In the Heart of a Fool

CHAPTER XLIX

HOW MORTY SANDS TURNED AWAY SADLY AND JUDGE VAN DORN UNCOVERED A SECRET

Grant Adams sat in his cell, with the jail smell of stone and iron and damp in his nostrils. As he read the copy of Tolstoy’s “The Resurrection,” which his cell-mate had left in his hurried departure the night before, Grant moved unconsciously to get into the thin direct rays of the only sunlight–the early morning sunlight, that fell into his cage during the long summer day. The morning Times lay on the floor where Grant had dropped it after reading the account of what had happened to his cell-mate when the police had turned him over to the Law and Order League, at midnight. To be sure, the account made a great hero of John Kollander and praised the patriotism of the mob that had tortured the poor fellow. But the fact of his torture, the fact that he had been tarred and feathered, and turned out naked on the golf links of the country club, was heralded by the Times as a warning to others who came to Harvey to preach Socialism, and flaunt the red flag. Grant felt that the jailer’s kindness in giving him the morning paper so early in the day, was probably inspired by a desire to frighten him rather than to inform him of the night’s events.

Gradually he felt the last warmth of the morning sun creep away and he heard a new step beside the jailer’s velvet footfall in the corridor, and heard the jailer fumbling with his keys and heard him say: “That’s the Adams cell there in the corner,” and an instant later Morty Sands stood at the door, and the jailer let him in as Grant said:

“Well, Morty–come right in and make yourself at home.”

He was not the dashing young blade who for thirty years had been the Beau Brummel of George Brotherton’s establishment; but a rather weazened little man whose mind illumined a face that still clung to sportive youth, while premature age was claiming his body.

He cleared his throat as he sat on the bunk, and after dropping Grant’s hand and glancing at the book title, said: “Great, isn’t it? Where’d you get it?”

“The brother they ran out last night. They came after him so suddenly that he didn’t have time to pack,” answered Grant.

“Well, he didn’t need it, Grant,” replied Morty. “I just left him. I got him last night after the mob finished with him, and took him home to our garage, and worked with him all night fixing him up. Grant, it’s hell. The things they did to that fellow–unspeakable, and fiendish.” Morty cleared his throat again, paused to gather courage and went on. “And he heard something that made him believe they were coming for you to-night.”

The edge of a smile touched the seamed face, and Grant replied: “Well–maybe so. You never can tell. Besides old John Kollander, who are the leaders of this Law and Order mob, Morty?”

“Well,” replied the little man, “John Kollander is the responsible head, but Kyle Perry is master of ceremonies–the stuttering, old coot; and Ahab gives them the use of the police, and Joe Calvin backs up both of them. However,” sighed Morty, “the whole town is with them. It’s stark mad, Grant–Harvey has gone crazy. These tramps filling the jails and eating up taxes–and the Times throwing scares into the merchants with the report that unless the strike is broken, the smelters and glassworks and cement works will move from the district–it’s awful! My idea of hell, Grant, is a place where every man owns a little property and thinks he is just about to lose it.”

The young-old man was excited, and his eyes glistened, but his speech brought on a fit of coughing. He lifted his face anxiously and began: “Grant,–I’m with you in this fight.” He paused for breath. “It’s a man’s scrap, Grant–a man’s fight as sure as you’re born.” Grant sprang to his feet and threw back his head, as he began pacing the narrow cell. As he threw out his arms, his claw clicked on the steel bars of the cell, and Morty Sands felt the sudden contracting of the cell walls about the men as Grant cried–

“That’s what it is, Morty–it’s a man’s fight–a man’s fight for men. The industrial system to-day is rotting out manhood–and womanhood too–rotting out humanity because capitalism makes unfair divisions of the profits of industry, giving the workers a share that keeps them in a man-rotting environment, and we’re going to break up the system–the whole infernal profit system–the blight of capitalism upon the world.” Grant brought down his hand on Morty’s frail shoulder in a kind of frenzy. “Oh, it’s coming–the Democracy of Labor is coming in the earth, bringing peace and hope–hope that is the ‘last gift of the gods to men’–Oh, it’s coming! it’s coming.” His eyes were blazing and his voice high pitched. He caught Morty’s eyes and seemed to shut off all other consciousness from him but that of the idea which obsessed him.

