizzard as, with cracking whip and hoarse shouts, they were wrapped in the cloudy winding sheet of snow.
II
Arctic storms have an even sameness; the intense cold, the heartless wind which augments tenfold the chill of the temperature, the air thick and dark with stinging flakes rushing by in an endless cloud. A drifting, freezing, shifting eternity of snow, driven by a ravening gale which sweeps the desolate, bald wastes of the Northland.
[pgbrk] REX E. BEACH
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The little party toiled through the smother till they reached the “ egloos ” under the breast of the tall coast bluffs, where coughing Eskimos drilled patiently at ivory tusks and gambled the furs from their backs at stud-horse poker.
To George's inquiries they answered that their largest canoe was the three-holed bidarka on the cache outside. Owing to the small circular openings in its deck, this was capable of holding but three passengers, and Captain said: “We'll have to make two trips, George.”
“ Two trips, eh ?” answered the other. “We'll be doin' well if we last through one, I’m thinking.”
Lashing the unwieldy burden upon the sled, they fought their way along the coast again till George declared they were opposite the point where their friends went adrift. They slid their light craft through the ragged wall of ice hummocks guarding the shore pack, and dimly saw, in the gray beyond them, a stretch of angry waters mottled by drifting cakes and floes.
George spoke earnestly to his wife, instructing her to keep the team in constant motion up and down the coast a rifle-shot in either direction, and to listen for a signal of the return. Then he picked her up as he would a babe, and she kissed his storm-beaten face.
“She's been a good squaw to me,” he said, as they pushed their dancing craft out into the breath of the gale, “and I've always done the square thing by her ; I s’pose she’ll go back to her people now, though.”
The wind hurried them out from land, while it drove the sea-water in freezing spray over their backs and changed their fur garments into scaly armor, as they worked through the ice cakes, peering with strained eyes for a sign of their friends.
The sailor, with deft strokes, steered them between the grinding bergs, raising his voice in long signals like the weird cry of a siren.
Twisting back and forth through the floes, they held to their quest, now floating with the wind, now paddling desperately in a race with some drifting mass which dimly towered above them and splintered hungrily against its neighbor close in their wake.
Captain emptied his six-shooter till his numbed fingers grew rigid as the trigger,
and always at his back swelled the deep shouts of the sailor, who, with practised eye and mighty strokes, forced their way through the closing lanes between the jaws of the ice pack.
At last, beaten and tossed, they rested disheartened and hopeless. Then, as they drifted, a sound struggled to them against the wind — a faint cry, illusive and fleeting as a dream voice — and, still doubting, they heard it again.
“Thank God! We’ll save 'em yet,” cried Captain, and they drove the canoe boiling towards the sound.
Barton and Sullivan had fought the cold and wind stoutly hour after hour, till they found their great floe was breaking up in the heaving waters.
Then the horror of it had struck the Kid, till he raved and cursed up and down their little island, as it dwindled gradually to a small acre.
He had finally yielded to the weight of the cold which crushed resistance out of him, and settled, despairing and listless, upon the ice. Barton dragged him to his feet and forced him round their rocking prison, begging him to brace up, to fight it out like a man, till the other insisted on resting, and dropped to his seat again.
The older man struck deliberately at the whitening face of his freezing companion, who recognized the well-meant insult and refused to be roused into activity. Then to their ears had come the faint cries of George, and, in answer to their screams, through the gloom they beheld a long, covered, skin canoe, and the anxious faces of their friends.
Captain rose from his cramped seat, and, ripping his crackling garments from the boat where they had frozen, he wriggled out of the hole in the deck and grasped the weeping Barton.
“Come, come, old boy! It’s all right now,” he said.
“ Oh, Charlie, Charlie ! ” cried the other. “I might have known you’d try to save us. You’re just in time, though, for the Kid’s about all in.”
Sullivan apathetically nodded and sat down again.
“ Hurry up there ; this ain't no G. A. R. Encampment, and you ain't got no time to spare,” said George, who had dragged the canoe out and, with a paddle, broke the sheets of ice which covered it. “ It'll be
[pgbrk] "He dreamed quaint dreams, broken by the chilling lash of spray”
too dark to see anything in half an hour.”
The night, hastened by the storm, was closing rapidly, and they realized another need of haste, for, even as they spoke, a crack had crawled through the ice-floe where they stood, and, widening as it went, left but a heaving cake supporting them.
George spoke quietly to Captain, while Barton strove to animate the Kid. “You and Barton must take him ashore and hurry him down to the village. He's most gone now.”
“But you?” questioned the other. “We'll have to come back for you, as soon as we put him ashore.”
“Never mind me,” roughly interrupted George. “ It's too late to get back here. When you get ashore it'll be dark. Besides Sullivan’s freezing, and you'll have to rush him through quick. I'll stay here.”
“No! No! George !” cried the other, as the meaning of it bore in upon him. “I got you into this thing, and it's my
place to stay here. You must go ”
But the big man had hurried to Sullivan, and, seizing him in his great hands, shook the drowsy man like a rat, cursing and beating a goodly share of warmth back into him. Then he dragged the listless burden to the canoe and forced him to a seat in the middle opening.
“Come, come,” he cried to the others; “you can't spend all night here. If you want to save the Kid, you’ve got to hurry. You take the front seat there, Barton,” and, as he did so, George turned to the protesting Captain : “ Shut up, curse you, and get in ! ”
“ I won't do it,” rebelled the other. “ I can't let you lay down your life this way, when I made you come.”
George thrust a cold face within an inch of the other's and grimly said : “If they hadn't stopped me, I'd a beat you into dog-meat this morning, and if you don't quit this sniveling I'll do it yet. Now get in
there and paddle to beat ---- or you'll
never make it back. Quick ! ”
I'll come back for you then, George, if I live to the shore,” Captain cried, while the other slid the burdened canoe into the icy waters.
As they drove the boat into the storm, Captain realized the difficulty of working their way against the gale. On him fell the added burden of holding their course into the wind and avoiding the churning ice cakes. The spray' whipped into his face like shot, and froze as it clung to his features. He strained at his paddle till the sweat soaked out of him and the cold air filled his aching lungs.
Unceasingly the merciless frost cut his face like a keen blade, till he felt the numb
[pgbrk] REX E. BEACH
95
paralysis which told him his features were hardening under the touch of the cold.
An arm's length ahead the shoulders of the Kid protruded from the deck hole where he had sunk again into the death sleep, while Barton, in the forward seat, leaned wearily on his ice-clogged paddle, moaning as he strove to shelter his face from the sting of the blizzard.
An endless time they battled with the storm, slowly gaining, foot by foot, till in the darkness ahead they saw the wall of shore ice and swung into its partial shelter.
Dragging the now unconscious Sullivan from the boat, Captain rolled and thrashed him, while Barton, too weak and exhausted to assist, feebly strove to warm his stiffened limbs.
In answer to their signals, the team appeared, maddened by the lash of the squaw. Then they wrapped Sullivan in warm robes, and forced scorching brandy down his throat, till he coughed weakly and begged them to let him rest.
“You must hurry him to the Indian village,” directed Captain. “ He'll only lose some fingers and toes now, maybe ; but you’ve got to hurry ! ”
“Aren’t you coming, too?” queried Barton. “ We'll hire some Eskimos to go after George. I’ll pay ’em anything.” “No, I'm going back to him now ; he’d freeze before we could send help, and, besides, they wouldn't come out in the storm and the dark.”
“But you can’t work that big canoe alone. If you get out there and don’t find him you'll never get back. Charlie ! let me go, too," he said ; then apologized. “ I'm afraid I won't last, though ; I'm too weak.”
The squaw, who had questioned not at the absence of her lord, now touched Captain’s arm. “ Come, ” she said ; “ I go with you.” Then addressing Barton, “ You quick go Indian house ; white man die, mebbe. Quick ! I go Big George.”
“Ah, Charlie, I'm afraid you'll never make it,” cried Barton, and, wringing his friend’s hand, he staggered into the darkness behind the sled wherein lay the fur-bundled Sullivan.
