In the Heart of a Fool

At twelve o ’clock crowds of working people began to swarm into Adams’s grove. Five hundred horsemen were lined up at the gate. Around a temporary speaker’s stand a squad of policemen was formed. The crowd stood waiting. Grant Adams did not appear. The crowd grew restless; it began to fear that he had been arrested, that there had been some mishap. Laura Van Dorn, sensing the uncertainty and discouragement of the crowd, decided to try to hold it. It seemed to her as she watched the uneasiness rising slowly to impatience in the men and women about her, that it was of much importance–tremendous importance indeed–to hold these people to their faith, not especially in Grant, though to her that seemed necessary, too, but at bottom to hold their faith firm in themselves, in their own powers to better themselves, to rise of their own endeavors, to build upon themselves! So she walked quickly to the policeman before the steps leading to the stand and said smilingly:

“Pardon me,” and stepped behind him and was on the stand before he realized that he had been fooled. Her white-clad figure upon the platform attracted a thousand eyes in a second, and in a moment she was speaking:

“I am here to defend our ancient rights of meeting, speaking, and trial by jury.” A policeman started for her. She smiled and waved him back with such a dignity of mien that her very manner stopped him.

When he hesitated, knowing that she was a person of consequence in Harvey, she went on: “No cause can thrive until it maintains anew its right to speech, to assemble and to have its day in court before a jury. Every cause must fight this world-old fight–and then if it is a just cause, when it has won those ancient rights–which are not rights at all but are merely ancient battle grounds on which every cause must fight, then any cause may stand a chance to win. I think we should make it clear now that as free-born Americans, no one has a right to stop us from meeting and speaking; no one has a right to deny us jury trials. I believe the time has come when we should ignore rather definitely–” she paused, and turned to the policeman standing beside her, “we should ignore rather finally this proclamation of the provost marshal and should insist rather firmly that he shall try to enforce it.”

A policeman stepped suddenly and menacingly toward her. She did not flinch. The dignity of five generations of courtly Satterthwaites rose in her as she gazed at the clumsy officer. She saw Grant Adams coming up at a side entrance to the grove. The policeman stopped. She desired to divert the policeman and the crowd from Grant Adams. The crowd tittering at the quick halt of the policeman, angered him. Again he stepped toward her. His face was reddening. The Satterthwaite dignity mounted, but the Nesbit mind guided her, and she said coldly: “All right, sir, but you must club me. I’ll not give up my rights here so easily.”

Three officers made a rush for her, grabbed her by the arms, and, struggling, she went off the platform, but she left Grant Adams standing upon it and a cheering crowd saw the ruse.

“I’m here,” he boomed out in his great voice, “because ‘the woods were man’s first temples’ and we’ll hold them for that sacred right to-day.” The police were waiting for him to put his toe across the line of defiance. “We’ll transgress this order of little Joe Calvin’s–why, he might as well post a trespass notice against snowslides as against this forward moving cause of labor.” His voice rose, “I’m here to tell you that under your rights as citizens of this Republic, and under your rights in the coming Democracy of Labor, I bid you tear up these martial law proclamations to kindle fires in your stoves.”

He glared at the policemen and held up his hand to stop them as they came. “Listen,” he cried, “I’m going to give you better evidence than that against me. I, as the leader of this strike–take this down, Mr. Stenographer, there–I’ll say it slowly; I, as the leader of this movement of the Democracy of Labor, as the preacher preaching the era of good will and comradeship all over the earth, bid you, my fellow-workers, meet to preach Christ’s workingman’s gospel wherever you can hire a hall or rent a lot, to parade your own streets, and to bare your heads to clubs and your breasts to bullets if need be to restore in this district the right of trial by jury in times of peace. And now,”–the crowd roared its approval. He glared defiance at the policemen. He raised his voice above the din, “And now I want to tell you something more. Our property in these mills and mines–” again the crowd bellowed its joyous approval of his words and Grant’s face lighted madly, “our property–the property we have earned, we must guard against the violence of the very master class themselves; for under this infernal Russian ukase of little Joe Calvin, the devil only knows what arson and loot and murder–” the crowd howled wildly; a policeman blew his whistle and when the mêlée was over Grant Adams was in the midst of the blue-coated squad marching toward the gate.

At the gate, on a pawing white horse, sat young Joe Calvin. The crowd, following the officers, came upon the first squad of policemen–the squad that took Laura Van Dorn from the stand. The two squads joined with their prisoners, and back of the officers came the yelling, hooting crowd, pushing the officers along. As the officers came up, the provost marshal cried:

“Turn them over to my men here. Men, handcuff them together.” In an instant it was done.

Then the cavalry formed in two lines, and between them marched Laura Van Dorn and Grant Adams, manacled together. Up through the weed-grown commons between South Harvey and the big town they marched under the broiling sun. The crowd trudged after them–trailing behind for the most part, but often running along by the horsemen and calling words of sympathy to Grant or reviling the soldiers.