Morty Sands felt gratefully the spell of the strong mind upon him. Twice he started to speak, and twice stopped. Then Grant said: “Out with it, Morty–what’s on your chest?”

“Well,–this thing,” he tapped his throat, “is going to get me, Grant, unless–well, it’s a last hope; but I thought,” he spoke in short, hesitating phrases, then he started again. “Grant, Grant,” he cried, “you have it, this thing they call vitality. You are all vitality, bodily, mentally, spiritually. Why have I been denied always, everything that you have! Millions of good men and bad men and indifferent men are overflowing with power, and I–I–why, why can’t I–what shall I do to get it? How can I feel and speak and live as you? Tell me.” He gazed into the strong, hard visage looking down upon him, and cried weakly: “Grant–for God’s sake, help me. Tell me–what shall I do to–Oh, I want to live–I want to live, Grant, can’t you help me!”

He stopped, exhausted. Grant looked at him keenly, and asked gently,

“Had another hemorrhage this morning–didn’t you?”

Morty looked over his clothes to detect the stain of blood, and nodded. “Oh, just a little one. Up all night working with Folsom, but it didn’t amount to anything.”

Grant sat beside the broken man, and taking his white hand in his big, paw-like hand:

“Morty–Morty–my dear, gentle friend; your trouble is not your body, but your soul. You read these great books, and they fascinate your mind. But they don’t grip your soul; you see these brutal injustices, and they cut your heart; but they don’t reach your will.” The strong hand felt the fluttering pressure of the pale hand in its grasp. Morty looked down, and seemed about to speak.

“Morty,” Grant resumed, “it’s your money–your soul-choking money. You’ve never had a deep, vital, will-moving conviction in your life. You haven’t needed this money. Morty, Morty,” he cried, “what you need is to get out of your dry-rot of a life; let the Holy Ghost in your soul wake up to the glory of serving. Face life barehanded, consecrate your talents–you have enough–to this man’s fight for men. Throw away your miserable back-breaking money. Give it to the poor if you feel like it; it won’t help them particularly.” He shook his head so vigorously that his vigor seemed like anger, and hammered with his claw on the iron bunk. “Money,” he cried and repeated the word, “money not earned in self-respect never helps any one. But to get rid of the damned stuff will revive you; will give you a new interest in life–will change your whole physical body, and then–if you live one hour in the big soul-bursting joy of service you will live forever. But if you die–die as you are, Morty–you’ll die forever. Come.” Grant reached out his arms to Morty and fixed his luminous eyes upon his friend, “Come, come with me,” he pleaded. “That will cure your soul–and it doesn’t matter about your body.”

Morty’s face lighted, and he smiled sympathetically; but the light faded. He dropped his gaze to the floor and sighed. Then he shook his head sadly. “It won’t work, Grant–it won’t work. I’m not built that way. It won’t work.”

His fine sensitive mouth trembled, and he drew a deep breath that ended in a hard dry cough. Then he rose, held out his hand and said:

“Now you watch out, Grant–they’ll get you yet. I tell you it’s awful–that’s the exact word–the way hate has driven this town mad.” He shook the cage door, and the jailer came from around a corner, and unlocked the door, and in a moment Morty was walking slowly away with his eyes on the cold steel of the cell-room floor.

When his visitor was gone, Grant Adams went back to his book. At the end of an hour he went to the slit in his cell, which served as window, and looked on a damp courtyard that gave him a narrow slice of Market Street and the Federal court house in the distance. Men and women walking in and out of the little stereoscopic view he had of the street, seemed to the prisoner people in a play, or in another world. They were remote from him. At the gestures they made, the gaits they fell into, the errands they were going upon, the spring that obviously moved them, he gazed as one who sees a dull pantomime. During the middle of the morning, as he looked, he saw Judge Van Dorn’s big, black motor car roll up to the curb before the Federal court house and unload the spare, dried-up, clothes-padded figure of the Judge, who flicked out of Grant’s eyeshot. A hundred other figures passed, and Ahab Wright, with his white side-whiskers bristling testily, came bustling across the stereopticon screen and turned to the court house and was gone. Young Joe Calvin, dismounting from his white horse, came for a second into the picture, and soon after the elder Calvin came trotting along beside Kyle Perry with his heavy-footed gait, and the two turned as the Judge had turned–evidently into the court house, where the Judge had his office.