Captain felt a horror of the starving waters rise up in him and a panic shook him fiercely, till he saw the silent squaw waiting for him at the ice edge. He shivered as the wind searched through his dampened
parka and hardened the wet clothing next to his body, but he took his place and dug the paddle fiercely into the water, till the waves licked the hair of his gauntlets.
The memory of that scudding trip through the darkness was always cloudy and visioned. Periods of keen alertness alternated with moments when his weariness bore upon him till he stiffly bent to his work, wondering what it all meant.
It was the woman’s sharpened ear which caught the first answering cry, and her hands which steered the intricate course to the heaving berg where the sailor crouched, for, at their approach, Captain had yielded to the drowse of weariness and, in his relief at the finding, the blade floated from his listless hands.
He dreamed quaint dreams, broken by the chilling lash of spray from the strokes of the others, as they drove the craft back against the wind, and he only partly awoke from his lethargy when George wrenched him from his seat and forced him down the rough trail toward warmth and safety.
Soon, however, the stagnant blood tingled through his veins, and under the shelter of the bluffs they reached the village, where they found the anxious men waiting.
Skilful natives had worked the frost from Sullivan’s members, and the stimulants in the sled had put new life into Barton as well. So, as the three crawled wearily through the dog-filled tunnel of the egloo, they were met by two wet-eyed and thankful men, who silently wrung their hands or uttered broken words.
When they had been despoiled of their frozen furs, and the welcome heat of whisky and fire had met in their blood, Captain approached the whaler, who rested beside his mate.
“George, you’re the bravest man I ever knew, and your woman is worthy of you,” he said. He continued slowly, “ I’m sorry about the fight this morning, too.”
The big man rose and, crushing the extended palm in his grasp, said: “We’ll
just let that go double, partner. You're as game as I ever see.” Then he added : “It was too bad them fellers interfered jest when they did — but we can finish it up whenever you say,” and as the other, smiling, shook his head, he continued: “ Well, I'm glad of it, 'cause you'd sure beat me the next time.”
[pgbrk] THE NEGRO: THE SOUTHERNER’S
PROBLEM
BY
THOMAS NELSON PAGE
THIRD PAPER: ITS PRESENT CONDITION AND ASPECT. AS
SHOWN BY STATISTICS
HAVING in the two previous papers undertaken to show the relation between the Whites of the South and the Negroes at the time of the abolition of slavery, and having traced the change in that relation and pointed out the mistakes which, in the writer’s opinion, were mainly responsible for whatever trouble has since arisen between them, it now remains to see what the present condition is ; how far it is attributable to those causes, and what promise the future holds of amendment.
Thirty-eight years have passed since the Negro was set free and became his own master. By sentimentalists and Negro writers and orators, most of the Negro’s shortcomings are usually charged to slavery, and undoubtedly slavery leaves certain traits which the student can readily detect. But most of the class of writers referred to ignore the fact that the Negro at the close of slavery was in a higher condition of civilization than when he came a savage from the wilds of Africa; that, indeed, this very period of slavery in America had given to him the only semblance of civilization which the Negro race has possessed since the dawn of history.
Whatever evils slavery may have entailed upon the Negro, this much may unquestionably be predicted of it; it left him a trained laborer and in good physical condition. He started in on a new era with a large share of friendliness on the part of the South and with the enthusiastic good-will of the North. He had little property, and not more than two or three per cent, were able to read ; but he
commanded the entire field of labor in the South, while a certain percentage, composed of house-servants, had the knowledge which comes from holding positions of responsibility and from association with educated people.
When the war closed, among the four millions of negroes who then inhabited the South, there was, with the exception of the invalids, the cripples, and the superannuated, scarcely an adult who was not a trained laborer or a skilled artisan. In the cotton section they knew how to raise and prepare cotton ; in the sugar belt they knew how to grow and grind sugar; in the tobacco, corn, wheat, and hay belt they knew how to raise and prepare for market those crops. They were the shepherds, cattle-men, horse-trainers, and raisers. The entire industrial work of the South was performed by them. They were the trained domestic servants; laundresses, nurses, and midwives. They were the carpenters, smiths, coopers, sawyers, wheelwrights, bricklayers, and boatmen. They were the tanners and shoemakers, miners and stonecutters, tailors and knitters, spinners and weavers. Nearly all the houses in the South were built by them. They manufactured most of the articles that were manufactured in the South.
No exact statistics of the race at that time may be obtained, but a reasonably approximate estimate may be made, based on the known facts, as to the number of slaveholders, and the general relation of house-servants, mechanics, etc., to the entire population. It is known, for instance, that the slave-holder, whether he owned few or many, invariably had his best slaves as
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domestic servants. It is equally well-known that the large plantations hired the services of those on the larger estates.
In 1860 there were in the Southern States between five and six hundred thousand slave-owners and slave hirers, and there were four million and a quarter slaves, or about eight slaves to each owner. In Georgia, for example, there were in 1860, 462,198 slaves, owned by 41,084 owners. Of these slave-owners, perhaps, every one had at least one house-servant, and most of them had several. Striking a mean between the smaller slaveowner and the larger, it would probably be found that the proportion of mechanics and artisans to the entire population was about the same that it is in any agricultural community, or as the slave is known to be generally not as industrious and efficient as the free workman, the percentage was possibly higher than it is to-day in the West or in the agricultural parts of the South. It is not pretended that this is more than a conjecture, but it is a conjecture based upon what appears a conservative estimate.
Since that time, over $109,000,000 has been expended by the South on the Negro's education, besides what has been expended by private charity, which is estimated to amount to $30,000,000.
The South has faithfully applied itself during all these years to giving the Negroes all the opportunities possible for attaining an education, and it is one of the most creditable pages in her history that in face of the horror of Negro-domination during the Reconstruction period, of the disappointment; in face of the fact that the education of the Negroes has appeared to be used by them only as a weapon with which to oppose the White race, the latter should have persistently given so largely of its store to provide this misused education. Of the $109,000,000 which the Southern States have, since the war, applied to the education of the Negro by voluntary taxation, over $100,000,000 was raised by the votes of the Whites from taxation on the property of the Whites. Several times of late years, propositions have been made in various legislatures in the South to devote the money raised by taxation on the property of each race exclusively to the education of that race, but in every case, to their credit be it said, the propositions have been
overwhelmingly defeated.* The total expenditure for public schools in the South in the year 1898-1899 was $32,849,892, of which $6,569,978 was to sustain Negro schools.
Inspection of the records will reveal something of the fruits of the $140,000,000 expended on the education of the Negroes at the South, and the rest must be learned from those who have studied the subject at first hand.
It seems to the writer that one of the fundamental errors which has inhered in all the discussion which has taken place on the Negro question is in considering the Negroes as absolutely of one class. A brief consideration of the matter will show on the contrary that the colored population of the South, though they were, with the exception of a few Arabs, all of Negro blood, were, when they came to this country, of different tribes ; and there were, even during the time of slavery and are yet more markedly now, grades among them ; grades of intellect, of character, and of ability, which point to, if not varying racial, at least, varying tribal forces. And however they may all appear to herd together and look at most matters not from an individual and rational but from a racial standpoint, a careful study will disclose certain distinctions which have the mark of tribal distinctions, while others will show the elements of class distinctions. These class distinctions, though still elementary, are beginning to make themselves apparent.
The line of cleavage unhappily does not follow that of conduct or good manners, much less that of character, but, perhaps, it may approximate them more closely in time, and the upper class will learn and cause it to be understood that conduct, character, and good manners are the key to admission.
It is the intention of the writer in this discussion to recognize this distinction, and, when he speaks of “the Negroes,” he desires generally to be understood as referring to the great body of the race, and not as including what may be termed the upper fraction — that is, those who,
* According to the Educational Report to the United States Bureau of Education for 1898-1899, “the total enrollment in the public schools of the South (the sixteen former slave-States and the District of Columbia") for the year 1898-1899, was 5,662,259; the number of white children being 4,150,641 and the number of negro children 1,511,618.” Of the white school population (5,954,400), 69.71 per cent, were enrolled in the public schools, and of the negro school population (2,912,-910), 51.89 per cent.