Down Market Street they all came–soldiers, prisoners and straggling crowd. The town, prepared by telephone for the sight, stood on the streets and hurrahed for Joe Calvin. He had brought in his game, and if one trophy was a trifle out of caste for a prisoner, a bit above her station, so much the worse for her. The blood of the seven dead soldiers was crying for vengeance in Harvey–the middle-class nerve had been touched to the quick–and Market Street hooted at the prisoners, and hailed Joe Calvin on his white charger as a hero of the day.

For the mind of a crowd is a simple mind. It draws no fine distinctions. It has no memory. It enjoys primitive emotions, and takes the most rudimentary pleasures. The mind of the crowd on Market Street in Harvey that bright, hot June day, when Joe Calvin on his white steed at the head of his armed soldiers led Grant Adams and Laura Van Dorn up the street to the court house, saw as plainly as any crowd could see anything that Grant Adams was the slayer of seven mangled men, whose torn bodies the crowd had seen at the undertaker’s. It saw death and violation of property rights as the fruit of Grant Adams’s revolution, and if this woman, who was of Market Street socially, cared to lower herself to the level of assassins and thugs, she was getting only her deserts.

So Grant and Laura passed through the ranks of men and women whom they knew and saw eyes turned away that might have recognized them, saw faces averted to whom they might have looked for sympathy–and saw what power on a white horse can make of a mediocre man!

But Grant was not interested in power on a white horse, nor was he interested in the woman who marched with him. His face kept turning to the crowd from South Harvey that straggled beside him outside of the line of horsemen about him. Now and then Grant caught the eyes of a leader or of a friend and to such a one he would speak some earnest word of cheer or give some belated order or message. Only once did Laura divert him from the stragglers along the way. It was when Ahab Wright ducked his head and drew down his office window in the second story of the Wright & Perry building. “At least,” said Laura, “it’s a lesson worth learning in human nature. I’ll know how much a smile is worth after this or the mere nod of a head. Not that I need it to sustain me, Grant,” she went on seriously, “so far as I’m concerned, but I can feel how it would be to–well, to some one who needed it.”

Under the murmur of the crowd, Laura continued: “I know exactly with what emotion pretty little Mrs. Joe Calvin will hear of this episode.”

“What?” queried Grant absently. His attention left her again, for the men from South Harvey at whom he was directing volts of courage from his blazing eyes.

“Well–she’ll be scared to death for fear mother and I will cut her socially for it! She’s dying to get into the inner circle, and she’ll abuse little Joe for this–which,” smiled Laura, “will be my revenge, and will be badly needed by little Joe.” But she was talking to deaf ears.

A street car halted them before Brotherton’s store for a minute. Grant looked anxiously in the door way, and saw only Miss Calvin, who turned away her head, after smiling at her brother.

“I wonder where George can be?” asked Grant.

“Don’t you know?” replied Laura, looking wonderingly at him. “There’s a little boy at their house!”

The crowd was hooting and cheering and the procession was just ready to turn into the court house corner, when Grant felt Laura’s quick hand clasp. Grant was staring at Kenyon, white and wild-eyed, standing near them on the curb.

“Yes,” he said in a low voice, “I see the poor kid.”

“No–no,” she cried, “look down the block–see that electric! There comes father, bringing mother back from the depot–Oh, Grant–I don’t mind for me, I don’t mind much for father–but mother–won’t some one turn them up that street! Oh, Grant–Grant, look!”

Less than one hundred feet before them the electric runabout was beginning to wobble unsteadily. The guiding hand was trembling and nervous. Mrs. Nesbit, leaning forward with horror in her face, was clutching at her husband’s arm, forgetful of the danger she was running. The old Doctor’s eyes were wide and staring. He bore unsteadily down upon the procession, and a few feet from the head of the line, he jumped from the machine. He was an old man, and every year of his seventy-five years dragged at his legs, and clutched his shaking arms.

“Joe Calvin–you devil,” he screamed, and drew back his cane, “let her go–let her go.”

The crowd stood mute. A blow from the cane cracked on the young legs as the Doctor cried:

“Oh, you coward–” and again lifted his cane. Joe Calvin tried to back the prancing horse away. The blow hit the horse on the face, and it reared, and for a second, while the crowd looked away in horror, lunged above the helpless old man. Then, losing balance, the great white horse fell upon the Doctor; but as the hoofs grazed his face, Kenyon Adams had the old man round the waist and flung him aside. But Kenyon went down under the horse. Calvin turned his horse; some one picked up the fainting youth, and he was beside Mrs. Nesbit in the car a moment later, a limp, unconscious thing. Grant and Laura ran to the car. Dr. Nesbit stood dazed and impotent–an old man whose glory was of yesterday–a weak old man, scorned and helpless. He turned away trembling with a nervous palsy, and when he reached the side of the machine, his daughter, trying to hide her manacled hand, kissed him and said soothingly:

“It’s all right, father–young Joe’s vexed at something I said down in the Valley; he’ll get over it in an hour. Then I’ll come home.”