Grant took up his book. After noon the jailer came with Henry Fenn, who, as Adams’ attorney, visited him daily. But the jailer stood by while the lawyer talked to the prisoner through the bars. Henry Fenn wore a troubled face and Grant saw at once that his friend was worried. So Grant began:

“So you’ve heard my cell-mate’s message–eh, Henry? Well, don’t worry. Tell the boys down in the Valley, whatever they do–to keep off Market Street and out of Harvey to-night.”

The listening jailer looked sharply at Fenn. It was apparent the jailer expected Fenn to protest. But Fenn turned his radiant smile on the jailer and said: “The smelter men say they could go through this steel as if it was pasteboard in ten minutes–if you’d say the word.” Fenn grinned at the prisoner as he added: “If you want the boys, all the tin soldiers and fake cops in the State can’t stop them. But I’ve told them to stay away–to stay in their fields, to keep the peace; that it is your wish.”

“Henry,” replied Grant, “tell the boys this for me. We’ve won this fight now. They can’t build a fire, strike a pick, or turn a wheel if the boys stick–and stick in peace. I’m satisfied that this story of what they will do to me to-night, while I don’t question the poor chap who sent the word–is a plan to scare the boys into a riot to save me and thus to break our peace strike.”

He walked nervously up and down his cell, clicking the bars with his claw as he passed the door. “Tell the boys this. Tell them to go to bed to-night early; beware of false rumors, and at all hazards keep out of Harvey. I’m absolutely safe. I’m not in the least afraid–and, Henry, Henry,” cried Grant, as he saw doubt and anxiety in his friend’s face, “what if it’s true; what if they do come and get me? They can’t hurt me. They can only hurt themselves. Violence always reacts. Every blow I get will help the boys–I know this–I tell you–”

“And I tell you, young man,” interrupted Fenn, “that right now one dead leader with a short arm is worth more to the employers than a ton of moral force! And Laura and George and Nate and the Doctor and I have been skirmishing around all day, and we have filed a petition for your release on a habeas corpus in the Federal court–on the ground that your imprisonment under martial law without a jury trial is unconstitutional.”

“In the Federal court before Van Dorn?” asked Grant, incredulously.

“Before Van Dorn. The State courts are paralyzed by young Joe Calvin’s militia!” returned Fenn, adding: “We filed our petition this morning. So, whether you like it or not, you appear at three-thirty o’clock this afternoon before Van Dorn.”

Grant smiled and after a moment spoke: “Well, if I was as scared as you people, I’d–look here. Henry, don’t lose your nerve, man–they can’t hurt me. Nothing on this earth can hurt me, don’t you see, man–why go to Van Dorn?”

Fenn answered: “After all, Tom’s a good lawyer in a life job and he doesn’t want to be responsible for a decision against you that will make him a joke among lawyers all over the country when he is reversed by appeal.” Grant shook his dubious head.

“Well, it’s worth trying,” returned Fenn.

At three o’clock Joseph Calvin, representing the employers, notified Henry Fenn that Judge Van Dorn had been called out of town unexpectedly and would not be able to hear the Adams’ petition at the appointed time. That was all. No other time was set. But at half-past five George Brotherton saw a messenger boy going about, summoning men to a meeting. Then Brotherton found that the Law and Order League was sending for its members to meet in the Federal courtroom at half-past eight. He learned also that Judge Van Dorn would return on the eight o’clock train and expected to hear the Adams’ petition that night. So Brotherton knew the object of the meeting. In ten minutes Doctor Nesbit, Henry Fenn and Nathan Perry were in the Brotherton store.

“It means,” said Fenn, “that the mob is going after Grant to-night and that Tom knows it.”

“Why?” asked the thin, sharp voice of Nathan Perry.

“Otherwise he would have let the case go over until morning.”

“Why?” again cut in Perry.

“Because for the mob to attack a man praying for release under habeas corpus in a federal court might mean contempt of court that the federal government might investigate. So Tom’s going to wash his hands of the matter before the mob acts to-night.”

“Why?” again Perry demanded.

“Well,” continued Fenn, “every day they wait means accumulated victory for the strikers. So after Tom refuses to release Grant, the mob will take him.”

“Well, say–let’s go to the Valley with this story. We can get five thousand men here by eight o’clock,” cried Brotherton.

