In the Heart of a Fool

CHAPTER XV

WHEREIN WE WELCOME IN A NEW YEAR AND CONSIDER A SERIOUS QUESTION

The journey around the sun is a long and tumultuous one. Many of us jolt off the earth as we ride, others of us are turned over and thrown into strange and absurd positions, and a few of us sit tight and edge along, a little further toward the soft seats. But as we whirl by the stations, returning ever and again to the days that are precious in our lives, to the seasons that give us greatest joy, we measure our gains, on the long journey, in terms of what we love. “A little over a year ago to-night, my dear,” chirruped Dr. Nesbit, pulling a gray hair from his temple where hairs of any kind were becoming scarce enough. “A year, a month, and a week and a day ago to-night the town and the Harvey brass band came out here and they tramped up the blue grass so that it won’t get back in a dozen years.

“Well,” he mused, as the fire burned, “I got ’em all their jobs, I got two or three good medical laws passed, and I hope I have made some people happy.”

“Yes, my dear,” answered his wife. “In that year little Lila has come into short dresses, and Kenyon Adams has learned to play on the piano, and is taking up the violin.”

“How time has flown since election a year ago,” said Captain Morton to his assembled family as they sat around the base burner smoldering in the dining-room. “And I’ve put the patent window fastener into forty houses and sold Henry Fenn the burglar alarm to go with his.” And the eldest Miss Morton spoke up and said:

“My good land, I hope we’ll have a new principal by this time next year. Another year under that man will kill me–pa, I do wish you’d run for the school board.”

And the handsome Miss Morton added, “My goodness, Emma Morton, if I didn’t have anything to do but draw forty dollars every month for yanking a lot of little kids around and teaching them the multiplication tables, I wouldn’t say much. Why, we’ve come through algebra into geometry and half way through Cicero, while you’ve been fussing with that old principal–and Mrs. Herdicker’s got a new trimmer, and we girls down at the shop have to put up with her didoes. Talk of trouble, gee!”

“Martha, you make me weary,” said the youngest Miss Morton, eating an apple. “If you’d had scarlet fever and measles the same year, and your old dress just turned and your same old hat, you’d have something to talk about.”

“Well,” remarked His Honor the Mayor to Henry Fenn and Morty Sands as they sat in the Amen Corner New Year’s eve, looking at the backs of a shelf of late books and viewing several shelves of standard sets with highly gilded backs, “it’s more’n a year since election–and well, say–I’ve got all my election bets paid now and am out of debt again, and the book store’s gradually coming along. By next year this time I expect to put four more shelves of copyrighted books in and cut down the paper backs to a stack on the counter. But old Lady Nicotine is still the patron of the fine arts–say, if it wasn’t for the ’baccy little Georgie would be so far behind with his rent that he would knock off a year and start over.”

Young Mr. Sands rolled a cigarette and lighted it and said: “It’s a whole year–and Pop’s gone a long time without a wife; it’ll be two years next March since the last one went over the hill who was brought out to make a home for little Morty, and I saw Dad peeking out of the hack window as we were standing waiting for the hearse, and wondered which one of the old girls present he’d pick on. But,” mused Morty, “I guess it’s Anne’s eyes. Every time he edges around to the subject of our need of a mother, Anne turns her eyes on him and he changes the subject.” Morty laughed quietly and added: “When Anne gets out of her ‘teens she’ll put father in a monastery!”

“Honeymoon’s kind of waning–eh, Henry?” asked Judge Van Dorn, who dropped in for a magazine and heard the conversation about the passing of the year. He added: “I see you’ve been coming down here pretty regularly for three or four months!” Henry looked up sadly and shook his head. “You can’t break the habit of a dozen years. And I got to coming here back in the days when George ran a pool and billiard hall, and I suppose I’ll come until I die, and then George will bring his wheezy old quartette around and sing over me, and probably act as pall-bearer too–if he doesn’t read the burial service of the lodge in addition.”

“Well, a year’s a year,” said the suave Judge Van Dorn. “A year ago you boys were smoking on me as the new judge of this judicial district. All hail Thane of Cawdor–” He smiled his princely smile, taking every one in with his frank, bold eyes, and waved himself into the blustery night. There he met Mr. Calvin, who, owing to a turn matters had taken at home, was just beginning another long period of exile from the hearthstone. He walked the night like a ghost, silent and grim. His thin little neck, furrowed behind by the sunken road between his arteries, was adorned by two tufts of straggling hair, and as his overcoat collar was rolled and wrinkled, he had an appearance of extreme neglect and dejection. “Did you realize that it’s over a year since election?” said Van Dorn. “We might as well begin looking out for next year, Joe,” he added, “if you’ve got nothing better to do. I wish you’d go down the row to-night and see the boys and tell them I want to talk to them in the next ten days or so; a man never can be too early in these things; and say–if you happen in the Company store down there and see Violet Mauling, slip her a ten and charge it to me on the books; I wonder how she’s doing–I haven’t heard of her for three months. Nice girl, Violet.”

