The Way of the Strong

CHAPTER VII

THE DECISION

Monica and Frank were alone in the former's private sitting-room at the Eldorado Hotel. Phyllis had conducted him to the door of the room, where she waited until he had passed safely within. Then she discreetly withdrew to pass many anxious moments pacing the narrow limits of her own bedroom on the same floor.

The sitting-room was a large, handsomely furnished apartment with two lofty windows looking out upon the busy street, directly over the hotel's entrance porch. At one of these windows Frank was standing, with his back turned upon the room and the woman who had drawn so near to him. His troubled blue eyes were fixed upon the busy life outside, but it had no interest for him. Whatever he had gone through before, he believed that he was now facing the climax of his life. It had arisen so suddenly, so unexpectedly, as such climaxes do; and it found him ready for impulsive action that had to be controlled.

Monica was just behind him, and a little to one side. One hand was resting upon the cold radiator as though she needed its support. Her beautiful face was drawn, and pale, great dark rings surrounded her eyes. Her age was strongly marked just now, it was even exaggerated, and had somehow communicated itself to her shoulders, which drooped in an unusually hopeless manner.

It had been a long, and for both, a painful interview. It had been a scene of love and humility on the part of the proud wife of Alexander Hendrie, and of affection yet decision, not untouched with bitterness, on the part of the boy who had developed so quickly into a man of responsibility. The mother love had pleaded with a humility that was pathetic, and the man had listened, steeling his heart against the inroads which the sound of that gentle voice made upon his determination.

Never for one moment did he find aught of blame for her. Never did he, by word or look, convey anything but the love she had always known. How could it be otherwise? Nothing could have broken down a love such as his, founded as it was upon long years of self-sacrificing devotion toward himself. Monica was still to him all she had ever been – his mother.

But now her final appeal, that he should abandon his present life and return to her, had been made, and, as the end came, she handed him a letter in Alexander Hendrie's handwriting.

The letter remained unread in his hands, held limply, a thing apparently of no interest to him.

"Won't you read it, Frank? Won't you read it – for my sake?" Monica urged, after a long, painful silence.

There was something like tears in her voice, and the sound became irresistible to the man.

He sighed, and glanced down at the folded paper.

"Where is the use?" he asked gently. "There can be nothing in it to alter my determination. Oh, Mon, don't you understand? If I can hear you plead and still remain certain my purpose is right, how can anything this man has to say, turn me from it?"

Monica drew a step nearer. Her hand had left the cold iron. Now the other was laid tenderly upon his shoulder.

"I know, I know, Frank," she cried. "But – won't you read it? When you have read it you will understand why I want you to do so. It is the letter of a man with a mind as big as his passions are – violent. It is the letter of a man whose proud head is bowed in the – dust with grief at the wrong he has done to you. If you knew him as I know him, you would realize all that the writing of that letter must have cost him. Were it not that I know something of the great, passionate heart that beats in his body I could not have believed such a letter written by him possible. Oh, Frank, if nothing I can say, can turn you from the purpose of your life, let me plead, as I have never pleaded to any one before, be your just, kindly self for a few moments, and – listen while he speaks to you."

Frank unfolded the letter, and, after a moment's hesitation, withdrew his gaze from the window, and began to read, Monica waited breathlessly. The letter, in a clear, bold handwriting, was without heading or date.

"I cannot begin this with a conventional heading. I cannot expect that you would tolerate any sort of demonstrativeness. Therefore, what I have to say must be short, sincere, and to the point. I am sending this by Monica, to ensure your receiving it, and in the hope that she will persuade you to read it. I can think of only one wrong, ever committed by man, greater than that which I have done to you. The wrong I refer to was done some two thousand years ago. The horror of that crime has remained to those whose forbears committed it, and will remain so long as their lives last. The horror of my crime will so remain with me. This may sound extravagant to you, however bitter your feelings, but you do not know, perhaps you never will know, all that is in my mind as I write. However, that is for me, and it is not easy. The expression of all my regrets would be useless to convey what I feel. Let them pass. There are things I desire to do, and I implore you, as you may hope for future salvation, as you may pity a mind and heart racked with torture, to come back with Monica, and accept an equal partnership in all I have in the world. It is here, waiting for you at all times between now and the day I die. I hope that some day you may learn to forgive the wrongs I have inflicted upon you.