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by reason of intellect, education, and character, form so clearly an exception that they must be considered as a separate class.
The Negroes, indeed, may be divided into three classes.
The first is a small class, comparatively speaking, who are more or less educated, some being well educated and well conducted ; others, with a semblance of education and none too well behaved. The former constitute what may be termed the upper fraction ; the latter lack the essential element of character and even moral perception.
The second class is composed of a respectable, well-behaved, self-respecting element; sensible, though with little or no education, and, except when under the domination of passion, good citizens. This class embraces most of the more intelligent of the older generation who were trained in slavery, and a considerable element of the intelligent middle-aged, conservative workers of the race who were trained by this generation. The two together may be called the backbone of the race.
The third class is composed of those who are wholly ignorant, or in whom, though they have what they call education, this so-called education is unaccompanied by any of the fruits of character which education is supposed to produce. Among these are many who esteem themselves in the first class, and, because of a veneer of education, are not infrequently confounded with them.
The first two classes may easily be reckoned with. They contain the elements which make good citizens and which should enable them to secure all proper recognition and respect. They need no weapon but that which they possess — good citizenship.
Unfortunately, the great body of the race, and a vast percentage of the growing generation, belong to the third class. It is this class which has to be reckoned with.
It is like a vast sluggish mass of uncooled lava over a large section of the country, burying some portions and affecting the whole. It is apparently harmless, but beneath its surface smolder fires which may at any time burst forth unexpectedly and destroy all within reach. It is this mass, increasing from beneath, not from above, which constitutes the Negro question.
In the discussion that takes place in the periodical press and in conventions relating to the progress of the colored race, a great deal is made of the advance of the race since the abolition of slavery. It is asserted that the race has accumulated many hundreds of millions of dollars. Just how
much, it is difficult to say. Authorities
differ widely. The last Negro member of Congress,* in a speech delivered in the House of Representatives on January 29, 1901, undertook to give the advance of his race in the thirty-two preceding years. “ Since that time,” he says, “we have reduced the illiteracy of the race at least 45 per cent. We have written and published nearly 500 books. We have nearly 300 newspapers, three of which are dailies. We have now in practice over 2,000 lawyers and a corresponding number of doctors. We have accumulated over $12,000,000 worth of school property and about $40,000,000 of church property. We have about 140,000 farms and homes valued at in the neighborhood of $750,000,000, and personal property valued at about $170,000,000. . . . We have 32,000 teachers in the schools of the country. We have built, with the aid of our friends, about 20,000 churches, and support 7 colleges, 17 academies, 50 high schools, 5 law schools, 5 medical schools, and 25 theological seminaries. We have over 600,000 acres of land in the South alone.”
It may be assumed that, as he v»as glorifying his race, this is the outside estimate of what they have accomplished. To the writer, it would appear a very high estimate. Certainly the educational achievement of which he boasts cannot justly be attributed, in the main, to the Negro race. The White race furnished 95 per cent, of the money for the schools, and a yet larger proportion for the colleges.
It is stated that ‘‘ before the war, the South had a free Negro population in excess of a quarter of a million souls,” and, according to an estimate which has been made by one of the distinguished members of the race, the value of property owned by free Negroes was between $35,000,000 and $40,000,000.+ Although the exact amount must be based somewhat on conjecture, it is certain that there were a considerable number of well-to-do free Negroes
* George H. White, of North Carolina.
+ “The American Negro,” by William Hannibal Thomas, p. 74. Macmillan and Co.
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in the country at that time. Some of those in the South were land-owners and slaveowners, while of the 226,216 who lived outside of the slave states, a fair proportion were well-to-do. To this sum must be added the amount that was accumulated during the Reconstruction period, by other means than those of honest thrift. The residue marks the advance of the Negro race in material progress.
Unhappily for those who claim that the Negro race has shown extraordinary thrift since its emancipation thirty-eight years ago, the records, when examined, fail to bear out the contention.
On the 29th of June Mr. Charles A. Gardiner, of the New York bar, delivered a notable address at Albany, before the Convocation of the University of the State of New York, ona "Constitutional and Educational Solution of the Negro Problem,” in which he presented some remarkable statements relating to the condition of the Negroes. He showed that, in 1890, the real and personal property of the fifteen old slave states was $13,380,5 17,311, of which the blacks owned only 3.3 per cent., an average of $64.20 per capita. The six Atlantic and Gulf states had $3,215,127,929, of which the blacks owned only 3.5 per cent., an average of $28.60 each. The writer has tried to obtain the later statistics, but has not been successful in securing complete statistics, owing to the fact that the United States Census Bureau has not yet completed its calculations touching this subject, and that many of the states do not keep separately the records of the property owned by the Whites and Negroes. He has, however, secured from the records of the states of Arkansas, Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia, where the records are kept separately, the statistics showing the actual and relative amount of property owned by the Negroes for the year 1902 :
ASSESSED VALUE OF ALL PROPERTY OWNED BY NEGROES.
Population. Assessed Value.
Arkansas 366,856 $11,263,400*
Georgia............1,034,813 15,188,069
North Carolina. 624,468 9,765,986
Virginia............ 660,722 17,580,390
Total..............2,686,859 $55,797,845
* In Arkansas the total value of all property, including railroad property of the state, is $225,276,681. The taxes assessed on the property of the Whites was $3,699,025, while the taxes assessed on the property of the Negroes was $205,954. The value of the property held by the Negroes was obtained by assigning to them an amount proportionate to the taxes paid by them.
It is possible that the states of Arkansas, Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia may be considered quite representative of the entire South. The Negroes are believed to be as well off in these states as in any others. The four states contain 2,686,859 Negroes, which is 30.39 per cent, of the entire Negro population of the whole United States, and the statistics show that this 30.39 per cent, of the entire Negro population own now, in real and personal property listed for taxation, only $53,797,845, which is but $20.02 per capita. The assessed value of property in the Southern States may be stated to be generally, at least, three-quarters of the actual value.
Georgia has been not infrequently cited as a state in which the Negro has thriven somewhat exceptionally. It contains more Negroes than does any other state, having, by the census of 1900, 1,034,813 Negroes. In 1860 it contained 465,698, so that the Negroes have increased there at the rate of 142,279 every ten years. The Bulletin of the Department of Labor, No. 35, July, 1901, contains a valuable paper by Prof. W. E. B. Du Bois, of Atlanta University, on the Negro landholder in Georgia, based on a close study of the conditions of the Negro in that state. Among other matters he gives a table containing the assessed value of all property owned by Negroes in Georgia from 1874 to 1900.
ASSESSED VALUE OF TOTAL PROPERTY OWNED BY NEGROES OF GEORGIA, 1874 TO 1900.
Year. Assessed Value. Year. Assessed Value.
1874 $6, 157,798 1888 $9,631,271
1875 5,393,885 1889 10,415,330
1876 5,488,867 1890 12,322,003
1877 5,430,844 1891 14,196,735
1878 5, 124,875 1892 14,869,575
1879 5,182,398 1893 14,960,675
1880 5,764,293 1894 14,387,730
1881 6,478,951 1895 12,941,230
1882 6,589,876 1896 13,292,816
1883 7,582,395 1897 13,619,690
1884 8,021,525 1898 13,719,200
1885 8,153,390 1899 13,447,423
1886 8,655,298 1900 14,118,720
1887 8,903,479
From this table it will be found that the taxable values of all the property owned by Negroes in Georgia in the year 1874 were $6,157,798. In 1890 the Negro population was 858,815. In 1892 the property valuation had risen to $14,869,-575, and in 1900, when the population was 1,034,813, it was only $14,118,720 or an
\
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actual falling off, though the Negroes appear to have increased 23.9 per cent, in this time.*
Such is the showing of statistics. But under this economic presentation lies a deeper question. What have the thousands of churches and schools and colleges, maintained at the cost of a hundred and forty million dollars, produced? What kind of men and women have they turned out ? What fruits have they brought forth, of moral stamina ; of character ; of purity of life ; of loftiness or even correctness of ideals ? These are the true tests of progress.
