In the Heart of a Fool

The Doctor returned to the window and she cried bitterly: “Oh, you know that’s the truth–the God’s truth, Doc Jim. Where’s my Jean? She went into the glass factory–worked twelve hours a day on a job that would have crippled her for life in another year, and then went away with that Austrian blower–and when he threw her out, she was ashamed to write–and for a long time now I’ve read the city papers of them women who kill themselves–hoping to find she was dead. And Mugs–you know what South Harvey’s made of him–”

She rose and walked to the window. Standing beside him she cried:

“I tell you, Doc Jim–I hate it.” She pointed to the great black mills and mine shafts and the piles of brick and lumber and sheet iron that stretched before her for a mile. “I hate it, and I’m going to hit it once before I die. Don’t talk peace to me. I’ve got a right to hit it and hit it hard–and if my time ever comes–”

A visitor was shown into the room, and Mrs. Bowman ceased speaking. She was calm when the Doctor left her and at noon she stood beside the cot, and saw little Ben smile at her. Then she went away in tears. As she passed out of the door of the hospital into the street, she met Grant Adams coming in to inquire about little Ben.

“He knows me now,” she said. “I suppose he’ll get well–without legs–and with only one arm–I’ve seen them on the street selling pencils–oh, little Ben!” she cried. Then she turned on Grant in anger. “Grant Adams–go on with your revolution. I’m for it–and the quicker the better–but don’t come around talking peace to me. Us mothers want to fight.”

“Fighting, in the long run, will do no good, Mrs. Bowman,” said Grant. “It will hurt the cause.

“But it will do us good,” she answered.

“Force against force and we lose–they have the guns,” he persisted.

“Well, I’d rather feed my babies to good merciful guns than to wheels,” she replied, and then softened as she took his hand.

“I guess I’m mad to-day, Grant. Go on up. Maybe they’ll let you look at him. He smiled at me–just as he did when Doctor Nesbit showed him to me the day he was born.”

She kept back her tears with an effort, and added, “Only the Doc tried to tell me that babies don’t smile. But I know better, Ben smiled–just like the one to-day.”

“Well, Mrs. Bowman,” rejoined Grant, “there’s one comfort. Dr. Nesbit’s law makes it possible for you to get your damages without going to law and dividing with some lawyer. However the Doctor and I may differ–we down here in the mines and mills must thank him for that.”

“Oh, Doc Jim’s all right, Grant,” answered Mrs. Bowman, relapsing into her lifetime silence.

It was nearly three months later and spring was at its full, before they discharged little Ben from the hospital. But the last fortnight of his stay they had let him visit outside the hospital for a few hours daily. And to the joy of a great crowd in the Hot Dog saloon, he sat on the bar and sang his little heart out. They took him down to Belgian hall at noon, and he sang the “Marseillaise” to the crowd that gathered there. In the hospital, wherever they would let him, after he had visited the Hot Dog, he sang–sang in the big ward where he sat by a window, sang in the corridors, whenever the patients could hear him, and sang Gospel hymns in his cot at bedtime.

He was an odd little bundle, that Henry Fenn carried into the offices of the Wahoo Valley Fuel Company one afternoon in early June, with Dick Bowman following proudly, as they made the proof of the claim for compensation for the accident. The people in the offices were kind and tenderly polite to the little fellow. Henry saw that all the papers were properly made out, and the clerk in the office told Dick and Henry to call for the check next day but one–which was pay day.

So they carried little Ben away and Mrs. Bowman–though it was barely five o’clock–began fixing Ben up for the wedding of Jasper Adams and Ruth Morton. It was the first public appearance as a singer that little Ben had made in Harvey. His appearance was due largely to the notion of Captain Morton, supported and abetted by George Brotherton. So little Ben Bowman was smuggled behind a palm in the choir loft and permitted to sing “O Promise Me” during the services.

“Not,” explained the Captain to Mr. Brotherton in the barn where he was smoking, the afternoon before the ceremony, “not that I cared a whoop in Texas about Ben–though ’y gory, the boy sings like a canary; but it was the only excuse I could find for slipping a hundred dollars to the Bowman family, without making Dick and Lida think it was charity–eh?”