"Alexander Hendrie."

The letter remained in Frank's hand as his eyes were once more lifted to the window. There was a slight change in them, a slight softening in their expression. Monica, watching him, drew a sharp breath. For an instant hope leaped within her, and a whispered urging escaped her.

"Frank!"

The man made no movement, but the softening passed swiftly out of his eyes.

"You will – come?"

He held out the letter in reply.

"Take it, Mon, take it back to him," he said deliberately, yet without harshness. "I will not write a reply, but you can take him this message. The past is over, and, though perhaps it cannot easily be forgotten, I have no longer any feeling about it beyond hatred of the injustice which makes it possible for the weight of one man's wealth to bring about such persecution as was dealt out to me. Tell him I cannot accept that which he has no right to be able to give. Tell him there are thousands – hundreds of thousands of men and women who could be benefited by that which he would now give to me."

Monica drew back sharply, the caressing weight of her hand slipped from his shoulder.

"You mean that? Oh, no, no, Frank! You cannot answer him like that. It is not you – never, never!"

"That is the answer, dear." Frank had turned from the window, and came towards this woman who had been more than a mother to him. "That is the answer to his letter, and to all that you have asked me. But you are right, it is not I – it is the teaching of the suffering and misery I have witnessed that is speaking, and to that teaching I remain loyal."

"Frank is right, Mrs. Hendrie."

The man looked across the room with a start, and Monica turned abruptly. Phyllis was standing just inside the room with her back to the door she had just closed behind her. She nodded in answer to their looks of surprise, and her eyes were smiling, but with suspicious brightness.

"You're going, Frank?" she demanded. "You're just going right back to those – you've – you've joined?"

The girl's voice was so quiet, so soft. Nor was any of her aching heart permitted to add one touch of appeal to her manner. The man cleared his throat. He averted his eyes.

"Yes, Phyl," he said hoarsely.

He stood there feeling as though he was once more before a tribunal, awaiting sentence. Phyllis had drawn close to Monica's side, and her strong young arm had slipped protectingly about the elder woman's waist. The girl understood her suffering, and her own added to the sympathy of her action.

Her eyes shone up into the man's face. Their brightness was the brightness of tears she would not shed.

"Then – it's 'good-bye'?" she said gently.

The man nodded. He dared not speak until he had full mastery of himself.

Phyllis sighed.

"We came here, Frank, to show you all that was in the hearts of two women who – who love you," she said slowly. "Maybe we haven't done it well. I can't rightly say." Her smile was a little wistful, yet almost pathetically humorous. "It's the way with folks who try hard – isn't it? They never just seem to get things right. But, say, it doesn't really figure any, does it? You see," she went on, "we both wanted you back. But I needed something more than that. You told me in your – that long, long letter of yours, marriage between us was impossible. Well, say, dear, there's just one thing, and only one thing could make that so. If you don't need me then it's just – impossible. I asked you that, and you didn't tell me in words. But everything else you told me about, you just did want me."

The man made a movement as though to interrupt her, but she would not allow him to speak.

"Don't worry, dear. Guess you got all you need that way coming. I just want you to know I love you through and through, and that surely goes – just as long as I live. Meanwhile," she added, her smile gaining in confidence as her thoughts probed ahead into the distant future, "I'm going right back to home, and mother; right back to that little tumble-down shack you know, dear, and I'm going to get on with my – plowing. And later on, dear, when you just get the notion, and come along, why – I guess you'll find me waiting around for you – and I shan't be fixed up in black – and bugles. Good-bye, dear – for the present."