“And,” gasped Mrs. Nesbit, “he–that whippersnapper,” she gulped, “dared–to lay hands on you; to–”

Laura shook her head, to stop her mother from speaking of the handcuff,–“to make you walk through Market Street–while,” but she could get no further. The crowd surrounded them. And in the midst of the jostling and milling, the Doctor’s instinct rose stronger than his rage. He was fumbling for his medicine case, and trying to find something for Kenyon. The old hands were at the young pulse, and he said unsteadily:

“He’ll be around in a few minutes.”

Some one in the crowd offered a big automobile. The Doctor got in, waved to his daughter, and followed Mrs. Nesbit up the hill.

“You young upstart,” he cried, shaking his fist at Calvin as the car turned around, “I’ll be down in ten minutes and see to you!” The provost marshal turned his white steed and began gathering up his procession and his prisoners. But the spell was broken. The mind of the crowd took in an idea. It was that a shameful thing was happening to a woman. So it hissed young Joe Calvin. Such is the gratitude of republics.

In the court house, the provost marshal, sitting behind an imposing desk, decided that he would hold Mrs. Van Dorn under $100 bond to keep the peace and release her upon her own recognizance.

“Well,” she replied, “Little Joe, I’ll sign no peace bond, and if it wasn’t for my parents–I’d make you lock me up.”

Her hand was free as she spoke. “As it is–I’m going back to South Harvey. I’ll be there until this strike is settled; you’ll have no trouble in finding me.” She hurried home. As she approached the house, she saw in the yard and on the veranda, groups of sympathetic neighbors. In the hall way were others. Laura hurried into the Doctor’s little office just as he was setting Kenyon’s broken leg and had begun to bind the splints upon it. Kenyon lay unconscious. Mrs. Nesbit and Lila hovered over him, each with her hands full of surgical bandages, and cotton and medicine. Mrs. Nesbit’s face was drawn and anxious.

“Oh, mamma–mamma–I’m so sorry–so sorry–you had to see.” The proud woman looked up from her work and sniffed:

“That whippersnapper–that–that–” she did not finish. The Doctor drew his daughter to him and kissed her. “Oh, my poor little girl–they wouldn’t have done that ten years ago–”

“Father,” interrupted the daughter, “is Kenyon all right?”

“Just one little bone broken in his leg. He’ll be out from under the ether in a second. But I’ll–Oh, I’ll make that Calvin outfit sweat; I’ll–”

“Oh, no, you won’t, father–little Joe doesn’t know any better. Mamma can just forget to invite his wife to our next party–which I won’t let her do–not even that–but it would avenge my wrongs a thousand times over.”

Lila had Kenyon’s hand, and Mrs. Nesbit was rubbing his brow, when he opened his eyes and smiled. Laura and the Doctor, knowing their wife and mother, had left her and Lila together with the awakening lover. His eyes first caught Mrs. Nesbit’s who bent over him and whispered:

“Oh, my brave, brave boy–my noble–chivalrous son–”

Kenyon smiled and his great black eyes looked into the elder woman’s as he clutched Lila’s hand.

“Lila,” he said feebly, “where is it–run and get it.”

“Oh, it’s up in my room, grandma–wait a minute–it’s up in my room.” She scurried out of the door and came dancing down the stairs in a moment with a jewel on her finger. The grandmother’s eyes were wet, and she bent over and kissed the young, full lips into which life was flowing back so beautifully.

“Now–me!” cried Lila, and as she, too, bent down she felt the great, strong arms of her grandmother enfolding her in a mighty hug. There, in due course, the Doctor and Laura found them. A smile, the first that had wreathed his wrinkled face for an hour, twitched over the loose skin about his old lips and eyes.

“The Lord,” he piped, “moves in a mysterious way–my dear–and if Laura had to go to jail to bring it–the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away–blessed be–”

“Well, Kenyon,” the grandmother interrupted the Doctor, stooping to put her fingers lovingly upon his brow, “we owe everything to you; it was fine and courageous of you, son!”

And with the word “son” the Doctor knew and Laura knew, and Lila first of all knew that Bedelia Nesbit had surrendered. And Kenyon read it in Lila’s eyes. Then they all fell to telling Kenyon what a grand youth he was and how he had saved the Doctor’s life, and it ended as those things do, most undramatically, in a chorus of what I saids, and you saids to me, and I thought, and you did, and he should have done, until the party wore itself out and thought of Lila, sitting by her lover, holding his hands. And then what with a pantomime of eyes from Laura and the Doctor to Mrs. Nesbit, and what with an empty room in a big house, with voices far–exceedingly far–obviously far away, it ended with them as all journeys through this weary world end, and must end if the world wags on.