To reach a correct answer to these questions, we may inquire first: Has the percentage of crime decreased in the race generally ? Has the wage-earning capacity of the race generally increased in proportion to the rise of wages ? Has the race generally improved, morally and mentally ? Is the relative position of the race to that of the White race higher than it was ?
Unquestionably, a certain proportion of the Negro race has risen notably since the era of emancipation. In the cities and towns, a proportion of the colored population— that is, the upper fraction — have not only accumulated property but have attained a higher standing, based partly on property, partly on character, and partly on intellectual advance. But, unless the universal testimony of the White people of the South is unreliable, this rise is confined largely to the towns or to those regions where the Negroes have had the aid, sympathy, and encouragement of the Whites. And it appears to the writer that this element is not as large as is generally assumed, and that this very advance has separated them all the more widely from the great body of the colored race. Study of the question, moreover, discovers that almost all of the intellectual advance in the Negro race is confined to this upper fraction of the race ; that, perhaps, nine-tenths of the property accumulated has been accumulated by this class and by the other fraction that belongs to the second class who were trained in slavery, and that, measured by the ordinary standards of
* The Comptroller-General of Georgia reports that the assessed value of the property of the White taxpayers of Georgia for 1902 was $452,122,577. The property for the Negro taxpayers in the State of Georgia for the same year was assessed at $15,188,069. This sum, though considerably larger than that estimated by Professor Du Bois, is only 3.25 per cent, of the total assessment of the state.
character, intellect, and civic standing, the other nine-tenths of the race, so far from advancing in any way, have either stood stagnant or have retrograded.
According to the United States Census of 1890, the native White criminals in the United States numbered 40,471 ; the native Whites whose parents were also native-born, numbered 21,037 ; the Negro criminals (whose parents were native) numbered 24,277.* A comparison of the rural colored population will show that possibly over ninety per cent, of the property now owned by the Negroes has been accumulated by those who were either trained in slavery or grew up immediately after the War, so that they received the beneficial effects of the habits of industry in which their race was at that time trained. It will show in the next place that the proportion of convicts in the state penitentiaries in the Southern states from the negroes is from 85 to 93 per cent, of the total number of convicts confined. In Louisiana the proportion is 85 per cent, of all state criminals. In Alabama it is 85.4 per cent. In Florida, 86.4 per cent. In Mississippi it is 91 per cent. In Georgia it is 90 per cent., and in South Carolina it is 93.2 per cent.+ In the District of Columbia, where the Negroes are assumed to have had exceptional advantage and where possibly a certain element of them are as well off as anywhere in the country, they furnished, a year or two ago, 86 per cent, of the criminals. Of these convicts, more than nine-tenths have grown up since slavery was abolished.
Meantime, the Negro has retrograded as a workman until he has not only lost the field in which he once had no rival, but is in danger of losing even the ability to compete for its recovery. The superiority of the older farm-hands to the younger generation is so universally asserted throughout the South that it must be given some of the validity of general reputation. And whereas, as has been shown, a generation ago all the mechanical work of the South was in the hands of the Negroes, only a small proportion of it is done by them to-day.
Fifteen years ago one of the suburbs of Richmond was largely built up by a contractor whose foreman was a Negro. There
* World Almanac, 1903.
+ Address of Charles A. Gardiner, cited before.
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was no question raised about it. The foreman knew his business ; had been raised among the Whites ; knew how to get along with White men, and was respected and esteemed by them. This was at that time not uncommon.
What is the situation now ? The races are more widely divided than ever before. White mechanics and Negro mechanics no longer work together, generally, as of old. No contractor could do now what the man who built “Barton Heights” did fifteen years ago. The number of Negro carpenters and mechanics is greatly reduced; and the writer is informed by intelligent Negroes that such work as they do is mainly among their own people. The causes are not far to seek. It is partly due to a failure of ability in the Negro to hold up his own in the struggle of competition, and partly to the changed relations between him and the White. The old feeling of friendliness and amity has waned, and in its room has come a cold indifference, if not actual hostility. The new Negro has been taught that he is the equal of the White, and he is always asserting it and trying to prove it by any way but the right way — the equality of his work.
Washington City has ever since the time of emancipation appeared a sort of Mecca to many of the Negro race. There, numbers of that race have had opportunities which have been wanting to them in the South, and there may be found to-day, perhaps, the best educated element of the race to be found anywhere. Within the last year the Negro organization known as the True Reformers built in that city a handsome and expensive structure for the use of their race, and built it wholly with Negro labor. When, however, the workmen competent to do such work were sought, it was found necessary to go to the South for them.
Yet even in the South the Negro artisan sufficiently trained to compete now with his White rival is comparatively rare.
“The slave-disciplined mechanic has no successor in the ranks of the freedmen. . .*
So far, then, as statistics would indicate, the improvement that exists among the Negroes is not shown by the race at large as is usually alleged, but is shown, in the main, by the upper fraction.
* “ The American Negro,” by William Hannibal Thomas,
p. 68.
This proposition is borne out also by the testimony of the great majority of the Southern Whites who live in constant touch with the Blacks ; who have known them in every relation of life in a way that no one who has not lived among them can know them. Universally, they will tell you that while the old-time Negroes were industrious, saving, and, when not misled, well-behaved, kindly, respectful, and self-respecting, and while the remnant of them who remain still retain generally these characteristics, the “ new issue,” for the most part, are lazy, thriftless, intemperate, insolent, dishonest, and without the most rudimentary elements of morality.
They will tell you further that education such as they receive in the public schools, so far from appearing to uplift them, appears to be without any appreciable beneficial effect upon their morals or their standing as citizens. But more than this ; universally, they will tell you of the general depravity and retrogression of the Negroes at large in sections in which they are left to themselves, closely resembling a reversion to barbarism.
It is generally assumed that progress, as applied to a class or a race, signifies some advance in moral standing, or, at least, some improvement in the elements of character on which morality is based.
It is unfortunate that the statistics in the field of morality cannot be obtained ; but in this field, as in others, the testimony of those who have had the best opportunities for observation is all one way. Southerners of every class and calling, without exception, bear witness to the depressing fact that, leaving out the small upper fraction, the Negro race has not advanced at all in morality.
Unhappily, the fountain is tainted at the source. The great body of the race have scarcely any notion of the foundation principles of pure family life. They appear not only to have no idea of morality, but to lack any instinct upon which such an idea can be founded. It is usually charged that slavery was responsible for the absence of morality throughout the race. Doubtless, during slavery there was a sufficient amount of immorality to be the basis for almost any reasonable charge, yet study of the question has convinced at least one person that the illicit relations between the two races during the period of slavery
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have probably been greatly exaggerated. He has come to believe further that while illicit intercourse between the two races is less and, perhaps, markedly less now than it was during the period of slavery, the immorality of the great body of the Negro race has largely increased since that time. That this immorality exists, is the testimony not only of the Whites, but also of members of the race who have, with an open mind, made a study of the conditions of their people. Perhaps the most remarkable study of the Negro which has appeared is the book entitled “The American Negro,” by William Hannibal Thomas, of Massachusetts. No inconsiderable part of its value is owing to the fact that the author, a free, colored man, has had both the power to observe closely and the courage to record boldly the results of his observations. In the chapter on ‘‘ Moral Lapses ” the author says : “All who know the Negro recognize, however, that the chief and overpowering element in his make-up is an imperious sexual impulse which, aroused at the slightest incentive, sweeps aside all restraints in the pursuit of physical gratification. We may say now that this element of Negro character constitutes the main incitement to degeneracy of the race and is the chief hindrance to its social uplifting. . . .
“ The Negro’s ethical code sternly reprobates dancing, theater attendance, and all social games of chance. It does not, however, forbid lying, rum-drinking, or stealing. Furthermore, a man may trail his loathsome form into the sanctity of private homes, seduce a wife, sister, or daughter with impunity, and be the father of a score of illegitimate children by as many mothers, and yet be a disciple of holiness and honored with public confidence.”
His chapter on this subject will be, to those unfamiliar with it, a terrible exposure of the depravity of the Negroes in their social life, but it is only what those who have studied the subject know.
The curse of this frightful immorality is over the church and the school, and gives no evidence of abatement.