CHAPTER VIII

THE SHADOW OF WAR

With the passing of summer, and the long, pleasant fall, winter's desperate night closed about the world. Now it was succeeded, at last, by the dawn of spring, bringing with it the delicate, emerald carpet of growing grain, which later would ripen to a brilliant cloth of gold. Nor was the earth's beautiful spring raiment to be quickly discarded for its summer apparel. The keen winds yielded reluctantly to summer zephyrs, and winter's dread overcast retreated slowly before the rosy light of the ripening season.

If winter's clouds of threatening elemental storms were obstinate, so were the hovering clouds of human troubles. But, unlike the clouds of winter, the latter were growing with the advancing season, growing until the horizon hung with the threat of storm, that was ready to break even the horizon at which the ever optimistic farmer gazed.

It had been a troublous fall in the labor world, and an even more disturbed winter. The dark months of the year had proved a very hotbed for the microbe of industrial unrest, and it had propagated a hundredfold.

As spring dawned, from every corner of the world came the same story. Strike, strike; everywhere, and in every calling, the word had gone forward – Strike! It mattered not the reason. It mattered not the worker's condition. If wages were ample, then strike for less work. If the work was insufficient, then strike for a minimum wage. In any case strike, and see the demands included recognition of labor unions, and particularly recognition of the demagogues who led them.

So the storm-clouds of industrial insurrection were fostered. They threatened, and, rapidly, in almost every direction, the flood of storm burst. Every sane, hard-thinking man asked his neighbor the reason. Every far-sighted man, on both sides, shook his head, and pointed the approach of a hideous reckoning. Every fool looked on and laughed, and, shrugging his shoulders, swam with the tide on the side to which he belonged.

And all the time the demagogues screamed from the house-tops, and claimed the daily press. These carrion of democracy actually belonged to neither side. They did not toil in the mills, nor did they employ labor. Theirs it was to feed upon the carcass of the worker, and wrest power from the hands of those who possessed it. Whatever happened, they must be winners in the game they played. Nor did it matter one iota to them who might be the sufferers by their juggling.

They possessed one marketable commodity, their powers of stirring strife. Nor were they particular to whom they sold. They belonged to a class of their own, an unscrupulous, ambitious, self-seeking race of intelligent creatures, whose sole aim was publicity and power, which, in the end, must yield them that position and plenty which they decried in others. It mattered little to them whether they preached syndication or sauce. Their services must be paid for in the way they desired. Vituperating from the summit of an upturned butter tub, or hurling invective from the cushioned benches of a nation's Assembly of Legislature, it made no difference to them. Anything they undertook must be paid for, at their own market price.

These were the microbes of industrial unrest which had multiplied during the dark months of the year on hotbeds that were rich, and fat, and warm. Their paunches were heavy with the goodly supplies of sustenance which they drew from the bodies of those who, in their blind ignorance and stupidity, were powerless to resist their insidious blandishments.

Something of all this may have been in Alexander Hendrie's mind as he sat before the accumulations of work awaiting his attention on his desk in the library at Deep Willows. His hard face was shadowed, even gloomy. It was the face of a man which suggested nothing of the success that was really his. Nothing of the triumph with which the successful organizing of the wheat-growers' trust should have inspired him. All his plans had matured, all his efforts had been crowned with that success which seemed to be the hall-mark of the man. That which he set himself to do, he prided himself, he did with his might. Nor did he relinquish his grip upon it till the work was completed.

But on this particular spring morning, the hall-mark seemed somehow to have become obscured. His eyes were troubled and brooding. His work remained untouched. Even an unlighted cigar remained upon the edge of his desk, a sure sign that he had no taste for the work that lay before him.

This condition of affairs had been going on for some time. It had gradually grown worse. To the onlooker, to eyes that had no real understanding of the man, it might have suggested that the great spirit had reached the breaking point, or that some subtle, undermining disease had set in.