The wedding made a dull evening for Grant. He carried little Ben in his arms out of the crowd at the church, and gathering up the Bowmans and his father, went home without stopping for the reception or for the dance or for any of the subsidiary attractions of the ceremony which Jasper and the Captain, each delighting in tableaux and parades, had arranged for. Little Ben’s arm was clinging to Grant’s neck as he piloted his party to the street car. They passed the Van Dorn house and saw old Daniel Sands come tottering down the walk from the Van Dorn home, between Ahab Wright and young Joe Calvin. Daniel Sands stumbled as he shuffled past Amos Adams and Amos put out an arm to catch Daniel. He regained his balance and without recognizing who had helped him, cackled:

“Tom’s a man of his word, boys–when he promises–that settles it. Tom never lies.” And his senile voice shrilled in a laugh. Then the old banker recognized Amos Adams with Grant in the moonlight. “Hi, old spook chaser,” he chirped feebly, still holding to Amos Adams’s arm; “sorry I couldn’t get to my nevvy’s wedding–Morty went–Morty’s our social man,” he laughed again. “But I had some other important matters–business–very important business.”

The Sands’ party was moving toward the Sands’ limousine, which stood purring at the curb. Ahab Wright and young Joe Calvin boosted the trembling old man into the car, and Ahab Wright slipped back and returned to the wedding reception, from which he had stolen away. Ahab was obviously embarrassed at being caught in the conference with Sands and Van Dorn, but Daniel Sands as he climbed into the car, sinking cautiously among the cushions and being swathed in robes by the chauffeur, was garrulous. He kept carping at Amos Adams who stood by with his son and the Bowmans, waiting for the street car.

“Lost your only sane son, Amos,” he said. “The fool takes after you, and the fiddler after his mother–but Jap–he’s real Sands–he’s like me.”

He laughed at his joke, and when his breath came back he went on.

“There’s Morty–he’s like both the fool and the fiddler–both the fool and the fiddler–and not a bit like me.”

“Morty isn’t very well, Daniel,” said Amos Adams, ignoring all that the old man had said. “Don’t you think, Daniel, you’re letting that disease get too deep a hold on Morty? With all your money, Dan, I think you’d–”

“With all my money–with all my money, Amos,” cried the old man, shaking his hands, “with all my money–I can just stand and wait. Amos–he’s a fool, I know–but he’s the only boy I’ve got–the only boy. And with all my money–what good will it do me? Anne won’t have it–and Morty’s all I’ve got and he’s going before I do. Amos–Amos–tell me, Amos–what have I done to deserve this of God? Haven’t I done as I ort? Why is this put on me?” He sat panting and blinking and shaking his ever-denying, palsied head. Amos did not reply. The chauffeur was taking his seat in the car. “Ain’t I paid my share in the church? Ain’t I give parks to the city? Ain’t I had family prayers for fifty years? Ain’t I been a praying member all my life nearly? Ain’t I supported missions? Why,” he panted, “is it put on me to die without a son to bear my name and take care of my property? I made over two millions to him the other day. But why, Amos,” the old man’s voice was broken and he whimpered, “has the Lord sent this to Morty?”

Amos did not reply, but the big voice of Grant spoke very softly: “Uncle Dan, Morty’s got tuberculosis–you know that. Tuberculosis has made you twenty per cent. interest for twenty years–those hothouses for consumption of yours in the Valley. But it’s cost the poor scores and scores of lives. Morty has it.” Grant’s voice rose solemnly. “Vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord, I will repay. You’ve got your interest, and the Lord has taken his toll.”

The old man showed his colorless gums as he opened a raging mouth.

“You–you–eh, you blasphemer!” He shook as with a chill and screamed, “But we’ve got you now–we’ll fix you!”

The car for Harvey came, and the Adamses climbed in.

Amos Adams, sitting on the hard seat of the street car looking into the moonlight, considered seriously his brother-in-law, and his low estate. That he had to be helped into his limousine, that he had to be wrapped up like a baby, that his head was palsied and his hands fluttering, seemed strange and rather inexplicable to Amos. He counted Daniel a young man, four years his junior, barely seventy-nine; a man who should be in his prime. Amos did not realize that his legs had been kept supple by climbing on and off a high printer’s stool hourly for fifty years, and that his body had buffeted the winds of the world unprotected all those years and had kept fit. But Daniel Sands’s sad case seemed pathetic to the elder Adams and he cut into some rising stream of conversation from Grant and the Bowmans inadvertently with: “Poor Daniel–Morty doomed, and Daniel himself looking like the breaking up of a hard winter–poor Daniel! He doesn’t seem to have got the hang of things in this world; he can’t seem to get on some way. I’m sorry for Daniel, Grant; he might have made quite a man if he’d not been fooled by money.”

