In the Heart of a Fool

When Grant awoke, it was still black night. For a few seconds he did not know where he was–nor even who he was, nor what. He was a mere consciousness. The first glimmer of identity that came to him came with a roaring “No,” that repeated itself over and over, “No–no,” cried the voice of his soul–“you are no mere word spinner; you are a fighter; you are pledged, body and soul; you are bought with a price–no, no, no.”

And then he knew where he was and he knew surely and without doubt or quaver of faith that he must not give up his place in the fight. When he thought of Kenyon living on the bounty of the Nesbits, he thought also of Dick Bowman, ordering his own son under the sliding earth to hold the shovel over Grant’s face in the mine.

So Grant Adams bent his shoulders to this familiar burden. In the early morning, before his father and Jasper were up, the gaunt, ungainly figure hurried with his letter of refusal to the South Harvey Station and put the letter on the seven-ten train for Chicago.

That evening, sitting on their front porch, the Dexters talked over Grant’s decision. “Well,” said John Dexter, looking up into the mild November sky, and seeing the brown gray smudge of the smelter there, “so Grant has sidled by another devil in his road. We have seen that women won’t stop him; it’s plain that money nor fame won’t stop him, though they clearly tore his coat tails. I imagine from what Laura says he must have decided once to accept.”

“Yes,” answered his wife, “but it does seem to me, if my old father needed care as his does, and my brother had to accept charity, I’d give that particular devil my whole coat and see if I couldn’t make a bargain with him for a little money, at some small cost.”

“Mother Eve–Mother Eve,” smiled the minister, “you women are so practical–we men are the real idealists–the only dreamers who stand by our dreams in this wicked, weary world.”

He leaned back in his chair. “There is still one more big black devil waiting for Grant: Power–the love of power which is the lust of usefulness–power may catch Grant after he has escaped from women and money and fame. Vanity–vanity, saith the preacher–Heaven help Grant in the final struggle with the big, black devil of vanity.”

Yet, after all, vanity has in it the seed of a saving grace that has lifted humanity over many pitfalls in the world. For vanity is only self-respect multiplied; and when that goes–when men and women lose their right to lift their faces to God, they have fallen upon bad times indeed. It was even so good a man as John Dexter himself, who tried to put self-respect into the soul of Violet Hogan, and was mocked for it.

“What do they care for me?” she cried, as he sat talking to her in her miserable home one chill November day. “Why should I pay any attention to them? Once I chummed with Mag Müller, before she married Henry Fenn, and I was as good as she was then–and am now for that matter. She knew what I was, and I knew what she was going to be–we made no bones of it. We hunted in pairs–as women like to. And I know Mag Müller. So why should I keep up for her?”

The woman laughed and showed her hollow mouth and all the wrinkles of her broken face, that the paint hid at night. “And as for Tom Van Dorn–I was a decent girl before I met him, Mr. Dexter–and why in God’s name should I try to keep up for him?”

She shuddered and would have sobbed but he stopped her with: “Well, Violet–wife and I have always been your friends; we are now. The church will help you.”

“Oh, the church–the church,” she laughed. “It can’t help me. Fancy me in church–with all the wives looking sideways at all the husbands to see that they didn’t look too long at me. The church is for those who haven’t been caught! God knows if there is a place for any one who has been caught–and I’ve been caught and caught and caught.” She cried. “Only the children don’t know–not yet, though little Tom–he’s the oldest, he came to me and asked me yesterday why the other children yelled when I went out. Oh, hell–” she moaned, “what’s the use–what’s the use–what’s the use!” and fell to sobbing with her head upon her arms resting upon the bare, dirty table.

It was rather a difficult question for John Dexter. Only one other minister in the world ever answered it successfully, and He brought public opinion down on Him. The Rev. John Dexter rose, and stood looking at the shattered thing that once had been a graceful, beautiful human body enclosing an aspiring soul. He saw what society had done to break and twist the body; what society had neglected to do in the youth of the soul–to guide and environ it right–he saw what poverty had done and what South Harvey had done to cheat her of her womanhood even when she had tried to rise and sin no more; he remembered how the court-made law had cheated her of her rightful patrimony and cast her into the streets to spread the social cancer of her trade; and he had no answer. If he could have put vanity into her heart–the vanity which he feared for Grant Adams, he would have been glad. But her vanity was the vanity of motherhood; for herself she had spent it all. So he left her without answering her question. Money was all he could give her and money seemed to him a kind of curse. Yet he gave it and gave all he had.