One, at least, of those who stood on intimate terms with this man knew that this was not so. Angus Moraine realized the growing depression in his chief, and, perhaps, feared it. But he knew its cause, or, at least, he knew something of its cause. For some reason, reasons which to the hard Scot seemed all insufficient, Hendrie had changed from the time of his discovery of the mistake he had made in the case of Frank Smith. He had heard from his employer, himself the story of that mistake, but Hendrie had only told him sufficient of it to account for his actions in obtaining the man's release.

Then there was that other, more intimate matter, the news of which had leaped like wildfire throughout the household at Deep Willows. Monica was ailing. It was obvious that she was to become a mother, and it was equally obvious that her health was suffering in an extraordinary manner. There was a doctor, a general practitioner, in residence at Deep Willows. There was also a night nurse in attendance, besides a girl companion, from one of the outlying farms over Gleber way.

These things were known by everybody, not only in the house, but in the neighborhood, and Angus understood that the combination of them all was responsible for the apparently halting movement of the mechanism which so strenuously drove the life of Alexander Hendrie. The man himself was just the same underneath it all, but, for the moment, the clouds were depressing him, and it would require his own great fighting spirit to disperse them.

Angus was in good humor as he entered the library just before noon. He believed he possessed the necessary tonic for his employer's case, and intended to administer it in his own ruthless fashion.

Hendrie glanced across at the door as he heard it open. Then, when he saw who his visitor was, he sighed like a man awakening from an unpleasant dream. He picked up his cigar and lit it, and Angus watched the action with approval. He always preferred to deal with Hendrie when that individual had a cigar thrust at an aggressive angle in the corner of his mouth.

"Well? Anything to report?" Hendrie demanded. The effort of pulling himself together left him alert. The last shadow had, for the moment, passed out of his cold gray eyes.

"Why, yes."

Angus drew up a chair and laid a sheaf of papers beside him. He saw the crowded state of the desk, but gave no sign of the regret which the sight inspired.

"Guess there's a hell of a lot of trouble coming if you persist in this colored labor racket," he said quickly. "I don't mind telling you I hate niggers myself, hate 'em to death. But that's not the trouble. As I've warned you before, ever since that blamed Agricultural Labor Society racket started, the beginning of last year, we've had the country flooded with what I call 'east-side orators.' Talk? Gee! They'd talk hell cold. They've got the ear of every white hobo that prides himself he knows the north end of a plow from the south, and they've filled them full of this black labor racket."

Hendrie was lifted out of himself. The cold light of his eyes flashed into a wintry smile.

"Ah," he said. "Strike talk."

"Sure. And I guess it's going to be big. I'd say there's a big head behind it all – too."

Hendrie nodded.

"They've been gathering funds all the year. Now they guess they're ready – like everybody else – to get their teeth into the cake they want to eat. Go ahead."

Angus took a cigar from the box Hendrie held out, and bit the end off.

"It's well enough for you. You ain't up against all the racket. I am. We've got plenty labor around here without darnation niggers. Why not quit 'em?"

Hendrie shook his head, and the other went on.

"Anyway, yesterday, Sunday, I was around, and I ran into a perfect hallelujah chorus meeting, going on right down, way out on the river bank. Guess they didn't reckon I'd smell 'em out. There were five hundred white men at that meeting, and they were listening to a feller talking from the stump of a tree. It was the nigger racket. That, and strike for more wages, and that sort of truck. He was telling 'em that there was just one time to strike for farm folks. That was harvest. Said it would hurt owners more to see their crops ruined in the ear than to quit seeding. Well, I got good and mad, and I'd got my gun with me. So I walked right up to that feller, and asked him what in hell he was doing on your land. He'd got five hundred mossbacks with him, and he felt good. Guessed he could bluff me plenty. He got terribly gay for a while, till I got busy. You see, with five hundred around it was up to me to show some nerve. The moment he started I whipped out my gun. I gave him two minutes to get down and light out. He wasted most of them, and I had to give him two that shaved the seat of his pants, one for each minute. Then he hopped it, and the five hundred mossbacks laffed 'emselves sick. However, I told 'em they were disturbing the Sunday nap of the fish in the river, and they, too, scattered. But it don't help, Mr. Hendrie. It means a big piece of trouble coming. Those fellers'll gather round again like flies, and they'll suck in the treacle that flows from the lips of some other flannel mouth. Specially if it's 'black' treacle."