Clearly Amos was meditating aloud; no one replied and the talk flowed on. But the old man looked into the moonlight and dreamed dreams.

The next day was Grant’s day at his carpenter’s bench, and when he came to his office with his kit in his hands at five o’clock in the afternoon, he found Violet Hogan waiting with the letters he was to sign, and with the mail opened and sorted. As he was signing his letters Violet gave him the news of the day:

“Dick Bowman ran in at noon and asked me to see if I could get Dr. Nesbit and George Brotherton and Henry Fenn down here this evening to talk over his investment of little Ben’s money. The check will come to-morrow.” Grant looked up from his desk, but before he could ask a question Violet answered: “They’ll be down at eight. The Doctor is that proud! And Mr. Brotherton is cutting lodge–the Shriners, themselves–to come down.”

It was a grave and solemn council that sat by Grant Adams’s desk that evening discussing the disposal of little Ben’s five thousand. Excepting Mr. Brotherton, no one there had ever handled that much money at one time. For though the Doctor was a man of affairs the money he handled in politics came easy and went easy, and the money he earned Mrs. Nesbit always had invested for him. So he and Lida Bowman sat rather apart while Dick and Brotherton considered the safety of bonds and mortgages and time deposits and other staple methods of investing the vast sum which was about to be paid to them for Ben’s accident. They also considered plans for his education–whether he should learn telegraphy or should cultivate his voice, or go to college or what not. In this part of the council the Doctor took a hand. But Lida Bowman kept her wonted silence. The money could not take the bitterness from her loss; though it did relieve her despair. While they talked, as a mere incident of the conversation, some one spoke of having seen Joe Calvin come down to the Wahoo Fuel Company’s offices that day in his automobile. Doctor Nesbit recalled having seen Calvin conferring with Tom Van Dorn and Daniel Sands in Van Dorn’s office that afternoon. Then Dick Bowman craning his neck asked for the third time when Henry Fenn would show up; and for the third time it was explained that Henry had taken the Hogan children to the High School building in Harvey to behold the spectacle of Janice Hogan graduating from the eighth grade into the High School. Then Dick explained:

“Well, I just thought Henry would know about this paper I got to-day from the constable. It’s a legal document, and probably has something to do with getting Benny’s money or something. I couldn’t make it out so I thought I’d just let Henry figure on it and tell me what to do.” And when a few minutes later Fenn came in, with a sense of duty to the Hogans well done, Dick handed Fenn the paper and asked with all the assurance of a man who expects the reassurance of an affirmative answer:

“Well, Henry–she’s all right, ain’t she? Just some legal formality to go through, I suppose?”

Henry Fenn took the document from Bowman’s hand. Henry stood under the electric, read it and sat thinking for a few seconds, with widely furious eyes.

“Well,” he said, “they’ve played their trump, boys. Doc Jim–your law’s been attacked in the federal court–under Tom Van Dorn–damn him!”

The group barked a common question in many voices. Fenn replied: “As I make it out, they got a New York stockholder of the Wahoo Valley Fuel Company to ask for an injunction against paying little Ben his money to-morrow, and the temporary injunction has been granted with the hearing set for June 16.”

“And won’t they pay us without a suit?” asked Bowman. “Why, I don’t see how that can be–they’ve been paying for accidents for a year now.”

“Why, the law’s through all the courts!” queried Brotherton.

“The state courts–yes,” answered Fenn, “but they didn’t own the federal court until they got Tom in.”

Bowman’s jaw began to tremble. His Adam’s apple bobbed like a cork, and no one spoke. Finally Dr. Nesbit spoke in his high-keyed voice: “I presume legal verbiage is all they talk in hell!” and sat pondering.

“Is there no way to beat it?” asked Brotherton.

“Not in this court, George,” replied Fenn, “that’s why they brought suit in this court.”

“That means a long fight–a big law suit, Henry?” asked Bowman.

“Unless they compromise or wear you out,” replied the lawyer.

“And can’t a jury decide?”

“No–it’s an injunction. It’s up to the court, and the court is Tom Van Dorn,” said Fenn.