And Mrs. Herdicker hadn’t heard of Miss Mauling for some time, and sitting in her little office back of the millinery store, sorting over her old bills, she came to a bill badly dog-eared with Miss Mauling’s name on it. The bill called for something like $75 and the last payment on it had been made nearly half a year ago. So she looked at that bill and added ten dollars to Mrs. Van Dorn’s bill for the last hat she bought, and did what she could to resign herself to the injustices of a cruel world. But it had been a good year for Mrs. Herdicker. New wells in new districts had come gushing gas and oil into Harvey in great geysers and the work on the new smelter was progressing, and the men in the mines had been kept steadily at work; for Harvey coal was the best in the Missouri Valley. So the ladies who are no better than they should be and the ladies who are much better than they should be, and the ladies who will stand for a turned ribbon, and a revived feather, and are just about what they may be expected to be, all came in and spent their money like the princesses that they were. And Mrs. Herdicker figured in going over her stock just which hat she could sell to Mrs. Nesbit as a model hat from the Paris exhibit at the World’s Fair, and which one she could put on Mrs. Fenn as a New York sample, and as she built her castles the loss of the $75 to Miss Mauling had its compensating returns, and she smiled and thought that just a year ago she had offered that same World’s Fair Model to the wife of the newly elected State Senator and she must put on a new bunch of flowers and bend down the brim.

The Dexters were sitting by the stove in the living-room with Amos Adams; they had come down to the lonely little home to prepare a good dinner for the men. “A year ago to-day,” said the minister to the group as he put down the newspaper, “Kenyon got his new fiddle.”

“The year has brought me something–I tell you,” Jasper said. “I’ve bought a horse with my money I earned as page in the State Senate and I’ve got a milk route, and have all the milk in the neighborhood to distribute. That’s what the year has done for me.”

“Well,” reflected the minister, “we’ve got the mission church in South Harvey on a paying basis, and the pipe organ in the home church paid for–that’s some comfort. And they do say,” his eyes twinkled as he looked at his wife, “that the committee is about to settle all the choir troubles. That’s pretty good for a year.”

“Another year,” sighed Amos Adams, and the wind blew through the gaunt branches of the cottonwood trees in the yard, and far down in the valley came the moaning as of many waters, and the wind played its harmonies in the woodlot. The old man repeated the words: “Another year,” and asked himself how many more years he would have to wait and listen to the sighing of the moaning waters that washed around the world. And Kenyon Adams, lying flushed and tousled and tired upon a couch near by, heard the waters in his dreams and they made such music that his thin, little face moved in an eyrie smile.

“Mag,” said a pale, nervous girl with dead, sad eyes as she looked around at the new furniture in the new house, and avoided the rim of soft light that came from the electric under the red shade, “did you think I was cheeky to ask you all those questions over the ’phone–about where Henry was to-night, and what you’d be doing?” The hostess said: “Why, no, Violet, no–I’m always glad to see you.”

There was a pause, and the girl exclaimed: “That’s what I come out for. I couldn’t stand it any longer. Mag, what in God’s name have I done? Didn’t you see me the other day on Market Street? You were looking right at me. It’s been nearly a year since we’ve talked. You used to couldn’t get along a week without a good talk; but now–say, Mag, what’s the matter? what have I done to make you treat me like this?” There was a tremor in the girl’s voice. She looked piteously at the wife, radiant in her red house gown. The hostess spoke. “Look here, Violet Mauling, I did see you on Market Street, and I did cut you dead. I knew it would bring you up standing and we’d have this thing out.”

The girl looked her question, but flushed. Then she said, “You mean the old man?”

“I mean the old man. It’s perfectly scandalous, Violet; didn’t you get your lesson with Van Dorn?” returned the hostess. “The old man won’t marry you–you don’t expect that, do you?” The girl shook her head. The woman continued, “Well, then drop it. You can’t afford to be seen with him.”