“The simple truth,” admits the writer already quoted, “is that there is going on side by side in the Negro people a minimum progress with a maximum regress.” “It is, therefore,” he says on page 183,
“almost impossible to find a person of either sex over fifteen years of age who has not had carnal intercourse.” And again, on page 184, he declares : "Marital im-
moralities, however, are not confined to the poor, the ignorant, and the degraded among the freed people, but are equally common among those who presume to be educated and refined.”
Unfortunately for the race, this depressing view is borne out by the increase of crime among them ; by the increase of superstition, with its black trail of unnamable immorality and vice ; by the homicides and murders, and by the outbreak and growth of the brutal crime which has chiefly brought about the frightful crime of lynching which stains the good name of the South and has spread northward with the spread of the Negro ravisher.
It is a fact, which no one will deny, that the crime of rape was substantially unknown during the period of slavery, and was hardly known during the first years of freedom : it is the fatal product of new conditions. Twenty-five years ago women in the South went unattended, with no more fear of attack than they have in New England. To-day, no woman in the South goes alone upon the highway out of sight of White men, except on necessity, and no man leaves his women alone in his house if he can help it. Over 500 White women and children have been assaulted in the South by Negroes within that time.
This is a terrible showing, and the most depressing part of it is the failure of the Negroes to address themselves to the moral improvement of their race.
None of this will affect the views of the politician or the doctrinaire, but it should, at least, give food for thought among the rest of our people, that these views are held almost universally by the intelligent White people of the South, irrespective of their different political or religious views ; irrespective of their social or their business standing ; and further, that, substantially, these views are held by any outsiders who go and see enough of the South to secure opportunities for close and general observation, and, precisely as their experience is broad and their means of information extensive, their views approximate those held by the White residents.
[pgbrk] H. R. H THE PRINCE OF HESTER STREET
BY MYRA KELLY
AUTHOR OF "A TOUCH OF NATURE,’’ "A LITTLE MATTER OF REAL ESTATE,” ETC.
ILLUSTRATED BY W. D. STEVENS
IT will be difficult,” said Miss Bailey, gently insubordinate, “very difficult. I have already a register of fifty-eight and seats for only fifty. It
is late in the term, too ; the
children read and write quite easily. And
you say this new boy has never been at
school ?”
“Never,” admitted the Principal. “His people are rather distrustful of us. Some religious prejudice, I believe. They are the strictest of the strict. The grandfather is a rabbi and has been educating the boy — an only child, by the way.”
“Put him in the kindergarten,” Miss Bailey interjected hopefully.
“No,” answered the Principal. “He’s too old for that.”
“Then let him wait until he can enter with the beginners in September. He will be really unhappy when he finds himself so far behind the others here.”
“ I’m afraid I must ask you to take him now,” the Principal persisted. “His father, the Assemblyman for this district, sees, some advantage in sending his boy to school with the children of his supporters. But, of course, I sha’n’t expect you to bring the child up to the grade. Just let him stay here and be happy. If you will send your roll book to my office I shall have him entered."
And so it chanced, on an afternoon of early March, that the name of Isaac Bor-rachsohn was added — all unalphabetically — at the end of the roll-call of the First Reader Class.
A writing lesson was in progress on the next morning when the new boy arrived.
Miss Bailey, during her six months’ reign over Room 18, had witnessed many first appearances, but never had charge of hers been borne into court on such a swelling tide of female relatives. The rather diminutive Teacher was engulfed in black-jetted capes, twinkling ear-rings, befeathered hats, warmly gleaming faces, and many-flounced skirts, while the devoted eyes of the First Reader Class caught but fleeting glimpses of its sovereign between the red roses rising, quite without visible support, above agitated bonnets.
Against this background Isaac glowed like a bird-of-paradise. The writing lesson halted. Bluntly pointed pencils paused in mid-air or between surprise-parted lips, and the First Reader Class drew deep breaths of awe and of admiration : for the new boy wore the brightest and tightest of red velvet Fauntleroy suits, the most bouffant of underlying shirts, the deepest of lace collars, the most straightly cut of Anglo-Saxon coiffures, the most far-reaching of sailor hats. Sadie Gonorowsky, the haughty Sadie, paused open-eyed in her distribution of writing papers. Morris Mogilewsky, the gentle Morris, abstractedly bit off and swallowed a piece of the gold fish food. Isidore Belchatosky, the exquisite Isidore, passed a stealthy hand over his closely cropped red head and knew that his reign was over.
Miss Bailey determined, in view of the frightened expression in the new-comer's eyes, to forgive his inopportune enlistment. At her cordial words of welcome the alarm spread from his wide eyes to his trembling lips, and Teacher turned to the relatives to ask : “ Doesn't he speak English ? ”
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There ensued much babbling and gesticulation. Isaac was volubly reproved and then one of the younger and befeathered aunts made answer.
‘‘ Sure does he. Only he was bashful, and when he should get sooner over it he English just like you speaks. Just like you he speaks. He is a goot boy. Where is he goin' to sit? Where’s his place?”
Miss Bailey reflected with dismay that there was not an unassigned desk in the room. Fortunately, however, Patrick Brennan was absent on that morning — he was “ making the mission” at St. Mary’s church with his mother—and his queer assortment of string, buttons, pencil stumps, and a mute and battered mouth-organ, were swept into a drawer of Teacher’s desk. Isaac was installed in this hastily created vacancy, the gratified relatives withdrew, and the writing lesson was resumed.
When Isaac found himself cut entirely away from the maternal apron-strings, his impulse was towards the relief of tears, until his wandering gaze encountered the admiring eyes of Eva Gonorowsky and an aimless hand came in contact with the hidden store of chewing-gum with which the absent Patrick was wont to refresh himself. It was lightly attached to the under surface of the chair, and Isaac promptly applied it to the soothing of his spirits, deciding that a school which furnished such dark and curly-locked neighbors and such delectable sustenance was a pleasant place. So he accepted a long pencil from Sarah Schrodsky, and a sheet of paper from Sadie Gonorowsky, and fell to copying the writing on the board.
While he labored — quite unsuccessfully, since all his grandsire’s instructions had been in Hebrew — Miss Bailey passed from desk to desk on a tour of inspection and exhortation, slightly annoyed and surprised to find that the excitement consequent upon Isaac Borrachsohn’s introduction had not yet subsided. Eva Gonorowsky was flagrantly inattentive, and Teacher paused to point an accusing finger at the very erratic markings which she had achieved.
“Eva,” said she, “why do you keep your writing so very far from the line?”
“ I ain’t so big,” Eva responded meekly,
‘‘ und so I makes mistakes. I tells you ’scuse.”
“Honey,” responded Miss Bailey, her wrath turned away by this soft answer, “you could do beautifully if you would only look at the board instead of staring at the new boy.”
“ Yiss ma’an,” acquiesced Eva. “But, oh, Teacher, Missis Bailey, ain’t he the sweet dude ! ”
“ Do you think so ? Well, you need not stop writing to look at him, because you will be seeing him every day.”
“In this class? Oh, ain’t that fine!" Eva whispered. “My, ain’t his mamma put him on nice mit red-from-plush suits and stylish hair-cuts ! "
“ Well, Isidore Belchatosky has a velvet suit,” said the gentle-hearted Miss Bailey, as she noted the miserable eyes of the deposed beau traveling from his own frayed sleeve to the scarlet splendor across the aisle.
“But it's black,” sneered the small coquette, and Teacher was only just in time to snatch Isidore’s faultless writing from the deluge of his bitter tears.
When the First Reader Class filed down the yard for recess, Miss Bailey was disgusted to find that Isaac Borrachsohn’s admiring audience increased, until it included every boy in the school young enough to be granted these twenty minutes of relaxation during the long morning. He was led away to a distant corner ; there to receive tribute of deference — marbles, candy, tops, and political badges. But he spoke no word. Silently and gravely he held court. Gravely and silently he suffered himself to be led back to Room 18. Still silently and still gravely he went home at twelve o'clock.