Then Dick Bowman spoke: “And there goes little Ben’s school and a chance to make something out of what’s left of him. Why, it don’t look right when the legislature’s passed it, and the people’s confirmed it and nine lawyers in all the state courts have said it’s law,–for the attorney for the company holding a job as judge to turn over all them forms of law. Can’t we do something?”

“Yes,” spoke the big voice of Grant Adams for the first time since Fenn made his announcement, “we can strike–that’s one thing we can do. Why,” he continued, full of emotion, “I could no more hold those men down there against a strike when they hear this than I could fly. They’ll have to fight for this right, gentlemen!”

“Be calm now, Grant,” piped the Doctor; “don’t go off half cocked.”

Grant’s eyes flared–his nose dilated and the muscles of his heavy jaw worked and knotted. He answered in a harsh voice:

“Oh, I’ll be calm all right, Doctor. I’m going down in the morning and plead for peace. But I know my people. I can’t hold ’em.”

Those in the room stood for a moment in dazed silence; then the Doctor and Brotherton, realizing the importance of further discussion that night, soon withdrew from the room, leaving Dick voluble in his grief and Lida, his wife, stony and speechless beside him. She shook no sympathizing hand, not even Grant’s, as the Bowmans left for home. But she climbed out of the chair and down the stairs on tired, heavy feet.

In the morning there was turmoil in the Valley. In the TimesJared Thurston, with the fatuous blundering which characterizes all editors of papers like his, printed the news that little Ben Bowman would be denied his rights, as a glorious victory over the reformers. In an editorial, written in old Joe Calvin’s best style, the community was congratulated upon having one judge at last who would put an end to the socialistic foolishness that had been written by demagogues on the state statute books, and hinting rather broadly that the social labor program adopted by the people at the last election through the direct vote would go the way of the fool statute under which the Bowman lad hoped to cheat the courts of due process of law.

In vain did Grant Adams try to rally carpenters to the trocha. He pleaded with the men to raise a special fund to take little Ben’s case through the federal courts; but he failed.

The Wahoo Valley saw in the case of little Ben Bowman the drama of greed throttling poverty, all set forth in stark, grim terms that no one could question. The story appealed directly to the passions of the Valley and the Valley’s voice rose in the demand to resort to its last weapon of defense. The workers felt that they must strike or forfeit their self-respect. And day by day the Times, gloating at the coming downfall in Van Dorn’s program of labor-repression, threw oil on the flaming passions of the Valley, so labor raged and went white hot. The council of the Wahoo Valley Trades Workers came together to vote on the strike. Every unit of seven was asked to meet and vote. Grant sat in his office with the executive committee a day and a night counting the slowly returning votes. Grant had influence enough to make them declare emphatically for a peaceful strike. But the voice of the Valley was for a strike. The spring was at its full. The little garden plots were blooming. The men felt confident. A conference of the officials of the council was called to formulate the demands. Grant managed to put off the strike until the hearing on the temporary injunction, June 16, was held. But the men drew up their demands and were ready for the court decision which they felt would be finally against them.

The Wahoo Valley was stirred deeply by the premonitions of the coming strike. It was proud of its record for industrial peace, and the prospect of war in the Valley overturned all its traditions.

Market Street had its profound reaction, too. Market Street and the Valley, each in its own way, felt the dreaded turmoil coming, knew what commercial disaster the struggle meant, but Market Street was timid and powerless and panic-stricken. Yet life went on. In the Valley there were births and deaths and marriages, and on the hill in Harvey, Mrs. Bedelia Nesbit was working out her plans to make over the Nesbit house, while Lila, her granddaughter, was fluttering about in the seventh Heaven, for she was living under the same sky and sun and stars that bent over Kenyon, her lover, home from Boston for the Morton-Adams wedding. He might be hailed as a passing ship once or twice a day, if she managed to time her visits to Market Street properly, or he might be seen from the east veranda of her home at the proper hour, and there was a throb of joy that blotted out all the rest of the pale world. There was one time; two times indeed they were, and a hope of a third, when slipping out from under the shadow of her grandmother’s belligerent plumes, Lila had known the actual fleeting touch of hands; the actual feasting of eyes and the quick rapture of meeting lips at a tryst. And when Mrs. Nesbit left for Minneapolis to consult an architect, and to be gone two weeks–Harvey and the Valley and the strike slipped so far below the sky-line of the two lovers that they were scarcely aware that such things were in the universe.