When she saw that he was gone, Violet fell upon the tumbled, unmade bed and cried with all the vehemence of her unrestrained, shallow nature. For she was sick and weary and hungry. She had given her last dollar to a policeman the night before to keep from arrest. The oldest boy had gone to school without breakfast. The little children were playing in the street–they had begged food at the neighbors’ and she had no heart to stop them. At noon when little Tom came in he found his mother sitting before a number of paper sacks upon the table waiting for him. Then the family ate out of the sacks the cold meal she had bought at the grocery store with John Dexter’s money.

That night Violet shivered out into the cold over her usual route. She was walking through the railroad yards in Magnus when suddenly she came upon a man who dropped stealthily out of a dead engine. He carried something shining and tried to slip it under his coat when he saw her. She knew he was stealing brass, but she did not care; she called as they passed through the light from an arc lamp:

“Hello, sweetheart–where you going?”

The man looked up ashamed, and she turned a brazen, painted face at him and tried to smile without opening her lips.

Their eyes met, and the man caught her by the arm and cried:

“God, Violet–is this you–have you–” She cut him off with:

“Henry Fenn–why–Henry–”

The brass fell at his feet. He did not pick it up. They stood between the box cars in speechless astonishment. It was the man who found voice.

“Violet–Violet,” he cried. “This is hell. I’m a thief and you–”

“Say it–say it–don’t spare me,” she cried. “That’s what I am, Henry. It’s all right about me, but how about you, how about you, Henry? This is no place for you! Why, you,” she exclaimed–“why, you are–”

“I’m a drunken thief stealing brass couplings to get another drink, Violet.”

He picked up the brass and threw it up into the engine, still clutching her arm so that she could not run away.

“But, girl–” he cried, “you’ve got to quit this–this is no way for you to live.”

She looked at him to see what was in his mind. She broke away, and scrambled into the engine cab and put the brass where it could not fall out.

“You don’t want that brass falling out, and them tracing you down here and jugging you–you fool,” she panted as she climbed to the ground.

“Lookee here, Henry Fenn,” she cried, “you’re too good a man for this. You’ve had a dirty deal. I knew it when she married you–the snake; I know it–I’ve always known it.”

The woman’s voice was shrill with emotion. Fenn saw that she was verging on the hysterical, and took her arm and led her down the dark alley between the cars. The man’s heart was touched–partly by the wreck he saw, and partly by her words. They brought back the days when he and she had seen their visions. The liquor had left his head, and he was a tremble. He felt her cold, hard hand, and took it in his own dirty, shaken hand to warm it.

“How are you living?” he asked.

“This way,” she replied. “I got my children–they’ve got to live someway. I can’t leave them day times and see ’em run wild on the streets–the little girls need me.”

She looked up into his face as they hurried past an arc lamp, and she saw tears there.

“Oh, you got a dirty deal, Henry–how could she do it?” cried the woman.

He did not answer and they walked up a dingy street. A car came howling by.

“Got car fare,” he asked. She nodded.

“Well, I haven’t,” he said, “but I’m going with you.”

They boarded the car. They were the only passengers. They sat down, and he said, under the roar of the wheels:

“Violet–it’s a shame–a damn shame, and I’m not going to stand for it. This a Market Street car?” he asked the conductor who passed down the aisle for their fares. The woman paid. When the conductor was gone, Henry continued:

“Three kids and a mother robbed by a Judge who knew better–just to stand in with the kept attorneys of the bar association. He could have knocked the shenanigan, that killed Hogan, galley west, if he’d wanted to, and no Supreme Court would have dared to set it aside. But no–the kept lawyers at the Capital, and all the Capitals have a mutual admiration society, and Tom has always belonged. So he turns you and all like you on the street, and Violet, before God I’m going to try to help you.”

She looked at the slick, greasy, torn stiff hat, and the dirty, shiny clothes that years ago had been his Sunday best, and the shaggy face and the sallow, unwashed skin; and she remembered the man who was.

The car passed into South Harvey. She started to rise. “No,” he said, stopping her, “you come on with me.”

“Where are we going?” she asked. He did not answer. She sat down. Finally the car turned into Market Street. They got off at the bank corner. The man took hold of the woman’s arm, and led her to the alley. She drew back.

He said: “Are you afraid of me–now, Violet?” They slinked down the alley and seeing a light in the back room of a store, Fenn stopped and went up to peer in.

“Come on,” he said. “He’s in.”

Fenn tapped on the barred window and whistled three notes. A voice inside cried, “All right, Henry–soon’s I get this column added up.”