“Mag,” returned the visitor, “I tell you before God I can’t afford not to. It’s my job. It’s all I’ve got. Mamma hasn’t another soul except me to depend on. And he’s harmless–the old coot’s as harmless as a child. Honest and true, Mag, if I ever told the truth that’s it. He just stands around and is silly–just makes foolish breaks to hear himself talk–that’s all. But what can I do? He keeps me in the company store, and Heaven knows he doesn’t kill himself paying me–only $8 a week, as far as that goes, and then he talks and talks and talks about Judge Van Dorn, and snickers and drops his front false teeth–ugh!–and drivels. But, Mag, he’s harmless as a baby.”

“Well,” returned the hostess, “Henry says every one is talking about it, and you’re a common scandal, Violet Mauling, and you ought to know it. I can’t hold you up, as you well know–no one can.”

Then there followed a flood of tears, and after it had subsided the two women were sitting on a couch. “I want to tell you about Tom Van Dorn, Mag–you never understood. You thought I used to chase him. God knows I didn’t, Mag–honest, honest, honest! You knew as well as anything all about it; but I never told you how I fought and fought and all that and how little by little he came closer and closer, and no one ever will know how I cried and how ashamed I was and how I tried to fight him off. That’s the God’s truth, Mag–the God’s truth if you ever heard it.”

The girl sobbed and hid her face. “Once when papa died he sent me a hundred dollars through Mr. Brotherton, and mamma thought it came from the Lodge; but I knew better. And, O Mag, Mag, you’ll never know how I felt to bury papa on that kind of money. And I saved for nearly a year to pay it back, and of course I couldn’t, for he kept getting me expensive things and I had to get things to go with ’em and went in debt, and then when I went there in the office it was all so–so close and I couldn’t fight, and he was so powerful–you know just how big and strong, and–O Mag, Mag, Mag–you’ll never know how I tried–but I just couldn’t. Then he made me court reporter and took me over the district.” The girl looked up into the great, soft, beautiful eyes of Margaret Fenn, and thought she saw sympathy there. That was a common mistake; others made it in looking at Margaret’s eyes. The girl felt encouraged. She came closer to her one-time friend. “Mag,” she said, “they lied awfully about how I lost my job. They said Mrs. Van Dorn made a row. Honest, Mag, there’s nothing to that. She never even dreamed anything was–well–was–don’t you know. She wasn’t a bit jealous, and is as nice as she can be to me right now. It was this way. You know when I sent mamma away last May for a visit, and the Van Dorns asked me over there to stay?” Mrs. Fenn nodded. “Well,” continued Violet, “one day in court–you know when they were trying that bond case–the city bonds and all–well, the Judge scribbled a note on his desk and handed it to me. It said my room door creaked, and not to shut it.” She stopped and put her head in her hand and rocked her body. “I know, Mag, it was awful, but some way I just couldn’t help it. He is so strong, and–you know, Mag, how we used to say there’s some men when they come about you just make you kind of flush all over and weak–well, he’s that way. And, anyway, like a fool I dropped that note and one of the jurors–a farmer from Union township–picked it up and took it straight to Doctor Jim.”

The girl hid her face in her friend’s dress. “It was awful.” She spoke without looking up. “But, O Mag–Doctor Jim was fine–so gentle, so kind. The Judge thought he would cuss around a lot, but he didn’t–not even to him–the Judge said. And the Doctor came to me as bashful and–as–well, your own father couldn’t have been better to you. So I just quit, and the Judge got me the job in the Company store and the Doctor drops in and she–yes, Mag, the Judge’s wife comes with the Doctor sometimes, and now it’s been five months to-day since I left the court reporter’s work and I have hardly seen the Judge to speak to him since. But they all know, I guess, but mamma, and I sometimes think folks try to talk to her; and that old man Sands comes snooping and snickering around like an old dog hunting a buried bone, and he’s my job, and I don’t know what to do.”

Neither did Margaret know what to do, so she let her go and let her stay, and knew her old friend no more. For Margaret was rising in the world, and could have no encumbrances; and Miss Mauling disappeared in South Harvey and that New Year’s Eve marked the sad anniversary of the break in her relations with Mrs. Fenn. And it is all set down here on this anniversary to show what a jolty journey some of us make as we jog around the sun, and to show the gentle reader how the proud Mr. Van Dorn hunts his prey and what splendid romances he enjoys and what a fair sportsman he is.

But the old year is restless. It has painted the sky of South Harvey with the smoke of a score of smelter chimneys; it has burned in the drab of the dejected-looking houses, and it has added a few dozen new ones for the men and their families who operate the smelter.