At a quarter before one on that day, while Morris Mogilewsky and Nathan Spiderwitz, monitors of gold fish and window boxes, were waiting dejectedly for the opening of the school doors and reflecting that they must inevitably find themselves supplanted in their sovereign's regard — for Teacher, though an angel, was still a woman, and therefore sure to prefer gorgeously arrayed ministers — there entered to them Patrick Brennan, fortified by the morning’s devotion and reacting sharply against the morning’s restraint.
“ Fellars,” he began jubilantly; “ I know where we can hook a banana. And the Ginney’s asleep ! Come on ! ”
His colleagues looked at him with lackluster eyes. “I don’t need no bananas,”
[pgbrk] “ never had charge of hers been borne into court on such a swelling tide of female relatives ”
said Morris dispiritedly. “They ain’t so awful healthy fer me.”
“Me too,” Nathan agreed. “I et six once und they made me a sickness.”
“ Bananas ! ” urged Patrick. “ Bananas, an’ the man asleep ! What’s the matter with ye anyway ? ”
“There’s a new boy in our class,” Morris answered. “Und he’s a dude. Und Teacher’s lovin’ mit him.”
“Und he sets in your place,” added Nathan.
“ I’ll break his face if he tries it again,” cried Patrick hotly. “Who let him sit there ? ”
“Teacher,” wailed Morris. “Ain’t 1 tell you how she's lovin’ mit him ? ”
‘‘ And where’s all my things ? ’’ Patrick demanded with pardonable curiosity. “ Where am I to sit ? ”
“ She makes you should set by her side,” Morris reassured him. “Und keep your pencil in her desk. It could be awful nice fer you. You sets right by her.”
“ I’ll try it for a day or two,” said Patrick grandly. “ I’ll see how I like it.”
For the first hour he liked it very well. It was fun to sit beside Miss Bailey, to read from her reader, to write at her desk, to look grandly down upon his fellows, and
to smile with condescension upon Eva Gon-orowsky. But when Teacher opened her book of Fairy Tales and led the way to the land of magic, Patrick discovered that the chewing-gum, with which he was accustomed to refresh himself on these journeys, was gone. Automatically he swept his hand across the under surface of his chair. It was not there. He searched the drawer in which his treasures had been bestowed. Nor there. He glanced at the usurper in his rightful place, and saw that the jaws of Isaac moved rhythmically and placidly. Hot anger seized Patrick. He rose deliberately upon his sturdy legs and slapped the face of that sweet dude so exactly and with such force that the sound broke on the quiet air like the crack of a revolver. Teacher, followed by the First Reader Class, rushed back from Fairy Land, and the next few minutes were devoted to separating the enraged Patrick from the terrified Isaac, who, in the excitement of the onslaught, had choked upon the casus belli, and could make neither restitution nor explanation. When Isaac was reduced, at the cost of much time and petting on Miss Bailey’s part, to that stage of consolation in which departing grief takes the form of loud sobs, closely resembling
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H. R. H. THE PRINCE OF HESTER STREET
hiccoughs and as surprising to the sufferer as to his sympathizers, Patrick found himself in universal disfavor. The eyes of the boys, always so loyal, were cold. The eyes of the girls, always so admiring, were reproachful. The eyes of Miss Bailey, always so loving, were hard and angry. Teacher professed herself too grieved and surprised to continue the interrupted story, and Patrick was held responsible for the substitution of a brisk mental arithmetic test in which he. was easily distanced by every boy and girl in the room. But Isaac was still silent. No halcyon suggestion beginning, “Suppose I were to give you a dollar and you spent half of it for candy,” no imaginary shopping orgie, could tempt him into speech.
It was nearly three o’clock when at last he found his voice. In an idle inspection of his new desk he came upon one of those combinations of a pen, a pencil, and an eraser, which gladden the young and aggravate the old. It was one of Patrick’s greatest treasures, and had long been Eva’s envious desire, and now Patrick, chained to the side of his indignant Teacher, saw this precious, delicate, and stubborn mechanism at the mercy of his clumsy successor. Isaac wrenched and twisted without avail; Patrick’s wrath grew dark ; Eva shyly proffered assistance ; Patrick’s jealousy flamed hot. And then, before Patrick’s enraged eyes, Eva and Isaac tore the combination of writing implements to fragments in their endeavor to make it yield a point. Patrick darted upon the surprised Isaac like an avenging whirlwind, and drove a knotty little fist into the center of the Fauntleroy costume. And then, quite suddenly, Isaac lifted up his voice :
“Don’t you dast to touch me,” he yelled,
“ you -----------------Krisht fool.”
Miss Bailey sprang to her feet, but before she could reach the offender he had warmed to his work and was rolling off excerpts from remarks which he had heard at his father’s club-rooms. These were, of course, in Hebrew, but after much hissing and many gutturals he arrived, breathless, at the phrase as Anglo-Saxon as his hair :
“You be ----! Go to ---- !"
Of all Miss Bailey’s rules for the government of her kingdom the most stringent were against blasphemy. Never had her subjects seen their gentle lady so instinct with wrath as she was when holding the
wriggling arm of Patrick with one hand and the red plush shoulder of Isaac with the other. She resumed her place in the chair of authority. She leaned forward until her eyes, angry and determined, were looking close into Patrick’s, and began :
“ You first. You commenced this thing. Now listen. If you ever touch that boy again — 1 don’t care for what reason — I will whip you. Here, before the whole class, I shall spank you. Do you understand ? ”
“ Yes,” said Patrick.
“ And now you,” turning quickly to Isaac. “ If you ever again dare to say bad words in this room I shall wash out the mouth you soil in saying them. Do you understand ? ”
Isaac was silent.
“Do you understand?” repeated Miss Bailey.
Isaac spoke no word ; gave no sign of comprehension.
“Morris,” called Teacher, “come and tell him that in Jewish for me,” and Morris, with many halts and shy recoilings, whispered a few words into the ear of Isaac, who remonstrated volubly.
“He says he ain't said no bad word,” the interpreter explained. “ His papa says like that on his mamma, and his mamma says like that on his papa. Fer him, that ain't no bad word.”
“It is a bad word here," said Teacher inexorably. “Tell him I'll wash out his mouth if he says it again.”
Miss Bailey was so ruffled and disgusted by the course of events that she allowed only the Monitor of the Gold Fish Bowl to stay with her after school that afternoon. When readers were counted and put upon the shelves, charts furled, paint brushes washed, pencils sharpened, and blackboards cleaned, Morris pressed close to his lady and whispered :
“ Say, Teacher, I should tell you somethings.”
“Well, then, old man, tell it.”
“ Teacher, it's like this ; I ain’t tell Ikey, out of Jewish, how you say, you should wash out his mouth.”
“ You didn’t tell him? And why not, pray ? ”
“ Well,” and Morris’s tone, though apologetic, was self-righteous, “I guess you don’t know ’bout Ikey Borrachsohn.”
[pgbrk] MYRA KELLY
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‘‘ I know he said two very bad things. Of course, I did not understand the Jewish part. What did he say ? Did you know ? ”
“Sure did I, on'y I wouldn’t to tell it out. It ain’t fer you. It ain’t no fer — fer ladies."
Miss Bailey patted her small knight’s hand. “Thank you, Morris," she said simply. “ And so it was bad ? ”
“ Fierce."
“Very well; I shall ask some other boy to tell him that I shall wash out his mouth."
“Well,” Morris began as before, “I guess you don’t know 'bout Isaac Borrach-
sohn. You dassen't to wash out his mouth, ’cause his grandpa’s a Rabbi.”
“ I know he is. Is that any reason for Isaac’s swearing ? ”
“His papa," Morris began, in an awed whisper; “his papa's the King of Hester Street."
“Well," responded Teacher calmly, “that makes no difference to me. No one may swear in this room. And now, Morris, you must run home. Your mother will be wondering where you are.”
Three minutes later Morris’s dark head reappeared. His air was deeply confidential. “Teacher, Missis Bailey,” he began, “ I tells you ’scuse.”
“Well, dear, what is it?" asked Miss Bailey with divided interest, as she adjusted a very large hat with the guidance of a very small looking-glass. “ What do you want ? ”
Again Morris hesitated. “I guess,” he faltered; “I guess you don’t know ’bout Isaac Borrachsohn.”