The woman shrank back, but Fenn held her arm. Then the door opened, and the moon face of Mr. Brotherton appeared in a flood of light. He saw the woman, without recognizing her, and laughed:

“Are we going to have a party? Come right in, Marianna–here’s the moated Grange, all right, all right.”

As they entered, he tried to see her face, but she dropped her head. Fenn asked, “Why, George–don’t you know her? It’s Violet–Violet Mauling–who married Denny Hogan who was killed last winter.”

George Brotherton looked at the painted face, saw the bald attempt at coquetry in her dress, and as she lifted her glazed, dead eyes, he knew her story instantly.

For she wore the old, old mask of her old, old trade.

“You poor, poor girl,” he said gently. Then continued, “Lord–but this is tough.”

He saw the miserable creature beside him and would have smiled, but he could not. Fenn began,

“George, I just got tired of coming around here every night after closing for my quarter or half dollar; so for two or three weeks I’ve been stealing. She caught me at it; caught me stripping a dead engine down in the yards by the round house.”

“Yes,” she cried, lifting a poor painted face, “Mr. Brotherton–but you know how I happened to be down there. He caught me as much as I caught him! And I’m the worst–Oh, God, when they get like me–that’s the end!”

The three stood silently together. Finally Brotherton spoke: “Well,” he drew a long breath, “well, they don’t need any hell for you two–do they?” Then he added, “You poor, poor sheep that have gone astray. I don’t know how to help you.”

“Well, George–that’s just it,” replied Fenn. “No one can help us. But by God’s help, George, I can help her! There’s that much go left in me yet! Don’t you think so, George?” he asked anxiously. “I can help her.”

The weak, trembling face of the man moved George Brotherton almost to tears. Violet’s instinct saw that Brotherton could not speak and she cried:

“George–I tell Henry he’s had a dirty deal, too–Oh, such a dirty deal. I know he’s a man–he never cast off a girl–like I was cast off–you know how. Henry’s a man, George–a real man, and oh, if I could help him–if I could help him get up again. He’s had such a dirty deal.”

Brotherton saw her mouth in all its ugliness, and saw as he looked how tears were streaking the bedaubed face. She was repulsive beyond words, yet as she tried to hold back her tears, George Brotherton thought she was beautiful.

Fenn found his voice. “Now, here, George–it’s like this: I don’t want any woman; I’ve washed most of that monkey business out of me with whisky–it’s not in me any more. And I know she’s had enough of men. And I’ve brought her here–we’ve come here to tell you that part is straight–decent–square. I wanted you to know that–and Violet would, too–wouldn’t you, Violet?” She nodded.

“Now, then, George–I’m her man! Do you understand–her man. I’m going to see that she doesn’t have to go on the streets. Why, when she was a girl I used to beau her around, and if she isn’t ashamed of a drunken thief–then in Christ’s name, I’m going to help her.”

He smiled out of his leaden eyes the ghost of his glittering, old, self-deprecatory smile. The woman remembered it, and bent over and kissed his dirty hand. She rose, and put her fingers gently upon his head, and sobbed:

“Oh, God, forgive me and make me worthy of this!”

There was an awkward pause. When the woman had controlled herself Fenn said: “What I want is to keep right on sleeping in the basement here–until I can get ahead enough to pay for my room. I’m not going to make any scandal for Violet, here. But we both feel better to talk it out with you.”

They started for the back door. The front of the store was dark. Brotherton saw the man hesitate, and look down the alley to see if any one was in sight.

“Henry,” said Brotherton, “here’s a dollar. You might just as well begin fighting it out to-night. You go to the basement. I’ll take Violet home.”

The woman would have protested, but the big man said gently: “No, Violet–you were Denny Hogan’s wife. He was my friend. You are Henry’s ward–he is my friend. Let’s go out the front way, Violet.”

When they were gone, and the lights were out in the office of the bookstore, Henry Fenn slipped through the alley, went to the nearest saloon, walked in, stood looking at the whiskey sparkling brown and devilishly in the thick-bottomed cut glasses, saw the beer foaming upon the mahogany board, breathed it all in deeply, felt of the hard silver dollar in his pocket, shook as one in a palsy, set his teeth and while the tears came into his eyes stood and silently counted one hundred and another hundred; grinning foolishly when the loafers joked with him, and finally shuffled weakly out into the night, and ran to his cellar. And if Mr. Left’s theory of angels is correct, then all the angels in heaven had their harps in their hands waving them for Henry, and cheering for joy!