In the Heart of a Fool

As the week of the debate dragged on and as the pageant of it trailed clear across the State, with crowds hooting and cheering, Doctor Nesbit’s cup of joy ran over. And when Van Dorn failed to appear for the Saturday meeting at the capital, the Doctor’s happiness mounted to glee.

That night, long after the midnight which ended the day’s triumph, Grant and the Doctor were sitting on a baggage truck at a way station waiting for a belated train. Grant was in the full current of his passion. Personal triumph meant little to him–the cause everything. His heart was afire with a lust to win. The Doctor kept looking at Grant with curious eyes–appraising eyes, indeed–from time to time as the younger man’s interminable stream of talk of the Cause flowed on. But the Doctor had his passion also. When it burst its bonds, he was saying: “Look here, you crazy man–take a reef in your canvas picture of jocund day upon the misty mountain tops–get down to grass roots.” Grant turned an exalted face upon the Doctor in astonishment. The Doctor went on:

“Grant, I can give the concert all right–but, young man, you are selling the soap. That’s a great argument you have been making this week, Grant.”

“There wasn’t much to my argument, Doctor,” answered Grant, absently, “though it was a righteous cause. All I did was to make an appeal to the pocketbooks of Market Street all over the State, showing the merchants and farmers that the more the laboring man receives the more he will spend, and if he is paid for his accidents he will buy more prunes and calico; whereas, if he is not paid he will burden the taxes as a pauper. Tom couldn’t overcome that argument, but in the long run, our cause will not be won permanently and definitely by the bread and butter and taxes argument, except as that sort of argument proves the justice of our cause and arouses love in the hearts of you middle-class people.”

But Dr. Nesbit persisted with his figure. “Grant,” he piped, “you certainly can sell soap. Why don’t you sell some soap on your own hook? Why don’t you let me run you for something–Congress–governor, or something? We can win hands down.”

Grant did not wait for the Doctor to finish, but cried in violent protest: “No, no, no–Doctor–no, I must not do that. I tell you, man, I must travel light and alone. I must go into life as naked as St. Francis. The world is stirring as with a great spirit of change. The last night I was at home, up stepped a little Belgian glassblower to me. I’d never seen him before. I said, ‘Hello, comrade!’ He grasped my hands with both hands and cried ‘Comrade! So you know the password. It has given me welcome and warmth and food in France, in England, in Australia, and now here. Everywhere the workers are comrades!’ Everywhere the workers are comrades. Do you know what that means, Doctor?”

The Doctor did not answer. His seventy years, and his habit of thinking in terms of votes and parties and factions, made him sigh.

“Doctor,” cried Grant, “electing men to office won’t help. But this law we are fighting for–this law will help. Doctor, I’m pinning the faith of a decade of struggle on this law.”

The Doctor broke the silence that followed Grant’s declaration, to say: “Grant, I don’t see it your way. I feel that life must crystallize its progress in institutions–political institutions, before progress is safe. But you must work out your own life, my boy. Incidentally,” he piped, “I believe you are wrong. But after this campaign is over, I’m going up to the capital for one last fling at making a United States Senator. I’ve only a dozen little white chips in the great game, five in the upper house and seven in the lower house. But we may deadlock it, and if we do,–you’ll see thirty years drop off my head and witness the rejuvenation of Old Linen Pants.”

Grant began walking the platform again under the stars like an impatient ghost. The Doctor rose and followed him.

“Grant, now let me tell you something. I am half inclined at times to think it’s all moonshine–this labor law we’re working to establish. But Laura wants it, and God knows, Grant, she has little enough in her life down there in the Valley. And if this law makes her happy–it’s the least I can do for her. She hasn’t had what she should have had out of life, so I’m trying to make her second choice worth while. That’s why I’m on the soap wagon with you!” He would have laughed away this serious mood, but he could not.

Grant stared at the Doctor for a moment before answering: “Why, of course, Dr. Nesbit, I’ve always known that.

“But–I–Doctor–I am consecrated to the cause. It is my reason for living.”

The day had passed in the elder’s life when he could rise to the younger man’s emotions. He looked curiously at Grant and said softly:

“Oh, to be young–to be young–to be young!” He rose, touched the strong arm beside him. “‘And the young men shall see visions.’ To be young–just to be young! But ‘the old men shall dream dreams.’ Well, Grant, they are unimportant–not entirely pleasant. We young men of the seventies had a great material vision. The dream of an empire here in the West. It has come true–increased one hundred fold. Yet it is not much of a dream.”