“What has happened to him? Is he hurt ? ”
“ It’s his papa. Ain’t I told you he’s the King of Hester Street und he’s got dancing balls. My mamma und all the ladies on our block they puts them on stylish und goes on the ball. Und ain't you see how he’s got a stylish mamma mit di’monds on the hair ? ”
“Yes,” admitted Miss Bailey, “I saw the diamonds.” Not to have seen the paste buckle which menaced Mrs. Borrach-sohn’s left eye would have been to be blind indeed.
“ Und extra, you says you should wash out his mouth,” Morris remonstrated. “I guess, maybe, you fools.”
“ You’ll see," said Miss Bailey blithely. ‘ ‘ And now trot along, my dear. Good afternoon.”
Teacher hurried into her jacket and was buttoning her gloves when the Monitor of the Gold Fish Bowl looked timidly in.
‘‘ What now ? ” asked Teacher.
"the next few minutes were devoted to separating the enraged Patrick from the terrified Isaac ”
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H. R. H. THE PRINCE OF HESTER STREET
“Well,” said Morris, and he breathed hard, ‘ ‘ I guess you don't know ’bout Isaac Borrachsohn.”
Miss Bailey fell away into helpless laughter. “ That would not be your fault, honey, even if it were true,” she said.
‘‘ But what has he been doing since I saw you ? ”
“ It’s his papa,” answered Morris. “ His papa’s got p'rades.”
"He has what ? ”
‘‘ P’rades.”
" And are they very bad ? I never heard of them.”
“You don't know what is p’rades?” cried Morris. ‘ ‘ Won't your mamma leave you see them ? ”
"What are they ? ” asked Teacher. “ Did you ever see them ?”
‘‘ Sure I seen p'rades. My papa he takes me in his hand und I stands by the curb und looks on the p’rade. It goes by night. Comes mans und comes cops und comes George Wash'ton und comes Ikey Borrach-sohn’s papa, mit proud looks — he makes polite bows mit his head on all the peoples, und comes Teddy Rosenfelt. Und comes cows und more cops und ladies und el'fints, und comes Cap Dreyfus und Terry McGovern. Und comes mans, und mans, und mans — a great big all of mans — und they says : ‘ What's the matter mit Ikey Borrach-sohn’s papa?’—he ain't got no sickness, Miss Bailey, on’y it's polite you says like that on p’rade. Und more mans they says : 'Nothings is mit him ! He’s all right!’ That is what is p’rades. Ikey’s papa’s got them, und so you dassen’t to wash out his mouth.”
“One more bad word,” was Teacher’s ultimatum ; “ one more and then I'll do it.” Miss Bailey's commands were not lightly disregarded, and Patrick Brennan spent the ensuing week in vain endeavor to reconcile himself to a condition of things in which he, the first born of the policeman on the beat, and therefore by right of heredity a person of importance in the realm, should tamely submit to usurpation and insult on the part of this mushroom sprig of moneyed aristocracy, this sissy kid in velvet pants, this long-haired dummy of an Isaac Borrachsohn. Teacher could not have meant to cut him off from all hope of vengeance. If she had — then she must be shown that the honor of the house of Brennan was a thing beyond even her jurisdiction. A
Brennan had been insulted in his person and in his property. Of course, he must have satisfaction.
If Morris could have known that Patrick, of whom he was so fond, was plotting evil against the heir-apparent to the throne of Hester Street, he might have persuaded that scion of the royal house of Munster to stay his hand. But the advice of Patrick pere had always been : " Lay low until you see a good chanst an' then sock it to him
good and plenty.” So Patrick fils bided his time and continued to “make the mission” with his pious mother.
After his initial speech in his English, “ so like Miss Bailey's,” Isaac Borrachsohn resumed his cloak of silence and spoke no more the language of the land. Even in his own tongue he was far from garrulous, and yet his prestige continued to increase, his costumes grew ever more gorgeous, and his slaves — both male and female — daily more numerous. In reading and in “ Memory Gems” his progress was, under
" 'Well, dear, what is it ? ’ ”
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his veil of speechlessness, imperceptible, but in writing and in all the prescribed branches of Manual Training he acquired a proficiency which made it impossible to return him to his royal sire. Gradually it was borne in upon Miss Bailey that she had met her Waterloo — a child who would have none of her. All her attempts at friendliness were met by the same stolid silence, the same impersonal regard, until in desperation she essayed a small store of German phrases, relics of her sophomore days. Six faulty sentences, with only the most remote bearing upon the subject in hand, were more efficacious than volumes of applied psychology, and the reserve of Isaac Borrachsohn vanished before the rising conviction that Teacher belonged to his own race. How otherwise, he demanded, could she speak such beautiful Hebrew ? When Morris translated this tribute to Patrick, a flame of anger and of hope lit up that Celtic soul. Such an accusation brought against Miss Bailey, whom he had heard his noble father describe as “one of ourselves, God bless her ! ” was bitter to hear, but the Knight of Munster comforted himself with the conviction that Teacher would no longer shield the sissy from the retribution he had now doubly earned. But it should be a retribution fitted to the offender and in proportion to the offense. Long experience of Jewish playfellows had taught Patrick a revenge more fiendish than a beating, a ducking, a persecution by “ de gang,” or a confiscation of goods and treasures. All of these were possible and hard to bear, but for Isaac's case something worse was needed. He should be branded with a cross !
Fortune, after weeks of frowning, was with Patrick on that warm April afternoon. Isaac was attired in a white linen costume so short of stocking and of knickerbockers as to exhibit surprising area of fat leg, so fashionable in its tout ensemble as to cause Isidore Belchatosky to weep aloud, so spotless as to prompt Miss Bailey to shield it with her own “ from silk” apron when the painting lesson commenced. Patrick Brennan had obeyed his father’s injunction to “lay low” so carefully that Teacher granted a smiling assent to his plea to be allowed to occupy the desk, which chanced to be empty, immediately behind Isaac’s.
On each little desk Miss Bailey, assisted
by her whole corps of monitors, placed a sheet of drawing paper, a little pan containing India ink dissolved in water, and a fat Japanese paint brush. The class was delighted, for, with the possible exception of singing, there was no more popular occupation. Briskly the First Reader Class fell to work. Carefully they dipped brushes in ink. Bravely they commenced to draw. Teacher passed from desk to desk encouraging the timid, restraining the rash.
Patrick dug his brush deep down into his ink, lifted it all wet and dripping, cast a furtive glance at Teacher’s averted head, and set stealthily to work at the bent and defenseless back of Isaac Borrachsohn’s spotless suit. From shoulder to shoulder he drew a thick black mark. Then another from straight cropped hair to patent leather belt. Mrs. Borrachsohn belonged to the school of mothers who believe in winter underwear until the first of June, and Isaac felt nothing. But Eva Gonorowsky saw and shuddered, hiding her eyes from the symbol and the desecration. Patrick glowered at her, filled his brush again, bent quickly down, and branded the bare and mottled legs of his enemy with two neatly crossed strokes.
In an instant the room was in an uproar. Patrick, his face and hands daubed with ink, was executing a triumphant war-dance around Isaac who, livid and inarticulate with rage, was alternately struggling for words and making wondrous Delsartean attempts to see his outraged back.
“ I socked it to you good and plenty ! ” chanted Patrick in shrill victory. “Look at your back ! Look at your leg ! It’s ink! It won’t come off! It will never come off! Look at your back !”
Miss Bailey clanged the bell, caught Patrick by the waist-line, thrust him under her desk, fenced him in with a chair, and turned to Isaac who had only just realized the full horror of his plight. Isidore Belchatosky and Eva Gonorowsky had torn off the white tunic — thereby disclosing quantities of red flannel— and exhibited its desecrated back. And speech, English speech, returned to the Prince of Hester Street. Haltingly at first but with growing fluency he cursed and swore and blasphemed ; using words of whose existence Teacher had never heard or known and at whose meaning she could but faintly guess. Eva began to whimper ; Nathan lifted shocked eyes to
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H. R. H. THE PRINCE OF HESTER STREET
" ‘ I socked it to you good and plenty ! ’ ”
Teacher ; Patrick kicked away the barricading chair and, still armed with the inky brush, sprang into the arena, and it was not until five minutes later that gentle peace settled down on Room 18.