Moreover, the old year has run many new, strange things through a little boy’s eyes as he looks sadly into a queer world–a little, black-eyed boy, while a grand lady with a high head sits on a piano bench beside the child and plays for him the grand music that was fashionable in her grand day. The passing year pressed into his little heart all that the music told him–not of the gray misery of South Harvey, not of the thousands who are mourning and toiling there, but instead the old year has whispered to the child the beautiful mystic tales of great souls doing noble deeds, of heroes who died that men might live and love, of beauty and of harmony too deep for any words of his that throb in him and stir depths in his soul to high aspiration. It has all gone through his ears; for his eyes see little that is beautiful. There is, of course, the beauty of the homely hours he spends with those who love him best, hours spent at school and joyous hours spent by the murmuring creek, and there is what the grand lady at the piano thinks is a marvel of beauty in the ornate home upon the hill. But the most beautiful thing he sees as the old year winds the passing panorama of life for his eyes is the sunshine and prairie grass. This comes to him of a Sunday when he walks with Grant–brother Grant, out in the fields far away from South Harvey–where the frosty breath of autumn has turned the grass to lavender and pale heliotrope, and the hills roll away and away like silent music and the clouds idling lazily over the hillsides afar off cast dark shadows that drift in the lavender sea. Now the smoke that the old year paints upon the blue prairie sky will fade as the year passes, and the great smelters may crumble and men may plow over the ground where they stand so proudly even to-day; but the music in the boy’s heart, put there by the passing year, and the glory of the sunshine and the prairie grass with the meadow lark’s sad evening song as it quivers for a moment in the sunset air,–these have been caught in the child’s soul and have passed through the strange alchemy of God’s great mystery of human genius into an art that is the heritage of the race. For into the mind of that child–that eyrie, large-eyed, wondering, silent, lonely-seeming child–the signals of God were passing. When he grew into his man’s estate and could give them voice, the winds of the prairie, low and gentle, the soft lisping of quiet waters, the moving passion of the hurricane, the idle dalliance of the clouds whose purple shadows combed the rolling hills, and all the ecstasy of the love cry of solitary prairie birds, found meaning and the listening world heard, through his music, God speaking to His children.

So the year moved quickly on. Its tasks were countless. It had another child to teach another message. There was a little girl in the town–a small girl with the bluest eyes in the world and tiny curls–yellow curls that wound so softly around her mother’s fingers that you would think that they were not curls at all but golden dreams of curls that had for the moment come true and would fade back into fairyland whence they came. And the passing year had to prop the child at a window while the dusk came creeping into the quiet house. There she sat waiting, watching, hoping that the proud, handsome man who came at twilight down the way leading to the threshold, would smile at her. She was not old enough to hope he would take her in his arms where she could cuddle and be loved. So the passing year had to take a fine brush and paint upon the small, wistful face a fleeting shadow, the mere ghost of a sadness that came and went as she watched and waited for the father love.

And Judge Thomas Van Dorn, the punctilious, gay, resistless, young Tom Van Dorn was deaf to the deeper voices that called to him and beckoned him to rest his soul. And soon upon the winds that roam the world and carry earth dreams back to ghosts, and bring ghosts of what we would be back to our dreams–the roaming winds bore away the passing year, but they could not take the shadows that it left upon the child’s tender heart.

Now, when the old year with all its work lay down in the innumerable company of its predecessors, and the bells rang and the whistles blew in South Harvey to welcome in the new year, the midnight sky was blazoned with the great torches from the smelter chimneys, and the pumps in the oil wells kept up their dolorous whining and complaining, like great insects battening upon an abandoned world. In South Harvey the lights of the saloons and the side of the dragon’s spawn glowed and beckoned men to death. Money tinkled over the bars, and whispered as it was crumpled in the claws of the dragon. For money the scurrying human ants hurried along the dark, half-lighted streets from the ant hills over the mines. For money the cranes of the pumps creaked their monody. For money the half-naked men toiled to their death in the fumes of the smelter. So the New Year’s bells rang a pean of welcome to the money that the New Year would bring with its toll of death.

“Money,” clanged the church bells in the town on the hill. “Money makes wealth and since we have banished our kings and stoned our priests, money is the only thing in our material world that will bring power and power brings pleasure and pleasure brings death.”

“And death? and death? and death?” tolled the church bells that glad New Year, and then ceased in circling waves of sound that enveloped the world, still inquiring–“and death? and death?” fainter and fainter until dawn.