He let the arm drop and began drumming on the truck as he concluded: “But it’s all I have–all the dream I have now. ‘All of which I saw, and part of which I was,’ yet,” he mused, “perhaps it will be used as a foundation upon which something real and beautiful will be builded.”

Far away the headlight of their approaching train twinkled upon the prairie horizon. The two men watched it glow into fire and come upon them. And without resuming their talk, each went his own wide, weary way in the world as they lay in adjoining berths on the speeding train.

At the general election the Doctor’s law was upheld by a majority of the votes in the State, but the Doctor himself was defeated for reëlection to the State Senate in his own district. Grant Adams waited, intently and with fine faith, for this law to bring in the millennium. But the Doctor had no millennial faith.

He came down town the morning after his defeat, gay and unruffled. He went toddling into the stores and offices of Market Street, clicking his cane busily, thanking his friends and joking with his foes. But he chirruped to Henry Fenn and Kyle Perry whom he found in the Serenity at the close of the day: “Well, gentlemen, I’ve seen ’em all! I’ve taken my medicine like a little man; but I won’t lick the spoon. I sha’n’t go and see Dan and Tom. I’m willing to go as far as any man in the forgiving and forgetting business, but the Lord himself hasn’t quit on them. Look at ’em. The devil’s mortgage is recorded all over their faces and he’s getting about ready to foreclose on old Dan! And every time Dan hears poor Morty cough, the devil collects his compound interest. Poor, dear, gay Morty–if he could only put up a fight!”

But he could not put up a fight and his temperature rose in the afternoon and he could not meet with his gymnasium class in South Harvey in the evening, but sent a trainer instead. So often weeks passed during which Laura Van Dorn did not see Morty and the daily boxes of flowers that came punctiliously with his cards to the kindergarten and to Violet Hogan’s day nursery, were their only reminders of the sorry, lonely, footless struggle Morty was making.

It was inevitable that the lives of Violet Hogan and Laura Van Dorn in South Harvey should meet and merge. And when they met and merged, Violet Hogan found herself devoting but a few hours a day to her day nursery, while she worked six long, happy hours as a stenographer for Grant Adams in his office at the Vanderbilt House. For, after all, it was as a stenographer that she remembered herself in the grandeur and the glory of her past. So Henry Fenn and Laura Van Dorn carried on the work that Violet began, and for them souls and flowers and happiness bloomed over the Valley in the dark, unwholesome places which death had all but taken for his own.

It was that spring when Dr. Nesbit went to the capital and took his last fling at State politics. For two months he had deadlocked his party caucus in the election of a United States Senator with hardly more than a dozen legislative votes. And he was going out of his dictatorship in a golden glow of glory.

And this was the beginning of the golden age for Captain Morton. The Morton-Perry Axle Works were thriving. Three eight-hour shifts kept the little plant booming, and by agreement with the directors of the Independent mine, Nathan Perry spent five hours a day in the works. He and the Captain, and the youngest Miss Morton, who was keeping books, believed that it would go over the line from loss to profit before grass came. The Captain hovered about the plant like an earth-bound spirit day and night, interrupting the work of the men, disorganizing the system that Nathan had installed, and persuading himself that but for him the furnaces would go dead and the works shut down.

It was one beautiful day in late March, after the November election wherein the Doctor’s law had won and the Doctor himself had lost, that Grant Adams was in Harvey figuring with Mr. Brotherton on supplies for his office. Captain Morton came tramping down the clouds before him as he swept into the Serenity and jabbed a spike through the wheels of commerce with the remark: “Well, George–what do you think of my regalia–eh?”

Mr. Brotherton and Grant looked up from their work. They beheld the Captain arrayed in a dazzling light gray spring suit–an exceedingly light gray suit, with a hat of the same color and gloves and shoe spats to match, with a red tie so red that it all but crackled. “First profits of the business. We got over the line yesterday noon, and I had a thousand to go on, and this morning I just went on this spree–what say?”

“Well, Cap, when Morty Sands sees you he will die of envy. You’re certainly the lily of the Valley and the bright and morning star–the fairest of ten thousand to my soul! Grant,” said Brotherton as he turned to his customer, “behold the plute!”

The Captain stood grinning in pride as the men looked him over.

“’Y gory, boys, you’d be surprised the way that Household Horse has hit the trade. Orders coming in from automobile makers, and last week we decided to give up making the little power saver and make the whole rear axle. We’re going to call it the Morton-Perry Axle, and put in a big plant, and I was telling Ruthy this morning, I says, ‘Ruth,’ says I, ‘if we make the axle business go, I’ll just telephone down to Wright & Perry and have them send you out something nobby in husbands, and, ’y gory, a nice thousand-mile wedding trip and maybe your pa will go along for company–what say?’”