Hendrie's smile had become fixed. And the set of it left his eyes snapping.

"See here, Angus," he cried, with some vehemence. "I don't hold a brief for niggers as niggers. But I hold a brief for them as human creatures."

He swung himself round on his chair and rested his elbow, supporting his head upon his hand, upon the overflowing desk. His cigar assumed a still more aggressive pose in the corner of his mouth.

"The world's just gone crazy on equality. That is, the folk who've got least of its goods. That's all right. I'd feel that way myself – if I hadn't got. Well, here's an outfit of white folk who reckon to make me pay, and pay good. Not me only, but all who own stuff. Well, if they can make me pay – guess I'll just have to pay. But anyway, I've a right to demand the equality they're shouting for. Guess a nigger hasn't a dog's place among white folks. I don't care a darn. But a nigger can do my work, and I can handle him. And if the whole white race of mossbacks don't like it they can go plumb – to – hell. That's the way I feel. That's the way all this strike racket that's going on makes me feel. If they want fight they can get all they need. Maybe they reckon they can break me all up with their brawn and muscle, and by quitting, and refusing to take my pay. I just tell you they can't. Let 'em build up their giant muscle, and get going good. I'll fight 'em – but I'll fight 'em with the wits that have put me where I am, and – I'll beat 'em."

Angus Moraine's sour face and somber eyes lit. He knew his man, and he liked to hear him talk fight. But he was curious to know something of that which he knew still remained to be told.

"This is the first year of the trust operations," he said shrewdly. "What if the crop is left to rot on the ground? This place, here, is now just a fraction of the whole combine, as I understand it."

Hendrie nodded. Amusement was added to the light of battle in his eyes.

"Sure," he said.

Then he reached across the desk and picked up a large bundle of papers. He passed them over to the other.

"Take 'em," he said easily. "Read 'em over at your leisure. You got property in this trust. Maybe you'll read something there that's cost me a deal of thought. That's the United Owners' Protection Schedule. You'll find in it a tabulated list of every property in the combine. Its area of grain. Its locality. Also a carefully detailed list of Owner Workers, their numbers, and supplies of machinery for seeding and harvesting. You'll also find a detailed distribution sheet of how these, in case of emergency, can be combined and distributed, and, aided with additional machinery, supplied by the trust, can complete the harvest on all trust lands without the help of one single hired man. The machinery is ordered, and is being distributed now – in case the railroad troubles develop about harvest time. There's also another document there of no small importance. It was passed unanimously at the last general meeting of directors, and is inspired by these – darned labor troubles. It empowers me to sell crops standing in the ear, at a margin under anticipated market price to speculators – if it's deemed advisable by the directors. This again is for our protection."

Then he held up a bunch of telegrams.

"These are wires from some of the big speculators. They're in code, so you can't read 'em. They're offers to buy – now. These offers, increasing in price each time as we get nearer the harvest, will come along from now on till the grain is threshed. I can close a deal any moment I choose to put pen to paper. Well?"

"Well?"

Angus looked into the man's fearless eyes, marveling at the wonder of foresight he displayed. For the moment he almost pitied the dull-witted farmhand who contemplated pitting himself against such caliber.

"Say, Angus, boy," Hendrie went on, after a pause. "Sometimes I sort of feel the game isn't worth it, fighting this mush-headed crowd who have to get other folks to think for 'em, and tell 'em when they're not satisfied. It's like shooting up women and children, in spite that any half-dozen could literally eat me alive. I tell you brain's got muscle beat all along the line. Give every man an equal share all over the world, and in six months' time it will be cornered again by brain that isn't equally distributed, and never will be."