“And precipitate a riot, George,” put in the Doctor softly, “which is one of the things they desire. In the riot the murder of Grant could be easily handled and I don’t believe they will do more than try to scare him otherwise.”

“Why?” again queried Nathan Perry, towering thin and nervous above the seated council.

“Well,” piped the Doctor, with his chin on his cane, “he’s too big a figure nationally for murder–”

“Well, then–what do you propose, gentlemen?” asked Perry who, being the youngest man in the council, was impatient.

Fenn rose, his back to the ornamental logs piled decoratively in the fireplace, and answered:

“To sound the clarion means riot and bloodshed–and failure for the cause.”

“To let things drift,” put in Brotherton, “puts Grant in danger.”

“Of what?” asked the Doctor.

“Well, of indignities unspeakable and cruel torture,” returned Brotherton.

“I’m sure that’s all, George. But can’t we–we four stop that?” said Fenn. “Can’t we stand off the mob? A mob’s a coward.”

“It’s the least we can do,” said Perry.

“And all you can do, Nate,” added the Doctor, with the weariness of age in his voice and in his counsel.

But when the group separated and the Doctor purred up the hill in his electric, his heart was sore within him and he spoke to the wife of his bosom of the burden that was on his heart. Then, after a dinner scarcely tasted, the Doctor hurried down town to meet with the men at Brotherton’s.

As Mrs. Nesbit saw the electric dip under the hill, her first impulse was to call up her daughter on the telephone, who was at Foley that evening. For be it remembered Mrs. Nesbit in the days of her prime was dubbed “the General” by George Brotherton, and when she saw the care and hovering fear in the pink, old face of the man she loved, she was not the woman to sit and rock. She had to act and, because she feared she would be stopped, she did not pick up the telephone receiver. She went to the library, where Kenyon Adams with his broken leg in splints was sitting while Lila read to him. She stood looking at the lovers for a moment.

“Children,” she said, “Grant Adams is in great danger. We must help him.”

To their startled questions, she answered: “He is asking your father, Lila, to release him from the prison to-night. If he is not released, a mob will take Grant as they took that poor fool last night and–” She stopped, turned toward them a perturbed and fear-wrinkled face. Then she said quickly: “I don’t know that I owe Grant Adams anything but–you children do–” She did not complete her sentence, but burst out: “I don’t care for Tom Van Dorn’s court, his grand folderol and mummery of the law. He’s going to send a man to death to-night because his masters demand it. And we must stop it–you and Lila and I, Kenyon.”

Kenyon reached out, tried to rise and failed, but grasped her strong, effective hand, as he cried: “What can we do–what can I do?”

She went into the Doctor’s office and brought out two old crutches.

“Take these,” she said, “then I’ll help you down the porch steps–and you go to your mother! That’s what you can do. Maybe she can stop him–she has done a number of other worse things with him.”

She literally lifted the tottering youth down the veranda steps and a few moments later his crutches were rattling upon the stone steps that rose in front of the proud house of Van Dorn. Margaret had seen him coming and met him before he rang the bell.

She looked the dreadful wonder in her mind and as he took her hand to steady himself, he spoke while she was helping him to sit.

“You are my mother,” he said simply. “I know it now.” He felt her hand tighten on his arm. She bent over him and with finger on lips, whispered: “Hush, hush, the maid is in there–what is it, Kenyon?”

“I want you to save Grant.”

She still stood over him, looking at him with her glazed eyes shot with the evidence of a strong emotion.

“Kenyon, Kenyon–my boy–my son!” she whispered, then said greedily: “Let me say it again–my son!” She whispered the word “son” for a moment, stooping over him, touching his forehead gently with her fingers. Then she cried under her breath: “What about that man–your–Grant? What have I to do with him?”

He reached for her hands beseechingly and said: “We are asking your husband, the Judge, to let him out of jail to-night, for if the Judge doesn’t release Grant–they are going to mob him and maybe kill him! Oh, won’t you save him? You can. I know you can. The Judge will let him out if you demand it.”

“My son, my son!” the woman answered as she looked vacantly at him. “You are my son, my very own, aren’t you?”

She stooped to look into his eyes and cried: “Oh, you’re mine”–her trembling fingers ran over his face. “My eyes, my hair. You have my voice–O God–why haven’t they found it out?” Then she began whispering over again the words, “My son.”