He was an odd figure in his clothes–for they were ready-made–made for the figure of youth, and although he had been in them but a few hours, the padding was bulging at the wrong places; and they were wrinkled where they should be tight. His bony old figure stuck out at the knees, and the shoulders and elbows, and the high collar would not fit his skinny neck. But he was happy, and fancied he looked like the pictures of college boys in the back of magazines. So he answered Mr. Brotherton’s question about the opinion of the younger daughter as to the clothes by a profound wink.

“Scared–scared plumb stiff–what say? I caught Marthy nodding at Ruth and Ruthy looking hard at Marthy, and then both of ’em went to the kitchen to talk over calling up Emmy and putting out fly poison for the women that are lying in wait for their pa. Scared–why, scared’s no name for it–what say?”

“Well, Captain,” answered Mr. Brotherton, “you are certainly voluptuous enough in your new stage setting to have your picture on a cigar box as a Cuban beauty or a Spanish señorita.”

The Captain was turning about, trying to see how the coat set in the back and at the same time watching the hang of the trousers. Evidently he was satisfied with it. For he said: “Well–guess I’ll be going. I’ll just mosey down to Mrs. Herdicker’s to give Emmy and Marthy and Ruthy something to keep ’em from thinking of their real troubles–eh?” And with a flourish he was gone.

When Grant’s order was filled, he said, “Violet will call for this, George; I have some other matters to attend to.”

As he assembled the goods for the order, Mr. Brotherton called out, “Well, how is Violet, anyway?” Grant smiled. “Violet is doing well. She is blooming over again, and when she found herself before a typewriter–it really seemed to take the curve out of her back. Henry declares that the typewriter put ribbon in her hair. Laura Van Dorn, I believe, is responsible for Violet’s shirt waists. Henry Fenn comes to the office twice a day, to make reports on the sewing business. But what he’s really doing, George, is to let her smell his breath to prove that he’s sober, and so she runs the two jobs at once. Have you seen Henry recently?”

“Well,” replied Brotherton, “he was in a month or so ago to borrow ten to buy a coat–so that he could catch up with the trousers of that suit before they grew too old. He still buys his clothes that way.”

Grant threw back his red head and grinned a grim, silent grin: “Well, that’s funny. Didn’t you know what is keeping him away?” Again Grant grinned. “The day he was here he came wagging down with that ten-dollar bill, but his conscience got the best of him for lavishing so much money on himself, so he slipped it to Violet and told her to buy her some new teeth–you know she’s been ashamed to open her mouth now for years. Violet promised she would get the teeth in time for Easter. And pretty soon in walks Mrs. Maurice Stromsky–who scrubs in the Wright & Perry Building, whose baby died last summer and had to be buried in the Potter’s field–she came in; and she and Violet got to talking about the baby–and Violet up and gave that ten to Mrs. Stromsky, to get the baby out of the Potter’s field.”

Mr. Brotherton laughed his great laugh. Grant went on:

“But that isn’t all. The next day in walks Mrs. Maurice Stromsky, penitent as a dog, and I heard her squaring herself with Violet for giving that old saw-buck of yours to the Delaneys, whose second little girl had diphtheria and who had no money for antitoxin. I never saw your ten again, George,” said Grant. “It seemed to be going down for the last time.” He looked at Brotherton quizzically for a second and asked:

“So old Henry hasn’t been around since–isn’t that joyous? Well–anyway, he’ll show up to-day or to-morrow, for he’s got the new coat; he got it this morning. Jasper was telling me.”

In an hour Grant, returning after his morning’s errands, was standing by the puny little blaze that John Dexter had stirred out of the logs in the Serenity. The two were standing together. Mr. Brotherton, reading his Kansas City paper at his desk, called to them: “Well, I see Doc Jim’s still holding his deadlock and they can’t elect a United States Senator without him!”

A telegraph messenger boy came in, looked into the Serenity, and said, “Mr. Adams, I was looking for you.”

Grant signed the boy’s book, read the telegram, and stood dumbly gazing at the fire, as he held the sheet in his hand.

The fire popped and snapped and the little blaze grew stronger when a log dropped in two. A customer came in–picked up a magazine–called, “Charge it, please,” then went out. The door slammed. Another customer came and went. Miss Calvin stepped back to Mr. Brotherton. The bell of the cash register tinkled. Then Grant Adams turned, looked at the minister absently for a moment, and handed him the sheet. It read:

“I have pledged in writing five more votes than are needed to make you the caucus nominee and give you a majority on the joint ballot to-night for United States Senator. Come up first train.”