Kenyon could not see even the grim cast of decision mantling Grant’s face. Day by day, while the votes assembled which ordered the strike, the deep abiding purpose of Grant Adams’s soul rose and stood ready to master him. He and the men seemed to be coming to their decision together. As the votes indicated by a growing majority their determination, in a score of ways Grant made it evident to those about him, that for him time had fruited; the day was ready and the hour at hand for his life plans to unfold. Those nearest him knew that the season of debate for Grant Adams had passed. He was like one whose sails of destiny are set and who longs to put out into the deep and let down his nets. So he passed the long days impatiently until the hearing of the injunction in little Ben’s suit arrived, and every day burned some heavier line into his face that recorded the presence of the quenchless fire of purpose in his heart.

A smiling, affable man was Judge Thomas Van Dorn in his court the morning of June 16. He had his ticket bought for Chicago and a seat in the great convention of his party assured. He walked through the court room, rather dapperly. He put his high silk hat on the bench beside him, by way of adding a certain air of easy informality to the proceedings. His red necktie brought out every thin wrinkle in his burnished brown face and upon the pink brow threaded by a chain lightning of a scar. The old mushy, emotional voice of his youth and maturity had thickened, and he talked loudly. He listened to arguments of counsel. Young Joe Calvin, representing the Fuel Company, was particularly eloquent. Henry Fenn knew that his case was hopeless, but made such reply as he could.

“Well,” cut in the court before Fenn was off his feet at the close of his argument, “there’s nothing to your contention. The court is familiar with those cases, cited by counsel. Either the constitution means what it says or it doesn’t. This court is willing to subscribe to a fund to pay this Bowman child a just compensation. This is a case for charity and the company is always generous in its benevolence. The Socialists may have the state courts, and the people are doubtless crazy–but this court will uphold the constitution. The injunction is made permanent. The court stands adjourned.”

The crowd of laborers in the court room laughed in the Judge’s face. They followed Grant Adams, who with head bowed in thought walked slowly to the street car. “Well, fellows,” said Grant, “here’s the end. As it stands now, the law considers steel and iron in machinery more sacred than flesh and blood. The court would have allowed them to appropriate money for machines without due process of law; but it enjoins them from appropriating money for flesh and blood.” He was talking to the members of the Valley Labor Council as they stood waiting for a car. “We may as well miss a car and present our demands to the Calvins. The sooner we get this thing moving, the better.”

Ten minutes later the Council walked into the office of Calvin and Calvin. There sat Joseph Calvin, the elder, a ratty little man still, with a thin stringy neck and with a bald head. His small, mousy eyes blinked at the workmen. He was exceedingly polite. He admitted that he was attorney for the owners’ association in the Valley, that he could if he chose speak for them in any negotiations they might desire to make with their employees, but that he was authorized to say that the owners were not ready to consider or even to receive any communication from the men upon any subject–except as individual employees might desire to confer with superintendents or foremen in the various mines and mills.

So they walked out. At labor headquarters in South Harvey, Nathan Perry came sauntering in.

“Well, boys–let’s have your agreement–I think I know what it is. We’re ready to sign.”

In an hour men were carrying out posters to be distributed throughout the Valley, signed by Grant Adams, chairman of the Wahoo Valley Trades Workers’ Council. It read:

STRIKE STRIKE STRIKE

The managers of our mines and mills in the Wahoo Valley have refused to confer with representatives of the workers about an important matter. Therefore we order a general strike of all workers in the mines and mills in this District. Workers before leaving will see that their machines are carefully oiled, covered, and prepared to rest without injury. For we claim partnership interest in them, and should protect them and all our property in the mines and mills in this Valley. During this strike, we pledge ourselves.

To orderly conduct.

To keep out of the saloons.

To protect our property in the mines and mills.

To use our influence to restrain all violence of speech or conduct. And we make the following demands:

First. That prices of commodities turned out in this district shall not be increased to the public as a result of concessions to us in this strike, and to that end we demand.

Second. That we be allowed to have a representative in the offices of all concerns interested, said representative to have access to all books and accounts, guaranteeing to labor such increases in wages as shall be evidently just, allowing 8 per cent. dividends on stock, the payment of interest on bonds, and such sums for upkeep, maintenance, and repairs as shall not include the creation of a surplus or fund for extensions.