Miss Bailey had received full parental authority from the policeman on the beat and she felt that the time for its exercise had come.
“Patrick,” she commanded. “Position ! ” And the Leader of the Line stood forth stripped of his rank and his followers, but not of his dauntless bearing.
Teacher, with a heavy heart, selected the longest and lightest of her rulers and the review continued.
“ Hips firm !” was the next command, and Patrick’s grimy hands sprang to his hips.
“Trunk forward — bend!’’ Patrick doubled like a jack-knife and Miss Bailey did her duty.
When it was over she was more distressed than was her victim. “ Patrick, I'm so sorry that this happened,” said she. ‘‘ But you remember that I warned you that I should whip you if you touched Isaac. Well, you did and I did. You know — all the children know — that I always keep my word.”
“ Yiss ma’an,” murmured the frightened First Reader Class.
“Always?” asked Patrick.
“Always,” said Miss Bailey.
“Then wash out his mouth, said Patrick, pointing to the gloating Isaac, who promptly ceased from gloating.
“Oh, that reminds me," cried Teacher, " of something I want you to do. Will you tell Isaac you are sorry for spoiling his new suit ? ”
"Sure,” answered Patrick readily. “ Say, Isaac, I'm sorry. Come an' git your mouth washed.”
“Well," and Miss Bailey temporized, “ his clothes are ruined. Don’t you think you could forgive him without the washing?”
“ Sure,” answered Patrick again. “ Ain’t it too bad that you can’t too ! But you said it, and now you’ve got to do it. Like you did about me, you know. Where’s the basin? I'll fill it.”
Teacher was fairly trapped, but, remembering that Isaac’s provocation had been great, she determined to make the ordeal as bearable as possible. She sent for some water, selected a piece of appetizing rose pink soap, a relic of her Christmas store, and called Isaac, who, when he guessed the portent of all these preliminaries, suffered a shocking relapse into English, Nerved by this latest exhibition, Miss Bailey was deaf to the wails of Isaac and unyielding to the prayers and warnings of Morris and to the frantic sympathy of Eva Gonorowsky.
“Soap ain’t fer us,” Morris cried. “It ain't fer us. We don’t ever make like you makes mit soap ! ”
“I noticed that,” said Teacher dryly.
“ I really think you are afraid of soap and water. When I finish with Isaac you will all see how good it is for boys and girls to be washed.”
“But not in the mouth! Oh, Missis Bailey, soap in the mouth ain’t fer us.” “Nonsense, honey,” answered Teacher;
“ it will only clean his teeth and help him to remember not to say nasty words.” And all unaware of the laws of “ kosher” and of “traef,” the distinctions between clean and unclean, quite as rigorous as, and much more complicated than, her own, Constance Bailey washed out the mouth of her royal charge, and, it being then three o’clock, dismissed her awed subjects and went serenely home.
On his progress towards the palace of his sire, Isaac Borrachsohn, with Christian symbols printed large upon his person,
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alienated nine loyal Hebrew votes from his father’s party and collected a following of small boys which nearly blocked the narrow streets. The crosses were bad enough, but when it was made clear that the contamination, in the form of bright pink soap, had penetrated to the innermost recesses of the heir of the Borrachsohns, the aunts, in frozen horror, turned for succor and advice to the venerable rabbi. But he could only confirm their worst fears. “Soap,” said he, “is from the fat of pigs. Our boy is defiled. To-morrow he must be purified at the synagogue. I told you it was a Christian school.”
Then did the Assemblyman quail before the reproach of his women. Then did he bite his nails in indecision and remorse and swear to be revenged upon the woman who had dared so to pollute his son. Then did Isaac weep continuously, noisily, but ineffectually for, on the morrow, to the synagogue he went.
Miss Bailey, when she saw that he was absent, was mildly self-reproachful and uneasy. If she could have known of the long and complicated rites and services which she had brought upon the boy who had been entrusted to her to be kept happy and out of mischief, she might not have listened so serenely to the janitor’s announcement two days later.
“Borrachsohn and a whole push of women, and an old bird with a beard, are waitin’ for you in the boys’ yard,” he whispered with great empressement. ‘‘ I sent them there,” he explained, “because they wouldn’t fit anywhere else. There’s about a hundred of them.”
Mr. Borrachsohn's opening remark showed that the force of Isaac’s speech was hereditary. “Are you the ------------------ young
woman who’s been playing such fool tricks with my son? You'll wish you minded
your own business before I get done
with you.”
The belligerent attitude was reflected by the phalanx of female relatives, whose red roses waved in defiance now, as they had nodded in amity a few short weeks before. For an instant Teacher did not grasp the full meaning of Mr. Borrachsohn's greeting. Then suddenly she realized that this man, this trafficker in the blood and the honor of his people, had dared to swear at her, Constance Bailey. When her eyes met those of the Assemblyman he started
slightly, and placed Isaac between him and this alarming young person who seemed not at all to realize that he could “break her” with a word.
“Is this your child?” she demanded. And he found himself answering meekly:
“ Yes ma’an.”
“Then take him away," she commanded. “He is not fit to be with decent children. I refuse to teach him.”
“You can’t refuse,” said Mr. Borrachsohn. “It is the law ”
“Law!” repeated Teacher. “ What is the law to you ? ” She was an open-eyed young person ; she had spent some months in Mr. Borrachsohn’s district; she had a nasty energy of phrase ; and the King of Hester Street has never translated the ensuing remarks to the wife of his bosom nor to the gentle-eyed old rabbi who watched, greatly puzzled by his ideal of a Christian persecutor and this very different reality. Gradually the relatives saw that the accuser had become the accused, but they were hardly prepared to see him supplicating and even unsuccessfully.
“No, I won’t take him. I tell you his language is awful. I can’t let the other children hear him.”
“But I shall see that he swears no more. We taught him for a joke. I’ll stop him.”
I’m afraid you can’t.”
“ washed out the mouth of her royal charge ”
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H. R. H. THE PRINCE OF HESTER STREET
“Well, you try him. Try him for two weeks. He is a good boy ; he will swear no more.”
“Very well," was Teacher's ungracious acquiescence; “ I shall try him again. And
if he should swear ”
“You will not wash out his mouth ”
“I shall, and this time I shall use hot water and sapolio and washing soda.”
Mr. Borrachsohn smiled blandly and turned to explain this dictum to his clan. And the dazed Miss Bailey saw the anger and antagonism die out of the faces before
her and the roses above them, heard Mr. Borrachsohn’s gentle, “We would be much obliged if you will so much accommodate us,” saw the rabbi lift grateful eyes to the ceiling and clasp his hands, saw Mrs. Borrachsohn brush away a tear of joy, and felt Isaac’s soft and damp little palm placed within her own by the hand of his royal sire, saw the jetted capes, the flounced skirts and befeathered hats follow the blue and brass buttons of the janitor, the broadcloth of the Assemblyman and the alpaca of the rabbi, heard
the door close with a triumphant bang, saw the beaming face of the returning janitor., and heard his speech of congratulation : “I heard it all; I was afraid to leave you alone with them. Will you excuse me, Miss Bailey, if I just pass the remark that you’re a living wonder?”
Still densely puzzled and pondering as to whether she could hope ever to understand these people, she sought the Principal and told him the whole story. “And now why,” she asked, “did he make such a fuss about the washing only
to yield without a struggle at the end?” The Principal laughed. “ You are mistaken,” said he. “ Mr. Borrachsohn gained his point and you most gracefully capitulated.” “I,” cried Teacher; “I yield to that horrid man ! Never ! I said I should use
soda and sapolio---- ”
“Precisely,” the Principal acquiesced, “And both soda and sapolio are kosher— lawful, clean. Miss Bailey, oh, Miss Bailey, you can never be haughty and lofty again, for you met ‘ that horrid man' in open battle and went weakly down before him.”
“Mr. Borrachsohn’s opening remark showed that the force of Isaac’s speech was
hereditary ’’