It was signed “James Nesbit.” The preacher dropped his hand still holding the yellow sheet, and looked into the fire.

“Well?” asked Grant.

“You say,” returned John Dexter, and added: “It would be a great opportunity–give you the greatest forum for your cause in Christendom–give you more power than any other labor advocate ever held in the world before.”

He said all this tentatively and as one asking a question. Grant did not reply. He sat pounding his leg with his claw, abstractedly.

“You needn’t be a mere theorist in the Senate. You could get labor laws enacted that would put forward the cause of labor. Grant, really, it looks as though this was your life’s chance.”

Grant reached for the telegram and read it again. The telegram fluttering in his hands dropped to the floor. He reached for it–picked it up, folded it on his claw carefully, and put it away. Then he turned to the preacher and said harshly:

“There’s nothing in it. To begin: you say I’ll have more power than any other labor leader in the world. I tell you, labor leaders don’t need personal power. We don’t need labor laws–that is, primarily. What we need is sentiment–a public love of the under dog that will make our present laws intolerable. It isn’t power for me, it isn’t clean politics for the State, it isn’t labor laws that’s my job. My job, dearly beloved,” he hooked the minister’s hand and tossed it gently, “my job, oh, thou of little faith,” he cried, as a flaming torch of emotion seemed to brush his face and kindle the fanatic glow in his countenance while his voice lifted, “is to stay right down here in the Wahoo Valley, pile up money in the war chest, pile up class feeling among the men–comradeship–harness this love of the poor for the poor into an engine, and then some day slip the belt on that engine–turn on the juice and pull and pull and pull for some simple, elemental piece of justice that will show the world one phase of the truth about labor.”

Grant’s face was glowing with emotion. “I tell you, the day of the Kingdom is here–only it isn’t a kingdom, it’s Democracy–the great Democracy. It’s coming. I must go out and meet it. In the dark down in the mines I saw the Holy Ghost rise into the lives of a score of men. And now I see the Holy Ghost coming into a great class. And I must go–go with neither purse nor script to meet it, to live for it, and maybe to die for it.” He shook his head and cried vehemently:

“What a saphead I’d be if I fell to that bait!” He turned to the store and called to Miss Calvin. “Ave–is there a telegraph blank in the desk?”

Mr. Brotherton threw it, skidding, across the long counter. Grant fumbled in his vest for a pen, held the sheet firmly with his claw and wrote:

“You are kindness itself. But the place doesn’t interest me. Moreover, no man should go to the Senate representing all of a State, whose job it is to preach class consciousness to a part of the State. Get a bigger man. I thank you, however, with all my heart.”

Grant watched the preacher read the telegram. He read it twice, then he said: “Well–of course, that’s right. That’s right–I can see that. But I don’t know–don’t you think–I mean aren’t you kind of–well, I can’t just express it; but–”

“Well, don’t try, then,” returned Grant.

However, Doctor Nesbit, having something rather more than the ethics of the case at stake, was aided by his emotions in expressing himself. He made his views clear, and as Grant sat at his desk that afternoon, he read this in a telegram from the Doctor:

“Well, of all the damn fools!”

That was one view of the situation. There was this other. It may be found in one of those stated communications from perhaps Ruskin or Kingsley, which the Peach Blow Philosopher sometimes vouchsafed to the earth and it read:

“A great life may be lived by any one who is strong enough to fail for an ideal.”

Still another view may be had by setting down what John Dexter said to his wife, and what she said to him. Said he, when he had recounted the renunciation of Grant Adams:

“There goes the third devil. First he conquered the temptation to marry and be comfortable; next he put fame behind him, and now he renounces power.”

And she said: “It had never occurred to me to consider Laura Van Dorn, or national reputation, or a genuine chance for great usefulness as a devil. I’m not sure that I like your taste in devils.”

To which answer may be made again by Mr. Left in a communication he received from George Meredith, who had recently passed over. It was verified by certain details as to the arrangement of the books on the little table in the little room in the little house on a little hill where he was wont to write, and it ran thus:

“Women, always star-hungry, ever uncompromising in their demand for rainbows, nibbling at the entre’ and pushing aside the roast, though often adoring primitive men who gorge on it, but ever in the end rewarding abstinence and thus selecting a race of spiritually-minded men for mates, are after all the world’s materialists.”